Текст книги "Forge of Heaven "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

But for now they were on their own. Ian and Luz could oblige them by warning of further hazards and advising them the extent of the damage…once they were back in contact. No doubt Ian already knew about the earthquake.

“The young bull thinks he is master,” Hati said. “But he is not easy about it. He knows the old bull is back here.”

Small chance that the young bull, having his prizes headed down land, out of scent and sight, would come back on his own for a fight. He followed the females, damn them, thinking he led them, and they had done what beshti would do, going toward graze and most of all, water, down to the pans, where beshti were always most comfortable. Once they smelled that warm wind, all thought of the camp would fly right out of their heads.

“We have no choice,” he said.

So they rode away down the slot, headed onto the spired terraces above the pans.

Silence in his head was a curious thing.

It felt like old times.

0910H ON A NEW DAY, and the Earth ship was now three hours at dock, all its attachments made. The Southern Cross,its name was, declared to be a research vessel. And carrying light armament.

Armament. That was uncommon. That might say something about the ship’s capabilities, but it still said nothing about its purpose here, in this most sensitive zone…inside what was, after all, ondatterritory. If its arrival at Concord, even with light weapons, was in any wise a gesture aimed at the ondat,it was sheer folly, not even to be contemplated. If it was, as history indicated, a little gesture aimed at the Outsider authority, it was still provocative of the ondat. Neither was acceptable.

Setha Reaux meant to make that point early and strenously—once he found out what the ship was up to.

Ambassador Andreas Gide held the explanation of what was going on, the only source of explanation that would reach Concord’s deck, and Setha Reaux, dressed in his immaculate best, had headed down for the main-level personnel reception area to meet him, as far as meetings could go, once the necessary connection was made. But just as he got under way, security called with an emergency advisement, informing him, to his great dismay, that Ambassador Gide had left the dock on his own, refusing all advice, and headed up in the cargo-area lift system. The exit that particular lift bank afforded would be a seventh-level public station next to the Customs administrative offices.

What in hell was Gide doing?

Reaux immediately changed his car’s destination. He was not that far from the offices in question. He reversed course and went up.

And, a little breathless from the requisite walkover from a 53rd Street station rather than try to route over the Customs Plaza, Reaux arrived, planted himself in front of the bank of lift doors at Customs Plaza, watched the levels tick off on the digital indicator of an inbound lift, and drew a deep breath as Gide’s car arrived. Intercept successful.

The lift doors opened. A chest-high ovoid vehicle trundled out. A fog of melting condensation still hung about the vehicle’s cold plastic surface, a shifting mix of violets and blues that flowed like oil on water, showing no window.

Then, astonishingly, the machine extruded a violet bubble, which quickly swelled up into a head-and-shoulders simulacrum of a middle-aged man. It had a surly, heavy-jowled face and shoulder-length hair, all shining violet and fuming with cold.

The mobile containment was no surprise. Elaborate and heavy as it was, it wasthe suit which Gide would wear continually, but the usual mode of interaction of such containments was a simple holo cube on the front. Thisunprecedented innovation, this vanity, this shape it presented to the outside world, reminded Reaux of nothing so much as the fabled Sphinx of Earth—the head and forearms of a man on the body of a beetle, a smooth, shining carapace, both sheathed in that continually shifting oil-slick plasm.

Whatever that substance was—and in his tenure on the edge of ondatspace he thought he’d seen all there was to see—it gave off cold vapor, and didn’t encourage an exploratory touch.

The head, in its light fog of condensation, looked around, and one had to wonder whether Gide, inside, actually saw his surroundings via those eyes, or whether Gide was looking at him on screens through entirely different receptors. Whatever the medium, Reaux was willing to bet that the sensors in that carapace compared very well to an Outsider’s internal augmentations, that they saw into the extremes of the spectrum, that Gide could hear a pin drop—literally—if he wanted to. And he also bet that the apparatus recorded. Oh, depend on it, that shell recorded and eventually transmitted information back to the ship.

But the lift hadn’t delivered the ambassador to his office, and the ambassador had utterly ignored the official advisements to wait on dockside, as if to assert he went where he pleased and saw what he wanted. Maybe the ambassador wantedan official embarrassment, wantedto look around, and to be able to start their relations with an official fuss about protocols.

