“You must know someone’s going to try it anyway,” I said.
“I’m counting on it,” he said dryly. “That’s how we’ll know if it’s safe.”
After my session with Anton ended, I went to lunch. No sooner had I settled myself at my usual table than the quiet of the dining hall was shattered by the arrival of a dozen or so newcomers, all laughing and joking among themselves. They ranged in age from twenties to forties, more or less evenly divided between men and women. Several had a military look about them. I made eye contact with one of the women and smiled awkwardly. To my surprise, she grabbed the arm of the man next to her and pointed straight at me.
“I bet that’s her,” she said in a crisp British accent. She turned to the rest of the group and said loudly, “Guys! That’s her!” And the whole crowd descended upon my table.
The woman who had spoken shook my hand energetically. “Hi, stranger. I’m Kylie. You’re Avery, right?”
“Right,” I said warily.
“I thought so. You’re going to Vardesh Prime. Bitch.” I must have looked alarmed, because she laughed and said, “Only joking. But I am jealous. We all are.” She made an expansive gesture that took in the others. “We’re the rejects.”
“Oh.” Comprehension dawned. “The other candidates. But you’re all still on the List, right? You’re still going. Just not to Vardesh Prime.”
“Right.” She grinned. “Apparently we’re the best humanity has to offer. God help the Vardeshi. They have no idea what they’re in for.”
It quickly became clear to me that Kylie, and the others she introduced offhandedly as they sat down, were members of an incredibly elite cohort. The introductions were a litany of Special Ops veterans, Fulbright Scholars, Peace Corps volunteers, black belts in this or that martial art, and so on. Kylie herself spoke three languages and had qualified for the previous Winter Olympics in the biathlon. As I listened, I felt an unexpected twinge of guilt. Had Dr. Sawyer made a mistake? Worse, had he abused his power? Surely it was hubris for him to imagine that he, alone of everyone on Earth, had the right to control access to Vardeshi. The ethical thing to do would have been . . . what? To pass on TrueFluent Vardeshi to the Council as soon as it was complete? To upload the software into the cloud, giving everyone on the planet equal and unfettered access to it? But if he’d done that, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter if I had a second-tier pedigree compared to these people. I had worked as hard as any of them. I had earned my seat at this table.
Right on cue, Kylie said, “So what about you, Avery?”
“Yeah,” said the man sitting next to her, an American whose name might have been Scott. “Your turn to brag.”
“Oh.” I hesitated. “Well, I’m not an Olympian or—”
Kylie snorted. “As if that matters. You speak Vardeshi. I want to hear that story, and I’ll bet everyone else does too.”
“We just came from our first TrueFluent session,” said Scott.
“Really?” I said eagerly. “How was it?”
He shook his head. “Pretty fucking brutal, to be honest.”
I felt an unwarranted rush of pride. “Yeah. I know.”
“So tell us about it,” Kylie urged. I demurred, hoping she would lose interest. She didn’t. Reluctantly I started talking. At the sound of my voice, the smatterings of conversation here and there around the table ceased. In a few quick sentences, I sketched out my language background—several people nodded when I mentioned Mandarin—and the saga of the previous year.
When I was finished, an Indian woman whose name I hadn’t caught said, “Six hours a day?”
“Nine on weekends,” I said. “And all day during the summer. But that was just me. I’m sure there are others who could do it in half that time.”
“Not based on what we saw this morning,” said Scott.
Kylie was studying me thoughtfully. “What was it Sawyer said he liked about you?”
I smiled. “My humility.”
“Maybe he was right,” she said. “Maybe the rest of us are just too bloody arrogant.”
“Speak for yourself, Braswell,” someone called from down the table.
Kylie winked at me. “I usually do.”
Arrogant or not, the group respected expertise when they saw it. I spent the rest of the meal fielding questions about Vardeshi. When Elena appeared at my elbow, explaining that it was time for my next training session, I found that I’d lost track of time entirely. Cutting off my explanation to the Indian woman—Rajani—in mid-sentence, I rose to leave, hurriedly piling dishes onto my tray.
