by Nancy Kress
“No, Marbet. It’s impossible.”
“But—”
“No.”
TEN
GOFKIT JEMLOE
Enli Pek Brimmidin watched the Terrans walk toward the gate of the Voratur household and felt the headache begin between her eyes. They were not yet in hearing distance, and still the head pain began. That was what Terrans did to people.
No one else felt it, of course. Pek Voratur and his wife Alu Pek Voratur, their grown sons, the household priest—all stood calmly, smiling above their armloads of hospitality flowers. The servants of the First Flower had declared Terrans real, the possessors of souls, and so there was no unreality here to bring on head pain. All were in harmony, sharing reality.
Except Enli.
Enli, who had spent time alone with the Terrans of the previous expedition, who had learned their difficult speech, who had seen them at their worst, and their best. Terrans were so frightening! They could deny reality to each other, fight with each other, love those of each other they should not … all apparently without head pain. But only Enli really understood this, because one of them had died to save the others and to save World, and so the servants of the First Flower had declared all humans real. Thus, they were real. And they presented no break in shared reality for anyone except Enli, who had hoped to never set eyes on any of them again.
And yet—see what the Terrans did to people!—her heart leapt in gladness when she saw that Ann Pek Sikorski was one of the Terrans making their way to dinner at the house of Pek Voratur. Gentle Pek Sikorski, kind and soft-spoken, with the same long fair headfur looped in shining curves. Enli had always secretly liked the Terrans’ headfur, weird though it was. And somebody—probably Pek Sikorski—had told the humans to hide their lack of neckfur. High curving collars—rather pretty—decently covered their naked necks.
“You are welcome to the house of Voratur!” boomed Pek Voratur, and Enli translated. Masses of hospitality flowers, orange and yellow, were exchanged. There were four visitors: Pek Sikorski; Lyle Pek Kaufman (they had such strange names!), the head of the Terran household who had spoken to Enli yesterday; and two servants, a man and a woman. The woman was the hard-faced servant who had pointed a gun at Pek Voratur yesterday. Only Enli had known the word, or the reality; she was the only person on World who had ever seen a Terran gun. Pek Voratur had not even recognized it as a danger.
The head pain grew worse.
But not intolerable. Enli had been afraid it would be, but something had happened to her during the Terrans’ previous visit. They had changed her. They had shown her other realities than the one shared on World (who had imagined such a thing!), and made her live in them for a time, and left her knowing that she could tolerate the existence of those other realities if she had to. No one else on World lived knowing those things. Only Enli Pek Brimmidin, real and yet not of shared reality, because of the Terrans.
It was possible she would never forgive them.
* * *
“It is good to see you, Enli,” said Ann Pek Sikorski, as the two walked side by side, a little behind the others. “How is your soil?”
“The soil is good today, Pek Sikorski.”
“Ann. Please.”
Enli did not want to call this alien by her childname. And yet Pek Sikorski asked her to, setting off mild head pain. See what the Terrans did to people!
“We have not seen each other for three years,” Pek Sikorski said, sharing reality. She always did have the best manners of all the Terrans.
“Yes, three years,” Enli said. “You will want to see David Pek Allen’s grave.”
Did Pek Sikorski look startled? Yes. Why? Surely she knew Pek Allen had died on World. And yet, the other Terrans had left so abruptly in their flying boat …
“Will you take me to his grave tomorrow?” Pek Sikorski said.
“If Pek Voratur wishes. I am temporarily in his household.” Yes, and resenting it. She missed Gofkit Shamloe. She missed her sister Ano and Ano’s children. She missed Calin, dancing with Calin, whatever else might have happened between her and Calin if she had remained a few days longer in Gofkit Shamloe … But the servants of the First Flower had seen that shared reality was otherwise.
“Does David’s grave have a flower altar?” Pek Sikorski asked.
“A beautiful flower altar,” Enli said, “as befits one who died for others.”
“I would like to share that reality fully with you at his grave, Enli.”
“We will share the garden of our heart,” Enli said formally. They walked through an open arch into one of the tens and tens of rooms in the Voratur household. Pek Voratur gestured, and everyone sat down. Only Enli and Pek Sikorski spoke both Terran and World, however imperfectly, and Enli prepared herself to translate.
“This room is very beautiful,” Pek Kaufman said.
