The Law of Becoming: 4 (The Novels of the Jaran) (97 page)

“How can a message wait when it is made of nothing permanent?” Sonia asks. Sonia is full of questions. “Even the speech with Anatoly Sakhalin vanished as soon as it was over.”

“The message remains, recorded into memory.” The ke touches several bars on the console. “By this means, the message plays back.”

The patternless daiga rises about the console again, and the entire conversation plays out while Sonia watches.

“But how does it
do
that?” she demands, and the ke realizes with surprise—
surprise!
—that part of the daiga pattern of voice and physical body includes the force daiga name as
emotion.
To learn to recognize the patterns of emotion is to learn to read daiga patterns correctly. Then, as swift as a gust of wind, Sonia speaks again, casting off the last question. “But I must send a message to Tess. Or to Cara Hierakis. She left twenty days ago. Could her machines have gotten her to Jeds so quickly? Well, of course they could. There was that, what did you call it? She sent a brief
signal
to say she got there, but nothing spoken or written. It’s just hard to…imagine. Even the swiftest, untiring messenger changing horses at every station would take forty days to ride from Sarai to Jeds. Yet words spoken into this tool can reach Jeds as quickly as I can speak them! I must call Cara Hierakis. Can you show me how to speak to Jeds?”

The ke considers, but neither the daiga Tess nor the daiga who had hidden the ke in the laboratory in Jeds for five orbits of the planet—for five
years
—have forbidden the daiga Sonia from learning whatever Sonia asks to learn. Nothing is interdicted from this daiga, now that the concealing curtain has been drawn aside. It is a daiga
metaphor
, a way of naming that classifies one object because it acts similarly to another. Or is that a
simile
? No wonder the daiga remain primitive. Language has taken the place of physical evolution. Naming and seeing have become
synonymous.

“This gold bar seems to trigger the appearance of an image,” says Sonia, trying to manipulate the console without instruction in order to discover the correct sequence.

The ke shows Sonia how to put a call through to Jeds.

The daiga named by the others
Cara Hierakis
answers. The two daiga converse. The ke follows the conversation intermittently, distracted by other questions.

“No, I’ve heard nothing from Tess, but she only had an emergency transmitter. Anatoly Sakhalin says he did
what
? That he was named a prince…in the Empire? That he saw a female Chapalii? But males can’t cross into female territory, or at least…that just doesn’t make sense. I’ve heard nothing from Charles. Oh, wait. I’ve got an incoming coded message, a download, from Odys. Let me call you back.”

The visual image of Cara Hierakis vanishes. Sonia waits at the console, calling back old messages, watching the replay, even those in a language that evidently is incomprehensible.

“Is there an interpreter tool?” Sonia asks. “So I might understand what this woman is saying? She says Tess’s name, so she must know Tess.”

An image of a daiga speaks over the console, a daiga like all the rest, indistinguishable without a pattern to read. Daiga can discern subtleties in daiga morphology that allow each daiga to discriminate any one daiga from the others. Ke have no need for such fine discriminative control, brought on in the daiga, perhaps, by territorial instincts or the need to have and keep a
name
, which then grants existence.

“Is there no means within the daiga brain to translate words?” the ke asks.

“If I know another language, then I can understand it, or at least if I don’t know it very well, I can think of what the meaning is in a language I do know well. But if I don’t know the language at all, then I don’t have any way to figure out what it means except through an interpreter.”

“A daiga program exists,” replies the ke, “which translates one daiga language into another.
Tess
has written such a program. Others exist.”

Sonia makes a movement with the mouth that the ke translates as a smile, a daiga way of showing pleasure.

“You are my interpreter,” Sonia says.

The ke pauses, startled by this new name, this new designation. What is an interpreter? An interpreter is someone who crosses borders for others, making one language intelligible to a second, making the outer world intelligible to a daiga who has lived confined to this inner one.

If it is true that this Prince of the Sakhalin has become a prince in the Empire, then the daiga naming their selves as
jaran
will need to understand how the Empire works. They must learn to name and to see the Empire. How can they learn to see it? Only through names.

