To be even more than fair, Thariinye reminded himself that a possible missing one of the Linyaari should be of the greatest importance to them all. It was just coincidence that this particular one, if she lived, might turn out to be Neeva’s sisterchild.
All the same, he felt embarrassed both at his failure and at this public reprimand, and was eager to distinguish himself before the older envoys; a desire which was to cause far more trouble than this brief squabble on board the ship.
Cloaked and shielded, the Balakiire followed Rafik’s Uhara at a discreet distance, a momentary darkness in space that hovered always in the other ship’s blind spot. For fear of alerting their quarry, the Linyaari shut down transmissions with their home base, difficult in any case at this great distance from the civilized world; but within the ship, they discussed their next step endlessly until everybody’s thought-patterns converged by minute increments onto the same plan. They had been mistaken to try and skip the language-acquisition phase of initiating contact with a new people; this would, therefore, have to be their first priority after they discovered the other ship’s destination.
For many generations the Linyaari had relied more and more upon their late-evolving telepathic abilities and less and less upon spoken language, except as a way of communicating with younglings whose brains were not yet mature enough for thought-speech. Only when they first came into contact with other races did they discover the problem presented by their total inability to make thought-contact with Others who showed signs of being as “linyarii,” in their own way, as the Linyaari themselves. With highly advanced technology but no experience in learning second languages, they had taken the obvious step of devising a learning device that, given a sample of an alien language, could be used in a few overnight sleep-training sessions to connect the forms of that language with the thought-forms of basic Linyaari communication. The device did have the one minor drawback-that it was necessary to establish some rudimentary dialogue with one of the aliens first, as a basis for further learning; and they had learned through experience that it could be extremely difficult to get cooperation before proper communication was established. The nesters of Khorma V had been sedentary creatures, the adults bonded to their nests by a complex set of chemical interactions. That first translation task had been easy enough; the Linyaari envoys needed only to camp beside a large nest and wait until the inhabitants grew curious enough to begin interaction. But the scurrying little dharmakoi of Galleni had been shy, easily frightened little creatures with a unique ability to disappear into shadows. The Linyaari had slowly established trust over a long period of cautious contacts, until the dharmakoi learned that not all Others were predators and came trustingly to converse with the large horned ones … a lesson the Linyaari now regretted teaching them, since the dharmakoi had greeted the first Khieevi with the same trust and hence were now extinct.
Memories of the time it had taken to gain the trust of the dharmakoi had inspired Thariinye’s suggestion that they initiate contact with vids from Khieevi torture ships, showing these barbarians what a mutual enemy they and the Linyaari had. At the time it had seemed like an excellent idea. Now they had returned to their basic contact methods, with a slight difference that was argued out while they followed the other ship.
(We don’t have time to spend months taming a barbarian. Besides, they are many, and we are only four-in this sector. What if they decide -we’re dangerous and try to kill us? We have to establish communications right away,) Tharunye argued.
(I’m not even going to mention where I’ve heard that idea before, or what just happened when we tried it.) Neeva’s thought-images were accompanied by an emotion, or rather, by the haughty repression of all emotion; they seemed to float in a cold empty space.
(It wasn’t a total failure,) Melireenya pointed out. (We did learn that your sisterchild may be alive and in this sector, Neeva.)
(I’m just saying that next time I’d like to have a little more meaningful dialogue and a little less hand waving, all right? It’s clear we can’t do anything until we have their language.)