Well, he and the lift automatics had outmaneuvered that try.

“Ambassador Gide.” A little bow, a little out of breath and trying to look serene. “I’m Governor Reaux. Welcome to Concord.”

The sphinx-face stared at him. Liquid blue ice scanned him up and down. Blue lips drew further down at the corners. “A long, unattendedride.” The ambassador wastrying to provoke an incident. And the thick Earth-ethnic accent jolted a compatriot’s memory, sowed self-doubt. “Well, well,” Gide said impatiently, “are we going to have to put up with tedious ceremonials here and now, at this late hour? Get on with them, if we must.”

“If you wish not, Mr. Ambassador, it’s certainly easy to dispense with them.” And give due notice to departmental heads, shivering in the dockside cold. “You’re welcome in my office, two levels up from here.” It would be pushing it to say the ambassador had mistaken his destination, or to hint that the peculiarities of the lift system, which needed a citizen code card on the dockside lifts, had foxed the ambassador’s solo attempts to breach security and dumped him right on the plaza where any common non-citizen had to go.

The sphinx-face looked around the area, looked far to the left, and again to the right. “This is Customs Administration. Where is my residence from here?”

“This is the main foyer for those who have to file visa affidavits, Mr. Ambassador, who need a temporary card.” He refrained from saying, fool. “Customs is certainly superfluous in your case. We can go from here either to my office, or straight to your residence.” Impossible to offer food, drink, or even a soft bed to their visitor. What one of these rigs actually wanted was general connectivity and a secure place with wide doorways, which could be any apartment or office thus equipped, where there were adequate connector-slots. But Reaux had rather have this visitor well-protected. Constantly. And soon. And hellif he was going to issue Gide a code-card to let him come and go from docks to residencies at will. “If you’ll share a lift with me, I’ll escort you myself wherever you would wish to go.”

“My requirements?”

“Exactly as requested, a secure apartment with broad accesses, on the lesser-gravity deck, in the heart of our community. It has all the connections, a secure line to your ship.” The shell was, in its way, a bubble of pure Earth environment extended from the ship—a bubble that the ship extruded onto their dock and up into their station, since never, never, never could Mother Earth contaminate anyone, but the mere breath of station air would contaminate the purity of their visitor. Gide would leave that extravagant shell behind in a few days, discarding it like some outmoded chrysalis on the dock, as the ship took him in and sealed him behind its pure, uncontaminated hull, never having contacted the station’s air or water.

Then all the intriguing secrets of this simulacrum might be available to them to be extracted, if there were any secrets in it that they didn’t already have, and by the look of it, there might be plenty. Earth might not particularly care about the expense or the knowledge shed along with that carapace, not relative to the value of the awe it generated among mere station-dwelling provincials, and assuredly it wouldn’t want it back, no matter it was perfectly possible to decontaminate the thing. Earth and Inner Space didn’t covet a stray molecule of Concord’s air, let alone suffer its other microscopic contaminations, ever, in any form, or in symbol, to enter their ships or their lungs. The fuel they bought on station all burned in an antimatter furnace, utterly annihilated. They traded, but they traded in programs and data. God forbid they ever, ever touched a damned thing.

Supercilious sods. Had he been one of them—ever?

“My apartment,” Gide said curtly. “Now.”

“Certainly.” With an iron smile.

Earth didn’t speak Concord’s language—no one else, in fact, did that—as Earth didn’t breathe their air. And Reaux was very sure now not only that he knew what language Gide spoke as a native, besides that of the Commonwealth, but what accent. Theyshared a birthplace. Not that it won him acceptance from Gide. From the first time he’d taken a post outside Earth, the very first time he’d drawn the air of the Inner Worlds inside his lungs, he accepted being doomed to live no closer to Paris than the Inner Worlds. From the first time he’d set foot on Serine, truly in Outsider territory, for a higher post, even the Inner Worlds became barred to him. That sacrifice was the only route to career advancement for a man of modest means—and in his case, the path to power, the ultimate that any station governor could reach, the most sensitive governorship, the highest, the most isolate. He was accustomed to making decisions on his own, dealing one-on-one with the Outsider authority at Apex.