The ke shows Sonia how to work the translation program, but then the ke retreats to a corner of the room and broods. The ke is not used to brooding. Ke do not brood, but this ke has crossed the border into daiga lands and can no longer go back to being a true ke.

This ke has been thinking about daiga.

Lacking deep brains, possessing only partially-formed intermediate brains, the daiga have constructed an interlocking web of names, like the great web that binds together the universe. Like a true building, this web is still in the process of growth. It is living, not dead.

Perhaps the daiga
are
civilized, but not as Chapalii recognize civilization. Civilization can manifest through more than one phytogeny.

“I am glad you are here to explain this all to me,” Sonia adds. The pattern that distinguishes her to the ke’s sight is bright, hectic with excitement.

The ke creeps closer to the daiga Sonia, as to warmth and light. Sonia shows neither fear nor shrinking, as many daiga do when confronted with a robed, veiled figure. The ke no longer needs veils, in front of Sonia.

“I hope you will stay with me for a while,” says Sonia. The daiga reaches out and touches the ke lightly on the arm. Two patterns swirl together briefly. It is a daiga way of connecting. The ke knows this now.

This ke has become an interpreter. This ke is no longer truly nameless.

A
CCORDING TO THE KHAJA
priest at White Tower, a formal betrothal was as binding as a marriage.

“It makes sense not to marry until we reach Mircassia,” said Vasha to his father. It was dawn. The army was ready to leave. They waited in front of the crushed grass where the great tent had stood. Behind them, guards rolled up the awning. “But I need a binding agreement so that I can’t be thrown over once we reach there.”

“Marry her and be done with it,” snapped Bakhtiian, “if you mean to do it at all.”

Vasha felt a flash of irritation, but he quelled it. He knew he was right; he could not help that his father felt impelled to disagree, to dislike new ways of doing things, khaja ways of doing things. He could practically hear his father add:
That is how the jaran would do it.
In any case, Vasha did not think Ilya had recovered yet from his captivity. “Let me at least tell you my reasons. First, it will give me a chance to become acquainted with her, and her with me, without being thrown at once into the intimacy of marriage. Second, if we are married in Mircassia before her grandfather and the court, the marriage will appear to have the king’s sanction. Third, if we marry before the child is born, then by jaran law that child is mine. It makes no difference to me, of course. But Princess Rusudani will hate the child, if we keep it. So there will be no other objection to sending the child to Lady Jadranka to raise. She will raise it well. It will have an inheritance.”

“All good points,” said Tess reasonably.

Fuming, Ilya glared at her. He looked back at Vasha, and Vasha was heartened to see that the worst edge of his anger had been blunted by Vasha’s words. “If you en gain Mircassia, then I don’t care what means you use.”

“Will you attend, then?” Vasha asked hopefully. “The betrothal ceremony? You won’t be in Mircassia for the wedding.”

Tess closed a hand firmly over Ilya’s wrist. “Of course we will attend.”

Faced with a direct order from his wife, Bakhtiian did not dare disobey, or even protest.

So, a short while later, Vasha knelt on a white cloth trimmed with gold braid before the altar in the castle chapel. His father and Tess stood behind him, as witnesses, and farther back, Katerina sat beside Stefan on a bench. Vasha did not need to turn his head to know how Katya would look, watching this: tense, impatient with her own curiosity, forcing herself to keep silent and still within the stone walls that must remind her of her captivity. But she had come to witness because he had asked her to.

Rusudani knelt beside him, her hair covered by a lace shawl and her eyes cast down toward the floor. She held her hands in front of her as if she was praying, but her lips did not move. No expression showed on her face that he could interpret.

The priest set out the written contract on a side table and had first Vasha and then Rusudani repeat the words that bound them to the contract. Vasha did not understand much of what he said, but it was short, and he repeated the phrase “bound by God’s law,” twice. Watching Rusudani, who did not look at him as she spoke the words in her turn, her voice so soft that it died into the loft of the chapel, Vasha was satisfied. Rusudani believed faithfully and sincerely in her God. If she swore to be bound by God’s law, then she would keep her word.

