Damocles (17 page)

“We weren’t sneaking up on them,” Ba said with a sharp rap on the table. “We were hoping to get a candid shot, one that wasn’t prepared and staged.”

Loul couldn’t help but snort at that. “It’s pretty candid in here. We don’t have the time or language for staging things.”

Addo eyed the light screen hovering over the table. “You have the technology, though. What can you tell me about that?”

“Not much,” Loul said. “It’s a language program of some kind. She records what we say and somehow sorts it out to translate. That’s what we’ve been doing, finding common ground in the languages so we can communicate.”

“And it’s working?”

“Obviously.” Loul waved his hands at the teams working around the field. “The engineers have been going nuts over whatever compound that ship is made of and the bio teams have already gotten full-body scans, blood tests, and neurological readings.”

Addo Lat, who sat on the same side of the tables as Meg with the booth’s dividing wall separating them, leaned forward and smiled a toothy smile at the Urfer. Keeping all his teeth in sight, he spoke loudly and slowly. “Can you show me how to work your screen?”

If Loul hadn’t spent so much time with Meg and hadn’t been wearing the earpiece, he probably would have missed the
fluttering of her stomach and throat muscles and missed the breathy sound of her muffled laughter. Instead, she turned to Loul, knowing he had heard her, and flickered her eyes toward the screen. Her expression stayed still as her finger trailed down along a notched symbol on the edge of the light. He barely saw her lips move but heard her voice soft in his ear.

“Loul hear Meg?”

His eyes widened. She must have turned the volume of her speakers down because he only heard her in his earpiece. Trying to make it look casual, he brushed his finger over
yes
.

“This—this okay?” She didn’t move her head, but her wide eyes darted to the two reporters. “Loul is okay?”

How could he answer that? They hadn’t yet come across the words for
trust
and
mistrust
. He didn’t think Baddo were a danger in any real sense. He didn’t need to describe them as bad but he couldn’t comfortably tell Meg their presence was good either. The fact that she had arranged to ask this question in private told him she probably sensed something like this.

Meg didn’t know who these two were, but their entourage, their big smiles, and their ugly black shawl shirts weren’t doing much to win her over. More than that, the sharpening of the pitch of Loul’s thrum alerted her more than any warning could have. He didn’t like these two and thus neither did she. Of course, she didn’t have to answer to them, whereas they might be Loul’s superior officers. She liked the way Loul didn’t give away their private conversation. Unbridled openness was not necessarily a virtue on Didet, a quality she could work with.

She sat quietly as the three conversed, watching out of the corner of her eye as the ProLingLang program pieced together phrases. She only half-listened to the soft translations playing in her ear. Instead she focused on the throat sounds of the people around her, developing a keener ear for the varying pitches. Loul sounded agitated, even a touch angry, his pitch rising and hitching. The two in black, Ba and Addo by name although she didn’t know which one was which, had an unnervingly similar pitch. If she closed her eyes, she would have been hard-pressed to identify them as two people. The undertones beneath their voices rolled in a low wave that felt almost hypnotic. Around them, the security forces and camera people made what she would describe as a skittering tone. That’s all she could think, that their throats worked in an almost sympathetic reaction to the conflict unfolding before them.

When she heard the growling sound coming from behind her booth, she knew someone was trying to sneak up on her. Something about the low pitch, to say nothing of the low and slow approach, compelled her to catch whoever was doing the sneaking. So far in the landing field, all approaches and contacts had been up-front, face-to-face, with plenty of visual cues and approach warnings. It only took a few times of watching an engineer throw a wrench or hearing the Effans scream to learn that the Dideto did not have a strong sense of hearing. They were easy to sneak up on, and, knowing that, the Earthers had adjusted their behavior accordingly. This was not a place you wanted folks to be nervous.

That a Dideto thought he or she could sneak up on her? Well, that just lowered her already dropping opinion of the group that had insinuated itself into her and Loul’s discussion. She reminded herself that as a protocol liaison, she was supposed to remain as neutral as possible, but that hitching from Loul’s throat felt like
fingers jabbing her ribs, shortening her temper. When the man beside her (Ba? Addo?) yelled at her with that big fake smile, it was all she could do to not roll her eyes.

