The Judas Rose

by Suzette Haden Elgin

  “No,” Aldrovandus answered. “Not as long as this room is used for greeting Soviet cultural exchange delegations. You know that.”

  “Can’t have Moscow thinking we aren’t up to the very latest thing in ugly, eh?”

  “It’s not that ugly, Heykus.”

  “It is that ugly, Lo Chen. The Capitol Architect has surpassed himself this year. Pale lavender? With a narrow silver stripe? Live fish swimming in the windows? And a transparent floor?”

  The other three glanced down and looked at the crowds of tourists aimlessly wandering in small groups on the museum floor far below them. Phong Lo Chen snickered, and remarked that if they only had transparent chairs as well as transparent floors the tourists would be able to add a quartet of famous bureaucratic crotches to their travel recollections. “Perhaps it would become fashionable,” he mused. “Snapping holos of famous crotches, above your head.”

  “What’s sad, Lo Chen,” Heykus observed, “is that you meant that to be funny, but it’s very probably a statement of solemn fact. Gentlemen—let’s pretend we are not on public view; let’s pretend that we are not bathed in an ethereal glow of lavender and silver; and let’s begin. The sooner we get through this, the sooner we can go back to the ordinary ugliness of Washington’s classic disrepair.” He frowned for a moment, and glanced at reliable Sundbystyner. “I have completely forgotten why it is that we always have to meet here,” he said slowly.

  “Regulations,” Sundbystyner told him.

  “You’re joking.”

  “I am not joking. The Feder—”

  Heykus raised one hand beside his head, signaling silence. “Do not explain!” he ordered. “I have recalled the idiot regulation in question. We are now in session, and I apologize for the delay incurred as the direct result of my superfluous speeches about the decor. Somebody send me a memo of reproof. Now. This meeting is a routine meeting, in the sense that we have to do it whether anything has happened or not. But it appears that something has happened, this time, and I’m not pleased about it.”

  “You got our memo chiplet.”

  “I did.”

  “It’s an accurate statement of the situation,” Sundbystyner stated; there was a murmur of agreement.

  “You all agree?” Heykus asked, making certain. “No dissenters? No reservations? No qualifications?”

  “None. No dissenters present, and no dissenters elsewhere,” Aldrovandus told him. “You talk about a consensus—we have one of those.”

  “I see.” Heykus remembered the memo, verbatim; it had been terse and unequivocal. It had used the word “failure” twice. He had a strong dislike for that word. Temporary setback, perhaps. Unanticipated delay. But failure? Heykus didn’t believe in failure. Not at his level of government.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s just run through it, one at a time. John Charles, you start us off.”

  Sundbystyner pulled a fiche from his case, inserted it in his viewer for a ten-second perusal, and put it away again. The expression on his face was not pleasant.

  “There has been absolutely no progress,” he said, “and I wish to emphasize the word ‘absolutely,’ in getting an agreement from the Consortium to increase the quotas for AIRYs. On the contrary. They will not even discuss an increase, much less agree to one. They are inflexible, gentlemen—the quotas, we are informed, will remain just as they are, and that is not open to negotiation.”

  “Do they understand the situation, Sundy?” demanded Heykus.

  “I’m sure they do. We have repeatedly sent in crack teams from the Lines, with completely native fluency in the major languages, to guarantee that there could be no problems due to a barrier of language. They understand that things have changed; now that we can Interface children from outside the linguist households we need more AIRYs. They understand that we are willing to build new Interfaces, with much more space and more creature comforts. They’ve heard all our arguments about the resulting improvement in interplanetary commerce and diplomacy. They know all this. They’ve been told. We’ve tried every conceivable angle of persuasion. They will not budge.”

  “Damn, but that’s frustrating!” Heykus declared.

  “Yes, it is. But they’ve always been inflexible on the quotas. I don’t know why anyone should have expected them to make changes just because we ourselves had made some, however drastic.”

  “I keep thinking we might wear them down,” Heykus sighed.

