Most of all he’d had to go running off settling that problem and not seeing to personal concerns; and his first question to Asicho, going back to the security post, was Banichi’s whereabouts.
“In the clinic, with Jago, nandi. He has followed all of this.”
Banichi would; so would Jago. Could he doubt, as long as they were conscious? “I shall see them,” he said. “Thank you, Asa-ji.”
Off to the clinic, closer to their front door, a little room, seeming smaller still with their casualties and the dowager’s physician and a younger aide.
Banichi had gotten a bandage, at least. Bren inhaled to give himself room next a cabinet and Banichi’s chair, Jago standing on the other side.
“You know what the dowager has agreed,” Bren said straight off.
“Of course,” Jago said, and Banichi threw in, “We will be there, Bren-ji.”
“I bear a certain guilt, only asking it of you.”
“Did I hear asking?” Banichi said with a look at Jago.
“No,” Jago said, “one never heard asking.”
He laid a hand on Jago’s shoulder, Banichi’s being likely extremely sore. “Our guest seems civil, at least, nadiin-ji. My greatest worry is Sabin-aiji, if she involves herself in decisions already taken.”
“Sabin-aiji seems busy at the moment,” Banichi observed.
“May she stay that way long enough.” A large breath. He didn’t want to leave them. But they were in competent hands, there was nothing useful he could do here, and he had to refocus his attention on his own skills. Most of all he had to make decisions, to think about the core vocabulary they had to have, and what he was going to say, and how he was going to negotiate a peace with a vocabulary of some fifty or so words.
A gentle pat. One for Banichi, a piece of temerity, but Banichi was obliged, occasionally, to put up with human notions. “One needs a little time to think. Rest, nadiin-ji. Take painkillers without any consideration of the matter ahead: we wish to project ease and pleasantness.”
Short laugh from Banichi. “Pleasantness.”
“Think of going home, nadiin-ji,” Bren said. “Think of us all going home.” A second pat. “Thank you.”
He escaped before he could embarrass himself further, shook off the scene in the clinic and the memory of that glowing strand of desperate refugees, the recollection that Gin and Sabin were desperately engaged in a mission that was going to complicate his own, in timing—none of these things could be top priority in his head now.
They needed go away and destroy the station. They needed take the inhabitants and excuse us for the inconvenience.
They possibly needed please don’t come calling at our planet, but he didn’t see how he was going to get at that one if it wasn’t a mutual desire for disentanglement.
And he might need stickier words, which could be a provocation to try to pull out of their guest. He might need a pad of paper and a pencil, to do diagrams.
A pocket full of sugar candies. That had been the most useful trade goods—forget trying to pretend all this number of humans and atevi didn’t have a planet somewhere, forget trying to conceal where it was. If that alien craft hadn’t been sitting here waiting for them they might have lied about that issue—but given a direction and adequate optics, no question they could find the earth of the atevi. Prakuyo’s folk might ask about the origin of humans, if they correctly perceived they weren’t quite the same biologically, and that could be difficult. No, believe us, we actually misplaced our home planet.
Trust was such a precious commodity.
He took a little chance, from his own quarters, to consult Gin’s staff, wondering how things were going, not wishing to bother Jase with questions; and Gin’s staff reported that Gin was tired, that she and Sabin were swearing at each other, and that another of Gin’s team was suited and out there.
Excellent. Beyond excellent. He sat down on his bed and fell backward, eyes shut, seeing Gin, suited, in that lonely camera view. Sabin, in that doorway.
That ship moving in on them, blip on a screen, more ominous than anything Braddock could still throw at them.
What more did he want to say?
Come, go, give, take, you, we, they. Woman, man, child.
Fight, not fight. Shoot. Not shoot.
Food, water.
To, from, out of, on, off, over, under, around, through. Pesky directional words that in some languages weren’t words at all.
Not. Ragi was dubious about negatives, wrapped them carefully in courtesies and precise formulae.
