Ross went on to explain the theft game, and the unexpected results. Eveleen's interest sharpened—he felt it, despite the steady rain pelting against their rain gear. The tale took until they reached the building that looked to him like a giant muffin—home.
Eveleen pushed her hood back from her face. Ross looked both ways; a small, greenish being was just disappearing up the ramp, tentacles swinging rhythmically. He waited until it was gone and bent to kiss the raindrops from Eveleen's eyelashes.
She smiled, but nudged him silently to move on.
They did not talk until they were safely in their cell, and clean and dry. Then she said, "I think it was dangerous to try that—"
"I know," he said, feeling a twinge of guilt.
Eveleen shook her head. "I'm not pointing fingers. It's not like I've done anything for the cause."
Her back was to him. Was that bitterness he heard in her soft voice? She couldn't be angry with herself for not having made any discoveries—how could she?
Unbidden came his wish from the very first week—that he could get out and poke around during the nights. Not get into trouble, of course, just do some listening on his own. He shook his head, as if to banish the thought.
Eveleen took in a deep breath, turned around and smiled. "I was thinking that your instincts have always been good. Maybe there's something for us to learn in this weird Jecc game, with the tools and the pouches and all."
Ross shrugged, fighting a huge yawn. "I don't see how. But one thing for sure: they didn't get in my way. If anything, it seemed easier to do my work. I used to have to wait for what I needed, but after that Jecc caught me everything seemed to be there when I wanted it, and no one rammed against me or upset my balance so I'd have to reconstruct."
"Maybe I ought to try stealing," Eveleen said with a wry smile. "It was business as usual for me."
"I saw that too," Ross said. "And for all those other non-Jecc, stuck way off in the corner."
"I think it's for self-protection," Eveleen said. "I'd been thinking we ought to try to join them, if we can. At least the Jecc don't go there—much. Don't bother them nearly as much as they do anyone directly in their space."
"Maybe, but not yet—"
Ross stopped talking when the familiar tattoo sounded at their door.
"It's Gordon," he said, frowning. "He never arrives before Irina and Vera."
"Uh oh," Eveleen said softly.
Ross sprang to the door and opened it.
Gordon came in, his bright blue eyes looking tired, but his mouth was set in a hard line that reminded Ross of the old days—of impending action.
"A find," Ashe said abruptly, running a hand impatiently through his white hair to shake the raindrops off.
Eveleen pursed her lips. "The bodies—?"
"No." Ashe turned to her. "But new records. Misha and Viktor stumbled onto a camp used by a couple of the First Team." He pulled a warped notebook from his parka, its pages reminding Ross of lettuces. A hundred years buried in a moist environment would do that, even in a supposedly airtight pack; they were probably lucky the books hadn't rotted all through.
"I'll be going through this more closely, comparing it with what records we already have, but Misha and Viktor skimmed it and summarized its contents."
"And the gist is—?" Ross prompted.
"The First Team disappeared one by one. They got sick beforehand, just as we are now. They didn't get sick as early in their mission."
Eveleen and Ross both nodded, remembering the records they'd studied.
"Apparently the illness worsened rapidly for them all, at least according to one of these records. The other one is more cryptic."
Ashe paused. "Thirsty."
Ross moved to the other room. "I'll get you some water."
"Thanks." A few moments later, Gordon took the cup from Ross, drank down the water, then leaned his head back against the wall.
"There's worse to come," Eveleen said wryly, "isn't there."
It wasn't even a question.
Ashe nodded once. "Worse—better, I don't know. It doesn't give us any answers, only more questions. The short version is this: the team members were not together, as we'd surmised."
"But that was orders," Ross protested. "If dangerous conditions existed—"
"Those were orders, and they did apparently pull together, as we have recorded by the records we found at the contact site. However, it must have been after that person disappeared—"
" 'Disappeared'?" Eveleen repeated. "Not died?"
A knock at the door interrupted them, and Ross moved to let in the two Russian women.