Last, they exchanged rings, simple gold rings which the priest had nervously donated before the ceremony.

The priest called forward the interpreter—Jaelle, as Vasha had also requested. The khaja here gave him everything he wanted, of course.

“The wise father wishes you to come forward and mark the contract,” Jaelle said. It had been written the night before. “It is usual for a young woman to have her father or brother sign the contract for her, transferring her into her husband’s protection. But because she is a widow Princess Rusudani may act on her own behalf.”

Vasha signed his name, to the surprise of the priest. That Rusudani could write as well did not surprise the khaja man; he knew she was convent educated.

So it was done.

Without speaking further to Vasha, Princess Rusudani left, escorted by the two ladies she had retained to accompany her on the journey. Tess looked over the contracts, tracing her fingers down the Yossian script and glancing at the Taor translation. She sighed, at last, and hugged Vasha, who felt numb more than anything, wishing that Rusudani had at least spoken more than the required words.

“I wish the best to you, my child,” Tess said, releasing him. “But now we really must all be leaving.”

And that was it.

Except for Stefan.

“I’m sorry,” Stefan said. “I’ll come to you as soon as I take Jaelle back to Sarai, but I can’t let her travel there alone.”

Vasha glanced toward Jaelle, who stood by the table with her hands folded together. Her cheeks bore a delicate blush on them as she looked up at Stefan and then, quickly, away again. She loved Stefan.

“I envy you, Stefan,” Vasha blurted out, then clapped his friend on the shoulder to cover his own embarrassment, to cover the words. “So you must come to Mircassia just as soon as you can, or I won’t ever forgive you.”

Stefan laughed and hugged him and he and Jaelle went away. They were riding north with a small escort, back to Sarai.

So Vasha was left alone in the chapel, except for the priest, who soon wandered out, still looking nervous.

Except for Katerina, who waited for him by the doors, great wooden doors carved with curlicues and two kneeling figures, holy men or women, Vasha could not be sure which because they wore voluminous robes and identical blank expressions.

“Like Rusudani’s expression,” Vasha said.

“You can’t expect her to thank you for this,” Katya said.

Troubled, he wandered back into the chapel and sat down on a bench. Katya sat down beside him. Restless, as always, she tweaked the sleeve of her blouse around and around, straightened it, and then began to tug at his clothes instead, smoothing out creases, lining the embroidery on his sleeves up so that it ran in a clean curve from his shoulder down to his wrist.

“Was it stupid, Katya? Shouldn’t I have done it?”

“She doesn’t love you.”

“She may come to.”

Katya shrugged. She hooked one boot up onto her knee and began fiddling with the laces. “I don’t know. Perhaps she can’t love.”

“She loves—”

“Huh. Being infatuated isn’t love, Vasha. You know that. You don’t truly love her either. You don’t know her well enough for that. How can you?”

He frowned at her, but her words didn’t make him angry because they were true. “Well, do you think she will come to like me? To be a good wife to me?”

Katerina was silent for a long while. Vasha just sat there, feeling comfortable with her, as he always did, even when he was fighting with her. “Perhaps she has learned something. Perhaps not. Perhaps she will discover that it is in her interest, that it will further her ambition, to be married to you. Perhaps she will always think of you as a captor. How can anyone know, Vasha? We can’t look into the future. But if you treat her fairly and with respect, perhaps she will not hate you and do to you what she did to Prince Janos.” Her voice shook a little on his name.

Vasha swallowed past a sudden thickening in his throat. He took hold of her hand. “Did you hate Janos?”

“I don’t know. I did at first. But what difference does it truly make to a woman if she is made a mistress by khaja custom or a wife by jaran? She has as little choice in either.”

“But—”

“But what? What choice did Princess Rusudani have to marry you? You or someone else, someone her grandfather chose for her.”

Vasha did not know what to reply. They sat there without speaking. The priest came in and began to light candles near the altar for the midday service. Seeing them, he started and hurried out again. Light streamed in through the high windows that surrounded the central nave of the chapel. Dust danced in the beams.

“You’ll be a good husband for her, though, if she chooses to accept you,” Katya said finally.