Visitor: A Foreigner Novel (38 page)

Long silence. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“You
have
started. So has he. You’ll figure out the rest.”

“God. I don’t know if I even believe you.”

“That’s all right. The language is real. The chance to stop your war is real. Anything else is . . . irrelevant. In seven days, you’ll have enough words to ask for things and say please and thank you, and for you to talk to Prakuyo. He sent you a
pillow,
for God’s sake. What more do you want of him?”

Cullen began to laugh, tucked up a knee, leaned his head on it, and folded his arms about his head, laughing, then crying, quietly, the two intermingled.

Tano and Algini, a little removed from where they sat, looked worried.

“It is not a concern, nadiin-ji,” Bren said quietly, and just waited, while Cullen regained control, and wiped his eyes, and went on wiping them.

“All right?” Bren asked eventually.

“Fine,” Cullen said.

“You understand me.”

A nod. “Not wholly sure. But—yes. I just—it’s crazy.”

“Nice pillow,” Bren said. “I’m sure he’d like to have had one, in his situation. He didn’t have a bed.”

“I get it,” Cullen said. “I do get it.” His voice shook, steadied. “I’ll take care of that damn pillow. I will.”

“I think we could both do with a few hours of sleep. The brain processes things in your sleep. You’ll wake having forgotten some things you thought you knew and remembering things you can’t even remember learning.”

A weary chuckle. “Not that different from engineering, then.”

“Not that different. I’ll show you how to manage the alphabet, next lesson. I need to figure that myself. It will give you a feeling for how I approach a problem. Reading is real helpful, when you’re trying to immerse yourself in the language. The more hours you can spend using the kyo language, the better.”

“When you go—that’s
all
I’ll have.”

“That’s all there’ll be,” he said, “until you can talk to Prakuyo. And until you can rescue more of your people. But two cautions on that score. One: don’t spend too much time in the human way of thinking. It will undermine your connection to the kyo.”

“Makes a strange sense. And the other?”

“It was
after
we got to talking, after we were sure we were friends, humans with the atevi, that
we
went to war with each other.”

“Why?”

“That’s another thing I need to explain to you, tomorrow. We
solved our problem. But it’s real helpful for you to know, and for Prakuyo to know, why that happened. I can’t tell him right now—I don’t know what the touchpoints are with the kyo. But between you, you can figure it out. You’ll discuss it with him. You’ll come up with your own ways to solve it.” He stood up with the weight of hours on him—too many hours, no sense of day or night, too much kyo tea and nerves at raw ends, but over all, it was a good time to quit. “See you at breakfast.”

• • •

Four days. Four days since nand’ Bren had departed for the kyo ship. Four days spent trading words and playing board games with Hakuut, at hours that mani’s orders kept regular.

Four days in which one’s thoughts wandered back and forth between the ship and the game and the words and pictures of the tablet, which changed
only
with what Hakuut was doing and what he was doing—not the way they did when nand’ Bren was also working on the dictionary. Maybe it was because the tablets’ messages could not reach the ship. Reports came in on com, every ten and a half hours from Tano or from Algini, reports that satisfied Cenedi. Antaro and the others talked with Cenedi, quietly, properly, asking his questions that were not useful to ask mani, and Cenedi’s word was simply that nand’ Bren was safe, and that nand’ Bren was where he wished to be.

Nand’ Jase was not entirely happy. Nand’ Jase spent time in nand’ Bren’s apartment, but nobody knew any more than what Cenedi relayed to them, that said nand’ Bren was safe, and that “things” were progressing. Not even Narani knew any more than that, or admitted he knew it, and nand’ Jase frowned a great deal, and went back and forth between Lord Geigi, and the guests in Lord Geigi’s apartment, and Gin. His aishid said that Cenedi suspected nand’ Jase was under pressure from the ship-aijiin, who were not getting any more information. At one point, nand’ Jase directly
asked
mani, which was because nand’ Jase had no aishid capable of asking Cenedi, and Cajeiri
somewhat held his breath, because that could be said to be pushing, on the part of the ship-aijiin.