“Bye, stranger,” said Kylie. The peculiar farewell was echoed by several others.
“What does that mean?” I asked Elena as we walked.
“It’s what they’re calling themselves,” Elena explained. “The Hundred Strangers.”
“Odd. It seems like that would make more sense as a nickname for the Vardeshi.”
“Maybe they thought we had enough of those already.”
Truthfully, we did. Humanity had had twenty-five years to invent our own appellations for the Vardeshi, and we had embraced the challenge. I could think of a dozen names offhand, all of them descriptive, not all of them kind. Pixies, for their small stature and the short hairstyles they seemed to favor, was one of the better ones. Likewise, Ice Angels, for their coolly ethereal beauty. Vipers was less complimentary. And there were names as well for humans who were inappropriately fixated on the Vardeshi. The most common was Vaku, a twist on otaku that retained the scornful tone of the original Japanese word. My interest in Vardrama had been more than a passing fancy, but I’d never strayed into Vaku territory. I wondered if there were any Vaku on the List. And whether there existed an equivalent category of human-obsessed Vardeshi. Somehow I doubted it. Not with the whole conquer the darkness within business. It seemed more likely that they regarded us as a community-service project which, while vaguely unpleasant, offered mild philanthropic rewards. A planet-sized soup kitchen, perhaps.
Elena had led me to a wing of the Center I hadn’t visited before. We walked into a room the size of a small gymnasium, stocked with what looked like the equivalent of an entire outdoor-gear store. Shoulder-high racks crammed with equipment for every conceivable survival scenario were arranged in neat rows. The place appeared to be deserted, but when Elena called “Max?” a man’s head popped up into view behind one of the racks. His face was lean and weathered, and his brown hair was frosted at the temples. He waved a friendly hello as Elena introduced us. “Max is our equipment specialist. He’ll be putting together your food and other supplies.”
Max further explained that he was an ex-Marine who currently specialized in outfitting backpackers for extreme climates. “The Vardeshi haven’t placed any weight restrictions on your equipment,” he said. “But I figure the simpler your gear is, the less stressful it will be to use it. You’ll be cooking all your own food. The Vardeshi are understandably concerned about the risk of explosion posed by alcohol stoves, so I’ll be sending you with empty fuel canisters, which will be filled with one of their fuels once you’re on board. Lower combustion risk, apparently. I don’t know any details, but they tried it in one of our stoves and it worked just fine. We know they carry water on their ships and that their galley has some kind of freezer compartment, but we don’t know anything else about their culinary tools. I want you prepared to be totally self-sufficient for a year at minimum. Dry or frozen food only. No hydroponics—it’s too complicated to set up on short notice. Anton will be providing your vitamins. We’ll start by going over all the supplies you’ll need. Then we’ll work on your menu. I’ll pack everything by hand myself before you launch.”
Gear and menu prep was by far the most enjoyable session of that first full day. The small amount of backpacking I’d done in college proved to be just enough to make the procedures and materials familiar. I knew how to filter my water (probably an unnecessary precaution, but mandated nonetheless), cook o
ver a small portable stove, and wash up efficiently with minimal waste. As we assembled and disassembled the various components of my “space kitchen,” as he called it, Max saw how comfortably I handled the gear, and he was openly relieved.
“You’ll be able to cook without thinking about it. That’s a huge advantage. You’re going into an environment that’s totally unfamiliar. You don't need any additional stress tied to your food consumption, especially since you’ll be handling all of it alone.” He explained that to minimize the risk of cross-contamination, I would be doing my own food preparation and cleaning. A section of the galley would be set aside for my private use.
I frowned. “Wait, does that mean I’m not allowed to eat with them?”