“You are welcome to the best flowers of my household,” Pek Voratur said, and indeed they sat in the loveliest and most expensive room Enli had ever seen. The curving walls represented the fullest bloom of the wallers’ art, covered with thousands of preserved and flattened flowers faded to soft subtle colors. The flowing curves of the low wooden table, the rich embroidery on the floor pillows (they had to have come from the Seury Islands), the heavy pewter dishes—all created by master artisans. Nowhere was there a straight line, or an ugly blunt corner. And beyond the open arched windows flourished the magnificent Voratur gardens, famous for fifty villages around and even in the capital itself.
Rich dishes were served, foods Enli rarely saw in her own village of Gofkit Shamloe. How Ano would love this food! Greedy Ano, who ate and ate and never got fat. Well, Ano was beautiful anyway. Enli tried to eat, but found she could not. Being around the Terrans wilted her stomach.
They were polite enough, however, and the meal progressed with ritual exchanges and easy conversation. Pek Sikorski did most of this. Of course, she was the only Terran who could speak World. Pek Kaufman watched everything keenly and smiled often. A happy man, Enli thought, or a good trader. Only five sat around the table, Voratur having dismissed everyone except his oldest son, Soshaf Pek Voratur. This was, or would eventually be once the eating was over, business. The two Terran servants sat apart. Pek Voratur had seemed surprised that Pek Kaufman had not dismissed them, and the trader had ordered a second table, which was hastily erected. Enli was grateful to sit with her back to the Terran servants. Somewhere in her strange stiff clothing the woman, Pek Heller, carried a gun.
When the last dishes were removed, a little silence fell. Pek Voratur waited. Just as the first feelings of unshared reality were beginning, Pek Kaufman ran his hand over the gleaming table. “Beautiful wood,” he said in World, the words obviously newly learned and laughably accented.
Pek Voratur relaxed. Business had begun as it should. He wiped his mouth on a food cloth, belched, and said, “My garden blooms anew because you admire this table. The artisan is Holit Pek Marrabilor. It may be possible that he would like to trade tables with our Terran visitors.” Pek Sikorski translated this; her World was better than Enli’s Terran.
“It may be possible that Terrans would like to acquire such tables in trade,” Pek Kaufman said, in Terran. More translation.
“Perhaps in return for bicycles,” Voratur said. “The Terran bicycles bloom in my heart.”
“We have twenty bicycles to trade,” Pek Sikorski said, this time without consulting Pek Kaufman. Well, the Terrans were like that. High members of a household could speak for the head, could even disagree with him or her. What a peculiar people!
Voratur’s eyes gleamed in his well-oiled face. “Twenty bicycles are welcome in trade. Perhaps for twenty tables by Holit Pek Marrabilor, or by artisans as skilled?”
Pek Sikorski translated for Pek Kaufman, who surprised everyone by saying in World, “Yes. Trade. May your flowers bloom:” Basic words and still that laughable accent … but yesterday Pek Kaufman had known no World words. Could all Terrans learn to speak so quickly? Then they we
re a brilliant people, as well as a dangerous one.
“It may be that larger trades also grow in this garden,” Pek Sikorski said, and something in her voice, or the way her body leaned forward, made Enli suddenly tense. This was going to be one of the Terran different realities; she could feel it.
“Tell me of the flowers you smell in that garden,” Voratur said.
“Once before, Pek Voratur, we made an unusual trade to you. We traded potions against the flower sickness.”
“Ah, yes, the antihistamines,” Voratur said; the word was Terran. “I have traded them well, Pek Sikorski.”
He had indeed, Enli thought. Terran antihistamines had made Voratur one of the richest men on World.
“And in return for the antihistamines,” Pek Sikorski continued, “you traded to us a picture of your brain.”
A “Lagerfeld scan.” Enli had not felt the strange words sprout in her mind in three years. The Terrans had put a metal hat on Pek Voratur and asked him many questions. This was supposed to make pictures of how his brain worked, although Enli had never been shown such pictures. She was not sure they really existed. And yet, the Terrans had all been excited over the Lagerfeld scan. Perhaps the pictures did exist. After all, the Terrans had antihistamines, flying boats, guns, hurtful invisible walls, and other bizarre and mostly unnecessary machines.
