A Larger Universe (6 page)

Potter leaped from the pillow into Forset’s lap.  “Lords!” 
The cat ignored Forset’s exclamation and curled into the hammock his robe made
between his legs.  “Make yourself at home!” 

Forset carefully shifted to a more comfortable position on
the bunk, his back against the wall.  “I haven’t seen you again, but I have
been watching Tommy.  That’s what I wish I could ask you about.”  He absently
stroked the cat’s back.  “He was so skinny and fragile I thought he wouldn’t survive
a week.  At his age, I know I wouldn’t have survived the treatment he’s getting.” 
He laughed abruptly.  “Or now either.  The lords saved me from the other boys
by making me a priest.  Tommy has not only survived, he’s gotten bigger and
stronger.”

Footsteps in the passageway drew his attention to the door. 
When the sound faded, he resumed stroking the cat.  “This is very soothing, you
know.  Almost like meditation.”  Potter kneaded Forset’s knee, claw tips denting
his skin through the robe.  “Something to do while I wait, anyway.  Lord Ull
ordered me to begin Tommy’s training today, so I’ll be here until he returns.”

Potter lifted his head.  “Eeow?”

Tommy and Mark stayed in the observation room for another
hour, watching the landers come and go.  He hadn't said another word to Mark. 
Each time his mouth opened to ask a question, something new would catch his
attention.  What he saw through that window removed all his hopes of escape. 
What hope could he have now?  Every person he knew here, every place he had
been was on a spaceship.  They were alien.  How was it possible? 

He still felt numb when he got back to his room.  There, he
found the priest from the service sitting on his bunk. 

"Hello, Tommy.  My name is Forset.  It’s time for us to
talk." 

Forset--he said he was the third Forset--led Tommy to a
private cabin, two decks below and almost directly under the dining room.  (A
few hours before, he would have said two floors below.  He was on a
spaceship!)  From Forset's small front room, Tommy could see an even smaller
bedroom, and beyond that a bathroom.  The front room had a desk, a shelf with a
few books, and three chairs.

"Books!  You’ve got books!  I haven’t seen a book since
I got here.  May I look at them?"

When Forset sat down without saying no, Tommy took a book
off the shelf and opened it.  His excitement died.  "This is written using
the same alphabet as on the doors."  He took down another, and another,
until he had scattered all the books on the desk.  "They’re all the same. 
Don’t you have books in English?  I can’t read these."

"No, none in English.  Priests have no need of them. 
Many of the artisans read and write English, and some of them have books
written in English.  The farmers don't read.  All priests and artisans must be
able to read, write, and speak the lords’ language.  That's what you must learn
to do."  He picked up one of the books from the desk.  "This is
written in the language of the lords.  The lords have commanded me to teach you
to read and write their language."

Kidnapped by aliens for this?
  "I don’t
understand," he shouted.  "What's an artisan?  Why do I need to read
and write the lords’ language?"

"The artisans maintain this ship for the lords.  I was
told the lords obtained some special books on their trip to Earth.  They want
them translated.  They've decided you will do it."

Tommy threw up his arms.  "That’s crazy.  I don’t know
anything about languages.  The only language I've studied in school is
English.  People translate for a living.  Why didn’t you take one of them?  Why
can't the artisans translate your books if they can read English?  Why did you
pick me?  Why have you had me shoveling horse shit since I’ve been here, if
that's what you want me to do?  You separated me from my Mom and Dad to
translate some books?”  He sprawled across a chair and repeated, "That’s
crazy."

Forset chuckled.  "The first Jack told me you ramble on
when you’re upset.  I’ll answer your questions if I can."

"You are working in the stable to calm you down and to
get you used to being here.  The lords seldom take adults permanently--they
haven’t in generations--and you’re close to being an adult."  He paused. 
"You told Jack your cat was feral when you first saw him?"

"Yes."

Forset leaned forward.  "And what did you do to tame
him?"

Tommy sat up straighter in his chair.  "I fed him, and
talked to him, and made sure he knew I wasn’t going to hurt him."

"Did you do that in one day?"

