Step and step and step. It had worked. Two individuals, wired differently but aware of it, had managed not to solve their deepest failures of understanding, but to understand they had them, and to build a bridge across them. He’d had help from Tabini’s side of the table.
As he’d had help from Prakuyo two years ago.
He needed to pick up, ideally with Prakuyo, where they’d left off.
But on the station. In a sterile box of a room, void of familiar images and obvious situations and common interests, and far across space . . . where did he find the threads?
That had been part and parcel of the nightmare—that he stood in a barren, metal place and faced the kyo with no words to speak and nothing to point at, no way to find them.
No way? With his training? With the resources of the ship and an entire world to draw on?
Hell. He was better than that.
Prakuyo had tried. Prakuyo, even under miserable circumstances, had made a start on his own. If the kyo had sent Prakuyo here, then they were not going to start from zero. And if they hadn’t sent him—
If they hadn’t, well, he could start from what he had.
He had one core word in the kyo language: association. From cores—other words formed, assembling bits and pieces around them, a modular toolkit, mutating meanings, but likewise associating concepts in a relationship that carried history, instilled a way of thinking and directed thoughts down certain paths.
Two languages, unrelated even by species origin.
A boy, a toy car, the dowager, a plate of teacakes, and children’s picture books—
And a memory: Cajeiri trying to reproduce a word, making a sound he had corrected . . . but Prakuyo had not. Cajeiri had deferred to him, but had Cajeiri been right all along? Atevi hearing was more acute than human. Atevi heard things humans did not. Heard frequencies the human ear couldn’t. Human and atevi language overlapped, phonetically. The kyo language . . . the kyo’s lips had limited mobility. Much of the sound came from deep in their throats. But was he hearing all of it?
He had ideas, God, his head was flowing with ideas, but they would take time to become reality. He wanted strong tea, he wanted Jase, and he wanted Geigi, in that order.
He wanted technology to pull up the images he needed at a moment’s notice. He wanted technology to manipulate them. He wanted technicians who could record and analyze every sound Prakuyo uttered. And he wanted several trained and utterly trustworthy individuals working on the sound problem, real time, from the moment he entered the conference room and faced Prakuyo.
Then there was Ilisidi’s method.
His thoughts spun to a sudden halt.
Ilisidi was the one who’d made the critical breakthrough with him, in the early days of his career as paidhi-aiji. He’d already broken rules left and right, communicating with Tabini. But she’d opened her own communications with him—damn near killed him with a cup of tea, then challenged him, pushed him, dragged him into her context and gotten understandings with him because, granted Ilisidi had decided to engage with him, she was going to pull him into her world, and not the other way around.
She’d done the same with Prakuyo. Well, except the poisoning.
She hadn’t remotely attempted to be what she was not. She’d been what she was, acted as she always acted, let the kyo see an ateva who wasn’t as outgoing as a child’s innocence, or as malleable as a translator trying to live in all possible worlds at once.
The translator could well have given some false clues, being too willing to adapt. Like dealing with quicksand.
Ilisidi had offered Prakuyo the fixed point, the rock that did not budge, the one to whom atevi and human showed unwavering respect. She was proud, imperious . . . and polite. Her expectations were plain.
Be sensible. Be polite. And expedite a solution. Do not waste her time.
She’d met other kyo and they’d understood that, in her, there was a point around which an entire universe revolved. There was a child in her care, and there was her translator, who tried to be all things to all people . . . and gave off constantly shifting signals. Bren Cameron could be the one who didn’t mind making guesses, who didn’t mind conjecture. He could make the necessary moves, risk mistakes, absorb any blame, backtrack if he had to . . . that was his job.
But she, and her simple expectations, never wavered.
If the kyo had not met and communicated with other species—maybe they’d never met anybody like him, but they might have met her. They might well have produced Ilisidi’s equivalent, but six years in confinement on a human station had also produced Prakuyo, who had been willing, eager, even, to explore any means of communication.
Was Prakuyo typical? Or an anomaly? It was difficult to know from the handful of kyo he’d met. Did it matter? The kyo ship had shown patience. Restraint. Ten years of it. That did not imply a species where irrational temper ruled.
Not to risk any mistakes?
On his level, there had to be mistakes. That was his usefulness. Perfection, absolute definitions—weren’t how communication between strangers happened. He couldn’t be Ilisidi. He couldn’t be the child, either. What he could be was the translator. And if the kyo had figured that out, if Prakuyo’s experience, even, had given one kyo an interest in communicating with strangers, they had come quite a distance on their own.
He had the keys. Now he needed a mutual context—something they shared with the kyo.
Technology. The keys to surviving in space. That was a start. He had no idea what the kyo planet was like, whether they’d even have a context for tree. But they had a computer. A pad and pen that could produce a graphic image. Stars. Planets. Physics. Causality.
He could make a context. Cajeiri had opened the door with a child’s picture book. He had images—millions of images—at the touch of a button, and those he didn’t have, he could create, the way they had created that graphic of ships and Reunion. They’d nailed down a simple alignment graphic. Then they’d gone to more complex images. Images independent of the method of transmission and reproduction at the other end.
