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“It’s just too weak,” Hilfy said. “Aunt, it’s just too weak to fight.”
“I’ll stand here,” Pyanfar proposed. “There’s a mahendo’sat symbol translator and some manuals and modules — Haral said she put it in the lowerdeck op; I want the elementary book. Here. Gods forbid someone put it into cargo.”
Hilfy hesitated, cast a look at the Outsider, then scurried off in haste.
“So,” Pyanfar said. She dropped to her haunches as she had before, put out a forefinger and traced numbers from one to eight on the flooring. Looked up from time to time and looked at the creature, who watched her. It reached out of its nest of blankets and made tentative movements of writing on the floor, drew back the arm and watched what she was doing until she stopped at sixteen. It tucked the blankets more closely about itself and stared, from bleak, blue eyes. Washed, it looked better. The mane and beard were even beautiful, silken, pollen-gold. But the naked arm outthrust from the blankets bore ugly bruises of fingered grips. There had been a lot of bruises under the dirt, she reckoned. It had a reason for its attitude. It was not docile now, just weak. It had drawn another line, staked out its corner. The blue eyes held a peculiar expression, analysis, perhaps, some thought proceeding at length.
She stood up, hearing Chur and Geran coming, their voices in the corridor — turned and motioned them to wait a moment when they arrived. She watched the Outsider’s pale eyes take account of the reinforcements. And Hilfy came back with the manual. “It was in the—” Hilfy broke off, in the general stillness of the place.
“Give it here,” Pyanfar said, holding out her hand without looking away from the Outsider.
Hilfy gave it. Pyanfar opened the book, turned the pages toward the Outsider, whose eyes flickered with bewilderment. She bent, discarding her dignity a moment in the seriousness of the matter, and pushed the manual across the tiles to the area the creature could reach. It ignored the open book. Another ploy failed. Pyanfar sat still a moment, arms on her knees, then stood up and brushed her silk breeches into order. “I trust the symbol translator made it intact.”
“It’s fine,” Hilfy said.
“So let’s try that. Can you set it up?”
“I learned on one.”
“Do it,” Pyanfar said; and motioned to Geran and Chur. “Get it on its feet. Be gentle with it.”
Hilfy hurried off. Geran and Chur moved in carefully and Pyanfar stepped out of the way, thinking it might turn violent, but it did not. It stood up docilely as they patted it and assisted it to its feet. It was naked, and he was a reasonable guess, Pyanfar concluded, watching it make a snatch after the blankets about its feet, while Chur carefully unlocked the chain they had padded about its ankle, Geran holding onto its right arm. Pyanfar frowned, disturbed to be having a male on the ship, with all the thoughts that stirred up. Chur and Geran were being uncommonly courteous with it, and that was already a hazard.
“Look sharp,” Pyanfar said. “Take it to the op room and mind what you’re doing.” She stooped and gathered up the symbol book herself as they led it out toward the door.
The Outsider balked of a sudden in the doorway, and Chur and Geran patted its hairless shoulders and let it think about it a long moment, which seemed the right tack to take. It stood a very long moment, looked either way down the corridor, seemed frozen, but then at a new urging — “Come on,” Geran said in the softest possible voice and tugged very slightly — the Outsider decided to cooperate and let itself be led into the hall and on toward operations. Pyanfar followed with the book under her arm, scowling for the cost the Outsider had already been to them, and with the despondent feeling that she might yet be wrong in every assumption she had made. They had paid far too much for that.
And then what? Give it back to the kif after all, and shrug and pretend it had been nothing?
The Outsider balked more than once in being moved, looked about it at such intervals as if things were moving too fast for it and it had to get its bearings. Chur and Geran let it stop when it would, never hurrying it, then coaxed it gently. It walked for them — perhaps, Pyanfar thought sourly, biding its time, testing their reflexes, memorizing the corridors, if it had the wit to do so.
They brought it into the op room, in front of all the boards and the glowing lights, and it balked again, hard-breathing, looking about. Now, Pyanfar thought, they might have trouble; but no, it let itself be moved again and let itself be put into one of the cushions at the dead cargo-monitor console, near the counter where Hilfy worked over the translator, ru
“Hai,” Pyanfar said in her best friend-to-outsiders ma
It understood. Its eyes were bright with anxiety. It clutched its blanket tighter and made a faltering attempt to get its feet back on the floor and to stand, reaching toward the machine. “Let it loose,” Pyanfar said, and Chur helped it up. It ignored them all, leaned on the counter and poised a trembling hand over the keyboard. The whole arm shook. It punched a button.
Ship. It looked up, its eyes seeking understanding.
Pyanfar carefully took its alien hand, oh, so carefully, but it allowed the touch. She extended its forefinger and guided it to the wipe button, back to the ship button again. It freed its hand and searched, the hand shaking violently as it passed above the keys. Figure Ru
“Yes,” she said, recognizing the statement. Motioned for it to do more.
It turned again, made another search of the keys. Figure Supine, it stated. It found the pictorial for kif. That long-snouted gray face lit the screen beside the Figure Supine.
“Kif,” Pyanfar said.
It understood. That was very clear. “Kif,” it echoed. It had a voice full of vibrant sounds, like purring. It was strange to hear it articulate a familiar word… hard to pick that word out when the tongue managed neither the kif click nor the hani cough. And the look in its eyes now was more than apprehensive. Wild. Pyanfar put her claws out and demonstratively rested her hand over the image. Pushed wipe. She put the hani symbol back on, punched in voice-record; hani, the audio proclaimed, in hani mode. She picked Up the cheap mike and spoke for the machine’s study-tape, with the machine recording her voice. “Hani.” She called up another image. “Stand.” A third. “Walk.”
It took a little repetition, but the Outsider began to involve itself in the process and not in its trembling hysteria over the kif image. It started with the first button… worked at the system, despite its physical weakness, recorded its own identification for all the simple symbols on the first row, soberly, with no joy in its discovery, but not sluggishly either. It began to go faster and faster, jabbed keys, spoke, one after the other, madly rapid, as if it were proving something. There were seventy-six keys on that unit and it ran through the lot, although toward the end its hand was hardly controllable.