Explorer

by C. J. Cherryh

  God help him. More to the point, God help the people he represented. He began, for the first time, to believe he’d undertaken the humanly impossible.

  He couldn’t figure the past tense. He suspected a similar difficulty. And began to suspect Prakuyo’s language, besides having an array of nots, didn’t use I, was shaky on you, and worse, took truly emotional exception about he and they.

  Which wasn’t wholly a linguistic worry. It was, granted Prakuyo was sane, a window into a mentality that really wasn’t quite human or atevi, that had all along had trouble with that he-they concept, and wasn’t happy with the you-word, either.

  That was where they’d taken their last break. And his brain was fogging. He had a hundred and one methods for getting vocabulary out of an interview and he didn’t know how to get past the pronoun problem. It seemed one of those right-wrong things, one of those trained-from-birth things, downright invisible to the owner of the reactions, but yes, Prakuyo got upset about pronouns, and, complicating matters, in adult Ragi, their preferred language of communication, atevi continually shifted the number of persons in you or me.

  And somewhere in the hard-wiring of Prakuyo’s own massive body, this damnable elusive quantity was, clearly, so simple—if one were Prakuyo. If one’s brain had the sights and sounds and smells and emotional context of being Prakuyo. Which a human hadn’t, and wasn’t, by a long shot.

  “We.” Prakuyo said that last in ship-speak. And pointed at him, and Banichi and Jago.

  Wrong. That should be a you, and he opened his mouth to say so.

  And shut it. Prakuyo looked—dared one think—quite earnest about that mistake.

  Bren followed a gut instinct. Pointed to himself and Banichi and Jago. “We.” To himself and Prakuyo and Banichi and Jago. “We.”

  Prakuyo got up quickly, making that alarmed booming sound. Banichi and Jago were on their feet just as fast.

  But Prakuyo subsided back into his chair as if the air had been let out of him, and thrummed and boomed and clenched his hands together in front of his mouth—not pleased. Or at least—not feeling particularly stable at the moment.

  And at a loss for words.

  “Not we?” Bren pushed the point.

  He won a dark-eyed, distraught look.

  Banichi and Jago sat back down, stoic and impeccable.

  “We.” That word again, indicating him, Banichi and Jago, but not including Prakuyo.

  Don’t include me. Don’t assimilate me. Don’t absorb me.

  We—some quality of we—was as disturbing to Prakuyo as it was ordinary and all but invisible to humans and atevi. But not a take-for-granted among atevi; and not, even in his lifetime, an easy given between humans and atevi. A fogged brain began to gather, beyond the obvious answer of a xenophobia Prakuyo never had demonstrated, that he simply had no wish to be included, and did not give his consent to be included. That somehow, with him and with his kind, we was a fenced-off, difficult word that might imply anything from visceral distaste to outright hatred of outsiders—no evidence in Prakuyo for that; though that hole in the station might attest differently.

  What was behind that reaction? Prakuyo’s wrist was as large as a human upper arm. Strength, immense strength: this wasn’t a species that, in its evolution, easily hid or ran; it might, perhaps, take direct solutions; but with complementary delicacy, these hands had built spaceships. Prakuyo’s kind must have made pots, learned agriculture, domesticated animals, made villages, made towns, made cities, made whatever political structures let Prakuyo’s kind cooperate and launch itself into space.

  But Prakuyo’s people had trouble including other species with itself.

  Or Prakuyo had trouble being included by others, or by them, specifically.

  Politics? Social structure? Something that disgusted or frightened?

  Prakuyo, however, was willing to sublimate that feeling enough to talk, to learn, even to express enjoyment.

  And suddenly something reverberated through the hull, a deep, distant shock. Banichi and Jago both got up, and Banichi left them.

  A shot? Bren wondered with a chill. Hostilities with the station, or had that ship out there moved in and simply decided to blow its own way into the hull?

  Was all time up?

  Prakuyo was incapable of looking worried, in human terms, but he looked at the door, looked about him, the same.

