Lost In Translation (15 page)

“Whatever.”

“Then call them by name. The Oath says—”

“I know, I know, ‘I renounce all species ties . . .' ” Jim leaned back against the dresser and picked up the cat again, tossing it from hand to hand. “Don't be too quick to take those words to heart, Katy. ‘Species ties' are going to be pretty important if this Fairholm business blows up.”

Shocked, she could only stare at him.

“Oh, don't get all holier-than-thou.” He looked hard into her eyes. “If war comes, will you side with aliens against your own kind?”

“Jim, you've Translated with all these aliens, you've lived their lives and their thoughts! As Translators, they're our kind, too!”

“Even S'sinn?”

She tried desperately to read him, then, and failed as always. But she knew her own reaction to that name had been nakedly obvious.

“Thought so.” Jim tossed her the cat, and she caught it automatically. “Take it with you. Remember what I said.” He went to the door. “Open.” He glanced back. “Have a nice trip.” He left.

Kathryn stared after him, then realized she had a death-grip on the little ceramic cat and opened her hand to look at it. It seemed to wink at her condescendingly, and in sudden anger she threw it at the wall, smashing it into shards and powder. From the wreckage, the two eyes still glittered. She turned her back on them, slammed the suitcase shut, and left the room that had been her home for more than half her life without even looking back.
I'm better than that,
she thought.
I
meant
my Oath.

And if Jim Ornawka thought he'd ever lay a hand on her again . . .

 

Even for the speedy Guildship
Senti-or-noss
the journey to Inikri-Ossong was a three-jump trip, with two ship days—each about thirty-two hours long—between jumps for recharging, plus a day on either end for maneuvering around the planets. More than one hundred ninety hours in all, Kathryn had figured before she left, and just past the halfway point, she found herself thoroughly bored with her first mission before she'd even properly begun it. Translators served not only to Translate but also to advise negotiators, when asked, and she was fed up to her eyebrows with reading about the principal exports of Inikri-Ossong, and especially fed up with prejilli sticks and chocolate. Given a choice between starving and eating either, she would have had to think long and hard.

She sat in front of her computer terminal, idly scrolling through information she'd already read twice, occasionally sipping from a hot cup of
iss,
a sweet Orrisian concoction that gratefully neither tasted nor smelled at all like chocolate or prejilli, when suddenly the screen blanked, turned bright red, then displayed blazing yellow Guildtalk script: “URGENT MESSAGE INCOMING FROM COMMONWEALTH CENTRAL. STAND BY.”

“Sure thing,” Kathryn said. She leaned back, stretched, and was in the middle of a yawn when the screen cleared to reveal Karak's tentacled, beaked face. “What's up, oh mighty Guildmaster?”

“I'm afraid you'll have to postpone your current assignment,” Karak said. His dolphinish voice wasn't much good at inflection, and of course her empathic ability was useless over a dimspace communicator. She couldn't tell his mood.

Wondering, not for the first time, how non-empathic humans ever communicated anything, she said, “All right by me. I take it you've got something more urgent for me to do?”

“I do. Extremely urgent. Full briefing materials are already being uploaded into the
Senti-or-noss
' computer, but the salient points are these: you are ordered to proceed at once to S'sinndikk, where you will Translate for Earth Ambassador Carlton Matthews as he and the Supreme Flight Leader of the S'sinn attempt to negotiate a way out of the Fairholm/Kisradikk impasse.”

Kathryn felt as if he'd slugged her. “Me? On . . . S'sinndikk? But that means . . .”

“Translating with a S'sinn,” Karak said. “I am aware of your history, Translator Bircher, and I know that I have previously told you that your first Translation with a S'sinn would happen only in the Guildhall under my personal supervision. This, however, is an emergency. The humans have issued an ultimatum to the S'sinn to leave Fairholm or face attack. The S'sinn have countered with their own ultimatum. Both sides, in defiance of Commonwealth Law, have established military alliances with other races. Should either race fire on the other, war, engulfing and destroying the Commonwealth, is almost inevitable.”

