Visitor: A Foreigner Novel (37 page)

The door shut. It never had until now.

Cajeiri stood, waiting for mani to sit and for the tea to be poured, neither of which happened.

“Young gentleman,” she said, which she almost never called him. “I shall be in my suite for a while, with Cenedi. I trust you and Hakuut did not come to disagreement.”

“No, mani. He was worried. One believes he was worried. He might have been listening.”

Mani ignored the hint, pointedly. “You will be pleased to
know our guests will be remaining with us for a felicitous seven more days.”

“Nand’ Bren?” he asked, worried. “Will he stay there seven days?”

“The paidhi-aiji reports good progress. He sees the need for these seven days. His aishid is here to obtain more clothing and make the arrangements for his absence. I suggest you continue to work with Hakuut on the dictionary. These seven days should not be wasted in these premises, either.”

“Mani,” he said, uninformed, and dipped his head respectfully as she returned to her rooms.

And shut the door.

Seven days. He glanced at his aishid, standing silently beside the door. Seven days, with secrets passing behind closed doors all around him. He wished
he
had ears like the kyo, whose ears were hardly visible at all.

He wanted to know. He very much wanted to know . . . but when mani said it was secret, it was secret.

The door to the kyo suite slid open and two very sober kyo came out.

Not just Matuanu. Hakuut, as well. So Matuanu, having heard whatever it was, had told Hakuut not to tell whatever Hakuut might have heard, and probably whatever he might hear. And he did not think Hakuut would disobey that instruction.

Tano and Algini never even came back into the sitting room. They sat down with the tablets again, he and Hakuut, and at a certain point Hakuut looked up, toward nand’ Bren’s apartment.

“Door open?” he asked Hakuut.

“Open and close,” Hakuut said. “Two.”

So Tano and Algini were leaving by the servant passage, going back to the lift, and not going through the sitting room and foyer at all.

It seemed quite clear he would not learn
anything
from
anybody,
not for at least seven days.

• • •

Prakuyo sent gifts down, a plate of food, including sweets, and a new robe, a geometric pattern, blue and gold, and a very large tufted pillow, brown and gold. Ukess and Huunum brought them, and, the cell door being open, cautiously ventured in to set them on the floor.

“Stand,” Bren prompted Cullen, and did that, himself. “Bow. These are for you.”

Both kyo bobbed slightly, hands folded.

“Thank you,” Cullen managed to say as they left.

Second bob, facing him, before they left.

“Furniture,” Bren said. “Food. A sampler of kyo food, by the look of it. Generally—taste a very little of something new. If your tongue feels odd in a few minutes, don’t swallow it. Let them know, not just what tastes wrong, but what you like. —They
do
have alcohol, by the way.”

That drew interest.

“Be careful of it,” Bren said. “Strict limit, when they do give it to you. Know your limit, and stay well inside it. One lapse can turn a conversation into a disaster. You can’t afford that, especially now, no matter what the pressure. I hope, I sincerely hope, that you’ll find them as tolerant and reasonable as atevi have been with my early mistakes. But don’t make that one. You can’t ignore their customs or their sense of limits. Boundaries, both personal and cultural. Accept them. If you can work them into your own thinking, you may find they’re
not
barriers; if you look at them right, they’re keys to the things you need the most.”

Cullen looked at him the same desperate way he’d looked at Prakuyo. “How long have you done this?”

“Years. I was younger than you when I started, and I’d studied the atevi language and customs since I was a child, preparing for the job. And I’ll tell you something. I wouldn’t trade what I do. I’ve had the chance to quit, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything, more so as the years pass. I wish you that kind of luck. I truly do.”

“I’m scared,” Cullen said. “I’m scared as hell.”

“Better than over-confidence. Much better. Right now you can only anticipate. I’ve been in that situation—lately, with the kyo themselves. But once you’re in a situation, you have a job to do. Do your best to prepare yourself, keep reminding yourself that both sides believe they’re in the right, and when in doubt, bow. Be immaculately polite, and listen to what they’re saying. Never,
ever
assume; if in doubt ask for clarification. Stay out of angry groups. The subsonics you know can hurt, if they’re upset. I’m not sure how bad it can get, but I suspect it
can
be a weapon, even among their own kind, and very likely there are some individuals particularly good at it.”

“There are.” There was a slight tremble in his voice. “There’s one real scary one.”

