Rediscovery (19 page)

Had they truly never invented or preserved the tech of the internal combustion or steam engine? Well, at least that meant the planet’s air would be cleaner; and she hadn’t smelled anything more noxious than wood-smoke since they had arrived here. As a

matter of fact, the air smelt better than Ysaye had ever remembered, somehow more vital and alive. But how could they travel or communicate over any great distance? Or had they some more satisfactory substitute?

She turned away from the window and looked around the chamber which she and

her companions had settled into, making conscious analysis of its furnishings and appointments. They had spent quite a bit of time up here, recovering from their ordeal.

There were four large beds, in two of which her friends were still asleep; they were hewn of wood, had ropes supporting the mattresses, and the bedclothes all seemed to be hand-made and hand-woven. There were hand-made rugs, large and colorful—for which she was grateful, for the chamber was heated only by what seemed a rather inadequate fire, burning sluggishly in a brick fireplace. There were a couple of wooden, hand-made chests of drawers, and a door that still had smoothed-out chisel marks on it which led to a very cold, but perfectly adequate bathroom. They seemed to have at least retained the notion of “modern” sanitation; the bathroom had something like running water, hot and cold, and facilities for bathing. Ysaye tried to remember what she had read about medieval bathroom facilities; as she recalled, bathing was done so seldom that the facilities were not permanent, and waste disposal was so primitive as to be a bare step above an outhouse. That was certainly not the case here. Though, of course, the Cretans had some “modern” sanitation.

A knock sounded on the door; and a woman entered. Across her arms she bore the

Terrans’ own clothes, which had evidently been laundered and dried. Ysaye smiled with gratitude and took them from the woman, who in turn, smiled shyly; the uniforms were warm and sweet-smelling. Ysaye was deeply relieved to have her own clothes back after so long in a strange costume, and Aurora, sitting up in bed, exclaimed, “Our uniforms?

Oh, wonderful! I’m
so
glad to have my breeches back. I’ve been feeling quite clumsy in those skirts. A day or two was fine, but the novelty was wearing thin!”

The woman smiled again, ducked her head in a kind of bow, and went away.

Aurora got out of bed and began to put the uniform on. “Nice of them to lend us clothes, but I’m just as pleased to have my own back; it’s all in what you’re used to, I suppose, but I simply didn’t feel right. Not myself.”

But Elizabeth was putting on the native clothing she had been given by the

attendants, and as she caught the questioning look that Ysaye gave her, she shrugged. “I guess they’ve given us back our clothes because they sense that we’re finally rested and ready to resume our normal functions, but I can tell Lord Aldaran is more accustomed to seeing women in these skirts,” she said quietly. “Maybe as long as I have to deal with him, I ought to dress in what he considers more suitable. It might make him more comfortable about dealing with me.”

“Well, you’re an anthropologist and I suppose since you’re working as an

interpreter, you’d better make sure you don’t offend the man,” Ysaye said. “But I’ll wear what feels right to me, and if he doesn’t like it, he can pick someone else to look at.”

Then she laughed. “Given how oddly he looked at me the first night, I probably seem so strange to him anyway that what I wear doesn’t matter. He’d think I was just as peculiar in a skirt, or in a Vainwal dancing-strap, or in space-armor.”

A few minutes later when they had finished dressing, there was a tap on their door and another woman entered, bearing a tray laden with breakfast. She built the fire up, and asked by signs if there was anything else they wanted. Ysaye examined the heavily-laden tray and shook her head. There was more than enough there for all of them: bread, made of flour extended with nuts or some similar substance, and very hearty; a large dish of stewed fruit, still warm; something like cheese; and a dish of boiled eggs of some sort, which tasted quite like ordinary hens’ eggs, a change from the nut-based porridge they had been given previously.

“So they have birds and they domesticate fowl,” Elizabeth remarked. “In fact—

since they are evidently a Lost Colony, they might even be successfully breeding the chickens that are part of the livestock each colony carries.”

