by Wil McCarthy
Silence came over the room in the wake of that remark, everyone taking a few moments to absorb it, to think it through. And then the arguments exploded, the shouting and the fist pounding and the demands for access to the Congress, which were to last for most of the rest of the day.
~~~
At Wende's insistence, Plate carried with him a comp jewel linked to microscopic sensors on the walls and floors and ceilings of the refugees' quarters, and some few sensors on the skins of the refugees themselves, and Plate could press the jewel at any time to his forehead and receive a vague, noisy impression of what they were thinking and feeling.
He removed the jewel now, having gleaned as much as he could, and replaced it in his robe's carrying pocket. Alone in an unused chamber, feeling troubled, feeling swept along in the currents of the moment. How far he was from the stations of his comfort, from the exercise of his surest skills! All of Gate was dependent now on Finders ring, and Finders ring on Wende's handling of the human-Waister interface efforts, and Wende herself dependent on Plate's own handling of these humans. And thus far he had not facilitated any improvement the situation at all. Not at all.
It was very, very important that he regain the refugees' trust. By speaking with them frequently? By explaining the true importance of what was happening around them, and to them? They were so difficult to handle, to speak with, to predict. In a way, he almost admired this about them, but for now the disturbance of it was intolerable.
Crow, of course, was no help. His expertise lay mainly in other areas, and his interest still more so. “Why not simply force them?” he would often ask, showing how very little he understood of the situation, and how fortunate Wende was not to have granted him greater discretionary liberty. The other Workers knew and understood still less, and the Drones, even among Finders ring, seemed to accept only grudgingly the humans' right to exist at all.
No, this situation was his own responsibility, and if it were to evolve in a favorable way it must be through his own avoidance of error. But what error? Where and how would he recognize it?
Had he practiced the human art of cursing during his life, of using language to release and express emotional tension, he would now have exercised it. Instead, he stretched his lips wide, pulling the corners up and leaving them there, practicing his smile until it hurt.
He came to realize, after a time, that he was not alone. Turning, he saw that a foreign Worker had entered the chamber. Warders ring, the patterns of his scalp announced. Young, probably trained in the handling of complex and dangerous equipment. He was looking at Plate with undisguised, unmitigated hatred.
Plate nodded at the Worker, neither alarmed nor annoyed nor surprised. He'd been expecting visits like this one, underlings sneaking off to express their Queens' feelings to other underlings, to influential underlings who clearly should know they were not in the right.
“Yes?” Plate said in Standard. “Finders ring has destroyed Gatean society, and your life in particular? Communication with the Waister empire is our only function, and Finders ring has handed that over to a bunch of humans. Is that what you wish to tell me?”
“Yes,” the Worker said, echoing Plate's use of Standard.
“Very well, then,” Plate said, “You may tell me that.”
This joke, poor though it was, angered the Worker still further. “You will not succeed! Warders ring has arranged a signal to the Waister fleet, and even now it is being broadcast. A signal of surrender! They are strong and clever, but naive, and so we will join them, and lead them away from this misguided endeavor.”
Plate dared to laugh. That was the stupidest, most insane plan he'd ever heard in his life. If the Waisters paid any attention at all, they could only regard Warders ring as a newness. What advantage could be gained by such a maneuver? His eyes narrowed, breath deepening. Did Warders ring know something he himself did not? Certainly, the Waisters had thus far been acting contrary to expectation. Had Warders deduced some new pattern?
“Why inform us now?” Plate asked, falling into a very human tone of suspicion. “Why not after?”
The other looked bitterly pleased at that. “Finders ring is not without influence. We do not wish an alienation, merely an adjustment of priorities. That Finders ring should have some brief warning is very much to our advantage.”
Plate sighed, putting a hand to his brow, relieved that he'd begun this strange conversation in Standard. In Waister it would have been cumbersome in the extreme, and even Teigo, often described as a language of intrigue, lacked the brevity of Standard, which had been born after all in an age of turmoil and upheaval, and forced on an immense, diverse, and often unwilling population.
“Your plan will likely fail,” he said now, relishing the compactness of the words and concepts, “but I thank you for the warning.”
The Worker signaled his understanding, turned, and departed.
“Shit,” Plate said, trying out the concept of profanity after all, as he fumbled for the other comp jewel, the one that would let him warn Wende and the others. Hadn't the day proved interesting enough already?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
217::23
HOLDERS FASTNESS, GATE SYSTEM:
CONTINUITY 5218, YEAR OF THE DRAGON
When next the refugees entered the Interface Station, changes were evident. Seats had been added, for one thing: three gray couches in the usual Gatean style sat off to one side of the glass barrier, and directly in front of it, eight large chairs of some shiny, orange, soft-looking material, and two smaller ones sized just right for Elle and Vadim. In front of the chairs was a large flatscreen, rising up from the floor on a slender post. It looked very Sirian, very familiar, so much so that Malye had to wonder if Finders ring, in their function as archaeologists and historians, had found something like it in the ruins of some world or other. Certainly, it looked like nothing they would design on their own.