But mani was patient with him, and had tea with him—to which Cajeiri was also invited—and told nand’ Jase only that there were regular, scheduled reports to assure their continued safety and ability to communicate, but that was all they knew.

Nand’ Jase said, too, that Bjorn’s household was being moved from Lord Geigi’s apartment, that there were questions Gin-nandi wanted to ask Bjorn’s father, that there was an investigation into the company Bjorn’s father worked for, and that Bjorn’s father had gotten his papers back, and that he would get title to his portion of them, and that the others who might have title might get it by his voluntary sharing, or by lawsuit. Bjorn’s father said he
would
share—Gin worked that out—and Asgard Company, that Bjorn’s father had dealt with, would find itself in legal trouble regarding the rights for which they had gotten Bjorn his tutoring—somebody might file on them in the Mospheiran way, which was not Intent, but Mospheiran law was involved, and
maybe
Tillington was. So the company was going to give up the rights to Bjorn’s father and continue Bjorn’s lessons and Bjorn’s father and other people were going to have a safe residency Gin was providing—while Tillington and certain other people were going to have to explain things to the investigators.

It
was
a lot of news. Gin-nandi was not a patient sort of person, and the people who had gone with her on the ship were just like an atevi household. If Gin wanted something done, people did it and gave each other orders, everybody trying to be quick about it.

So yes, Gin was a not a person who was going to be patient with Tillington.

And he hoped Bjorn was going to be all right.

“The Andressen house will go down to the planet,” Jase-aiji
said. “They will have to pass the same tests as other people do to go up and work on the station.”

“Is Andressen-nadi to be respectable?” mani asked. “Shall he be disgraced for his dealings?”

“Under the circumstances, nand’ dowager, one expects he will gain respectability: his dealings were with property he rescued, the existence of which he declined to reveal to
Phoenix
command, and to his fellows, but he did preserve the materials. He used them in illicit barter, but he did so in the constraint of the situation, to help his family survive and gain status that might save them being shipped to Maudit—never a good plan. Gin-nandi will protect him—she will certainly protect Bjorn’s interests. I have spoken to her about that.”

It was good news. It was very good news.

But it was not news about nand’ Bren and the situation they all were in, even Hakuut and Matuanu.

The ship-aijiin were growing impatient, asking Jase what was going on and what nand’ Bren might be saying and promising.

“He will promise only such things as he must promise,” was mani’s judgment, “to secure a safe outcome and a fair relationship. The ship should do
nothing.”

“Ship command is being very cautious,” was Jase’s answer. “They ask. I have told them—when you have information, I shall know it and relay it.”

“That is the case,” mani said.

Very possibly, Cajeiri thought, Hakuut and Matuanu were listening to all of it. They were not taking pains to keep it otherwise.

But Hakuut did ask, once he and Hakuut resumed their session at the dining table, “What Jase-aiji say? Ship-aijiin upset?”

“Not upset. Worried. Think-this, think-that. Ask when Bren will come back, what kyo ask, what nand’ Bren say.”

Hakuut said: “Matuanu and me worry same.”

Oh, there were questions he could ask . . . questions about
what Matuanu had told Hakuut. Ever since that day, there were moments Hakuut would fade away from whatever they might be doing and stare across the room.

Listening? Trying to hear secrets that might pass beyond the walls?

He wished he could hear all the way into that ship out there. He wished mani would volunteer whatever Tano and Algini had had to say to her and Matuanu, when they made their visit.

But if mani wanted to say that, she would, and she had not.

• • •

We—remained a hard word.
We
, even
I
, was problematic—as if whatever
we
might be was so enmeshed with
I
, or vice versa, that kyo just felt—intruded upon if someone assumed it.

Ragi had an impersonal
one.
And kyo had an impersonal. It finally came clear, dealing with Huunum and Ukess. They were
we.
One boomed, the other did—it was that simple. But get a mob together . . .

“Many, many kyo are not a good
we,”
as Huunum put it. “Crazy. Two, three, good. Kyo choose two, three learn, report, talk to number one kyo. Much more fast decide.”

