Native Tongue (12 page)

Thomas knew precisely what Smith was thinking. Why, Chornyak, he was thinking, don’t you threaten us with what you really can do, and with what every one of us knows you really can do? Why don’t you threaten to pull out the linguists, every last one of them, and plunge the world into chaos? Why do you pretend that you are just a citizen like any other citizen?

Well . . . let him wonder. Thomas had no intention of telling. Nobody knew, or would ever know, except when time came to pass on the leadership of the Lines. Then he would have to explain to the next Head that that trump card was being held for one situation—for the time when the government, after murdering who knew how many hundreds or thousands of innocents in their Interfaces, finally stumbled upon that unique non-humanoid species whose perceptions could be tolerated by humans. On that day, which might be ten thousand years away, or ten days, the government would suddenly decide that it was in the Interfacing business and could do the job of acquiring Alien languages on its own. And it was then that the government would hear the linguists’ terms: either the Lines kept
that
part of the Interface industry as they had all the rest, or every linguist involved in negotiation, no matter how crucial, would walk out and participate no more. It was not the intention of the linguists to see their own offspring wasted in this random search for the chance
species that would break the perceptual barrier between humanoid and non-humanoid; on the other hand, it was not the intention of the linguists to see their power lost to the government or the public.

Governments, and people in general, were likely to take power and do damn fool things with it, like carrying on nuclear wars and cutting each other up with chain saws and laser scalpels. The linguists had a way to curb some of that, an awesome power for all its limitations, and they would keep it in the Lines where it would never be subject to the follies of bureaucrats or simple ignorance.

Thomas had a responsibility, and sometimes it was unpleasant. Sometimes, when he listened to the very little boys in the Household complaining that they didn’t understand why they had to do without everything just because stupid people thought linguists made too much money, and how they thought it was sucking up to go on like that . . . sometimes he was tempted.

He remembered when he’d been a little boy like that himself. It was during one of the times when energy was wasted, inexcusably—a time of government “market adjustment.” There had been a kind of portable force field that whirled around the outside of the body and could be set to keep the temperature within a certain range. It let you do away with winter clothing, and it made it possible to wear ordinary clothing in summer with total comfort. It hadn’t lasted, because even the rich who loved such toys quickly found such squandering of resources intolerable. But while it was available, the children had had a good time. They had discovered that if you got a few of these fields whirling at top heat setting and a few others at maximum cold, you could get a baby tornado going in the middle of the circle of children, and you could watch it suck up leaves and grass, and if you were daring you could stick your finger into its center where everything was totally still.

Thomas had stood there, six years old and bundled in a plain cloth coat, stamping his feet against the cold and rubbing his frozen fingers together. The other children were in a little park that he had to pass on his way to and from school, and they were blissfully comfortable in that cold in light shorts and shifts—except for the ones who were providing the maximum cold settings, of course. They were cold like Thomas, colder even. But they were having fun. He would never forget how he had watched and longed to play that game, wanted to have a baby tornado to play with, wanted to be part of that circle . . . he’d gotten chilblains, standing there. And no sympathy.

“You’re a little fool, Thomas,” they’d said to him at home. “Linguists can’t have such stuff, and you know it, and you know why. You’ve been told a thousand times. People hate us, and we do not choose to feed that hate for trivia. People believe that we are greedy, that we are paid millions of credits to do things that anybody could do if we’d only tell them how—we do not choose to feed that perception, either. Now go study your verbs, Thomas, and stop whining.”

Thomas caught himself sharply—he’d been woolgathering, and the two men were watching him silently.

“Well?” he said. “You’ve won. Are you satisfied?”

“You’re free to go, Mr. Chornyak,” said Smith wearily, “if there’s nothing else you want to talk about.”

“You called me here, man, not I you.”

“As a courtesy.”

“Ah. Courtesy. I value courtesy.”

“We didn’t want you to hear about the . . . incident . . . on the news, Mr. Chornyak. And your orders are that no contacts between you and the government are to be held in any other way than this, unless they are the ordinary routine of linguistics. We did as you requested—and that also is courtesy.”

