“Man. Woman,” Prakuyo said.
Wise to turn it personal? Maybe it was . . . for the sense of trust they wanted to build.
“Man is Toby. Woman is Barb. Toby is my brother. Toby’s mother is Bren’s mother. Toby is Bren’s brother.”
“Brother,” Prakuyo repeated, and there was a little nodding, a little soft booming, a little discussion. “Bren brother. Toby.”
“Barb?” Prakuyo asked then.
“Barb is Toby’s associate.”
More speculative discussion.
“Baby?” Hakuut asked.
He caught himself short of a laugh. “No baby.”
Kyo faces showed a little freckling, Hakuut more than the others.
“Cajeiri mother?” Prakuyo asked. “Aiji-dowager?”
“No. Cajeiri’s mother is Damiri. Cajeiri’s father is Tabini-aiji.”
A ripple of hums and thumps. “Cajeiri father number one atevi.”
“Number one atevi, yes.”
“Dowager?”
“The dowager is Tabini’s father’s mother.”
That triggered a small and lively discussion, thumps and booms.
“Aiji number one atevi.”
“Yes.”
Another small discussion, then Prakuyo said,
“Cajeiri father number one atevi. Bren, Cajeiri, dowager go on Phoenix. Go Reunion. Go Reunion. Go Reunion.” Prakuyo opened his hand. “Hed.”
Hed. Was that why? Maybe it was give me a sensible answer this time.
There was one point to hammer home. “Tabini-aiji hears kyo upset. Shawn-aiji hears. Tabini-aiji and Shawn-aiji say ship go quick make Reunion stop. Tabini-aiji say dowager, Cajeiri, Bren go see. Bring all Reunion human to Alpha, shut off Reunion, no more upset the kyo.”
If that wasn’t oversimplified enough, he didn’t know what could cap it. But knowing they didn’t understand the entire reason was better than concluding they did.
“Ship-aijiin.” That was a challenge to his statement. Who was in control?
“Ship-aijiin,” Jase said, trying to intervene, and without the words. “Bren, can we say dead?”
Important point, and they were stuck for a word in that direction. Bren took another. “Sabin-aiji take ship. Sabin-aiji hears Tabini-aiji, Shawn-aiji. Sabin-aiji, Jase-aiji come take ship, stop Reunioners. No more make station. No more go in kyo space.”
He and Jase had had their short, private exchange. Now the kyo had their own consultation, with accompanying heavy thumps and hums. God, it was dangerous. A cultural assumption could go right off the edge.
“Many station,” Prakuyo said.
“One station. Alpha. No more station. One ship. One station.”
There was quiet, then, a lengthy quiet. They’d arrived at an assertion, perhaps, that the kyo didn’t trust or couldn’t figure.
For evidence there was the planet below them, with more trains than airplanes, a scant handful of shuttles, three runways, and one starship.
Matuanu said something, no word of which was understandable. Prakuyo listened, bobbed slightly, whether assent or just acknowledgment was unclear.
Prakuyo seemed to be the one in charge, not necessarily as quick with words as Hakuut, or maybe just a shade more cautious than Hakuut.
Prakuyo was also smart. Very smart. He’d picked up on that from the start of their association. And had Prakuyo, with so sharp a recall, been locked up for six years, learning nothing of the language? He didn’t think so. Reunioners had avoided contact with him. He’d had very little interaction with anybody. But over six years—Prakuyo had had time to gather vocabulary.
Now Prakuyo had a tablet with keys to the Ragi language instead, a Rosetta Stone, and he sincerely, sincerely hoped, given his necessary claim that Tabini had some power of restraint over the starship, that had not been a monumental mistake.
Explain now that he wanted the tablets back? That wouldn’t translate well.
Matuanu had rarely spoken directly to him. Now out of long, long silence. Matuanu, security, said, “Ship go kyo star not good.”
Security? Or military?
Humans knew that word. Atevi had borrowed it from Mospheirans.