Well, it was
not
the way atevi decided things, unless one counted clans, but it appeared that agreement-groups among the kyo were not by birth, gender, or political rank. They were somewhat by personal affinity. They were, in fact, whatever kyo wanted them to be.

“I think,” Bren said to Cullen, in the long sessions which, a day ago, had moved to the conference room, “that it expresses what we call affection, and consensus, what atevi call man’chi, and clan, and their decision-making may be something we had rather approach the way they do, in small groups that build into a network of little groups. Quiet that way. Easier on human nerves.”

“Can they get anything done that way?” Cullen asked.

“Clearly they do, don’t they? You can work with it. You’re smart. You adapt. Thank God.”

“You say—tomorrow we’ll start using just kyo. Just kyo.”

“You have to.”

Long pause. Bitten lip. Cullen was struggling with something. There’d been more than one such moment.

“Going to miss human language,” Cullen said in a shaky voice. “Haven’t heard it for so long. Don’t want you not to use it.”

“And you want to make sure you don’t lose touch with it,” Bren said. “You’re going to need it as much as the kyo language if you’re going to negotiate a peace. Prakuyo can use it. Not easy for him to pronounce the lip sounds. He makes them somewhere inside. But you can talk to him when you have to.” He understood the loneliness. He’d been there, in the early days. And he’d started using Ragi with people all around him—because he couldn’t be like his predecessor, perpetually silent, solitary, withdrawn, communicating only in writing. He
had
to talk to people. He was that way. It had caused him a lot of trouble, in the Department of Linguistics.

Cullen wanted to talk. Cullen hadn’t had the skills to learn more than a handful of expressions, and his captors hadn’t helped him—Prakuyo could have, but hadn’t wanted, Bren strongly suspected, to compromise the test he was running: to bring the two of them face-to-face and find out whether they were the same species, the same culture, the same political entity. Prakuyo had needed to know that, and now Prakuyo did have his answer, and Prakuyo, who had spent his own time with nobody to talk to—a very terrible thing for a kyo—definitely wanted to talk to Cullen.

Prakuyo had set up a meeting—because Prakuyo was
not
the highest authority on the ship. There were two higher, two from whatever shape Prakuyo’s government took. Their names were Kokrohess an Ye and Heyyen an Crus, and they were, Bren began to suspect, part of an attempted “we” involving Prakuyo, a situation that had yet to work itself out, in kyo terms—and persuading them was important . . . to everybody.

Understand it all? Learn the kyo mindset? He had two days
left of the seven he’d promised—and yes, he very likely could change that. He could volunteer another day—another seven days—but there would never be an end of things to learn, mysteries of behavior, mysteries of concept. There would never be a time in any near future he could unravel anything without uncovering another mystery, in a species so different.

No. What he discovered along the way, he passed to Cullen. He gave Cullen as much as he could. But the first paidhi among atevi hadn’t been a linguistics expert, only a man who’d fallen into the right place to learn, and who’d understood what atevi wanted and who’d done the best he could, making it all up as he went along.

Cullen at least had somebody to show him how to make tables, how words built other words, how minds differed, how to show respect and how to show good will—how to utter those important words, whatever they really meant in kyo, to say that one had meant better than had just seemed, and that one was happy with what had just happened. That was where it started.

Beyond that . . .

“I’ll talk in human language tomorrow,” he said, ceding the point, because he could. “I wanted to help you as much as I can—but you’ll have long enough to practice in kyo. We’ll do as much of it as seems useful.”

“And then you’ll leave.”

No equivocation. “And then I’ll leave.”

T
he sixth day. The sixth day, there was the usual message, called in—so Antaro and the others said. And it was the day before the last day.

Cajeiri had learned words until his head felt stuffed—but he hoped nand’ Bren would be happy with what he and Hakuut had added to the dictionary. He was particularly eager to show him the kyo writing system he was rapidly committing to memory. He wished that he could be cheerful. He tried to be. But he worried. He worried that something might be wrong, aboard that ship, that nand’ Bren and Banichi and the rest might be in trouble. He would not expect Hakuut knew anything about it, but he could believe it of Matuanu, who in all these days had said very little, that only to Hakuut, and spent a great deal of time sitting in a chair near the kyo apartment door, watching.