Kathryn swallowed. “This isn't exactly explaining why you chose me.”

“Necessity, Translator. Necessity. The Commonwealth, too, is under an ultimatum. Both sides have agreed to these last-minute talks, but both insist that they happen before the ultimatum expires. You are the only suitable human Translator close enough to S'sinndikk to make it there in time. Therefore, you will have to do the job.” He glanced to one side. “Briefing upload is complete. Good luck, Translator. I have every confidence in you.”

As Karak disappeared and the briefing information filled her screen, Kathryn was glad for a moment she hadn't been able to read Karak's emotions.

This way, she could only
guess
that that last comment had been a lie.

 

Once again, Karak turned from speaking with one of his Translators to face the image of the gray-muzzled S'sinn. “I do not like misleading her,” he said. “She has suffered much already.”

“It is necessary. You and I are both agreed on that.”

“Yes. But it still does not please me.”

“A great many things do not please me, Karak. But we deal with the universe on its terms, not our own.” The S'sinn female glanced to one side, then back at the screen. “So. We have set something in flight, you and I. Let us hope it flies true. Farewell, Guildmaster.”

The screen blanked, and Karak floated silently for a long moment, remembering the strange, silent little girl he had brought from Earth.

He hoped she would forgive him.

 

Two ship-days later the
Senti-or-noss
arrived at S'sinndikk, and rendezvoused with the Earth Planetary Government diplomatic ship
Geneva.
As she watched the docking maneuver on a vidscreen in the crew lounge, Kathryn's attention was less on the swelling teardrop shape of the
Geneva
than on the vast blue-green curve of the planet below. So beautiful, so peaceful-looking, so Earth-like: hard to believe it could be the homeworld of the demons of her childhood, the winged monsters who had murdered her parents . . .

Her breath caught in her throat. So much anger, so much buried hatred; she could feel it inside her, infusing all of her emotions. How could she Translate with a S'sinn—and under such conditions, with war threatening again?

Yet, how could she not? Karak had said she was the only Translator available. Had there been another, she was quite certain he would not have chosen her. He knew her inner emotional landscape as well as anyone who had not Linked with her, and possibly even better than some who had: his own unaugmented empathic abilities, she'd been told, were easily the equal of what most ordinary Translators managed under full Programming.

He knew her fear of the S'sinn, but he had sent her anyway. She really must be the Commonwealth's last hope.
Which means you have no choice,
she thought bleakly.
No choice but another war. Remember what the last one cost. Remember what it cost
you.

Yet the thought of landing on S'sinndikk, of being surrounded by S'sinn, of Linking with one, mind to mind, feeling that hateful alien presence in her very soul . . . terrified her. She picked up her cup of
iss
from the low table beside the backless stool on which she sat, then set it down again abruptly when she saw how much her hand shook.
Get a grip, Katy,
she scolded herself.
This Ambassador Matthews you're about to meet is going to expect a cool, calm professional. Whatever you feel inside, at least look the part.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on the calming exercises she had learned in the Guildhall, visualizing her emotions as her own tangled hair which she had to brush, slowly and carefully, into shining smoothness.

When the time came to transfer to the
Geneva,
she walked calmly through the docking tunnel, her slim blue suitcase in one hand and her silver Translator's case in the other, and nodded gravely to the man who greeted her in the lock.

“Translator Bircher?” he said. She pegged him at about fifty Earth years, with steel-gray hair, eyes to match, and the kind of fashionably pale, never-touched-by-ultraviolet skin that could only be obtained artificially. He wore an impeccable black business one-piece with the Earth Planetary Government symbol, a slim blue crescent, stitched neatly over his left breast pocket. He was, in fact, the very model of a modern elder statesman, and she would have found his appearance immensely comforting if not for the utter lack of compassion or concern beneath that carefully cultured surface. All she could feel from him was an eager, almost bloodthirsty desire to accomplish . . . something.

So he's dedicated,
she told herself.
That's good.
“Ambassador Matthews?”