Quickly, while Vera passed out the evening's food, Ashe rapidly brought the women up-to-date on the discussion so far.
Neither spoke until he was done. Then Irina said, in her slow, accented voice, "They have disappeared one by one? What means this for us?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Gordon said. "Misha and Viktor have found no human remains, and they have just about covered the entire island. Misha wants to jump back to one of these campsites and watch, of course."
Vera looked up sharply, her lips parted.
Irina shook her head, her fine brows creased slightly. "No. Is not a good idea, not if they sickened rapidly. This disease we all share, it might be more virulent a century ago."
"But if they just got sick and died," Eveleen protested, "then we'd find bodies, right?"
"So we would think," Gordon answered. "Of course, it could be that roving Yilayil or Nurayil scooped them up and obliterated them, although we don't have any indication of this kind of burial custom. But maybe death by illness is treated differently than death by execution, or death by more natural causes."
Vera said softly, "Misha. He had friends with First Team…"
Gordon said in a gentle voice, "I know that. He explained—a little. Misha is not exactly gabby with personal details." He smiled wryly, and Vera smiled back, but her eyes remained troubled. "I made him promise to do nothing until Zina is consulted."
Ross felt relief zing through him. "Good thinking. Throw this one in their laps—let the scientists hash out what this sickness is, and all the rest of it."
Gordon nodded. "I'm going to ask you to help me copy Pavel's notebook out—I don't trust it not to disappear," he said to the women. "And Svetlana's, which Misha insisted on keeping and translating himself, will also be copied. He says he has the time when they're hiding from the flyers. As soon as we have copies, I'll send Viktor forward to report, and we'll wait on Zina's decision before we act."
Irina's brow cleared.
"Is good," she said in Russian, and then in English, "very good."
CHAPTER 20
SABA'S DISCOVERY OF the terminal in her room having been activated was a signal to her that she must devote herself to this aspect of the mission. For two days she forced herself to sit at that terminal in her room, alternately shivering with chills and panting from what seemed stifling heat. She worked at mastering the Yilayil keypads.
Alternating between that and the records of the First Team on her own laptop, her fevered mind constructed dream fantasies that seemed real. When she did not work, she set the audio to play Yilayil music of the Great Dance, the rising and falling voices reminding her somehow of the music of the Dorze, at home in Ethiopia; music that was embedded in daily life, and was heard continually during not just the little customs of each day—waking, sleeping, meals—but during weddings and funerals, and in the festivities occurring throughout the year.
She did not understand the music, not as she did that of the Dorze. She had spent her childhood with Dorze music. As she listened to this music she sensed a kind of kinship, a need—shared by two vastly different peoples—to celebrate the dance of life and death in music.
But true understanding still eluded her. All her goals were still pieces. Shards. It hurt to think, and though she fought the image, her mind persisted in seeing her goals as jagged pieces of glass—or mirror—tha
t must be fit together. But she did not have to touch them, and bleed, for willing ghost hands had appeared to do that: Katarina, the First Team linguist, whose words Saba had perused so deeply for meaning that she had committed them to memory—and began perceiving traces of the personality who had spoken them.
When Saba's tired body forced her to lie down, she began holding conversations with Katarina. She'd seen a photo of the Russian linguist during one of the briefings back in the United States, and now she envisioned that face, broad across the cheeks, wide-set dark eyes, dark gray-streaked hair short and glossy. Katarina's Mongolian antecedents looked out from the shape of her skull, strong and imperturbable and brave.
Saba, from utterly different people, still felt a kinship with Katarina.
The ghost of the Russian woman sometimes seemed real, so strong was Saba's dream state. "Listen," Katarina said, over and over. "Listen outside of time."
More of the strange tenses.