Always, never, soon, if. Truly the soft tissue of thought. Time. Time and degree of reality. May and could, those words of conjecture. No hope at all of getting that far into the language. They had to stick to concrete, demonstrable items and actions.
And which language? Prakuyo had picked up elementary Ragi hand over fist, in a matter of hours, and six years among humans hadn’t made him fluent—that he admitted, that he wanted to admit.
It argued that Ragi was a better bridge for Prakuyo’s people. And it stated the truth: that humans weren’t the highest power in these regions, that if one wanted to trade—another useful word—or talk—the best language for it was likely going to be Ragi, and the authority that governed it all wasn’t on the station, nor even on the ship: it was in Shejidan, and the dowager was its representative—he was its representative. He hadn’t abdicated his responsibilities. He’d acted on the ship’s behalf because the senior captain had stripped all its security away—leaving, perhaps deliberately, atevi as the ship’s defense.
Atevi, like nature, abhorred a vacuum. They moved in. He had. He didn’t want to argue the point with Sabin, who probably thought she was running things—certainly he didn’t want to argue it in front of the neighbors.
So, well. Leader, authority, government, people, nation. Those pesky abstract structures that everyone called simple, that provoked so many wars.
Not to mention those pillars of atevi and human civilization please, thank you, and have a nice day. By the way Prakuyo took to the dowager’s society, that element was present in yet another species.
The ship whined and flexed elements of its gut it hadn’t used this energetically in all his time aboard. It had traveled empty. Now it drank down the survivors of this place, this situation, those desperate families and individuals that wanted most of all to live, who had very little concept where they were going or whether it was going to be better or not—but trusting even the appearance of aliens among them, in what amounted to a rush for the lifeboat. That augured well for their ability to fit in where they were going.
Didn’t cure the fact that Braddock was still loose, but the outflux gave Braddock less and less to work with, and Braddock now had very little control over anything mechanical. The wisest among his aides had to be gathering the family silver and running for the exit.
He let his eyes shut. Didn’t trust himself and kept a steady count in his head, which if it began to falter, he had to open them at once and stay awake.
One minute, two, three.
Com went off and he yelped as if he’d been shot, grabbed it out of his pocket and thumbed it on, his heart creeping down from a frantic beat. Had he slept?
“Bren?” It was Jase. Agitated. “Bren, do you read?”
God, what time was it? An hour. Damn!
“Listening, listening, Jasi-ji. Go ahead.”
“There’s fuel. There is fuel, Bren, do you hear?”
His heart leapt up again.
“And that ship’s still moving in, and we’re still pinned here with refugees coming aboard. Senior captain wants me to put out a security contingent and bar the cold zones to the refugees so we can move the ship in.”
To keep people out of the cold areas and reorient the whole procedure to a stable, locked-down docking configuration. A lot safer for the passengers.
“Which doesn’t let us mate up with the alien ship,” Jase said further. “And which is going to create questions on thei
r side if we shift position . . . and is going to bring Sabin back aboard to do it herself if I don’t take her request. She’s not informed what we’re doing. I’m going to have to tell her.”
“Better now than after she’s come back. I don’t like not having a secure com-line. Braddock’s still out there.”
“I can send a courier. I can tell her I’m sending one to explain a situation.”
That would take time.
“What progress down there?” Jase asked.
“An hour’s unintended rest. But our guest had to be frayed, too. I’m going back at it now. We’ll be ready, Jase.”
“Sleep is progress,” Jase said charitably. “In short supply up here, I’ll tell you. But our ETA for that ship is about three hours and docking shortly after. If you’re going to put any presentation together, just give us raw sketches and C2 can render them in the same form we’ve used all along with them.”
“Good idea.”
“Got to go.”
“Do it. Thanks. I’m back at work.”
Feet on the floor. Body upright. Quick pass of a wet cloth to bring the wits back awake.
Sleep was progress, and he hoped Banichi and Jago were making that kind.
He had to go wake Prakuyo up, and hope he could establish a safe mode of communication that had taken his predecessors in Shejidan centuries of careful work.
