Explorer (59 page)

The errand-runner came back with a tablet of opaque plastic and a marker, which Prakuyo took, and offered to Bren.

Communicate. Do the pictures. He obliged, and saw to his amazement that his very first mark appeared on a panel at the end of the room. He had an audience. He could start at the beginning. He could make them understand how the whole business had happened. Or he could try. Or he could just get to the point.

He drew a planet and a sun. “Earth,” he said. “Sun.” He drew a ship going out. “Ship. Human ship.” He shaded a dark spot along its route, drew many arrows going out, drew spirals and circles for the lost ship’s route. A dotted line. To a star. Solid line to another star. “Atevi earth. Human ship.”

Prakuyo elected to interpret—one only hoped he got it right; but Prakuyo had been locked into this limited vocabulary, part of the attempt to communicate.

“Human station. Atevi world. Human ship goes away. Humans go from station to atevi world.”

More translation.

“Humans, atevi on earth. Human, atevi, we. Ship they. Ship goes here, here, here. Ship makes station here. Ship goes here and here.” A complicated course, always centering on the second station. “Prakuyo ship comes to the human station, fight. Ship comes to station, comes to atevi world. Atevi and human, we come up to station, say to ship, you take humans from station, bring here to atevi and humans. Atevi and human we want no fight Prakuyo ship. Atevi and humans take Prakuyo on ship, take to Prakuyo ship. No fight.”

Again, a translation, vehement and excited. Prakuyo got up and demonstrated his atevi clothing, to the good, one thought: Prakuyo was not at all unhappy with his treatment on the ship.

It seemed an opportune moment, given the precedent of the water offering. Bren took his packet of fruit candies from his pocket and offered them to Prakuyo, who cheerfully took them, ripped the packet with a sharp tooth, and offered them about.

These
were appreciated.

“Prakuyo-ji.” A young atevi voice, uncharacteristically muted. Cajeiri got up very carefully, and handed Prakuyo his car. “I brought it for you.”

Prakuyo took the offering, and took Cajeiri in a strong embrace, and talked with a great deal of booming and humming, even tugging Cajeiri’s pigtail, unthinkable familiarity, but Cajeiri was wise and held his peace.

Questions started. A lot of questions. And lengthy answers. Fruits appeared, on platters. It began to be a festivity, and if they could exit unpoisoned, Bren said to himself, they might secure the peace.

One tasted such things very gingerly. Only a taste. But that much surely was mandatory. There was a general easing of tension. More offering of water. Of little bits of bread and oil, which human taste found encouragingly safe-tasting.

“Good,” Prakuyo said with enthusiasm. “Good.” A powerful pat on the shoulder. “Bren take humans from station. Get all humans. Kyo take station.”

“Yes,” Bren said. Best they could get. They’d blown the archive. “Kyo good.”

“Human-atevi good.” Another blow to the shoulder. “Ilisidi go take Cajeiri. Go ship. Prakuyo come, go, come, go, more talk.”

Permission to go. Prakuyo would go with them and come and go at will. One could by no means ask better.

“One is grateful.” A bow. Perspiration glistened on Ilisidi’s brow. They had to get Ilisidi out of this heavy place. “Aiji-ma, we shall go back to the ship and continue negotiations.”

“Indeed,” Ilisidi said, and—Bren’s heart labored for her—rose, leaning on her cane. Cenedi moved to assist, but bang! went the cane on the floor, startling every person present except those who knew her. “We shall do very well for ourselves,” she said, and gave a polite, leisurely nod to Prakuyo. “We shall go to our ship. We shall have a decent rest. Then we shall be pleased to meet your delegation.”

“The dowager says good, talk soon,” Bren translated the intent into Prakuyo’s language, and bowed as the dowager turned, walking slowly. Cajeiri assisted her, providing his young arm under the guise of being shepherded along. Cenedi went close to her.

Prakuyo bowed during this retreat. Wonder of wonders, the rest bowed—perhaps
grandmother
translated very well, and found special resonance among the kyo.

Ilisidi seemed quite pleased with herself, standing square on her feet at the back of the airlock-combined-with-lift, as the rest of their party hastened aboard.