He had power…until this higher breed of Earther, like Mr. Gide, with his doubtless upper-class accent, showed up, a power whose incidental report could even conceivably damn a governor for removal. A long-sitting governor, and Reaux was that, inevitably lost touch, and Concord more than most. He had no complete guarantee what party on Earth Gide represented, what beliefs Gide supported, what faults Gide came here to complain of. A governor’s sin might consist only in belonging to the wrong faction, the wrong dogma, as administrations rose and fell on Earth.

It was a hellish system, a system ages entrenched, vulnerable to slow corruption that no one on the outside had the power to fight and no one on the inside ever understood enough to challenge—that was the absolute hell of it, and he had halfway forgotten that visceral fact of politics until he came face-to-face—so to speak—with this ostentatious display of Earth’s power. Good appearances were everything. Substance was rarely at issue. Any whisper of a governor sympathizing too much with the people he governed was grounds for suspicion. A governor getting along well with the Outside was suspect for that fault.

In Reaux’s own carefully concealed opinion, it was a system that hadn’t come to disaster only because Outsiders, who profited from Earth’s occasional confusion, lived very comfortably with Earth’s governors in occasional fear, and had no reason to push for anything different.

He’d been too busy to be panicked until now, now that he was confronted by a presence clearly designed to intimidate, and now that he found no hint of courtesy extended toward him or his station. He was very glad not to have begun their meetings by telling Mr. Gide his arrival in the Plaza was his own stupid fault.

The sphinx glided along beside him in surly silence, down the short distance to the next bank of lifts. For the moments it took to get Mr. Gide to safety, the whole lift system in this quadrant of the station had to be frozen, a condition they would have avoided had Mr. Gide routed himself where they wanted him. A few Customs supervisory staff stood back, watching, securing the area, not intruding. A few news recorders bobbed in the air, a carefully managed presence, no human agents intruding here with a babble of questions. Some powers even the news feared.

The sphinx entered the car, turned, facing the door. Reaux barely managed to get himself and his two bodyguards inside with it, where it had grandly placed itself.

“Code 12,” Reaux said to the system, and the car smoothly engaged and gathered speed. It wasn’t an address code that that simple number represented. It was a set of preset operations, instructions to the lift system, security moving to cordon off areas of transit as they passed and concentrating efforts in areas where they were going, getting them back where they should have gone.

“Remarkable technology, that of yours, Mr. Gide.” He wondered could there possibly be sensory input from the car’s surface that might appreciate the fine surroundings he had arranged for the man—as distinct from the utilitarian offices that might adequately have served the machine itself. “It’s certainly a striking application.”

“Useful,” Gide said coldly. So that conversation died, assassinated.

“If there’s anything you wish to see while you’re here—” Reaux was determined not to babble, but made one more effort, in case the man was simply overtired. “—of course you’ve only to ask.”

“I’ll let you know.”

In his native tongue, he asked: “How are things in Paris?”

“As usual.” In that language. And nothing more. Dead silence. No cordiality. No human pleasantry from what might be a compatriot. And it was that aristocratic, academy-educated accent he had suspected.

He truly didn’t like this man, Reaux decided. He hadn’t been sure, but he was rapidly solidifying his opinion that Gide’s presence was not friendly to him. He remotely feared he might be the object of an Earth-originated political sandbagging—in which case, Gide would certainly find fault with minute details, and even try to meet with Lyle Nazrani or God knew what other thorn in his side, second and third generation as they were, and ordinarily not acceptable sources.

But he wasn’t without his defenses. He decided to challenge the threat head-on, foolish or not. He asked, again in his native language: “What actually brings you here, Mr. Ambassador?”

“Classified.”

“If I can possibly be of assistance in your mission, I’ll be happy to put my security personnel at your disposal.”

“I’m sure you will.” Conversation thudded to a stop.

The car, thank God, likewise reached its level and sector, and stopped. As it opened its doors, more security waited for them, in a large corridor, a towering ten-deck vista distinguished by interior landscaping, balconies graced with flowers and vines that spilled luxuriously over the edges. It was an Earther district. It was one of two such residential zones– notthe one where he had his own apartment. He’d wanted distance between himself and Gide, no hint of personal invitations. Given Kathy’s current state of rebellion, and given the hair, which by Kathy’s attitude, could be green tomorrow, he was very glad to have his teenaged daughter half a kilometer removed from the Earth envoy, no commotions on the doorstep, no teenaged swains below Kathy’s balcony putting on a show for the neighbors.