“On the other side of the coin—be polite to him. Remember to control your face and your voice. Intimidation needs response, bait needs biting. If you do neither, the attacker has nothing to build on. Point of interest: the kyo say that connections once formed are permanent.
Exactly
what they mean by that I’m not sure, but possibly it’s just that they stand by their relationships once they do make them, and consequently don’t commit to them instantly or lightly. Do things their way. Respect them, take them as they are. There’s only one of you, and it’s their ship.”

It was scary, how much a person yanked out of human culture unwarned, unschooled, and unprepared to deal with non-human instincts—wouldn’t know. It had taken the War of the Landing and a lot of good intentions on both sides for Mospheirans
and
atevi to internalize it.

“Let me explain how atevi are, and how we adapt to each other, how we deal with the differences. It won’t have a thing to do with how kyo are . . . but it’s the best working example I have.”

A deep breath. “I’m ready.”

“All right. Let’s talk about salads.”

T
here was no letup. Tano and Algini came back with the clothes, with paper writing materials, which were a major asset with Cullen, and with a very large container of frozen teacakes which Bindanda had sent over for Prakuyo. Banichi left Cullen’s cell to confer with Tano and Algini, then came back with a tiny hand signal to say everything was in order—meaning Tano and Algini had delivered the message to the dowager and given Prakuyo’s written note to Matuanu.

So everything was stable over on the station, and secrets were locked down.

That was, Bren thought, a mortal relief.

He sat in the cell with Cullen, and, once given the resource of paper and pen, he wrote words and created a dictionary on the spot: no tablets, none of the elaborate work he had made to bridge the gap to the kyo . . . no pictures that betrayed the planet, or the relationship.

“Tablet has Mospheirans, Reunioners,” he said to Prakuyo, during one of their periodic conferences. “Not give Cullen tablet. Pictures speak many, many word. Mospheirans. Reunioners. Atevi world. Not good give Cullen.”

Prakuyo gave a series of little thumps and said, “Not give. Understand.”

“Kyo write words. Show.”

That
had been an undertaking, a test of eyes and brain. It was, thank God, not word-dedicated characters, but a sort of
alphabet with a few combination symbols, and interspersed with glyphs which—a strange revelation—represented the booms and thumps. There was a happiness glyph, as best one could figure it, and an unhappiness glyph. There was a warning glyph, an encouragement glyph—fourteen of them, and possibly more that Prakuyo didn’t consider as basic.

He took notes for himself.

And he presented the system to Cullen, who just dropped his head against his knees and stayed that way for a time, before he sat up, rubbed his face, and propped his head in his hands.

“It’s not easy,” Bren said. “I’m not saying it’s easy. You have time.”

“I have a
lot
of time.” Cullen laughed, a thready, desperate sort of laugh, rubbed his face hard, and then said, “I’ll work on this. I don’t know if my brain can handle it, but I’ll try.”

“Don’t expect to learn it all at once. But writing is another key to dealing with the kyo. Literacy is
also
a way for you to take notes that don’t fit in our writing. You’ll rapidly reach a point you’ll think thoughts you can’t think in our language. You’ll know names of things you can’t think of except in kyo. That’s when you’ll start living in the language. But before that—let me warn you—you may reach a whiteout. Total panic. Inability to think of any word in any language. You may break down in tears. That’s all right. Many do. I have. It’ll pass, usually in less than an hour. Think of it as a gateway, one you’ll learn to pass, back and forth—and the better you do it, the faster you get out of that no-words moment.” He didn’t want to linger on the problems of that gateway, the possibility that Cullen might fall far out of practice with his own language, his native thought patterns—a loneliness more extreme than he’d ever had to deal with. What Cullen had ahead of him was—total.

He’d always been able to make periodic visits to Mospheira. He’d always been able to renew his human way of thinking. Of being. He could talk to family. Visit familiar places.

Even so, he’d long since lost track of the Bren who had first crossed the strait, naive and completely without a map.

“Make the kind of relationships kyo can make,” he said to Cullen.
“Find out
what relationships they can make. They may meet you on your own territory, to a degree you can’t imagine now. There’ll be individuals you want to attach to, individuals you want nothing to do with, and some that may take a while to get to know—but turn out something different than you thought. People, in other words. Good ones and bad ones.”

Long silence. “What if,” Cullen asked, “I went over to your atevi? What if I went—wherever you come from?”

