His expression becomes even grimmer. “Cheating is taken very seriously here.”
I open my mouth to protest but before I can deny it, he says, “It would be better for you if you confessed.” He’s switched languages, a common practice of the profs here. Without thinking, I match the one he’s speaking.
“I… I didn’t think it mattered, Sir. I didn’t mean to cheat.”
“You didn’t mean to?”
“I already knew some Salarian before I came here. I chose it as my fourth language because I thought it would make my first year easier.” I look down at my lap, ashamed. The word “easier” hangs in the air, condemning me. The silence is terrible.
“You didn’t hack into the exam?”
I look up, shocked. “What? No!” It never occurred to me he’d think that. Steal knowledge? I’m furious, until I remember that I do steal. But not grades.
“I don’t have to,” I say coolly.
“Do you remember the questions to which I am referring?”
I nod. They were colloquialisms, very current and meaningless outside the cultural context. They’d been on the most recent Salarian flash at the Trader’s Library, which I’d been studying on my own when I applied to the college. I only half-understood the explanations and it bothered me, until two of the lessons in my Salarian culture course suddenly made the meanings clear.
“How did you know the answers?”
For a while after I tell him he just looks at me, then he asks, “What language are we speaking?”
I blink and have to think a moment. “Salarian.”
“You must have known it quite well before you came.” He glanced at his workstation screen. “You claimed to know three languages: Edoan, Coralese and Malemese. That’s a strange choice, Malemese.”
That’s exactly what he said when I applied to the college: strange choice. Translation: useless. He had to give me a written test on it, because no one on campus could speak it to confirm my claim. I don’t want to go into that again, so I just nod. Neither of us mentions Central Ang. Everyone knows it, so it doesn’t count.
“Why didn’t you include Salarian?”
“I didn’t know it then—not perfectly.”
“Perfectly? You expect to know every language perfectly?”
I begin to nod, then I stop. “Perhaps not Kandaran.”
The Dean smiles. “Not even the Kandarans can speak Kandaran.”
It’s a well-known expression. I think of Jaro and make myself smile, when what I’m really thinking is whether I’ll get my grade in Salarian now.
“You’ll get your 100%. I’m satisfied.”
My forced smile turns real. I don’t want to jinx it though, so I get up to go, but the Dean waves me back into the chair. “What do you know about translators, Kia?”
“They’re highly respected, Sir,” I say, “but not terribly well-paid.”
“Why do you want to become one?”
“Because I tried it once. And I didn’t do it very well.”
He waits, but I have nothing to add. Like I’m going to tell him about the Immigration Investigation. Bad enough remembering it myself. After treating a Malemese woman for some illness, Dr. Eldrich gave my name to the couple because they wanted to immigrate. They named me as their translator in court and I was stupid and conceited enough to agree. Who would imagine translating would be so difficult? The longer it went on, the more mistakes I made, and everyone had to wait while I sorted them out. The government translator was laughing at me behind his somber expression, on the first day. On the second day, he stopped listening. On the third day he stopped pretending to listen. The judge’s verdict was to allow the Malemese couple to stay, but I’m still convinced that was only because he knew I’d never stop trying to correct my errors until he did. Then I started arguing that the court shouldn’t charge the couple their translator’s fees because I shouldn’t be paid, and the Malemese couple insisted I should be, and I said I wouldn’t take it, so he had to rule on that, too. Then I objected to his ruling that I should be paid and asked for a lawyer. He threatened to send me to jail if I ever opened my mouth in his court again, so I shut up. And that is something that wasn’t on my application to the college.
I realise the Dean is speaking to me and look up.
“…ever wonder why we accepted you early with only three languages? You must know by now that most students have four or five before they come here.”
I’m still thinking of the judge and my habit of arguing, and I don’t want to lose that 100%, so I try to look interested without saying anything.
“Because you know them so well. You speak each one so fluently it’s impossible to determine which is your mother tongue. That is exceedingly rare. Are you aware we’re speaking Coralese now?” I have to think a minute before I nod.
