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Copyright © 2006 by Shane
Tourtellotte
First published in Analog Science Fiction
and Fact, July/August 2006
The doortone sounded, but Marcus Parrish didn't answer. He
had set aside these hours, almost all his hours on the ship,
for study in his cabin. He had to make the breakthrough,
before planetfall if he could. The task allowed no time for
casual socializing.
If his caller was just casual, he wouldn't have to worry.
He settled back into the glossary before him, letting the deep
white-noise hum of the FTL engines suffuse him, shutting
everything else out. The door sounded again, twice in
succession. Marcus laid the tablet aside. So much for casual.
"Is that you, Jun Hua?" he asked in his best New Mandarin.
"Did you expect someone else, Marc?" came the reply in
English.
The familiarity with his name grated, but he ignored it.
"Come in."
The door hissed up. Jun Hua slid his rotund frame inside, a
move made harder by the large canvas bag he carried with him.
"You've been avoiding me, Marc," he said, as he looked for a
place to sit.
"I'm avoiding everyone." Marcus threw a couple of pillows
to the other side of the low table where he sat. Naha
Uchusen was a cramped ship, but it did try to provide
comfort in its small spaces. "What brings you?"
Jun Hua folded himself down. "I wanted to give you a deeper
briefing, about your sponsor on Obrith, and other things about
the Kevhtre Union, including some pertinent social details."
"I've been studying the Kevh for years." He caught Jun's
scowl. The aliens used "Kevhtre Union" as a corporate noun to
describe both their race and their polity. They didn't seem to
have a more succinct name for themselves. "Kevhtre" and "Kevh"
were common abbreviations among humans, and humans only. Jun
Hua was probably afraid he didn't know that. "If you've got
info I haven't, I'm all ears."
Jun handed him a tablet slip. "These are some personal
observations on Bunwadde, from embassy staff and Language
Section officers. They have found him one of their most
receptive private citizens."
"That helps when you do a lot of business with Earth,"
Marcus said, "even in the Kevhtre's particular style. Comes of
speaking five human languages, I guess."
Jun nodded slowly. "That, and he is unusually tolerant of
humans who try to speak his."
Marcus's cheeks burned. It was a failing all humans shared,
but it still felt personal. He took the slip from its sleeve,
and plugged it into his tablet. Reading it meant he didn't
have to look at Jun Hua right now. "Must feel good for the
language experts to find a Kevh who'll do as much as tolerate
them."
That struck home. "We don't need reminders of our
shortcomings. We get them every time we speak more than a few
sentences of Vetra with a native speaker."
Sentences were the problem, of course, not words. The
vocabulary was large but not that difficult: non-inflected,
conjugation with tense-mark words, and just a few irregular
plurals and possessives. But the syntax ...
"And remember," Jun Hua continued, "you're in the same boat
we are."
"I'm a businessman first," Marcus snapped, "not a
linguist."
"But we have a common goal."
Marcus didn't reply. For them, it was an end. For him, it
was a means, to break through in his business career, to break
into the immense Kevhtre market. Or it had started so.
"Full immersion is often effective in learning languages,"
Jun said. "We would have done this earlier, if the Kevhtre
Union government had not resisted."
That government knew the advantage it held. It banned its
people from providing humans any language instruction,
prescribing terrible punishments for the offense. Its computer
networks were off-limits to humans, lest one might dig up that
information. There might have been attempts, but there had
been no successes, and nobody had admitted a failure.
Marcus nodded. "It's easy to negotiate from strength. Do I
want to know what we gave away this time?"
Jun stiffened. Another hit. "Luckily, there are some
avenues that don't require negotiations."
He reached into his bag. Marcus perked up. Then his eyes
widened. "What is that?"
Jun Hua laid the large box on the table. The top was
dominated by a trio of triangles nested in a line, points
up-down-up, white ideograms on black, orange, and black.
"Tazpet nulh chomaken," Marcus read. "Gems on a
pendant-pin?"
"The English vernacular would be 'String of Pearls.' It's a
very popular game on Obrith."
"Game?" He undid the clasps and opened the box. Inside was
a round turntable with a raised grid, an equilateral triangle
tiled with smaller triangles in several different colors. He
counted sixteen triangles to a side.
Under the turntable was a drawstring bag. He spilled some
of the contents onto the grid. They were the same triangular
tiles as on the lid. They came in seven colors, like a human
spectrum, but just that little bit off, like fruits not quite
ripe. The red tiles faded toward orange; the yellow ones had a
sickly greenish cast. The black was actually deep violet, if
one looked closely.
He read a few of the ideograms, each with a tiny number
below it. He flipped one tile, and found the same marks, the
number now down at the point rather than at the base.
Marcus rolled the tile around in his hand. "I used to play
a game like this. I was good, too."
Jun Hua chuckled to himself. "I know the game, but this one
builds sentences instead of words, and has many other
differences."
"Like, what spelling is to ours, syntax is to theirs."
Marcus nodded, then knitted his brow. "But it isn't like they
can use a dictionary as a judge, unless--" He found it just as
Jun pointed: an on-off switch. The game had a built-in
computer judge, and probably used chips in the tiles.
He still frowned. "So, I'm supposed to learn the language
from this?"
"It's another part of the immersion. One more tool, and we
have few enough. You should have plenty of opportunity to test
yourself at it."
Marcus caught what hadn't yet been said. "Bunwadde plays
this?"
Jun closed off any expression. "One of Earth's minor
diplomats ... learned this. It seems reasonable he would play
you, if you were willing."
Marcus took that as a challenge. "Sure I'm willing." He
looked at the board and the scattering of tiles. He pinched
the tile he'd been manipulating between two fingers. "But
forgive me if I'm not sure putting together rote sentences
with --" He dropped the tile into its bag. "-- a very limited
vocabulary is better than hearing and speaking their language
in context."
"Consider it part of the context, at least culturally.
Besides, your stay with Bunwadde is all about doing several
things at once. You'll be teaching yourself by hearing and
reading and speaking, and playing; just as your work on Obrith
is to learn the syntax, as well as to help Bunwadde build his
-- how did I see it described? -- his pirate empire."
"Now, now, Jun. Not even I would call it that."
"Of course you wouldn't." Jun smiled. "Not in Kevhtre Union
presence, certainly."
Marcus studied the game during spare hours in the week
before planetfall. There were few of those. He had his other
language studies, jumbled by the shift in sleeping patterns he
was forcing to match Obrith's diurnal pattern. He almost never
left his cabin.
He told himself it was helping his adjustment. It didn't
help his learning. The great insight did not come. It felt
like going into a battle unarmed.
The ship made sub-light transition during what was now to
him the small hours of the morning. The shift in hum woke him,
but he went back to sleep. It wasn't until mid-afternoon that
Naha's shuttle touched down outside Ubhettid, Obrith's
administrative seat. (Kevhtre Union translators rejected
"capital" as too centralized.) Most of the passengers went in
a group to the embassy, leaving Marcus alone in the terminal,
standing outside the streams of Kevhtre walking by.
He was used to the people, but not to the numbers. They
moved in streams of blue and silver, with robes in nearly
every other color. A few looked his way. If he read their
faces right, they were amused.
Soon, one was sure to come over, to say something to him.
He'd be hoping for a good laugh. Marcus hoped he wouldn't give
him one.
"Mister Parrish?"
To his relief, there was another human, standing by one of
the public sinks and holding a sign. Within two minutes they
were aboard the fellow's flitter, lifting into the sky and
turning southeast.
The driver spent a moment making a call. "Bunwadde will
meet us at the field," he said with a quick look at the back
seat.
"Okay." Marcus had expected to go straight to his home, but
Bunwadde was, in all senses, the boss.
They angled toward a landing field on the northern
outskirts of Aghrelowa, not approaching the broad spread of
the city or the river it abutted. Two buildings near the field
had Bunwadde's company's name in story-tall ideograms. They
drifted past those buildings, and settled onto a corner of the
field.
Marcus's door popped open. "There he is," his driver said.
"Good luck, sir."
He took the dismissiveness in stride, grabbing his bags and
getting out of the car. He soon spotted the teardrop-shaped
land car, parked off the edge of the landing field, with a
figure standing beside it. Marcus walked over, through a
buffeting of wind as the flitter took off a bit too early for
comfort.