“Ship going to the kyo star is not good,” he said. “Atevi and Mospheirans say ship not go. Bad upset kyo. No more upset kyo.”
Reunion’s images were vivid, the ruined station. The miserable, starved figure Prakuyo had become. The memories Prakuyo had—the memories the Reunioners themselves had of that place—were all one nightmare.
“Reunion stop,” he said. “No more Reunion. No more human ship go in kyo space. No more atevi ship go in kyo space. Yes?”
“Yes,” Prakuyo said, and there was, for the first time since the question of Phoenix had come up, a low, restrained booming—a signal, one began to believe, of a kyo in a better mood.
With that, they had come to at least a positive resolution—some sort of good outcome. From here it could go on for hours—or go downhill, with everybody increasingly tired, increasingly apt to miss points.
“Sleep now,” Bren said. “Bren sleep. All sleep.”
“Yes,” Prakuyo said, in what was probably a very close approximation of the same conclusion: they’d all had a tension-filled day. They’d had supper, talked, fairly successfully.
Time to go behind closed doors, with a chance to communicate with each other and analyze the situation and then to sleep, and try again in the morning.
“Safe here,” he said, got up, bowed, as the kyo did. He went to the sideboard, where the display was in off mode. He flipped it on, instant view of the kyo ship. “Talk kyo ship, yes. No problem. Push this button.” Central was set to take such a call and send it right through. “Good you talk to kyo ship. You sleep safe. You need, come Bren’s door.”
“Good, good, good,” Prakuyo said. “Thank.”
“Thank you, indeed, nandi.”
The devices he had passed out were still on the table, in the kyo’s possession now, for good or for ill. Rosetta Stone. And fishing net.
Everything they input went to all units. The kyo weren’t fools. They surely observed that.
So would they themselves put fish into the net?
He hoped they would. It would augur well if they did.
He had a nagging fear about what he had done. An association, the kyo had said back at Reunion, could not be broken.
Nor could words once given be taken back. He could have posed the aishidi’tat a lasting, wide-reaching problem. Involved them in a war in which they had absolutely no stake—except what he established here.
On the other hand—the kyo had never met anybody but themselves—and their enemy—until they made contact at Reunion. Two hundred years ago, humans and atevi had stopped killing one another, because there had been paidhiin. Paidhiin were their hope now. Prakuyo was their hope, because Prakuyo, at least, had come to talk and while they were talking, bad things were less apt to happen.
There were danger points beyond the ability to talk to each other. There were cultural questions, instincts they could fall afoul of—
But species smart enough to develop a stardrive—had to have found some basic sense of reason. Smashing systems one didn’t understand was a strategy that kept barbarians from greater things. A better plan, by far, to investigate from the inside. And learn.
The kyo certainly had positive qualities.
Ten years sitting and watching Reunion after their initial strike. Curiosity.
Not immediately blasting their way in after Prakuyo themselves. Restraint and curiosity.
Purpose overriding passion, if passion existed in them.
Exactly what had Prakuyo wanted, approaching Reunion? What had Prakuyo expected—when Prakuyo’s folk had blasted hell out of the station four years prior?
Behaviors didn’t make sense. But then—his own aishid had been completely appalled, when he had moved to join them under fire. They’d been angry at him. Furiously angry.
• • •
He
left with Jase, with Narani and Bindanda, with Banichi and Jago. They crossed the main room, quiet and deserted now, all doors shut but the one they had just left. Their own door opened, expecting them: the monitoring had signaled their approach.
They entered the front room, with its security station apparatus. Banichi and Jago shed jackets and weapons. Tano sat at the middle console monitoring—whatever went on, Kandana and Jeladi and Asicho seeing to Banichi, Algini watching all of it—they were all there, and one suspected Cenedi and the Guild Observers at the very least were there electronically. He gave the Guild sign for quiet, and his own signal for writing, and said, in an entirely normal voice, “It went very well, nadiin-ji. One does not believe it could have gone better.”
Banichi handed him a very small piece of paper, of the sort the Guild used, stuff that would not be paper if water or fire hit it.