"No, I tried for a long time before he would come up to
me, then almost as long before he would let me pet him."

"How old was your cat when you started?"

"The vet wasn’t sure, less than two years old, maybe
about one."

”Would he have been so easy to tame if he had been older? 
More set in his ways?”

Tommy stood and picked up one the books.  He flipped pages
for a while, his eyes on the strange alphabet.  "OK.  I get it.  But why
the stables?  Why shoveling horse shit?"

Forset made a steeple of his hands.  "Jack told you one
of the reasons.  We all work here.  Even I work in my fashion.  We couldn't let
you lie about like a contented cat while you got used to things, and we had to
take your mind off of your situation.  The first time I saw you--you didn’t see
me--you were crying.  The lords decided you needed to be too tired to
brood."  He smiled.  "I'm afraid your lessons won't take all day.  I
do have other things to do.  When you're not here you will continue at the
stables, 'shoveling shit' as you say.

"As to why the lords picked you over some other child? 
Well, you did advertise yourself on that broadcast program.   They showed me
the transmission after you arrived.  Maybe that just gave them a convenient
target.  Perhaps not the smartest thing to do, even if we hadn't seen it.  You
may have said something that made them want you.  If so, you will find out
eventually, but I don't know.  By the same logic, I suspect you know something
that the artisans don't that will help you with the books.  I've never seen the
books, so you can satisfy my curiosity at the same time you satisfy
yours."

The priest stood and took the book from Tommy's hands. 
"You will be coming here in the afternoons for quite some time.  The
artisans learn the lords' language from birth, but you and I don't have that
advantage.  When I entered the priesthood, I studied the lords' language for
three years before I became fluent.  Some take more time, some less.  The lords
understand how long it takes.  Their language is nothing like English."

Tommy turned to face Forset.  "Different from any
language on Earth, right?  The lords aren't human, are they?"

Forset smiled again.  "Are you just realizing that?

"We'll start tomorrow.  As for today, this is a rest
day, and I only get the afternoon to rest, anyway."  He tugged on a cord
beside his desk.  "I suppose you would like to rest, too.  I'll have
someone take you back."

The person who entered the room also wore a priest's robe
but seemed younger than Forset.  Forset confirmed this in his introduction. 
"This is the fourth Forset, my alternate.  He will show you the way to
your barracks.  Make sure you can find your way back here."

He walked Tommy to his door.  "I expect you here each
day, except rest day, immediately after the midday meal."

On the way back from Forset's quarters, the fourth Forset had
ignored Tommy's questions.  At the entrance to the farmers' area, one of many
passageways like hundreds of others on the ship, he turned back without a word,
leaving Tommy, seething, to find his way alone.

From his barracks door, he saw one of the boys who had been
tormenting him doing something with the sheets on his bunk. 

A sudden rage drove Forset and his new tasks out of his
mind. 
Not this time
, he thought.  Tommy walked as quietly as he could
behind the boy, grabbed his shirt on either side of his neck, and tossed him
toward the door with a loud "Aaahhhh."  The boy slid into the hall on
his back.  Tommy followed, intent on doing more damage, as the boy stood up and
bolted down the passageway. 

By the time Tommy had disposed of the cup of horse manure he
found on the floor beside his bunk, his hands had quit shaking.  He collapsed
on the mattress to think about what he had just done. 

In the observation room mirror that day, he had seen a
smaller version of his Dad, something he had been sure could never happen.  He
was taller, too, maybe as tall as the first Jack.  His dad was five-ten.  If he
grew to that height, he would be taller than anyone here.

Some of Tommy's earliest memories were of his Dad lifting
weights and using a weight machine in the basement before dinner, four nights a
week.  The machine was directly underneath his room, and, sometimes, his dad
seemed to clank the machine in rhythm with the click of his computer keyboard. 

His Dad had been concerned about his small size and had
repeatedly encouraged him to exercise.  Tommy never lasted more than a session
or two on the weight machines before complaining so much about the pain that
his Mom would make his Dad leave him alone--until the next time.  Finally, his
Dad had quit trying to get him to work with weights and had, last winter,
enrolled him in a Korean martial arts school. 

