Qonits Answers Questions
Instead of answering, Yukiko Gavaldon got calmly to her feet and faced him. "Qonits," she said, "it is not appropriate that you ask all the questions. Now it is time for us to ask questions, and for you to answer."
David had learned to conceal his surprise at his wife's sometimes off-the-wall responses. "Yes," he said, backing her. "It is disrespectful that we are not given a reasonable chance to question you. It becomes increasingly so as the imbalance grows."
Qonits stood for several long seconds without responding. This was something new from the captives. When at last he replied, it was slowly. "But we are the victors. You are our captives. You are obliged to do as we order."
Yukiko shook her head firmly. "That is incorrect. There are two categories of victors. One is barbarians. The other consists of civilized beings. Barbarians are inferior sophonts who do not care whether they behave properly or not. Civilized beings do care. And you have shown yourself to be civilized."
She stood with arms folded, her features firm.
The two Terrans had learned to read Qonits somewhat. It seemed to David that the chief scholar was unsure of himself now. "There should be balance in all things," he added. His voice was mild, even kind. "Not absolute balance; that is hardly possible. But sufficient to show respect."
Qonits looked at him warily. "What questions would you ask?"
It was Yukiko who began. "Where in the galaxy are you from?"
Qonits' head jerked three times, as if with Tourette's syndrome-a reaction that seemed too extreme for the question. But he answered it. "Shipsmind says this not our galaxy. We jumped here in-no elapsed time."
David frowned; this had to be a language problem. "Not from this galaxy? How can that be?"
"We do not know. We crossed from our old spiral arm to another-very far voyage, eleven years-then emerged from hyperspace. At that time, shipsmind knew exactly what place we were, and where our home sector was. Then we entered a star system to explore… and suddenly… "
He stopped, his hide twitching weirdly, alarmingly. Yukiko got quickly to her feet and placed a hand on Qonits' arm. "It's all right," she said softly. "It's all right. You are with friends."
Qonits didn't answer for a full minute while his twitching subsided, but he remained agitated. "Suddenly," he went on, "the view, the stars, all things was different. And the ship's… " He gestured frantically, as if digging for the word with his hands. "Numbers that appear."
"Readouts," David suggested.
Qonits seemed not to hear. "Ship said we were in different galaxy-and no time had passed!" He paused. The twitching had begun again, and he breathed heavily, seeming to hyperventilate. More than his nictitating membranes had closed. His eyelids had clenched shut, and he stood without saying anything more until he'd calmed somewhat. Finally, eyes open again, he continued. "Ship was searching for known objects in space, as fastly it could. And was recognizing nothing.
"Some of our people lost… " Again his hands pawed as if digging. "Some even died."
The chief scholar's reaction stunned David. Granted the experience must have been a shock, it seemed to him that humans-certainly spacers-wouldn't have reacted so strongly.
"I'm sorry my question led to painful memories," Yukiko said. "I had no wish to distress you. I was simply interested in the world on which your people originated. Is that where you're from?"
The question seemed to calm Qonits somewhat. He stood as if digesting it. "Wyzhnyny began on a world whose name would have not meaning to you, and hard for you to speak. We say Kryzhgon. My tribe would start long later, on different world. Kryzhgon had hard history to live with. Much danger. Much fighting."
"Fighting?" said David.
"Kryzhgon had three sapient life-forms, each on different part, with ocean between. One already had water ships. Came to our land on them. Two-leggers like you; we do not say their name. Had better weapons than Wyzhnyny, but Wyzhnyny more numbers." Qonits had begun to shiver again. "They tried to kill us, have all land for themselves. War was a very long time. Gradually, enemy grew more. But as they grew more, we made weapons like theirs. Better weapons. Our… old fathers?"
"We say `forefathers,' " Yukiko told him, guessing.
Qonits picked it up without comment, as if deeply into the story he'd begun. "Our beforefathers fought hard, tried to kill them all, be safe from them."
Yukiko thought of pointing out the parallel between that ancient invasion and what the Wyzhnyny were doing in the Commonwealth, but decided not to.
"For long time," he went on, "more enemy came across ocean, but beforefathers grew stronger. Finally no more enemy came, and Wyzhnyny killed all that were there. Hunted them down till all were dead. Then beforefathers built water ships-explored, learned where enemy came from. Built fleet and went there. After many generations, and many many Wyzhnyny killed, Wyzhnyny killed last one of enemy. That enemy.
"But Wyzhnyny still not safe. On another land was third sapient life-form. Small." He gestured, indicating a height of perhaps twenty inches. "Six limbs, like us, and very quick, very fierce. Very clever." Qonits tapped his cranium. "Our long-time enemy had gone also to small one's land. Then small ones came to ours."
"At first they fought old enemy, and us only when we met. After old enemy all dead, we fought small ones a long time; many generations. Both sides learned explosives. Wyzhnyny became much more numerous than them, but it took very long time before killed the last one." Qonits paused, gestured a sigh. "Over many lifetimes, the small ones ate Wyzhnyny. But not since a very long time now."
With that, Qonits stopped talking. He looked emotionally drained. Yukiko patted his arm. "The Wyzhnyny had a very difficult history," she said. "I am glad our life-form is not so savage as the enemies of your past. We will not try to destroy you, but I don't expect you to believe that. Not after the long suffering of your people."