He’d dreaded a repetition of that question—profoundly dreaded it.

“No. Right up front. No. Don’t hope for it. The government I represent won’t allow it while this war goes on.”

Cullen looked at him, just stared, with feelings too muddled and disappointed even to read.

“But,” Bren said, “the kyo
do
want you.
They
want you.”

“What if I don’t want
them?”

“They
need
you.
You
have the history with them. You’re much closer to understanding them than I am. What you have to do is stop
your
war.”

“Stop the war.” Another grim laugh.
“How?”

“That’s something you have to figure out, Mr. Cullen. I can’t. I
have
a job.
You’re
the one who has to figure out the kyo, and live with them, and figure out what started this war, because that may be the key to why it continues. It’s pretty certain the kyo in charge of this ship don’t want it, and probably people in your government don’t want it, either. Look at all this vast space where you might be, and, instead, you’re locked together killing each other. Figure out how to stop that. Figure out why it started and convince both sides to back off, because there are plenty of territorial alternatives, and a lot of room out there, if you don’t trek across sensitive territory, which seems to be
what somebody has done. It may be just that simple. And unfortunately just that complicated. Because you won’t be dealing with common sense and common goals. You’ll be dealing with personalities—on both sides—with their own agendas and their own phobias, who’ve maybe done some very bad things they won’t want to admit were a mistake. It’s your job to straighten that out, or maneuver to give power to people who’ll make a different choice.”

“How the hell do I do that?”

“Pick and choose
who
you talk to. This is vitally important. Pick the best people to talk to. And be accurate. Give accurate warnings. Give the people that work with you results that make
them
important to other people. You may not know a thing about kyo politics. But you have at least one potential ally, if you’ll work with him. If you want to resign it all and live out your own life taking no chances, that’s on you. But I’m telling you right now . . . there’s no one else in your position.
I
can’t do it. I won’t desert the people I work for.”

There was a long silence then, Cullen staring at him with anger evident, then at his hands, maybe thinking it over, maybe refusing to think at all.

He could lose Cullen, he thought. He could have Cullen leap up right now and declare he’d had enough, and wanted no more to do with him or his help.

But what did a man do, who’d not seen another human being in—long enough to decline to the state he’d been in?

What did a man do, presented with a chance to end that isolation, and what did a man do who might never in his life see another human being, whether things went right or wrong?

Cullen would someday find out what he had kept from him, and hate him for it. Prakuyo knew. Everybody on this ship knew. So someday Cullen would know . . . everything.

That was as it had to be.

“I’m not sure I can do it,” Cullen said.

“If you
were
sure,” Bren said, “I’d say you weren’t bright
enough to do it. There’s no guidebook. I can’t predict what you’ll meet. I don’t know. If I tried to advise you, I’d be wrong. You only know when you see the situation in front of you. That’s how it’s done.”

Cullen spent a while in a disconsolate knot, arms on his knees, head resting on his arms. Bren waited, leaned all the way back in the chair and waited. Banichi and Jago, never leaving him but what Tano and Algini took their turn at watch. The cell door stayed open. The whole corridor was quiet, the whole territory given over to them.

Was it safe to sleep in the cell with Cullen? It was as safe as his aishid made it. And Cullen had never made a try even to walk out the open door, not that there was much to gain in that direction.

Bren got up very quietly and went back to the conference room, as he did now and again. He had lost all awareness of time passing, of day or night.

• • •

This time he did, unintentionally, fall asleep in the conference room, tucked up in a large padded chair, and he waked to find Banichi and Jago doing much the same in the chairs over against the wall, which meant that Tano and Algini had gone on watch with Cullen. He got up very quietly, with no illusion that he could move softly enough to avoid waking Banichi and Jago, but he tried; he availed himself of the facility adjacent to the conference room, washed his face in cold water, and went back down the curving hall to the cell, where Tano and Algini were awake and on watch.

Perhaps, he thought, he might call his bodyguard back, quietly lock the cell door and let them all catch a few hours of sleep, hoping that would draw them back from the edge they’d been on. But Cullen was not asleep. Cullen hauled himself to the edge of his seat as Bren arrived, sat crosslegged there, hands locked on his ankles—tense.

“Thought you might not come back,” Cullen said.