  “You’ve thought that for decades, and you’ve been wrong the whole time. Nevertheless, we will—if you so direct—try it again at the next contact we have with them, just as we have on each preceding occasion. I must say that by now the speeches are well memorized; it’s no work to run through the performance twice annually and on miscellaneous occasions.”

  “All right, Sundy; I agree that yours is probably a lost cause,” Heykus said. “‘But do it again anyway. Since we don’t know why they always refuse, we can’t anticipate factors that might cause them to agree. Go on as you’ve been doing.”

  “Certainly. Glad to oblige. It won’t do any good whatsoever, but we’ll go on doing it.”

  “Thank you. Your optimism is always appreciated. Lo Chen?”

  Phong smiled; his role was a less burdensome one than poor Sundbystyner’s and he could afford the better humor. “No progress,” he said. “The linguists will not surrender any of their AIRYs to the Department. Not for any price; not under any circumstances. Still. Their arguments vary from session to session, Heykus, which means we don’t have to do set pieces at them the way John Charles does, but that’s just because they’re playing games with us and they prefer the variety. They don’t have any intention of ever sharing the quota with us and letting us use their AIRYs to stock government Interfaces.”

  “And they can make that stick.”

  “Damn right they can.” The man laughed, showing beautiful white teeth. “We try to do anything clever, Jonathan effing Asher will just pull every last member of the Lines out of whatever negotiations are ongoing until we stop being cute. Total strike, in other words. And there we’d be—I assume you can imagine the chaos that would create. We’re short-handed now, even with every available linguist working full forty-hour weeks—” He paused, and the smile left his face. “Let me take this opportunity,” he said gravely, “to point out to you again that this means every available linguist now earns twenty hours a week overtime wages. As long as we are discussing extravagances, Heykus. The taxpayers don’t like that, Heykus.”

  “Noted. The damn fools that put them on hourly wages in the first place, instead of flat rate contracts, are all dead. Do not inflict upon me the abuse that is rightfully theirs.”

  “Noted right back at you,” said Phong. “And continuing . . . even with all the linguists serving double, we don’t have enough staff to get everything done efficiently. If they went on strike I don’t know exactly what would happen, but I do know it wouldn’t be nice.”

  “I might add,” Sundbystyner put in, “that we can be ninety-nine percent certain that even if the linguists would agree to loaning out, or renting out, their Aliens-in-Residence, there’s very little chance the Consortium would go along with it. We risk having the quota reduced, for example. Or cut off entirely.”

  “Which might be a good thing,” said Aldrovandus Barton. “Then we could drop the whole goddamn farce and settle down to work with the status quo. I do not see what is so wonderful about acquiring ever more Alien languages, and I will never see it—my god, if we’d stopped with the first one we’d learned and never learned another, we wouldn’t be anywhere near the end of what could be gained from that.”

  The point of ever more languages was not that it was wonderful to acquire them, like collecting ever more varieties of butterflies, but that without them you could not spread the Word of God to all the peoples of the universe. But Heykus assuredly could not say that, and so he said nothing and allowed Barton to glare at him. He was accustomed to the reaction, and understood it.
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br />   “On the other hand,” Lo Chen went on, aware that there was no hope of a productive discussion on the preceding point, “the linguists have been extremely cooperative about letting us Interface infants, selected by Government Work, with their infants. All they’ve ever required is that the government should provide the additional Tenders needed for convenient care of the smaller babies, plus a standard fee per child to cover insurance and administrative costs. We’ve run nearly two hundred infants through their system to date, without having even minor hassles. Oh, the usual drivel from the infants’ mothers, sure, but no problems associated with the Lines.”

  “So it’s good news and it’s bad news,” Heykus proposed. “That doesn’t sound to me like ‘total failure,’ which was the unfortunate phrase used in your memorandum.”

  “Barton will be happy to explain to you why my good news is not good news,” Lo Chen told him. “That’s his department. But I have one more item.”

  “Go on, then—sorry I interrupted.”

