The Terrans

by Jean Johnson

  Each picture, both then and now, lasted for barely a swift blink of time before being replaced by the next. But though it was said that a picture could convey a hundred sentences of information, this was more like ten hundred, or twenty hundred. And they overlapped in many ways, like how so many of that woman’s early images had been taken standing in front of the same set of windows, often seen at night, sometimes seen during the day, but sometimes the window covers changed, the curtains, that was her people’s word-sound for the hangings. Later ones were taken in front of other windows, some for many years, some for short periods of time, but window was frequently there, and always there was woman, and eyes, and nose, and hair.

  This was very much like that. Peripheral words that weren’t used as often would take time to recall, but the basic set that everyone used, those returned time and again, wearing grooves in his thoughts like feet gradually wearing grooves in a carpeted floor . . . and it kept going on and on . . .

  —

  Jackie was used to the overly full feeling in her head. Red Stripes . . . or rather, Li’eth, which she had learned among his many other names meant Year of Joy . . . was not. He had no practice in sorting through languages delivered in rapid-fire training, though he did know more than one language, some of which she had learned along the way in passing. So when the session came to an end, and she realized through his shared thoughts that he couldn’t open his eyes . . . she swept into his mind and tipped him into sleep with a careful, smooth underthought.

  Withdrawing her fingers from his as they grew lax with slumber, she stared at him, once again able to see her physical surroundings. Thankfully, no one had touched them during the entire process. That would have been bad. As it was, she had been forced to take over his mind in order to control, subdue, and train the very basics into his virtually untrained gifts.

  His understandable caution and reluctance, more subconscious than under conscious control, had bucked her out of the link like an untrained horse trying to get rid of rider and saddle, and maybe because of a burr under that saddle blanket, too. But now, he understood what she’d been trying to do. Now, he had the barest rudiments of true control. She would have to continue to help him work on that.

  Somewhere in the jumble of V’Dan vocabulary in her head—they were an odd people, the name for themselves, their language, and their main world were all V’Dan, though that was not the oddest she had ever met, linguistically—there were images of him trying to pray his gifts under his control. Religious mumbo jumbo. Jackie was not overly religious. Spiritual, yes; she enjoyed participating in the ritual dances and storytelling of her mother’s Polynesian-bred background, and some of the cultural observances of her father’s dual inheritance, French from her paternal grandmother’s side and Scottish from her late grandfather’s side. But religious? Not really.

  Certainly not for something as important as training psychic abilities. Most certainly not for someone of his strength. About the only good thing in his lack of self-control and training was that he had natural shields restraining his abilities. That meant it was difficult for him to reach out and invade another’s thoughts. Like he nearly had with Maria’s. Luckily, she had sensed it in time and stopped him.

  There were rules about how telepaths were to behave. Not laws—and this had been argued most fiercely in courtrooms years ago—because every budding telepath would have been repeatedly arrested and imprisoned for breaking those laws purely inadvertently, accidentally, uncontrollably . . . but rules, oh yes. Rules enforced by other psis, even by clusters of psis. She wasn’t the most powerful telepath out there, but a group of five or more who were at least Rank 8 in strength could group together and slap her down quite firmly, for all that she was a Rank 15.

  Li’eth felt like a Rank 8 right now, but with the potential to grow maybe close to her own strength. As the only other psi within range, it was up to Jackie to ensure he was trained, and up to her to teach him how to behave before they encountered any others. On top of everything else, though . . . she had to be very careful in how she behaved.

  She knew things now, things about him, who he was, who he pretended to be. She did not have all of his memories by any stretch, but she knew more than enough that there were not only military secrets she had learned in at least some small part, but government secrets, too. Major secrets, ones he feared getting out. At some point, her own military, her own government, could try to demand that she give up those secrets, or demand that she use those secrets. The problem was, the Psi League motto stood in their way. The very strict code of ethics of a League member stood in their way.

