(What do you think, Neeva? Shall we tell them?)
(You are the envoy, Neeva, and ‘Khornya is your sisterchild. The decision is yours.)
“Well?” Gill challenged as the silence after his speech stretched on and on. Most of the humans in the room waited eagerly for the Linyaari complement to Gill’s story; only Raflk, once more absorbed in his star maps and calculations, -was oblivious to the mounting tension as the Linyaari looked at one another but did not speak.
(We love Acorna as our own child,) Delszaki Li told them. (We ‘will not give her over to those who may have sought to destroy her in the first place.) He repeated his words aloud so that the other humans could understand the statement. Judit nodded firmly, Pal folded his arms, and Gill merely shifted his weight a little forward, like a man in a bar anticipating that fists might soon start swinging.
(The red one does not look so linyarii now, Neeva. He looks quite capable of violence. Do you really want to trust this race on so little evidence?)
(I would not give up my worst enemy to the Khieevi,) Neeva replied violently. (We are ethically obliged to tell them.)
(What if they throw us out and shut down like that first bunch?)
(We will have to take that risk. Anyway, I think they are telling the truth when they say that they do not know where Acorna is now. We have as good a chance of finding her as they do; in fact, if this Khaalum’s deductions are correct, she may reach Home before we do!)
Thariinye snorted aloud. (They may be very nice bipeds, but their technology has some major gaps, and most of them can’t even mind-speak. I shouldn’t be surprised to learn that this Khaalum has gone haring off in absolutely the wrong direction. At least find out where they think he might have gone before you tell them.)
While this silent colloquy went on, Delszaki Li murmured with Pal and Judit in rapid Old Magyar. “They are concealing something from us; I can sense the shields in their minds. Also there is fear and guilt.”
“They’ll have to tell us more before we give away anything about Acorna. You’ve said too much already,” Pal said, then bit his lip. He had never before ventured to criticize his employer and benefactor.
“Fear you may be right,” Mr. Li whispered.
Gill glowered at being shut out of this exchange, even though he understood the necessity for using some language other than Basic Interlingua. Feeling useless among all these polyglots and telepaths, he rose and went over to look at the lines of light Rafik’s calculations had produced on the projected star maps.
Thariinye felt much the same. All three of the senior Linyaari were looking at him with deep disapproval, as though taking reasonable precautions against an unknown race were a khievii act on an ethical par with eating one’s young. He could not remove himself from the mental discussion, but he could-and did-leave the tea table to stroll across to the wall of projected star maps, where he leaned over Gill’s shoulder and studied the display with growing interest. It was difficult to read, and showed the heavens at entirely the wrong angle, but as he began to understand the alien notation he was able to mentally map these images onto the three-dimensional picture of the stars in space that he carried in his head.
As anybody who has proved even the simplest geometric theorem knows, there is a mental language of geometry that exists independently of any spoken language. First comes a kinesthetic sense of the “meaning” of the theorem-a sort of “Aha! If this moves over there then that has to swing round this point about so far, so it will always be the same length as that-over-there.” Afierward comes the laborious process of translating the intuition into Line AB and Point C and so forth and so on.
Thariinye, looking on as Rafik muttered calculations and traced lines of light on the projection, was able to follow the logic of Rafik’s thinking in these intuitive terms. And when he touched Rafik’s arm, waggled his eyebrows, and suggested that an arc be minutely widened to cover a slightly greater subsection of space, Rafik frowned, nodded, and changed the light-diagram without the necessity of a word being said. But at the next suggested course correction, Rafik shook his head violently. “You don’t understand,” he said. “We know there is a fault in the hydropon^s unit.” He had to repeat that very slowly before Thariinye waggled his eyebrows to show comprehension. “They must stop before they leave our explored space. The question is, where would they be most likely to stop for supplies? If Calum took this route, he could pick from a salad bar of ag planets in these two star systems; if he took this one, there’s nothing, he’d have to backtrack. But I’m betting he would pick neither the quickest route nor the worst one. Something shaped like a corkscrew would appeal to the shifty bastard. And that would bring him out somewhere near here.” Rafik tapped a point representing a distant sun to bring up a closer view of the system. One panel darkened, then displayed a glowing white outline within which was shown a reddish sun with only three planets orbiting it, two far too close to support the temperate-region greens Acorna favored.