“I remember the picture of my brain,” Voratur said cautiously. Enli understood the caution. The scan had been a piece of unshared reality, although a minor one, and hence had cost him a thumping headache.
Pek Sikorski said something to Pek Kaufman in Terran too rapid for Enli to follow. She caught only the words “control data.” What were the Terrans seeking to control now?
Cold seeped up her spine, and her neckfur bristled.
Pek Sikorski said, “We would plant a trade together with you, Pek Voratur, and may it bloom for us both. We would trade you this.” She looked at Pek Kaufman, who drew from his pocket a piece of paper and unfolded it.
It was a very wasteful use of paper, that expensive stuff, Enli thought. Most of the paper was blank. Only the middle had drawing, a picture of a complicated machine. Pek Kaufman turned the paper toward Pek Voratur, and Enli could no longer see it.
“This is a steam machine,” Pek Sikorski said. “We can show you exactly how to build it. Once you understand that, you can build many different kinds of steam machines, to do many different things. Logs can be carried on carts that do not have to be pulled. Water can be brought from rivers to water fields and gardens. Boats can travel to the many islands where you trade, without sail or oars. Of course, it will take time to learn to do these things, maybe years, but their value will be very great.”
Pek Voratur studied the drawing. “A steam machine?”
“Hot steam. It can move things. Here, let me explain.” Pek Sikorski talked on, but Enli did not attempt to follow. She watched Pek Voratur’s face, knowing what he would say.
“Yes, yes, I see,” he said finally, without enthusiasm. “But why should we want such a machine?”
Pek Sikorski and Pek Kaufman looked at each other.
Soshaf Pek Voratur said, “What would we do with it?”
“We told you,” Pek Sikorski said. “Carry logs, water fields, move boats—”
“If a machine carried logs, what work would there be for our woodsmen?” Soshaf said reasonably.
“Why would we need to water our fields when the First Flower always sends us the rain she wishes us to have?” Voratur said.
“And to move boats?” Soshaf asked. “Boats move downriver of themselves, and back upriver and over the sea by the efforts of wind or oarsmen. Would you put the oarsmen all out of work? How would they feed their children?”
“And if they could not trade their labor, to whom would I trade the goods on my trading fleet?” Pek Voratur said in bewilderment. Not only bewilderment. Enli saw clearly the start of Voratur and Soshaf’s head pain. The Terrans must already see their objections; they were shared reality. Yet the Terrans did not seem to see. Unshared reality …
Pek Sikorski said quickly, “Yes, of course. Your trading would not be increased. Forgive us; our soil is poor today, and we imagine in bad dreams.”
“May your soil improve and your gardens flourish,” Voratur said, without warmth. “But bad dreams do not help trade. It may be that we cannot bring a trade to flower between us, Pek Kaufman.”
Pek Sikorski said, without translating. “I am sure we can plant a gloriously blossoming trade, Pek Voratur!” To Enli’s ears she sounded desperate. Why?
“What did he say?” Pek Kaufman asked Pek Sikorski.
“Backing out,” she said in English. “We misjudged. A steam engine won’t aid productivity as much as disrupt economic stability.”
“Damn,” Pek Kaufman said. “Tell him we have something else to offer.”
“Lyle, no!”
“Tell him, Ann.” The tone of authority was unmistakable.
Voratur listened to all these words he could not understand. Enli saw his temper rise: disrespect on top of the imaginings of bad dreams. Offered to him, Hadjil Pek Voratur, the best trader on World! To him!
“Tell Pek Kaufman,” he said to Enli, “that our trade does not bloom. May the First Flower bloom for him elsewhere.” Voratur stood.
“Pek Voratur!” Pek Kaufman said, standing as well. “Look! Trade!” His accent had worsened even more and his words were barely recognizable, simple as they were. But the object he pulled from inside his bizarre clothing was recognized. Enli knew what it was, and from his face, Voratur did, too. Of course he did; the trader had let no tiny detail go unobserved when the Terrans had stayed with him on their previous trading journey.
“Enli, please translate,” Kaufman said in Terran. “Pek Voratur, this comlink is a box to send messages over long distances. When your—”
“He knows what a comlink is,” Enli said to Kaufman, and realized that for the first time in her life she had interrupted a Terran. She didn’t need to look at Pek Voratur to know what he was thinking.