“I will be sure to inform Mrs. St. Syrus of your courtesy,” said Thomas, bowing.

“You won’t, either,” blurted Jones. “That’s not what you’ll do, you . . . you filthy Lingoe! You’ll—”

Smith sighed. That was really a bit much, he thought. He’d been prepared for clumsiness, that’s why they picked Jones; but this was a little more than he thought justified by the role. Now Thomas Chornyak’s face would register faint distaste . . . ME ARISTOCRAT, YOU CAVEMAN . . . there it went. And he wouldn’t say a word. And then he would start entering data in his wrist computer . . . there he went.

Smith often thought that if he could just spend a few months, round the clock, with some linguists, he could learn to do the things they did. So much of it was so obvious. Except that there must be something else that wasn’t obvious, because when he tried the things he thought he’d picked up in his observations they never did work. Never.

Dear sweet Jesus, how he hated Lingoes.

Hurrying down the hall with the two men, Smith disgusted and Jones humiliated, Thomas almost ran into an equally hurried group coming round a corner. Four men in dress uniforms and a
woman all in black . . . a lovely woman. In such a place, at such an hour?

“Funny thing, that,” he noted. “What’s going on?”

“Her name is Michaela Landry, Mr. Chornyak,” said Smith. “She was the mother of the last volunteer baby Interfaced—we told you about that. Her husband died almost immediately after having the baby picked up . . . a freak accident . . . and she’s been brought in to accept the Infant Hero medal in the man’s place. It’s all top secret, sir, of course.”

“I see. And now she will go back to her parents’ home, I suppose. Poor woman.”

“No, sir. She’s completely alone, no family of her own at all. But her husband’s brother took her in, and he’s given her permission to work.”

“What kind of nursing does she do?”

“She was in the public hospitals before this, sir, but after what’s happened, understandably enough, she doesn’t feel she can face any more of that. She’s looking for a post as a private duty nurse . . . and we’ll see that something just happens to come her way very quickly. Poor thing’s had about enough, without having to sit around alone thinking about it.”

“It’s a very sad story,” Thomas said, stepping into the private elevator that would take him to the roof, “and a damn shame all around.”

“Oh, she won’t stay mopey long,” Smith said. “Somebody will marry her within the year . . . she’s a lovely piece.”

“So she is,” Thomas agreed.

And he went home to wait for the contact from St. Syrus Household, which should come early tomorrow morning, if not sooner.

Chapter Six

The curious 20th century aberration in cultural science that led briefly to such bizarre phenomena as women practicing medicine, sitting as judges—even as a Supreme Court Justice, incomprehensible as that seems to us today—and filling male roles throughout society, can be rather easily explained. Men are by nature kind and considerate, and a charming woman’s eagerness to play at being a physician or a Congressman or a scientist can be both amusing and endearing; we can understand, looking back upon the period, how it must have seemed to 20th century men that there could be no harm in humoring the ladies. We know from the historical records, in particular the memoirs of great men of the time, how often the women’s antics provided them with occasions for laughter—very welcome in the otherwise serious business of their days. (There was, for example, the famous Equal Rights Amendment hoax so cleverly set up and maintained for so many years by members of Congress . . . we’ve all laughed heartily over that one, I’m sure.)

It may seem radical—I know I will be hearing from some of my more conservative colleagues—but I am inclined to feel that I might welcome a little of that same comic relief today. Life is such a grim business; a laugh now and then, especially if the source is a female sufficiently beautiful and shapely, would be almost worth the trouble of having her blundering about in Congress!

