Universal Language

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  The outcry was deafening. All around Jalila, Vox were chattering, clicking, smacking, whistling, screaming. They gestured wildly, signing so fast and emphatically that their hands were blurs. Even Ieria and her fellow leaders howled and flailed, diving from pillar to pillar in a frenzy.

  The uproar swelled and cascaded in the vast chamber, echo building upon echo with growing force. There must have been at least a hundred Vox in the tower, and every single one of them cried out at once.

  Except one. Nalo stood quietly nearby, calmly meeting Jalila's terrified gaze.

  For some reason, her eyes fell to the Voicebox in her hands. Somehow, amid the tumult, it must have miraculously tuned in one voice among many, or many voices saying the same thing. Or maybe it was a malfunction.

  One word flashed on the display, again and again.

  Death.

  Death.

  Death.

  *****

  Chapter 3

  As the cacophony in the tower escalated, the Ibn Battuta crewmen closed ranks. The mob of Vox pressed in around them, forcing them more tightly together.

  "What's going on?" shouted al-Aziz as he fended off the clawed Vox hands that grabbed at him.

  Unfortunately, Jalila was too preoccupied to try to formulate an answer. A snarling Vox violently shook her by the shoulders. Her feet left the floor as the creature hoisted her away from her embattled companions.

  Overcoming her initial shock, Jalila thrashed and kicked, dislodging the Vox's grip. Just as she regained her footing, two more Vox dove into the fray, each latching onto one of her arms.

  Jalila brought up a knee and lashed it back, landing a kick in the lower midsection of one Vox. As the stunned creature released its grip, she swung her free arm around and planted a fist in the same section of the other Vox. That Vox, too, let go of her.

  Her freedom lasted only a few seconds. As her original attacker advanced alongside new friends, Jalila felt more hands grab her from behind.

  Before she could react, she was yanked backward...but her alarm switched to relief when she realized her latest abductor was al-Aziz.

  "Can somebody please tell me what the hell's going on here?" said al-Aziz.

  "Maybe your first contact technique needs work," said Farouk.

  The tide of noise in the tower surged to a head-splitting crescendo. The chatter, screams, whoops, clicks, and buzzes joined together to form a single terrible sound, a chord of sustained rage.

  Then, something new drowned out everything else--an echoing chime crashing from wall to wall and floor to pinnacle with thunderous force, as if the entire majestic tower was one enormous bell that had been rung. It was so loud, Jalila had to cover her ears.

  As the piercing chime resounded through the chamber, the uproar from the crowd reached a shrill, keening peak. As one, all the disparate chattering voices united in a high-pitched, ululating wail...then subsided.

  As the chime faded, the frenzy diminished with it. All eyes turned to red-furred Ieria, now back on her original perch but noticeably higher. Upright and clinging to the glassy, spiraled pillar, she called out to the crowd.

  As Ieria's words spilled into the tower, Jalila's heart pounded...not from exertion, but panic. She could feel herself and her shipmates teetering on a razor's edge of violent death; every word from Ieria's mouth could be vital to their survival.

  And Jalila's Voicebox was gone. It had slipped from her hands during the chaos.

  Jalila did her best to translate Ieria's speech without the device. It wasn't easy, as Ieria addressed the crowd in multiple simultaneous languages without simplifying what she said for the Ibn Battuta team.

  Jalila struggled to sort out the pulmonic language content and translate it on the fly. Without the Voicebox, she couldn't decipher every word...but what she understood, she didn't like. The longer she listened, the more she wished she could go back to not comprehending a single syllable of the Vox language.

  It's happening again. Just like Pyrrhus VII. Another mistake.

  How many people will die because of me this time?

  "Jalila?" said al-Aziz. "What is it?"

  Jalila listened for another moment, then turned to al-Aziz. "I'm so sorry." Her face was etched with an expression of wide-eyed terror. "I caused this."

  "How?" said al-Aziz.

  "I used a slur." Jalila lowered her voice to a whisper. "Mazeesh."

  "All this over a word?" said al-Aziz. "One word?"