  “Hear,” Bren acknowledged the event. He had not yet gotten words for know and not know, was unsure of those pesky soft-tissue conditionals if and then. His attempt to extract them with a flow chart had produced uncertain results—which, along with the absence of pronouns, could mean bad news. A set of conditionals that didn’t jibe with Mosphei’, which was relatively simple, nor Ragi, which wasn’t simple at all. If that was an explosion, nadiin, then we have a problem . . .

  He was losing his focus, getting wobbly.

  “Nandi,” Jago said, from the doorway, and he looked at her. “Jase reports that the alien craft has arrived and established a connection.”

  Adrenaline ran like static through nerves already on overload.

  Then the habits of the aiji’s court came to the rescue, providing stability for a small bow, an utter microfocus on the Prakuyo matter. “Prakuyo ship, Prakuyo-ji. It has come. Go up.”

  Prakuyo absorbed that information and solemnly rose. Bren started for the door, then remembered the notes, frantically gathered them up and gave them to Jago as they reached the door. “These must get to Jase. To C2.”

  “Yes,” Jago said.

  As their party ran up against the resident seven-year-old, rigged out in lace and red and black brocade, and behind Cajeiri his great-grandmother, in much the same, with gold; and behind the dowager, Cenedi and reinforcements.

  The dowager didn’t move that fast. Someone had been in close touch with Jase while he had been locked in the throes of new vocabulary.

  “This has gone on long enough,” Ilisidi said, and banged her cane against the deck. “We have our invitation, one supposes, since the ship has complied with Jase-aiji’s instruction. Prakuyo-ji, we shall see this ship of yours and settle this business.”

  Prakuyo bowed, deeply, even gracefully. The change in dress had provoked no comment—of course the staff had come up with something suitable: the dowager expected such miracles, and was prepared to lead the way.

  “My best car,” Cajeiri said, holding it safely in his arms. A bow. Very best behavior, as well.

  Banichi came out of the security station and quietly waited for them.

  A second stamp of the dowager’s cane, a motion down the corridor toward the door. “Well,” she said. “Shall we dither here, or have this business on the road?”

  “Nandi,” Bren murmured, and drew a deep breath, and fell in with her, and with Prakuyo, Cajeiri closing up ranks and staying rather closer to his great-grandmother—not a swift progress: not in the dowager’s company, but steady. They gathered up Banichi by the security station, and how the papers got passed, or what arrangements flew in a handful of words between Jago and Asicho, he had no idea, but he trusted the ship would ultimately have diagrams if he needed them.

  The guards at the farthest doors opened them, and they walked to the lift and requested a car. Bren drew out his pocket com and requested through to Jase during the wait.

  “Jase,” he said, “I understand we’ve got a connection to the ship. We’re on our way. Looking reasonably good. Got some graphics coming up to you.”

  “We’ll handle it,” Jase said. “Bren. Bren, take very good care. I wish I was backing you.”

  “You are,” Bren said. “No question. Our car’s coming. Which lock?”

  “Number 3. That’s 243 on the pad. We’re watching you, far as we can. Good luck.”

  “Good luck to all of us. Back in a few hours. Or not. If not, don’t do anything. Let me work it out. I’ll do it.”

  “I trust you,” Jase said; and the lift door opened. “A few hours.”

  The last in Ragi. E
nd of the conversation. He thumbed the unit off as he escorted the dowager and Prakuyo through the doors. Cajeiri next. Their bodyguard. He cast a look at Banichi, looking for signs of wear, and found none evident.

  He couldn’t afford to divert his attention. Made up his mind not to. He wondered if he should have brought a heavy coat. Then recalled that Prakuyo was quite comfortable in five-deck temperatures.

  Prakuyo, at the moment, looked from the doors to them and back again, agitated, anxious—dared one say, joyous? One certainly hoped so.

  Long, long ride.

  “How far up—” Cajeiri began to ask, and the dowager’s cane hit the decking. Young arms clenched the car close; young head bowed. “One forgot, mani-ma.”

  “Then one’s attention was not on one’s instructions. This will be a strange place, and no questions. Think matters through, young sir.”

  One did not answer the boy’s question, no matter how tempted, in the face of the dowager’s reprimand.

  One simply took that advice for oneself. A strange place, and no questions, indeed. No ability to ask. No words.

  But hope. There was that.

