Shion saw the look, and even understood that it meant that he was thinking of his own family, so shattered by that tragedy. She said nothing, however. It really hadn’t needed Buzz asking her privately not to ask the skipper about that, since Davie had already told her that it was too painful a subject to ask the skipper about. It was just a passing moment, too, a fleeting, sentimental memory and a smile. ‘Is it so very different to child-rearing on Pirrell?’
They did not, he already knew, live in family units on Pirrell. As Shion had explained, the natural biology of her people produced at least ten times more females than males, and their social structure had evolved to reflect that. It had caused considerable laughter on the ship when Shion had told some crew, in the course of conversation, that men were ‘shared’ on her world. In fact it was a complex social structure, in which any man might be married to any number of women, though the women might not necessarily be married to one another and would probably have other female partners who were married to different men. It was like a web, she said, a network of loving relationships that they believed united everyone in their society. Questioned as to whether that was the same for the ancient race and the bioengineered ‘hope’ people, she’d been astonished, yes, of course. They were the same people, how could it be otherwise? And yes, of course, it happened sometimes that members of the different genomes got married, love transcended genome, and there would be acceptance of that from all their families. The children of such marriages, however, belonged to the hope genome, no longer ‘pure of blood’, of the ancient caste.
Some issues with translation of that, however, were still evidently to be resolved. When she’d realised that they were assuming, with that, some kind of elite ruling caste living like royalty while the lesser genome toiled as serfs and servants, Shion had laughed so much they’d had to bring her some water and pat her on the back. It would be some time before they’d really understand the culture of her world, clearly, even with all the information she’d given the Diplomatic Corps at Amali and talking about her world freely on the ship, too.
‘Oh, entirely!’ she answered Alex’s question readily, laughing. ‘It seems to me that child rearing in your culture is like a battle to socialise the child, teaching them whatever morality and social conduct is the norm for that class on that world. It’s done with love, I understand that, but for us, rearing a child is about enabling them to make discovery for themselves. Our children go akal – barefoot, you’d say, though it doesn’t mean that they’re not wearing shoes, just that they can run about freely in the gardens, and socially, too, exploring, finding things out for themselves. They have their wild shrieking phases, of course, just like any growing creatures, but we find that amusing, something to love. One of our favourite stories is of a time when the karlane was in most solemn congrave, all silent and had been so for hours, when two akal came tearing through the Hall playing catcha, yelling, swinging on the Veils. The congrave waited till they’d gone, of course, it would not have occurred to anyone to reprove them or ask them to leave, but the reflection had been so broken that people started to giggle. The karlane cast the flower and everyone just went away, laughing – hilarious to us, and still told, many many years later, as one of our funny akal stories.’
‘Funny is one of the hardest things to get, across cultures,’ Alex said, knowing that it was, indeed, the holy grail of exodiplomacy, finding a species that could share their sense of humour. You could make much better progress, essentially, if both parties could laugh off incidents which might otherwise have caused offence.
He already knew what she meant by ‘cast the flower’. It had been apparent from the briefing provided by the diplomats that both government and ceremony on Pirrell centred on a chamber called the Hall of Veils, draped with many fabrics of cultural significance and containing a long rectangular pool. A gentle circular current was maintained in this pool, with the karlane or her representative seated at one end of it and those who wanted to speak with her at the other. The traditional greeting ceremony involved the visitor placing a flower into the pool, with quiet while it floated to the far end and was ceremoniously delivered to the karlane. While she held it, the meeting, or congrave, was in progress. Once she ‘cast’ or handed it to one of her aides to put back into the pool, it was over.
It had been easy to see why the Solarans were so keen to visit Pirrell. Apart from the fact that it was a safe world for them to visit, pathogen free, and their enjoyment of Pirrell’s gardens and art, the gentle, stately ceremony of Pirrellothian culture would be far more to their liking than the frantic buzz and pace of contact with humans. Pirrell, too, had a culture of silence, of everyone sitting still and quiet, reflecting at length on what had been said before making any reply. Shion had been like that too, when she’d first arrived at Amali, but had adjusted very readily to matching human pace in conversation.
