Analog SFF, July-August 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  If a Kevhtre could look smug, Marcus had just seen it. “Inexpensive how? It's giving you and others a poisonous reputation on Earth.” He saw Bunwadde's look change. “I'm sorry. I think I overstepped there."

  Bunwadde waved a big hand. “No, it's plain you need to clear your nose on this. Speak freely."

  Marcus needed a second to recover from Bunwadde's metaphor. “It's the opinion of a great many humans. They think Kevhtre Union traders are exploiting them, carrying off our culture for nothing. Video programs, music, literature—"

  “But how can that be,” Bunwadde said, “when Earth's own courts declared that the copyright protections you claim did not exist?"

  Marcus couldn't deny that. There had been language in copyright law and contracts extending protection throughout the universe, or similar concepts. Courts had struck down such language as arbitrarily broad, not long before the Kevh made first contact. Attempts had been made to reinstate that language, now that the concept wasn't so theoretical. The courts were blocking those on the grounds that the language now amounted to deliberate discrimination against the Kevhtre Union.

  “Obviously, the judges were wrong,” Marcus said. “They lacked imagination. I don't see why Earth needs to suffer for their short-sightedness."

  “If they were so short-sighted, how did they contrive to become such powerful arbiters?” Bunwadde stood. “I can appreciate your frustration, but humans have to live within the system they chose for themselves."

  Marcus sighed. “Perhaps so, but that doesn't mean you must exploit that system to the limit.” That stiffened Bunwadde's bristles. “I don't think I'm saying anything bizarre. As a businessman, surely you know the value of good will."

  “I do. My exhibiting it, however, would not achieve what you want."

  “Why not? You'd gain the gratitude of a lot of humans, who'd be much more willing—"

  “Marcus Parrish, you are a smarter businessman than that. Maybe your trouble with our language is confusing you.” Before Marcus could reply in anger, Bunwadde switched to English. “If I stopped obtaining exposed intellectual properties, it might gain me something in other areas, though probably not enough to compensate. But others would fill the space I had left. It only takes one, and you won't convince all my competitors to stop—any more than you'll convince me."

  The next argument didn't come to Marcus. He didn't see one. Defeated, he looked back at the manifest. “I can only hope your customers on Obrith appreciate human writing."

  “They like the video and audio productions more,” Bunwadde said. “The writing is a smaller market, though there are some who enjoy human craft in that."

  “Craft? We like to think of it as more creative than that."

  “As art?” Bunwadde huffed through his nose. “There's no art in human writing, especially when the authors try to make art of it."

  “Well, I don't—"

  Bunwadde reached back with a double-jointed arm for a data pad. “I think I've kept you far too long. Get started on that manifest. I'll see you at home tonight."

  Marcus had preliminary notes ready by evening, and expected Bunwadde to want to see his progress. He had other plans.

  “Marcus plays String of Pearls,” Bunwadde told his family at the supper table. “I thought we could all play a game of it with him tonight."

  Milinor looked delighted, and Pesh quite agreeable. “Can someone teach me how to play?” Movedhor said.

  “There's only room for four to play,” Milinor told her. “You'll have to stay upstairs with Tropid."

  “Mom!"

  “Movedhor can help you play, Milinor,” Pesh said firmly.

  “And you can teach me, too,” Movedhor added in the same tone. Milinor sulked.

  By the time everyone was downstairs in the living room, Milinor was reconciled to the arrangement, and was explaining the game to her sister with only the occasional help of her father. Marcus sat opposite the children, while the adults set up the board.

  “Tazpet nulh chomaken. Uredha lustodon?"

  Bunwadde quietly told Milinor to answer. “Gosho lustodon,” she sang out.

  “Kuss. Groa vat lusto ibegi."

  Milinor cheered as though she had just won the game. Movedhor cheered along with her. Milinor let her sister pick the tiles, then played four up the left-hand leg of the triangle for nine points. Pesh extended the play by three tiles, scoring nineteen.

  That gave Marcus a good six-tile play, or so he hoped. It involved making a subsidiary three-word sentence, but its structure looked safe. He played it, and the board promptly razzed it off. Milinor and Movedhor laughed, their squeaky barks worse on Marcus's nerves than the board's rejection tune had been.