  The car slowed. The illusion of gravity slowly left them. Bren found his heart pounding and his hands sweating, a fact he chose not to make evident. Cajeiri, who had seen zero-g, restrained himself admirably.

  Bren doggedly smiled at Prakuyo drifting next to him, at Banichi and Jago who, one noted, wore no visible armament, no more than the dowager’s guard—a peace delegation, Ragi-style; but he wasn’t sure they’d pass a security scan. Which was Ragi-style, too.

  Doors opened. A handful of Phoenix crewmen met them, drifting near the doors. They had sidearms, but nothing ostentatious. They were there to operate the locks for them; and to sound an alarm, one suspected, if anything went massively wrong.

  “Good luck, sir. Ma’am. Sir.” The last, dubiously, toward Prakuyo. With a bow. Ship’s crew had learned such manners with the atevi.

  “Good,” Prakuyo rumbled, as they drifted into the chamber, breaths frosting into little clouds.

  Machinery worked and the doors behind them hissed and sealed, ominous sound. No panic, Bren said to himself, thinking strangely of the hiss of the surf on the North Shore. Sunset. Sea wind.

  Pumps worked only a moment; and the doors unsealed facing them.

  The air that met them made an ice film on every surface, stung the fingers. Prakuyo bounded along, catching handgrips, and the dowager simply allowed Cenedi to draw her along, while Cajeiri was quite content to help himself. Bren managed, teeth chattering, wishing there were a conveyor line.

  Long, long progress; and one had the overwhelming feeling of being watched throughout, watched, analyzed for weakness, and the human in the party was determined not to show how very fast he chilled through.

  They were arriving, finally, at an end, a chamber with a metal grid, and Prakuyo entered it cheerfully, beckoned them in and showed them to hold on.

  Good idea. Doors banged shut, the whole affair began to move and spun about violently, under unpleasantly heavy acceleration to give them a floor, after which the air that came wafting from the vents came thick as a swamp, still freezing where it hit metal and condensed.

  Rough braking. Cenedi supported the dowager, Cajeiri had to catch himself, and Bren just held on.

  They weighed too much. The air was thick as a swamp at midnight. Doors whined and banged open on a dim, dank place, dark blue-green floor, dark greenish blue walls intermittent with deeper shadow—a succession of edge-on panels, the light so dim it fooled the eye.

  A deep rumbling came from all around, and what might be words. Prakuyo bowed deeply, walked forward a step, and out of the shadows a distance removed appeared a solitary, cloaked figure, with Prakuyo’s face, and Prakuyo’s bulk.

  “Stop here,” Ilisidi advised, and the paidhi thoroughly agreed: no one should go further, but Prakuyo, who walked a few paces on, bowed again.

  Said a handful of words, it might be, underlain with thrumming and booming.

  Stark silence from the other side. And as silently—more cloaked individuals from behind the standing panels, and more voices, more booming and rumbling until the floor seemed to vibrate.

  Not good, Bren thought, standing very still, not good if Prakuyo left them. It was not a comfortable place, even to stand. He felt as if he’d gained fifty pounds. The dowager’s joints would by no means take this kindly.

  But Prakuyo extended an arm toward them—beckoning, one thought. “Dowager-ji,” Bren said quietly, and moved forward a little. And bowed, as Prakuyo had. One trusted the dowager gave a slight courtesy. Their bodyguards, by custom, would not, until the situation was certain.

  “Introduce us,” the dowager said, “paidhi-aiji.”

  “Indeed,” Bren said. He walked forward a step, and bowed, trying to assemble recently gained words. “Bren,” he said, laying a hand on his chest. “From human and atevi ship. Good stand here.”

  One hoped not to have made a vocabulary mistake. An immediate murmur went through the gathering, a visible shifting of stance.

  “Ilisidi, ateva, comes, says good on Prakuyo ship.”

  Ilisidi walked forward a pace, bringing Cajeiri with her, offering a little nod. Cajeiri, wide-eyed, made a little bow of his own, car clutched firmly against his ribs, and wisely kept very quiet.

  Prakuyo, however, had a deal to say. He waved an arm and talked—one could pick out words—about the station, about going to the ship, about them, by name and individually: he talked passionately, thrumming softly under his breath, and walked from this side to the other, finally demonstrating his own person.