And he was equally determined now that he wouldn’t bring Gide near Judy, near his belongings, to criticize what he saw, doubtless ever so inferior a circumstance than Mr. Gide was accustomed to. Damnedif he’d invite this monstrosity into his home.

“Pleasant,” Gide said, however, viewing the architectural, floral marvel of Concord Street. “Pleasant enough.”

“You’ll note recognizable species,” Reaux said, addressing Earthly prejudices, head-on, doggedly pushing the local virtues, and the truths Earth rejected. “All the species genetically pure. Three hundred years of tests, not only here for aesthetic value, but as an ongoing biological experiment, on the one station of course potentially most exposed to unfortunate elements. The plants remain quite clean. The human population and test animals, likewise.”

“Very impressive display.”

“Thank you.” Finally. A reasonable reaction out of the man. Maybe Gide had a human heart. Maybe he’d felt stupid, about ending up at Customs. Maybe it was the middle of his sleep cycle. “This way, Mr. Ambassador, if you will.”

They entered a gardened close, past hundred-year-old trees and blooming shrubs, a tropic paradise. Reaux had particularly hoped this display would soothe and please their visitor.

“And in less clean areas of this station?” Gide asked. “No problems there?”

“No runaways on the entire station, nor in its two predecessors, ever.” Technically answered, but correct. “We’re quite fanatic about our checks and inspections, Mr. Ambassador. We’ve had a few incidents in years past, but nothing has ever gotten past our defenses. And here we are…” They’d reached the door of the sole apartment that owned this tropical nook. “A trilevel apartment, sole dwelling in this close. I hope you’ll find it comfortable. Broad doorways throughout. Security you can set to your own codes. It’s a Berger system—I trust you’re familiar…”

“Adequately. Not the best system, but I’m sure adequate against what your local threats can muster.”

Reaux set his jaw and smiled resolutely as security personnel remotely opened the door. Gide could set the lock to his own voice—not that the system was in any way likely to mistake his physical appearance. He fervently hoped the mistaken foray to the Customs Plaza would discourage further adventures.

Gide glided in. Again that curious turn of the sphinx’s head, this way and that.

An upward look, then, to the towering internal balcony of the apartment, with its artificial skylight, the illusion of Earth’s blue sky and cloud, with plants cascading off the upstairs balcony rail. Little difference between the garden outside and this one inside, in abundance of flowers.

“Unique among stations I’ve visited,” Gide said. “Excellent.”

“I’m very gratified.” He actually was—and despised his own gut reaction. He hoped Gide might quit the games and get down to business now. He glanced at the security agents, shifted his eyes toward the door. They sensibly took their cue and retreated outside.

The door shut.

“Security will be within your call, sir. Should you wish anything, at any hour, they will bring it.”

“I’ve come onto this station to see what’s here. If I only wished to be locked in a room, I could have spared the expense and the trouble of this rolling containment. I shall come and go as I please.”

“Of course. Absolutely as you please.” Stubborn. So bringing station transport to a halt once in a day wasn’t enough. Dortland’s men would follow discreetly, however, if Gide left the apartment.

The sphinx turned 360 degrees, glided forward to examine a precious vase.

Extruded a fuming blue-violet hand and picked it up.

Astonishing. The simulacrum wasn’t just an appearance. It had hands, eyes that, yes, by that look aloft, must actually see. The hands could touch. Could they feel? Had they strength to crush that vase as well as cradle it?

“Local pottery?”

Distinctive zigzag pattern, a fine blue glaze. “Imported. Based on transmission from Aldestra surface.” It only appeared to be native clay, one of the Ruined Worlds, art objects being all the rage these days, traded between Orb, Apex, and Concord. Ferociously expensive, part of an estate, like this whole apartment. One hoped Gide wouldn’t drop it. Or take it for an insult that the thing was here.

A native-world item in Gide’s apartment, however harmlessly a replication. Security setup had had an utter lapse of common sense.

“Interesting.” Gide set it carefully down on the table. His grip had left frosted prints on its surface, condensation of moisture in the air.

That grip…could do that. Could burn skin.

“From Aldestra surface,” Gide said mildly, “but a copy?”

“The analytic portion of the technology was soft-landed. No actual material moved from the gravity well. Only the holographic information. It’s completely synthesized, including the clay. And scanned for any biologic inclusion.”

