Visitor

  Bren, meanwhile, worked through more associated picture groups, on tea-fired nerves, and with a very different perspective, now, on what he’d once naively thought to refrain from saying, and what perceptions had, like the tapestry of associated words, knit itself into inescapable association.

  Hide their level of technology? No. It wasn’t possible.

  Everything the Earth of the atevi owned was oh, very clearly laid out. From their orbital vantage, simple optics was all they’d need to read the street signs in Port Jackson. Right below the kyo ship were seas and mountains, grasslands and forest, cities and towns, and not that extensive a technology. Planes flew . . . trains moved, particularly on the continent. Cities were few. Townships were far more frequent. It might not be as evident to starfarers like Jase, in his steel-and-composites world, drinking energy in monstrous quantities, breaking materials into elements and making them something else—but to people more familiar with the economy of earth and fields, water and wind? Achingly evident what level of population, what utilization of resources, built what level of technology—and the technology that made the table they were using was not the same that had made that bit of driftwood on the dining table.

  It was not the foundations of a star-hopping civilization, down there. The advanced technology had come in from the heavens, with humans, and his own account to them had said as much. Several of the trains they might spot down there were steam engines. The world had two real spaceports and two airports whose landing strips could accommodate a shuttle. He had so foolishly imagined, from the ground, trying to pretend otherwise—but from this perspective there were no secrets at all, no way to pretend there were other ships than Phoenix. There was one stalled in building—the story of that was equally complicated, and itself tangled in the mess at Reunion.

  There were Gin’s robot miners. There were two shuttles aloft, more on the ground. The mast itself could accommodate one more shuttle, with a starship in dock, no more than that. God, even getting into the station—on the conveyor line system that had never improved since construction days—must have struck them as dangerously primitive.

  They were fooling no one. What they posed to the kyo was not a threat—so much as a mystery. What existed at Alpha was a creation from outside. What existed on the planet came from the earth itself.

  Could the kyo possibly see a threat in a steam locomotive? Could they see one in a satellite system that was only this last year beginning to offer weather predictions on the Southern Ocean?

  It was not the same technology. It was as hybrid as their civilization.

  And when he thought of it not from the planet’s surface looking up, how did his explanation of Phoenix make sense to them—a ship building yet one more station, out in the middle of nowhere, and that one ship using all the resource that station could gather over a matter of years—to go out—to do what? Look for a home they’d lost, when an accident had thrown them far, far off their intended course? How could he explain that, with their limited vocabulary?

  Well, steam trains and scattered airports and all, they were all laid out below, the result of that one ship and desperate colonists quitting the station and heading for the green, good world below, the lifebearing star-system that also had, close by, the abundance of iron and ice the ship had needed.

  Phoenix had built a station they fully intended to leave. And they’d done it again at Reunion. How did he make that make comfortable sense to the next solar system they’d set their sights on? It didn’t make comfortable sense to him. Why? If the goal was to search for human space, why not just refuel and keep moving? The question still nagged him. Had Ramirez truly planned to abandon Reunion—to build—what? A Phoenix captain’s world was the ship, and stations served it. Was it still a mission, in Ramirez’ mind?

  It hadn’t been an issue to trouble Mospheirans and atevi—until Ramirez went where he shouldn’t have.

  A closer look, Gin had said. There were things you wouldn’t know, if you didn’t look close up.

  Was that how Ramirez had made his mistake?

  He couldn’t ask. He couldn’t get into that issue. Not yet.

  He had pictures. That was what he had to work with. And time. As much as he could get, while the kyo were interested in listening.

  They had touched on authority. And who had it.

  He called up a picture of Tabini-aiji. Shawn Tyers. “Number one atevi. Number one Mospheiran human. Tabini-aiji is aiji on the continent. Shawn Tyers is aiji on Mospheira.” He showed the vast expanse of the continent. And, again, the island that was Mospheira.

  “Small,” Hakuut observed.

  It had always been big enough—big enough to be the whole world when he was Cajeiri’s age. But they were looking down from the heavens, seeing the proportion of it—atevi to human.

