The heartglobe beeped another warning. The blackness he’d just escaped whirled around Jarrikk, threatening to engulf him again. Flightless! Flightless! No wonder the healers never spoke to him, no wonder he had been put in this windowless cell, no wonder he shared it with no other patients. Flightless? The healers should have slain him, should never have let him wake up. They had a duty to the Flock, a duty to the S’sinn, they had a duty to him! “Why do I still breathe?” he cried, and would have lunged up and flung himself at the wall to shatter his skull against it if not for the straps that restrained him.
“It was not our doing.” Disgust tinged Mother Iko’s voice. “The incident you caused brought the Commonwealth meddlers diving in. They prevented us from avenging you. Then, after one of their Translators touched you to see if he could make sense of your ravings, they insisted that we keep you alive. They have monitored every step of your treatment. The healers have had no opportunity to uphold their oaths, Jarrikk. Nor have I. The Commonwealth has claimed you for itself.”
Jarrikk strained against the restraints once more. “Mother, you are here, we are alone, kill me, now, quickly! By the Hunter of Worlds, Mother, I beg you—”
The priest backed away. “I cannot, Jarrikk. The Hunter forgive me, I cannot.”
“You must! You swore an oath! Mother—”
Iko took a step forward, her hands reaching out toward him—
—and the door crashed inward, admitting two of the reptilian soldiers Jarrikk had seen the day of the Treaty, beamers aimed at the priest. Iko lowered her hands. “I’m sorry, Jarrikk. I truly am. But you are not of the S’sinn anymore.”
“Then I am nothing!” Jarrikk howled after her as she turned and fled. “I am nothing!”
A new figure appeared in the door, a male S’sinn, wearing a silver collar bearing a triangle within a circle within a square, all set in blue stone. “Stop that,” he snapped. “Of course you are.” He nodded curtly to the reptilians, who went out, closing the door behind them.
“I am flightless!”
“So, you’re flightless.” The S’sinn opened his wings and regarded them. “Most races are, you know. You don’t see them swearing at their doctors because they kept them alive.”
“We are not ‘most races!’ ” Jarrikk snarled. “We are S’sinn!”
“Yes, aren’t we.” The stranger came over to Jarrikk’s shikk. “There are more ways to fly than with wings, Jarrikk.” He put his hand on Jarrikk’s head. “Do you feel that?”
“Of course I feel it,” Jarrikk snapped. “Who are you, anyway? Why don’t you just go away?”
“And leave you contemplating creative ways to suicide? I don’t think so.” The strange S’sinn continued to hold his hand to Jarrikk’s head. “That’s quite a block,” he murmured, almost to himself. “I never had anything half that strong. Of course, I didn’t grow up in the broodhall . . . you’d have to have a strong shield with all those other S’sinn around . . .”
Didn’t grow up in the broodhall? Jarrikk stared up at the stranger. “Who are you?” he repeated.
“Quiet,” the other said softly. “I’ve almost got . . . there!”
And with a kind of soundless click, the windowless room seemed suddenly to flood with light, as though open to the sky in every direction. Jarrikk could feel—feel—the other S’sinn’s mixture of amusement and concern and exasperation, could faintly sense the strange bored intensity of the reptilian soldiers outside his door, could pick up other echoes of emotions from other S’sinn from who-knew-where—but most aston ishingly of all, he could feel, really feel, himself, could identify the layers of grief and anger and lust for revenge that colored every thought and action, could almost see the new layer of astonishment and wonder building on top of that, dissolving some of it away—
—dissolving, for example, a little of the wish for, the expectation of, death.
“Ah, I see you feel it now,” said the other S’sinn.
“I don’t—I don’t understand . . .”
“You will.” The other S’sinn spread his wings again and made an exaggerated court curtsey normally reserved for the Supreme Flight Leader. “Allow me to present myself. I am Ukkaddikk, of the Guild of Translators.”
“Guild of—”
“Translators,” Ukkaddikk finished helpfully. “Don’t try to take it all in at once,” he added, unnecessarily, since Jarrikk was hardly taking anything in at all at that moment, weariness having suddenly washed over him like a bank of gray fog. “Plenty of time. The rest of your life, in fact—which, I’m happy to say, now looks like it should be a long one.” He went to the door. “Rest. We’ll talk more later, and I’ll explain.”