David nodded emphatically. "Now you have balanced your relationship with us," he said. "It is time for you to ask us questions again, before we must exercise Annika."
Qonits bobbed his upper body. After consulting with shipsmind through the speaker in his ear, he began.
Nine hyperspace months away, Chang Lung-Chi and Foster Peixoto sat awed by what they'd heard. "Amazing!" said the president. "Two oceanographers, prisoners of the enemy, yet they are providing us with information beyond anything we could have hoped for. Seemingly without realizing it."
The prime minister's nod was subdued. "Two oceanographers and a traumatized idiot savant." He paused. "What do you make of the alien's statement that their ship inadvertently jumped between galaxies?"
Normally Chang Lung-Chi answered questions quickly and with certainty. This time he lagged. "It seems to me… " he began, "it seems to me the creature told what he thought was the truth; I have never sensed subterfuge in anything he's said. And his grammar and pronunciations became poorer. As if he were strongly agitated."
Either that or the chief scholar is a good actor, Foster Peixoto thought. But that made no sense; the alien had no apparent reason to mislead his two captives in that. "I wish I could have seen him as he spoke," he said.
Chang nodded agreement, and for a moment the two men sat silent. Finally Peixoto spoke. "Wyzhnyny history makes it psychologically more difficult to exterminate them. What we plan for them is much like what they did to their enemies, long ago."
Chang grunted. Humanity was the likelier candidate for extermination. "But if they had not attacked us," he said, "we would have accepted them peacefully. And even after they'd attacked us, if they hadn't been so focused on extermination, we could have negotiated."
Peixoto examined that. They'd become so deeply involved in the war effort, they'd never followed through on the question of negotiations. "Negotiations?" he said.
"It was you who first suggested them," Chang reminded him.
"What terms would you offer, now they've done so much harm?"
"They must remove their colonies from the worlds they've captured, and leave this sector."
Peixoto nodded thoughtfully. "That willingness, that preference, is what makes us civilized. But given the experience of their forefathers, what would it take to get their agreement?"
"We will need to dominate their fleet first, and rout them from enough of their colonies that they know they cannot hold the rest. Then perhaps they'll agree to leave."
Peixoto sighed. Victory felt unreal to him, and so did Wyzhnyny agreement. "Let us hope we can do it," he said quietly.
"We will," said Chang Lung-Chi. "We will." But saying it produced second thoughts. Could they trust such a life-form anywhere in this part of the galaxy? Even with a peace treaty? And they "knew" only one Wyzhnyny. How representative was he?
Quanshuk watched the monitor screen as Qonits left the captives' room. The prisoners had been a major disappointment to the grand admiral, or their information had been. Even now, with shipsmind's knowledge of the human language growing rapidly, and Qonits' expanding proficiency in its use.
It would mean a lot simply to learn how large their empire was. A hyperspace year in diameter, one of the humans had said, but the body-field monitor insisted he'd lied. Obviously they wanted their empire to seem larger and more formidable than it really was.
In a way, the lie had been reassuring. It established that the monitor worked. And why make small lies? To that question anyway. So say they'd doubled the actual size, and the true diameter was half a hyperspace year. Considering how far his armada had already penetrated, that was conceivable, though barely.
It never occurred to Quanshuk, nor to Qonits, that the human, to make himself more believable, might have deliberately described the commonwealth as half its actual diameter, not twice. And that the volume of human space was roughly sixty-four times what he himself was assuming.
The watch officer's voice broke Quanshuk's preoccupation. "Lord Admiral, the F-space potentiality indicates another stellar gravity field coming into range."
Quanshuk's gaze moved to the red view screen. Perhaps two hours ahead and to starboard, a white gravitic isoline formed hesitantly, a segment at a time. So many stars, and so few suitable planets; detouring and emerging to examine them slowed his armada greatly. Fortunately, some could be dismissed without doing either. Like this one, which promised to be a white dwarf.
What he really wanted was to reach a system with a human defensive fleet, something he could deal with. Not an empire too vast for his capacity to subdue and occupy.
Quanshuk, he chided himself, you worry needlessly. No empire can be that large.
Annika now had easily recognized cycles of sleep and waking. But her waking state was definitely not normal; mostly she lay on one side or the other in a fetal curl, her eyes open. From time to time she'd get up on her own to use the latrine, though it was Yukiko, or occasionally David, who cleaned her up. Or she'd sit up and repeat the single word "eat," until she was fed. Fortunately for her health, she'd stand up when Yukiko asked, and allow herself to be walked around their fifteen-by-twenty-foot chamber. Recently she'd even done simple exercises when led. But she was nothing like the happy child she'd been aboard the Cousteau.
Yukiko had been tempted to impose herself on Annika's odd state, and see if she could break her free of it, but the temptation was easily resisted. As David had said: what good would it do? The girl seemed content as she was.
He broke his wife's thought now with a whisper, breathy and without sibilance. They weren't sure whether the monitor picked up such whispers or not, but they needed some means of confidentiality. "What did you say?" she whispered back.
He repeated even more softly than before. "It was spooky, the way Qonits acted when he talked about the ship being jumped between galaxies. Do you think it actually happened?"
"I have no doubt at all." Yukiko barely breathed it.
Snuggled beside her, Annika neither doubted nor believed. She simply, unknowingly, passed it on to Kunming.