He sighed. “Eating is such an essential part of culture—for us, anyway. Everyone is hoping that eating in proximity won’t be a problem. You’re going to start off in the mess with them and see how it goes. EpiPen in hand, naturally. Doctors from both planets will be working as fast as they can to identify foods that are safe for both races, if any exist. We’ll be sending you regular updates. Until then, no sharing. You eat your food, they eat theirs. And at the slightest sign of an airborne allergic response—on either side—you’re eating alone in your quarters. That’s why all the gear has to be portable.”
“If it’s that bad, will the mission still go forward?”
Max shrugged. “Impossible to say right now. We’re trying to cover all the bases. Unfortunately, there are bound to be things we won’t think of, and we won’t know what those are until . . .”
“Right,” I said. “Until it’s too late. Think hard, okay? For my sake?”
“I am,” he said seriously. “We all are. There’s a small army of people working day and night to think of every possible problem and find a solution. And the Vardeshi are doing exactly the same thing—and their tech is a whole lot better than ours.”
I had a thirty-minute break before Covert Signaling. I asked Elena if we could go to the dining hall for a latte. “You’re tired,” she said when we had been sitting in silence with our coffees for a few minutes.
“A little,” I admitted. “Long day.”
“I think you’ll like your next session. You’re a linguist, and covert signaling is all about communicating. Just not with words.”
The caffeine helped a little, but it required conscious effort to clear my mind and refocus my attention as Elena led me to yet another bright white room. This one was small, and empty save for a table and two chairs. In one of them a young man was sitting. He was so fair in complexion as to be nearly colorless. I wondered if he ever went outside. I could read nothing at all in his expression. I glanced back at the door. “I’m sorry—am I in the wrong room?”
“Avery Alcott?” His voice was level and soft.
“That’s right.”
“My name is Tristan. I’m your designated contact.”
“I . . . don’t know what that means.”
He blinked. “When you send transmissions home to Earth, I’ll process them for hidden messages, which I’ll decode and pass on to the Council.”
“Oh.” I paused. “What kind of hidden messages?”
“That you’re safe. That you’re in danger. That you trust someone, or don’t trust them. You may find yourself in a place where the things you most need to say can’t be said openly. You’re here to learn other ways of saying them.”
I thought about that. “If I were in real danger, wouldn’t they cut off my transmissions?”
“We can’t assume that. We don’t know enough about their intentions. As the first human to launch, and the only one who speaks their language, your position is especially perilous. You might overhear something that makes you question your safety or the integrity of the program, something you need to pass on to us, but discreetly. They may have an officer in the room with you every time you record a message. They probably will—we would. Or you might find yourself being held hostage and forced to send back the all-clear in order to trick us into giving them more hostages. These are the kinds of scenarios we’ll train for.”
“Worst-case scenarios,” I said.
“No,” he said quietly. “The worst-case scenario is that they kill you. There is no training for that.”
I stared at him. He gazed back at me levelly. “The purpose of this session is to give you the tools you need to tell Earth that something is wrong while there’s still time, and without alerting the suspicions of the Vardeshi. We want you to be able to protect yourself—and everyone we send out after you. This is for their benefit as much as yours.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “I get it. I’m sold. Teach me some covert signals.”
I thought he almost smiled. “Not today. Today I’ll study your natural kinesics. The best signals extend naturally from a person’s unconscious body language—what you do with your hands and face when you’re talking. I need to identify movements that will come to you instinctively in times of stress, signs you’ll be able to produce without conspicuous pauses or hitches. The Vardeshi will be looking for those things. To be effective, the code must be invisible to everyone but the contact.”
“Are you working with everyone on the List?”
He shook his head. “That would be too confusing. Each representative will be assigned a handler. I’ll only work with you. Do you know how to play poker?”
With that apparent non-sequitur, we transitioned to the learning phase of the session. We played for half an hour or so—mostly I lost—and then Tristan asked me a series of increasingly personal questions about myself. “When the questions become too intrusive,” he said, “stop answering.” I hung on gamely until the questions became explicitly sexual. By that point, I knew I was blushing. Tristan was impassive. He asked every question in the same soft, uninflected tone of voice. He might have been asking me how to go about renewing a driver’s license. After the question and answer session, he had me state ten basic facts about myself. “Tell me seven true things and three lies. I’ll try to guess which ones are false.” He guessed the lie immediately each time.