He went out, and Jarrikk marveled at the fading sense of satisfaction he sensed from the retreating Translator. Flightless . . . it was still his duty to die, of course, nothing could change that . . .
. . . but the thought trailed him down into sleep that since they insisted on keeping him alive, it couldn’t hurt to hear what this Translator had to say, and to explore this strange new sense.
He’d live. For a while, anyway.
“A Translator?” Kitillikk stared at Mother Iko. “You’re certain?”
“I heard two of the Commonwealth monsters talking, Flight Leader,” Iko said. “He is a Translator. Or he will be. He has the gift.”
“So that is why they would not let us honor him!” Kitillikk went to the window and looked out over the city, the walls of its ugly buildings almost beautiful in the golden light of the setting sun. A single bright star already shone in the eastern sky. “Ukkarr.”
“Flight Leader?” He came out of the shadows to her side.
“It would be a useful thing to have a Translator in our service, would it not?”
“It would,” Ukkarr said. “But they swear an oath . . .”
“Jarrikk has already sworn an oath—to me. I think he will be little inclined to break it in favor of the oath of the Translators, which I understand requires a promise to treat all races equally.” She ran a claw delicately along the windowsill. “Not when he learns that that promise includes humans.”
Ukkarr showed his teeth in amusement. “I’m sure you are right, Flight Leader. What action should I take?”
“Arrange for me to visit Jarrikk. He may be confused about his duty. I must explain to him his responsibility to uphold the Commonwealth Treaty.”
“I go, Flight Leader.” Ukkarr sprang out the window and away.
“Now, Mother Iko . . .” Kitillikk turned back toward the priest—but she, too, was gone. “Leave it alone, priest,” Kitillikk growled to the empty room. “Leave it alone!”
“The Commonwealth Treaty,” Ukkaddikk began, looking out the window of Jarrikk’s new room. At his insistence, Jarrikk had been moved upstairs into a chamber with huge arched windows that overlooked a landscaped courtyard with lots of trees and flowers and a delicate fountain that must have been shipped directly from S’sinndikk; there’d been little time for that kind of art on Kikks’sarr. Jarrikk had thought he wanted the window; now he wasn’t so sure, as a youngflight soared overhead and he thought again of his slain brothers and his own useless wings. He was in no mood to listen to a lecture on the Commonwealth Treaty, but it seemed Ukkaddikk intended to give him one, nevertheless.
“The Commonwealth is based on the fortunate fact that the Swampworlders communicate with each other telepathically and empathically,” Ukkaddikk continued. “When the Hasshingu-Issk—the reptilian race whose soldiers I think you’ve seen—landed on the Swampworld, the Swampworlders—”
“—captured one that had some natural empathic ability and turned him into the first Translator,” Jarrikk finished. “I have had some education, Ukkaddikk. I know the history of the Translators. The Swampworlders, masters of genetic engineering, mutated a symbiotic lifeform native to their planet into a universal nervous system interface that allows telepathic communication between two empaths from any sentient races.”
“Well, any
that we’ve come across so far.”
“Even humans?”
“Oh, yes—in fact, it took very little work to adapt the interface to humans. According to the Swampworlders, they’re very much like us.”
Jarrikk growled.
Ukkaddikk half-spread his wings. “I suppose I can’t blame you for that. But you’ll get over it. You’ll have to, if you’re going to be a Translator.”
“I don’t understand that, either,” Jarrikk complained. “If I have this natural empathic ability, how come I never knew anything about it until you touched my head yesterday?”
“You grew up in a broodhall,” said Ukkaddikk. “Hundreds of other S’sinn surrounding you all the time. You were born with the empathic ability, but your brain shut out the signals it received, the spillover of emotion from all those other brains all around it. It built shields in self-defense. It took a projective empath—me—to break through. But you feel it now, don’t you?”
Yes, he still felt it; had already become used to it, to feeling Ukkaddikk’s eagerness and the stolid, bored watchfulness of the Hasshingu-Issk soldiers, just on the edge of his awareness. Sensitivity faded quickly with distance, but doubled or tripled when somebody touched him.
