The Ship Who Won (11 page)

Knowing that Alteis was watching, Brannel was forced to

join them. He consumed a few tiny mouthfuls as slowly as

he dared.

Fortunately, he had plenty of interruptions which concealed his reluctance to eat. Keff questioned him on the

names of the foodstuffs, and what each was made of,

pointing to raw vegetables and making an interrogative

noise.

"Stewed orange root," Brannel said, pointing out the

appropriate field to the mage. "Grain bread." Some of the

grain the plough animals ate served to demonstrate what

kind. "Legume stew. Sliced tuber fried in bean oil." Beans

were unavailable, having been harvested and gathered in

by the mages the month before, so he used small stones

approximately the right size, and pretended to squeeze

them. Keff understood. Brannel knew he did. He was as

excited as the mage when the box began to make some of

the right sounds, as if finding them on its tongue: frot, brot,

brat, bret, bread.

"Bread! That's right," Brannel said, enthusiastically, as

Keff repeated what the box said. "That's right, Magelord:

bread!"

Keff slapped Brannel hard on the back. The worker

jumped and caught his breath, but it was a gesture of

friendliness, not disapproval-as if Keff was just another

worker, a neighbor . . . a-a friend. He tried to smile. The

others fell to their knees and covered their heads with their

arms, fearing the thunderbolt about to descend.

"Bread," Keff repeated happily. "I think I've got it."

"Do you?" Carialle asked in his ear. "And does the rain

in Spain fall mainly in the plain?"

"Ozran, I think," KefFsaid, subvocalizing as the villagers

picked themselves off the ground and came around cautiously to inspect Brannel who was smiling. Keff himself

was wild w|th glee, but restraining himself for fear of scaring the natives further. "I can hardly believe it. I'm making

progress faster than I even dared to hope. There's some

Ancient Terran forms in their speech, Carialle, embedded

in the alien forms, of course. I believe the Ozrans had contact with humankind, maybe millenia ago, significant

contact that altered or added to the functionalism of their

language. Are there any records in the archives for first

contact in this sector?"

"I'll put a trace through," Carialle said, initiating the

search sequence and letting it go through an automatic AI

program. A couple of circuits "clicked," and the library

program began to hum quietly to itself.

By means of Keffs contact button, Carialle focused on

the antics of the natives. A few of the females were picking

up the spilled dishes with a cautious eye on Keff, never

venturing too close to him. The large, black-furred male

and the elderly salt-and-pepper male examined a protest-ing Brannel. The slender male tried without success to

wave them off.

"What is wrong with these people?"

"Mm-mm? I don't know. They're looking Brannel over

for damages or marks or something. What did they expect

to happen when I patted him on the back?"

"I don't know. Bodily contact shouldn't be dangerous. I

wish you could get close enough to them so I could read

their vital signs and do a chemspec analysis of their skin."

Keff stood at a distance from the villagers, nodding

and smiling at any who would meet his eyes, but the

moment he took a step toward one, that one moved a

step back. 'They won't let me, that's obvious. Why are

most of them so downright scared of me, but not surprised to see me?"

"Maybe they have legends about deities that look like

you," Carialle said with wry humor. "You may be fulfilling

some long-awaited prophecy. The barefaced one will

come out of the sky and set us free.'"

"No," Keff said, thoughtfully. "I think the reaction is

more immediate, more present day. Whatever it is, they're

most courteous and absolutely cooperative: an ethnologists

dream. I'm making real progress in communications. I

think I've found the 'to be' verb, but I'm not sure I'm pars-ing it correctly yet. Brannel keeps grinning at me when I

ask what something 'is.'"

"Keep going," Carialle said encouragingly. "Faint heart

never won fair lady. You're all getting along so well there."

With every evidence of annoyance, Brannel fought free

of the hands of his comrades. He smoothed his ruffled fur

and glared at the others, his aspect one of long suffering.

He returned to Keff, his expression saying, "Let's resume

the language lesson, and pay no more attention to those

people."

"I'd love to know what's going on," Keff said out loud in

Standard, with a pohte smile, "but I'm going to have to

leam a lot more before I can ask the right questions about

your social situation here."

One of the other Noble Primitives muttered under his

breath. Brannel turned on him and hissed out a sharp

phrase that needed no translation: even the sound of it was

insulting. Keff moved between them to defuse a potential

argument, and that made the other Primitive back off

sharply. Keff got Brannel's attention and pointed to the

raydome water carrier. Listening to prompts from the IT

program through his implant, he attempted to put

together a whole sentence ofpidgin Ozran.

"What are that?" Keff asked. "Eh? Did I get that

right?"

From Brannel's merry expression, he hadn't. He

grinned, giving the local man his most winsome smile.

"Well, teach me then, can you?"

Emboldened by Keffs friendly manner, the Noble

Primitive laughed, a harsh sound; more of a cackle than a

guffaw.

"So," Keff asked, trying again in Ozran, "what are yes?"

He whispered an aside to Carialle. "I don't know even how

to ask what's right?' yet. I must sound like the most amazing idiot."

"What is that. What are those," Brannel said, with

emphasis, picking up one stone in one hand, a handful of

stones in the other, and displaying first one and then the

other. He had correctly assumed Keff was trying to ask

about singular and plural forms and had demonstrated the

difference. The others were still staring dumbly, unable to

understand what was going on. Keff was elated by his

success.

"Incredible. You may have found the only intelligent

man on the planet," Carialle said, monitoring as the IT

program recorded the correct uses of the verb, and postulated forms and suffixes for other verbs in its file, shuffling

the onomatopoeic transliterations down like cards. "Certainly the only one of this bunch who understands abstract

questions."

