Empire of Bones (16 page)

Depth snip/ orbit: Carth

"What do you think Jaya's so afraid of?" Sirru asked.

Ir Yth evinced bemusement. /
do not hnow
.

"She
is
a Receiver. She spoke to the ship before; she can do it again. Why did she resist my suggestion that she develop a closer connection with the ship? Why did she attack you? You told me you'd explained everything to her, that she seemed amenable." He frowned. "Perhaps she doesn't trust us. After all, we've given her no real reason to do so."

Why should you wish to go to the trouble of placating her? She is here to serve us, riot to be
coddled and nursed like a hatchling from a vat.

"It is a
desqusai
matter," Sirru said, surprising himself with his temerity. "It is termed:
consideration
. I would not expect you to understand." He regretted his remark instantly. Usually, protected by the scale, this was the kind of thing he might think but would never say. He expected a reprimand for his rudeness to a caste superior, but none was forthcoming—Ir Yth was silent. That was anotJier strange thing to Sirru. In front of Jaya, Ir Yth acted almost deferentially toward him, but there was no reason for her to do so. He found that dis-tinctly unsettling.

He curled his feet beneath him and settled back on the mat. Delicately, with as much subtlety as he could muster, Sirru probed the air, but he could not detect anything emanating from Ir Yth's plump figure.

Presumably she was wearing scale of her own, or some
'thaithoi
analog; her caste had secrets which were unknown to him, and there was worrying evi-dence of technology beyond
desqusai
understanding.

Sirru could not read Jaya herself, for he did not understand her personal expressives. It would be easier when he learned her verbal tongue and could use it in the usual way to disam-biguate the speech that he felt from her. It was a pity that Ir Yth had had so much longer to study human languages. This was the trouble with pheromonally conveyed information: it did not take semantics into consideration, and meaning was often lost in a morass of emotion. Verbal speech was no better: concepts meant different things in different languages. Thus, on Rasasatra, the two forms of speech had evolved together to bring about a more perfect understanding. At this thought, Sirru smiled ruefully to himself. In a caste-riven, hierarchical society, once understanding was achieved, the next urgent problem became the matter of learning how to lie.

If, as Ir Yth explained, Jaya spoke without knowing that she spoke, then it could account for the odd discrepancies that he could feel from her. For if someone spoke unconsciously, like a child, then, in Sirru's experience, they often told the truth. Jaya seemed confused, mistrustful, and secretive, but all of these things were to be expected. Apart from that one angry episode, however, he did not get the sense of hostility and re-sentment that Ir Yth had told him Jaya felt, or her hatred of the ship. The obvious explanation, therefore, was that Ir Yth was lying to him—and, in her
khaithoi
arrogance, not doing a very good job of it. But why?

Sirru took care not to reveal any of this. He did his feelings behind the scale, knowing that Ir Yth's abilities extended only so far. She could not tell precisely what Jaya was thinking, and she could not read Sirru's mind as long as he kept the scale at maximum. Soon, he knew, the
raksasa
would rest, and then he would go and see Jaya on his own.

lo. Depth- snip/ orbit: Carth

Jaya was asleep when Sirru came through the wall. She woke to the sensation of his long fingers shaking her shoulder. He was kneeling by her side, dressed in his customary pale robes. In the half-light, his skin gleamed like the moon on water.

"Jaya…" he murmured.

"Sirru?"

Rolling over, she sat up, drawing her knees against her chest in unconscious defense, ready to strike. The alien made no move toward her, but sat back on his curiously jointed an-kles to watch her.
No harm
, Sirru conveyed. She felt a warmth in the pit of her stomach. Jaya said, too loudly even though she knew he could not understand, "What are you doing here, Sirru? What do you want?"

/No harm/Trust/

"How can I trust you if I don't know what you
want}"

Very carefully, Sirru slid forward so that he was sitting be-side her, leaning against the wall. Jaya gave him a wary look that for once needed no interpretation, and Sirru smiled. His arm hovered over her shoulders; the golden eyes were inches from her own.
No harm
. She swallowed against the tightness in her throat.