‘I think it’s fair to say that if we tried to raise our children like that, we’d have chaos,’ Alex observed, imagining a generation allowed to just run riot.
‘Different genomes, different cultures,’ Shion agreed, her comments clearly interested, not judgemental. ‘On my world, akal just naturally reach the age when they no longer run about swinging on Veils, but sit down quietly to listen to what the adults are discussing. Then, as they mature, they take an interest in learning things. You teach your children to read, I know, when they are very little, whether they want to learn or not. Our children learn when they want to. I was nine, myself, when I learned our form of reading. I wanted to pilot the aircar and my mother said that I would have to be able to read, to learn how. So I learned the symbols, similar to your datacoding, because it was purposeful for me. Davie tells me that if I couldn’t read by the age of nine, in your education system, I’d have been put into a remedial unit.’
Alex laughed at the idea of someone of her off-the-scale IQ being classified educationally remedial, nodding confirmation, and they sat there, then, for a pleasant hour or so, comparing childhood experiences, not just Alex and Shion but involving the other officers and crew at work on the command deck. It was just casual conversation, friendly and interesting but just passing the time while they watched out for their next ship encounter. The Diplomatic Corps, however, would seize on this and every other recording of conversations with Shion, gathering as much information about her world as they could. They would analyse, too, very closely, her relationship with Alex and the others and her reaction to experiences.
Which would include, today, an encounter with another Kadabe class yacht, signalling emergency assistance required because of a ‘funny smell’. Since they could not transmit details of that beyond a description of it as ‘disgusting’, they accepted the offer of an officer coming over to check it out for them. This time, at least, there really was an unpleasant pong aboard the ship, persistent even though they had air processing turned up to maximum. Investigation with atmospheric scanners readily tracked the smell to a bacterial growth. The owners had replaced the starship-grade upholstery in the living area with cushions of their own making, and the prolonged period of warmth and humidity aboard the ship had enabled bacteria from food spillages to multiply.
The yacht’s skipper and passengers did not react well to being advised that they should decontaminate the upholstery and take care with shipboard hygiene in future. When they were also given a safety advisory for misuse of the emergency beacon, that clearly added insult to their sense of injury.
‘You can’t treat us like this, it’s outrageous!’ the skipper signalled, wrathfully, ‘You haven’t heard the last of this! We’ll be making an official complaint at the highest level! You’re public servants! We pay your wages!’
As a tick was placed in the ‘we pay your wages’ column of the book being run on that versus the ‘what do we pay our taxes for?’ perennial, the Heron cruised on with mild amusement and resignation on the command deck.
‘Don’t you want to tell them?’ Shion asked, having been quite shocked b
y the aggression with which the yacht owner was shouting at them. ‘How silly they’re being? And how rude?’
‘It’s tempting,’ Alex admitted, honest with her as he always was. ‘Especially at times like this, when we’ve put so much of ourselves into a real rescue effort – patience runs thin with the idiots, for a while, after that. But we are, indeed, you see, public servants. We are out here to protect and serve, to look after people. Part of that does involve an educative role, offering advice, but we have no authority over them, really, unless they’re committing a crime. And it would not be fair, either, to take our own emotions out on them. It isn’t their fault that we’re tired and coping with some backwash from the emotional intensity of the Jolly Roger rescue. They’re no different, after all, to the yachts we were encountering earlier, that we found so entertaining, and they deserve just exactly the same care and courtesy.’
‘Ah,’ Shion said, with a look of understanding. ‘Professionalism.’
Alex nodded. ‘We pride ourselves on it, in the Fleet,’ he confirmed. ‘Calm dignity in our dealings with the public, at all times, no matter how daft or infuriating they may be.’
‘I thought that was something that just came naturally to you,’ Shion said, with a little gesture to indicate that she meant the whole ship, not just Alex. ‘But I see, you have to work at it.’