  “Last item from Phong Lo Chen, liaison man with the Lines, coming up. There has been no progress in getting the linguists to go to the alternate plan you suggested three years ago, Heykus. They think it’s a hilarious idea—at least that’s the public pose, and I have no way of knowing what the private one is, if there is a private one. They will not—repeat, not—agree to Interface linguists who are native speakers of Alien languages with infants, as if they were AIRYs. Not at any price. Yes, it has been explained to them that since no physical ‘Interface’ is required for Terrans plus Terrans, a single native speaker of one of the major tongues could serve as language acquisition datasource for perhaps fifty or more infants at a time. We’ve offered money, we’ve offered ample staff to look after the infants physically, we’ve appealed to their sense of patriotism, we’ve tried everything. They just tell us the idea is stupid.”

  “Stupid!”

  “Their very phrase. They seem to feel that they’re doing more than enough already, and arguing against that claim isn’t easy—see above, right? They will—as I notified you almost a year ago—teach classes in the languages for us, provided all students allegedly aiming at native fluency are no older than ten years and preferably younger. They have agreed, without any hesitation that I can see, to let adults sit in on these classes up to the capacity of the rooms, provided two conditions are met—and I will again give you their own words: (a) the adults promise to keep their mouths shut unless specifically asked to talk, and (b) it is fully understood that the adults should not expect to achieve native fluency.”

  “So?”

  “What do you mean, ‘so’?”

  “So that’s good, isn’t it? So we’re grateful for their cooperation. So why have no such classes been initiated?”

  Phong sagged in his chair and thrust both hands deep into his pockets. “Shit, Heykus” he said disgustedly.

  “Well? What’s holding them up?”

  “Shit. You know perfectly well. Whole thing has to go through department channels, right? Okay. First decision: which languages will be taught. There are hundreds of them. There are at least thirty that involve extremely critical interactions with Alien populations. The linguists’ schedules are already impossible; they’ve told us that they can manage classes in three languages, maximum, and have directed us to choose them. And that, Heykus, is where we are stuck.”

  “That is. . . .” Heykus’ voice trailed off; he found himself with no word to complete the sentence. And Phong was nodding agreement.

  “It is,” he said. “It sure is. But, you have this very important top dog official who insists that it’s got to be REM-X because that’s the minilaser people. And you have the very important top dog official who insists that it’s got to be REM-Y and REM-Z because that’s the medical drugs people. And you’ve got—”

  “Never mind, Phong,” Heykus interrupted. “I surrender. I understand. Is that the only hitch?”

  “Oh, no. We’ve also got the entire teaching staff of the Foreign Service threatening that they will strike, quit, riot, you name it, if we allow so much as one filthy Lingoe to put his little toe in a federal language classroom. If Alien languages are to be taught, by god, they will teach them!”

  “But they don’t speak them!”

  “Heykus, that is the great American tradition. Don’t be ridiculous. They can pronounce them, after a fashion, and they can write tests over them, and they have textbooks of them, and they have graded readers for them. Oh, and let’s not forget folksongs. The Foreign Service language teachers know Alien folksongs.”

  “Sweet suffering saints.”

  “It’s our own fault,” said Barton. “We should have listened to the linguists a hundred years ago when they told us to let them do the language teaching.”

  “And had our buildings burned down?” Heykus allowed shock to tint his voice, just a touch. “Now who’s being ridiculous?”

  The silence in the room went on and on, as the men contemplated the set of interlocking absurdities with which they were struggling, until finally Barton asked Heykus if he might be allowed to make his report or leave, whichever Heykus preferred.

  “Judas, Aldrovandus, please do,” said Heykus. “Sorry. This business is so infuriating that I lose all track of what I’m doing. You say total failure, too, don’t you?”

  “One hundred percent. No—make that ninety-six percent, Heykus. Let’s not overdramatize. It’s not really total at my end of the string. But it’s very close.”

  “All right, Aldro. spell it out.”

