When this was said aloud, Rafik interpolated, “Excuse me, Mr. Li, but let us not say yet that Acorna is lost. We know her intended destination—”
“But not the route,” Gill put in.
Rafik’s lips twitched. “More than you might think can be deduced from intelligent study of the star maps, Declan Giloglie. Given what we know of the accident to the hydroponics section of the Acadecki—”
“On’t-day ee-bay inay uch-say ay urry-hay ootayell-tay em-thay allay ou-yay ow-knay,” Gill interrupted. Lacking the multilingual background shared by Li and the Kendoros, he had independently come to his own conclusion about how best to converse privately in front of beings who could learn Basic overnight.
“Why not?” Rafik demanded.
Gill glanced at the envoys. “Ee-way on’t-day ow-knay oo-whay ey-thay eally-ray are-ay,” he said. “Ey-thay ight-may ee-bay ee-thay eople-pay oo-whay arooned-may Corna-Ay.”
Rafik put his hand on Gill’s arm and drew the larger man into the antechamber.
“Stop making a bloody fool of yourself with that pig Latin,” he whispered. “We’ve got no reason to mistrust them.”
“We’ve got no reason to trust them, either,” Gill returned in a furious whisper. “SOMEBODY set Acorna adrift to die in space; until we find out who and why, we’re not turning her over to the first funny-looking strangers to waltz in and demand her!”
Rafik’s lips twitched. “At the moment,” he murmured, “we can’t turn her over, can we? So while I’m studying the star maps, why don’t you sit down with the Linyaari and find out what they have to say about Acorna?”
By that time the tea Mr. Li had requested was ready, and the small social ceremony helped to alleviate the strain all parties were feeling. Knowing Acorna’s tastes, he had ordered a blend of herbal tea with alfalfa for the envoys, served in the handleless cups favored by Acorna, while the humans, with their more slender and more flexible digits, drank smoky Kilumbemba Oolong from cups with delicate porcelain handles. Melireenya took pains to tell Judit aloud that she had noticed and did very much appreciate this evidence of attention to their tastes.
“Is no trouble,” Mr. Li whispered, so that humans as well as Linyaari could understand them. “We have learned much from our beloved Acorna. Now we hope to learn more from you. Origin of Acorna is still mystery. Gill, you will tell of finding her?”
Gill cleared his throat and briefly recounted their discovery of Acorna, asleep in what they had later deduced was an escape pod, drifting close to an asteroid he and Calum and Rafik had been mining. He downplayed the work the three of them had put into raising the foundling, not to mention the fact that they had lost their jobs and almost lost their ship to protect her from becoming the ward of Amalgamated Mining and subject to whatever experiments their Linguistics and Psych department could dream up, but his affection for Acorna came through underlying every word and moved the Linyaari envoys deeply. He skipped the tangled tale of her adventures on Kezdet and ended by explaining that Calum had come up with an ingenious theory for locating Acorna’s home world and that he and Acorna had just taken off in search of it—unfortunately without filing a navigation plan.
(One chance in mitanyaakhi!) Neeva silently exclaimed. (Vaanye could not possibly have foreseen that the explosion would not only transport Acorna out of danger but would bring her to another populated sector of the galaxy…and into the hands of these good Linyaari who raised her as one of their own.)
(Calm down, Neeva. Good they may be, perhaps even linyarii to a degree, but they are not Linyaari, and I for one am not sure how far we may trust them.)
(You are too cynical! Can’t you feel the truth and love in this large red one’s mind?)
(I agree with Neeva. This one at least is linyarii, if not technically Linyaari. We should tell them the truth of our mission.)
(We don’t know that all of them are good people. From this man Ghiil’s story alone it is clear that some, at least, of this race think nothing of experimenting on other sapient beings. Such behavior strikes me as more khlevii than linyarii. Let us go slowly here.)