"Marcus Parrish!" the figure by the car said, easily
audible over the flitter's departure.
Now Marcus was sure it was Bunwadde. The entrepreneur was
big even for Kevhtre Union males, and had the voice to match.
His two-belted robe was solid red, bold against his
powder-blue complexion, and he wore a broad, shady hat. Gray
bristles ran down his cheeks and neck, well-groomed. His
prominent nose and the natural hunching forward of his head
added to his bulldog appearance, like some old-time British
Lord.
Marcus marched right up to him, getting an extra jolt of
surprise at how tall two meters twenty really was close up. "A
pleasure to finally meet you, Bunwadde Pesh Nuluk
Mur-Aghrelowa. Thank you for inviting me to your home."
It was a canned greeting in Vetra, checked ahead of time
for grammatical felicity. Using Bunwadde's full name on first
meeting was properly polite. Bunwadde had done the same
calling to him: Marcus's middle name embarrassed him, and it
wasn't in official records.
"You compliment me by accepting my hospitality," Bunwadde
said. "I hope you're not too fatigued by traveling."
"My trip here was comfortable," Marcus replied, using
another prepared statement.
The driver had stepped out, and was putting Marcus's
luggage into the car trunk. "Then let's not waste time with
the last part of it," Bunwadde said. He opened a car door for
Marcus, who stepped inside. Bunwadde himself got into the seat
ahead of Marcus, doffing his hat, while the driver slipped
back into the small steering compartment at the nose of the
car.
Marcus nearly commented on the seating arrangement, but
curbed his tongue. "I understand you're fluent in English," he
said in English. "That will make communication easier still,
for both of us."
Bunwadde tipped his head. "No doubt it will." He slipped
back into Vetra. "But we should stay with my language. I'm
sure you need the practice more than I do with English."
True as it was, it stung. "I understand," he said in Vetra.
"We do need to discuss what specifically my work with you will
entail."
"Naturally." Bunwadde reeled off several of the tasks, with
scatterings of details. Marcus needed some of those details
filled in, which meant asking unplanned questions. He was torn
between deliberate slowness that would sound mentally dense,
and the quick fluency of Bunwadde that he could not pretend to
have.
He muddled on, doing his best. If Bunwadde found his syntax
dim-witted or funny, he didn't make it obvious. If Marcus
sensed certain hesitations before Bunwadde's answers, and a
slower speech pattern to make himself clear to the human,
maybe he was being paranoid.
Soon they were at Bunwadde's house, not far from the river
that ran through Aghrelowa. It looked modest for someone as
rich as he, but Marcus knew the two floors above ground surely
topped a full floor below, and maybe more. "Very pretty," he
said about what he could see.
Everyone got out. "Make sure the girls are there, Tropid,"
Bunwadde said, and the driver headed inside. Marcus retrieved
his luggage, and started to follow. Bunwadde motioned him back
with a huge, six-fingered hand. After a moment, he started
ahead himself, with Marcus close behind.
He found a mist falling in the foyer, his host stretching
his neck about as it drizzled onto him. Spying Marcus,
Bunwadde shut off the mister. "Not a human indulgence, I
forget. Come, let's meet everyone."
A Kevhtre woman stood waiting in the main hallway, with two
children behind her. They inched toward Bunwadde as he came
up, their eyes fixed on Marcus. "Here is our guest, Platp," he
told his mate, "Marcus Parrish."
Marcus took this as his cue. "Greetings, Pesh Bunwadde
Platp Mur-Kendi-Kelht. I am honored to join your household for
this time." Again, his words were scripted.
Pesh -- as with Bunwadde, Marcus would be using the more
formal name -- was closer to his height, but still nearly two
meters. Her skin was more silvery than her mate's. Her robe
was fuller, more like a dress, ample for the girls still
hiding behind it.
Marcus bent at the knees, bringing himself to the
children's level. "Good day, Pesh Milinor Mur-Aghrelowa. Good
day, Pesh Movedhor Mur-Aghrelowa."
Milinor, the elder, finally looked him in the eye. "Good
day," she said, abrupt to rudeness. Movedhor stayed shyly
quiet.
"Forgive them," Pesh said as Marcus stood. "They've never
met a human before. It's a long way from Earth. I hope the
voyage was pleasant for you."
"My trip here was comfortable." He was repeating the canned
statement, and he felt Bunwadde had to notice. He forged
onward. "Interstellar ships have little space, but they find
ways to compensate. Unless you really detest --"
Pesh's face went pinched for a brief moment. Milinor
laughed, a stuttering, high-pitched bark. Movedhor began to
imitate her sister.
"Stop that, children," Bunwadde said. They did, looking
contrite.
"Well," Pesh said, covering her own lapse, "you won't lack
for space or comfort here. In fact, you're welcome to join us
in the conversation pool now. We'll get to know each other
better."
"A good idea," Bunwadde said, "but Marcus needs to settle
into his room first. Maybe he'll come down with us later."
"Yes, I will," Marcus said, daring no more.
He followed Bunwadde to a bedroom at the back of the house.
It had a human-style bed, made of local materials, next to a
standard Kevhtre sink. The bedspread bore sharp patterns of
bright yellow, sea-green, and purple, against the silvery
sheen of the headboard and bedposts. The desk was also made
for humans, in a good imitation of colonial style, though with
a few knickknacks scattered on its surface that had to be
Kevhtre, because Marcus couldn't see what they were otherwise.
The walls bore several small paintings, bucolic landscapes
mixed with jagged abstracts that defied framing.
Marcus took it in passively. "It's certainly roomier than
I've had lately. Thank you very much." He lifted his bags onto
the bed to start unpacking.
Bunwadde noticed the canvas bag immediately. "String of
Pearls, I see. You play?" he asked with a skeptical tone.
Marcus was hoping Bunwadde would bring it up first. "I've
been teaching myself." That made Bunwadde's bristles stand up.
"It's a way to learn about part of your everyday culture, and
to improve my language skills a bit. If you happen to play,
I'll offer you a game any time." He kept unpacking throughout,
as though this were nothing very important.
Bunwadde made a noise in his throat, then swallowed it. "I
might enjoy that, Marcus. Thank you."
"It's my pleasure." He carried an armful of clothes to the
dresser, this of Kevhtre design. It was made of native wood,
suffused with blue stain, and its top reached his chin. He
pulled out a drawer. "Might I ask a question? It's part
professional, but part personal too."
"Please do."
Marcus cast his eyes around. "How well does this room mesh
with Kevhtre Union aesthetic sensibilities?"
"It was furnished for your use," Bunwadde said, "so it's
more important to ask how well it suits your taste."
"It ... it doesn't. It's much too disparate, almost
deliberately so. It ... clashes," he finished, the last word
in English.
"Exactly how I'd put it. I wondered how you would respond."
If Marcus had had bristles, they would have stiffened. "I
don't think this room would seem right for any human."
"Some wouldn't care. Some wouldn't say anything about it.
You aren't one of them. Marcus, I think we shall get along
well."
So he had passed the test. "I'm sure we will."
Bunwadde walked toward the door. "I'll have Tropid help you
rearrange the room right away -- unless you'd like to join us
in the conversation pool first."
"Thank you. I'll be down in a moment." He unzipped a pocket
in one suitcase, and rummaged for his swimsuit.
Marcus got his office in one of Bunwadde's buildings the
next day. It was on the top floor, unprestigious for Kevhtre
but perfect for a human ego. Awaiting him there was a large
inventory of Kevhtre items, and a lone female Kevhtre
assistant.
One of his jobs for Bunwadde was to judge the likely
profitability of Kevhtre arts and crafts on Earth, and the
best markets for them. He found everything cataloged and
cross-referenced. All he lacked was some obvious place to
begin.
He handed the manifest to his assistant, picked up the
nearest lot, and had her read off the notes for it. She
stammered over it more than once. Was she afraid of him?
Marcus could understand that from the children, but not her.
Maybe Bunwadde had cowed her into an exaggerated awe of the
human coming to work for him.
Handicrafts ran the gamut, but he saw the best prospects in
the wood carvings. The woods had colors and textures unknown
on Earth, and carvings of Kevhtre and native animals added
another layer of the exotic. They had serious broad-market
appeal.