  “Stop that!” said Pesh. “You won't be allowed to play if—"

  “Let me handle this,” Bunwadde said. “Girls, remember, our guest is human. Humans have trouble with our language. Now play nicely."

  “Yes, Father,” they said. Neither one apologized.

  Bunwadde seemed satisfied, as he promptly turned to his play. Three tiles went down near the top, making five sentences in all three directions, every one good. “Thirty-five,” said the board, and Marcus couldn't help being impressed.

  Tropid walked in from the kitchen. “I heard your commotion,” he said to the youngsters. “Are you being unruly?"

  “They're fine, Tropid,” Bunwadde said. “Thank you."

  Tropid was about to withdraw, before spying the play Milinor was starting to make. “Remember what I taught you yesterday, Milinor?"

  She stopped, got a serious look, and took back her tiles. Marcus opened his mouth, but felt Bunwadde's heavy hand on his arm. He might not have had the nerve to object to Tropid's meddling, but now he certainly didn't.

  She finally laid down a two-tile extension. “If it's not good,” she said to Marcus, “don't laugh."

  “I would not laugh at you,” he said, rather tartly.

  Movedhor hooted softly. “What if he played that?” she stage-whispered to her sister. Milinor didn't reply, and hit “Lustep.” The play was good, earning both their cheers.

  Marcus's play turned cautious. The cramped, difficult board bequeathed by Bunwadde's play contributed early. Even after Bunwadde opened it up, at some cost to himself, Marcus went for acceptable plays, not high scores. It was his goal not to be laughed at again that game.

  Once he lost that goal mid-game, his fallback was not to finish last to Milinor. He did not get much help.

  “Father, what do I do with this?” Milinor turned her dish so he could see inside. Bunwadde leaned in and whispered his advice, then gave Marcus a look that dared him to protest. He didn't.

  That play put Milinor in third, and she stayed there until the tile bag was empty. She made a play to go twenty ahead of Marcus, but he saw two ways to play his last four tiles. Both scored better than twenty, and no play by Pesh could possibly block them both.

  He sighed—then gasped, as Pesh took all seven tiles out of her dish and laid them on the grid. He was too stunned to hear the board announce the final scores.

  “One point, Platp,” Bunwadde said. “Excellent play.” Dimly, Marcus was aware that Pesh had just beaten her husband.

  “And I beat Marcus, right?” Milinor chimed in.

  “Listen again.” Bunwadde got the board to repeat the score. Milinor shrieked with joy, and began capering around the room, Movedhor right behind her. Bunwadde joined in her celebration, picking her up and doing his own heavy-footed dance.

  Marcus just sat, watching, listening, burning.

  * * * *

  Work was not a very good salve that time, even though there was lots of it. Bunwadde's incoming shipment was large, and notations for all of them took time, even where Marcus's knowledge was thin. Neither was he in a mood to confess ignorance, on anything.

  He delivered a preliminary list to Bunwadde late that day. “I should have the full descriptions done by the end of tomorrow,” he said, “but that's a good start."

 
Bunwadde's head made a slight, vaguely affirmative motion. “It is satisfactory for now. Platp and I can work on this during restday."

  Marcus hadn't noted the calendar. “Will I be coming in to work tomorrow, sir?"

  “I don't see the point. Almost nobody will be here."

  “I see. Still, I should bring the files home. I'll be able to finish up there, pretty easily."

  “Yes. Good."

  Marcus didn't like the growing sense of detachment. “We might even have time for another game tomorrow. I hope it can be just us. I find I learn—"

  “I'm sorry, Marcus,” Bunwadde said, standing up, “but I'm not interested in any more games with you."

  Marcus felt himself shrivel. “I'm sorry if it was presumptuous of me to ask that way."

  “It was, but that is not why I refused. I would not enjoy another game.” His mouth took on a downward curl. “I do not find it a challenge."

  It was like being punched in the gut, slowly. Marcus tipped his head. “I understand, sir,” he said, and made for the door, carrying all the dignity he could.