“So,” Gill finished, “that’s what we know about Acorna. And what we’re all curious to find out is, exactly how did one of your younglings come to be floating in our sector, in a pod that couldn’t have kept her alive many more hours, with no signal to alert anyone to her existence? You folks seem mighty concerned for her now; strikes me you’ve come a long way to retrieve somebody who seems to’ve been thrown out with the trash in the first place.” He rested his big, heavy-knuckled hands on his knees and looked from one of the envoys to another, his bright blue eyes challenging them to account for the plight in which they had found Acorna.
(Neeva?)
(What do you think, Neeva? Shall we tell them?)
(You are the envoy, Neeva, and ’Khornya is your sister-child. The decision is yours.)
“Well?” Gill challenged as the silence after his speech stretched on and on. Most of the humans in the room waited eagerly for the Linyaari complement to Gill’s story; only Rafik, once more absorbed in his star maps and calculations, was oblivious to the mounting tension as the Linyaari looked at one another but did not speak.
(We love Acorna as our own child,) Delszaki Li told them. (We will not give her over to those who may have sought to destroy her in the first place.) He repeated his words aloud so that the other humans could understand the statement. Judit nodded firmly, Pal folded his arms, and Gill merely shifted his weight a little forward, like a man in a bar anticipating that fists might soon start swinging.
(The red one does not look so linyarii now, Neeva. He looks quite capable of violence. Do you really want to trust this race on so little evidence?)
(I would not give up my worst enemy to the Khleevi,) Neeva replied violently. (We are ethically obliged to tell them.)
(What if they throw us out and shut down like that first bunch?)
(We will have to take that risk. Anyway, I think they are telling the truth when they say that they do not know where Acorna is now. We have as good a chance of finding her as they do; in fact, if this Khaalum’s deductions are correct, she may reach Home before we do!)
Thariinye snorted aloud. (They may be very nice bipeds, but their technology has some major gaps, and most of them can’t even mind-speak. I shouldn’t be surprised to learn that this Khaalum has gone haring off in absolutely the wrong direction. At least find out where they think he might have gone before you tell them.)
While this silent colloquy went on, Delszaki Li murmured with Pal and Judit in rapid Old Magyar. “They are concealing something from us; I can sense the shields in their minds. Also there is fear and guilt.”
“They’ll have to tell us more before we give away anything about Acorna. You’ve said too much already,” Pal said, then bit his lip. He had never before ventured to criticize his employer and benefactor.
“Fear you may be right,” Mr. Li whispered.
Gill glowered at being shut out of this exchange, even though he understood the necessity for using some language other than Basic Interlingua. Feeling useless among all these polyglots and telepaths, he rose and went over to look at the lines of light Rafik’s calculations had produced on the projected star maps.
Thariinye felt much the same. All three of the senior Linyaari were looking at him with deep disapproval, as though taking reasonable precautions against an unknown race were a khlevii act on an ethical par with eating one’s young. He could not remove himself from the mental discussion, but he could—and did—leave the tea table to stroll across to the wall of projected star maps, where he leaned over Gill’s shoulder and studied the display with growing interest. It was difficult to read, and showed the heavens at entirely the wrong angle, but as he began to understand the alien notation he was able to mentally map these images onto the three-dimensional picture of the stars in space that he carried in his head.
As anybody who has proved even the simplest geometric theorem knows, there is
a mental language of geometry that exists independently of any spoken language. First comes a kinesthetic sense of the “meaning” of the theorem—a sort of “Aha! If this moves over there then that has to swing round this point about so far, so it will always be the same length as that-over-there.” Afterward comes the laborious process of translating the intuition into Line AB and Point C and so forth and so on.