The jewelry might be another matter. The stones and metals
were mostly things known on Earth; the premium for Obrithi
gold or diamond or sapphire would be limited. The artwork on
the metals and settings would help, but the only breakthroughs
would be the biological stones, the local analogs of pearl and
amber. The rest would be a niche market, though a high-end
one.
Artworks were tricky. Stocks here were heavy on the jagged
abstracts he remembered from the walls of his bedroom, though
he found a set of electronic frames that produced
kaleidoscopic fractal formations that mesmerized him. He
assumed there'd be some sub-market on Earth for everything
here.
He took his observations home that evening, and gave
Bunwadde an oral synopsis. His boss seemed pleased, if
tight-lipped about it. "Might you want me to discuss all this
with Pesh?" Marcus asked. His briefing notes mentioned that
she worked for his company in distribution and sales.
"Of course not. This isn't her work."
"But ... I had the impression --"
"She handles domestic sales, not off-planet ones." If he
was going to say more, the sound of his daughters running
downstairs from their tutoring session with Tropid stopped
him. Business was over.
Marcus got back to inventory the next day. His assistant,
Eshlarh, was definitely less overawed, and even a bit testy at
times. Marcus minded very little. Work was mostly the same,
and he had only a few new angles to discuss with Bunwadde that
evening.
"No furniture?" Bunwadde asked. He was soaking in his
private water room. Marcus had taken off his boots, rolled up
his pants, and dipped his feet in the tub, to be polite.
"Most of it's too large for us humans, or creates awkward
postures. It would be impractical, meaning sales would be for
novelty alone. That could support sending a few items to
create a scarce market with premium prices, but even that is
questionable because for the same mass and bulk, you could
ship other items that would bring much higher profits."
Bunwadde sat silently for a few moments, before giving an
affirmative hum. "Very sensible, if I understand you
correctly. Good work, Marcus."
The compliment felt good, almost uncomfortably so. "Thank
you," he just said.
"You've earned a bit of relaxation." Bunwadde handed back
the inventory list. "Would you like a game with me tonight?"
In the first press of work, he had forgotten about String
of Pearls. "Very much, Bunwadde."
"Good. We'll make it right after dinner." He slid deep into
the tub, until just his upturned snout and half his head
showed above water.
Marcus wanted time to practice, but supper was imminent,
and he ate with the family. Right afterward, Bunwadde asked
him to bring his board upstairs. Odd that he didn't want to
use his own board, but Marcus didn't mind.
Bunwadde was in his home office, shifting items off a
sturdy table, when Marcus came up. "Bring over those chairs."
Marcus got them, and met Bunwadde and the table in the middle
of the room.
The furniture, of course, was sized and shaped for
Bunwadde. Marcus felt like a child sitting there, and an
uncomfortable one. "A practical example," he said, "regarding
the furniture."
Bunwadde laughed. "You've made your point. Ready?"
He turned on the board. "Tazpet nulh chomaken," it
announced in a chipper voice already familiar to Marcus.
"Uredha lustodon?"
"Tra lustodon," Bunwadde answered. Two players.
"Kuss. Groa vat lusto tragi."
The board had randomly chosen Bunwadde to play second.
Smiling, Marcus reached into the bag, picking out tiles one by
one. Soon he had eight arrayed in his dish, and he passed the
bag to Bunwadde. As Bunwadde picked his tiles, Marcus hunched
over the dish, and shuffled tiles around.
A minute later, he picked up six tiles. The first went at
the apex; the others ran down the right-hand side of the
triangular grid. The first and last tiles went on their own
colors, doubling their values.
Marcus tapped the "Lustep" button. "Eighteen," said
the board. The score flashed on a display between the grid and
the bottom of the turntable.
"Good," Bunwadde said. He turned the board his way, as
Marcus drew, then suppressed a frown. Too much violet-black in
his dish. He'd have a tough time playing all those nouns
without a conjunction: he had played his only one between
vowels on his first turn.
Bunwadde put down five tiles, stringing up and right to the
end of Marcus's first play, incorporating its last two tiles
in the sentence. "Nineteen," said the board.
It continued this way for a couple turns: Marcus playing
cautiously, but Bunwadde not pulling very far ahead.
Bunwadde's third play gave Marcus an opening. Crossing it, he
could get two high-value tiles on their colors. He laid it
down, confident he was about to retake the lead, and hit
"Lustep".
And heard the rejection tune he had learned to hate all the
way back on Naha Uchusen.
"Invalid sentence," the board said. "You lose your turn."
"What? I thought ... What did I do wrong?"
"Sorry, not in the middle of a game." Bunwadde pointed at
the board, and Marcus picked up his misplayed tiles. Bunwadde
promptly laid down all of his.
"Forty-one," the board announced, "and a free turn."
Marcus could only sigh. Bunwadde drew fresh tiles, and
played five of them in a prepositional phrase extending from
the end of his previous play, for another big score.
That was a strategy Marcus hadn't thought of before. He
tried it on a lateral play back up the board. It got rejected.
Bunwadde then played his own prepositional phrase in front of
that same sentence. It was good, naturally.
Marcus was never in the game after that. Nearly half his
plays got razzed off the board. Much of that was
self-inflicted, as he made desperation plays trying to catch
up. One of those did work, drawing a compliment from Bunwadde
that stung as badly as a taunt.
Bunwadde finished with a flourish, playing his last six
tiles so a high-point adverb hit one of the four white spaces
along the base of the board, tripling its value. "Thirty-one.
Second player wins, 360 to 187."
At least it was over. "Congratulations," Marcus said.
"Thank you. I'm glad you could play."
Bunwadde started putting away the tiles, saying no more. No
false or consoling compliments. No "Not bad for a beginner."
Or "for a human."
Marcus resented not hearing something like that. He would
have resented hearing it, too, but then he could have focused
his resentment on Bunwadde, rather than himself.
A few minutes later, he was down in his room. Making sure
the door was shut, Marcus unpacked the game again. He dialed
the volume low, and turned on the board. He needed practice.
His ego healed, with the help of work. He finished off the
inventory backlog at the office, and went downstairs to give
Bunwadde the final report. Bunwadde promptly tasked him with
drawing up a detailed sales strategy for the items the company
would ship to Earth.
That devoured the rest of Marcus's day, and the evening,
and much of the next day. He returned to Bunwadde's office
with the plan in hand. Bunwadde looked it over, and thanked
him without comment.
"That's all?" Marcus said. "I thought you'd want to review
it with me."
"I may, in a few days. First I have to see what my other
specialists, my Kevhtre Union specialists, have recommended.
Don't worry, you'll have work to fill the time."
Bunwadde handed him a manifest. "We'll be getting this
shipment from Earth five days from now. We have descriptive
information on all the items, naturally, but I would like your
own professional observations as well. Flesh out the
descriptions wherever you have personal knowledge or interest.
Tell me why particular items are worthwhile to own."
Marcus glanced up. "For Kevhtre Union or for humans?"
"For humans. Platp and I can handle the sales appeal to
Kevhtre Union customers, but we want the added dimension of a
human perspective."
They could have gotten that just as easily, or more, on
Earth, but Marcus didn't say so. He scrolled through the
manifest, with a growing unrest. "I see you're bringing in a
lot of ... intellectual property."
"The best kind. Added transport costs are almost nothing,
and acquisition is often very inexpensive."
If a Kevhtre could look smug, Marcus had just seen it.
"Inexpensive how? It's giving you and others a poisonous
reputation on Earth." He saw Bunwadde's look change. "I'm
sorry. I think I overstepped there."
Bunwadde waved a big hand. "No, it's plain you need to
clear your nose on this. Speak freely."
Marcus needed a second to recover from Bunwadde's metaphor.
"It's the opinion of a great many humans. They think Kevhtre
Union traders are exploiting them, carrying off our culture
for nothing. Video programs, music, literature --"
"But how can that be," Bunwadde said, "when Earth's own
courts declared that the copyright protections you claim did
not exist?"
Marcus couldn't deny that. There had been language in
copyright law and contracts extending protection throughout
the universe, or similar concepts. Courts had struck down such
language as arbitrarily broad, not long before the Kevh made
first contact. Attempts had been made to reinstate that
language, now that the concept wasn't so theoretical. The
courts were blocking those on the grounds that the language
now amounted to deliberate discrimination against the Kevhtre
Union.