‘Some times more than others,’ he agreed, and they sat quietly for a while, then, just watching scopes companionably. Midnight came, and with it the changing of the watch. Martine headed off to bed and Buzz returned. He looked as fresh as if he’d been sleeping since dinner, as the nightwatch officer usually would, rather than dealing with difficult and highly emotional passengers. He’d managed an hour’s cat-nap, though, before coming to take the watch, and smiled at Alex’s evaluating look.
‘Fine, dear boy,’ he said.
Alex smiled. As Shion said goodnight then, too, and went off to her cabin, he stayed only for his customary few minutes to see the watch settled, before heading off to get some sleep himself.
He was back just a couple of hours later, not because of any emergency but because Buzz had called him with a friendly, ‘You’ll want to see this, Alex.’
‘This’, it turned out, was a V-2-8, and Buzz was absolutely right, Alex was delighted by it.
‘Just look at that!’ he marvelled, as the Heron made a slow spiralling pass around the other ship, admiring it from all angles. The V-2-8 was a classic starship. V-2s were racing yachts, not the kind of racing yacht sold for local yacht club regattas but serious, professional racing craft used for intersystem racing. The V-2-8 was widely regarded by starship aficionados as the epitomy of classic design, both in performance and the pure lines of its sleek sweeping curves. They were antiques, too, a class of starship that had been out of production for more than a century, lovingly preserved by their devotees. They might not be in any league to take part in formula racing these days, but even so this V-2-8 was cruising at a very respectable L15, a speed that would sweep them past freighters and lesser yachts in lordly style.
The ‘this is us’ datafile transmitted when the ships came within communication range showed that the V-2-8 was owned by a consortium, a group of clearly passionate worshippers at the shrine of the finest racing craft ever launched. They would have found a kindred spirit in Alex von Strada, for sure, as he drank in every detail of the perfectly restored hull, with an admiring glance at the picture of its crew. They had transmitted a holo of themselves in a posed group shot, all wearing classic V-2-8 racing rig and holding up a trophy. This, the datafile declared proudly, was because the Ladygo had won the Veteran Ship category of the Three Systems Cup, four years previously.
‘We could ask for you to go aboard,’ Buzz suggested, seeing the longing light in Alex’s eyes. Like just about every other kid mad about starships, Alex had had a model V-2-8 hanging from his bedroom ceiling, but this was the first time he’d seen one up close.
‘No,’ Alex said, tempted but making the responsible decision, there. They were on patrol, after all, and he could not justify going over to the Ladygo just for his personal enjoyment. There was a strong probability, too, that its crew would be so alarmed by his media reputation that such a visit, even if agreed to, would be embarrassing for all concerned. ‘At Karadon, maybe,’ he said, since the yacht was obviously heading there. At the same time, though, he was aware of Shion coming onto the command deck with a look of cheerful curiosity.
‘That’s a very old yacht,’ she observed, coming to sit at the datatable and looking at the screens with interest. ‘Is it in trouble?’
‘No, not at all – take a look,’ Alex said, though she was looking at it already, ‘that’s a beauty.’
He told her about the V-2-8 with all the enthusiasm of a devotee, and it wasn’t until they were moving on, somewhat regretfully, that it seemed to occur to him to question why she’d turned up on the command deck at gone two in the morning.
‘Can’t you sleep?’ he asked, sympathetically, expecting that the dramatic rescue of the day before might be keeping her wakeful, now.
‘Oh, I could,’ she responded, with a grin, ‘but I already slept as much as I need to – a few minutes of deep sleep to trigger toxin cleansing, and a little while to doze.’
He knew that this was her physical requirement for sleep, from the medical advisory. The Diplomatic Corps’ medics, however, having observed that she slept anything up to twelve hours at a time, had concluded that she had a psychological need for sleep, too.
‘I only sleep longer when I’m bored,’ she admitted.
Alex, thinking of the hours she’d slept at Amali, couldn’t help laughing.