  “However,” Bunwadde said, catching him at the threshold, “I don't mean to frustrate your hobby. I will see to it that you get to play."

  * * * *

  Milinor cupped her hand over the raised edge of her tile dish, and lowered her head. “Don't peek,” she said, with a crafty look.

  Marcus didn't protest his innocence, but leaned back in his chair to show he wasn't looking over her hand. It gave him a twinge in his knees. The furniture in the upstairs study room was scaled for the children. That made it a little better for humans than the adult furnishings, but it was still built wrong for him.

  While Marcus rubbed a sore leg, Milinor picked up five tiles and arranged them on the board. She then sat, looking at them, frowning. When Tropid came in to collect some books, she called out to him, “Is this right?"

  Tropid looked at the board, then briefly at Marcus. “It would not be fair for me to say, Milinor. This is your game, not mine."

  “But you told me the last time!"

  Tropid grew stern. “Remember, Milinor, your father said you could have these games with Marcus if you behaved yourself."

  Pouting, Milinor turned away from Tropid and pressed “Lustep.” The play was good, lifting her spirits and extending her lead to twenty-nine.

  Marcus looked his dish over again. He still didn't have anything very promising, except one play through Milinor's last sentence that would use all his tiles, in the unlikely event that the computer accepted it.

  It was late in the game. Without this play, he would probably lose. If he made it, and it stayed, he was almost sure to win after all. If it got kicked off, he was certain to lose, and he was just as sure how Milinor would react, whatever Tropid might think.

  Bunwadde would like it if he lost. Indeed, he expected it. He held Marcus's playing in contempt, and Marcus was growing sure that Bunwadde held him in contempt.

  He and Pesh were downstairs now, combing through his product descriptions. Marcus was useful to him, praiseworthy as far as he furthered Bunwadde's business, but nothing more. How could he be worth more? He was only human.

  Marcus stopped himself. Was that injured pride talking? Was he taking all the little wounds he had borne and building them into a grand edifice of paranoia and self-pity?

  The Kevhtre had humans overawed, and he was starting to fall into that mindset, the helpless victim. Even if Bunwadde were deliberately belittling him, this was just how he would want Marcus to feel. Well, he wouldn't play that role. He wouldn't be helpless, or afraid.

  He scooped up all his tiles and laid them down the board, all the way to the bottom row. Milinor moaned, but he eschewed anything that could even seem like gloating, and hit the button.

  “Invalid sentence. You lose your turn."

  Milinor did not eschew the gloating.

  * * * *

  “Welcome, Marc,” Jun Hua said behind the desk in his office. “Please have a seat. How was your trip in?"

  “Okay,” Marcus lied. He had been nauseated the whole way from Aghrelowa to the Terran Embassy in Ubhettid, not from airsickness, but from aversion to the debriefing to come.

  “Glad to hear it. It was good of Bunwadde to let you off for the morning."

  “They're unloading a cargo ship at the landing field. Bunwadde's supervising that, so he doesn't need his shill for a few hours."

  Jun Hua raised his eyebrows. “Shill? What's the matter? And do take a seat."

  Marcus paced over to the window, which mostly showed the building next door. “He had me writing descriptions of his incoming inventory. Turns out I was writing the first draft of a script: my own. He means me to be the presenter for those items in his network catalog."

  “Then Bunwadde finds you useful,” Jun Hua said, almost smiling. “Isn't that good?"

  “He finds me convenient. I'm a human face, and voice, to lend an air of exotic authenticity to his wares. My actual expertise is secondary, if how little of my report made the script is any indication."

  “But certainly you—Marc, either sit down or stop pacing so at least I can go stand next to you.” Still fuming, Marcus dropped himself into the chair, swiveling it so he looked at the side wall, not Jun. “You understood Bunwadde was hiring you to help his business from the start."

  “I did, but I didn't think he'd—” He sagged into the chair, not even noticing that it was made for humans, and didn't torment his back or legs. “I thought I would be an advisor, not a mouthpiece."

  “Does he have you speaking Vetra or English?"

  “Oh, Vetra. He trusts me to do that from a script."

