Yu touched her hand. “You will help me. If nothing else. No, we shall be partners.”
“Thank you, dear Wenji.”
The warmth was short-lived. Dayan looked off into the dusk. “Technology, your work, interesting, vital, yes,” she said. “But the mysteries —”
Sundaram sat in his cabin. The interior resembled his own aboard ship, except for the windows. They gave on a wild autumnal rain. Wind yelled. Before him on the floor, legs folded, torso upright, rested the Tahirian whom humans called Indira, because this happened so often that an Indian name felt appropriate. He was coming to believe that Indira was not known among her/his/its kind by any single symbol, but by configurations of sensory data that changed fluidly according to circumstances while always demarking the unique individual.
Computer screens and a holograph displayed sketches, diagrams, arbitrary figures, pictures. With illumination turned low, reflected light set Indira’s four eyes aglow. Sundaram spoke aloud, not altogether to himself.
“Yes, I am nearly certain now. Yours is primarily a body language, with chemical and vocal elements — characters and compoundings infinitely, subtly variable. It causes your writing to be ideographic, like a kind of super-Chinese hypertext. Is this correct? Then Wenji can make a device for expressing the language we create, the new language our races will share.”
Winter brought snow, glistery white and blue-shadowed over the ground. Icicles hung like jewelry from bare boughs; many Tahirian trees also shed their leaves. Cold air laved the face and stung the nostrils. Breath smoked.
Kilbirnie, Cleland, Ruszek, and Brent came back from a walk. Taking their turns as caretakers at the settlement, they had grown restless. The outing roused Kilbirnie’s spirits from boredom. She dashed around to look at things, threw snowballs, tried to make her companions join in a song. Only Cleland did, halfheartedly.
Leaving the forest, they saw across the openness that huddle of buildings their crew had dubbed Terralina. Kilbirnie stopped. “Oh!” she gasped.
One of the great, rarely seen creatures they knew as dragons swept overhead. Sunlight streamed through wing membranes and broke into rainbow shards. The long, sinuous body gleamed beryl green. Her gaze followed the are of flight until it sank below the horizon.
The others had halted, too. “Pretty,” Ruszek said. He sounded reluctant to admit that anything could break the monotony of these days.
“More than bonnie,” she crooned. “Freedom alive.”
Cleland’s glance had stayed on her. “You really do feel caged, don’t you?” he mumbled.
“Don’t we all?” Brent said. His words ran on almost automatically. “Yeah, it was fun at first, the novelty, the jobs, and then traveling around, but what are we now except tourists, once in a while when his high and mightiness Nansen lets us go? The scientific types, sure, they’ve got things to do that matter. Are we supposed to spend the next four years yawning?”
“Stop whining,” Ruszek snapped. “You’ve overworked your self-pity.”
Brent glared. “I don’t take orders from you. Not planetside.”
Ruszek snarled and drew back his fist.
“Hold, hold!” Kilbirnie protested. She grabbed his arm. “We dinna need a fight.”
The mate gulped. His hand lowered. The flush left his cheeks. “No,” he yielded. “We’ve been shut in, our nerves frayed. I … didn’t mean offense, . . . Al.”
“Okay,” Brent replied sullenly. “Me neither.”
“We will get out and rove, every one of us,” Kilbirnie vowed. “We’ve talked of what we want to do. ‘Tis but a matter of learning enough that we can make reasonable plans to lay before the skipper. Hanny has a thought —” She broke off. That hope was unripe, confidential. “Wha’ say now we make hot toddies? Big ones.”
Ruszek managed to smile. “The best idea I’ve heard in weeks.”
“She’s full of them.” Cleland’s expression showed what idea he wished she would get.
Ruszek’s and Brent’s eyes went the same way. Briefly, the cold seemed to crackle. Yes, crewfolk were honorable, respectful of their mates; no sane person would dare behave otherwise; there were the soothing medications if desired; there were the virtuals, and nobody asked what interactive programs anybody else chose; nevertheless —
Kilbirnie broke the tension. “Or shall it be hot buttered rum?” She bounded ahead. The men followed more slowly, none venturing to overtake her.