  “Small, yes,” he said. “City here is Port Jackson. Airport here. Big mountain is Mount Adams. Atevi lived on Mospheira. Then humans come down. Atevi aiji give Mospheira to humans. All humans here. All atevi—on the mainland.”

  “Humans come to Earth of the atevi—want—?”

  Second time for that question. “Food. Want to be safe. Want children.”

  That provoked a discussion, which concluded in:

  “Atevi planet.”

  “Yes.” He showed a picture of a mecheita rider, one of the Taibeni, a living exemplar of the old culture . . . part of the forested landscape. “Atevi planet.”

  The picture—they found astonishing, though whether the ateva, the mecheita, or the trees, or just the act of riding triggered that astonishment was unclear. He had a video clip showing the rider mounting and the mecheita running—that astonished them. A picture of the dowager’s home, Malguri, on its hill. The stone building intrigued them, and they seemed to find something comparable to discuss.

  They worked out build, building, and house. Man. Woman. Mother. Father. Baby.

  Train. Boat.

  That was a photo of his own, Barb and Toby, on the Brighter Days, on a sunny day. The bay sparkling behind them. Both were smiling. Wind was blowing Barb’s hair.

  “Man. Woman,” Prakuyo said.

  Wise to turn it personal? Maybe it was . . . for the sense of trust they wanted to build.

  “Man is Toby. Woman is Barb. Toby is my brother. Toby’s mother is Bren’s mother. Toby is Bren’s brother.”

  “Brother,” Prakuyo repeated, and there was a little nodding, a little soft booming, a little discussion. “Bren brother. Toby.”

  “Barb?” Prakuyo asked then.

  “Barb is Toby’s associate.”

  More speculative discussion.

  “Baby?” Hakuut asked.

  He caught himself short of a laugh. “No baby.”

  Kyo faces showed a little freckling, Hakuut more than the others.

  “Cajeiri mother?” Prakuyo asked. “Aiji-dowager?”

  “No. Cajeiri’s mother is Damiri. Cajeiri’s father is Tabini-aiji.”

  A ripple of hums and thumps. “Cajeiri father number one atevi.”

  “Number one atevi, yes.”

  “Dowager?”

  “The dowager is Tabini’s father’s mother.”

  That triggered a small and lively discussion, thumps and booms.

  “Aiji number one atevi.”

  “Yes.”

  Another small discussion, then Prakuyo said,

  “Cajeiri father number one atevi. Bren, Cajeiri, dowager go on Phoenix. Go Reunion. Go Reunion. Go Reunion.” Prakuyo opened his hand. “Hed.”

  Hed. Was that why? Maybe it was give me a sensible answer this time.

  There was one point to hammer home. “Tabini-aiji hears kyo upset. Shawn-aiji hears. Tabini-aiji and Shawn-aiji say ship go quick make Reunion stop. Tabini-aiji say dowager, Cajeiri, Bren go see. Bring all Reunion human to Alpha, shut off Reunion, no more upset the kyo.”


  If that wasn’t oversimplified enough, he didn’t know what could cap it. But knowing they didn’t understand the entire reason was better than concluding they did.

  “Ship-aijiin.” That was a challenge to his statement. Who was in control?

  “Ship-aijiin,” Jase said, trying to intervene, and without the words. “Bren, can we say dead?”

  Important point, and they were stuck for a word in that direction. Bren took another. “Sabin-aiji take ship. Sabin-aiji hears Tabini-aiji, Shawn-aiji. Sabin-aiji, Jase-aiji come take ship, stop Reunioners. No more make station. No more go in kyo space.”

  He and Jase had had their short, private exchange. Now the kyo had their own consultation, with accompanying heavy thumps and hums. God, it was dangerous. A cultural assumption could go right off the edge.

  “Many station,” Prakuyo said.

  “One station. Alpha. No more station. One ship. One station.”

  There was quiet, then, a lengthy quiet. They’d arrived at an assertion, perhaps, that the kyo didn’t trust or couldn’t figure.