"All right. Go on, then. Just don't try anything funny." Though she knew that if he had the same talents as Ir Yth, she wouldn't have much of a chance anyway…

Reaching up, she took his hand and put it on her shoulder. Slowly, as if reluctant to startle her, Sirru pulled her against him. His left hand slipped beneath her vest to rest against her abdomen. Jaya stiffened, ready to strike, but the touch was im-personal; there was no urgency in it. She tried not to hold her breath. The alien leaned forward so that the side of his throat was touching hers. Jaya squinted, trying to see what he was doing, and suddenly realizing that her teeth were clamped tightly together. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the long curve of his nose; a pensive mouth; a hooded gilt gaze. His skin felt cool and hard, with a flexibility like the surface of horn. His porcupine quills brushed her face. Where his skin touched her own, there was a thin film of moisture. Willing herself into calmness, she relaxed back against him and let his feelings move through her.

/Want?/
Sirru conveyed.

Hell
, Jaya thought, panicking.
I was right after all. Men
! She sat up abruptly. The alien drew her carefully back again. There was a prickling of
/need/loss/regret/hurt/something/
.

"Sirru? What's wrong?"

/Want?'/belonging/place/loss/

She twisted round to look at him. He blinked down at her patiently. She'd had this feeling before, but not often. After the ashram burned down—though that had been mingled with an odd, guilty sense of relief.

And before that, the coun-tryside: full of rich earth and growing things, heavy spring rain, frogs to play with. Her father's hut, smelling of smoke and spice. Then the mountains, where she and Kamal had been happy for a while, and last of all the city, Varanasi, though crowded and stinking of petrol and death and the silty reek of the river.

Her mood met Sirru's, meshed, was almost understood.

"You're
homesick^
Or do you want to know if 7 want to go home?"

She thought, carefully and deliberately, of Kamal and the mountains, and then of Varanasi, the city of light, which she had come to love in spite of it all: the way the light fell across the roofs at dawn; the familiar smell of food and fire and traffic.

"Yes, I do. I want to go home."
Than't the gods I've finally managed to get that across
. And then she thought, wondering just how much she and the rest of the world would come to regret it, "Will you come with me?"

/surprise/pleasure/success/
and then a strange sense of time flickering by.
/Soon /Ship?/

She turned her head against his shoulder.

"Ship? What about the ship?"

/lin't-spea't-bond/connection-ship/

She thought of the ship, pointing to the walls around her, and remembered pain and decay.

"Oh, God. I think I hurt it, Sirru. I think I've injured the ship." Fear and guilt flooded through her. "Is the ship all right?" But he did not seem to understand, for his grip on her tightened:
/comfort/soon home/no
harm/
. He smelled complex: somehow fresher than the
raksasa
, but the range of odors was unfamiliar to her.

Summoning the courage to ask him the question that had been preoccupying her ever since Ir Yth's arrival, Jaya said, "Sirru? Can you understand me? My people are dying, from a disease. If you can help them…" She tried to picture her hopes in her mind, imagining the little boy in the sewers beneath the hospital, his skin marked witü the eerie traces of Selenge. She thought of her release from her illness, and the guilt that she had been so fortunate, when so many others were not. She tried to send the images to Sirru, but he did not seem to understand anything beyond her personal pain. His grip tightened; she felt reassurance seeping into her skin.

"Can you help us? Sirru, you've got to understand me!" She grew rigid with frustration, but he shifted so that his arms were linked around her, murmuring to her in his own soft
HO
-
XjlZ. YV1LLI/1M5

ambiguous language, and he held her until, against her will and with her still lacking an answer, unconsciousness took her.

11. Depth snip/ orbit: tarth

"I believe I have resolved the difficulty with the Receiver," Sirru informed Ir Yth, not without a trace of smugness. "She will make the connection with the ship, and then we shall go with her to the planet. I'm sure everything will go smoothly from now on."

The
raksasa
exuded a small bolt of astonishment, closely followed by chagrin, before smothering it beneath a steely control. Sirru noted this with private amusement.