‘You didn’t tell Ambassador Dolan that,’ he observed, since Shion had said that her need for sleep was ‘cultural’.
‘Well, I didn’t want to offend her.’ Shion said, with a slightly guilty grin. ‘It was thrilling at first, being there, with so much to learn. But they did seem to think that I was like the Solarans. No disrespect to the Solarans, there, we love them dearly, they’re one of our old sistering worlds and we’re always pleased to welcome them. Sistering, that’s compatible cultures, friends, worlds with a specially close relationship, like your worlds in the League. We have enough in common with the Solarans to be in harmony on things like ceremony and congrave, but we’re very different people, otherwise. Our castes are based on bloodline, theirs are founded in intellectual aspects.’
Alex gave a slight nod of understanding, at that, aware that Solaran society was strongly rooted in the concept of three as a number of perfect balance, in which the three castes of their society – the intellectual, the creative and the artisan – were of equal status. ‘We like to have fun, too,’ Shion went on. ‘We like to play, and we do, obviously, have a similar sense of humour to yours, which Solarans don’t. It’s a joke on our world – an affectionate one – that Solarans’ idea of a good time is for nine of them to sit in a triangle around a bowl of scented oil, appreciating the smell. Actually it’s quite a pleasant ceremony, that, at least for the first two or three hours. After that, we tend to develop a diplomatic need for sleep.’
Alex laughed, but he was looking at her alertly, too.
‘So, when you’re spending the nightwatch hours in your cabin ..?’
‘No, I’m not bored.’ Shion assured him. ‘Never bored, here!’ She seemed highly entertained by the idea that she might be. ‘But I have noticed, obviously, that if I am up and about, you stay up, too. Which is sweet, I don’t mind, I know you’re looking after me. But I don’t want you collapsing with exhaustion so I go to my cabin when I can see that you need to sleep. I’m fine, there, I like to read and watch holovision and have some quiet time by myself, too.’
‘Well, all right,’ Alex said. ‘But I don’t like that you might feel obliged in any way to stay in your cabin, so let’s come to an understanding on that, all right? I’ll just go to bed when I need to, and you feel free to go about the ship or stay on the command deck
if you want.’
‘Okay, skipper,’ she agreed, happily.
‘All right,’ Alex said, and got up. ‘I’ll say goodnight, then.’ He glanced at Buzz with a subtle tag, you’re it that left her in the exec’s care, and Buzz smiled.
‘Goodnight, dear boy,’ he said, and Alex headed back to bed, marvelling a little. Exodiplomacy, he was realising, was far more complex than getting along so well with Shion made it seem. She’d been aboard nearly a month, now, and they still hadn’t really understood even the most basic things about her needs relating to sleep; a fundamental lack of knowledge. Then he imagined Ambassador Dolan’s reaction to discovering that she had been boring their visitor from Pirrell, and gave a wholly unprofessional snigger as he got into bed. They might not be getting everything right, but at least they weren’t doing that.
Chapter Eight
‘Look, don’t be stupid,’ Davie said, with weary reproach. ‘It’s the obvious solution.’
As Alex looked steadily at him, Davie recognised an inadvisable choice of word, and sighed.
‘All right,’ he conceded, ‘I take back the ‘stupid’. Substitute ‘unnecessarily sensitive and territorial’ if you will, though it amounts to the same thing.’
They were discussing their approach to Karadon. Alex had informed Davie of his intention to swing over onto the shipping lane to Therik, intercepting the departing Empress of Telathor an hour or so away from the station. They had slowed their approach for that reason, since the last few hours had involved far fewer time-consuming incidents than they’d expected. The reason for that was the patrol ship they’d passed on its way from Karadon to Telfa. It wasn’t a Fleet ship, but a much smaller Customs and Excise patrol vessel. They too, however, would respond to distress beacons – there wasn’t a starship that wouldn’t – and they had effectively cleared the route to Karadon, already dealing with the four yachts the Heron would have had to respond to otherwise.
XD:317 (Fourth Fleet Irregulars) Page 19