  For evidence there was the planet below them, with more trains than airplanes, a scant handful of shuttles, three runways, and one starship.

  Matuanu said something, no word of which was understandable. Prakuyo listened, bobbed slightly, whether assent or just acknowledgment was unclear.

  Prakuyo seemed to be the one in charge, not necessarily as quick with words as Hakuut, or maybe just a shade more cautious than Hakuut.

  Prakuyo was also smart. Very smart. He’d picked up on that from the start of their association. And had Prakuyo, with so sharp a recall, been locked up for six years, learning nothing of the language? He didn’t think so. Reunioners had avoided contact with him. He’d had very little interaction with anybody. But over six years—Prakuyo had had time to gather vocabulary.

  Now Prakuyo had a tablet with keys to the Ragi language instead, a Rosetta Stone, and he sincerely, sincerely hoped, given his necessary claim that Tabini had some power of restraint over the starship, that had not been a monumental mistake.

  Explain now that he wanted the tablets back? That wouldn’t translate well.

  Matuanu had rarely spoken directly to him. Now out of long, long silence. Matuanu, security, said, “Ship go kyo star not good.”

  Security? Or military?

  Humans knew that word. Atevi had borrowed it from Mospheirans.

  “Ship going to the kyo star is not good,” he said. “Atevi and Mospheirans say ship not go. Bad upset kyo. No more upset kyo.”

  Reunion’s images were vivid, the ruined station. The miserable, starved figure Prakuyo had become. The memories Prakuyo had—the memories the Reunioners themselves had of that place—were all one nightmare.

  “Reunion stop,” he said. “No more Reunion. No more human ship go in kyo space. No more atevi ship go in kyo space. Yes?”

  “Yes,” Prakuyo said, and there was, for the first time since the question of Phoenix had come up, a low, restrained booming—a signal, one began to believe, of a kyo in a better mood.

  With that, they had come to at least a positive resolution—some sort of good outcome. From here it could go on for hours—or go downhill, with everybody increasingly tired, increasingly apt to miss points.

  “Sleep now,” Bren said. “Bren sleep. All sleep.”

  “Yes,” Prakuyo said, in what was probably a very close approximation of the same conclusion: they’d all had a tension-filled day. They’d had supper, talked, fairly successfully.

  Time to go behind closed doors, with a chance to communicate with each other and analyze the situation and then to sleep, and try again in the morning.

  “Safe here,” he said, got up, bowed, as the kyo did. He went to the sideboard, where the display was in off mode. He flipped it on, instant view of the kyo ship. “Talk kyo ship, yes. No problem. Push this button.” Central was set to take such a call and send it right through. “Good you talk to kyo ship. You sleep safe. You need, come Bren’s door.”

  “Good, good, good,” Prakuyo said. “Thank.”

  “Thank you, indeed, nandi.”

  The devices he had passed out were still on the table, in the kyo’s possession now, for good or for ill. Rosetta Stone. And fishing net.

  Everything they input went to all units. The kyo weren’t fools. They surely observed that.

  So would they themselves put fish into the net?

  He hoped they would. It would augur well if they did.

  He had a nagging fear about what he had done. An association, the kyo had said back at Reunion, could not be broken.

  Nor could words once given be taken back. He could have posed the aishidi’tat a lasting, wide-reaching problem. Involved them in a war in which they had absolutely no stake—except what he established here.

  On the other hand—the kyo had never met anybody but themselves—and their enemy—until they made contact at Reunion. Two hundred years ago, humans and atevi had stopped killing one another, because there had been paidhiin. Paidhiin were their hope now. Prakuyo was their hope, because Prakuyo, at least, had come to talk and while they were talking, bad things were less apt to happen.

  There were danger points beyond the ability to talk to each other. There were cultural questions, instincts they could fall afoul of—

  But species smart enough to develop a stardrive—had to have found some basic sense of reason. Smashing systems one didn’t understand was a strategy that kept barbarians from greater things. A better plan, by far, to investigate from the inside. And learn.