He wrote, Their hearing or their equipment heard Jase arrive, and handed it to Banichi, who read it, nodded and passed it on, while he asked Tano, “Did it work, Tano-ji?”
“We found some seeming relationships,” Tano said, while the note passed. “Then the meeting became much quieter.”
“At a certain point I said we didn’t hear everything in the sounds, and they changed their mode of speech . . . somewhat like the children’s language, one suspects. Send word to the dowager and the young gentleman that everything went as well as we could hope. You did follow what we said.”
Silent agreement all around.
“The teacakes were a great success, Danda-ji. Did Jase explain? We shall visit Central handoff tomorrow, to let our guests see something of the human establishment and our Central in operation. They have requested it. Jase will deal with the technicalities.” He ached to get his hands on whatever sorting Tano had done. “I think I may take a very small brandy—any of you may join us, after so much effort today. I think we have earned it, and our guests I suspect are as tired as we are. Did Geigi’s analysis turn up anything unexpected?”
“The sounds are complex,” Tano said, and keyed up a waveform on his screen. It was, indeed. “We could reproduce them mechanically. But they are varied. We have some from Reunion. These have more variety, some quite elaborate. Sorting one source from another is difficult. They often set up resonances.”
Prakuyo’s mood, until he had rejoined his own people, had been restrained, excepting a few moments. So had the kyo on their ship—compared to now.
An appearance of cheerfulness, for their benefit? Nervousness on their side?
No knowing.
The note had finished its rounds, and vanished, from Narani’s hand, into a forsaken cup of tea.
“At least,” he said, “We have a beginning. A good beginning. Arrange things on the dowager’s schedule—our day can begin when she wishes it to begin. Banichi.” He held out his hand, wanting another of those small, disposable papers. He wrote in Ragi, Prakuyo remembers words very accurately. He has trouble pronouncing ship-speak, but in six years he may have learned far more than he has wanted us to know. He is making us work for it. But I am suspicious he knows more ship-speak and more Ragi than he admits—and more than he can pronounce and their hearing may be unexpectedly acute. Be very careful what you say, at all times.
• • •
Cajeiri waked—in a strange place—with someone moving in the room.
He was quickly wide awake. He was in his room inside mani’s protection, with his own bodyguard, and that somebody was moving in the room—he was sure it was one of his own aishid—meant something was going on in the middle of the night. “Who?” he asked, whispering so as not to rouse the rest of his aishid—likely as it already was they were awake, too.
“Antaro,” the whispered answer came back. “Nothing is wrong, nandi. Nand’ Bren is back in his suite. I have just come in from a briefing.”
He pushed himself upright. “Tell me.”
Antaro came near and sat down on the side of his bed, and now the rest of his aishid was stirring, shadows lit by one tiny spark of light by the door switch. They gathered, likely aware that Antaro had left and aware that Antaro was back.
“Nand’ Bren is back in his apartment,” Antaro said, whispering, “and Jago came through the servant passage to report. Everything is going well, but we should be careful what we say, because our visitors may have very good hearing or brought equipment in or both. Cenedi thinks if they have equipment, they may be picking up things from up in the station. Mani is asleep. Cenedi will tell her in the morning.”
He whispered: “Did nand’ Bren learn anything new?”
“Nand’ Bren and Jase-aiji were both in the session. The kyo knew Jase-aiji was there. Nand’ Jase worked ops with the ship as it came in and they may have assumed he was there; but nand’ Bren says they asked for him only after he had come in from upstairs, so nand’ Bren says assume they do hear, and he thinks our visitors know more ship-speak and more Ragi than they admit. Senior Guild agrees. But it did go very well. They worked a lot with the electric dictionary, and they talked about Reunion. Nand’ Bren told them that we have no intention of rebuilding Reunion or going into their space. They all agreed on that.”
He would like to see the kyo world. At least pictures of it. It was a sad thought to hear he never might. But he understood all the reasons, understood them all the way back to the reasons humans and atevi had had trouble meaning the same thing, to this day.