“In order to translate, one language must be unconscious—the one you’re translating into. The difficulty in translating is remembering what was said.”
That was my problem at the Investigation. I recognize it as soon as he puts it into words.
“While the short-term memory is holding onto the foreign words, the mind must be able to speak in another language instinctively, without distracting the short-term memory and losing the train of thought.
“Accuracy of word, nuance, inflection—that’s obvious. But most important, a translator must be able to hear in one language and speak in another, simultaneously. Most translators are only able to translate from a foreign language into their mother tongue. When we examined you for entrance here, we found you were able to translate equally well both ways. In three languages.”
He looks at me. Am I supposed to respond? “Thank you,” I mumble. Then honesty forces me to add, “but I couldn’t, not when it mattered.”
“I suspect you did much better than you think. Twice now, while we’ve been speaking, you have switched languages seamlessly: grammar, syntax, idiom, all perfect, without a pause. I know of no other student here who can do that. You have a rare talent, Kia. I hope you will use it wisely and bring honor to this college.”
No one’s ever praised me like that. I don’t know what to say. He sits there, waiting, till finally I get out: “I won’t let you down, Sir.” Immediately I’m embarrassed at how dumb that sounds.
“I hope you won’t. Because a talent like yours also has the potential to bring disgrace to this Institution. If I had found that you cheated I would have expelled you. You wouldn’t be given a second chance. A dishonest translator at the highest levels can do great harm. We want no part of that here.” He looks across his desk at me sternly.
I swallow. What if he finds out about Sodum? The very thought makes me sick.
“I’m glad I didn’t find that to be the case,” he says, dismissing me at last. I walk back to residence repeating his words, rare talent, to myself, and don’t even need Jaro to remind me to smile.
This must be my day, because as soon as I get back to my room, there’s a knock at my door. I open it, all unsuspecting, and almost slam it shut again.
“Akhié—”
“My name is Kia.”
She stiffens. Her smile is forced when she speaks again.
“Yes, Etin told us. I forgot.”
I can feel my roommate, Oghogho, watching us curiously from her desk. I’ve never told her anything about my past except to introduce Etin as my brother on one of his visits. He understood at once when I told him my new name that I won’t talk about the past.
Now here’s my sister, dressed in a trader’s jumpsuit, with our ship’s name—the Homestar—emblazoned on her left shoulder. I step into the hall, pulling the door shut behind me.
“What do you want?”
“To talk to you, Ak… Kia.”
“You miss our long sisterly conversations, right?” Oghogho barely spoke to me the entire last year I lived at home, even though we shared a room. Who does she think she’s fooling now?
“Mother is ill.”
I look at her
without saying anything. I was ill last semester with flu. Where was ‘Mother’ when I was feverish and throwing up and terrified because I thought it might be my father’s malady? But there’s a tight feeling in my chest that keeps me from speaking. Oghogho wouldn’t be here unless it was serious.
There’s a knock from the other side of the door. I open it.
“I’m going to do some research at the library,” my roommate says. As she steps past us, she’s examining my sister. “Hello,” she says.
It’s the opening for an introduction, which I ignore. My sister finally gets it and just says “Hello” politely back.
On impulse, then, I say, “Oghogho, this is also Oghogho.” You’re as common as the red dirt, I think, smiling coolly at both of them. They both look down on me. But I, at least, am unique. A rare talent, the Dean said. I smile sweetly.
Oghogho my roommate nods curtly to Oghogho my sister and leaves, her knees and backbone held so stiffly her sandals slap against the tiles. I watch with satisfaction.
“I see you’ve made friends.”
“Of course. I’m a friendly person.” I wave Oghogho into the room, but her comment has ruined the moment for me. I imagine Jaro demoting me to a D. Maybe all the way back to an F. I don’t have to be popular with everyone, I argue with him in my mind, but it’s no use; he doesn’t think like that.
Annoyed, I slap the door shut. At least we have privacy now. I sit on my roommate’s chair, tossing the clothes that lie on it onto her bed, and face my sister, who’s perched on the edge of my chair.