  “May I? Just spell it out, without bullshit? Yes? All right, here you are: NO CHILD NOT OF THE LINES IS GOING TO BECOME A LINGUIST EXCEPT THOSE EXCEEDINGLY RARE CHILDREN WHO HAVE AN AVOCATION TO BECOME A LINGUIST. In the same sense that the word ‘avocation’ is used in religious orders, gentlemen. There will be a few lay linguists, yes. But we’re talking extremely small numbers.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh . . . let’s see. The original charter group was one hundred infants, which is handy for the math. Maybe six of that hundred are like the children of the Lines . . . their desire is unto nouns and verbs. But the other ninety-four, gentlemen, are going to be doctors and lawyers and pilots and artists and technicians and explorers and military men and politicians and colonists and so on, just like everybody else. They are not going to spend their lives the way linguists spend their lives. And I do not blame them one damn little bit.”

  Heykus leaned forward, his hands holding the edge of the table, and spoke harshly, protesting. “Barton, hold on—that was supposed to be a major point, something made exquisitely clear to every one of the youngsters. They are supposed to have been made to understand that if they will just stay with it, and the next group and the next, then pretty soon a linguist will be able to put in a four-day week, and a four-hour day, just like the rest of the working population.”

  “Sure! Fifty years from now! Look, Heykus, that’s not going to apply to these kids—they’d be retired before there was any real change in their working conditions. They’re not willing to sacrifice their lives for The Plight Of Linguists, or some such sanctimonious thing. They want their own lives—and they want normal lives. If they’ve got to work like slaves, they want to do it out in the colonies where it means carving out something substantial for themselves and their families, not in some effing interpreting booth in Washington, DC!”

  He looked at Heykus’ stricken expression, and moderated his tone a little, leaning toward the other man in turn and speaking with equal intensity but less venom. “Clete,” he said gently, “come on. Don’t look like you’ve lost your last friend. This is something that we ought to have known. That we ought to have been prepared for, if we’d stopped to think. You think about it, will you?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “Heykus, my youngest son was one of the charter group. And I’m ashamed of myself, as his father, for ever thinking it would work and allowing him to be involved.”

  “Tell m
e.”

  “Well . . . the linguists have an accurate analogy that they always use.”

  Heykus nodded. “The circus families.”

  “Yeah. The old circus families—hell, I don’t know why I put it that way, they’re still going strong. After hundreds of years. Just as the linguists, Heykus, will still be going strong hundreds of years from now. Look, a linguist kid is born into an enviroment where all that anybody does is work with languages. He stays in that environment, is educated there, has all his social life there; he doesn’t even know anybody who isn’t part of that environment except in the most superficial way. The indoctrination is total, from day one, every day of those kids’ lives, and there’s a whole peer group all in the same bucket to shore it up. Traditions. A long family history. But when my boy comes home from the interpreting booth all excited about the interpositional classifiers or whatever the hell it is, who’s he supposed to talk to? Sure, there’s some glamour to it for a while, but it wears off in a hurry. And any normal kid sees, real quick, that it’s not as much glamour as he could find if he went out to the colonies, or went into the Space Corps, or did any one of a hundred other things that are readily available to him.”

  Lo Chen spoke up to add support. “He’s right, my friends. And he’s right to say that we ought to have known. You know what it’s like? It’s like we had volunteered all those boys for the priesthood . . . celibacy, poverty, obedience, the whole bag . . . and had expected them nevertheless to go on living out in the world where everybody else has full access to all the goodies. And we were counting on the glamour to carry them through, don’t you see? The linguist children are in communities, where the constant sacrifices they make are sacrifices everybody else is making. Our kids are not in that situation. They have to spend their time off duty in the company of their siblings and their friends; they’re all alone. Heykus—this whole thing was a really dumb idea.”

  Heykus was being very quiet. He was being careful not to talk, or move. This was difficult for him; because he was a man who did have an avocation, and he had to continue to perform in this discussion as would a man who had none. He could not sit here and continue to feel that those little boys should have been thankful to the bottom of their hearts for the opportunity to carry out the Lord’s holy work. It wasn’t like that for them. They had a different view of things. No angel had dropped by to speak to any of them. And this was not the only aspect of deliberate deceit that he was obligated to maintain.