“Yeah,” said Kylie. “Who cares? We’re all still on the List.”
“What time do the rankings come out?” I asked.
“Eight o’clock,” Rajani said. “They’re posting them outside the dining hall.”
“On paper? That’s old-school.”
“Hackers,” Kylie said succinctly.
I glanced around the dining hall again. “So is he here? Simon?”
Rajani scanned the other tables. “I don’t see him.”
“He’s probably polishing off Level Two.” Kylie stirred the ice at the bottom of her cup. “You should meet us tonight. See where we’re placed. You must be stopping off at a couple of starhavens. Who knows, maybe you’ll cross paths with one of us on your way home.”
“I hope so.” I wondered if the words rang as hollow as they felt. They ought to be true, but they weren’t. I didn’t want to cross paths with another human—not even a friend. I wanted my year among the Vardeshi to be whole and intact. I wanted them all to myself. I knew the impulse was selfish, and probably irrational. It was impossible to imagine how I would feel six months from now. I might be desperate for the company of another human.
I raced through my meal. As I began stacking dishes on my tray, Kylie grinned at me. “Leaving already? Go on, then. He’s more interesting than us anyway.”
“I just have so many questions—”
Rajani waved at me. “Go. You can tell us all about it tonight. Eight o’clock.”
“I’ll be there,” I promised.
When Zey entered the conference room, I stood up and tried out my Vardeshi salute. To my dismay, he laughed before returning the greeting. “What is it?” I said. “Did I do it wrong?”
“No, it’s just—strange. It’s like greeting a child. I keep looking for a sigil that isn’t there.”
“So tomorrow morning, when I meet everyone else on the Pinion, they’re all going to laugh at me? That’s not exactly the first impression I had in mind.”
“It’ll be fine. They’re going to be completely thrown by you anyway—I was. Most of them have never seen a human at close range, let alone one on our ship, wearing our uniform, speaking our language—which, by the way, you do much better than anyone said.”
“Really?” I said eagerly. “What did they tell you?”
“Not much, actually. Khavi Vekesh just said he’d chosen a human, a female, and that you were ‘the best of the lot.’ He said it like he didn’t think much of the selection. Saresh said he thought you’d fit in well. He was the one who said you spoke a little Vardeshi. But he didn’t tell us you were fluent. I think he wanted to let you impress the others.”
“That was nice of him.”
“I told you, he’s a good hadazi. He’s already looking out for you.”
“And what about Suvi Takheri?”
“Hathan? He didn’t say anything.”
“What does that mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just Hathan.”
“I don’t think he liked me,” I said. “He told the khavi to pick someone else.”
“He was probably just worried that you’d be out of your depth. They didn’t interview very many civilians.” Zey paused to see if any more questions were forthcoming, then said brightly, “All right, what’s next?”
“Next I think you need to tell me something about the Fleet. Is it military? Commercial? Who runs it? How does it work?”
Zey explained that the Vardeshi Stellar Fleet was essentially the merchant marine of their vast territories, facilitating commerce and transport on a massive scale. Nearly every ship that traveled in Vardeshi space was a Fleet ship, save for a handful of privately owned vessels and the small military force operated by the Echelon. Fleet ships were crewed by civilians and served civilian ends.
“Lots of our ships are passenger craft. Some carry cargo, some are mobile research stations. Most of them do a little bit of everything. Our territory is constantly expanding. Starhavens and colonies need resupplying. People need to get from one place to another. Crew jobs are competitive. There’s always work, it pays well, and if you’re young and want to travel, it’s the only way. Cross-system tickets aren’t cheap. ‘You’ll reach the stars, your credit bill won’t’—that’s one of the Fleet slogans.”
Zey told me that although crew positions were technically civilian in nature, the training regimen was intensive and highly standardized. The first and largest Fleet Institute was located on Vardesh Prime. He and his brothers had attended that one, along with most of the Pinion’s crew, but there were a half-dozen other Institutes scattered across Vardeshi space. Institute training comprised three years of instruction in everything from celestial navigation to computer programming to systems repair.
