The Vorrh

usually have been the case, it travelled downwards into a self-contained and undisclosed part of the house. He had always assumed the queerly shaped elevator had something to do with the well that must be down there, giving the house and the street its name.
    He closed the lift door and slid the panelling back into its position of concealment. Dragging the lighter, used crate out of the room, he slowly closed the door behind him, pausing momentarily until he heard the lift begin to be winched down on its long, thick ropes.
    He listened, not out of curiosity, which would have been impermissible, but out of a sense of impending satisfaction. His duty and his task were again complete.
    * * *

    The crates were a teaching library. Each box contained poignantly selected examples of the world outside: its structures, materials, animals, tools, plants, minerals and ideas were represented for explanation. Some were preserved samples, sealed in jars; some fresh, some alive. There were also photographs, prints and reproductions.
    The Kin, which is the name they called themselves, would open the crates away from their pupil. They would become silent and stiff, their heads in the boxes. He thought they were listening for instruction, or having their memories prompted. But he never heard a voice, just a long, piping whistle.
    They would take turns to explain the wonders to Ishmael. Sometimes they specialised in certain subjects. Abel would delineate materials and processes; Aklia would explain plants, minerals and the earth in which they grew, also their attendant insects; Seth would demonstrate tools, act out history and show inventions; Luluwa would illustrate the animals, how they worked and how they might be used.
    There was always a small box inside the large one. This was taken out and examined in the kitchen, and would then be turned into food for him. He loved the word ‘kitchen’; it was one of the first he’d learned. It was nourishment, perfume and warmth, and he smelt its sound long before he tasted it. It also made the others’ mouths go very strange. He watched when one of them said it, all of his attention turning to the speaker. It was the first thing he remembered making him laugh – not knowing why, just in response to their reactions. It somehow got better when they did nothing but stare blankly back.
    They only ever laughed once, some days after he had shown them how he did it. They had watched his demonstration with such solemn attention that it had turned his perfunctory titters into full-blown guffaws. But when they came back and laughed for him, it was horrible. He could not explain why. It was simply wrong, the grating opposite of what he’d felt and heard during his spontaneous outburst. They had been practising it for him, for his sake, to join in, but they had no depth of reference. It was not in any of the crates. They promised never to do it again. In return, he promised never to scream again, never to sob uncontrollably.
    Their care and tenderness was much better expressed through action and movement and touch, through the gentle unfolding of knowledge, companionship and food.
    The day that Luluwa showed him how his body could extend into her and produce nectar was overwhelming. She had cleared away the lesson of flies and he had posed a question about the thing she had called ‘pleasure’. He knew it was like the white dry ‘sugar’ or the thick yellow ‘honey’, not outside or on the tongue, but all over. She said that his kind had many ways to find it, and that they were all connected to knowledge. She said pleasure was made of cream, like her motor.
    Some weeks before, Abel had shown him a small part from one of their bodies – the curved hollow of a Bakelite shell. Its interior was notched and ingrained with tiny lines, small dents and channels. Bumps covered its surface, very different from the smooth perfection of its gleaming other side.
    ‘We are hollow, only fluid inside,’ Abel had said, ‘not like you and the other animals, packed full of matter and organs. We work in another way. All of our forces are held in a thick cream contained within us; all that we are is alive in that cream and it feeds and talks to the inside of our shell through these complex ducts and circuits.’ He pointed to the inside of the fragment in his hands. ‘We know nothing of its workings, it is forbidden that we question and examine its process. We have a greater knowledge of you than we do of