Baffled by the bizarre temporalities of the language, Saba began instead to explore the sensory contradictions. She discovered that one set of keystrokes set up the modulation into the sensory mode, modifying straightforward ideographs into strange little contradictory nuggets of meaning. They were almost like Zen koans. Certainly the feel of a green taste was just as ungraspable as the sound of one hand clapping. Somehow, she began to sense, there was some connection between the strange tenses and the contradictory sensory modalities. But she could not grasp its wholeness.
"Gestalt," she said to her ghost. "I think this is what you were sensing, was it not? You laid out the shards of this mirror."
"It is not a mirror," Katarina said. "It is a window." Katarina smiled, her eyes narrowing to half-moons. "Find the gestalt, Saba Mariam. Find the gestalt—set me free."
Saba dragged herself up from her bed, drank some water, then sat down at her terminal. "Pieces," she murmured. "Pieces."
But again she ran into the mental wall of her own ignorance.
Finally she forced herself to rise, leaning against the real wall until the waves of darkness throbbed through her brain and then died away. Then she donned her robe and walked out in the direction of the translation chamber.
She realized when she reached it that she had lost track of time. It was late.
In fact, it was night, and only the Yilayil were about.
She began to retreat, for she knew the etiquette: not until she had been invited could she interact with the Yilayil.
The sleek weasel-shaped beings ignored her, and she stood uncertainly, until the wisp-wisp of a robe upon the floor brought her attention round.
Zhot stood there, still, his eyes unblinking.
"Come. Train," he droned.
Unquestioning, Saba followed him into the chamber beyond, where she saw a terminal. She sank down onto the bench, resolutely dismissing the ache of head and neck, and spread her hands lightly over the keypads.
They were too far apart for true comfort. Vividly she saw the long, furred, double-knuckled digits of the four-armed Yilayil.
"Now," Zhot said. "Begin."
She tapped out the combinations she had learned, and then, when Zhot said nothing, she went on to those she'd managed to puzzle out.
Moving with his accustomed fluidity, Zhot reached down to tap out a new combination, which caused symbols to flow across the screen.
"See," he commanded. "And let go of the connections you impose…"
Again time streamed by, uncounted, as Saba worked under Zhot's direction. Saba's fever slowly increased, noticed only on the periphery of her attention: chills, heat, ache. She dismissed them all. She was aware only that Katarina seemed to stand at her other shoulder, watching in approval.
She remembered a brief discussion of synesthesia from her neurology studies, how some people perceived shapes to have tastes, or colors sounds. The instructor had said that no one really understood the phenomenon, but that it was thought to emerge from the limbic system, where symbols and emotions were correlated.
Where symbols and emotions dance, she thought suddenly. The thought moved her hands, and a new combination of ideographs popped up on the screen.
"You begin to perceive," said Zhot. She started. She had not realized he was still standing there.
Saba did not understand what she had done, so she returned her attention to her hands, and to the symbols scrolling across the screen. Slowly, slowly, she was beginning to make sense of them; or rather, to stop trying to force sense on them and let them speak—dance?—for themselves.
The organization was indeed akin to Chinese writing, something she understood the guiding principles of, though she did not speak or read Chinese.
But finding a familiar structure accentuated the kinship of beings otherwise so far from one another in temporal reality. The miracle of similar structure—of hands, and brain, and mouth to talk and eyes to look—produced similarities in language. It was a bond, a universal bond.
It was exciting to penetrate it.
"I will find you, Katarina," she said to her ghost when, abruptly, Zhot departed and she was left to find her way back to her room.
She collapsed in gratitude onto her bed, dropping immediately into a deep sleep.
Thirst and chills forced her awake again. Groggy and cold, she rose to draw water. The room lights came on as soon as she left the bed. She reached to fill her water glass—then paused, activated the sonic screen, and passed it through a couple times.
The water had registered as pure. She was sure the sonic screen killed microbes… so why was she sick?
She sighed, filled the cup, drank thirstily. Then she reluctantly helped herself to another precious dose of her medicine. She'd feel the fever drop soon, and then she could work.