  Her own Oath of Civil Service stood in their way. She swore to its ethics each and every morning—recorded, no less—not only to ensure that her actions served the people she interacted with but the people they interacted with as well, even the ones outside her own “constituency” of the United Planets.

  That was another point, a side note but an important one to consider. They weren’t just the United Planets anymore, alone save for rare visits from an occasional enemy they called the Grey Ones, because they didn’t know the name the Greys used for themselves. These V’Dan were part of an Alliance. Just a handful of sentient species, but they were out there, a Collective, two Empires, more . . .

  Maybe I was right to start thinking of ourselves as Terrans, and them as, well, V’Dan. They are not Terrans, but we are . . . and for the sake of diplomacy and the giant gulf of thousands of years of completely separate history, we must approach them as neighbors-across-that-gulf for now. Even I cannot assimilate every nuance of a culture from just one person, despite being able to assimilate tens of thousands of words in a matter of hours.

  Drawing in a deep breath, she unbuckled her harness and used a touch of telekinesis to ease away from the sleeping male. Li’eth. Year of Joy. Among other names, some of which—the most important ones—his own crew did not know. Ethically speaking, she couldn’t let them know what she knew, either. Not without his permission in advance.

  What was yours is still yours wasn’t just a catchphrase for telepaths; it had to be a bone-deep philosophy. Not only to keep themselves separate from the memories of others, or risk losing all sense of self and descending into either schizophrenic or multiple-personality-disorder madness, but to protect a person’s right to mental privacy. The only crimes she had to report when sensing another’s thoughts were actual murder, rape, pedophilia, aggravated assault, major property damage, or major theft—any of the major felonies. Even then, it was not admissible as evidence. The Peacekeepers still had to wade through the process of finding actual evidence, though they could use whatever was reported to help point them in the right direction.

  The only legal use of abilities like hers in a court of law were the hiring of a Truthsayer, who could only answer one of three things while scanning the mind of a person undergoing interrogation. The legal counsel could ask her, “Is that statement true?” and she could only answer “Yes,” “No,” or “Unclear.” It was up to the lawyers to ask the right questions, to dig out the kernels of truth. One had to be at least a Rank 9 to be a Truthsayer, but Jackie had been far more interested in following her father’s line of work. She had served a few times on practice trials in the law school of Honolulu University, just as she had tried out other psi-based careers during her training, but that was it.

  All of the weight of her years of ethical training, her daily Oath, her duty to those her people interacted with as well as to her own people, all of that weighed heavily on her in the zero-G environment of the Aloha 9. So when she floated into the main compartment of the crew cabin, she knew that Leftenant Superior Shi’ol Nanu’oc was the next-in-command of the survivors, with their captain asleep.

  She knew the woman’s name, and had glimpsed memories of her sometimes arrogant personality. But she had to pretend she did not yet know. There was a very real set of reasons why most telepaths avoided learning more than they had to about other people. It just made following
the rules so much easier.

  Her entry was quiet, but it still turned a couple of heads. The first two to notice their entrance were Dai’a, the deeply tanned woman with the two shades of jungen, and Lars, who was playing a game of magnetic checkers with her at the back of the cabin. Dai’a looked up abruptly—up being relative—and that made the Finn curious. The geophysicist lit up with a smile when he saw her, while the life-support officer cast her an anxious, hopeful look.

  In Terranglo, Jackie addressed Lars first. “I’ve learned their language as well as given him ours. The one I transferred languages with is their captain, so I need to find whoever’s next in charge. I’ll spend several minutes talking with the others, reassuring them, then I’ll give a translation to everyone else. Your patience is appreciated, Lars.”

  “I will let the others know,” Lars assured her, and touched the headset over his ear, murmuring to the others—the other Terrans. The other V’Dan, who were floating behind him, had turned at the sound of her voice. The blonde woman with the grass-green rosette-clustered spots dotting her golden pale skin, narrowed her eyes.

  “About time they stopped holding hands!”

