Текст книги "Explorer"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 28 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

They form powerful associations among themselves based on kinships, as best one can guess. They are completely puzzled by the association of atevi and humans: this state of affairs requires an intellectual, perhaps profoundly emotional leap for them to accept as applicable to them, as difficult at least as humans and atevi discussing personal ties on a rational level. But they have moved from passionate rejection to curiosity, at least in the person of several of them. They have never traded outside their own association, except, one gathers, as a preliminary to absorbing that neighbor, but do conceive that trade relations with another powerful and alien association is a topic for discussion. Since there seems to be a historical precedent of trade leading to absorption of neighbors, there may be indications for caution here. Relations will need to be stabilized and well-defined. We are attempting to build the foundations for a lexicon, and may appoint Reunion as a more or less neutral venue in which further discussions can take place. Prakuyo seems very anxious to have this established. If I correctly understand him, the kyo believe that persons once met stay associated – that the universe will not be whole unless what has met remains in association. This may be a religious or a philosophical belief. It is one that may be troublesome in interspecies relations, and may account for the kyo’s persistence. From the time Ramirez began intrusions into kyo territory, trouble was likely .

Ship’s crew had intended to place Ramirez’s remains into the station as they destroyed it, for respectful and fitting cremation; since the station will go into kyo hands, they have determined instead to give him to the local sun as we depart this place.

For the rest, Sabin-aiji has returned to the ship. Sabin-aiji has received communication from Braddock-aiji, who seeks assurances of safe passage, which she has granted. We shall be very sure he is suitably housed and protected from those he has offended. We shall reposition the ship for fueling, preparatory to departure from this place.

Therefore, aiji-ma, I have a great deal of work to do in a very short time. We have contacted a dangerous and different set of foreigners who may present far less danger if our communications can be more accurate…

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep on the desk. He had a meeting to get to. Not with Prakuyo, thank God, but Jase was coming down to supper. With the dowager. With Sabin , God save them.

Staff was in hardly better condition. He had sat about in his bathrobe this morning, Narani arriving late and absolutely scandalized that he had sat in the chill making notes, but that was very well—he was doing what he had studied all his life to do, and so absorbed in it he had little cognizance outside that job, when he was in it.

Lord of the province of the heavens, not by choice. Paidhi-aiji—that, quite happily so, with a half a ream of notes and sketches and a voyage that seemed all too short ahead of him.

“Nandi.” Jeladi had come in, hoping to help him dress for dinner. He stood up, and stood thinking about nouns and whether kyo linguistics exactly had tense—now and then were remarkably confusable, or they were simplifying for the foreigners, or using a trade tongue: contact with outsiders seemed to have a formula, among them, and since they tended to swallow what they met, thinking it the proper way to do things, there was a little danger in letting kyo fall into formula at all.

Penetrate beyond the trade tongue, if that was what it was. It might take him coming back to Reunion. He rather well hoped to train a handful of sensible sorts to do that, a human-atevi association that could collect data—damn, he wanted his beachfront and his comforts, not to be sitting out here in a steel vault.

He arranged the cuffs, straightened his coat. Bowed his head so that Jeladi could see to the white ribbon. White, for the paidhiin.

Jeladi gave him a mirror, and he approved. Down several kilos, he was. He could live with that change. He hoped to maintain it.

“Very good, Ladi-ji.” A little sound warned him of a presence in the doorway—he was not surprised to see Banichi and Jago waiting for him.

“Nadiin-ji.”

“Nandi,” Banichi said, and they escorted him down the corridor toward the dining hall.

Mission all but accomplished.

A pleasant evening. The dowager’s table, and Sabin. And Jase, whom the crew took for a bona fide captain these days.

So did Sabin. That was the real change.

Separation of nations that have once met is dangerous: that seems the most accurate expression of kyo views of politics. What has met will meet again. What cannot stay in contact is a constant danger of miscalculation.

Curious notion. Possibly even demonstrable, in history. One wonders whether this is a refined philosophy, out of successful experience.

One is very certain we need to go slow with this.

In that notion, we’ve said a kyo goodbye to Prakuyo, who avows he will see us again. This somewhere between threat and promise.

The siren went. Warning.

Time to shut down and take hold.

“ Takehold, takehold, takehold .”

The illusion of gravity left them. The ship was sorting itself out. It had its gut full of stationers who had never been through this. They announced every small move.

Curious, Bren thought, that he’d gotten to view this as easy.

All things being relative—it was.

He shut his eyes. They were supposed to have a little transitional time before they underwent another acceleration. The weightless episode was a test—convincing stationers that they really had to stow items. So Jase had forewarned him.

He slept a little, drifting with a little safety tether to the head of the bed.

Waked as the warning siren went off. Gravity returned.

Jago wasn’t back. She’d gone off on some call from Banichi, and wasn’t back yet.

“ This is the real one, ladies and gentlemen. We’re about to fold space. Kindly stay put until the all-clear .”

Maybe she wasn’t coming. Maybe something had been going on. Maybe a crisis on staff, someone needing help…

He heard running steps in the hall. Sat up. As the siren went off, sharp warning bursts.

Jago came through the door, crossed the floor and landed on the bed in the space he made.

“Nadi-ji?” He was concerned.

A giddy feeling ensued. The ship began to ease its way out of the ordinary universe.

“One apologizes,” Jago said, breathless—for her, quite unusual.

“Trouble?” Difficulty breathing, himself, for the moment.

“Nand’ Cajeiri had a pocketful of dice.”

“Dice?” A common toy. They came in sets of eight. His staff had been called in. Cenedi must have been having fits. “Was he throwing them?”

“He called it an experiment,” Jago said. “To know, one understands, whether the numbers come up the same in freefall as on earth.”

He was appalled. The things became missiles under acceleration.

And intrigued. He had to ask.

“Do they?”

Jago laughed. That wonderful sound. And was still out of breath, as the universe ebbed and flowed around them. “A flaw in the notion, failure to ascertain true rest. Two were lost. Cenedi was entirely out of sorts.”

“You did find them.”

“Of course.”

Of course they had found them, or Jago would not have left. “Excellent,” he said, thinking of dice in freefall. Jago was warm beside him.

Safe. Secure. All dice accounted for. Baji-naji. They were going home.

About the Author

With over fifty books to her credit, and the winner of three Hugo Awards, C.J. Cherryh is one of the most prolific and highly respected authors in the science fiction field. She lives in Washington State.