Oghogho leans over and picks up an earphone lying on the dresser beside my bed. Like many students, I’ve learned to sleep with language discs plugged into my ears, reinforcing the lessons I study before going to bed. But I do it regularly, test or no test. After a while, Saturday nights, the one night I allowed myself to rest from learning, began to feel strange. The silence was eerie. I’d wake up muttering foreign phrases into the darkness to fill it. Finally I simply started wearing the language headphones every night.
I take the earphone from Oghogho. She’s deliberately postponing the news she came to tell me. Either it’s very bad—so bad she doesn’t want to talk about it—or they want something from me. That’s unlikely, but I’m beginning to hope that’s it.
We sit for a while without talking.
It must be very bad.
“What do you expect of me after all this time?” The words burst out without me intending to say them.
“It was you who left,” Oghogho says. “And you who chose to stay away. Did you want us to run after you and beg you to come back?”
I flush, because I realise I did want that, and she just has to look at me to know how pathetic I am. So I get mad instead. You made me a thief! I want to yell at her. But it isn’t true. My father made me a thief by passing on his stolen legacy: the mystery I can’t solve despite all the hours I’ve spent in the library researching diamonds, and can’t part with, either, despite Sodum’s warning.
“Perhaps we should have,” Oghogho says. “Yes, I should have. I’m sorry. But you were so aloof after father died. And, I’ll admit it, I was relieved at first. When you left, all the tension left our house. It was like some guilty secret hung over us, and then it was gone.”
“Was I so terrible?” I feel my eyes water and blink furiously. After how they treated me, why do I even care?
“No, of course you weren’t. It was all of us. I think now it was Father…” She takes one look at my face and says quickly, “I loved him, too, Akhié. As much as you did. Maybe more, because I could remember how he was. But he was sick, and now that I’m older, I can see how it affected us all. I was glad you left, Akhié, but it wasn’t you, it was him. If he hadn’t died, he would have destroyed us all. He almost did.”
I jump up so angry I can hardly breathe. “You’re wrong!” I scream, not caring who hears. “It was Owegbé! It was never Father! It was… Owegbé!” I can only repeat it. I’m so good at arguments but now I’m too mad to think of any. “And I’m Kia,” I shout, “Kia!” I stop for breath. “You should go. You should go now!”
“Mother’s very sick, Kia.” Oghogho stands up, too, but her voice is quiet. Sad. “She may be dying. I didn’t come here to fight with you.” She holds out her hand, palm up in peace. I ignore it. “I’m sorry. We should be over this by now. I came because I thought you should know.”
“In case I want to see her? Has she asked for me?” I already know the answer—she hasn’t called once since I left. I try to laugh sarcastically. It doesn’t come out right.
Does she want to see me now? I wonder.
Etin never asked what father and I had talked about in Malemese. I don’t think he blames me for Father’s death—he said it wasn’t my fault, that day when he sent me away. But Owegbé?
“Tell her… Tell her I hope she gets better.”
“You’ll have to tell her yourself. I’m on my way to the Spaceport. I’m shipping out in two hours.”
“But Etin’s out with the Homestar.”
“No, he’s trading for the Montrealm III.”
I open my mouth to tell her it isn’t true. Etin told me last month he’d been approached by one of the Montcliffs, the family who own the largest trading chain on Seraffa, but he turned them down. He’d never be happy trading for someone else; he likes being his own boss.
But why would she lie? I close my mouth, noticing for the first time how tired Oghogho looks.
“Mother needs a heart transplant.”
I shrug. “She’s a citizen. Her medical care is free.”
“Yes, but Mother can’t take a standard lab ’plant. You know how sensitive she is to allergens. It’s why she could never go into space with Father.”
I hadn’t known that. I feel a stab of envy. Oghogho was always so much closer to Owegbé.