“At your service.” He somehow managed to convey the impression of clicking his heels together without actually doing it. “We will be undocking at once and landing within six hours. In the meantime, may I offer you some refreshment?”

“That's very kind of you.” He took her arm and led her graciously out of the lock and down richly appointed corridors complete with dark wood paneling, thick red carpets, marble sculptures in little wall niches, and the occasional oil painting. A faint hint of lilac suffused the air. Kathryn felt as if she'd stepped into a historical romance, just like she had when Jim had prepared that dinner for her the night before First Translation . . .

They ended their tour in a neo-Victorian lounge that made Kathryn appreciate the benefits of traveling in a human-crewed ship; she'd been a giant aboard the Orrisian ship and it felt good to sit in a proper, if overstuffed, human chair and accept (from a white-coated steward, no less) a proper human drink: coffee, in a Wedgwood cup. “We have a fine selection of wines, too, my dear,” Matthews said.

Don't call me “dear,”
Kathryn thought, but all she said was, “I'm afraid the Translator symbiote does not like alcohol. Fortunately, caffeine is . . . acceptable.” She hesitated over the last word, surprised by the momentary, but very real, sense of distaste she had received from Matthews at the mention of the symbiote. Well, she could hardly blame him for that; the notion of accepting a squirming mass of alien tissue into her body hadn't exactly thrilled her the first time she'd heard about it, either.

“I'm curious about your . . . profession,” Matthews said. “I've had occasion to work with one or two other Translators, and was most impressed with their dedication to a goal I confess I find a little unclear.”

Here it comes,
Kathryn thought. Matthews' attention had sharpened on her like a hungry hawk's on a gopher. “Perhaps I can clarify it for you,” she said carefully. “What did you find hard to understand?”

“Well, in conversation with them, they left me with the impression that they no longer considered themselves human.” Matthews spread his hands. “Yet they were obviously as human as I am—or you are.”

“I suppose it depends on what you mean by human.” She sipped her coffee; set it down again on the antique rosewood table beside her chair. “Of course we are still physically members of the human species, but intellectually—or maybe spiritually would be a better word—we are not. We are Translators. We belong to all Seven Races of the Commonwealth.”

“But surely the Commonwealth is only a political entity,” Matthews protested. “You may serve it, but you can't really belong to it—not in the sense you belong to the human race.” She sensed satisfaction from him as he spoke, like a game player scoring a major point.

A point Kathryn was willing to concede—if it would help her find out where he was heading. “I suppose that's true. Nevertheless, that belief is the basis of the Guild of Translators. We have to be separate from all the races, no matter what our own biological makeup, in order to do our jobs effectively. There must be no hint of bias on the part of Translators, or it could be suggested that the Translation was less than perfect.” She laughed lightly. “The fact that it is absolutely impossible for a Translator to falsify Translation under Programming would not in itself be enough to offset that suggestion. Mere scientific fact is no match for suspicion, especially not when you mix in the liberal dose of superstition empaths are still subject to in many cultures.”

“Is that really true?” Matthews said.

“Oh, I assure you, it is. The Orrisians, for example, used to exile empaths to a particularly nasty swamp infested with—”

A flash of irritation from Matthews confirmed this was more than idle conversation, though he tried to cover it with a laugh. “No, I meant, is it really true that it is impossible to falsify Translation? I'm sure I heard somewhere that—”

Kathryn let a little irritation of her own into her voice. “I assure you, Ambassador, Translators cannot lie under Programming. Ever.”

Matthews wasn't about to give up. “I find that hard to believe, Translator Bircher. There must have been occasions when it would have been advantageous for . . . oh, I don't know, for a negotiator to make a prior arrangement with a Translator so that the negotiator could say one thing out loud, for his own people to hear, while the Translator delivered quite a different message. You could save face and achieve a hidden agenda at the same time.” He shrugged. “Despicable, of course, but I have been a diplomat long enough to know that there are many despicable people who might take advantage of just such a situation.”