“I saw horses, or at least what looked like horses,” Ysaye offered. “A group of

men came riding in on them this morning.”

“That would cinch it, I would think,” Elizabeth replied, nodding. “Human-to-the-

Nines would be hard enough to explain; humans and horses could only be explained by having come from Terra in the first place. We could hardly have had a quicker

introduction to the level of their society than by being thrown on their hospitality this way.”

There was also a pitcher of the bitter-chocolate drink, as there seemed to be at every meal, and Ysaye was surprised at how good it had begun to taste. She was also surprised at how quickly it woke her up; and concluded it must be the native version of coffee—every society, “human” or not, had one.

So they can’t be too different from us after all,
she thought wryly,
if they “need”

their caffeine to wake up in the morning!

Elizabeth surveyed the impressive quantity of food, and urged Ysaye and Aurora

to eat their fill, saying that she had been taught in her xenoanthropology classes that people felt strongly about their food; on strange planets it was as well to eat whatever was set before one. When they had all had as much as they could eat, the first woman appeared and conducted them down the stairs to another large room. Ysaye was not certain if it was the one they had gathered in the first night, or a different one; with sun streaming in the tiny windows, the shape and size of the room looked different, but the furnishings were the same.

Their male crewmates were already waiting there for them, in their uniforms and

looking nearly as pleased as the women to have their own clothes back. The men had been staying in a barracks of some kind, leading the Terrans to hypothesize that it must be the custom to maintain standing armies or something of the kind. The place where the men slept could easily hold fifty or sixty.

“Elizabeth, aren’t you out of uniform this morning?” inquired Commander

Britton. Everyone else was obviously feeling especially chipper to have their familiar, comfortable uniforms on again.

“These clothes seem to fit the climate,” Elizabeth answered. “And—well, it just

seemed like a good idea to maintain native costume. I haven’t seen any women here in anything but a domestic function, so I thought it might be a good idea to continue to conform in outward appearance at least. There were periods on Terra like that, and some of the earlier Lost Colonies had taken up that kind of social structure. I don’t want our hosts thinking, even subconsciously, that I don’t care about proper behavior in their society.”

“You talk as if you were still planning to settle here,” Evans said scornfully. “I wouldn’t waste time on that right now, if I were in your shoes. Now that we all seem to be back on our feet again, the first thing we have to do is get back to the wreck of the shuttle and use the radio to contact the ship. We need to get a real team down here, since we’ve had First Contact forced on us. And then we can finally get to work; evaluating what’s here, to start with. It’s a long time since we’ve found a new world for opening.”

“If we can open this one at all,” Elizabeth cautioned. “I tried to tell you that before. The authorities may decide this should be a Closed World for the protection of the natives. The level of their apparent culture—”

“Don’t give me that,” Evans snapped. “I thought you’d decided this is a Lost

Colony—and that means that as Terrans they’re entitled to full colony status. It only remains to bring them up to the level of other colonies. It’s their right.”

“But they’re stuck in a pre-industrial society,” Elizabeth argued, stubbornly. “If they were aliens, their society would be protected so they could develop in their own way—not in ours. I don’t think their world should have to suffer because they have developed a system so far different from the one they left! In fact, if these are descendants from the colonists on the ship I think it is, they left Terra to get away from us— to bring their level of technology
down,
not up! In history, every primitive society which encounters an advanced one is wiped out. And if there are other sapient races of nonhumans here—”

“Now look, the definition of a species is cross-fertility,” Evans said. “If there should be an indigenous species here which has interbred with humans, as absurd as
that
seems, legal definitions would make that other species human anyhow. Cross-fertility means Human-to-the-Nines.”

“I don’t agree with you,” Elizabeth said. “I like this society and these people; I don’t want to see them wiped out by cultural accident, and this arguement we’ve been having all week is giving me a headache.”

Evans looked heavenward, as if for help. “Why do you assume we would wipe

them out?” Evans asked, scornfully. “Hell, Elizabeth, you make us sound like pirates!

