Learning the World

“Sir,” said Darvin, “it is I who should ask pardon of you. Despite appearances, I do not trifle with you. Let me say only that an obligation heavier than that to science overshadows me.”

“I quite understand,” said Lenoen. “I too am loyal to my lord. Hailed be the name of Narr! Very well. Let me tell you what the sky-watchers of the Southern Rule make of it, if I may.”

“Please do,” said Darvin.

“It’s a ship from another star,” said Lenoen. “Probably the one you call Stella Proxima.”

Darvin said nothing. His mouth was too dry for speech anyway.

“Its arrival in our system,” Lenoen went on, “is probably co

“A trudge kit with — what?” asked Darvin.

“Speech,” said Lenoen. He waved a hand. “A rustic rumour, I must admit, recounted in one of our sensational prints. Still, I am struck once more with what it takes to surprise you.”

Darvin spread his hands. “In our fencing you leave me, I fear, a broken heap on the ground. But I am sworn to silence on such matters as you mention.”

“Yes indeed,” said Lenoen. He stood up and began to pace around. “Let us talk about that silence of yours. I expected it. I encountered this week a similar silence on the other side of the cha

“You’ve just been to Gevork?”

“Yes. In the port of Low Lassir, and upriver to High Lassir, where I spoke both with Gevorkian astronomers and with the embassy of the Roost of Man. It is of the latter I would speak, for a moment.” He sighed and sat down again, his silvered claws tapping the floor in a ma

Darvin shook his head. “I take small interest in politics,” he said. “The subject repels me.”

“The ways of the starry heavens are indeed more uplifting,” said the Southerner. “However, as a court sky-watcher, it unfortunately behooves me to keep one eye on affairs here below. The merchants and adventurers of both your great reaches of the Sundered Continent knock upon the doors of our trade with ever greater importunity and, if I may say so, impertinence. And in those narrow doorways, and indeed in other entrances less regular, they jostle each other and trample the unwary. Their rivalry alarms the wise among us. Our emissaries and… travellers… to Northern shores have noted indications that the alien presence has become an object and occasion for a rivalry as intense as it is covert. On this, the wise among us are on the verge of beating their heads with clenched claws!”

He raised a hand and rose again to his feet, then stooped over the table on which the astronomical photographs were spread, as if to spare Darvin the shame of avoiding his eyes. “You need not comment. I come here only to pay my respects, and as a token of it to give you these photographs of your wonderful and never to be forgotten discovery of the extraordinary and remarkable ship.”

“Thank you,” said Darvin. “Your kindness overwhelms me.”

The Southerner placed some more paper on the table. “I have also,” said Lenoen, turning around and straightening, “left you a humble attempt at an interpretation of the object. A woodcut diagram, with captions, and a page or two of explication. Perhaps fanciful, but a preliminary effort, for your justly critical but, I hope, indulgent perusal.”

“Once again, you are too kind.”

“Not at all,” said Lenoen. He edged past the table. “On the contrary, I am clinging by a single claw to the limits of the courtesy due one scientist to another, let alone to my sense of honour and self-respect.” He pushed open the window and put a foot on the frame. “I tremble to tell you that even as we speak, copies of these photographs, and of our interpretation of them, are being distributed by our merchant seamen to the representatives of your local press at the quay, and at this same moment by our emissaries in Lassir to the popular press, such as it is, of Gevork.” He stood on the ledge, speaking over his shoulder. “I ask your pardon for the presumption, your understanding for its necessity, and offer my thanks for your time and your tea, and bid you, without further ado, farewell.”

He dived off.

Darvin stood for a few minutes studying the photographs and comparing them with the diagram on the front page of the document. When the telephone rang he ignored it. When a knock came to the door he rolled up the document, stuck it in his belt, and left the room by Lenoen’s route.

The previous spring Kwarive’s sister had had five kits, of whom only two had died in their first year. When Darvin couldn’t find Kwarive around the university, it was a fair bet that she was at her sister’s roost. So it proved that afternoon. Darvin pushed aside the safety mesh and ducked under the awning of the side entrance to find Kwarive on her back on the slatted floor, batting up with her hands as the three yearlings flew around the room, yelling and bumping into the walls and each other. He sometimes suspected her of becoming broody, but she had always insisted on completing her studies before she’d consider taking a roost. “What’s the matter?” she asked, looking up at him. He told her. (“L’noen!” squeaked the kits. “Lassir! Emissary!” They grabbed new words like bright toys.) She sat up. “This is serious,” she said.

“You’ve said it.” He laughed. “Now we’ll find out if the engineering tales got it right about mass panic.”

“Oh, not that,” said Kwarive. “That’s all piffle anyway. No, I meant that story about a talking trudge kit.” Darvin clasped his hands across his head. “I don’t take that seriously! It’s all of a piece with portents and dead men’s ships and two-headed prey-calves. It’s the loss of secrecy that concerns me more. The whole project—”

“Project! Project!” shrieked a kit whizzing past his ear.

“Let’s take this somewhere else,” Darvin said.

“Good idea.” Kwarive walked over to a barred cupboard, hauled out a struggling flitter, snapped one of its wings and tossed the hapless creature in the air. The kits brought it down and bit and clawed into it. Its screeches stopped in a second, the immediate feeding frenzy a few seconds later. The kits raised their heads.

“Good Kwarive! Good Kwarive!” they called with Woody jaws.

“I’m too good to them,” Kwarive grumbled on the way out. “My sister would have a fit. Breaking its wing like that.”

“She objects to the cruelty?” Darvin asked.

“No,” said Kwarive. “The loss of the chase. They need the exercise.”

Darvin and Kwarive perched on the rail of the roost’s balcony.

“You were saying?” said Kwarive.

“The project won’t be secret anymore. That’s got to be a good thing.”

“Wishful thinking,” said Kwarive. “The occasion for the project is no longer secret. The actual content of it is. Do you think Orro’s aeronautics will suddenly become open to public discussion? Nollam’s etherics? And whatever else is going on that even we don’t know about?”

“I don’t know.” He pulled Lenoen’s document from his belt. “Have a look at this.”

The document consisted of three sheets of paper, held together by a cu