  “Bren,” Prakuyo said then. “Come. Come talk. Say.”

  Bren drew a breath, walked to Prakuyo’s side, and gave another bow to the one who had appeared first, the one Prakuyo had addressed. “Bren Cameron,” he said, a hand on himself. “Good Prakuyo on Prakuyo ship.” Never using that chancy we. Never having found Prakuyo’s word for the same. “Bren, Ilisidi take humans from station to ship. Ship goes far, far. No fight.”

  That other person spoke, not two words intelligible, and not thoroughly warm and welcoming, either.

  Prakuyo clapped a heavy hand on Bren’s shoulder, a comfort, considering the ominous murmur around about; and Prakuyo talked rapidly—shocking his hearers, to judge by the reaction.

  “Calm,” Bren said in Ragi. “One asks helpful calm.”

  “Calm,” Prakuyo agreed—knowing that word, it turned out. And launched on an oration in his own language, his one hand holding Bren steady, his word-choice something about station and Madison, quite angrily—then something about Ilisidi, and Bren, about Bindanda—perhaps about teacakes, for all Bren could tell, and a torrent besides that.

  There was an argument, a clear argument going on.

  And one had to think that for well over six years neither humans nor Prakuyo’s species had made sense to each other, and that the reason they were all standing here in this fix might well have had to do with a now-deceased captain poking about in solar neighborhoods that weren’t his—it wasn’t just Prakuyo’s grievance; it was likely a number of Prakuyo’s people with complaints about the goings-on.

  Prakuyo, however, let him go, and engaged in noisy argument with several others. Bren tried to decide whether it was prudent to get out of the way; but then Ilisidi moved, slowly, considerately, with Cajeiri, and Banichi and Jago found opportunity to move up into his vicinity: but a person used to the Assassins’ Guild noted Cenedi had not moved with the group—Cenedi had stayed back there with his partner, nearer the door, and most certainly was armed.

  “Not come fight,” Bren interjected into Prakuyo’s argument, seeing tension rising on this side and that, and at a light tap of the dowager’s cane, wanting his attention, interposed a translation. “Dowager-ma, I am attempting to assert our benevolent intentions. They are discussing what happened here. Prakuyo-nadi seems to be taking a favorable position. But we have no idea what Ramirez-aiji may have do
ne to provoke this: I am suspicious he, rather than the station, triggered hostilities.”

  “Pish.” A wave of the hand. “One cares very little what they and humans did.” Bang went the cane. “Now we are annoyed, and we wish a sensible cessation.”

  There was a moment’s startled silence. Prakuyo said something involving Ilisidi, and Cajeiri, and something Bren couldn’t remotely follow—a rapidfire something that brought a closer general attention on Ilisidi and the boy.

  Then came what might be questions from the senior personage, involving Ilisidi and the boy. And him. And Banichi and Jago. They were short of vocabulary and on very, very dangerous ground, and the argument concerning them was getting altogether past them. Not good.

  “Nand’ Prakuyo.” Respectfully, since Prakuyo was clearly a person able to give and take with the leadership of this vessel. “Say to this person that humans and atevi go away. Not want to fight. Want to go soon.”

  “We,” Prakuyo said, and said a word of his own language, indicating himself and all the others. Then that same word including Bren and Ilisidi and all the rest. And something more complicated, more emphatic, that provoked strong reaction, dismay.

  Damn, Bren thought, wondering what that past argument about we and they might have produced here. Prakuyo’s folk didn’t like that word. Passionately didn’t want to be lumped together with non-whatever-they-were. Prakuyo hadn’t been for it, either.

  But Prakuyo argued with the idea now. Argued, with occasional booms from deep in his chest that sounded more deeply angry than mournful. And finally gave a wave of his hand, ending argument, producing some instruction to the onlookers.

  “Drink,” Prakuyo said, “come drink.”

  Was that the resolution? An offering so deep in the roots of civilized basics it resonated across species lines?

  “Nandi,” he said to Ilisidi, “we are possibly offered refreshment, which in my best judgment would not be wise to refuse.”

  “About time,” Ilisidi said, hands braced on her cane. “Great-grandson?”