by Ed Hurst
Chapter 7
Tim was scheduled to address an open forum. His instructor had been teaching a series of lectures and, given Tim’s sudden exposure to a wider audience, asked him to present a session on his proposal.
It was one of the larger lecture halls and Harp showed up early. She had changed clothes since he had last seen her at breakfast. This outfit was dressy. While it didn’t accentuate her fit young body, it also did nothing to hide it. Tim took this as the sign of pride in him it was meant to convey. Sitting at the front he beamed at her with the warmth only a doting brother could bear. She waved and took a seat on the front row far to the left end.
The place was filling up quickly. Out of the milling crowd the two young outsiders appeared. She groaned inwardly but kept her composure. The shorter one sat beside her while the taller sat one seat behind. She recognized this as a subtle form of intimidation, but was determined to take the initiative. “Hello, boys.”
She cut her eyes to one side and caught sight of Nthanda. She waved, making a subtle gesture with her fingers that the boys never noticed. Nthanda touched his chin with two fingers, then turned and spoke to a pair of men next to him. With one final gesture, he slipped back out the door to the lecture hall.
“Hello, princess,” oozed the shorter one next to her.
The professor stood up to the podium and room began to settle down. She said quietly, “Boys, if you expect to stick around here much you’ll have to make sure you understand this lecture. Miss the point and you won’t understand anything else.” Then she placed a finger over lips to shush them.
These days the advanced electronics didn’t require any visible means of amplification, but even without it, no one would have missed a thing. This unassuming little man boomed easily over the dying hubbub. “Welcome to this episode of describing the unspeakable.”
The audience chuckled. While the official title of the lecture series was “Indicative versus Descriptive Language,” he had been using alternative terminology with each session to emphasize something funny from the previous one.
He went on, “Today I’ve asked my understudy, Tympano, to address you on a salient point that could come dangerously close to obviating any further sessions, and all my lovely lectures can be put aside.” He made a motion of throwing something over his shoulder. The crowd chuckled again, and then applauded as Tim stood up.
Out of the corner of her eye Harp noticed the young outsider next to her had turned with one raised eyebrow at his partner behind at the mention of her brother’s name.
The large display screen behind and above his head came to life as Tim gestured behind his back. “First, I am truly grateful for your support, folks. What I thought had been a quickly and poorly hashed out research paper seems to have agitated folks more for what I managed to convey than for my poor writing skills. Now I find myself in the middle of a maelstrom when all I was doing was trying to make it easier to reach the world around us with our message.”
Harp almost didn’t know her brother when he got up to speak to a large audience. He had always been charming enough to her despite his alien aloofness, but suddenly it was if a field of charisma was energized around him.
He raised his hand to demonstrate the expected response when he asked, “Is there anyone who hasn’t read my latest comments?” The text of his terse response to the questions about his previous paper was displayed on the screen behind him. When no one responded, he simply smiled broadly. “Good. You’ll recognize these ideas.” He mentioned a couple of points, which were highlighted and zoomed with precision, as he guided the display with subtle gestures. They folded so naturally into his movements that Harp found herself awed. A live presentation by this author was far more interesting than merely reading his writing, which had been engaging enough. He had most certainly learned his linguistics.
The essence of his speech was an appeal for The Brotherhood to support an enhanced outreach to the world. No one was suggesting they leave behind their ancient teachings, nor even the documents. Rather, it was more than merely translating words, but using culturally appropriate terms. The screen flashed sections of text from the ancient, and then overlaid his suggested restatement of the same ideas. His last comment was, “Instead of saying ‘spiritually aware’ we generate less resistance if we said ‘quantum logic.’ Obviously the appetites of the body and the reasoning of the intellect are not enough. We need those higher faculties that begin with intuition and range on up beyond what human speech can bear. That’s how we’ve been living for generations, no?”
Had it been anyone but this particular group, the murmured assent from the audience would have been a thundering amen. Still, it had the same effect. Tim was not given to manipulation, but he was easily quite convincing. “It’s not a panacea; there is no magic formula. But there’s no reason to raise artificial barriers when it’s not that hard to carry translation one step farther.”
With a flourish of his hands, it was clearly over and the professor rose first in standing ovation. The crowd followed his cue and Tim bowed and stepped back. A handful of folks crowded around him and Harp darted through this press to escape the two guys. But to no avail, for they were like bloodhounds following her out the door. They managed to catch her at the corner of the hallway, blocking her path.
“Hey, princess, wait! You know that guy giving the speech in there?”
“Of course. He’s my brother, Tim.”
“Wow, you really are something special. Hey, could we go somewhere and talk some more about this?” The shorter one was downright pushy.
She held her poise. “Talk all you want, but where I’m going you aren’t welcome.” She started to move past them, but the short fellow reached up a hand and tried to restrain her.
She was surprised by her own speed of movement, striking the hollow of his wrist very sharply and forcefully with the middle knuckle of her fist.
“Ow! Hey, wait…”
From around the corner Nthanda crept up behind them and put a huge paw on the shoulder of each one. His huge grinning face hovered over theirs as they cringed. He held them tightly as Harp walked away. She was obscured by two beefy assistants who trapped the outsiders against Nthanda. Then with undeniable force he turned the two to face him.
“We are so happy to have you gentlemen with us today! Now, I was just wondering if someone forgot to tell you of our protocols here. Did you actually try to touch that girl?”
While the boys stammered out a response, Harp was out of earshot and had no interest. She had spotted someone in the crowd and ran to catch up to him. With all her feminine charm, she grabbed his arm and bent it up, wrapping her other hand through the crook of his elbow.
“Gregory! I haven’t seen you in ages.”
The man turned with a surprised grin. “Harp! My soul how you’ve grown up, girl.”
“Have you seen Daddy? I know we’ve all missed you so much.”
Gregory shrugged. “He’s the one whose been keeping me so busy. I just came through the portal in time to catch the tail end of that lecture. Was that little Tim?”
“Wasn’t he great? C’mon. Let’s go find Dad.” As she led him away toward the living quarters, she chattered excitedly about Tim’s lecture. Aside from that, the last few minutes of her life faded away like the ghosts of a badly written cheap novel.