Restlessness brought her to her feet. She tabbed on the computer, blinked at the blurry screen, then decided to wait until the medicine dose had restored her equilibrium.
Instead, the restlessness distilled into a single, strong urge: for fresh air, for light.
Was it morning? She would find out.
She passed her flaxen robe through the cleaner, then pulled it on, sighing with relief as its folds draped softly down her body to the floor. Then she tabbed her door open, and slid out, moving silently.
Not down. That way led only to the grand mosaic—suns and stars—and the chambers of knowledge, more and more of them the farther down one went.
Instead, for the first time, she turned her steps upward.
As she walked, she thought about the Yilayil metaphors and images. One shard was the fact that human and Yilayil idiom evoked opposites: for humans, upward and light meant freedom, opportunity, beauty. Dancing—free—in the sun. How many earth cultures carried just such a potent image?
For the Yilayil, harmony, the Great Dance, meant darkness. Downward and dark were the preferred directions. Saba had unconsciously fallen into the same thought pattern; that was inevitable when one focused one's attention on achieving ti[trill]kee.
Upward was undesirable, upward was… danger?
She frowned, thinking over the little gestures, the modes of expression she'd unconsciously assimilated while trying to reach for greater understanding.
Was there danger? Her steps up the ramp did not falter. The desire for light, for stillness and air, was too strong.
No one had forbidden her to go upward. Yet she had never seen anyone go there. Still, this space was here, she thought, looking around. There were even rooms.
She paused, laying a hand on a door. The rooms were far apart, but they were there. Rooms—or passages?
She touched the silver control, and to her surprise, the door slid open.
She looked out—not in. This was not a room, it was a kind of balcony, looking out at the morning sun above the tops of the buildings. In the distance she could see the solid green line of the jungle, pressing up against the city borders. And at one end, the edge of the long-abandoned spaceport.
She stepped out onto the balcony, then s
topped. Now visible from the door was more space—and on it several still figures.
She saw three beings she did not recognize, but the fourth was Zhot.
He was not wearing his flaxen robe. Saba glanced down his body, seeing the supple seallike muscle structure, the scaled skin. In the strong, clear sunlight his skin had a greenish flush, almost a glow, overlaying the sandy coloration she was used to seeing.
The urge to fling off her clothing—which suddenly felt heavy and confining—seized her. How wonderful just to stand, breathing the fresh air, and feeling the sunlight on face, skin, limbs!
She took a deep breath, then forced herself away.
She had work to do.
The urge stayed with her as she retreated back down the ramp to her room. But duty steadied her, as always. It was morning, almost time for her daily signal to Gordon. Now that she was away from the allure of the sunlight, her eyes ached with the need for sleep, and her mouth was dry, but duty had become habit, and habit steadied her mind. Anchored her to reality.
What to do until the time for the signal?
She turned to her terminal, and touched the control. The screen lit. Sitting down, Saba worked her fingers into one of the patterns she'd recently learned. Without really considering what she was doing, she tested her ability to tranliterate, and traced out Zhot's name.
To her surprise, a new screen flickered into place, offering her choices. On her keypad, several keys lit with subtle color.
She touched the control that she recognized as indicating world-of-origin.
And once again the screen rippled, this time showing a rapidly moving vid of Zhot's people. Two voices whispered from the terminal's audio system: one language she couldn't recognize at all, but the other was Yilayil—someone's translation!
Curious, she watched what seemed rather like one of those travel vids she used to view in school: Welcome to Kenya! or Welcome to Australia! only this was more like the equivalent of Welcome to Earth! because it featured the world's primary in a schematic, and an unfamiliar system, zeroing in on the fourth body out.
Zhot's world was, like the Yilayil world, primarily water, only it seemed to have two very long continents straddling either side of the equator. On it Zhot's people seemed to be the most numerous beings, along with some undersea creatures that might have been sentient, but after the brief introduction, the screen paused and offered choices, this time showing different beings.