Which meant that he had felt full-force the way the apprentice healers who had moved him to his new room that morning had despised him for still being alive. “How can I ever be a Translator?” he asked, remembering that. “No S’sinn will let a Flightless One speak for them!”
Ukkaddikk came over to his shikk. “They will have no choice. They will need a S’sinn Translator, and you will be provided by the Guild. They can refuse your services, but if so, they forfeit the right to ever again be provided with a Translator. No one in government or business can risk that.”
“That won’t stop them from despising me. No S’sinn will ever look on me as anything but a freak, an embarrassment.” And I will never look at them without envy and bitterness.
“Do your job properly, and respect will follow.”
“You are not flightless,” Jarrikk snapped. “You cannot know.”
“Neither can you. You are the first. Perhaps, if you succeed in this, others who have lost flight will find that they can still serve the Flock. Perhaps, if you succeed, you will save the lives of Flightless Ones to follow.”
Jarrikk turned his face to the window. A lone S’sinn passed high overhead, momentarily silhouetted against a snowy cloud. “Perhaps they will not thank me for it,” he murmured. He closed his eyes, and after a moment heard Ukkaddikk slip out, thinking him asleep.
In another moment, Ukkaddikk would have been right.
Jarrikk woke in confusion, jerked from deep sleep by—something. It took him a moment to realize his new sense had awakened him, to realize that the stolid presence of the Hasshingu-Issk soldiers beyond the beaded curtain of the entrance arch had vanished, and that a new presence approached, hard, determined, deeply impassioned—
The beads clattered aside. Mother Iko swept into the room, wings half-spread, a military-issue stunner in her left hand and a long silver dagger with a black hilt in her right. “Damn the Commonwealth to Flightless Hell!” she shouted, her fanatical devotion roaring in Jarrikk’s head like a hot red fire. She tossed the stunner aside and quickly unbuckled the restraints that still held him to the shikk, then pulled him upright. He almost screamed from the agony, and the heartglobe flashed brilliant red and started to beep frantically. “I’ve come to help you!” Iko cried. “Their treaty means nothing in the eyes of the Hunter of Worlds!” She pressed the silver dagger into his hand. “Now, Jarrikk! Now you can be free!”
Maddening pain, mingled with the heat of Iko’s devotion, filled him with confusion. He could be free—free of the pain and the confusion—free of this strange sense the Translator had woken in him—free of a world where humans killed younglings and yet returned to live peacefully on the same blood-soaked ground where they had butchered Illissikk—he lifted the knife, pressed its point to his chest, heard Iko begin the rising, wailing words of a prayer to the Hunter of Worlds to devour the soul about to be delivered . . .
. . . and then he felt a new presence, even stronger than the priest’s, heard a shout, and for a moment fell free of both Iko’s fiery emotions and the new arrival’s force of command and found a quiet space in which to make his own decision.
He lowered the knife. “No,” he said to Iko, whose prayer stopped in mid-howl. “I choose to live.”
“The choice is not yours!” she hissed. “The choice is the Hunter’s, and His choice has been made!” She snatched the dagger from Jarrikk’s hand, pushed him back against the shikk, lunged forward—
—and spasmed and collapsed, as though every tendon in her body had been severed, the silver knife thudding against the padded hospital floor. Jarrikk, pain still pulsing through him, looked across her fallen body to where Kitillikk stood, Iko’s own stunner grasped in her hand. “I told you to leave it alone, priest,” she said to the unconscious body on the floor.
“Flight Leader?” Jarrikk gasped, and passed out.
He came to an indeterminate time later to find Ukkaddikk and Kitillikk standing on either side of him. “I am glad to find you still breathing,” Ukkaddikk said. “You may thank your Flight Leader for it.”
“I know,” Jarrikk said. “Thank you, Flight Leader Kitillikk.”
“She wishes to speak to you privately. I leave you in her capable hands.” Ukkaddikk bowed to Kitillikk and went out.
Jarrikk looked up into Kitillikk’s unreadable face. “I did not expect to see you, Flight Leader. Why are you here?”
“You served me well. I repay loyalty with loyalty.”
“But I am Flightless. I am dead to you. I can serve you no longer.”
“Perhaps not as you did.” Kitillikk spread her wings slightly. “But you can still serve the Flock.”