Three hours. Three very short hours.
He needed more than skill. He needed someone very bright on the other end of the telescope; and he hoped to God that Prakuyo, who’d survived six years of stubborn non-communication, was able to meet him at least halfway.
20
Prakuyo had been sleeping, so Narani said—small wonder, sleeping, Bren thought, having been catch as catch could with bed for what seemed a very long time, now.
It was court dress, no question, with the ship drawing close.
“Advise the dowager’s staff,” he said to Narani, “that the foreign ship is three hours away. One might add on a little time to establish a link of some sort, nadi-ji, one has no idea. But by no means wake Banichi or Jago. Jeladi can do that duty in the interim.”
“Certainly, nandi,” Narani said—with Bindanda, helping with the cuffs.
He would not have chosen formal dress at the moment, except that time came in such unpredictable parcels, and one could hardly go visiting in one’s bathrobe.
Speaking of which— “One hesitates even to mention it, but what progress with clothes for our guest to wear?”
“Jeladi is assisting him, nandi,” Bindanda said. “Our guest indicated a preference for a blue and mauve brocade—we had three materials in sufficient supply. The green seemed an alternate choice. The gray and black he did emphatically reject for the coat. For the trousers, we used a medium weight blue wool. With a cream silk shirt that seems, by Jeladi’s report, to please him.”
Three choices. Trust his staff to have had the resources, and the sensitivity to offer a choice and report the outcome.
“Excellent,” he said. His staff finished their hasty preparation and he stood ready, immaculate as they could make him.
Not, immediately, for a foray onto the ship. He had a critical job to do before that, and hoped meanwhile that Jase kept Sabin at arm’s length.
“Jeladi reports our guest ready, nandi,” Narani said, one of those snippets of staff intelligence that let coincidences happen so smoothly.
“Excellent, Rani-ji.”
He secured a notebook and pen from the bedside and strolled out into the corridor. Indeed, Jeladi was just bringing their guest out in—Bindanda should be proud—a very elegant coat, with abundant lace on the shirt. For the feet—unatevi and broad—in that essential detail, Bindanda had worked a wonder, an ankle-high boot with lacings that even looked comfortable. Nothing like good footwear to convince a man he was in good hands.
And Prakuyo, seeing him in his court splendor, looked, well—judging any expression on that broad face was difficult—excited, at least. Prakuyo made a nice little bow. He reciprocated with good grace.
“Come,” he said, “nadi-ji. Come sit.”
Prakuyo seemed amenable, though a little disappointed. Ah, Bren thought: Prakuyo had hoped they were going straight to the ship. And still the working of hydraulics went on, the lift system racing to deliver cars to the airlock and passengers to four-deck, just over their heads . . . crew had to be scrambling, too, on last-moment needs and adjustments.
All of which might persuade an anxious guest that those sounds might include a docking in progress.
They went to the dining hall, sat down at a corner of the large table, and he immediately sketched out themselves, the station, an approaching ship with a directional arrow.
“Prakuyo’s ship is coming,” he said in Ragi. Measured with his fingers a very small distance. “Close.”
“Close.” Prakuyo was attentive and cooperative, though rubbing his face in the way of a man with too little sleep. “Close.” Measure of two thick fingers, fingers with nails so broad and thick they wrapped half the end of the digit—nails that, when they first dealt with him, had been broken and rough. Now they were manicured, filed short. “Good. Good.”
Bren started naming bits of his sketch. And then asked, “Prakuyo talk.”
It got only puzzlement. His request wasn’t expected, he thought. Six years, and maybe nobody had ever asked Prakuyo to use his own language.
“Table,” Bren said. Then said the same in Ragi, and indicated Prakuyo. He did the same for chair, then: “Prakuyo talk.”
“Akankh.” Prakuyo muttered. Then pointed at the table. “Noph.” The language had a difficult popping consonant.
Bren tried it. Prakuyo repeated it three times. There might be a fine distinction on the popping sound—a language with several similar consonants, it might be; and Bren made his utmost effort. “Noph.”