This is Space Service you’re talking about; we wrote the book on primitive cultures and culture shock. You’re acting like we’re world-wreckers; you know there are very strict laws against cultural interference. We are perfectly capable of protecting an existing society—”

He’s humoring her,
Ysaye realized.
He doesn’t mean a word of it. He’s decided
that this place is a
—
an orchard full of fruit trees, and he’s going to somehow get some
of the best and the ripest, and be damned to whoever owns the place.

And in the next moment she was wondering why suddenly she was so completely

certain of his motives and plans.

But she had no chance to explore it further. Evans shut up as Mariel and Felicia came into the room, and the latter came immediately to Elizabeth, smiling in a friendly and encouraging way.

Evans gave Elizabeth a look she could not read and left, rejoining Commander

Britton. For that rescue alone, Elizabeth would have gladly welcomed Felicia.

Kermiac has asked me to do what I can to help you,
she said to Elizabeth—her words unintelligible, but that unspoken “speech” as clear as the purest Terran Standard.

We would like to know your plans now that you’re all back on your feet.

“Thank you for your offer,” Elizabeth said, vocalizing, because trying to speak

only with her mind was too difficult. “I must consult with my—ah—superior,” she

added.

Felicia seemed to approve—and the sidelong glances that the lady gave Aurora

and Ysaye convinced Elizabeth that she had done the right thing in continuing to wear the native costume. She beckoned Commander MacAran to her side and said, “The lady says Lord Aldaran wants to know our plans, sir.”

“To get in touch with the ship, and bring it down, of course,” MacAran said.

“Evans is right about that, anyway; the First Contact has been botched so badly now that nothing we do is going to make any real difference. Once the language computer and hypno-learners are functioning, we won’t be dependent on you for this form of

communication—you can call it telepathy if you’re that credulous, but I have other ideas.”

“I can’t wait,” Elizabeth said, wearily.

She turned to Felicia, and struggled for words and concepts she thought the

woman could grasp. “There is a communication device in our crashed ship; we must get in touch with the others of our kind. They will be concerned about us, and they will probably wish to meet with your lord. There is much that our leader and your lord should discuss.”

Felicia nodded, agreeing without having to say anything, her strange eyes full of thoughtful shadows.

Elizabeth turned back to MacAran, “Just what do you think it can be if it isn’t

telepathy? You can call me credulous if you want to, but what would your explanation be?”

MacAran shrugged. “Evans could be right; they could have some kind of

electronic devices monitoring us. Do you know what a PSE is—a psychic stress

evaluator? They could have those. Or Commander Britton thinks it’s simpler than that.

You know all those old folk songs, you and David, and you know what they mean. You could be understanding what they are saying on a subconscious level, and explaining it to yourself as ‘telepathy’ because your conscious mind insists that you couldn’t possibly know the language. Add to that the ability to read body language very accurately, and you have something that looks like telepathy.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I doubt that; devices like a PSE would mean they have a very exact and miniaturized electronic science, and honestly, sir,
none
of us have seen anything to indicate that they have a tech level above the medieval! As for Commander Britton’s idea—I may know what songs mean, but that doesn’t mean that I know what the individual
words
mean! And that wouldn’t explain why they could read me and not you. And specifics—names? How would they or I extract those?”

“There is that—though frankly I think that you are selling your subconscious and your intelligence short. I do have to admit that so far I haven’t seen any sign that they have any electronic science at all, miniaturized or not.” He sighed. “I’ll be glad to turn all of this over to the Captain.”

“I don’t know what he could do that we can’t,” she said, “Although it will be a

good thing to get the corticators down here, so maybe some of you will start to believe me about the telepathy when you can talk to these people yourselves—”

Movement at the door caught her eye, and she broke off and added, “Oh, here

comes someone else. Looks like they’ve brought in their heavy artillery.”

The doors of the hall had opened while they were arguing, and a young man in