  Jackie could feel the angry pulse of thought of the other woman, that it was disgraceful for an unmarked child to hold hands with a grown man. She had a better grasp now of what the reasoning was behind that child label these V’Dan used, but that wasn’t a good enough excuse in her own mind. Counseling patience, reminding herself firmly that neither side knew much about the other, still, she switched to V’Dan, speaking with Imperial High V’Dan fluency so that she would sound like a social equal to the other woman. She didn’t quite understand their Tier system but knew that she had to establish at least some level of self-rank.

  “We were not holding hands in any romantic manner, meioa,” Jackie said carefully. The last word she used was actually Solarican in origins—some sort of feline-like race of sentients—and it meant honored one when used without a suffix indicating one’s familiarity with the other person’s gender. Using the genderless version was considered more polite, so she didn’t bother to tack an -e onto the end of the word. Her words not only made Shi’ol gape, but made the other two males twist and turn themselves so they could stare at her, and made the life-support officer blink in surprise. “Physical touch amplifies my ‘holy’ abilities, as you call them. Physically touching those whom I exchange a language with makes the process happen a lot faster and a lot easier.

  “As you can hear for yourselves, I have learned Imperial High V’Dan, and am capable of answering some of your questions, and of posing some of our own,” she added. Shi’ol drew in a breath to speak. Jackie quickly lifted her hand between them, with the palm facing herself instead of Terran style toward the other woman. The gesture in V’Dan culture meant please wait, I am not finished. “I will need to eat and rest soon, to finish assimilating and memorizing what I have learned, but that is only because I am very experienced in transferring languages. Captain Ma’an-uq’en is not, and will need to sleep for a few more hours to set our people’s language, Terranglo, firmly in his head. As will each of you in turn, when I go through the transfer process with you as well.

  “In the meantime, allow me to make introductions. I am Ambassador Jackie MacKenzie. I also function as a soldier, in specific a Major, which is a midranked officer of our people’s Space Force,” she stated, phrasing it in a way that the V’Dan would be able to pronounce. They had a lot of glottal stops, some subtle and some strong, along with other quirks of speaking. Thankfully, one of her first languages alongside Terranglo had been Hawai’ian, which meant she was no stranger to pronouncing those glottals. “These title and rank were given to me by our government, the United Planets. Our group identity name, I will call Terran. We are Terrans, we are of the Terran United Planets, I am a Terran. It comes from one of our oldest known languages, and means ‘Earth-like.’

  “You are on board one of our exploration vessels, which we call Aloha 9. The word aloha has several meanings, most of which involve kinship, compassion, greeting, and other pleasantries, and the other word means the number nine—one thumb shy of both hands,” she added, lifting both hands with the fingers splayed but her left thumb tucked in. “There are over thirty such vessels currently in use.”

  Robert, Ayinda, and Brad floated into view. Adding in the three of them to the others crowded the main crew cabin a bit, but Brad tucked himself into the opening to the kitchen area so it wasn’t too crowded.

  The commander and chief pilot eyed her and her upraised fingers and smiled. “Telling ’em what our ship number is?”

  Jackie smiled back. “Yes—the language transfer was a success, and Captain Li’eth Ma’an-uq’en is sleeping it off, so please let him rest.”

  Lars, floating off to one side, nodded. “I have had a language transfer. It is very important to sleep immediately afterward. Our brains retain new information best when we are allowed to sleep on it.”

  Shi’ol frowned at the others and spoke sharply. “I demand to know why this ship is crewed by children.”

  Jackie felt her smile stiffen a little and counseled patience. “Meioa, in our culture, your statement—that we are children—is considered to be very rude. Not to mention highly inaccurate. Each and every one of us is well above the legal age of adulthood. To continue to refer to us, or to act toward us, as if we were children would be insulting. I realize you know nothing about our culture yet, however, so I choose not to take offense. Please refer to us as adults from now on.”