Voratur, like all traders, used sunflashers to send and receive messages from his trading fleet. The carefully spaced towers and skilled mirror users were a good way to ensure that any shared reality, trade or not, reached all of World in one day and one night. But only when the sun was shining. With four or five Terran comlinks, Pek Voratur could reach his fleet, his land caravans, his agents in the capital at any time, day or night, in any weather.
Pek Voratur said, “Please sit, Pek Kaufman. More pel?”
“Lyle,” Pek Sikorski said in a low, urgent voice in Terran, “you can’t. The steam engine is the next projected step in their industrial development anyway. But a comlink—”
Pek Kaufman said pleasantly, not lowering his voice, “They can’t duplicate it. I am not an anthropologist, I am a military negotiator on a major war effort. Now please be quiet, Dr. Sikorski.”
Even Voratur, ignorant of the words, understood Kaufman’s tone. Pek Sikorski sank back on her pillow as if she’d been struck.
Voratur said briskly, “Six comlinks, Pek Kaufman, in return for pictures of my brain and Enli Pek Brimmidin’s, Enli, for each year the comlinks work, there will come to you every third share of my increased profits over my profits for this past year. Do you wish to plant that trade with me, Enli?”
Enli didn’t look at Pek Sikorski. She didn’t understand why Pek Sikorski didn’t want Pek Voratur to have the comlinks, but Enli didn’t like it. Why should Pek Sikorski say what Worlders could or could not have in trade? Was Pek Sikorski trying to keep useful things away from World because she thought Terrans were of more value than Worlders? Well, Pek Voratur should have whatever he could make a fair trade for. That was shared reality, and this was not Pek Sikorski’s world, but Pek Voratur’s.
And Enli’s.
She said, “I wish to plant that trade with you, Pek Voratur.”
“May it bloom and flourish. Tell Pek Kaufman ‘yes,’ in his Terran word
s.”
“Tell Pek Voratur,” Kaufman replied easily, “that I am delighted we will plant a trade together. Will he come tomorrow afternoon to our household to make the brain pictures and receive the comlinks? And you, too, Enli?”
Enli translated. “We will come,” Pek Voratur said, but even as Enli took the celebratory glass of pel from Soshaf Voratur’s triumphant hand, she felt the strength go out of her legs so that they trembled and ran like water.
ELEVEN
THE NEURY MOUNTAINS
I insist,” Dieter Gruber said, his blue eyes cold. “Tom comes, too. This is critical.”
“This is irrelevant,” Tom Capelo said, mimicking Gruber’s accent accurately and cruelly. “Unmeasurable subjective feely-squirmy stuff.”
Lyle Kaufman looked from one man to the other. Gruber, tall and implacable, a Teutonic warrior issuing battle orders. Capelo, short and disheveled, the scrawny foot soldier somehow, incredibly, in charge of the battle. Both of them gleaming with the dangerous mad irritability of men short on sleep.
“If you call yourself a scientist, you will come.”
“Because I call myself a scientist I don’t base hypotheses on tickles in my brain. Or yours.”
“All right,” Kaufman said. “All right.”
They stood at the edge of the massive hole in the upland valley. A quarter-mile below them, Albemarle directed a crew of techs in the minute mapping of the exact position of every newly exposed protuberance on the artifact. Tomorrow it would be lifted free. The sheer drop at Kaufman’s feet, kept vertical and solid by nanotech supports, was dizzying. It didn’t seem to bother either Gruber or Capelo, however, who went on arguing about Gruber’s foot expedition into another part of the mountains.
Gruber said, “Lyle can simply order you to go.”
“I wouldn’t order Tom to do that,” Lyle said quickly. Direct orders were the very worst way to manage a man like Tom Capelo. Gruber was no diplomat. “Tom, tell me again why you don’t want to go.”
Capelo said with exaggerated, sarcastic patience, “Because I am already juggling four sets of real data. One, the neutrino map of the Neury Mountains. Two, our data readings here. Three, the readings in Syree Johnson’s report about the other artifact that exploded in space. And four, everything we know—which isn’t much—about the Faller beam-disrupter shield. Four real, measurable sets of data. I don’t need to take time from them to crawl through irradiated tunnels to some spot that supposedly will create subjective little diddles in my brain.”