“Her body won’t accept anything but a human donor’s heart,” Oghogho says, “and there isn’t likely to be one with the right blood type on Seraffa in time. Medical aid is free, but bringing another heart in, on a speedship, with the machines and storage unit to keep it healthy and a specialist to watch it—”
She sounds as though she’s ticking off expenses she’s calculated many times. I imagine her and Etin sitting with their heads together in front of a screen of figures. I should have been with them. Why am I always excluded?
Oghogho glances for the second time at the digital display on my workstation. “Look, I’m sorry I haven’t come before this. And I’m sorry we argued. But I have to go.”
“Wait. I have some money.” I jump up and run to my workstation. C28. I already know how few creds I have left.
Why did I only take one necklace at the Ossidian Ball, when the whole safe was open to me? Because that’s all I needed, I answer myself. If only I hadn’t spent most of the money already. I slide my card into the slot, turning toward Oghogho.
“I can get more. …Translating,” I add quickly, hoping Oghogho doesn’t know students aren’t paid for translating.
“I didn’t come here for your money.”
“Take it!” I key in my access without a pause in the rush of words. “My tuition and board are paid for the rest of the year now. I don’t need it. I want to help you and Etin.”
“Not Mother?”
I stand up, waving my sister into the desk chair. “Take it.”
“I can’t take it. I’m on my way to the Spaceport. You should take it to her yourself. But, Kia… Thank you.”
We stand for a moment looking at each other, before she turns and leaves.
Chapter Six
The Newtarion Embassy is the most impressive embassy on Seraffa. I climb the dozen steps that lead up to the ten-foot-high double doors at the entrance, feeling a cross between excitement and fear. I give my name and registration number to the armed guard as I lean in toward the monitor for a retinal scan. He confirms my ID and palms one of the doors in an unmarked spot. Both doors slide open onto a huge foyer at least two stories
high. Cool air rushes out, engulfing me. The waste shocks me, even though it feels wonderful.
Excited as I am to see this embassy, I wish I hadn’t been assigned to it. The Newtarions are known for their tight security. But when you put your name down as a student translator you can’t specify when and where, and the Newtarions are wealthy. The safes in the guest rooms have to be full of expensive jewelry. I’ll take two pieces this time, to buy my mother a heart. It’s probably the best use that jewelry will ever be put to. I can already imagine the look on Etin’s and Oghogho’s faces when I transfer the creds to them.
Oh yes, I have a rare talent, as Dean Harris said: my father’s talent.
Two more guards are stationed beside a second set of doors between the foyer. I’m ID’d again before I pass through into the main hallway. It’s at least twenty feet wide and three times as long, hung with holo-portraits of famous Newtarions in gilt-edged frames. On the left there are several doors, some of them standing open to reveal huge waiting rooms with real leather armchairs and Earthoak tables. I can’t help wondering who they think needs this much impressing on Seraffa.
I checked out the internal layout as well as I could online, so I know the wide spiral staircase that I pass just before the ambassador’s reception hall will take me to the upper offices and the guest suites. The ambassador’s suites are also upstairs, though the secure stairway to his rooms is separate, past the reception hall.
I ladle myself a glass of fruit punch at the refreshment table. A translator can’t accept food or drink in case it’s been tampered with, and the best way to keep from being offered something is to have a drink already in hand. There are stories of translators causing far-reaching upheavals after being put under a mild hypnotic inducement before translating. It’s hard to prove a translator was drugged and the person who schemed to provoke the conflict is seldom identified. Better to be wary, even at a primarily social event like this one.
As a student, my duties are light. The Newtarions have their own translators on staff, but not enough for a huge reception like this. And not everyone trusts embassy translators, even those wearing the highly respected dark green jumpsuit with its stylized initials, E.T.—Earth Translator—that promises political neutrality. I stroll through the reception room sipping my punch. This is the first time I’ve worn my E.T. jumpsuit; they had to make a special one for me because I’m too small even for XS. Privately, I think the forest green with blue piping is ugly—the colors are from Old Earth, where the College of Translators originated, and I prefer the reds and yellows of Seraffan scenery—but its effect is exhilarating. The guards and servers treat me with respect and people move aside to let me pass.
The Occasional Diamond Thief Page 5