To her further surprise, she saw that Wende's Drones had remained in the corridor, rather than following them inside here. Guarding the door? Simply staying out of the way? Wende occupied the central couch, her Dog curled up at her feet, and Crow and Plate took the couches on either side, looking carefully harmless, as though they wished to convey their good intentions more openly, but were afraid of giving offense. Plate, especially, looked deferential and flighty; Crow let an edge of annoyance creep through for her to see. But he was clearly trying not to, and she supposed that was significant by itself.
Wende was harder to read, more alien. Not so much Waisterlike as simply blank, like she wasn't thinking anything at all. But Malye doubted that very much.
Movement behind the glass partition. The Drones absent there, as well, the Queen and Dog and Workers sitting on couches of their own. The design of the couches was different—they were low and strangely shaped, and the Waisters draped themselves over them in what looked like a very uncomfortable way, particularly in the high gravity. Malye revised her opinion of what the anatomy must be like, inside those skins.
“HHEEOO,” the Queen said, in a voice that was strangely musical but very clear nonetheless. “HHEEOO, AYYE. HHEEOO, HUA.”
The refugees gasped, and Malye, too, when she realized the Waister Queen was attempting to speak to them in Standard.
“She is saying hello,” Plate offered politely. “We have informed her that this is normal and expected when meeting with someone in peace, and though it is strange to her, she appears to have understood the concept.”
“Hello,” Malye said back, without really thinking. Maybe it wasn't a good idea? But the flatscreen in front of the chairs went green for a moment, beeped, and then began producing the tones and scrapes of the Waister language. Behind the partition, the Queen and Workers shifted, turning their heads, clearly listening to the words.
“Please,” Plate said, gesturing at the chairs, “sit, if you wish to. We hope these accommodations will comfort you sufficiently. We were not entirely sure what you would prefer.”
“Why
don't you ask?” Konstant snapped. But he took a seat, as did the others. There were two parallel rows of four chairs each, with the smaller two off to the right by a wall, and Malye thought it significant that while Konstant chose to sit in the front row, he took the end seat, and let Svetlane sit behind him. Nik and Vere also took the back row, and Sasha, leaving the older Ludmile to sit on the other end in front, and just like that it had been decided that Malye and Viktor should sit front and center, with nothing separating them from the enormous Waister Queen but two meters of space, and a spindly flatscreen, and a heavy glass partition. And some funny breathing air on the other side of it, that was not quite completely transparent.
They sat.
Malye looked hard at Wende. “What are you people up to?”
Wende nodded, as if perhaps acknowledging that the question was a fair one. “We desire the facilitation of peace. You are necessary to that process. Are you in comprehension of this?”
“Only partly,” Malye said. And then, all at once, she caught something in Wende's manner, a sliver of readable emotion, and she read it, and felt relief. “Something has happened. Again, I mean. Something has changed in the last thirteen hours.”
“Yes,” Wende agreed, and once again she was blank.
Plate stepped in, though, with reassuring tones. “Our... political situation is somewhat... unstable, I suppose you would say. It's hardly a surprise, under the circumstances. There have been... well, a series of intrigues, all working at cross purposes. None of this initiated by Finders ring, but in the absence of clear coordination we have benefitted from the confusion. Our position is stronger than it was; the other rings are not certain whom else to trust. Consequently we feel a greater liberty to allocate resources. Your comfort was thought to have been too long neglected.”
“That's very kind of you,” Malye said, not entirely without sincerity. Plate was lying, but only a little, and that was normal enough in any dialogue. Nothing untoward was happening here, so far as she could tell.
She turned to the Waister Queen, and spoke experimentally: “We are willing to speak with you, though it is distasteful. Coming here without your Drones was an admirable gesture. What do you wish to tell us?”
The flatscreen flashed, beeped, spoke. The Waisters listened, and after a pause, the Queen replied. Words appeared on the flatscreen:
# This is no thing with which we hold #
# familiarity. It is not new, for we #
# have completed. It is beyond completion, #
# and of the nature of this you must inform. #
Malye blinked. “You want us to talk? We have nothing to say. We did not ask for this contact.”
“How do your starship drive motors work?” Viktor asked, suddenly and with a leading tone that said he knew his speaking would displease Malye.
She turned. They shared a look, he shrugging: they want to talk, so, let them tell us something useful, and her scowling back: what are you doing? These creatures are unimaginably dangerous!
But the question was asked, and the flatscreen translated it promptly, without stopping to ask Malye's permission. And one of the alien Workers replied:
# Broad littoral zones, fractally infinite #
# Every principle affects every other. I #
# inquire regarding the time scale of this #
# song. #
And irrepressibly, Viktor replied to that, leaning forward and nodding just as though the comment had made sense to him, had fed some nugget of information directly into his learning centers. “Yes. What I want to know is, where does the energy come from? When you create relativistic mass out of rest mass, or the reverse, you must emit energy. And yet, the mass of your ship remains almost constant. That should violate the eighth law of physics. Where does the energy come from?”
“Viktor, stop it!” Malye physically reached for him, thrust him down in his chair. “Do not reveal our knowledge or ignorance, do you hear me? Are you mad? In the years of your Congressional education, did you forget just how we got here?”