  The kyo certainly had positive qualities.

  Ten years sitting and watching Reunion after their initial strike. Curiosity.

  Not immediately blasting their way in after Prakuyo themselves. Restraint and curiosity.

  Purpose overriding passion, if passion existed in them.

  Exactly what had Prakuyo wanted, approaching Reunion? What had Prakuyo expected—when Prakuyo’s folk had blasted hell out of the station four years prior?

  Behaviors didn’t make sense. But then—his own aishid had been completely appalled, when he had moved to join them under fire. They’d been angry at him. Furiously angry.

  • • •

  He left with Jase, with Narani and Bindanda, with Banichi and Jago. They crossed the main room, quiet and deserted now, all doors shut but the one they had just left. Their own door opened, expecting them: the monitoring had signaled their approach.

  They entered the front room, with its security station apparatus. Banichi and Jago shed jackets and weapons. Tano sat at the middle console monitoring—whatever went on, Kandana and Jeladi and Asicho seeing to Banichi, Algini watching all of it—they were all there, and one suspected Cenedi and the Guild Observers at the very least were there electronically. He gave the Guild sign for quiet, and his own signal for writing, and said, in an entirely normal voice, “It went very well, nadiin-ji. One does not believe it could have gone better.”

  Banichi handed him a very small piece of paper, of the sort the Guild used, stuff that would not be paper if water or fire hit it.

  He wrote, Their hearing or their equipment heard Jase arrive, and handed it to Banichi, who read it, nodded and passed it on, while he asked Tano, “Did it work, Tano-ji?”

  “We found some seeming relationships,” Tano said, while the note passed. “Then the meeting became much quieter.”

  “At a certain point I said we didn’t hear everything in the sounds, and they changed their mode of speech . . . somewhat like the children’s language, one suspects. Send word to the dowager and the young gentleman that everything went as well as we could hope. You did follow what we said.”

  Silent agreement all around.

  “The teacakes were a great success, Danda-ji. Did Jase explain? We shall visit Central handoff tomorrow, to let our guests see something of the h
uman establishment and our Central in operation. They have requested it. Jase will deal with the technicalities.” He ached to get his hands on whatever sorting Tano had done. “I think I may take a very small brandy—any of you may join us, after so much effort today. I think we have earned it, and our guests I suspect are as tired as we are. Did Geigi’s analysis turn up anything unexpected?”

  “The sounds are complex,” Tano said, and keyed up a waveform on his screen. It was, indeed. “We could reproduce them mechanically. But they are varied. We have some from Reunion. These have more variety, some quite elaborate. Sorting one source from another is difficult. They often set up resonances.”

  Prakuyo’s mood, until he had rejoined his own people, had been restrained, excepting a few moments. So had the kyo on their ship—compared to now.

  An appearance of cheerfulness, for their benefit? Nervousness on their side?

  No knowing.

  The note had finished its rounds, and vanished, from Narani’s hand, into a forsaken cup of tea.

  “At least,” he said, “We have a beginning. A good beginning. Arrange things on the dowager’s schedule—our day can begin when she wishes it to begin. Banichi.” He held out his hand, wanting another of those small, disposable papers. He wrote in Ragi, Prakuyo remembers words very accurately. He has trouble pronouncing ship-speak, but in six years he may have learned far more than he has wanted us to know. He is making us work for it. But I am suspicious he knows more ship-speak and more Ragi than he admits—and more than he can pronounce and their hearing may be unexpectedly acute. Be very careful what you say, at all times.

  • • •

  Cajeiri waked—in a strange place—with someone moving in the room.

  He was quickly wide awake. He was in his room inside mani’s protection, with his own bodyguard, and that somebody was moving in the room—he was sure it was one of his own aishid—meant something was going on in the middle of the night. “Who?” he asked, whispering so as not to rouse the rest of his aishid—likely as it already was they were awake, too.

  “Antaro,” the whispered answer came back. “Nothing is wrong, nandi. Nand’ Bren is back in his suite. I have just come in from a briefing.”