"Obviously, the judges were wrong," Marcus said. "They
lacked imagination. I don't see why Earth needs to suffer for
their short-sightedness."
"If they were so short-sighted, how did they contrive to
become such powerful arbiters?" Bunwadde stood. "I can
appreciate your frustration, but humans have to live within
the system they chose for themselves."
Marcus sighed. "Perhaps so, but that doesn't mean you must
exploit that system to the limit." That stiffened Bunwadde's
bristles. "I don't think I'm saying anything bizarre. As a
businessman, surely you know the value of good will."
"I do. My exhibiting it, however, would not achieve what
you want."
"Why not? You'd gain the gratitude of a lot of humans,
who'd be much more willing --"
"Marcus Parrish, you are a smarter businessman than that.
Maybe your trouble with our language is confusing you." Before
Marcus could reply in anger, Bunwadde switched to English. "If
I stopped obtaining exposed intellectual properties, it might
gain me something in other areas, though probably not enough
to compensate. But others would fill the space I had left. It
only takes one, and you won't convince all my competitors to
stop -- any more than you'll convince me."
The next argument didn't come to Marcus. He didn't see one.
Defeated, he looked back at the manifest. "I can only hope
your customers on Obrith appreciate human writing."
"They like the video and audio productions more," Bunwadde
said. "The writing is a smaller market, though there are some
who enjoy human craft in that."
"Craft? We like to think of it as more creative than that."
"As art?" Bunwadde huffed through his nose. "There's no art
in human writing, especially when the authors try to make art
of it."
"Well, I don't --"
Bunwadde reached back with a double-jointed arm for data
pad. "I think I've kept you far too long. Get started on that
manifest. I'll see you at home tonight."
Marcus had preliminary notes ready by evening, and expected
Bunwadde to want to see his progress. He had other plans.
"Marcus plays String of Pearls," Bunwadde told his family
at the supper table. "I thought we could all play a game of it
with him tonight."
Milinor looked delighted, and Pesh quite agreeable. "Can
someone teach me how to play?" Movedhor said.
"There's only room for four to play," Milinor told her.
"You'll have to stay upstairs with Tropid."
"Mom!"
"Movedhor can help you play, Milinor," Pesh said firmly.
"And you can teach me too," Movedhor added in the same
tone. Milinor sulked.
By the time everyone was downstairs in the living room,
Milinor was reconciled to the arrangement, and was explaining
the game to her sister with only the occasional help of her
father. Marcus sat opposite the children, while the adults set
up the board.
"Tazpet nulh chomaken. Uredha lustodon? "
Bunwadde quietly told Milinor to answer. "Gosho
lustodon," she sang out.
"Kuss. Groa vat lusto ibegi."
Milinor cheered as though she had just won the game.
Movedhor cheered along with her. Milinor let her sister pick
the tiles, then played four up the left-hand leg of the
triangle for nine points. Pesh extended the play by three
tiles, scoring nineteen.
That gave Marcus a good six-tile play, or so he hoped. It
involved making a subsidiary three-word sentence, but its
structure looked safe. He played it, and the board promptly
razzed it off. Milinor and Movedhor laughed, their squeaky
barks worse on Marcus's nerves than the board's rejection tune
had been.
"Stop that!" said Pesh. "You won't be allowed to play if
--"
"Let me handle this," Bunwadde said. "Girls, remember, our
guest is human. Humans have trouble with our language. Now
play nicely."
"Yes, Father," they said. Neither one apologized.
Bunwadde seemed satisfied, as he promptly turned to his
play. Three tiles went down near the top, making five
sentences in all three directions, every one good.
"Thirty-five," said the board, and Marcus couldn't help being
impressed.
Tropid walked in from the kitchen. "I heard your
commotion," he said to the youngsters. "Are you being unruly?"
"They're fine, Tropid," Bunwadde said. "Thank you."
Tropid was about to withdraw, before spying the play
Milinor was starting to make. "Remember what I taught you
yesterday, Milinor?"
She stopped, got a serious look, and took back her tiles.
Marcus opened his mouth, but felt Bunwadde's heavy hand on his
arm. He might not have had the nerve to object to Tropid's
meddling, but now he certainly didn't.
She finally laid down a two-tile extension. "If it's not
good," she said to Marcus, "don't laugh."
"I would not laugh at you," he said, rather tartly.
Movedhor hooted softly. "What if he played that?"
she stage-whispered to her sister. Milinor didn't reply, and
hit "Lustep". The play was good, earning both their cheers.
Marcus's play turned cautious. The cramped, difficult board
bequeathed by Bunwadde's play contributed early. Even after
Bunwadde opened it up, at some cost to himself, Marcus went
for acceptable plays, not high scores. It was his goal not to
be laughed at again that game.
Once he lost that goal mid-game, his fallback was not to
finish last to Milinor. He did not get much help.
"Father, what do I do with this?" Milinor turned her dish
so he could see inside. Bunwadde leaned in and whispered his
advice, then gave Marcus a look that dared him to protest. He
didn't.
That play put Milinor in third, and she stayed there until
the tile bag was empty. She made a play to go twenty ahead of
Marcus, but he saw two ways to play his last four tiles. Both
scored better than twenty, and no play by Pesh could possibly
block them both.
He sighed—then gasped, as Pesh took all seven tiles out of
her dish and laid them on the grid. He was too stunned to hear
the board announce the final scores.
"One point, Platp," Bunwadde said. "Excellent play." Dimly,
Marcus was aware that Pesh had just beaten her husband.
"And I beat Marcus, right?" Milinor chimed in.
"Listen again." Bunwadde got the board to repeat the score.
Milinor shrieked with joy, and began capering around the room,
Movedhor right behind her. Bunwadde joined in her celebration,
picking her up and doing his own heavy-footed dance.
Marcus just sat, watching, listening, burning.
Work was not a very good salve that time, even though there
was lots of it. Bunwadde's incoming shipment was large, and
notations for all of them took time, even where Marcus's
knowledge was thin. Neither was he in a mood to confess
ignorance, on anything.
He delivered a preliminary list to Bunwadde late that day.
"I should have the full descriptions done by the end of
tomorrow," he said, "but that's a good start."
Bunwadde's head made a slight, vaguely affirmative motion.
"It is satisfactory for now. Platp and I can work on this
during restday."
Marcus hadn't noted the calendar. "Will I be coming in to
work tomorrow, sir?"
"I don't see the point. Almost nobody will be here."
"I see. Still, I should bring the files home. I'll be able
to finish up there, pretty easily."
"Yes. Good."
Marcus didn't like the growing sense of detachment. "We
might even have time for another game tomorrow. I hope it can
be just us. I find I learn --"
"I'm sorry, Marcus," Bunwadde said, standing up, "but I'm
not interested in any more games with you."
Marcus felt himself shrivel. "I'm sorry if it was
presumptuous of me to ask that way."
"It was, but that is not why I refused. I would not enjoy
another game." His mouth took on a downward curl. "I do not
find it a challenge."
It was like being punched in the gut, slowly. Marcus tipped
his head. "I understand, sir," he said, and made for the door,
carrying all the dignity he could.
"However," Bunwadde said, catching him at the threshold, "I
don't mean to frustrate your hobby. I will see to it that you
get to play."
Milinor cupped her hand over the raised edge of her tile
dish, and lowered her head. "Don't peek," she said, with a
crafty look.
Marcus didn't protest his innocence, but leaned back in his
chair to show he wasn't looking over her hand. It gave him a
twinge in his knees. The furniture in the upstairs study room
was scaled for the children. That made it a little better for
humans than the adult furnishings, but it was still built
wrong for him.
While Marcus rubbed a sore leg, Milinor picked up five
tiles and arranged them on the board. She then sat, looking at
them, frowning. When Tropid came in to collect some books, she
called out to him, "Is this right?"
Tropid looked at the board, then briefly at Marcus. "It
would not be fair for me to say, Milinor. This is your game,
not mine."
"But you told me the last time!"
Tropid grew stern. "Remember, Milinor, your father said you
could have these games with Marcus if you behaved yourself."
Pouting, Milinor turned away from Tropid and pressed
"Lustep." The play was good, lifting her spirits and extending
her lead to twenty-nine.
Marcus looked his dish over again. He still didn't have
anything very promising, except one play through Milinor's
last sentence that would use all his tiles, in the unlikely
event that the computer accepted it.
