Foreigner (11 page)

Garios seemed engrossed in the anatomy of the flipper. His tone was offhanded. “May I inquire about the letter’s contents?”

“Oh, just bringing him up-to-date on what’s been happening. You know: the cliff turning blue, and the blue pyramid erupting out of the ground.”

“Did you, ah, perhaps ask him to come here?”

“Here to Fra’toolar? Goodness, no. That’s a long trip, and he’s got plenty of other things to do.”

“Of course,” said Garios, tearing some more flesh from the flipper. After a moment, he added, “Will you be going to the Capital soon?”

“I don’t know. I should report in person to Dybo at some point. We’ll need new equipment to investigate this pyramid. Of course, Delplas could go back to take care of that; she’s got a fine head for details. So, no, I have no immediate plans to return to the Capital. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious,” said Garios, again examining the flipper as if he somehow expected there to be some meat on it that had evaded his earlier investigations. “Just curious.”

“I call this the listing game,” said Mokleb. “It works like this: I suggest a category of thing, and you list all the items that fit into that category.”

“A memory test?” said Afsan. “There’s nothing wrong with my memory.”

“No, I suspect there isn’t. But please indulge me. Could you, for instance, give the names of the original five hunters?”

“Sure. Lubal, Belbar, Katoon, Hoog, and, ah, Mekt.”

“You hesitated before Mekt. Why?”

“I couldn’t remember if I’d said her yet.”

“Of course. Of course. And can you name the five original mates?”

“Dargo, Varkev, Jostark, Takood, Detoon.”

“There, you had no trouble with that list. What about the names of the seven principal branches of government?”

“Oh, easy. The judiciary. The church. Civil works. The exodus. Interprovincial trade. Portents and omens. Tithing.”

“Very good. And the names of the eight provinces?”

“Not only will I give you the names, Mokleb, but I’ll give them to you in order from west to east: Jam’toolar, Fra’toolar, Arj’toolar, Chu’toolar, Mar’toolar, Edz’toolar, and Capital.”

“You missed one,” said Mokleb.

“Did I? Which one?”

“You tell me.”

“Let’s see: Jam’toolar and Fra’toolar on the west coast. Then Arj’toolar. Chu’toolar to the north, with little Mar’toolar beneath it. Edz’toolar. And Capital.”

“You missed it again.”

Afsan sounded irritated. He held up his fingers as he named them off. “One: Jam’toolar. Two: Fra’toolar. Three: Capital. Four: Chu’toolar. Five: Mar’toolar. Six — did I say Arj’toolar yet? Arj’toolar. Seven: Edz’toolar. And eight, ah… number eight is…”

“Yes?”

“Isn’t that funny?” said Afsan. “For the life of me, I can’t remember number eight.”

“Would you like a hint?”

“Um.”

“Its provincial color is light blue.”

Afsan shook his head. “Sorry. It’s right on the fork of my tongue, but…”

“Kev’toolar,” said Mokleb.

“Kev’toolar!” cried Afsan. “Of course. How could I forget that?”

“Now, quickly, Afsan, tell me the words that pop into your mind when you think of Kev’toolar.”

“Len-Lee. She’s the governor.”

“No, don’t explain unless I ask you to. Just say whatever words pop into your head.”

“Coastline.” A pause. “Kevpel.”

“Kevpel?”

“Yes, you know. The planet. Fourth planet from the sun.”

“Kev’toolar and Kevpel: they both start the same way.”

“That’s right. It’s a coincidence, of course. The province is named after Kevo, one of the fifty original Packs. The ’kev’ in the planet’s name is just an old word for ’bright.’”

“And what does Kevpel make you think of?”

“Well, Novato, I guess. When we first met, she showed me her sketches of Kevpel. And phases, of course: you can see Kevpel’s phases clearly, even with a small far-seer. Oh, and rings: Kevpel has rings around it.”

“There’s another ringed planet, isn’t there?”

Afsan nodded. “Bripel. But it’s not as easy to see through a far-seer. And it’s farther away from the sun than we are, so it doesn’t go through phases.”

“Novato. Tell me about her.”

“Well, she’s head of the exodus project now.”

“But more than that, if I recall the stories I’ve heard correctly, she and you mated.”

“Yes.”

“Now phases. Tell me about phases.”