Jarrikk felt something strange in the emotions behind the words. She wasn’t lying—he could swear to that, now—but there were depths of meaning he could not fathom, not with his body aching and his head still buzzing from pain and pain-dulling drugs and his new sense only a day old. “I do not understand.”
“We need S’sinn Translators. We need them to ensure our words are heard properly in the councils of the Commonwealth. Your talent is too important to be thrown away because you are Flightless.”
More complexities. More dizzying doubts. More doubled words. Too much. “I thank you, Flight Leader. I will serve as best I can.”
“I’m counting on it, Jarrikk. I have given you your life. Use it well.”
“I swear I will, Flight Leader.” His eyes closed; he couldn’t keep them open. “I swear,” he murmured.
He didn’t hear her leave.
Chapter 6
Kathryn rubbed her right eye with the heel of her hand and said, “Aga—ah—in.” A yawn swallowed the middle of the word.
“Input not recognized,” said the computer in its pleasant male voice. “Please repeat.”
Kathryn sighed and leaned forward on the desk, resting her head in her hands. “Again.”
“Exercise commencing. Name the four major elements of the Treaty of Ha’gr’akas-ee! Explain how the treaty, hailed as a great success at the time, led directly to the Dispute of the Dry Winter. Support your reasoning with references. Begin.”
Kathryn closed her eyes, concentrating. “The Treaty of Ha’gr’akas-ee!—”
“Can wait,” said another pleasant male voice, behind her. “Computer, cancel exercise.”
“Jim!” Kathryn started to turn, but strong hands on her shoulders stopped her.
“How long have you been studying?” Jim Ornawka said. He began massaging her shoulder muscles.
“I don’t know, an hour or two—Jim, I’m glad you’re back, but I’ve got to—computer, restart—”
“Computer,” Jim’s stronger voice overrode hers. “How long has Trainee Bircher been using this study booth?”
“Nine hours, fourteen minu
tes,” the computer replied promptly.
Jim’s fingers dug a little deeper into Kathryn’s muscles. “Nine hours, Katy. It’s enough.”
“But the exam—First Translation—I’ve got to be ready—”
“If you’re not ready, you can’t learn it all tonight.” Kathryn started to protest, but Jim hushed her. “But don’t worry. You’re ready.”
“How would you know? You haven’t even been here for half a year!”
“Because I know you. Best human student the Guild’s ever seen. You’re always ready. Except for one thing.”
“What?” Kathryn frantically ran over her preparations for the next day. “What did I forget?”
“To relax.” His fingers had never stopped, and despite herself, Kathryn could feel some of her tension slipping away.
“That does feel good,” she murmured.
“I know,” Jim said, amused. “I am an empath, you know.”
“So am I,” Kathryn said, a little sleepily now. “But I’ve never been able to read you, and you’ve always been able to read me like a giant vidscreen. ’S’not fair . . .”
Jim laughed softly. “Feeling better?”
“Feel like I’ve been sitting in this bloody cubicle for nine hours and fourteen minutes,” Kathryn admitted.
“Hungry?”
Kathryn thought about that. “Yeah,” she said, a little surprised it was true. “I am.”
“Good. Because I have prepared a special night-before-the-big-test dinner for you in my quarters.”
“Before you even asked me? Sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
“You’re not saying no, are you?”
Kathryn laughed. “No. It sounds wonderful.”
“Then if you will allow me to escort you . . .”
Kathryn let him help her to her feet and take her arm. As he led her out of the study booth and into the broad, bland corridors of the Guildhall’s human habitat, she felt her long hours sitting at the computer anew in the stiff muscles of her calves and thighs, and leaned on Jim for support. She’d leaned on him a lot over the years, she thought; ever since she’d been brought to the Guildhall and he’d been the only other human child there. She’d been eight, and he’d been thirteen; now, ten Earth-years later, by the careful count Jim had always kept, he’d been a full-fledged Translator for almost five years and she was about to become one. Tomorrow she would face the by-all-accounts harrowing First Translation, not to mention the (to her way of thinking) even-more-harrowing Final Exam, and he’d made sure he was back to support her once again. “It must have been tough,” she said, looking up at his dark, high-cheekboned face.
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