It was late in the game. Without this play, he would
probably lose. If he made it, and it stayed, he was almost
sure to win after all. If it got kicked off, he was certain to
lose, and he was just as sure how Milinor would react,
whatever Tropid might think.
Bunwadde would like it if he lost. Indeed, he expected it.
He held Marcus's playing in contempt, and Marcus was growing
sure that Bunwadde held him in contempt.
He and Pesh were downstairs now, combing through his
product descriptions. Marcus was useful to him, praiseworthy
as far as he furthered Bunwadde's business, but nothing more.
How could he be worth more? He was only human.
Marcus stopped himself. Was that injured pride talking? Was
he taking all the little wounds he had borne and building them
into a grand edifice of paranoia and self-pity?
The Kevhtre had humans overawed, and he was starting to
fall into that mindset, the helpless victim. Even if Bunwadde
were deliberately belittling him, this was just how he would
want Marcus to feel. Well, he wouldn't play that role. He
wouldn't be helpless, or afraid.
He scooped up all his tiles and laid them down the board,
all the way to the bottom row. Milinor moaned, but he eschewed
anything that could even seem like gloating, and hit the
button.
"Invalid sentence. You lose your turn."
Milinor did not eschew the gloating.
"Welcome, Marc," Jun Hua said behind the desk in his
office. "Please have a seat. How was your trip in?"
"Okay," Marcus lied. He had been nauseated the whole way
from Aghrelowa to the Terran Embassy in Ubhettid, not from
airsickness, but from aversion to the debriefing to come.
"Glad to hear it. It was good of Bunwadde to let you off
for the morning."
"They're unloading a cargo ship at the landing field.
Bunwadde's supervising that, so he doesn't need his shill for
a few hours."
Jun Hua raised his eyebrows. "Shill? What's the matter? And
do take a seat."
Marcus paced over to the window, which mostly showed the
building next door. "He had me writing descriptions of his
incoming inventory. Turns out I was writing the first draft of
a script: my own. He means me to be the presenter for those
items in his network catalog."
"Then Bunwadde finds you useful," Jun Hua said, almost
smiling. "Isn't that good?"
"He finds me convenient. I'm a human face, and voice, to
lend an air of exotic authenticity to his wares. My actual
expertise is secondary, if how little of my report made the
script is any indication."
"But certainly you -- Marc, either sit down or stop pacing
so at least I can go stand next to you." Still fuming, Marcus
dropped himself into the chair, swiveling it so he looked at
the side wall, not Jun. "You understood Bunwadde was hiring
you to help his business from the start."
"I did, but I didn't think he'd --" He sagged into the
chair, not even noticing that it was made for humans, and
didn't torment his back or legs. "I thought I would be an
advisor, not a mouthpiece."
"Does he have you speaking Vetra or English?"
"Oh, Vetra. He trusts me to do that from a script."
"Ah. Can I infer from that that Bunwadde trusts you less to
speak Vetra in other circumstances?"
"Infer what you will," Marcus grumbled.
"I shouldn't have to," Jun Hua said. "You're here to inform
me fully about your progress. If we don't get that
information, I can have the embassy invalidate your visa. It
wouldn't help your career back on Earth to have an expulsion
from Obrith on your record."
"In some quarters it might," Marcus answered, but his heart
wasn't in the retort, and Jun Hua could tell.
"Answer my question, Marc. Are you making progress in
mastering Vetra syntax?"
Marcus seemed to examine the floor. "No. None that I've
noticed."
"Is String of Pearls not helping your studies?"
He tried to hide a wince. "It's not giving me any special
insights. I'm working on it. I've gotten to play several
games."
"Against Bunwadde?" Jun Hua asked. "And did you win?"
"Two against Bunwadde. And I didn't beat him." He didn't
mention his games with Milinor. He had actually won his first
one yesterday, by all of two points. His ego wasn't so far
gone that he would try to brag about that.
"Did you keep the games respectable?"
Marcus finally looked at Jun Hua, who didn't bother trying
to wipe the faint, supercilious smile from his face. "Are you
enjoying this, Jun?"
The smile opened a little, like a flower to sun. "The
Language Section has endured a lot of scorn from humans --
especially some business people -- for not solving Vetra
syntax. When such people learn for themselves the
intractability of the matter ... well, it's only human to feel
a little vindicated."
Marcus's nausea came back in full force. "Not very
professional of you, is it?"
"Better a little professional than completely amateur." Jun
Hua picked up a tablet. "So tell me about these games, Marc.
Each one, please."
Marcus thought for a moment whether his career could
actually be advanced by getting tossed off the planet. It
might, if he could somehow repay the travel costs to and from
Obrith that the Language Section, for now, was carrying for
him. He didn't doubt they would soak him with that.
"I'm waiting."
No matter how he ran the numbers, he couldn't make them add
up. Willing his stomach to behave, Marcus started to recap his
games.
Marcus didn't eat much at dinner that night. He did take
double helpings of water, to soothe a mouth and throat
strained by several hours of recitations for the catalog.
Declining Milinor's offer of a game, he took to his room
early.
He began his nightly language studies, but could scarcely
concentrate on his texts. There seemed no point to trying. The
gulf was too wide. Finally he pushed the tablets aside, and
pulled out his String of Pearls set.
With the game's volume so low even he could barely hear it,
Marcus started experimenting. He would lay out a sentence, see
if it was good, then reset the game and try it in a different
arrangement. He marked down the versions that were
syntactically proper on a tablet, and moved on to another
sentence, and another.
He searched for patterns in the valid sentences, but they
remained as elusive as ever. Sentence structures that worked
often became invalid when he substituted a new subject or
verb, or even a preposition one time. He could not see the
rules.
Marcus kept testing, despite seeing the hopelessness. One
could learn a language's vocabulary by rote, but a variable
grammar? He told himself that a sub-vocabulary of one hundred
fourteen, all the words appearing on the tiles, was a place to
start.
He kept at it past midnight, and didn't get nearly enough
sleep. It was an effort to give his catalog readings the same
energy they had had the previous day, but he felt he was
succeeding.
Eshlarh, his assistant, grew edgy fast. "Take a rest,
Marcus," she said. "I will return soon." She left the studio,
her big slapping feet putting Marcus in mind of an agitated
duck.
Marcus stewed. Throughout the recordings, she had been
acting like his boss, not vice versa. This was just one more
order he resented.
Eshlarh returned quickly. "Let's do a few more, fast," she
said, advancing the prompter text. "Bunwadde will be here
soon. He'll have some encouragement for you."
He didn't like how that sounded. He kept reciting, though
with his first flubbed line of the day, until Bunwadde
arrived. To Marcus's surprise, Bunwadde was carrying a small
urn with insulated handles, and a cup perched on the top.
"Maybe this will help," Bunwadde said, setting things down
on the shelf of a sink fixture. "It was part of the shipment
bound for the Terran Embassy, but I have diverted a modest
amount." He waved Marcus over. "Have some."
Marcus came over, wondering if he recognized the smell. He
put the cup under the tap, turned the valve, and soon had no
more doubt. "Coffee?"
"Technically a luxury," Bunwadde said, "but I have heard
some Embassy humans speak of it as a necessity. I suppose they
are right, by what Eshlarh tells me. Take whatever you need."
"Thank you," Marcus said, even as he felt the patronizing
sting, again. Apparently sugar and cream weren't part of the
necessity, but the coffee wasn't bad without them. He drank a
cup for medicinal effect, and got back to reciting. That dose,
and a second a few hours later, had him back to performing at
par, or enough so that Eshlarh was much calmer the rest of the
day.
He got through his performance, and had a bit more appetite
at dinner that evening. He did not, though, have increased
confidence in his game-playing. "I'm sorry, Milinor, not
tonight," he said when she asked again for a game. "I'm tired
from work today."
"But I want another game," Milinor complained. "This is
just because you won the last game, and you don't want to lose
again."
"Milinor!" Pesh said.
"That's not true," Marcus lied reflexively. It went
unchallenged, as Milinor's parents, Pesh in the lead, took
away her game privileges for the night. She apologized
sullenly to Marcus, sounding awfully like any seven-year-old.
Marcus soon retired to his room, and went straight to the
desk and the game. Tonight, he was calculating the color
frequencies of the tiles and the board spaces. Which tiles
could get premiums for landing on their color most often?