“Well, they’re cycles.”

“Cycles?”

“You know: periodic occurrences.”

“And rings. What things are ring-shaped?”

“A guvdoc stone.”

“Yes. Anything else?”

“Certain trading markers, no?”

“I suppose. Anything else?”

“No, well — eggs are laid in a circle with empty space at the center. A clutch of eggs looks like a ring.”

Mokleb nodded. “You couldn’t remember the province of Kev’toolar, because your mind was blocking out the similarly named planet Kevpel, and Kevpel makes you think of Novato, cycles, and rings.”

“Oh, be serious, Mokleb. Those are just random connections, surely.”

“Cycles and rings. Rings of eggs. And Novato, whom you once mated with. Let me ask you a question, Afsan. Tell me: is Novato about to be an integral number of years old? That is, is she about to cycle into her receptive phase, and take a mate?”

Afsan’s jaw dropped. “Mokleb — !”

“Forgive me if I’m wrong.”

“No, no, you’re absolutely right. She’ll be in heat anytime now.”

“And again forgive me, but have you perhaps been wondering if you and she will couple again? If the two of you will produce another clutch of eggs?”

Afsan’s claws slipped out for a moment, but then slid back into their sheaths. “Yes, Mokleb, as much as I have no right to wonder about such things, the questions you ask have indeed been disturbing me. I mean, normally I’d have a good chance at it, having been the first person she coupled with. But, ah, I’m blind and far away from her, and, well, there is the matter of Garios.”

“Garios?”

“Den-Garios. A fine fellow, really. Novato and I coupled prior to what would have been her normal first estrus; she mated with Garios about two kilodays later. So, yes, Mokleb, I have been wondering whether she and I will mate again. It’s not a proper thing to think about, I know, but…” He lifted his hands helplessly.

“As you can see,” said Mokleb, “the most insignificant-seeming slip can be of major importance. We’re beginning to gain access to your mind, Afsan; soon we’ll have our prey in sight.”

Toroca’s lessons in the Other language progressed rapidly. He soon had a vocabulary of perhaps two hundred words, mostly nouns. The pace had picked up once he realized that when Jawn pointed at an object with his palm open, the word he spoke was the general term (furniture, say), and when he pointed with his palm closed, the word was specific (table, for instance). Jawn was a good teacher, with inexhaustible patience; Toroca guessed that teaching the Other language to youngsters had once been his job. Nonetheless, Toroca found the language confusing. In the Quintaglio tongue, related nouns usually ended in the same suffix: -
aja
for kinds of wood, -
staynt
for types of buildings, and so on. But the Other language didn’t seem to have any such simplicity; a sailing ship was a
ga-san
whereas a rowboat was a
sil-don-kes-la
.

Eventually, some questions could be asked. There were six standard interrogatives in the Quintaglio language: who, what, how, why, where, and when. It became apparent, however, that there were eight in the Others’ speech, six corresponding to the Quintaglio ones, plus two more that Toroca gathered meant “with what degree of certainty?” and “how righteous is this?” He’d picked up the latter by Jawn repeatedly asking questions and pointing through the glass roof at the gibbous Face of God; the Other religion centered on the Face, just as the Quintaglios’ own discredited Larskian faith had.

The first question Jawn asked was the one Toroca had expected. Jawn leaned back on his tail — Toroca had decided to refer to Jawn as “he”; it was too difficult maintaining a mental image of a “she” with a dewlap — and said in his own language, “Where you from, Toroca?”

Toroca had to answer with a question of his own. “Picture land,” he said, and made the beckoning hand sign that meant “give me.”

Jawn looked momentarily confused, then apparently realized that “picture land” must refer to a “map,” a word the Other equivalent of which Toroca didn’t know. Jawn spoke to Morb, the fellow with the black armbands, and a map was brought in. It was made of neither leather nor paper, but rather a pinkish material that had a waxy feel to it; perhaps a plant derivative. Once the map was unfurled, Toroca was surprised to see that although the page it was printed on was square, the image was perfectly circular. Rather than having the Others’ archipelago in the center, it was displaced toward the upper left. In the correct relative positions the northern and southern polar caps were indicated.

