Thorby blushed. “Ma’am . . . I have none. I am dis –”
“There’s one right behind you. And another behind me.” She stood up and touched the wall. A panel slid aside; an upholstered armchair unfolded from the space disclosed.
Seeing his face she said, “Didn’t they show you?” and did the same on the other wall; another chair sprang out.
Thorby sat down cautiously, then let his weight relax into cushions as the chair felt him out and adjusted itself to him. A big grin spread over his face. “Gosh!”
“Do you know how to open your work table?”
“Table?”
“Good heavens, didn’t they show you anything?”
“Well . . . there was a bed in here once. But I’ve lost it.”
Doctor Mader muttered something, then said, “I might have known it. Thorby, I admire these Traders. I even like them. But they can be the most stiff-necked, self-centered, contrary, self-righteous, uncooperative — but I should not criticize our hosts. Here.” She reached out both hands, touched two spots on the wall and the disappearing bed swung down. With the chairs open, there remained hardly room for one person to stand. “I’d better close it. You saw what I did?”
“Let me try.”
She showed Thorby other built-in facilities of what had seemed to be a bare cell: two chairs, a bed, clothes cupboards. Thorby learned that he owned, or at least had, two more work suits, two pairs of soft ship’s shoes, and minor items, some of which were strange, bookshelf and spool racks (empty, except for the Laws of Sisu), a drinking fountain, a bed reading light, an intercom, a clock, a mirror, a room thermostat, and gadgets which were useless to him as his background included no need. “What’s that?” he asked at last.
“That? Probably the microphone to the Chief Officer’s cabin. Or it may be a dummy with the real one hidden. But don’t worry; almost no one in this ship speaks System English and she isn’t one of the few. They talk their ‘secret language’ — only it isn’t secret; it’s just Finnish. Each Trader ship has its own language — one of the Terran tongues. And the culture has an over-all ‘secret’ language which is merely degenerate Church Latin — and at that they don’t use it; ‘Free Ships’ talk to each other in Interlingua.”
Thorby was only half listening. He had been excessively cheered by her company and now, in contrast, he was brooding over his treatment from others. “Margaret . . . why won’t they speak to people?”
“Eh?”
“You’re the first person who’s spoken to me!”
“Oh.” She looked distressed. “I should have realized it. You’ve been ignored.”
“Well . . . they feed me.”
“But they don’t talk with you. Oh, you poor dear! Thorby, they don’t speak to you because you are not ‘people.’ Nor am I.”
“They don’t talk to you either?”
“They do now. But it took direct orders from the Chief Officer and much patience on my part.” She frowned. “Thorby, every excessively clannish culture — and I know of none more clannish than this — every such culture has the same key word in its language . . . and the word is ‘people’ however they say it. It means themselves. ‘Me and my wife, son John and his wife, us four and no more’ — cutting off their group from all others and denying that others are even human. Have you heard the word ‘fraki’ yet?”
“Yes. I don’t know what it means.”
“A fraki is just a harmless, rather repulsive little animal. But when they say it, it means ‘stranger.’ ”
“Uh, well, I guess I am a stranger.”
“Yes, but it also means you can never be anything else. It means that you and I are subhuman breeds outside the law — their law.”
Thorby looked bleak. “Does that mean I have to stay in this room and never, ever talk to anybody?”
“Goodness! I don’t know. I’ll talk to you –”
“Thanks!”
“Let me see what I can find out. They’re not cruel; they’re just pig-headed and provincial. The fact that you have feelings never occurs to them. Ill talk to the Captain; I have an appointment with him as soon as the ship goes irrational.” She glanced at her anklet. “Heavens, look at the time! I came here to talk about Jubbul and we haven’t said a word about it. May I come back and discuss it with you?”