“And locals on Aldestra surface know how to run the apparatus.”

Aldestra wasn’t reputed for civilization. “They don’t need to. They put in what we image we want. They get something in return.”

“You trade in such things.”

Reaux gathered his courage and took a deliberate chance, plenty to lose, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, he decided. “Aldestra Station has extensive trade in native art. Perfectly clean and proved clean over a long period of time.”

“Curious notion. Curiousnotion. A whole human universe stranded on those planets. Their intellectual invention, largely independent of the cultural stream from Earth, must be very diverse from the norm. Yet the thing has the look of native terrestrial artifacts.”

Scary, dancing down the brink of anathema. “A pot is a pot, I suppose. Made on a wheel, it’s round.”

“Is it?”

“Made on a wheel? So I’m informed. There’s a good deal to recommend their efforts. Their artisticdiversity.”

“And their genetic diversity?” Pointed question.

“Absolutely never gets off the planet. As nothing gets off Marak’s World, below us.”

“Certainly this art object is a climb up the ladder for Aldestra. But genetically, do we think, is this new culture, this new genetic model—a climb up the ladder for the human race?”

“Some say—” This was getting dangerous…and Reaux took another small chance, aware of numerous political and religious positions native to Earth, and probing for exactly what intellectual affiliations this Gide might have, “some say that remediation might well involve thorough re-speciation, so we can’taffect one another.”

“And is the resultant humanity human?” No answer, only an old, old catechism.

“I leave that to the scientists and the ethicists.”

“Such populations would be suited for their own worlds. But would they be human?”

“Again, that’s for the experts.”

“And the other life on their worlds adapts to this new humankind, and not to us, and therefore becomes harmless to us, if not to them.” Drily, like a recitation. “I’m familiar with the argument, Governor, I assure you, but I also assure you Earth will have a strong word or two about any implementation of contact with a subset of our own species. Did genetic diversity from us protect the ondatfrom disaster?”

“Clearly not.” Signal. Strong warning signal. So Gide did notsubscribe to that model of remediation, which had enjoyed a certain popularity in his youth, and from time to time over centuries. A traditionalist. A conservative. One could imagine Gide taking damning notes inside that carapace. “But it was nanomachines that did the harm there. An artificially accelerated system that adapted to what the nanisms found.”

“As they can do harm anywhere.”

“I merely cited a theory, not my belief. I thoroughly agree that continued isolation—”

“Do you subscribe to the theory that outside presence and protection actually retards natural remediation? That by watching over and assisting such populations we save lives that evolution might well cast aside? That we thereby prevent beneficial change and adaptation? Is that your belief, that we should all but abandonremediation and let nature simply take its course in all affected biosystems?”

He regretted, now, ever engaging Gide in this train of logic. “As a governor appointed to maintain isolation, sir, I by no means hold that belief.”

“Do you think we shouldpermit human evolution to operate unrestrained among Outsiders?”

Another set of traps. “Stations function to moderate and observe Outsider change, precisely withoutcreating ourselves any sort of problem. Certainly the Outsiders I’ve talked to locally share the opinion it’s a beneficial restraint, having us as the oversight. I by no means take the notion as far as you suggest…or if we do retard the evolutionary process for all of humanity, I certainly consider it beneficial.”

“And if we interfere with natural process by our acts of prevention?”

“We make haste slowly.” Old adage. Safe, he hoped. “Progress happens.”

“While we plan—even hope—to let Concord native life crawl back out of a contaminated sea.”

“Contamination which locals don’t catch. Neither virulence nor runaways. Ample opportunity, but the Refuge on Marak’s World has no outbreaks to speak of.”

“Minor outbreaks.”

“Easily treated.”

“And on the station? Never?”

“You’re surely aware of our record. Nothing uncommon to the rest of the worlds. What the ondatexperience here is beyond my reach…I assume that’s always been true. They haven’t complained.” A pointed reminder to this aggressive visitor that the Treaty on Concord was a constant concern—and should be his. He took another chance. “I hope your mission here doesn’t involve any perceived threat.”

And had it turned bluntly aside, with another attack. “Tell me. How doyou get along with Antonio Brazis?”