  Jalila winced. "I didn't know it was a slur. I heard it used in a different context with a different meaning."

  "What meaning?" said Farouk.

  "Beautiful," said Jalila. "I thought it meant beautiful."

  al-Aziz looked at her with disappointment, as if she'd personally let him down. "Can we offer an apology? Explain it was a misunderstanding?"

  Jalila shook her head. "I think they're going to kill us."

  al-Aziz looked around, scanning the mob of Vox jammed into the tower. "Nobody dies. We'll fight our way out of here."

  Suddenly, Ieria howled, triggering a roar from the crowd. It was one word, expelled in a deafening gust.

  "Ruhala!"

  Jalila translated for the team. "'Death.'"

  The crowd chanted the word with bloodthirsty gusto.

  "Ruhala! Ruhala!"

  Roaring that single, terrible word, the Vox charged, a rippling mass of fur and teeth and claws.

  Earlier, the low gravity of Vox had made Jalila feel light enough to fly. Now, she felt as if she were indeed floating, watching the scene in a detached way from above.

  As clawed hands seized her, she watched her friends battle the onrushing horde of Vox. With muscles developed in higher gravity environments, the humans had increased strength on this world, and they put it to use...but they were too vastly outnumbered to hold out for long. For every Vox that al-Aziz or Farouk heaved aside, ten more lunged at them with fresh ferocity.

  Vox poured over them from every direction, and al-Aziz was pulled under. Sleek-furred elbows rose and fell like pistons as the Vox pummeled him, the results of their handiwork hidden from Jalila's sight. Farouk was left standing, his bald head streaked with blood...but he quickly slipped from Jalila's view.

  Suddenly, the Vox hoisted Jalila overhead and passed her from hand to hand across the crowd. In a heartbeat, she found herself staring up at Ieria.

  Ieria rattled off a staccato chain of syllables. Unfortunately, Jalila understood what she said.

  "Death is too good for you, but at least your tongue will be silenced forever."

  The crowd cheered.

  I deserve this, thought Jalila, strangely calm. I made another terrible mistake, and I deserve to die for it.

  Her captors dumped her on a platform, hard, and held her down. Peering upward, she saw Vox in the heights, watching through the transparent tower walls from every level of the surrounding see-through buildings.

  A black Vox with silver markings blocked her line of sight, bending over her. He gripped a rubbery white strip and pushed it toward her with both hands.

  When the strip touched her lips, the rubbery substance locked in place, adhering to the flesh. It continued to squeeze until it was so uncomfortably tight that Jalila wanted to scream.

  But she couldn't open her mouth. The Vox had gagged her.

  Once the gag was affixed, the Vox hauled Jalila from the platform and held her up for everyone to see. The mob in the tower and all the Vox watching from surrounding buildings cheered and leaped and hugged each other.

  It seemed as if the whole world wanted her dead.

  There was still a single holdout, conspicuous by his calm amid the chaos. Brown-furred Nalo appeared as unmoved by Jalila's plight as by the savage jubilation around him. Standing rigidly among the dancing revelers, he returned her gaze evenly.

  Jalila's captors raised her high like a trophy and shook her. Everybody cheered, and spectators nearest the front hopped up and spat on her.

  When they lowered her again, she lo
oked for Nalo but couldn't find him. As the Vox tossed her to the ground and dragged her from the chamber by her wrists, she frantically searched the jeering crowd...but Nalo was gone.

  *****

  Chapter 4

  Jalila's captors hauled her through a corridor that seemed to be lined with fur and teeth. Beyond the transparent walls on either side, wild-eyed Vox swarmed and yowled, literally climbing over each other for a glimpse of the doomed offender.

  As Jalila slid along the floor, pulled by the wrists, her arms ached...but her mouth hurt worse. The rubbery gag seemed to squeeze tighter all the time, pinching so hard it felt like every nerve in her lips was on fire.

  The horde of Vox along the corridor clattered their claws against the walls and ceiling, rapping out a rhythmic death knell. Jalila could hear the creatures chattering and screeching and chanting the one word she knew too well.