  The other woman stiffened and spoke firmly. “I am Leftenant Superior Shi’ol A-kai’a Nanu’oc d’Vzhta ul S’Arroc’an, 373rd Countess S’Arroc’an, and I demand to speak to whoever is in charge here.”

  “Are you the next-in-charge, when Captain Ma’an-uq’en is asleep?” Jackie asked mildly. “He informed me that he is the one in charge of all of you.”

  Shi’ol smiled tightly and braced her hands on her hips. The gesture made her start to rotate slightly, forcing her to lift a hand to the nearest wall for stability. “Yes, I am. I demand to speak to whoever is in charge.”

  The others did not object, though the man with the bright hot-pink stripes did roll his eyes a little. Jackie faced her verbal opponent calmly. “I am in charge of this mission. Moreover, I am at this moment the third-highest-ranked person in our entire government. Only the Premiere and his apprentice, the Secondaire, are higher in rank, power, and authority.”

  “Apprentice?” Shi’ol all but snorted.

  “Your captain informed me that your government system is an Empire, a monarchy with a chartered set of laws detailing the rights of the people versus the rights of the Imperial Throne. Our government is a democratic republic, wherein our people are selected by a series of competency tests followed by votes of confidence from the groups of people each member represents. He mentioned it was similar to the government of the Artisans Valley, save that instead of ruling over hundreds of thousands people in a single region, our government functions to guide and serve tens of billions of people scattered across several locations.

  “Now, please mind your tone and speak with a great deal more of courtesy and respect. You are guests in our house,” Jackie emphasized. “You are now dependent upon our goodwill and our willingness to provide hospitality. Please do not repay it with disrespect and hostility—a countess of our people would be much more respectful than you have appeared to be, so far,” she added, sensing Shi’ol was about to dismiss her. “Please also keep in mind that I will be dealing with Captain Ma’an-uq’en as your leader, not you, so please do not try to arrange any deals or make any promises. Those are for him to arrange, as your duly appointed leader.”

  That earned her a smug smile from the countess. “Only in matters military. I outrank him in all civilian ways, and our government is civilian, not military.”

  “Our current situation is purely military, meioa,” Jackie countered blandly. “And will remain so for quite some time. Please behave w
ith a greater level of courtesy and politeness, or at least restraint and tact, or I will have to ignore everything you say, turn to the next-ranked person among your group to speak with, and I may even have to ask your captain to discipline you. Your attitude is not giving a good impression of your people’s ability to be mature and polite when negotiating for hospitality with strangers.”

  “I will stand witness to you being a rude idiot, Shi’ol,” V’kol stated. He turned his attention to Jackie. “Since we do not have a ship, Leftenant Superior Ba’oul Des’n-yi over there is third-in-command and our chief pilot whenever we have a ship. Leftenant Superior Shi’ol is our logistics officer. I am Leftenant Superior V’kol Kos’q, tactical officer. That lady over there is Leftenant Superior Dai’a Vres-yat, our life-support officer. Would you please introduce us to the others, and tell us their names and designations as well? We are all curious about each other, I am sure.”

  “Your courtesy and civility are deeply appreciated. I will first tell the others your names,” Jackie replied. She wished any of the other three was second-in-command with Li’eth unconscious, but no, she was stuck with the rank-conscious countess. Switching to Terranglo, she introduced everyone. “The male with the red stripes sleeping in the back of the central corridor is Captain Li’eth Ma’an-uq’en—it’s not quite pronounced like mannequin,” she added. “This blonde woman with the green leopard spots is Leftenant Superior Shi’ol Nanu’oc, a very prideful and prickly countess in civilian rank, and their logistics officer in military rank.

  “The others are all Leftenants Superior as well,” she continued. “The third-ranked is Ba’oul Des’n-yi with the blue crescents; he’s a pilot. The hot-pink-striped fellow here is V’kol Kos’q, their tactical officer, and the lady with the irregular green and cream stripes on her brown hide is Dai’a Vres-yat, in charge of their life-support systems. I will now introduce the rest of us to them.