  “Ah. Can I infer from that that Bunwadde trusts you less to speak Vetra in other circumstances?"

  “Infer what you will,” Marcus grumbled.

  “I shouldn't have to,” Jun Hua said. “You're here to inform me fully about your progress. If we don't get that information, I can have the embassy invalidate your visa. It wouldn't help your career back on Earth to have an expulsion from Obrith on your record."

  “In some quarters it might,” Marcus answered, but his heart wasn't in the retort, and Jun Hua could tell.

  “Answer my question, Marc. Are you making progress in mastering Vetra syntax?"

  Marcus seemed to examine the floor. “No. None that I've noticed."

  “Is String of Pearls not helping your studies?"

  He tried to hide a wince. “It's not giving me any special insights. I'm working on it. I've gotten to play several games."

  “Against Bunwadde?” Jun Hua asked. “And did you win?"

  “Two against Bunwadde. And I didn't beat him.” He didn't mention his games with Milinor. He had actually won his first one yesterday, by all of two points. His ego wasn't so far gone that he would try to brag about that.

  “Did you keep the games respectable?"

  Marcus finally looked at Jun Hua, who didn't bother trying to wipe the faint, supercilious smile from his face. “Are you enjoying this, Jun?"

  The smile opened a little, like a flower to sun. “The Language Section has endured a lot of scorn from humans—especially some business people—for not solving Vetra syntax. When such people learn for themselves the intractability of the matter ... well, it's only human to feel a little vindicated."

  Marcus's nausea came back in full force. “Not very professional of you, is it?"

  “Better a little professional than completely amateur.” Jun Hua picked up a tablet. “So tell me about these games, Marc. Each one, please."

  Marcus thought for a moment whether his career could actually be advanced by getting tossed off the planet. It might, if he could somehow repay the travel costs to and from Obrith that the Language Section, for now, was carrying for him. He didn't doubt they would soak him with that.

  “I'm waiting."

  No matter how he ran the numbers, he couldn't make them add up. Willing his stomach to behave, Marcus started to recap his games.

 
* * * *

  Marcus didn't eat much at dinner that night. He did take double helpings of water, to soothe a mouth and throat strained by several hours of recitations for the catalog. Declining Milinor's offer of a game, he took to his room early.

  He began his nightly language studies, but could scarcely concentrate on his texts. There seemed no point to trying. The gulf was too wide. Finally he pushed the tablets aside, and pulled out his String of Pearls set.

  With the game's volume so low even he could barely hear it, Marcus started experimenting. He would lay out a sentence, see if it was good, then reset the game and try it in a different arrangement. He marked down the versions that were syntactically proper on a tablet, and moved on to another sentence, and another.

  He searched for patterns in the valid sentences, but they remained as elusive as ever. Sentence structures that worked often became invalid when he substituted a new subject or verb, or even a preposition one time. He could not see the rules.

  Marcus kept testing, despite seeing the hopelessness. One could learn a language's vocabulary by rote, but a variable grammar? He told himself that a sub-vocabulary of one hundred fourteen, all the words appearing on the tiles, was a place to start.

  He kept at it past midnight, and didn't get nearly enough sleep. It was an effort to give his catalog readings the same energy they had had the previous day, but he felt he was succeeding.

  Eshlarh, his assistant, grew edgy fast. “Take a rest, Marcus,” she said. “I will return soon.” She left the studio, her big slapping feet putting Marcus in mind of an agitated duck.

  Marcus stewed. Throughout the recordings, she had been acting like his boss, not vice versa. This was just one more order he resented.

  Eshlarh returned quickly. “Let's do a few more, fast,” she said, advancing the prompter text. “Bunwadde will be here soon. He'll have some encouragement for you."

  He didn't like how that sounded. He kept reciting, though with his first flubbed line of the day, until Bunwadde arrived. To Marcus's surprise, Bunwadde was carrying a small urn with insulated handles, and a cup perched on the top.

  “Maybe this will help,” Bunwadde said, setting things down on the shelf of a sink fixture. “It was part of the shipment bound for the Terran Embassy, but I have diverted a modest amount.” He waved Marcus over. “Have some."