“Everyone learns the basics of every discipline. After graduation, you’re assigned to your first ship. You spend a year or two as a novi. During that time, you intern in one field and then another until you choose your specialization. Then you find a mentor who’s willing to take you on as an apprentice. For a few years, you follow your mentor from one ship to another. Eventually you’re ready to work on your own. Assuming you stay in the Fleet, that is. Lots of people find that after five or ten years of floating around in the dark, they’re ready to settle on solid ground.”
“The rank system seems pretty hierarchical for a civilian organization,” I said.
Zey nodded. “It has to be. Long-range space travel is incredibly stressful. Confined spaces, fraying tempers. The early years of expansion were chaotic. We learned pretty quickly that discipline has to be absolute or it’s worthless. The Fleet may be civilian, but it’s run like a military. Don’t forget that. If you’re given an order, follow it. Don’t question, don’t argue, don’t think you have a better idea. They teach you at the Institute that a good novi is punctual, respectful, and obedient, and human or not, that’s what Khavi Vekesh will expect. What’s wrong?”
While he’d been talking, I had slumped slowly forward until my forehead came to rest on the desk. Without moving, I said, in English, “This is impossible.”
“Impossible means . . . it cannot be done?”
“That’s right. It cannot be done. Not by me.” I switched back to our improvised argot. “The only reason I can understand anything you say is that you’re willing to say it three times in Vardeshi and once in English. And I know I’m still missing things. Khavi Veketh—”
“Vekesh,” Zey said patiently.
“Oh my God,” I groaned.
The sight of my distress sobered Zey for a moment. He reached out, very shyly, and placed his hand on top of mine. His touch was cool and light. I stared down at the elongated fingers and the double sigil stamped dark and gold against the milky blue-white of his skin. Is that it? I thought distractedly. The first touch of an alien hand? It sounded like the title of yet another overwrought Vardrama. I would have watched that one in high school, but I would have pretended that I didn’t. I fought down the hysterical laugh, or shriek, that was rising in my throat.
“Eyvri,” said Zey in careful English. “Hear me. It will be fine. You will be fine.”
“You just told me I’m supposed to be punctual, polite, and obedient! I don’t know how to be any of those things. We ran out of time to talk about the Vardeshi clock. You spent the whole morning teaching me manners, but all I remember is seventeen different ways to insult someone who outranks me. And I can’t obey orders I don’t understand. It’s not going to be fine. It’s going to be awful.”
“This was only the first day. We have many more things to talk about, true, but we will talk about them. We can talk to each other. That is what matters.”
“But I have so much to learn. And it’s going to take me so long. And Khavi—whatever his name is—will probably shove me out an airlock before I have time to learn anything.”
“Time,” said Zey, “is a resource we have in very great supply. Don’t worry. Just wear your uniform, bring your”—he gestured—“writing book, a
nd be ready to work hard. That will be enough. And,” he added with a gleam of irrepressible humor, “perhaps . . . practice saying ‘Vekesh.’”
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was after seven o’clock, much later than I’d realized, when Zey and I finally said good night. Stefan and a security officer were waiting outside to escort him back to his ship. Elena walked me to dinner. “I take it things are going well?” she said.
“I guess so,” I said dubiously. “Zey’s great, he was really helpful, but there’s just too much material to cover in one day. It’ll take months to get through all of it.”
“Just think how the other Strangers must feel.”
I shook my head. “I can’t even imagine. They’re braver than I am.”
“Says the woman who’s about to leave on a solo mission to a new planet,” Elena said lightly. “Are you going straight to the dormitory after dinner?”
“I’ll probably check out the assignment lists first. I told Kylie I’d meet her at eight.”
“Don’t stay too long,” Elena said. “You have one more appointment today.”
“What? How? Meeting with Zey was the last thing on the agenda. There’s nothing left to do. Except launch.”