It was the nouns, of course, but compared to their
frequency in tile distribution, there was a paucity of
violet-black spaces. Worse, almost all the nouns were
low-scoring, so one didn't gain much. The ratio was better for
everything else. Conjunctions were best, with verbs and
tense-marks not far behind.
From these statistics, he could gain a better idea of what
tiles it would pay to hoard, what tiles he should play on
matching spaces when he could, and what tiles he shouldn't
bother trying to match. It was a first step in game analysis:
if he couldn't win on strength of vocabulary, maybe he could
win on strategy.
Maybe it would be enough that Milinor would grow sick of
losing instead of him. Maybe it would be enough that he could
compete with Bunwadde. Then he could tell that to Jun
Hua.
But it wouldn't hurt to know more. He counted up how many
of the conjunctions were group conjunctions, useful for
noun-heavy dishes. He toted up the various tenses of the
tense-marks, theorizing how they could relate to one another
in a compound sentence. He studied the pattern of the board,
thinking of how he could set himself up on one play to hit
premiums with leftover tiles on his next.
He didn't hear the footsteps until too late. He could do no
more than set the board atop its box lying on the floor before
his door swung open.
"You're still awake," Bunwadde observed.
"Yes," Marcus said. "I'm still having trouble sleeping." He
walked over to his bed, hoping to draw Bunwadde's eyes with
him.
"I hope it is not the coffee. I didn't think its effects
lasted so long." His eyes moved. "Were you playing?"
"No." That was true enough. "I was just looking at it,
whiling away time, trying to lull myself to sleep." Bunwadde's
cool gaze pressed in on him. "Trying to understand it better,
too, perhaps."
"Good. I'm glad you still have an interest in the game.
Milinor will be, too. Now do rest, even if you cannot sleep.
We need to finish the catalog tomorrow."
"Yes, Bunwadde," Marcus said, sighing.
"That's a pretty play."
Marcus didn't reply to Milinor. He didn't believe her. It
was a mediocre play, a safe play that wouldn't lose him a
turn, but wouldn't get him the lead or set him up to take it.
Even if she meant it as a genuine compliment -- he didn't
trust much these days -- it felt like mockery.
Milinor made her play, with a quick look over to Tropid.
Marcus glanced at him too, but the servant showed no
expression. Marcus turned back to his dish, and thought over
his options.
He had a six-tile play that would score fairly well, but
not vault him ahead. There was a shorter, lower-scoring play
on the other side of the board, though, would let him keep a
conjunction with two spaces of its color in easy reach. It
would mean keeping two tense-marks, which could be awkward,
but with the right draw, he could play them combined with the
conjunction and make a big score.
The board chimed. "You must play within thirty-two
kaphon."
"See, you're taking too long!" Milinor said.
"Sorry." He made the shorter play, and drew new tiles.
Before he could look at them, Milinor made her play, covering
one of the spots for his conjunction with a mere noun.
Marcus looked over his new tiles, and frowned. Two more
tense-marks. He might still reach the conjunction premium, but
not without leaving his dish clogged with tense-marks. He gave
it up, and found a place higher up the board where he could
hook onto an existing verb, playing off his conjunction to
help clean up his holdings. The score got him a little closer,
but not much.
He tried more set-up plays, but by the time one worked for
him, he had sacrificed more points than he gained with his
lone success. By the endgame, he needed an eight-tile
extra-turn play to have a chance, but the branching sentences
had cut off all the empty areas. He made one of his familiar
desperation plays, and got the familiar rejection tune from
the board.
"I won, Tropid!" Milinor shouted after the board recited
the score.
"Yes, you did, and you made no incorrect plays. Good work."
Marcus packed up the board quietly, but not fast enough.
"We're going to play tomorrow, right?" Milinor said.
"If your parents and Tropid let you," Marcus said, "and if
I don't have to work too long."
Milinor hooted at this. Marcus didn't know whether it was
his grammar again, or whether she found his work patterns so
risible.
He left the game in his bedroom, and went downstairs to the
water rooms. He gave himself a quick shower, part of his daily
routine. Before dressing again, though, he departed from
habit, and went over to one of the lounging pools. He put in
one foot, and found the water bracingly cool. He laid aside
his towel, and stepped in. Aghrelowa's heavy heat never seemed
to lift, and this was a refreshing departure.
He leaned back, luxuriating. Time seemed to fade away,
leaving just himself and his thoughts. For a few minutes,
those thoughts didn't include the frustrations of the day, and
every day. They did creep back, stealthily, reclaiming their
accustomed place.
Marcus lowered himself a few more inches. Only briefly did
he imagine drowning himself there. "Very impolite, I'm sure,"
he said to himself. "Upset the whole household." He didn't
feel that badly about all of them not to care.
Someone came thudding down the stairs. Marcus let his
solitude go philosophically: this room was too heavily
trafficked for it to last. He saw it was Tropid, a mild
surprise. "Good evening," he said politely. Tropid had always
been correct toward him, no more and no less.
"Good evening, Marcus," Tropid said. "It's good to see
you're having a cool soak. You were long enough in taking
advantage -- or are humans less sensitive to heat than I've
heard?"
Marcus had never heard such garrulity from Tropid. "I can't
say what you've heard," he replied, "but the water feels very
good. And how do you know I haven't used this pool?"
"I have to keep track of everything in the household."
Tropid slipped off his sandals and shed his robe, leaving him
down to a broad strip of cloth covering him from stomach to
mid-thigh. He thought better of removing it, and stepped into
Marcus's pool with it on. Kevhtre shared pools without a
thought, and Marcus didn't mind.
Tropid made a guttural "Grrraahh" sound as he lowered
himself into the water. He sat quietly, head back, for a
moment, before looking at Marcus. "I hope you do not hate
Milinor."
"Hate her? I ..."
"She has a kind side to her, but she is competitive. That
has served her parents well, and they are teaching her—and
having me teach her—to be the same."
"I ... understand, Tropid. I can't blame anyone for that."
"And she is very bright, very perceptive."
Marcus chuckled. "That's something of a comfort."
Tropid gave him a long look. "I think I understand
that, Marcus. Your position here is awkward. Sometimes,
it is more awkward than it needs to be."
Marcus absorbed that slowly. "I cannot really complain. I
wasn't drafted."
Tropid's features bunched up. "What was that?"
Maybe that idiom didn't translate well. "I wasn't forced to
come to Obrith. Whatever happens here, I came to it with my
eyes open."
Tropid droned, deep in his chest. "Open eyes do not see
everything ahead."
Tropid was surprising Marcus every minute. He was
presenting overtures of sympathy, of friendship -- or was it
more?
The Language Section reportedly had been feeling around for
a Kevhtre Union citizen to defy the government and explain the
language to them, to fill in what humans were missing. They
had made no progress, and rumors about the cost of their
failures had been disturbing. Had Marcus stumbled onto what
they had missed?
He moved cautiously. "Naturally, it is frustrating to
understand something when others use it, but not to understand
how to use it oneself."
"Yes, it must be painful," Tropid said, "but it is
something you must confront yourself."
"I have tried. I also think I've gone as far as I can by
myself."
Tropid shifted, sending little waves across the pool. "I
already have a job as a tutor, Marcus Parrish. I don't think
you should ask me to do more."
Marcus said nothing. There was no more to say. He didn't
pretend Tropid's answer carried any ambiguity. After a decent
interval, he reached for the towel at the edge of the pool.
"Thank you for the company, Tropid."
Marcus stood by the window in his bedroom, watching dusk
fade to night, thinking. Standing was about as comfortable as
sitting in his Kevh-style chair, and would be kinder to his
legs in the morning. String of Pearls was packed up and under
his bed.
He wished he could keep the game under there forever. It
had been an incubus, promising him language insight, and
giving him worse than nothing. It had led him astray, and much
of that was his doing. He had come to treat the game as its
own end, not as a learning tool. That had let Bunwadde make it
his own tool, to keep Marcus humiliated, to keep humans in
their place. Just one tool for him, but a particularly irksome
one.
At least the mortification of his shilling stint was
finished—until the next shipment from Earth arrived. Bunwadde
would find more work for him, of course, but he would have to
look hard to find something as embarrassing to Marcus.