He was not in the first paidhi’s place, with no experience, no training, and no idea how to start. He was two hundred years advanced. He had training and tech at his disposal. He’d already negotiated the Reunioners out of Reunion.
Make the kyo understand the complex answers? Get an agreement with them?
He flung off the coverlet, turned on the lights, headed for his clothes. He wanted breakfast, a light breakfast, enough to energize, not to slow down his brain.
No way? Hell if there wasn’t.
14
A letter to Tabini was, among other things, days overdue.
Aiji-ma, one regrets to have been slow to report. I have been engaged with a rapidly changing situation and have relied on the Guild and also on the aiji-dowager and Lord Geigi to relay the details, which they have done very well. Problems have been settled. We are now making rapid progress toward a peaceful reception of these visitors.
One is sure you have been informed that Tillington has definitely been replaced. The Presidenta’s personal representative has taken over administration of all humans excepting the ship-folk. This person, as you surely know by now, is Gin Kroger, who is well-reputed among humans, including the ship-folk, and who was with us when we last dealt with the kyo. She is very ably managing her office.
Indications are now that the kyo do intend to dock with the station, which is what we hoped to see.
The aiji-dowager, having assisted in the Tillington matter in a major way, is taking the opportunity for rest, pending our encounter with the kyo. The young gentleman has been exemplary in behavior and has acted prudently, assisting from a place of safety, and has wisely delivered his guests to Lord Geigi’s hospitality, devoting himself to his great-grandmother’s orders.
One must not neglect to mention Lord Geigi,
who has worked tirelessly for many days without relief, and spared time to care for the young gentleman’s guests.
The kyo have slowed their pace considerably, in a peaceful way, and we are providing direction in diagrams for safe docking of their ship.
I must continue to rely on the Guild and Lord Geigi to convey information to you, aiji-ma, once the demands of the situation become urgent, but I shall not fail to represent your interests as of overriding import, aiji-ma, at all times, and in all resulting agreements, and I shall, on my life, aiji-ma, maintain the safety of the dowager and of your son.
• • •
For Shawn, on Mospheira, for public dissemination at Shawn’s discretion:
Mr. President, the situation aboard the station has vastly improved in the last number of hours, first with the restoration of the treaty-mandated rotation of command with atevi authority, and now with the arrival of Dr. Kroger. Tensions which might have affected the safety of the station have greatly diminished. The atevi side of the station enthusiastically welcomes Dr. Kroger’s advice and cooperation, and I have also heard favorable things from the Captains’ Council regarding her decisions. She has my undying gratitude for her support. Mospheiran citizens have remained calm and are to my knowledge equally welcoming Ms. Kroger’s experienced management.
The kyo have begun approach and have signaled they are looking for contact with the aiji-dowager, the young heir of the aishidi’tat, and myself as translator. This was the composition of our prior meetings. We have signaled our readiness to meet with them on those terms and the kyo are responding in a positive manner.
As regards the nature of the meetings we may hold with the kyo, speaking for the aiji in Shejidan and the aishidi’tat, we are one world, and while atevi representatives are meeting with the kyo, we shall work in the interests of all the world, Mospheira and its people as well as atevi. We wish to establish a good relationship with these visitors, with whom we hope to renew the cordial and cooperative relationship we established at Reunion. They will now see that our representation of our world as a peaceful neighbor is accurate.
I shall attempt to keep you informed during the progress of the meeting with the kyo, and if I am too closely involved personally to provide that information, I have every confidence that Dr. Kroger, in communication with ship command, will provide you constant updates.
Protection of Mospheiran interests is, in Tabini-aiji’s view, inseparable from protection of the aishidi’tat. The aishidi’tat values its treaty obligations as strongly as it does its territorial integrity.
That last was a bold statement. It had become true without Tabini or the Mospheiran legislature being aware of it, but in view of the situation with the kyo, it was an essential point. Humans and atevi could not afford to quarrel in front of the visitors, and they could not afford to sell each other out in whatever negotiations resulted. Not now. Not ever.
• • •
For Toby, at Najida, the third letter:
Brother, so far, so good. Gin Kroger’s arrived to take over the human side, and the kyo seem to want to talk to the three they talked to before—which is exactly what we hoped for.
At this point, they’re definitely coming in, and we’re ready to meet them. The station is quiet, the various administrations are all working with us, and we’re getting responses from our visitors that match our best expectations.
I’ll keep you posted as I can. Tell Ramaso to advise Najida and the staff at Shejidan that we’re all safe and well here. Take care. Hope the weather’s behaving better. Do some fishing if you can and don’t worry.
• • •
Kandana had presented a letter from Tabini as he started his day’s work, a letter which had arrived in Central during Geigi’s watch, and which had prompted his belated flurry of letter-writing. It said, simply: Lord Geigi informs us in daily reports. Our grandmother adds her impressions and commends your work. Attend your proper business as you are doing. We find no fault. We understand these foreigners are moving definitively toward the station with intent to talk. We support your mission in all regards.