Just watching. And maybe listening . . . to absolutely everything that went on in the area.

“What is Matuanu doing?” he had asked Hakuut once, and Hakuut had just bobbed and hunched his shoulders, which seemed to be a kyo sort of shrug.

Nand’ Bren had told his aishid, who had told Cenedi, who had told his aishid, that Matuanu might be something like Guild.

And Guild sitting and watching and watching for hours with his principal absent was not a happy situation.

Matuanu was watching. And listening. He could probably hear the lifts going up and down and Jase coming and going and all the staff going about and Cenedi having meetings with people who did not talk out loud.

Matuanu was mapping the patterns of the station, what was normal, what was not, the noise of staff at work, the lack of noise when Guild met Guild. That was how Antaro described what Guild did when
they
were set to watch a situation—like hunters in Taiben forest, listening, learning from everything that moved and failed to move. Matuanu watched and listened. Cenedi watched and listened through the eyes of staff as well as Guild, and maybe with things that Guild was not supposed to talk about. And meanwhile the Guild Observers sat and watched everybody, mostly inside their own quarters, speaking only to other Guild.

There were regular things to observe, like clockwork—despite nand’ Bren being gone. Staff had duties. Jase-aiji came and went, but he was absent for most of every day, dealing with Gin-nandi and Lord Geigi: they knew that. Maybe he was talking to Sabin-aiji and Ogun-aiji and station security.

And when Jase-aiji was out, so that nand’ Bren’s staff had nobody to wait on, they helped mani’s staff, and polished and cleaned things, whatever they could find to do.

And Bindanda cooked and baked. Teacakes never stopped. Bindanda had sent a great many of them over to the ship with Tano and Algini, and Algini’s call had asked for more, frozen, to be sent down for somebody to deliver to the kyo ship, so
somebody
over on the kyo ship had to be enjoying them. That seemed a hopeful sign.

But one still worried. And the sixth day was shaping up to be like the third or the fourth or the fifth day, only with Matuanu grimmer and more silent, saying not a word at breakfast.

Six was a mixed sort of number—unfortunate two of a fortunate number, or two very infelicitous numbers—and he was down to figuring numbers like the ’counters. He told himself
again and again the numbers were only for superstitious people, which he had not been brought up to be, but six was
still
a chancy sort of day and he wished it were over and that today were the seventh, which was moderately fortunate.

“Such faces,” mani said at breakfast, at a table which had their two kyo guests, and him and mani—
four
at table, which was how much great-grandmother made of the numbers. “Such faces. There has been far too much study, too much chess, too little noise.”

He had never in his life thought mani would complain of too little noise.

“Let us summon your guests,” mani said with a wave of her hand. “Let us see if there is cheer to be had in their company.”

“Yes,” he said, but he worried as soon as agreement was out of his mouth, what mani was up to, and whether there was any problem on the ship that mani knew about, because Cenedi was always the one who took the messages from Tano and Algini.

Mani would not bring his guests into danger. He was sure of that much. So they were safe here.

And mani wanted noise.

It was another sort of chess game. Matuanu would sit and listen to everything going on. He was scary, in Cajeiri’s view of things.

But mani intended to make a little noise.

• • •

Prakuyo leaned back in the conference room chair, legs crossed, arms clasping a prosperous belly, issuing a faint thumping sound as his head bobbed. “Six days,” he said. “Six days, Bren-paidhi, great change. Should we-on-this-ship trust him? This is the question.”

“He-unassociated can go this way, that way,” Bren said honestly, “but Cullen wants to learn. He-unassociated wants association, wants not to be alone. Cullen wants to see the war stop. He-unassociated says—these words—too many dead. He-unassociated understands the loneliness at Reunion.
He-unassociated believes you-associated with many understand his loneliness on kyo ships.”

“True,” Prakuyo said, bobbing his head, his whole upper body. “Is association safe, Bren-paidhi? You know what we-wider-association want.”