The door shut. The car started through its gyrations, and Ilisidi, off balance, had to accept Cenedi’s arm.
And her great-grandson’s, on the other side.

“They seem perfectly civilized,” she said. “One can hardly see why we have had these difficulties.”

“Braddock-aiji,” Cajeiri said, having a bone-deep atevi understanding of how the intrigues lay.

The lift spun through its path and delivered them to the tube; and here, without gravity, Ilisidi let herself be moved gently along. Bren followed, glancing to be sure Banichi was all right: Jago was close by him, Cenedi’s men close behind.

They had done it. Bren allowed himself the dizzying thought. Prakuyo and he would talk, they would take their notebooks and their little dictionaries and make some sort of agreement.

They reached the frosted airlock, and locked through to the astonishing sight of an ordinary human face—several of them. Jase was one.

“Nandi.” Immediately Jase bowed to the dowager, who found it an opportune moment to sit down on the let-down seat at the guard post, her cane braced before her, her hands as pale as ever Bren had seen, and frost a gray sheen on her pepper-shot hair.

Cajeiri got down on his knee beside her and rubbed her arm. “It was very brave, mani-ma.”

“The dowager has gotten us an agreement,” Bren said quietly, to Jase, in Ragi. “Undefined, as yet, but expressions of willingness to talk.”

“Your job,” Jase said, laying a hand on his recently bruised shoulder. “You’ll do it. We’re still boarding passengers. We can do that and talk; and then we get to the fuel. Excellent job, nadi.”

“Hardly my doing.” He found himself wobbly in the knees and envied the dowager the seat, but would by no means dislodge her, or suggest they send for transport. “One believes the dowager will do very well with a little rest and warmth, Jase-ji. A little hot tea might come quite welcome.”

“A little less of talk,” Ilisidi said, and gained her feet, frightening them all. “The lift will get us home well enough. Jase-aiji, attend us down.”

Jase doubtless had a thousand things on his mind. But he had a key that preempted all other codes, and got them a lift car, despite the traffic that continually whined and thumped its way through the ship’s length.

The dowager walked in under her own power. Bren walked in, attended by the rest, all of them in one packet.

“Prakuyo will come back aboard to talk,” Bren said.

“Prakuyo.” Jase tried the name out.

“We think that’s his name. It could be his species.” So little they knew, at this point, about each other. Several things pleased the kyo about their expedition: the presence of an elder was one. Several things the kyo found shocking: the inclusion of themselves in the word
we
certainly seemed a matter of high debate.

But Prakuyo seemed about to make the jump.

Not much to report, brother, except ignore the last will and testament, which now seems embarrassing. We’ve loaded precisely 4043 persons and put their luggage through stringent checks for contraband, though what contraband one could find in this desolate station, I can’t imagine. Fruit sugar has produced a few stomach complaints, but the addiction is spreading. Likewise the taste for green plants. A few of the old people insist it gives them stomach ache, and they want their yeasts, but that’s only to be expected, I suppose.

I’ve met numerous times with Prakuyo and his association, there and here, during the last two days, and we’re more establishing vocabulary than conducting truly meaningful negotiations, but it’s pretty clear they’re to take over the station, which is not that far from places they consider theirs—more about that when I get back, when we can discuss this on a suitable beach.

Banichi took a little damage, which is mending nicely. Jago is coddling him shamelessly.

More later.

*   *   *

Aiji-ma, we are about to fuel the ship, and there will be no further difficulty. Gin-aiji has vouched for the machinery as of this morning.

A small note: Prakuyo-aiji indicates the observing ship was regularly receiving supply and exchanging information with others during the last six years, and that Ramirez-aiji had indeed encroached on places the kyo prefer to keep untraveled. The kyo attempt at approach apparently frightened Braddock, which ended in the kyo envoy being held these last six years. The kyo are very glad to know that responsible persons have shown up to rein in such adventures, so that kyo and atevi and humans may establish the nature and extent of their
associations in reasonable security.