After the first couple of weeks, he had liked the class, and
he only had to be there an hour and a half a week.  The self-discipline and
concentration required in martial arts reminded him of programming.  He had
improved--especially in Hapkido, the art of throwing an opponent--but he had
one problem:  he was much smaller than the other kids his age, and he stayed
that way.  At his skill level, size mattered.  In the sixth month, the bruises
the other boys gave him frightened his mom, and she made him quit.

Apparently, forced farm labor is as effective as lifting
weights
, he thought.

Potter came out of hiding and jumped onto Tommy's chest. 
"Well, Potter Cat, I see I can't count on you to protect things around
here." 

Tommy sat up, lifting the cat into his lap.  "You know,
Potter, I don't have a clue about this new person I saw in the mirror today, or
who the person is who threw that asshole into the hall."  Potter head-butted
his hand, and Tommy began scratching Potter's back.  "The person I used to
see in the mirror is a geek and has always been a geek.  And the one thing I
know for sure about being a geek is they don't toss people across the
room."  Potter purred and kneaded through Tommy's pants legs.  "Well,
the person I tossed is small, but in Atlanta I wouldn't have confronted anyone
of any size no matter how mad I was."

He scratched behind Potter's ears.  "Did you know we
were on a spaceship?  If you did, you could've told me.”  Potter blinked and
head-butted his hand again.  “Spaceship or not, there must be a way to get
home."  His fingernails continued down Potter's back.  "Until we do,
I've had enough of those boys."

His eyes closed, and he fell back on the bunk. 
"Potter, maybe we can sort this out tomorrow."  Five minutes later he
was asleep.

The next day, he did begin to sort things out.  His
tormenters shoved him in the manure pile again, but this time he fought back
and took two of them in with him.  When he charged from the pile, the remainder
scattered to their jobs. 

His walk had a definite swagger as he pushed his wheelbarrow
into the stable. 
They called me feral
, he thought. 
If so, being
wild makes me stronger than the other boys my age.  Mark compared this stable
to a chicken yard.  Maybe I've become a rooster.
 

He missed lunch to shower and change clothes for his first
class, but that seemed unimportant.

#   #   #

That class and the others that followed for many weeks were
rote and utterly boring.  First, he studied the symbols of the lords’ alphabet
and how to sound them out with all of their variations.  Two of the vowel sounds
were whistles, one made with the lips and the other by the tongue pressed
against the roof of the mouth.  Before he got that right, they moved on to
short words he had to write in a notebook and repeat aloud, over and over
again:  words for counting, words for objects in Forset's cabin, words for
parts of the body, words for movement.  Memorization had never been one of
Tommy's strong abilities, and Forset relentlessly pushed him until he felt his
brain would burst.  When Tommy asked for a break in the middle of their
four-hour sessions, Forset would say, "We have been given this task by the
lords," and the class would continue.

After several months, they progressed to short sentences,
then longer ones.  Some aspects of the language did make it easier to
understand:  the noun and verb combinations always followed a regular pattern,
and the language lacked contractions of any kind.  The words and syllables were
always said distinctly.

In the seventh month of classes, Forset insisted they
communicate during their four hours only in the language of the lords.  At
first, this was limited to simple questions and statements, but, as his
vocabulary and confidence increased, Forset asked him questions about his work
that morning or how he was getting along with the farmers.  Forset always
listened intently to his answers, correcting his pronunciation, his choice of
words, and how he put his sentences together, and then Tommy tried his answers
again, until Forset was satisfied.  At the beginning of his second year on the
ship, Tommy's written work progressed from copybook exercises to essays
describing his previous life and the work he was doing now.  Forset examined
these closely 

The day came when Tommy could carry on a conversation almost
as easily in the lords' language as in English.  He and Forset walked the
passageways near Forset's cabin or along the Commons' trails during at least
two of their four hours together, conversing about whatever came to mind for
either of them.  When they met another priest, Tommy and the priest exchanged
greetings in the lords' language and stopped to talk for a while if the priest
was willing.