Without my help?

"Naturally, without your expert and valued assistance it was extremely difficult," Sirru said, sending soothing expres-sives right, left, and center. "But I really felt it would be most inappropriate to disturb your rest for yet another tiresome ses-sion. No one could attach any blame to you for that," he added hastily. "Shall we say it took one
desqusai
to understand an-other? I'm sure that in her awe of you, the Receiver became confused, sent out the wrong signals."

Ir Yth eyed him suspiciously, but Sirru oozed sincerity. He emitted the subtext
/inexperience/excessive
enthusiasm/ naivete/which
he had been endeavoring to maintain in the presence of Ir Yth ever since his arrival. A sigh whistled through the
raksasa's
inverted lips.

The Core would be most unhappy if anything were to be
… misunderstood.
Might I remind you of
the unfortunate incident on Arakrahali? I understand a temeni contact of yours was the vic-tim
—

IrEthiverris EsTessekJi
?

"That's correct," Sirru said warily. Why remind him of Arakrahali at this particular moment? He was certain that Ir Yth was delivering some oblique threat. He would have to make note of it in the next information upload to his First Body, just in case.

As if she had sensed the thought, Ir Yth said coldly, /
sug-gest you mention Arakrahali in your next
report
—
and mention, too, my concern. The Core would not want to see such a disaster take place
again. They might even question the viability of all the Acs('t'txsa't projects, not just this little
colony
.

"Surely not!" Despite the suppressants, which clamped down on this agonizing thought, Sirru managed a level of star-tled shock that surprised even himself. Perhaps, if he" ever got back to Rasasatra, he might consider a career on the shadow-stage. He thought back to his interview in the Marginals with EsRavesh:
And yet, there has been tal't that the
desqusai
castes are degenerating, their colonies
proving unsuitable for sustained devel-opment. It would be a pity, if that were so. Your caste
remains a val-ued part of this society. I'm sure your future success with Tekheiwill help to redeem
desqusai
standing in the senses of the higher castes
… The
kjtaith's
words had burned themselves into his brain. And yet another mention of Arakrahali…

Once more, Sirru edged closer to the idea that this was why he had been sent here: to stop his investigations, to get him out of the way. He noticed, then, that these difficult thoughts were becoming a little easier to sustain. His head seemed clearer. What with all the bureaucracy, and the problems with Jay a, he still hadn't updated his suppressant prescription. It occurred to him that without the rigorous controls of the monitors, this must be the longest he'd ever left it.

He was about to examine the ramifications of this when Ir Yth said,
It is recommended that you leave
me to handle the subtle nuances of communication between yourself and this particular branch of
your kindred
.

Sirru sent:
I apology Ihumble realization of crassnessl
.

The light of suspicion in Ir Yth's filamented eyes did not diminish, but the
raksasa
appeared somewhat mollified.

Very well.

Sirru said, "And since it appears that the Receiver has no objection to bonding with the ship after all, I'll see to that now."

He inclined his head politely in the face of Ir Yth's frosty si-lence, and stepped through the wall.

12.

Depth snip/ orbit: L,arth

Jaya was by no means sure that she had understood what Sirru was trying to convey. But after her encounter with him, she was aware of a curious connection between them, a blurring of boundaries. She did not know whether she found this reas-suring or disquieting. Probably both. The reality of her situa-tion—that, as far as she knew, she alone out of all humankind was to have direct contact with an alien species—was getting too much to bear. She tried to tell Sirru this.

"It's the responsibility, you see." Sitting cross-legged in front of him, she reached out and took hold of his thin hard wrists. She tried to send a sense of weight. "If this all went wrong, it's my fault, isn't it?" The hierarchies of caste, which had dictated the course of her life, now seemed to matter so little. "How can I speak for everyone?" /
tried that once before, and loo't what happened
. Her father's body, huddled against the wall; the members of the ashram lying dead; the failed revolu-tion. She must have been radiating guilt and dismay.

"
Desgusai
," Sirru said, evidently bewildered. She remem-bered Ir Yth's interpretation.