  "Ruhala!"

  Jalila listened and watched...and then, even that morbid distraction was gone. Her captors ceased their progress and released one of her wrists. Twisting around, Jalila saw the creatures open a domed hatch in the floor, revealing a round, dark opening.

  With no more care than they might afford a sack of garbage, the Vox hoisted her up and dumped her headfirst into the hole.

  Jalila dropped into a cramped, spherical pocket that was barely big enough to hold her. Even curled up into a ball, she had hardly enough room to breathe.

  Then, the hatch slammed shut above her, and she was plunged into absolute blackness and silence. She strained her eyes but couldn't find a trace of light; the only sound she could hear was the pounding of her heart and the fast rasping of her breath.

  It was then that her composure finally gave way. Hopeless and alone, she allowed tears to flood her eyes and run freely down her face.

  Earlier that day, drinking in the magnificent sights of the planet Vox, she'd been happy that she'd gotten to come along on one more mission. Now, sobbing behind the painful gag, she wished she'd never gotten a second chance to screw up.

  A year ago, when Jalila had first set foot on the Ibn Battuta, she'd known her new assignment might be the death of her. Just by being onboard the Ibn Battuta, she had exposed herself to countless unforeseen and uncontrollable threats, any of which could have taken her life. How could she have known her true enemy would be herself?

  And how could she have known that she, a linguist, would die because of a word?

  Mazeesh.

  Thinking back, she still couldn't figure out how she'd gotten it wrong. The pieces had all fit together--her own comprehension, the output of the Voicebox device, Nalo's reaction to her response. She had said the Vox city was beautiful, and Nalo had used the word mazeesh; the Voicebox had incorporated mazeesh into its vocabulary database, provided it as part of a later translation, and Jalila had spoken it aloud.

  Everything seemed to line up...so why had the word that meant "beautiful" triggered a riot and death sentence when Jalila had used it?

  The way things were going, Jalila thought she might never find out.

  Her tiny cell was starting to heat up.

  At first, she thought it might be her own body heat accumulating in the cramped confines. Then, as the temperature continued to rise, she decided another explanation was more likely.

  The Vox weren't coming back to retrieve her. She would not be carted off to die by injection or electrocution or some other gruesome means. She was in an oven, and the heat would cook her alive.

  So this was how Jalila would die. This was how she would pay for the mistake that had cost the diplomat his life on Pyrrhus VII.

  Maybe it was just as well. She could see the justice in it, and she was almost relieved. At least she wouldn't have to go home in disgrace and live out her days remembering what she'd lost...remembering the mistake that had literally cost her the stars.

  Not that it would make being cooked to death any easier.

  As the temperature climbed, sweat soaked her body. Breathing became increasingly difficult, especially with the unyielding gag sealing her mouth shut. She tried to remove the gag, but it wouldn't budge.

  Jalila squirmed in the tight space as the wall of the cell became unbearably hot. Reaching up, she found the hatch was slightly cooler, and she twisted around to press her back against it, wedging her feet under her.

  As she looked down, she saw the surface around her boots emit a reddish glow.

  Before long, every inch of the cell's internal surface was painfully hot to the touch, even the hatch. Wrapping her arms around her knees, Jalila clenched her body into a tight fist, shrinking as much as she could away from the scalding walls.

  Tears and sweat poured down her face, sizzling when they dripped on the glowing floor. Her feet roasted as the heat radiated through the soles of her boots, which felt as if they were on the verge of melting.

  Still, the temperature climbed. The reddish glow brightened and intensified, consuming the lower half of the cell and spreading higher.

  Jalila shut her eyes, but there was no escape. Even the insides of her eyelids flared with the bright red glow.

  Then, something gave way underneath her, and she fell.

  Jalila dropped hard onto a solid surface, and her eyes snapped open. She felt dirt under her but could see nothing beyond a blinding beam of light that blazed in her face.

  Peeling soaking wet strands of black hair from her eyes, she squinted into the beam. It bobbed around, so she knew it came from a handheld light source...but she couldn't see who was holding it.