“I’ve never been a very good liar,” I said apologetically.
“That’s not what this exercise is about. I’ve been deliberately putting you in uncomfortable situations to observe your mannerisms. Did you know that just before you tell a lie, you press your lips together, as if you didn’t want to say it?”
I was taken aback. “Really? What else do I do?”
“When a question makes you uncomfortable, you look down, but when one makes you angry, you narrow your eyes and look slightly to the right. And you bite your lip when you’re deciding whether to bluff.”
“So professional card player is out, then.”
He didn’t acknowledge the joke. “You should understand that these mannerisms are incredibly subtle. Most people wouldn’t even notice them. I think I have enough information to begin working on a code. Tomorrow we’ll start working through the signals to see which ones are intuitive for you. Then we’ll assign meanings.”
The next activity on my schedule was a workout. I was already sore from the morning’s Krav-Maga session, but I dutifully changed into my running clothes and followed Elena to the pristine new fitness center. I ran a couple of very lackluster miles and dragged myself back to the dormitory. When Elena came to collect me again, I was wearing pajama pants and a fleece. “Please tell me I don’t have to change,” I implored her.
She laughed. “You don’t have to change. If anyone wants you to be comfortable, it’s the psychologist, no?”
The psychologist's office was the first room I had seen in the Villiger Center that had any personality. The walls were painted a deep eggplant purple, and the squashy armchairs and ottomans scattered around were various shades of red, orange, and gold. Soft lights set into the walls accented the warm colors. I wanted to curl up in the nearest chair, cover myself in the soft chenille blanket folded over the back of it, and drift off to sleep.
A slender da
rk-skinned woman stepped into the room. She smiled when she saw me. “Avery? I’m Celeste Okoye. Please make yourself comfortable.” The musical cadences of her voice were overlaid with a trace of a British accent.
I sat down on the chair I’d been eyeing. Despite my best efforts, as I settled back against the cushions, a yawn overtook me. Dr. Okoye smiled. “You’ve had a long day. I’ll keep this first session as brief as I can. Do you know why you’re here?”
“I know you’re a psychologist. I assume you’re going to tell me about the psychological effects of living among aliens.”
“I wish I could,” she said seriously. “Unfortunately, no one’s ever done it before. You’re breaking entirely new ground. However, I can tell you what I expect will happen. I specialize in treating military personnel returning from . . . intense cultural immersion.”
“Spies?” Suddenly I felt considerably more alert.
“Sometimes. Not necessarily. You won’t be living undercover, but you will be surrounded by strangers, isolated from those you trust. Your survival will depend on your ability to assimilate into Vardeshi culture, and yet the fundamental fact of your humanity will always be there, setting you apart. For today, let’s just look at the first month. You studied abroad, yes? Can you tell me about the typical pattern of acclimation to a new culture?”
“Sure,” I said. “There’s the honeymoon period—the first few weeks, when everything is fresh and exciting—and then that wears off and there’s the decline, when all the little differences start to add up, and you start to resent the new culture. And then, if you stay long enough, you climb out of the ravine, and you accept the differences and master the skills you need to function in daily life. In theory. Mostly I think people just go home.”
“That’s right. I doubt you’ll have any honeymoon period with the Vardeshi. I think you’ll plunge straight into the ravine. Frustration, anger, confusion . . . You’re entering an alien environment. Everything—every object you interact with, from toilets to beds to door handles—will be different. The Vardeshi look human, but they aren’t. They won’t think or act or respond in predictable ways. You may find a way to connect with some of them on a personal level. You may not. Either way, you won’t be communicating in the way that you’re accustomed to. Body language, pheromones, words, all of these things will work differently or not at all. You’re going to experience loneliness of a kind you’ve never imagined. In a very real sense, you’ll be flying out into the darkness alone.”
Ascending (The Vardeshi Saga Book 1) Page 7