In truth, all she should do was let Loul handle it. She didn’t know the power structure of the assembly amassed before them. She didn’t know the fallout of defying authority, and she knew they had to be prepared to comply with Dideto policy—to a point. When Loul slammed his hands down on the table, Meg began to pay more attention to the translations whispering in her ear. She heard a lot of “no” from Loul and “yes” from the woman and a general tone of condescension from the man. Whatever they were saying, it was irritating Loul. When the man gestured over the barricade and she heard the word
move
she spoke up.

“No.”

The newcomers and their entourage jumped at the sound of the voice magnified through the speakers. It was the first time any of them had been face-to-face with the Earthers, having only heard their voices on the news clips.

“Earthers no move.”

The woman gave a squinty-eyed smile that looked like it should be accompanied by a hiss and started talking loudly and quickly. Loul held up his hand, making a downward motion, hopefully telling them they didn’t need to shout.

“Earthers no move.” The woman leaned forward unnecessarily to shout into the microphone on the table. “Earthers move…” A few words were lost in translation, then, “…little less talk…move…yes camera…Dideto. Yes?”

Loul barked out a few hard words and turned fully toward Meg. He made the settling stance and she wondered if he was fighting back the urge to make an obscene gesture. She wished he wouldn’t fight it. Call her an adolescent, but she was dying to know what passed for profanity in this language. If he had
the urge, he resisted it because she could see his knuckles hovering over the table the way they did when he was getting ready to approach a new concept.

“Meg move.” He lifted his fists quickly before she could protest to let her know he wasn’t finished. “Earthers no move. Meg no move…all. Meg move…a little.”

He clasped his fists together on the table, making sure she watched. “Earthers no move.” He separated his hands a bit, as if he were holding a small bowl. “Meg move a little.” Hands farther apart, holding a larger bowl. “Meg move Earthers.” Hands even wider. “Earthers no move. Yes?”

She buried her chin in her hands, staring down at the table as if the explanation would suddenly materialize between his spread hands. She nodded, their sign to repeat the sequence, and he did. Ba and Addo started to shout over him but he shushed them.

The widening circle of his hands niggled at her mind. If she could understand the gesture, she could untangle the strange phrases. He said the Earthers wouldn’t be moving but he moved his hand outward when he did. Meg would move and move the Earthers and not move? All the while his hands spread farther and farther apart, creating a widening ring. Did he mean he wanted her to change her mind? Like the center of the ring was her original idea but he would broaden the idea and make her see it differently? Kind of a complicated thought process but not impossible. She let her own hands act out the sequence on the table, Loul watching her, willing her to understand. It was harder to think with that low, rolling thrum coming from the two newcomers, to say nothing of the high, jittery twinges from their entourage.

Her hand slid across the table and she felt something wet clinging to her hand. Pulling up she saw a strand of
mogi
fiber
clinging to the underside of her pinkie. She peeled the wet string off, preparing to flick it away, and thought about the
mogi
, the way it unwrapped. She could see Loul’s thick fingers peeling back the dried husks to get to the fresh green leaves within. Several of the foods she’d seen him eat were handled that way, the old on the outside, the new within.

Time. She didn’t know how she knew it, but she knew it, and she knew Loul could see it in her face. He wasn’t telling her options; he was telling her a sequence. First, in the middle, the Earthers didn’t move. Then Meg would move. Then Meg would move the Earthers, and then the Earthers didn’t move again? She knew she was right up on it but couldn’t quite grab it.

“Meg move Earthers?”

“Meg move a little.” He widened his hands. “Meg move…Earthers.”

She heard his teeth grind in frustration, trying to find the words. When the woman beside him interrupted, Loul did shout, slamming his fists on either side of the light screen, making the woman squeak, the man jump, and the soldiers shift their batons. One of the cameras purred.

Meg gave Loul a chance to compose himself, keeping her eyes on him and ignoring the staring duo on one side of her and the encroaching camera on the other. This was between her and Loul and she made sure every inch of her body language said so. Loul stared into her eyes and she heard the pitch of his throat hum level out. They sat that way for several minutes, just looking at each other. Meg had to fight back a smile. The low, rolling hum of the two newcomers grew higher, less in sync with each other the longer she and Loul kept up their silent bond. Whoever they were, Ba and Addo did not like being left out.

