Interrogation
Qonits' ranking bodyguard rapped sharply on the door, but not with the butt of his blaster, as he had at first.
Even that had been an improvement. In an early session, a half-hour charade with the chief scholar, David and Yukiko had managed to communicate that they didn't want guards, or even Qonits himself, walking in on them without permission. That it showed lack of respect, and they would not cooperate without respect.
Not that privacy was the point. Video cameras monitored them endlessly. The point they hoped to make was that they had rights. Of course if their captors disagreed, pain was always available to inspire cooperation. Neither David nor Yukiko imagined they could withstand serious torture. But the Wyzhnyny didn't know that, and might prefer not to risk their deaths, or possibly inspire unbreakable resistance.
When Qonits had left that time, they hadn't known whether he'd understood. But beginning the next day, the guard who'd brought their meals had knocked. And so had Qonits' bodyguard, all without apparent resentment.
"Who is it?" David called.
"It is Qonits."
As far as it went, Qonits' Terran was quite understandable. On the other hand, the Wyzhnynyc the humans had learned was negligible. For a while the exchanges had been fairly even, but apparently the Wyzhnyny had changed their minds and decided not to teach them. At any rate the humans had no artificial intelligence to run endless cross-references, refining and expanding on meanings and nuances.
As shipsmind acquired a working vocabulary, sessions had more and more been built around lists-requests for the meanings of words recorded during earlier interrogations and the prisoners' personal conversations. Words presumably chosen by shipsmind. Qonits' efforts to speak became less halting and uncertain. His main difficulty was understanding what was said to him.
"Come in!" Yukiko called back. She and David made a point of neither being the prime spokesperson. Let the Wyzhnyny consider them equal to each other in rank.
As always, Qonits' entrance showed what the two Terrans read as dignity without arrogance. They still didn't know whether that dignity and apparent lack of arrogance were idiosyncracies of Qonits, or shared by other ranking Wyzhnyny. But they'd come to like the chief scholar.
"Good morning," Qonits said carefully. "I wish you feel well now."
"We feel very well, thank you," David said, "and we wish the same to you."
The Terrans sat on a couch. Yukiko had sketched one for Qonits, and he'd had it made. His own people had such things, and Qonits could understand that humans might have greater need for them. It must, he'd told himself, be tiresome standing on just two legs. He'd wondered at first why they didn't fall over.
"You are welcome," Qonits replied, then paused. "I have-more questions."
David raised an eyebrow at Yukiko; the knowledge master's delivery suggested this might be a different sort of session.
"We are interested," Yukiko answered.
They almost always say that, Qonits thought, and I never know why. What might they be learning from us? He wondered how long it would be before he began to actually understand these aliens. Until he did, knowing their words and sentences would be inadequate to understanding their meanings or intentions. What went on in the privacy of those round alien skulls?
"We wonder what is the kind of your empire," he said.
"Ah," said David, and spread his hands. "It is-an empire."
Qonits looked at him warily. "Please tell me more about it."
Yukiko spoke next. "It is many worlds united to permit, and provide for, the separate and mutual satisfaction of each and all worlds."
The focus of Qonits' eyes slanted off into left field, a response the Terrans had learned to recognize: he'd gotten no real notion of what her statement meant. His fingers tapped something into the small key pad hanging from his neck. Presumably he was listening to what shipsmind made of it.
After a few moments, his gaze returned to the two Terrans. "Thank you," he said. This session, he told himself, promises to require much work by shipsmind before I understand their answers. I wish I understood now. My subsequent questions could be more to the point.
"And what is this empire's government?" he asked.
It was David and Yukiko who felt uncertain now. They suspected the monitoring they were subjected to was more than visual, and they preferred to keep the Wyzhnyny guessing, uncertain. It was David who answered. "It is a commercial union, to facilitate the members buying from and selling to each other."
As he'd spoken, he began to see where this could take him, and felt a touch of excitement. Meanwhile something was obviously going on with Qonits. Disbelief? Concept overwhelm? David tried another tack. "We call it a commonwealth." He tapped his head as he went on. "Think of it as many self-governing worlds united for their separate individual good. And also for their mutual good-their joint good, their together good."
Qonits' eyes had lost their unfocused look. He was intent now. "Then there will be no effective defense," he said. Even in the Wyzhnyny's non-human voice, David could hear the mental wheels turning. And sense the distrust.
"That is not correct," David said. "There will be defense." God, there'd better be! "Defense is one of the primary functions of commonwealth government. Defense, the enforcement of valid contracts, and overall record-keeping."