“I fell asleep.” Bren sat down in the chair he used. “I wish I had easier answers. I wish I had a happier situation for you. I don’t. I can’t. It’s going to be hard at first, damned hard. But I hope there’ll come a time when a few more humans join you, to learn from you, to become translators in their own turn. I hope so. That’s for you and Prakuyo to figure out. I’ll say only one thing on that matter:
if
that happens, you have to have some sort of authority over others. You will
have
to have. You and Prakuyo . . . what you can build between you will be unique. This opportunity to immerse yourself, one human partnering with this one kyo may never happen again. More than one human living among the kyo, learning from you—that’s something for you to explore, when it happens; and it may. It has advantages. Mental health, for one. Multiple minds, multiple talents working on the problems, for another. That’s all on you to develop, within whatever framework you can work out with Prakuyo.”

“That’s—”

“What?”

“I don’t know. It’s a long way from where I am. It’s not real to me.”

“Make it real. Dare to dream. And have the practicality to make it happen.”

Cullen carried a shaking hand to his head, rubbed his brow. “I’m nobody, actually. Not—not a government sort. Electronics.”

“That’s all right. I trained to write dictionaries. You’ll get it. The language? Three-year-old kids manage to learn
one
language.
You
did. It’s all practice. Names of things around you. Things you want to eat. You learn the things you use.
Then
you move on to the big things.”

“Seven days.”

“Plenty of time for what I have to offer. I can’t give you the language on a plate. I’m still learning that, myself. What I can give you are the keys, the structure, as much of it as I’ve figured
out. A technique for learning, and enough words to ask questions. After that . . . I’ve nothing more to give you. You’re the one with the chance to become fluent. One day, with luck, you’ll be teaching this to another human. Telling another human what you know. Keep that in mind as you learn. Realize you’re going to have to explain as well as use it.”

“And after seven days, you’ll go back to—where?”

Question repeated. And maybe a chance to make sense to Cullen—with caution.

“A place we have,” Bren said quietly. “A group of humans and a world full of atevi. We didn’t start out so well. We had ourselves a war. But a few humans and a few atevi figured out how to stop it and do something different, two hundred years ago. We gained that expertise. That’s the thing I’m trying to pass to you—
how
to do what I do, as the appointed contact. And it all starts with two reasonably ordinary, smart individuals learning that their way isn’t the only way. You’ve got a potential partner. Don’t lose him. Don’t mess it up for him. Or for you. It may not be the work of one lifetime. It wasn’t for us. I’m one of a long, long string of translators, who’ve finally gotten wars stopped. Not conflict. We’ve still got that. But wars—no. We don’t do that.”

Long, long stare. “I hear what you’re saying.”

“Good.”

Another pause, then: “You said two hundred years? You named, that first time we met . . . what? A ship? Two?
Phoenix
?
Reunion
? Never heard of either of them.”

“Probably a footnote in the loss column of some long-forgotten company ledger. Likely not the only one. The universe is a big place. I suspect humanity’s shed itself in more than a few odd spots in space, not all of which are connected to your lot, not all of which want to be known to your people, especially while you come with a war attached. That war of yours did spill over into our area. The kyo mistook us for you, mistook an exploratory mission for, well, a reconnaissance mission not, I suspect, unlike
your own, and attacked. When we didn’t fight back—and this is important—I think the kyo tried to talk to this one lot of strayed humans, a splinter off our group. Prakuyo’s team was killed. He survived, locked six years in a room like this one, unable to talk to anyone, damned near starved to death on the diet. He was half his current weight when we got him out, whether or not it was intentional, or just food he had trouble eating. So I suspect your case interested him for very personal reasons. I don’t know enough of the language myself to ask him that. But you haven’t starved here, whatever else.”

“No,” Cullen said soberly. “I haven’t.”

“He brought you to me—posing me a question, perhaps. Atevi were the first to really talk to him, atevi I work with. I think he wanted me to talk to you, to make
you
able to talk to him. He saw my function with the atevi—at least he’s got a notion what I do. He understands my sort of humans aren’t yours. And I’m not sure yet that he has a clear idea what the possibilities are, but I do know. I know that if you attach yourself to him, and the two of you manage to understand each other, the both of you, together, can do much the same that the first of
my
office did, two hundred years ago, when they stopped a war neither side could understand. What we built is something neither of us could have done alone. That’s what I’m handing you. That’s what I want you and Prakuyo to do.”