After the meal they showed her a tiny cubicle, high enough to accommodate the unicornpeople but barely wide enough for Karina, and after some puzzlement she worked out what the facilities were for and how she could use them. That solved another problem she’d been trying not to worry about and left her feeling quite confident that she would be able to handle anything else that came up. And after all the excitement and that really very filling meal of salad and strange fruits, she was quite tired and more than willing to lie down on a couch in the main cabin when they dimmed the lights in there.
(I’ll keep watch this shift,) Khaari volunteered. (She can sleep on my couch, and you three can use the LAANYE. I don’t really want to hurt my head learning another barbarian language anyway.)
(Khaari! We must all be able to negotiate with these people!)
(Why? Somebody’s got to stay with the ship, and I nominate me because I’m the only one who can navigate you out of here.)
(Self-thinking is un-linyarii.)
(Huh! I’m Liinyar, and I’m doing the thinking, so by definition it’s linyaru.)
(This younger generation,) Neeva sighed toward Melireenya. (We would never have talked like that. There’s no telling what Thariinye and Khaari will do next.)
(So maybe it’s a good idea Khaari doesn’t learn their language. In fact, we might be better off if Thariinye didn’t either.)
This last comment inspired Khaari to take her turn with the LAANYE after all, sleeping on a reclining chair in the control cabin since the barbarian female was snoozing on her usual couch. As for Thariinye, he was already stretched out on his couch, wearing the headset that connected him with the LAANYE. He hadn’t even waited to make sure the barbarian was comfortable … but the light snores issuing from Khaan’s couch reassured Neeva and Melireenya on that score. With a mutual glance that spoke more eloquently than their thought-images on the subject of this impulsive younger generation, they, too, donned their headsets and settled for a strenuous night of sleep-learning.
By the beginning of the next shift, when Khaari brought up the lights in the main cabin, they could talk to Karma in her own tongue.
Which was very nearly the same as knowing the Basic Interlingua used for trade, diplomacy, and war in all the worlds inhabited by Karina’s people.
It was easy enough to explain, now, that they were relatives of Acorna’s who had been searching for her.
(This is not the entire truth,) Neeva fretted. (It is even an untruth, if we allow her to believe-as she surely will-that we came to this portion of the galaxy in search of our lost little one. Should we not tell her of the Khieevi, and that we came to warn her people and seek alliance with them?)
(All things in their proper time,) Melireenya replied. (Remember how the people of that first world were so frightened that they closed themselves within an impenetrable shield? If those harboring ‘Khornya (for so Linyaari tongues had rendered her name, turning it into something pronounceable in their language) should do the same, we might NEVER get her back!)
(First we must find our ‘Khornya,) Thariinye agreed. (Think, Neeva: she will surely tell us all we must know of these barbarians, so that we can judge whether they are khievii or linyarii, whether we wish to make alliance with them or to disappear before they can attack our worlds.)
The unspoken interchange went so swiftly that Karina was not even aware of any pause in the conversation; she was still exclaiming in delight over how quickly they had picked up her language.
The Linyaari envoys were equally delighted when Karina confirmed their hope that Acorna was to be found here, on the lunar base to which the shuttle had been bound.
“I had a Lattice note from her, out of this node, just a few days ago,” she told them. “Oh, then you are acquaainit-acquiintee-You know our little ‘Khornya?” Neeva asked eagerly. “How does she? Has she been well treated here?”
Karina looked down. Much as she longed to claim acquaintance with Acorna, was there any point in doing so, when a few hours would prove the claim false? “We have not met in person,” she evaded, “only in correspondence. But our auras are attuned.” Surely a Lattice note from one person and an acknowledgment from the receiver constituted a correspondence?