Thariinye, looking on as Rafik muttered calculations and traced lines of light on the projection, was able to follow the logic of Rafik’s thinking in these intuitive terms. And when he touched Rafik’s arm, waggled his eyebrows, and suggested that an arc be minutely widened to cover a slightly greater subsection of space, Rafik frowned, nodded, and changed the light-diagram without the necessity of a word being said. But at the next suggested course correction, Rafik shook his head violently. “You don’t understand,” he said. “We know there is a fault in the hydroponics unit.” He had to repeat that very slowly before Thariinye waggled his eyebrows to show comprehension. “They must stop before they leave our explored space. The question is, where would they be most likely to stop for supplies? If Calum took this route, he could pick from a salad bar of ag planets in these two star systems; if he took this one, there’s nothing, he’d have to backtrack. But I’m betting he would pick neither the quickest route nor the worst one. Something shaped like a corkscrew would appeal to the shifty bastard. And that would bring him out somewhere near here.” Rafik tapped a point representing a distant sun to bring up a closer view of the system. One panel darkened, then displayed a glowing white outline within which was shown a reddish sun with only three planets orbiting it, two far too close to support the temperate-region greens Acorna favored.
Thariinye reached out and touched the image of the third planet. It looked right to him: a little larger than Home, far enough from the sun to be in the right temperature range, slightly tilted in its elliptical orbit. Two moons, one large enough to cause tides, the other a mere speck, orbited the planet.
The panel beeped, the color of its glowing outline changed to green, and a close-up view of the selected world appeared. Thariinye studied the arrangement of continents and seas approvingly. Yes, this world might well have an ideal climate for farmers. He extended one finger to touch a pattern of light blue triangles and diamonds that looked like a string of beads scattered across the largest continent, and waggled his eyebrows at Rafik rather than hurt his mouth framing a question in this awkward language.
“Ag settlements,” Rafik said, “and one spaceport.” He indicated the six-armed star set toward the bottom of the chain of blue marks.
(Neeva. They are heading in the right direction.)
(Wonderful!)
(No. Not wonderful. Come and look!)
Thariinye extended his hand with an imperious gesture. Rafik raised his own brows, but after a moment looking in the young Liinyar’s eyes, he gave him the laser drawing tool.
“Res-taare fiirist diispla?”
After a moment’s pause, Rafik said, “Oh—restore first display? Sure.” He snapped his fingers twice. The panel showing a close-up view of Rushima faded back into the general picture.
With swift, sure gestures Thariinye sketched many parallel lines of light, originating at the far upper right of the screen and approaching the human-settled portion of the galaxy at an oblique angle that would shortly cut right across the bottom of the screen, passing directly through the solar system that hosted Rushima.
(Look, Melireenya, Neeva, Khaari. Our ’Khornya is going here, and so)—Thariinye tapped the parallel bands of light—(are the Khleevi. There is probability eighty-nine percent that the first world they destroy will be the one for which ’Khornya is bound. We have no more time to debate—we must trust these barbar…) He jammed the brakes on that thought. (…these linyarii beings.) They had better be truly linyarii, for all their sakes!
Neeva’s pupils narrowed to threadlike lines of silver as she took in the devastating message of the star map. She could not make the mental translation to their notation and angle of view as rapidly as Thariinye had done.
(Navigation Officer! Do you concur with Thaari’s conclusion?)
Khaari rose and joined Thariinye close to the display. After a moment her own pupils narrowed like Melireenya’s. (About the Khleevi he is correct, Envoy. As for the route supposedly taken by ’Khornya, I cannot say. It is certainly a possible way to approach our sector…but it seems unnecessarily roundabout.)
(This dark one has explained it to me,) Thariinye broke in. (’Khornya left without the permission of these beings. They believe she has taken an unusual route in order to avoid messages ordering her to return.)
All four of the Linyaari turned to stare at the humans sitting round the table.
“Something’s wrong,” Judit murmured to the others. “Look at their eyes.” Acorna’s slit-pupiled look of grief or emotional tension was repeated four times over in the long, elegant faces confronting them.
“Delszaki Li.” Neeva spoke aloud, carefully, and with only a slight lingering trace of accent in certain syllables. “We…haave not been…enitirely open with you. We haad anyother purpose inn comiin to your people.”
“Is obvious,” Li whispered. “Was wondering how long it would take you to admit it. Now we speak freely?”