Suddenly it hit Toroca: the circular view showed all of the back side of their moon, everywhere from which the Face of God was visible. Had the Others never sailed farther than that? Perhaps with a religion built around the Face, they refused to sail beyond its purview. Indeed, the glass roofs of their buildings might be for more than simply letting in light; perhaps they ensured that the Others were never out of sight of their god.

Toroca used his hands to make the map bulge up from the tabletop into a dome, in hopes of indicating that it represented one hemisphere. Then, with an exaggerated gesture of his muzzle, he tried to show that he came from around past the borders of the map.

Jawn looked shocked. He glanced over at the guard, but Morb was paying little attention. Jawn said just two words, the two interrogatives unique to the Other language: With what degree of certainty? How righteous is this?

“Loud,” said Toroca in Jawn’s language, and then, realizing he was using the wrong word, “Much.”

Jawn shook his head. “How you here?”

Toroca hadn’t learned many verbs yet, but that sentence was easy enough to decipher even without them. “
Ga-san
,” he said. Sailing ship.

“No see,” said Jawn.

Toroca gestured in the direction of the water, then curved his arm down, hoping to convey that the ship was below the horizon. “No far,” said Toroca, wanting to make clear that it hadn’t gone all the way back to Land.

Jawn touched his own chest. “Jawn,” he said. He pointed at Toroca. “Toroca.” Then, wrinkling his muzzle in a way that Toroca had come to associate with asking questions, “
Ga-san
?”

“
Dasheter
, ” said Toroca. “
Ga-san Dasheter
. “

Jawn pointed at himself, then Toroca, then Morb, the guard. “Three,” he said in his language. “Three here.
Ga-san
?”

Toroca only knew the numerals to ten. “Ten and two,” he said.

“
Farg-sol
,” said Jawn.

Toroca briefly wondered what “eleven” was; he hated gaps in his knowledge. But Jawn pressed on. “Few,” he said.

And that was the key point. Yes, there were only a few people aboard the Dasheter, even though it was a big ship. Toroca had never thought the ship particularly empty, but by the standards of these people, it would be. How to explain territoriality? For God’s sake, he was the least expert of all his people on that topic.

With one hand he lifted the corner of the map and flicked the edge. With the other, he made the beckoning gesture. Jawn understood immediately and fetched blank drawing sheets and graphite sticks. Toroca drew a circle and then put a dot in it. He pointed at the dot, then pointed at himself, palm opened, conveying, he hoped, that the dot represented one Quintaglio rather than him in particular. He said, “
Bal
,” the Other word for one, followed by “
hoos-ta
,” the Other word for good. Then he put in a second dot, but far away from the first, and said “
hoos-ta
” again. Then he added a third dot, close to the first. “
Hoos-na-ta
.” Bad. And a fourth dot, even closer. “
Hoos-na-ta, hoos-na-ta
” — repetition being the way the Others showed successive degrees.

Jawn looked dismayed. He gestured with his hand, showing how much room was still left in Toroca’s circle.

“Bad, bad,” said Toroca again.

Jawn wrinkled his muzzle and said that word, “
Glees
,” meaning, how righteous is this?

Not very, thought Toroca, but he didn’t know how to say it.

“All right,” said Novato to the group assembled on the hillside. “It seems that whatever was being built is finished. Let’s review what’s happened.” Garios and the other five members of Novato’s staff were lying on the grass. Early morning sunlight sporadically punched through the clouds.

“Some orange dust escaped from the ark and came into contact with the cliff,” said Novato. “It — the dust — seems to have undertaken a two-stage project. In the first stage, it converted a cube of cliff material into the same super-strong stuff the ark is made of. That cube, which was originally almost entirely buried in rock, measures roughly a hundred and thirty paces on a side, and one face of it roughly corresponds with what was originally the face of the cliff. In and of itself, that single cube constituted the largest artificial structure in our entire world.

“But after completing the first stage — construction of the central cube — a second stage began. That involved expanding the cube on top and on its four sides by adding new material to turn the overall structure into a pyramid, with a base approximately three hundred paces on a side. Making the central cube was relatively straightforward, if such words can be applied to miracles: it only involved converting existing rock into the blue material. This second stage has required bringing in new material, and we’ve all seen that going on: rocks seeming to liquefy, but without giving off the heat we expect of molten material, then flowing into new shapes, and, as they resolidify, turning blue.