“It doesn't matter what they think we know,” Viktor said, patiently. “It doesn't matter at all. If they wished us harm, you and I would not be speaking.”
Curiously, the flatscreen still hadn't beeped. And then, suddenly, it did, after a total delay of something like ten seconds. About twelve hours, in Congress time? She assumed the Congressional simulacra were still involved in the translation process somehow, and if so they had had a tough time with Viktor's question.
The Waister translation that emerged was a continuous stream of clicks and scrapes, with only the occasional fluting sound. Malye and Viktor exchanged looks again, he: bemused, she: still angry. And still the translation went on, and finally it broke with a series of trilling notes, more scraping, more notes, then silence. The total message had taken over a minute to deliver, and the Waisters themselves appeared dazed by it, as though deafened.
“Ialah's names,” Viktor said with a chuckle, “it looks like I asked them something hard.”
“This isn't a game, Viktor,” Sasha said from the back row. “Stop it, before you cause problems.”
“Problems?” Viktor said, turning, a look of mock amazement on his face. “Yes, of course. Ialah forbid that we should have problems.”
And with those words, Malye knew they had the old Viktor back, or at least an aged version of him. But what she said was,”Be quiet, both of you.”
Finally, one of the Workers sat up higher on his couch, and framed a long reply. The translator held onto that one for several seconds, as well, and then said:
# Artificial instinct, operating by agreement. #
# Difficulty obtains. Your concepts and logic #
# confuse. Alternate logics are possible. #
# Confusion. The compressed summation of #
# universal operatives is understood. #
# Prediction holds value. Conceptual #
# intersection appears empty. Difficulty is #
# therefore created. Temperature? Is #
# temperature understood? Attempted pooling #
# yields observations that all temperatures #
# may be reduced, universally. #
For a moment, nobody said anything, too deeply confused by that reply. But then Viktor, his eyes on Malye, apologizing to her for not keeping silent, spoke: “Too abstract. I think I see what's happening.”
“Do you?” she said, arching an eyebrow. “Do you really.” Already, this exchange had grown tiresome. What did these creatures have, that humans needed? Nonsense? Humanity had always had enough of that.
“The Waisters are animals,” Viktor said. “We're fortunate that they communicate verbally, but of course, if you're a terrestrial, air-breathing organism of any size at all, that's really the best way to do it. If they were gas giant dwellers or something, I expect we'd have a much harder time. But really, they're not so terribly different; they breathe, they speak. I'm sure they eat and drink and defecate, too, just like any other animal. Well, I'm not sure they do, but it seems logical that they would. Even the Gateans have to eat, right? They've made extensive modifications to their metabolism, but that's just not a problem biomechanics can solve.”
“What is your point, Viktor?” Konstant asked, his voice impatient and hard, like a gas pistol firing the words one after another. “We're all getting very tired of this obscurity from you.”
The words disrupted Viktor's calm, sent quiet ripples through him. “And I grow tired of your impatience, Konstant. Can you sit still for one minute and let me speak? Are you capable of that? My point is that we have commonalities, even with Waisters, but the further we move from these commonalities, the higher the level of abstraction we attempt to communicate, the less likely the concepts are to translate. Really, this is obvious if you think about it.”
“So we should ask them about the state of their bowels?” Konstant sneered. “Is that what you're saying?”
“Stop it,” Malye said to them again. She'd
noticed that the translator was sharing their argument with the Waisters, and she didn't like that at all. No clear reason, she supposed, but it struck her as a very bad idea indeed.
Presently, the Waister Queen spoke.
# We defecate. We are capable of defecation. #
Behind Malye, several voices broke into laughter. “Look, we've made a breakthrough,” Nikolai chuckled. Beside her, Konstant was choking back an embarrassed laugh, and across the room, even Plate looked amused. Malye saw the humor, vaguely, but felt more annoyed than anything else. Now, of all times...
“Be quiet, please,” she said, but that just made everyone start laughing, even Viktor. She was reminded sharply of the old days, of Elye and Kromov joking with her in the Atrium at Tyumen. Then, as now, she'd been powerless against the laughter. It was a weapon she'd never been able to defend against, a weapon Andrei Brakanov had used again and again to disarm her, to allay suspicion, to misdirect. That it had worked so well and for so long was a disgrace with which she had never made peace. She'd been fifteen when they finally came for him, and she'd never suspected a thing, not really.
Laughter's legacy, the discomfiture of the monster. Helpless, she simply sat and waited for it to subside, which it soon did.
The Queen spoke:
# You are very strange to us. I am confused #
# by this activity. #
You and I both, Malye thought, and for the first time, she looked at the Queen, really looked, and saw behind that corpulent, bruise-colored face an actual person, with thoughts and feelings and a desire, however misplaced, to communicate. Impulsively, she leaned forward.
“You are strange to me as well. And they—” she pointed at Plate and Crow and Wende “—are strange. Everything is strange to us here. We're visitors, as much as you.”
The Queen shifted posture, her C-shaped body tensing, the dangling arms seeming to draw upward and inward toward her spine. Or back, or front, or whatever. Did Waisters even have spinal columns?