But unfortunately we cannot allow ourselves that sort of luxury. Our forefathers did not know—despite the clear statements of Darwin, Ellis, Feldeer, and many others on
the subject—they did not have scientific
proof
of the inherent mental inferiority of women. Only with the publication of the superb research of Nobelists Edmund O. Haskyl and Jan Bryant-Netherland of M.I.T. in 1987 did we finally obtain the proof. And it is to our credit that we then moved so swiftly to set right the wrongs that we had, in our lamentable ignorance, inflicted. We saw then that the concept of female “equality” was not simply a kind of romantic notion—like the “Nobel Savage” fad of an earlier era—rather, it was a cruel and dangerous burden upon the females of our species, a burden under which they labored all innocent and unawares . . . the victims, it can only be said, of male ignorance.

There are some who criticize, saying that it should not have taken us four long years to provide our females with the Constitutional protection they so richly deserved and so desperately needed. But I feel that those who criticize are excessive in their judgments. It takes time to right wrongs—it always takes time. The more widespread the problem, the more time required to solve it. I think that a span of four years was a remarkable speedy resolution, and a matter for considerable pride—let us, gentlemen, lay those criticisms to rest for once and for all.

(Senator Ludis R. G. Andolet of New Hampshire,

speaking at the Annual Christmas Banquet

of the New York Men’s Club,

December 23rd, 2024)

SUMMER 2181. . . .

Michaela was more than satisfied with the post she’d found. Verdi Household was surrounded by old oaks and evergreens, tucked into the arm of a bend in the Mississippi just outside Hannibal, Missouri. It was nothing at all like Washington D.C., although she’d been warned to expect that its summer heat would make Washington’s seem almost pleasant in retrospect. The house would have been called a mansion if it had held an ordinary American family; for the throng of linguists it was adequate, but no more than that, and could not have been considered luxurious. As for the grounds, Michaela suspected that they might have been criticized if the public had known much about them, because the Verdis had a fondness for gardens and didn’t appear to have spared much expense in those behind
the house. But out in the country like this, with a stretch of woods between them and the highway, no one was likely to know. Linguists didn’t have visitors because they didn’t have time; and they adamantly refused to allow members of the press on their grounds.

In spite of the crowding in the house, the Verdis had found a room with its own bath for Michaela, and a window overlooking the river. She was in the corner of the house on an upper floor, and to get down to the common rooms she had to go all the way around an outside corridor and across a walkway that went over the roof of the Interface. When she’d first arrived, that had worried her, and she’d gone immediately to the senior woman of the Household to express her concern.

“I’m concerned about my room, Mrs. Verdi,” she had said.

“But it’s such a nice room!”

“Oh, yes,” she said hastily, “the room itself is beautiful, and I am most grateful for it. But I can’t get to my patient in less than four minutes, Mrs. Verdi, and that’s alarming. I’ve clocked it by three different routes, and four minutes is absolutely the best I can do—it’s that bridge over the Interface that slows me down.”

“Oh,
I
see!” Sharon Verdi had said, the relief on her face telling Michaela a good deal about the shifting and crowding they must have done to give her the room she had. “Oh, that’s all right . . . really.”

“But four minutes! A great deal can happen in four minutes.”

For example, you can die in four minutes,” thought Michaela. It had not taken Ned Landry four minutes.

“My dear child,” the woman began, and Michaela guarded her face against any betrayal of how she despised the idea of being a linguist’s dear child, “I assure you it’s no problem. Great-grandfather Verdi has nothing serious wrong with him, you know; he’s just very old and weak. Until the last few months we’ve always been able to assign one of the girls to sit with him, taking turns . . . he just wants company.”

“But now you think he needs a nurse?”

“No,” Sharon Verdi laughed, “he still just needs company. But he has taken it into his head that he wants the same person all the time, you see, and there’s nobody we can spare on that basis. And so we need you, my dear—but you won’t have crises to deal with. Nothing that requires you to get to his room in ten seconds flat, or anything like that. One of these nights he will go to his just reward peacefully, in his sleep; he’s sound as a racehorse. And until then, I’m afraid that your major problem is
not going to be rushing to emergencies, it’s going to be boredom. That man can barely sit up without a strong arm to help him, but there is
nothing
wrong with his voice, and he can talk any one of us into a coma. You’ll earn your salary, I promise—and want a raise.”