“It’s a surprise.” She smiled at me. “Don’t worry, it’s a good one.”
I ate a pleasant solitary dinner in the dimly lit dining hall. The hour was late, and the room was empty save for a few support staff finishing their meals in a far corner. The quiet was a balm to my nerves after a day spent chasing meaning back and forth from one language into another. I had forgotten how draining the first immersion into a new language could be. All my days would be like this now; every conversation, no matter how simple, would be a negotiation.
At eight o’clock I went to meet Kylie. It took me a while to find her. The corridor outside the dining hall was thronged with what looked like the entire membership of the List, all milling around chatting with their friends while they awaited their assignments. Eventually I found Rajani, Kylie, and Scott huddled with several others from the first wave of arrivals. Kylie nodded to me but didn’t say anything. She looked tense. While I was trying to think of something encouraging to say, there was a stir at the front of the crowd. A staff member had arrived with a sheaf of neatly typed pages, which he began taping to the wall. There was a general drawing back to give him space and then a convergence when he’d finished. “Do you want to fight your way in?” I asked Kylie.
“No point, is there? We’ll know in ten minutes anyway.”
It was significantly longer than ten minutes before the crowd dwindled enough for us to make our way up to the front. After people found their names, they stayed close, hunting for their friends’ names, blocking the view of those behind them. There were cries of triumph and exclamations of disappointment. Finally the commotion subsided as people began to drift away. I went up with Kylie to look. Somehow I’d forgotten that I was still part of the List; it gave me an odd jolt to see my own name in the first space, with Vardesh Prime written next to it. Next to the List was posted an enormous two-dimensional map of the section of Vardeshi territory that lay between Vardesh Prime and Earth. Every starhaven that would have human occupants was marked and named, and the routes of the ships had been drawn in and labeled as well. I knew the map intimately—I, along with Kylie and Rajani, had spent most of an evening poring over it after the Vardeshi had released it to the Villiger Center a few days before—and I could have sketched in the Pinion’s route from memory. It spanned the entire breadth of the map. I found it thrilling, and a little disturbing, to see my journey laid out in such visual terms. The right-hand side of the map, where Earth was, was dense with the routes of orbit crawlers and short-range vessels. As the eye tracked left, past the cluster of starhavens within a few months’ travel of Earth, the map grew steadily emptier. The Pinion’s flight was a solitary line running on and on, leaving all the other markers behind, until it reached Vardesh Prime at the very margin of the paper.
Kylie was running her finger down the List. “Here I am . . . Arkhati Starhaven. Let’s see, that’s”—she checked the map—“three months into Vardeshi space. That’s brilliant, really. Three months out, six months at Arkhati, three months home. Perfect.”
“Congratulations.” I hugged her.
Rajani joined us. I’d already seen her name, but I let her find it for herself. “The Cloudspear? I don’t believe it! That’s the third-best placement! The route goes deep into Vardeshi space. And we’ll probably stop by Arkhati on the way out!”
“Where’s Scott?” asked Kylie.
“Right here.” I hadn’t heard him come up behind us. He reached a long arm over my shoulder to point out his name.
“The Seynath? Well done.” Kylie traced the arc of the Seynath’s route on the map. “You’ll get to see at least—let’s see—three different starhavens and a colonized moon.”
“And it was the original ship to visit Earth twenty-five years ago,” Rajani added. “You must be pleased with that.”
“I am.” I glanced back to see that he was smiling. “But I bet I can tell you someone who’s even more pleased than I am.”
“Who?” said Rajani.
Instead of answering, Scott rested his finger lightly beside the second name on the list. The placement had been highly coveted: Elteni Starhaven, one of the oldest and most heavily trafficked in the entire network, located only a month’s flight short of Vardesh Prime. The name was Fletcher Simon.
“The rumors must be true,” Scott said. “He’s a prodigy. The placement says it all.”