“A paidhi. A translator. A bridge. Cullen wants the same, wants to build from his end of the bridge. Kyo build from the other side.
Prakuyo
builds from the other side.”

“One understands. Cullen wants build bridge. We-association trust Cullen use hammers?”

Prakuyo made a joke, a very little one. They had reached that point of understanding.

“Someday you-association have to,” Bren said. “Yes.”

“Tomorrow seven day. Kyo day? Atevi day?”

“Prakuyo decides.”

Boom. Thump. “Atevi day is fair,” Prakuyo said.

“Fair,” Bren said.

“Atevi ask a treaty,” Prakuyo said. “Tonight Cullen will meet the aijin over this mission, and one will urge—” Thump. “—agreement to Cullen, agreement to treaty. Important that this happen. Important that Cullen speak well. Very important. The authorities will ask his name, will expect him to make a bow, and if he does well, they will give him water and food. He should drink and eat. Then he may sit down. Be welcome. You remember.”

“I remember.” Kyo had offered them the same, back at Reunion.

“Good we meet,” Prakuyo said. “Good we meet, Bren-paidhi. Say same to the dowager, to the boy. We shall go tomorrow.”

“You-Prakuyo will not go to the station to bring Matuanu and Hakuut.”

Thump. “No. Matuanu will come, bring son.”

That . . . took a moment to process.

“Hakuut is Matuanu’s son?”

Boom. “No,
Prakuyo’s
son. Fair. Tabini-aiji sends Cajeiri.
Hakuut comes wait on the station. Good that Hakuut sees Cajeiri. Good for atevi. Good for kyo . . . some day.” Prakuyo uncrossed his legs, gave a triple click deep in his chest. “Together-we talk to Cullen now,” Prakuyo said. “Be sure Cullen uses the right words for the kyo aijiin.”

• • •

It was good to see Jase-aiji arrive in the foyer, and good to see Irene and Gene and Artur, who entered very quietly. The whole day had felt chancy, and Cajeiri had been locked in court expression for so long his face felt numb, all the muscles reluctant to respond as he met his guests.

There were, of course the courtesies, the bows, the address to mani, with Jase-aiji and mani being polite to each other—but solemnity affected everybody, except Matuanu, who was just—whatever he was.

Mani had ordered a party, setting lunch with a variety of refreshments, including those Hakuut greatly favored. Hakuut had far more Ragi now, not as much as Irene, but he was willing to use it, and he kept trying until he could be understood. He asked Gene to laugh again. Gene tried, and then did, and then Artur started, and then Irene . . . which made everyone much more relaxed, and a bit silly, and by the time lunch was over, they found themselves trying to explain why people ate things in order, with dessert last.

He had never even wondered that. He thought now it was peculiar that humans did and atevi did. Maybe one had learned from the other, or maybe it was that, if one ate sweets first, one would fill up on sweets and miss the meat dish.

It was the first time that day he had wondered about something that silly, as opposed to whether nand’ Bren was all right and why nand’ Bren was taking so long and whether Prakuyo would come back when nand’ Bren did . . .

Hakuut asked where they lived, and Irene answered that: she said they lived upstairs. And Hakuut asked what they did on the planet when they visited.

Cajeiri opened his mouth to divert that question, because he really did not want his guests to explain about Lord Geigi’s neighbor and the Assassins . . .

But Irene said: “We saw a storm, with lightning.”

“We rode mecheiti,” Gene said.

And Artur, from his pocket, pulled a handful of pebbles, one of which he showed. “Water did this,” he said. “Years and years in this rock. Take. You have.”

Hakuut took the pebble into his gray, large hand, held it, looked at it. “Bone of the planet,” he said, which Cajeiri noted with some interest. It sounded like something he should remember, something nand’ Bren would want to know.

“You keep,” Artur said.

Hakuut closed his hand. Then bobbed a little, with a soft set of booms. “Thank,” he said, and got up and took it to Matuanu, who, indeed, took it in his hand and looked at it, then handed it back.