Prakuyo gave him, in short order, pen, paper or notebook, floor, ceiling—demonstrable words. Ship. Station, available in the picture.
“Sit,” Bren said, and Prakuyo gave him that word. Words they had established, they could call up. Sit and stand. Walk. Give and take. They had fourteen words. With three hundred—a body could get through his entire day, fluently.
Fourteen, however, didn’t all apply to what they had to discuss. He had his mental list of vocabulary he wanted. Station, stationer, go. And a frightening decision to take on oneself—but he conceived of very little chance Prakuyo’s folk wouldn’t cross paths again with atevi, and best try to define that inevitable meeting, set a purpose, try to establish a protocol . . .
Trade. Trade was a concept he illustrated by a human and an atevi figure facing a Prakuyo-like figure, with directional signs and representative goods changing hands. Beads on a string. A shirt. A pitcher. A plate of food. He exhausted his artistic skill with those items; and he wasn’t sure he had gotten the right words. There were horridly complicated alteratives: tribute, marriage-gifts. God knew whether Prakuyo had understood that human-atevi concept and given him the right word back.
But he kept trying, concentratedly. In all the universe there was only this. In all the wide universe, there was only this one necessity—to engage Prakuyo’s equally exhausted wits and to get some sort of communication in three hours before that ship arrived. It didn’t matter what Ginny and Sabin were doing; it didn’t matter what exchanges Jase was making with Sabin via courier and whether the whole situation was about to blow up. If that happened, the new situation was going to need vocabulary, understanding, negotiation; and this was the safest, fastest way to get it. Down here, things took as long as they took, and the good will of this tired, perhaps questionably sane stranger was all-important.
His notebook disassociated into sheets of paper. He made diagrams of spatial relationships: to, from, toward, away from, off, over, under. He formed hypotheses and rudimentary sentences in this new language in which verb-forms seemed simple and directional elements seemed ungodly complex. Prakuyo, with his newly-r
efined fingers and a pen delicately held, drew stick figures of his own—not skinny, one-line beings, but beings of substance, rounded beings, beings with U’s for legs and arms and heft to the outlines . . . was it surprising?
“Human,” Bren said of his own skinny short ones. “Atevi,” of the skinny tall ones. He tapped one of Prakuyo’s. Twice.
“Kyo,” Prakuyo called them. They had not ironed out singular, dual, or plural. His species seemed to be that. Or it was simply the word for man, intelligent being, or us.
Kyo. So was Prakuyo, then, a personal name, or a rank, or a species distinction? Was there a concept of individuality? One thought so, since Prakuyo identified him and the dowager by name quite accurately.
Bindanda brought a tray and provided fruit juice. They gained the words for cold and hot. Ice and water; juice, or fluid.
“Banichi and Jago are awake, nandi,” Bindanda informed him, with the tray. “The dowager likewise.”
He was not surprised, then, when Banichi and Jago turned up in the dining hall, their arrival noted, but not interrupting the flow. They listened—sitting at the end of the table, though their habit was to stand. They knew what he was attempting. They knew—the national experience of atevi and Mospheirans—how desperately risky it was, this speaking to strangers. They remained unobtrusive.
Bren drew pictures, trying to make structure, and pushed for new words, pushed while Prakuyo was still willing. He had by now more than a hundred new words jostling around in his head. A hundred words could be an hour’s conversation. Unfortunately one had to know the useful words, the ones attached to their personal situation. They hadn’t yet communicated trust, or don’t blow up our ship, please-thank-you, or, you can have the station; we don’t want it any more.
Negatives, God, the negatives, the not’s and no’s and neither’s and nor’s and other rejections. They were an unexpected headache, with distinctions that just didn’t make sense—a sort of subjunctive of negativity, related—he decided—to degree of reality. There was not, really not, and no way in hell possible; but there was also future-not, and past-not. And—one began to get the nightmarish picture—there were similar distinctions on various other modifiers.
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