  Then, the beam swung away from her to illuminate the shadowy figure behind it.

  It was Nalo.

  Jalila was too dazed to do more than sit on the ground and stare at him. When the brown-furred Vox played the light around their surroundings, Jalila saw they were in a pocket hollowed out under the cell. It was a small space with a low ceiling, so willowy Nalo had to kneel and duck his head.

  As he had done earlier, Nalo spoke slowly and without clicks or buzzes for Jalila's benefit. "Sorry about the heat." He waved a bulky device slung from his shoulder. The device had a long barrel that ended in a glowing red bulb, and Jalila guessed he'd used it to melt open the cell. "Better than being dead."

  Jalila nodded weakly.

  "We need to go now," said the Vox. "Follow me."

  Then, with the device slung over his back and the flashlight stuck between his teeth, he dropped to all fours. Whipping around, he shone the light on the entrance to a tunnel, just big enough for Jalila to crawl through.

  With a flick of his tail, the otter-like being disappeared into the entrance.

  Jalila waited a moment before getting on her hands and knees and crawling after him. For all she knew, she was going from the frying pan into the fire.

  *****

  Chapter 5

  When Jalila finally emerged from the tunnels into an underground chamber, she got halfway to her feet and collapsed.

  She had no idea how far she'd crawled, but it felt like it had been miles. Her hands and knees were raw and throbbing; her neck and back ached fiercely. She felt like dirt caked every inch of her, even under her eyelids and uniform and skin.

  Without a word, Nalo scooped her up and carried her across the chamber.

  Through half-closed eyes, Jalila watched as other Vox approached them, chattering and gesturing excitedly. When the Vox bunched around them and pressed close, staring her in the face and touching her with clawed hands, Nalo snapped out a few words, and the group backed away.

  As Nalo carried her onward, Jalila looked around. By the dim light of the glowing white moss that clung in patches to the walls and ceiling, she saw Vox at work in an underground camp--tinkering with electronic equipment, unloading containers, adjusting devices that looked like weapons.

  As Jalila passed, the busy Vox stopped what they were doing and stared. Sometimes, they spoke to her, but always in a rush of buzzes, clicks, sign language and syllables that she couldn't fully understand.

 
One word did jump out at her, though. She heard it, clear as a bell, as Nalo gently lowered her onto some bedding on the ground.

  Mazeesh.

  Jalila glanced around at the staring onlookers but couldn't tell who had said it. After what had happened to her when she'd uttered that word just once, she wondered why any Vox would dare speak it aloud. Unfortunately, the gag locking her mouth shut made it impossible for her to ask questions.

  Nalo filled a dipper with water from a nearby basin and carried it to her. Because of the gag, it was impossible for her to drink, but he tipped it into a cloth and used it to wipe some of the dirt from her face.

  Jalila reached up and tugged with both hands at the sides of the gag, but it was still fastened to her flesh. Wincing at Nalo, she pointed to the rubbery strip sealing her mouth, silently pleading for him to remove it.

  Nalo shook his head. "It is permanent. Never comes off."

  Slowly, Jalila lowered her hands.

  "Sorry." Nalo dabbed with the damp cloth at some of the cuts on her arms. "Sorry for your pain."

  His apology was no comfort whatsoever. A horrific new thought occurred to her. For the first time, she realized the gag itself was a death sentence. If it wouldn't come off, and she didn't receive intravenous nourishment, she would eventually die from lack of food and water.

  Nalo left for a moment to refresh the damp cloth, then returned and resumed cleaning her wounds. "You'll be safe here. Only a few know how to find this place."

  Jalila stared at a patch of glowing white moss on the ceiling. "Safe" didn't really apply, she wanted to tell him. She wondered if he realized that by rescuing her from her cell, he had only prolonged the inevitable...and perhaps guaranteed she would die from starvation and dehydration.

  "The word you said," said Nalo. "'Mazeesh.'"

  Jalila frowned at the mention of the word. If it was so offensive and forbidden, why was Nalo saying it?