“Yes, fireeli,” Neeva said. “Iss little time.” (Calculate expected time of arrival of Khleevi fleet, Navigation Officer! You will aid, Computation Specialist Thariinye! I want an estimate before they ask for one! It is time to take action!)
Nine
Maganos, Unified Federation Date 334.05.18
Neeva began to tell the story of the Khleevi invasion of the First Home, haltingly in the beginning, then with more assurance as her tongue became accustomed to the awkward syllables of the speech called “Basik.”
“Vhiliinyar we called it: ‘Home of the People.’ What need for another name? And our star was called ‘Light of the People.’ Other stars, other lands, we named as we first ventured into space: named for their position, for their discoverers, for the color of their light or the quality of their resources. We took what we needed from other systems, and groups of the People dwelt away from Vhiliinyar for a time to explore and use these other lands, but there was only one Home, and now it is no more.”
“Vhiliinyar thiinyethilelen, fiinyefalaran Vhiliinyar,” murmured the other three Linyaari in their own tongue, a soft ritual plaint of mourning that needed no translation. “We see that your race has seeded itself over many star systems,” Neeva continued. “Have you, then, experience of the Khleevi already, that you protect yourselves by this diversity?”
“Population pressure,” Gill said. He gave a quick estimate of the rate at which human populations tended to expand, given sufficient food, and Neeva’s pupils slitted to silvery lines. “I see! We do not reproduce so quickly,” she said with regret. “Many generations will pass before the People recover from the devastation created by the Khleevi. Your race may yet be more fortunate. Even though they destroy one or many worlds, yet will others of you survive and replace those who are lost.”
“I think,” Pal prompted gently, “you had best tell us exactly what you know of these ‘Khleevi.’ Where do they come from, what are their customs, and what is the reason for the war between your races? Are they humanoid or completely other? What have they said to you?”
Neeva shook her head. “If I knew these things, I would surely tell you. They…they do not communicate. They destroy; and before they destroy, they torture. Of their tongue we have too few samples for the LAANYE to analyze; of their physical structure we know only what is shown on the broadcasts they have sent to cow us into submission. When their first ships appeared in our space, we sent envoys to them, as we have come to you, in peace and friendship. Those envoys never returned, but we know their fate from the images sent back to us. I think I will not show you those vids; there is no need to harrow your hearts with the images engraved on ours. Our envoys, and all of the P
eople who have subsequently fallen into Khleevi hands, have been tortured to death as slowly as Khleevi arts permitted. Fortunately for us,” she added drily, “they were initially unaware of how fragile our bodies must be compared to theirs; the first captives died quickly. Since then they have learned more of our physiology.”
She explained that at the time of the first Khleevi attacks, the Linyaari had been a space-faring race but not a warlike one; it was all but impossible to make war on or harm beings whose grief and pain you could feel, through telepathic contact, as clearly as your own. Gentleness and empathy had been bred into Linyaari culture until any other way of being was all but unthinkable. And although they had, in their explorations of space, encountered other sapient aliens, none of those races had been so well developed or so powerful as to force the Linyaari to learn the arts of war—or even of elementary self-defense. The only real change caused by their encounters with other races had been the development of the LAANYE, the linguistic analyzer which allowed them to acquire a basic understanding of alien languages from a relatively small speech sample.
“Strange that they would develop such a device when they had no prior experience of language translation,” Rafik commented sotto voce.
“Is logical development,” Mr. Li contradicted him in a whisper. “No different languages among their own people, hence no false generalizations as to ‘true nature of language’ such as human linguists produce. Also no development of natural ability to learn other languages, perhaps no brain structures adapted to such task. Is only logical these most intelligent beings would turn to technology for solution.”
Rafik shrugged. Having been brought up trilingual, in the Arabic and Armenian of his family house and the Basic of interstellar commerce, he could not even imagine a world in which all intelligent beings spoke but one language and regarded other tongues as codes to be broken by communications software.
Acorna's Quest Page 17