There
should
be gifts, at a long parting. Cajeiri excused himself, and went to his room very quickly and found two of his good collar pins, not a well-thought gift, certainly not as good as Artur’s, but he brought them back all the same, and gave one to Matuanu and one to Hakuut. Craftsmen had made them, each.

Hakuut then, got up and went to
his
rooms, and brought back a small box, which he opened, and shook out a set of little metal beads. He gave one to Cajeiri, one to Irene, one to Gene, one to Artur. The carved box he gave very solemnly to mani, with a little bob and bow.

“Thank you,” mani said in kyo.

Which surprised absolutely everybody.

• • •

It was court dress for dinner—atevi style, and kyo. Bren had his best coat, lace that was damned hard to manage at table. Cullen’s robe was a gift, a design like a wire diagram in gold, on a blue fabric. He was clean-shaven, scrubbed, hair braided in a simple queue.

And tied with a white ribbon. “Atevi gave me this,” Bren said, as Tano was securing Cullen’s braid. “The white is the paidhi’s color, his badge of office. Wear it.”

“Are you sure I’m ready for this?” Cullen asked, and the anxiety was utterly readable.

“Face,” Bren answered quietly, in full control, then, humanly speaking, “Yes. You have to be.”

It was only Cullen’s second venture up into the heart of the ship. The first had been this afternoon, in a working session, where they’d met with the Authorities, the two who’d come with Prakuyo, who apparently sat in judgment.
That
had been daunting, a test of his aishid’s nerves as well as his own and Cullen’s. It was the scenario he’d imagined: a number of kyo in one place all arguing, with the subsonics at full bore. Noisy, to say the least. And there’d been only five of them: the two Authorities, Prakuyo, and his two aides. He didn’t, personally, want to know what it would be like with ten or twenty of them going at it in the heat of argument.

Cullen might find that out someday—unsettling thought. Though kyo must be as capable of feeling pain—must have some sort of restraint in mass encounters, be it manners, rules, or just reluctance to gather in large arguing groups.

“You’ve survived the hard part,” Bren said, as Tano stood back, task finished. “Prakuyo said they were impressed. And always remember: you’ll have Prakuyo with you.” For a moment, he was back on a windswept balcony, having his first breakfast with Ilisidi, freezing to death . . . Ilisidi’s challenge to a human whose influence on her grandson was not always down a line she approved. Had she stopped such invitations? Not in the least.
She
liked the cold air. “You’ll make your own way. You’ll learn things I envy you.”

“Wish you could stay. Even a few more days.”

“You don’t need it. You don’t need me. You have everything you need.”

“Not everything I need!”

Emotion. Out of control. He let his silence speak for him, and a moment later:

“I’m sorry. Chalk it up to nerves.”

“Prakuyo will remind you. He’ll take care of you. He’s promised. Be fair to him. Learn what he can teach you, which is everything. Forget, for all practical intents, that we ever met—because you’re on your own.”

“I don’t
want
to forget.”

“I’m gratified. But I’m no use to you, beyond this. You’ve got a war to stop. Lucky for you—the kyo want to talk. I hope you can find some humans who do. Or that you can teach another human and pass the job on. Somebody has to do it. What’s happening now makes no sense. My advice—don’t expose yourself to risk. Don’t go into human hands. Talk for the kyo, from a distance. Unless humans have changed in the last several hundred years, you’ll become a high-priority target, somebody some humans won’t believe, and will want to silence. Expect that. Just be smarter, more apt at getting contact, and listen to the kyo’s advice. Work with them to disengage. Be damned careful about who you empower, and who gets in power on the human side.”

“Who
I
empower?”

“The white ribbon isn’t purity. It’s no color at all. It’s
neither
side. You represent the kyo honestly and accurately. And when you speak for humans you represent the humans honestly and accurately. That requires
you
be both honest
and
accurate, which means understanding the kyo beyond anything you imagine. That’s how you get power. And that’s how you use it.”

“I’m not sure I’m that smart.”

“You’ll get there. It all starts with your willingness.” He made a conscious gesture, one he didn’t make with atevi, and clapped Cullen gently on the shoulder. “You’ll do fine.”