For Tabini, it was an unprecedented communication—a letter not asking for information, but simply stating his support and reporting that the dowager, equally uncharacteristically, had praised him. That was the shocking part.
He had read that letter three times, trying to absorb it, seeking alternate interpretations and hidden nuances . . . and finally decided that was truly what the letter said. Ilisidi, despite his irregular schedule and harried attack on problems, which ordinarily would annoy her, had specifically praised him as doing a good job.
That. After an ill-omened nightmare of failure. It was enough to make a sane man veer back into the chaos he’d just climbed out of.
But he had taken his balance. He knew what he had to do.
He sent the three letters off to Central, shoved Tabini’s letter into the drawer, where he wasn’t tempted to read it again, and settled down to do things the scholar’s way, tedious, and with multiple-choice answers, somewhat like the University’s methods—but not. Not, when it came to risk. Ambiguities might happen. Ambiguities and misunderstandings were themselves instructive—as long as both sides were sensible about them.
He needed nouns, yes. Which in this case were also verbs. A simple, straightforward correspondence such as he’d been trained to make was already out of the picture.
And if his ears weren’t an accurate instrument—or if the kyo couldn’t communicate accurately without things he couldn’t hear, he had to take the initiative in dealing with the problem. The ship’s technicians were a resource. Jase might see to that. He needed as complete an audio analysis as they could make.
The technical part—he’d leave that up to Jase and Geigi.
Nuance. Emphasis. Prakuyo was far more atevi-like, expressionless, when it came to facial cues. Atevi learned to control their expressions from childhood up, a cultural choice. The kyo face appeared to be little more than skin over bone in areas where humans and atevi had complex musculature for expression. Atevi, dealing with strangers, went expressionless by choice and courtesy. Mospheirans and Reunioners were the opposite, faces constantly signaling—demonstrating deference or happiness or anger as their chosen expression, while almost inevitably betraying what they were really feeling by still more subtle muscle action: it was an insanely complex communication.
Perhaps that was yet another key to Prakuyo’s preference for dealing with atevi. Calm faces. Ragi did have shifts for number, a confusing lot of shifts and infixes, but particles didn’t change the core. If you just listened for the cores, the children’s language, you could understand it. If you avoided the infixes, you could still be understood. Speak to Prakuyo in the same truncated way—and sequence the words in the Ragi way—that had gotten them quite far, considering. Mospheiran sentence order wasn’t the way Prakuyo seemed to arrange his thoughts. That confused him. Ragi didn’t.
He could deal with that. Facts would emerge first. Then they got to the soft tissue of attitudes. That realm of why. That very useful, dreadful word. Why? And its close cousin, Because.
Why, past tense, involved a blown space station and thousands dead. Why, present tense, was hard to explore but likely more useful. Why, future tense, was completely unformed as yet.
And you didn’t get to that soft tissue of meaning with a one-to-one dictionary of correspondence, no matter how meticulous your note-taking. Constellations of words and related words led to conceptual clusters—how a chair fit into the constellation of sitting, traveling, or a trip to the accommodation.
It was not the University dictionary, Ragi words pinned down like insects on a board, passionately defined in Mosphei’, with theories and reputations at stake. The all-powerful Committee had wanted to retain him in Analytics, where he could work on problem meanings, and where he’d probably to this day be sitting at some desk in the State
Department basement. Send him across the strait to replace Wilson as paidhi-aiji? Not their plan. Not remotely.
They’d been even less happy when he’d become a guest of the aiji-dowager. They’d tried to remove him from the post, and the State Department, where Shawn Tyers had worked in those days, had broken the news to them that they couldn’t. They had a new administration on the continent. They wanted intelligence. Tabini had slowed down food shipments to the island when his return was delayed, planes and ships delayed for repairs, and Tabini wouldn’t talk to anyone else.
He hadn’t known all that at the time, not remotely. The storm had raged behind doors he couldn’t, at the time, have gotten through. And he would not have interpreted Tabini’s demand to get him back as Tabini’s approval. He’d have thought then that Tabini wanted a fool. He equally strongly suspected he’d put his foot wrong with the dowager.
A broken arm hadn’t stopped him. The Committee hadn’t stopped him. He’d stayed in office. To this day, he had his enemies on the Committee, Wilson now chief among them, but he’d done things, risked things—in a youthful determination he’d matured out of. Oh, he’d so far matured past that brash novice paidhi in the last handful of years—even in the last two. Maybe he could count the kyo ship inbound as his fault. The whole fact that Mospheirans were in space and that Tabini had nearly lost his life—could be counted as his fault.
But Phoenix showing up in the heavens hadn’t been his fault.
The likelihood that Wilson would have gotten the atevi into space was zero. Humans would have claimed the station, atevi would have continued on the planet, tradition-bound. Humans alone would have dealt with Reunion, or its outcome, with the kyo.
And that might not have gone so well.