Qonits' nictitating membranes slid over his eyes in a reflex the Terrans had yet to understand. "What is the kind of defense?" the Wyzhnyny asked. "What kind of things is done by that defense?"
David wasn't thinking his way through the situation now. He was running on creative intuition, winging it. "My wife and I are not informed on defense. We are research scientists. We learn about the seas on new worlds." The nictitating membranes were back again. This will give his shipsmind something to chew on, David thought. He'll be back with a monster word list tomorrow. "We know the basic principle though," he continued. "Design the defense, or select the defense, which most damages and frustrates the enemy. Keeps them off balance."
Qonits' long tongue licked air. David and Yukiko hadn't figured that one out yet, either. It took a long moment before the chief scholar responded, speaking very slowly, very deliberately. "Then why have we not met such defense? We have now eleven of your planets. Still no defense. Why?"
There was no sense of challenge in the question. He simply wants to know, Yukiko thought. "We are a very numerous people," she answered. "In recent centuries-hundreds of years-we have colonized many new worlds. We are a very diverse species, with many different peoples having different wants. They go out beyond the older colonies, find new worlds and colonize them."
The answer stopped Qonits dead in the water. It seemed to her he was about to go catatonic, whether because he couldn't grasp what she'd said, or because he could. She wished she knew what he was hearing on the earphone he wore. "And," she went on, "apparently the newer, farther colonies are being sacrificed." She turned to David. "Wouldn't you say so, dear?"
He nodded. "It seems obvious," he answered.
"Sacrificed," she continued, "while our fleets and armies are being concentrated or distributed, I have no idea which. Preparing to defend our core worlds, with their vast populations."
Qonits mind was signalling overload. He bobbed a nod. "Thank you for valuable information. I now leave you, return at later time." Then he said something to his bodyguards, and they left together.
Quanshuk had witnessed the brief interrogation via monitor, and had understood the key questions; he'd helped define them. What had mystified him were the answers, even though, like Qonits, he was plugged into the ship's growing translation program. Too much of what the prisoners said had made no sense to him, while some had been disturbing. Qonits' physical responses he'd understood well enough.
His own tongue licked air. We must sort this out, he told himself. As quickly as possible.
Yukiko put her arms around Annika and rocked her, feeling her snuggle in response. Poor kid, she thought, then retracted it, as if the savant might read it and be troubled by it. For you, she amended, a stupor is probably best. You don't suffer, you don't worry. It's the next best thing to sleeping through it.
Then she decided she wasn't sure about that either. Did Annika, in her mind, revisit the events in the Cousteau?-the undoubtedly violent deaths of Ju-Li and Dennis? She leaned back to better comprehend the child. Probably not, she decided. When the Wyzhnyny gave her to us, she was deeply in coma. But since then… Yukiko shook her head. Within that stupor, there's something like serenity. "Annika," she breathed, "I wish you could tell me what goes on with you."
David's eyes had been closed, but he hadn't been sleeping. Now they opened. "What?" he whispered.
She whispered back. "I was talking to Annika. I told her I'd like to know what she thinks about."
"Nothing very exciting I'll bet," he said, and closed his eyes again.
Chang Lung-Chi sat beside the prime minister, watching Ramesh on the wall screen. Foster Peixoto had viewed either the complete or selected cubeage of almost every language session. This had been more like interrogation. He wasn't surprised at how much communication had taken place. Actually he assumed it had gone better than it had. He didn't realize how much Qonits had understood only vaguely or not at all.
After they'd listened to the complete session a second time, Chang frowned thoughtfully. "Remarkable. Those two are playing a game with the aliens. The question is what good it will do."
"I have the same impression. Perhaps they have enough sense of the alien psychology to accomplish something. Hopefully we will get a better sense of it as it continues. Weintraub and Li are studying the sessions carefully. When they have gained some insights, they will share them with us."
Chang was less optimistic. When? Or if? One can but hope, he told himself. At any rate we must monitor this closely. "And the child," he said, "the savant. Has she shown any sign of shutting down, and depriving us of this remarkable contact?"
"None. And Bekr is optimistic now. Gavaldon has commented to her husband on how much better the child seems. Yet she continues to send. Bekr suspects the condition may be effectively permanent."
"Good! Good! It may be that this will prove truly important." We were optimistic about Morgan the pirate, Chang reminded himself, and now he is lost to us. May he rest in the Tao. He served his species well in his weeks of spying.