Finally the woman couldn’t sit still any longer. She reached into her pocket and slammed down a handful of small, thick,
round discs. She and her partner talked in tandem to Loul, sliding the discs around on the tabletop until a cluster of five sat in the center. She swept the other discs off the table and back into her pocket, then jabbed at the air over the screen saying “yes.” Loul reached for the discs but she pushed his hand away, her voice getting sharper until Loul surrendered. The woman looked up at Meg and smiled that very big smile again.

“Meg!” Her voice boomed out so loudly Meg couldn’t help but flinch.

“No.” Meg held her hand over the microphone, then put them over her own ears. Whatever this woman had to say, she was going to have to learn to say it more quietly. Loul spoke up again, again making the down gesture with his hands. Just as the woman took a breath to start again, Loul cut her off with another short comment and the too-broad smile disappeared. Meg could see what looked a lot like a smirk on Loul’s face as he sat back.

“Meg.” She started again, her voice softer, her face in a more natural expression. “Ba.”

“Ba. Yes.” Now at least she knew which one was which.

She spoke some more, the translation program humming into action trying to capture her words, and once more Loul spoke in low tones to her. Now Ba’s teeth ground in frustration as she struggled to figure out this broken way of speech. She pointed to the five discs.

“Earthers.” She waved her hand over the discs. “Earthers.”

A quick glance at a silent Loul and Meg shrugged. “Okay.”

Ba pulled one disc away. “Meg.”

“Okay. Yes.” Meg tapped the disc. “Meg.”

“Earthers no move. Meg move.” Ba slid the disc a few inches away. “Meg move little. Talk cameras. Meg move Earthers.” She slid the lone disc back to the cluster.

“Oh.” Meg could have smacked her head against the table. It was so simple and yet she and Loul had become so accustomed to talking things out, going on their guts and sheer will, that it hadn’t even occurred to her to make a simple visual association. They wanted to her to go talk to the press and then she would return to the camp. Duh.

She reached out and grabbed the disc, speaking directly to Loul. “Meg moves
away to
talk to cameras
and then
Meg moves
back to
Earthers. Earthers no move. Talk this.” She needed Loul to say this in Dideto so the translation program could fill in the vocabulary gaps. It seemed like it was always the little words that hung up translations—pronouns and conjunctions that seemed so small and yet did so much heavy lifting in conversation. Loul spoke, and the program lit up and repeated his words back to him. He tapped his knuckles together.

“Yes.”

“Yes.” Meg wanted to smile at the breakthrough, but she hated that it had come from Ba and not from her or Loul. Especially since the solution to the misunderstanding was so simple.

“Yes.” Ba and Addo spoke together too loudly, their teeth showing brown and thick. “Meg move…talk cameras.” They rose in perfect unison, gesturing for her to follow them.

“Okay,” Meg said rising. “Meg Loul talk cameras.”

“No.” Loul didn’t move and Meg sat back down. “Meg Baddo talk cameras.”

“No. Meg Loul.”

“No.” Addo’s tone was sharp. “Baddo. Baddo. No Loul.”

Loul wouldn’t look up at her, so Meg dropped down beneath the table, scrabbled around in the dirt, and sat back up with a rock that she held up before her. “Loul.” He dipped his chin, not understanding what she meant. She pointed to the discs. “Earthers.” Then held up the rock. “Loul.” He huffed a sound that
told her he was following her now. She set the rock next to the discs and pulled one disc away. “Meg move and then move back. Loul no move.”

“No.” He looked down at the table. “Loul move. Baddo no move.”

Baddo and their entourage started chattering again and Meg ignored them. Instead she jabbed the question mark repeatedly. Ba’s hand clamped down hard on Loul’s shoulder and he spoke in low tones to her, obviously explaining the confusion. Addo smiled at Meg, holding his hands over the discs. “Baddo no move. Loul move.” He took the rock from her and threw it over the back of the booth. “Baddo Meg. Baddo Earthers.”