He quickly regretted thinking that. Bunwadde would manage,
somehow. Marcus doused the lights and slipped into bed, hoping
not to carry that thought into sleep.
As usual, rest was elusive. His everyday failures were
frequent nighttime companions. His latest loss was with him
tonight, that and Milinor's "pretty play" comment that clung
stubbornly under his skin.
He could envision the words now, in the darkness. The play
was a stair-step parallel, one short horizontal sentence
played under another, overlapping by two tiles, one base and
one vertex. The play made two additional short sentences on
the diagonals.
It wasn't special. That kind of play happened constantly,
at much as a dozen times a game. Milinor made such plays
herself, without such a compliment. If he had overlapped four
or five tiles, difficult but doable if verbs were in the right
places, that might really be pretty.
But Milinor was young, and no student of the game. When she
said a play was pretty, she didn't mean it was tactically
elegant, she meant it looked pretty. Maybe she was babbling
childishly, but Marcus didn't think so. Tropid said she was
bright and perceptive, and Marcus believed him.
What was there, in that nest of curves, bars, slashes, and
dots? He tried to think, but concentration was ebbing. The
ideograms began swimming in his head. Soon they were
undulating like the surface of a restless sea.
He gasped. Had he drifted off? Had he been half-asleep the
whole time? He was wide awake now.
He turned on a light, found a tablet, and wrote out the
ideograms, each of the four sentences on separate lines. He
fixed on the second one. It was a bramble, but within it he
could see the sketchy, gentle sweep of a sine curve, falling,
rising, and falling again. The third sentence was the same.
The other two, Milinor's sentence and his, didn't have the
sine curve, but Marcus knew now that there was some pattern in
them. In those patterns would be the explanation of why one
arrangement of words made a sentence to Kevhtre eyes and ears,
and another did not.
He started making notes on his tablet. He didn't mean to
stay up all night, but he was going to leave himself enough
information so his insight wouldn't fade like dreams.
He was going to be tired at work again tomorrow. This time,
it would be for the right reason.
Marcus heard Bunwadde walk into his office. "How is your
work going?" the boss asked.
"It's going well. I'm writing up the reports on your new
export items. You can have the first group now, if you like."
He knew how Bunwadde would answer, and was putting it on a
tablet before he asked for it. Marcus had been able to go
further in-depth on marketing strengths and weaknesses for
this group, partly because it was smaller, partly because he
had requested as much informational material on the items as
he could get. Those materials had helped a great deal more
with his other work.
"You really have these sculpture replicas rated so low?"
Bunwadde asked. "I understand about the name, but might that
not be a selling point with some humans?"
The sculpture's title in Vetra sounded very like an English
vulgarity. Marcus wondered if Bunwadde would notice how red he
was turning. "It could be, except that the thing it means in
English looks ... similar." Bunwadde said nothing, but studied
the tablet, turning it this way and that for a different look.
Marcus's studies of Vetra had been moving fast, but
outwardly he was playing it slow. Jun Hua knew nothing.
Marcus's ambiguous reports to the Language Section, hinting at
some possible progress, would sound like forlorn masking of
continued failure. He would reveal himself in his own time.
"Good work on this," Bunwadde said. "Indeed, I am gratified
at how you've settled in during the last twenty days. You had
some difficulties before that, but you have definitely found
your place here."
Marcus went through modest motions. "Thank you, Bunwadde."
"Of course, Milinor has been complaining about you."
"She has?"
"Yes. She tells me you've been beating her at String of
Pearls lately."
His restraint had fallen to his competitive spirit here.
Last night was his fourth win straight against Milinor. "I
have, sir, finally."
"It was a while in coming. Do you feel up to playing me
again?"
Marcus heard how he turned it around, as if Marcus had been
the one to refuse more games, avoiding Bunwadde's beatings. He
fought the urge to leap on the offer. "Well, will it be a
family game, or just us?"
"Just us, I think."
"Well ... all right, I think I'm ready."
"I'm glad to hear it," Bunwadde said with a slight grin. He
had heard Marcus's garbled syntax in that last sentence, as
Marcus had intended. "Are you ready for a meal break?"
"Not yet, thank you. I want to get through some more of
these reports." Bunwadde let him do that, and Marcus buckled
down, not to writing, but to reading: reading more of those
informational materials, delving into the patterns of ordinary
words that were more clear to him each day.
Dinner was excellent. Either Marcus was growing more used
to Kevhtre cuisine, or Tropid was shading the fare toward a
human palate. He would remember to thank Tropid either way.
Once they were done, Bunwadde went upstairs to get the
board. "Not this time," he said when Marcus started to follow.
"Go down to the living room. We'll play there."
He wanted spectators for this, of course. That suited
Marcus. He went downstairs without complaint, and sat himself
at the big table. Milinor and Movedhor pulled over chairs, and
stationed themselves opposite him.
"We're going to help Dad win," Movedhor said.
"Really?" Marcus said. "And who will help me win?"
"You aren't going to win," Milinor declared. Marcus had the
decency to squirm in his seat, though only to relieve the
usual cramping.
Bunwadde arrived with the game, and sat to one side. Marcus
obligingly shifted his place to sit opposite Bunwadde. Pesh
came down and stood with her daughters as Bunwadde set up the
game.
They started, and the board picked Bunwadde to play first.
He scarcely looked at his tiles before he laid six of them
down the right-hand leg of the triangle, hitting three
matching colors. "Twenty-three," the game announced.
Such a strong opening would have flustered the old Marcus.
Now, he just studied his dish, and the board. The girls began
to fidget. Milinor tried to peek at his tiles, but he ignored
her, and Pesh told her to stand with her father instead.
Finally, Marcus picked up five tiles in one hand, and laid
them up and right, joining with the third and fourth words in
Bunwadde's play. Marcus looked at it, and nodded. Then he
added the last three tiles to his sentence and hit "Lustep"
without hesitation.
"Twenty-eight, and a free turn."
He saw Bunwadde's surprise, and heard that of the children.
He enjoyed them both.
His free play ended up small, to use up awkward tiles, but
it set him up for a fine score the next turn, consolidating
his lead. Bunwadde made good plays his next few turns, which
didn't rattle Marcus now. He didn't have to take blind
chances. He could see the plays, really see them. He could see
how the pair of parallel bars in one noun meshed with the bar
in a following verb, or clashed with the backslash in an
adjective.
It wasn't perfect. He didn't grasp all the rules yet. But
there were moments when a grouping of words looked right, and
only the next moment did he see why.
A few times, he even thought he had heard some likeness of
the patterns in spoken words. It was nothing as easy as direct
equivalence, or analysts would have noticed it before. He had
to work on that—but first things first.
He made a middling play, setting up a line to an orange-red
space. He had a big adverb to play there, and the tiles to
reach it. Even if it got blocked, there was a second such
space across the board he might hit.
Bunwadde did block it. Marcus saw a possible play at the
second triangle, but saw that Bunwadde's play had opened the
way to a third. He got to it, with all four tiles going on
their own colors. "Thirty-one," chirped the board.
Bunwadde said something Marcus couldn't hear. The children
had drifted toward him, and started pointing at his tiles and
making suggestions. Pesh hushed them, before giving Marcus a
strange, nervous look.
Marcus saw something he wasn't used to: Bunwadde making
risky moves. Not grammatically risky, but strategically,
trying to open the board for eight-tile plays, playing short
sentences that could easily be extended, hanging plays close
to the triple-value white spaces. Marcus played steadily,
taking advantage of openings when he could, extending his lead
as the game neared its end.
Bunwadde made a small play back near the apex. Was he
fishing for better tiles? Trying to keep lanes open to play
all eight? Was it just the best play in a bad dish?
Marcus set the question aside. He had to worry about his
own play now—until he spotted it. He ran six tiles down and
right, hitting two colors, putting a medium-value tense-mark
on the white, and making four more short sentences where it
overlapped a previous play. "Thirty-four," the board said.
Marcus drew new pieces with a calm he had never felt over
the board, not even in his best game against Milinor. He was
ahead by fifty-five. He almost couldn't lose.
Then Bunwadde picked up all his tiles. His play put a
valuable preposition on another white space, and ran to join a
previously extended play. The sentence ran seventeen words in
all.
"Fifty-one, and a free play."
Marcus managed to nod through his shock. "Excellent move,"
he said.