"He's a find," Keff agreed. "A natural linguist. It could

have taken me days to elicit what he's offering freely and, I

might add, intelligently. It's going to take me more time to

figure out that sign language, but if anyone can put me on

the right track, it's Brannel."

Having penetrated the mystery of verbal declension,

Keff and Brannel sat down together beside the fire and

began a basic conversation.

"Do you see how he's trying to use my words, too?" Keff

subvocalized to Carialle.

Using informal signs and the growing lexicon in the IT

program, Keff asked Brannel about the below ground

habitation,

"... Heat from . . . earth," Brannel said, patting the

ground by his thigh. IT left audio gaps where it lacked sufficient glossary and grammar, but for Keff it was enough to

tell him what he wanted to know.

"A geothermal heating system. Its so cold out; why can't

you enter now?" Keff said, making a cave by arching his

finger and thumb on the ground and walking his other

hand on two fingers toward it.

"Not," Brannel said firmly, with a deliberate sign of his

left hand. The IT struggled to translate. "Not cave day. We

are ... work... day."

"Oh," Carialle said. "A cultural ban to keep the slackers

out on the field during working hours. Ask him if he knows

what causes the power surges I'm picking up."

Keff relayed the question. The others who were paying

attention shot sulky glances toward Brannel. The

dun-colored male started to speak, then stopped when an

older female let out a whimper of fear. "Not," he said

shortly.

"I guess he doesn't know," Keff said to Carialle. "You,

sir," he said, going over to address the eldest male, Alteis,

who immediately cowered. "Where comes strong heat

from sky?" He pantomimed arcs overhead. "What makes

strong heat?"

With a yell, one of the small boys-Keff thought it

might be the same one who had defied his mothers

orders-traced a jagged line in the sky. The he dove into

his mothers lap for safety. An adolescent female, Nona,

Keff thought her name was, glanced up at him in terror,

and quickly averted her eyes to the ground. The others

murmured among themselves, but no one looked or

spoke.

"Lightning?" Keff asked Alteis softly. "What causes the

lightning, sir?"

The oldster with white-shot black fur studied his lips

carefully as he spoke, then turned for help to Brannel, who

remained stoically silent. Keff repeated his question. The

old male nodded solemnly, as if considering an answer, but

then his gaze wandered off over Keffs head. When it

returned to Keff, there was a blankness in his eyes that

showed he hadn't understood a thing, or had already forgotten the question.

"He doesn't know," Keff said with a sigh. "Well, we're back

to basics. Where does the food go for storage?" he asked. He

gestured at the stone square and held up one of the roots

Brannel had used as an example. "Where roots go?"

Brannel shrugged and muttered something. "Not

know," IT amplified and relayed. "Roots go, food comes."

"A culture in which food preparation is a sacred mystery?" Carialle said, with increasing interest. "Now, that's

bizarre. If we take that back to Xeno, we'll deserve a

bonus."

"Aren't you curious? Didn't you ever try to find out?"

Keff asked Brannel.

"Not!" Brannel exclaimed. The bold villager seemed

nervous for almost the first time since Keff had arrived.

"One curious, all-" He brought his hands together in a

thunderclap. "All... all," he said, getting up and drawing a

circle in the air around an adult male, an adult female, and

three children. He pantomimed beating the male, and

shoved the food bowls away from the female and children

with his foot. Most of the fur-faced humanoids shuddered

and one of the children burst into tears.

"All punished for one person s curiosity? But why?" Keff

demanded. "By whom?"

For answer Brannel aimed his three-fingered hand at

the mountains, with a scornful expression that plainly said

that Keff should already know that. Keff peered up at the

distant heights.

"Huh?" Carialle said. "Did I miss something?"

"Punishment from the mountains? Is it a sacred tradition associated with the mountains?" Keff asked. "By his

body language Brannel holds whatever comes from there

in healthy respect, but he doesn't like it."

'Typical of religions," Carialle sniffed. She focused her

cameras on the mountain peak in the direction Keff faced

and zoomed in for a closer look. "Say, there are structures

up there, Keff. They're blended in so well I didn't detect

them on initial sweep. What are they? Temples? Shrines?

Who built them?"

Keff pointed, and turned to Brannel.

"What are . . . ?" he began. His question was abruptly

interrupted when a beam of hot light shot from the peak of

the tallest mountain in the range to strike directly at Keffs

feet. Hot light engulfed him. "Wha--?" he mouthed. His

hand dropped to his side, slamming into his leg with the

force of a wrecking ball. The air turned fiery in his throat,

drying his mouth and turning his tongue to leather. Humming filled his ears. The image of Brannel's face, agape,

swam before his eyes, faded to a black shadow on his reti-nas, then flew upward into a cloudless sly blacker than

space.

The bright bolt of light overpowered the aperture of the

tiny contact-button camera, but Carialle's external cameras

recorded the whole thing. Keff stood rigid for a moment

after the beam struck, then slowly, slowly keeled over and

slumped to the ground in a heap. His vital-sign monitor

shrieked as all activity flatlined. To all appearances he was

dead.

"Keff!" Carialle screamed. Her system demanded

adrenaline. She fought it, forcing serotonin and endorphins into her bloodstream for calm. It took only

milliseconds until she was in control of herself again. She

had to be, for Keffs sake.

In the next few milliseconds, her circuits raced through

a diagnostic, checking the implants to be sure there was no

system failure. All showed green.

"Keff," she said, raising the volume in his implant. "Can

you hear me?" He gave no answer.

Carialle sent her circuits through a diagnostic, checking

the implants to be sure there was no system failure. All

showed green except the video of the contact camera,