It should be noted that the kyo ship is very heavily armed, or at least was capable of extraordinary damage. I directly asked Prakuyo if he had knowledge of any other peoples beyond atevi and humans, and he seemed to say that such persons were not welcome in kyo territory. The kyo may be a barrier to such foreigners arriving in atevi regions, or they may have enmities of their own, a possibility which may indicate more caution in our relations with them. They do seem reasonable once approached at close range, but one cannot give credit enough to the aiji-dowager’s wise influence as an elder, which position they do greatly respect, and the fact that she could speak to them in a language recognizably not the language of humans who had offended against the kyo.

They form powerful associations among themselves based on kinships, as best one can guess. They are completely puzzled by the association of atevi and humans: this state of affairs requires an intellectual, perhaps profoundly emotional leap for them to accept as applicable to them, as difficult at least as humans and atevi discussing personal ties on a rational level. But they have moved from passionate rejection to curiosity, at least in the person of several of them. They have never traded outside their own association, except, one gathers, as a preliminary to absorbing that neighbor, but do conceive that trade relations with another powerful and alien association is a topic for discussion. Since there seems to be a historical precedent of trade leading to absorption of neighbors, there may be indications for caution here. Relations will need to be stabilized and well-defined. We are attempting to build the foundations for a lexicon, and may appoint Reunion as a more or less neutral venue in which further discussions can take place. Prakuyo seems very anxious to have this established. If I correctly understand him, the kyo believe that persons once met stay associated—that the universe will not be whole unless what has met remains in association. This may be a religious or a philosophical belief. It is one that may be troublesome in interspecies relations, and may account for the kyo’s persistence. From the time Ramirez began intrusions into kyo territory, trouble was likely.

Ship’s crew had intended to place Ramirez’s remains into the station as they destroyed it, for respectful and fitting cremation; since the station will go into kyo hands, they have determined instead to give him to the local
sun as we depart this place.

For the rest, Sabin-aiji has returned to the ship. Sabin-aiji has received communication from Braddock-aiji, who seeks assurances of safe passage, which she has granted. We shall be very sure he is suitably housed and protected from those he has offended. We shall reposition the ship for fueling, preparatory to departure from this place.

Therefore, aiji-ma, I have a great deal of work to do in a very short time. We have contacted a dangerous and different set of foreigners who may present far less danger if our communications can be more accurate . . .

*   *   *

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep on the desk. He had a meeting to get to. Not with Prakuyo, thank God, but Jase was coming down to supper. With the dowager. With
Sabin,
God save them.

Staff was in hardly better condition. He had sat about in his bathrobe this morning, Narani arriving late and absolutely scandalized that he had sat in the chill making notes, but that was very well—he was doing what he had studied all his life to do, and so absorbed in it he had little cognizance outside that job, when he was in it.

Lord of the province of the heavens, not by choice. Paidhi-aiji—that, quite happily so, with a half a ream of notes and sketches and a voyage that seemed all too short ahead of him.

“Nandi.” Jeladi had come in, hoping to help him dress for dinner. He stood up, and stood thinking about nouns and whether kyo linguistics exactly had tense—now and then were remarkably confusable, or they were simplifying for the foreigners, or using a trade tongue: contact with outsiders seemed to have a formula, among them, and since they tended to swallow what they met, thinking it the proper way to do things, there was a little danger in letting kyo fall into formula at all.

Penetrate beyond the trade tongue, if that was what it was. It might take him coming back to Reunion. He rather well hoped to train a handful of sensible sorts to do that, a human-atevi association that could collect data—damn, he wanted his beachfront and his comforts, not to be sitting out here in a steel vault.

He arranged the cuffs, straightened his coat. Bowed his head so that Jeladi could see to the white ribbon. White, for the paidhiin.

Jeladi gave him a mirror, and he approved. Down several kilos, he was. He could live with that change. He hoped to maintain it.

“Very good, Ladi-ji.” A little sound warned him of a presence in the doorway—he was not surprised to see Banichi and Jago waiting for him.

“Nadiin-ji.”

“Nandi,” Banichi said, and they escorted him down the corridor toward the dining hall.

Mission all but accomplished.

A pleasant evening. The dowager’s table, and Sabin. And Jase, whom the crew took for a bona fide captain these days.