“Where is he?” I asked. “Was he here before?”
“I didn’t see him,” Rajani said. “Maybe he already found out.”
“Well,” Kylie said expansively, “he didn’t push any of us onto an orbit crawler, so he can have Elteni for all I care. What now? I could go for a drink, but that’s not really the thing here.”
Rajani said, “The dining hall’s still open, isn’t it? Let’s go get a coffee or something.”
“Good idea,” Kylie said. “Scott?”
He shook his head. “You go ahead. I’m going to call it a night.”
And so I found myself sitting once again at the same table I’d vacated shortly before, joined now by Kylie and Rajani, cradling a decaf latte. The other two chatted about their placements. I looked out at the dark glitter of the distant lake, thinking about the world I was leaving behind. Silence settled briefly over our table. I said, “I can’t wait to see Vardesh Prime. But I have a hard time imagining it could be any better than this.”
“Not more beautiful, maybe,” Rajani said. “But a place without crime? Without disease? Without poverty? That must be something to see.”
“We don’t know that it’s really like that,” Kylie pointed out. “All we have is their word. And they’ve been awfully vague on the details. We know they’re not a perfect society. They have factions. They fight.”
“About us,” I said. “Maybe that’s just what humanity does to people.”
“You’re nervous,” Kylie said.
“Of course I’m nervous. What if I screw it up? What if I do something to offend them? If they decide that humanity has no redeeming qualities, and that they have nothing to gain from an alliance, we’ll never hear from them again. They’ll disappear. Just like they did the first time, but forever. I only have one chance to get it right. What if I don’t?”
Rajani shook her head. “You’re taking it all on yourself, Avery. You can’t do that. It’s too big for one person. You need to think smaller or you’ll make yourself crazy. Forget about the alliance. Forget about Vardesh Prime. For now, just think about the ship. There’s one of you, and ten of them, and you have six months to figure it all out. And you will. It’s as simple as that.”
“And remember,” Kylie added, “It’s not just about impressing them. There are two sides to this exchange. An alliance might not actually benefit us as much as we think. And if not, the sooner we know it, th
e better. In a way, that's your real mission—to find out whether Vardeshi space is safe for humanity. That’s more important than making them like you.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said, unconvinced. “But it’s not a very big ship. I’m hoping they like me at least a little bit.”
Kylie sighed. “It certainly will be a long year if they don’t.”
We finished our coffees and walked back to the dormitory. Kylie stopped outside the entrance. “I’m not coming in. There’s bound to be a party in someone’s room. I’m going to find it.”
“Seconded,” Rajani said. “I’d try to talk you into coming with us, Avery, but I couldn’t handle the guilt. You’ll have enough to cope with tomorrow without being exhausted. Let alone hung over.”
“Honestly, I’m not even tempted. I’m barely awake as it is. It’ll have to wait until next year.” I hugged them both. “I’ll see you guys on the other side. Good luck.”
“Be safe,” Rajani said softly. “Be strong.”
I went up the stairs slowly, lost in thoughts of the hot shower and clean pajamas that awaited me, and was halfway into my room before I realized I wasn’t alone. I gasped—and then flung myself at the intruder. “Dr. Sawyer!”
He stood there in my little slant-ceilinged room looking as neat and affable as ever, as if he hadn’t disappeared into police custody nearly three weeks ago. As he gently detached himself from my impulsive hug, I felt a rush of guilt. After all, I’d essentially forgotten about him in the heady excitement of selection and training. “What happened to you?” I demanded. “Where did they take you?”
“To a holding facility in France. Don’t worry, I was treated very courteously, as you see. As interrogations go, mine was remarkably civilized. It was a precaution the Council had to take, and one I fully expected. Now that I’ve been cleared of suspicion, I’ll take up a post here at the Villiger Center. I’ve been asked to serve as language director. Seline is flying in tomorrow.”
“Good,” I said. “That’s good. But will you ever be allowed to go offworld?”
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