Double thump of his heart, which he was sure Gide could hear. Only the truth. Only the truth, when dealing with this rolling laboratory. “Tolerably well.”

“Are you worried about the Outsiders?”

Truthers were certainly at work, analyzing every breath and heartbeat, able to pick them up from half a room away. One leading question, and the man could read him. His lenses could likely see the movement of his irises. His amplified ears could hear the fluctuations in his voice. He’d been foolish to keep talking. The man had his pattern and might have picked up numerous touch points. “We govern the station where the Treaty works most clearly.” That was the ages-old mantra. “And we watch the watchers. We have reasonable arrangements with Outsider authority, and the whole system still works.”

“You watch the watchers. Curious you should mention that particular matter.”

Dangerous questions. Incredibly dangerous. Peace or war questions, anything that involved disruption of the taps. Reaux wished he were anywhere else. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“The PO,” Gide said. They’d drifted into their mutual language. Now Gide switched to the ancient language of Concord. Visitors to Concord didn’t routinely speak it. But Gide clearly did. Gide was here, prepared, and fluent, never having visited here before—not unprecedented, but it argued for a terrifyingly specific preparation for this mission, this place, this population. “Isn’t that what you call it? The PO?”

“The Planetary Office,” Reaux said. “Yes.”

“The head of the Planetary Office is also the local Outsider Chairman.”

“Yes, currently.”

“Besides being a member of the Apex Council.”

“If he’s PO Director, that goes with the job.”

“Your opinion of him?”

Opinion. He’d never formed an opinion of Brazis, nothing that he could put thoroughly into words. “Cooperative. Cooperative in station affairs—cooperative, actually, in administrative matters.” Was Brazisunder some suspicion? He rated Brazis as too smart for that, too smart to create an incident. There was no motive for him to do that. But God knew what Apex Council might have done.

“A busy man, stretched very thin by all these powers, one would think.”

“He delegates, delegates quite a lot, in fact. His proxy routinely sits on local Council and another, I suppose, though don’t know, at Apex. Chairman Brazis seems deeply involved with the PO. Handles it quite hands-on, as happens, as much as I know about his work. At least I never find him surprised by a situation.”

“A competent man, in your judgment. An active manager. I take it you view him somewhat as an ally.”

And this was preparatory to what? Going where?

“A scientific administrator,” Reaux said, “but not specifically a scientist. A political administrator, but not political.” He found no sense in this thread of questions. “Is there some grounds for worry about him?”

“In continual close contact with a world that has, perpetually, a member of the First Movement in residence. You might observe that, too.”

“Yes.” Meaning the Ila herself, immortal and changeless. He absolutely didn’t know now where Gide was going with this, but he didn’t like the direction. Not at all.

Again the hand extruded, and touched the pot, leaving condensation fingerprints. “Do you get pots from Marak’s World, too?”

“Pots and fabrics. Replicated, of course.”

“Primitive. Yet one is given to understand a certain portion of the populace is quite technologically skilled. Even sophisticated.”

“That’s so.” Ominous turn. If Earth was taking an interest in the PO’s domain, it was an outstandingly bad idea, bound to have repercussions clear to Apex. “The tribal arts provide a certain sense of identity. So I understand. A sense of community.”

“A certain persistent conservatism?”

“I don’t see that has any application to conservatism in our sense, Mr. Ambassador. The downworld inhabitants are fitted to their own world. They have their history. Their culture is not ours.”

“Yet stationwide, you share their language.”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t that provoke a feeling of community?”

“Among us, among stationers, yes, it’s a signal difference, us from other stations, but not one we share with them.”

“In fact, you share the Ila’s language, the language of the First Movement. And the culture you support down there is the culture of the First Movement—is it not?”

Formless implications at every turn. And now this nonsense. “Necessarily, I suppose, since it’s the one we have to deal with.”

“Necessarily so, because the language doesn’t change. There are living speakers of a dead language—down there.”

“Hardly a dead language, sir. As you observe, it also has a million speakers up here.”

“The language of the First Movement. A very, very dead language everywhere in civilized space. And freighting some very old concepts within its vocabulary.”

This was approaching ridiculous. “I’m not a linguist, sir. I speak it because I have to communicate with a station that speaks it. As the ondatthemselves, I might add, have an investment of knowledge in it, and also speak it. Without it, we couldn’t communicate with them, either.”