"Thank you," Bunwadde said, drawing the last five tiles out
of the bag. If he could play them all with his extra turn,
he'd lock up the comeback win. If he couldn't, he might still
outscore Marcus in the stretch run.
It didn't really matter. Marcus had played his whole game
without a mistake, without fear, without feeling like he
couldn't win. That was victory enough.
Bunwadde took time making his play, and was clearly
frustrated when he could only lay down three tiles for eleven
points. Marcus looked over the board, knowing he couldn't play
all of his. He made a partial overlap with four tiles, scoring
a mediocre sixteen, going back ahead by nine. He could easily
play his last words, if he got the chance.
Bunwadde studied his last two tiles. He laid them down,
then picked them back up. The play would have scored seven,
not enough. From the glimpse Marcus got, they were a
tense-mark and adjective. They might fit with an existing play
somewhere, if Bunwadde was lucky.
The board gave a time warning. Bunwadde's bristles were
stiff and trembling, and his light-blue complexion had paled.
Finally, just after the board's final warning, he bracketed
the tiles around a short play up-board, and held his finger
over the "Lustep" button.
"Dad?" Milinor said quizzically. Her father made a feeble
gesture, and his finger fell. It spasmed away when the jeering
little song began.
"Invalid sentence. You lose your final turn."
Marcus made his play almost before Bunwadde could take off
his rejected tiles. "Nine. Second player wins, 299 to 287."
He felt no outburst of joy, but a release of tension inside
him that had been there so long, he had forgotten it existed.
So much for it not mattering whether he won or lost.
Bunwadde met him with eyes that looked hollow.
"Congratulations, Marcus. It seems you have learned quite a
lot lately."
"Thank you. I have."
Marcus had scarcely taken two steps into the briefing room
before he found someone shaking his hand. He had no chance to
extract it from the series of grips that followed, until a
much gentler hand took hold.
"Welcome, Mr. Parrish," said Inez Quinones, director of the
Language Section. "Good to finally meet you. Please, take your
seat."
She guided him toward one end of a long oval table, then
sat herself at the other end. Jun Hua, Marcus noticed, was
already there at her right hand. He hadn't been part of the
congratulating swarm.
"Before we formally begin," Quinones said, "I hope your new
accommodations are adequate, Mister Parrish."
"Oh, they are," he said. "I'm learning to enjoy sitting
down again." Several Section members laughed knowingly.
The Section had been ready to buy Marcus out of his service
with Bunwadde, once he informed them of the breakthrough the
night after his climactic game. Bunwadde was a step ahead,
releasing him that following morning. A human had learned
Vetra syntax in his employ. He was hoping to minimize the
personal repercussions from that connection.
Marcus resisted the impulse to feel sympathy. Bunwadde had
brought him there as a showpiece, maybe useful in other
limited ways, but certainly no threat. That arrogance had
gotten him what it often does.
Still, he'd give Bunwadde credit for two things. First, he
wasn't making Tropid the easy scapegoat, yet. Second, Marcus
had gone to sleep that night, in the flush of triumph, and
woken up the next morning. Not all humans—maybe not all
Kevhtre—would have let him do that.
Quinones started the debriefing with a few questions about
the preliminary reports Marcus had written on his
breakthrough. They seemed pointed beneath her mild way of
asking them, looking for some weak link. His system still had
a few of those, but he was forthright about them. If the
Language Section had suspected some elaborate deception, their
residual worries faded.
"It is excellent work," Quinones said, "but your work isn't
close to over. We're going to need you to instruct everyone in
the Section on the fundamentals of Vetra grammar, in intensive
sessions. We need to teach all the diplomatic staff as well,
but we may just start with a few critical personnel there.
Once some of us are up to speed, we can start acting as
teachers for the rest, not to mention spreading this knowledge
back to Earth. We'll have --"
"Excuse me, Director," Marcus said. "I intend to give you
full reports on the syntactic rules I've learned, nothing left
out. I'll even add some work on the link between ideograms and
vocables. But I've been indentured once lately. I'm not making
it twice. I intend to go home."
"I see," Quinones said coolly. "Why this sudden drive to
return to Earth?"
"It's scarcely sudden. I have a life to lead there. I have
business to return to—and a new tool with which to get ahead
in it. That is why I agreed to this program, after all."
"You were here to crack the language for all of us," one of
the members said, "not for yourself."
"I have to concur with Mr. Okoye," Quinones said. "You made
a commitment to the Language Section when you agreed to the
apprenticeship with Bunwadde. You're shirking that
commitment."
"Consider it repayment in kind," said Marcus, "for the
level of support I got on-planet. You handed away my full
collaboration, not me."
Quinones was perplexed. "Mr. Parrish, I don't understand
what I've done to merit this hostility."
"It isn't directed against you, ma'am." He let his eyes
creep over to her stoic aide. "Mr. Jun, on the other hand, was
anything but supportive of my work. He made my life a lot
harder."
Quinones turned. "Jun, what is this about?"
"I'd rather not have my humiliations exposed further,"
Parrish snapped. "I'll make it short. I want Jun Hua sacked,
today, or my assistance will be as limited as I've already
said."
"This is --" Quinones couldn't find words. "Is that
all?" Jun Hua said smoothly. "You'll cooperate, over my dead
professional body?"
Marcus sneered. "Yeah, I think that's enough."
"Jun, I want to see you --"
"Done." Jun stood up. "Director, I'll be in my office,
composing my resignation letter. You'll have it within ten
minutes."
The shocked silence was broken by a single bark of laughter
from Marcus. "What, that easy?"
Jun Hua turned dark eyes on him. "Nothing is easy with you,
Marc, but it was necessary. Indeed, that's why it was
necessary. I assumed so from the start."
This time, Marcus couldn't speak. "Jun, explain this,"
Quinones said.
"Gladly. I learned during the interview process how
determined Marcus Parrish is, how ambitious and competitive. I
knew we had to harness these traits for him to have a fighting
chance at cracking Vetra. So I provided the goads."
He shifted his speech to Marcus. "I gave you String of
Pearls, knowing you wouldn't have a fighting chance to win it
against native speakers, and that you couldn't resist trying.
Then, yes, I rubbed your nose in it. I couldn't risk having
you accept defeat. I needed you to pour your whole spirit into
making the breakthrough, as unlikely as it might be. But you
did it. You beat the odds, and Bunwadde as a bonus.
"So let me ask you, Marc. Was it worth the pain to reach
the goal? No," he said, raising a hand, "don't answer me.
Think about it. For my part, I'll say it was always worth a
high cost to have a human finally achieve mastery of the
language. I got what I wanted. I won't shrink from paying a
fair price. Gentlemen, ladies." He gave a short bow, and
walked out of the conference room.
Quinones's eyes followed him to the threshold, then
fastened on Marcus. He found all eyes on him now. "I take it,"
she said, "that you're on board with us now."
"I ..."
"Let's be clear, sir," she said, all the gentleness from
their introduction gone. "I just lost a very good man because
of you. You said that was what it would take to get your
fullest cooperation. I mean to hold you to your word."
Marcus said nothing. He didn't look at Quinones, or at
anyone.
"We need this knowledge," she said, her tone changed. "The
human race needs it. We have to get some leverage in relations
with the Kevhtre Union. It's the same problem you face in your
business dealings, magnified a million times. If you can't
understand how --"
"You don't have to go on." Marcus could barely be heard
across the table. "How soon can I start lessons for the
Language Section?"
The whole table brightened, Quinones most of all. "I was
hoping for tonight."
Marcus tipped his head. "My lesson plan will be a bit
rough, but you're right, there's no point in delaying. Tonight
it is."
"Done. I'll lend you a staff member so you can pick out a
room and get all the materials there you'll need."
"Of course. And thank you, Director," he added, "for that
last reminder."
She smiled, as he had hoped. Her appeal to their common
humanity had been fitting, but it wasn't the reason he had
gone along. Better that they think it was, so they would gloss
over what really had moved him: Jun Hua's parting question.
Marcus had endured humiliations, and their sting would last
with him. So, too, would the pride of his accomplishment. He
wouldn't have that pride if he hadn't gone through the
humiliation, been the kind of man who would feel it so keenly,
and take it to heart. Jun had read him perfectly.
And Jun had been right: it had all been worth it.
No reason anyone else should know, though. It was hard
enough that Marcus knew.
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