“Nand’ Bren has gone to bed,” Antaro said further, “and nand’ Jase has sent a signal advising the ship-folk that things are going well and to be patient. We do not want to use the lift to come and go. It makes noise all the time, but stopping here, it makes a distinctive noise, and if sounds are informing our guests, we should be careful of unexplained coming and going.”
“So will we see them at breakfast, Taro-ji?”
“We are told nand’ Bren will sleep late if he can, and he is requesting your great-grandmother and the Guild Observers all delay breakfast two hours. This will give him time to study before breakfast, and it will give staff time to begin arrangements. Our guests are asking to see the station working, and to see Mospheiran humans. So they are going to go up to see Central do the handoff.”
That was something he wanted to see. “Shall we all go?”
“One has not heard.”
“Tell them I wish to go.”
“It may make the size of the company unwieldy,” Lucasi whispered, from the side. “One does not know this. But it may be a consideration.”
An adult consideration. A sensible consideration. Those had not become his favorite words in this last year.
“There is nothing more I know, Jeri-ji,” Antaro said.
He had waked up now. Entirely. But it was unfair and even dangerous to keep his bodyguard up so late they were suffering from lack of sleep. Things were not safe. They were never safe with that ship sitting out there.
“Everyone should go to bed, then,” he said. “Thank you, nadiin-ji. We shall hope, at least.”
“Nandi,” they whispered, one and all, and went back to their own rooms, that opened onto his.
It was quiet then. And he was wide awake, remembering, and feeling a little chill in the air.
He had wanted to go into that room with nand’ Bren. He had wanted to talk to Prakuyo. He had felt shut out, disregarded, and he had just waited for mani to tell him he was wrong for what he was probably thinking.
But maybe mani had felt a little the same, and without being upset—nothing upset mani—understood his disappointment. He and mani by themselves had gotten Prakuyo to calm down and even be happy, that first time, on Phoenix. It was mani who, even if she never used a word of Prakuyo’s language, had said the right things the right way and made him understand he was offered hospitality, not being locked up.
This time Prakuyo had come with others they did not understand and had never met before, so things were different, and now was not then. He understood why nand’ Bren had sharply restricted the conversation and talk
ed with them alone.
But Jase had come in, Guild said. Could not he?
Maybe nand’ Bren thought he would still deal in toy cars and picture books, when things were more serious than that.
He was not that boy with the toy cars anymore. He was not that boy who had run the ship-tunnels anymore. He was the boy his father had made his official heir. He was young aiji.
But one noted mani had not simply stamped her dreadful cane and walked into that room with nand’ Bren either. She could have. Mani had not done that, because, for one thing, mani, with someone at hand to act for her, did not need to act, and did not act. She had been aiji of the aishidi’tat once. She had held Father’s power, and she never acted personally if she had a subordinate to send. That was what it was to be aiji.
That was what he would be. Someday. There were probably times his father wanted to be involved in something, and held back because it was something a subordinate could do, should do, and if that subordinate failed, he would send another. And another. Even if they got killed.
And it meant sitting and waiting for somebody to send word and deciding at a distance whether that was good enough.
It meant staying in Central with mani, only listening while other people went into the station tunnels to rescue his associates.
It was not just because he was nine years old.
It was because he was “young aiji.”
That was what he had to be. He could inform himself on what was going on everywhere. But touch it, until it was quieter?
No.
That upset him. But it was what aijiin had to do.
Aijiin were supposed to get information. His aishid was fairly good at getting it. They had. But it was not all he wanted to know.
Things were quiet right now, he thought, if everybody had gone to bed. He hoped they had been able to decide that nobody should shoot at each other, and he hoped the kyo had not guessed there was not much they could do if the kyo did shoot.
There had at least been no word about the kyo ship moving or doing anything. He was very sure Phoenix and the ship-aijiin were watching it, and knew exactly what to watch for, except there being not much they could do about that, either.
Visitor: A Foreigner Novel Page 26