Shaman (40 page)

“Must be hell to heat this place,” murmured Rick as they toured the building. In the continental summer, it was merely pleasantly cool.

Yoshi attempted to ask what the rhok jab was used for and the other young woman made a gathering gesture, followed by the palm upward greeting.

“Rhok,” she said.

Home of greeting or home of meeting? Rhys had no doubt Yoshi would refine that impression in due time.

They visited several shops after that, ending up at a metallurgist's workshop where the craftsmen turned out cook-pots and eating implements. Here, Rhys found, the advance team's linguistic database was somewhat more robust. It contained the native words for melt and smelt, rock, stone, ore, metal, and the particular metal of interest—roesel or fool's tungsten.

At the smelting facility, too, they saw close up what Rick Halfax had noted upon their arrival—a good number of the smelting vessels were cracked and in disuse. It gave Rhys an idea of a material good they might offer in trade—a replacement for their smelters. Or at least a substitute material from which to make them. He wondered how long one even the thickest-walled of these hard-pack clay models lasted, given the high melting point of roesel. He also wondered how much those broken kilns impacted the native ability to smelt as much of the ore as they realistically needed.

Well, that was something he'd have to ask, once Yoshi got enough of the language indexed to expect contextual results from the Lingua Franca. One benefit of working with Tanaka, Rhys had to admit, was access to the latest technology. Until they'd reconnected with the company for this mission, they'd been using an dynamic translation device that was five years old—a veritable antique.

Seeing that Yoshi and Rasimet were hitting it off despite the language barrier, Rhys decided it was time to hobnob with the Tanaka reps. He laid a hand on Rick Halfax's shoulder.

“Roddy, while Yoshi continues her tour of the village, would you go visit with the geology team and get their take on the operation? I'd like to know if they've any reservations about it.”

“Sure. Worried about environmental impact?”

“Aye. If the projected quotas for ore will gut that mountain range, I want to know before we open negotiations. Meanwhile, I believe I shall go have a word with the A-team leads.”

Rick offered a wry smile. “Have fun.”

Rhys turned to go and was surprised when Rick stopped him. “Hey, boss, can I offer some advice? I know you don't like dealing with the corporate types. I don't, either. But on you, it really shows. I think your hair actually gets redder when you're around them.”

“Am I that transparent?” Rhys asked ruefully.

“‘Fraid so. Give them the benefit of the doubt. They're not pirates, just guys with a job to do. They just... focus a little too tightly. Maybe you need to help 'em loosen up a bit.”

He was right, Rhys reflected as he made his way to the base camp. Successful negotiation was often a matter of adjusting focus a bit—on both sides. He promised to be the essence of patience.

It was a promise that was almost immediately put to the test.

o0o

“They're the laziest bunch I've ever seen.” The lead of the advance team, Darrel Franks, shook his head and smiled. “They seem to do just enough to get by.”

“Maybe,” Rhys suggested, “they're just living life at a slower pace than you're used to.”

He sat in the “conference room” of the A-team's hab-module, his hands folded meekly in his lap. He'd been in conference with Darrel and head geologist, Ivan Terezov, for less than ten minutes, and he was already having to work hard not to worry his sporran.

Darrel shrugged. “Maybe, but we've been here for three weeks and the most activity we've seen is on Market Day. Folks show up from other villages and cram into the town hall and the swapping gets underway. Then you see some real action.”

“Anything telling about the trading customs?”

“Telling?” repeated Darrel. “Telling how?” He exchanged glances with Ivan.

The two men could not have been more different. Where Darrel was broad, muscular and solid, Ivan presented the impression that his long, angular body might blow over in a stiff breeze. Where Darrel's hair was cropped close to his square head, Ivan's sable mane fell into his eyes and curled around his collar. Darrel was all business; Ivan looked as if he were living simultaneously in another dimension. Darrel liked to make sure his operation was “ship shape”; Ivan liked rocks. Not surprising in a geologist.

“How do they deal with each other? Does it seem amicable, confrontational, competitive?”

“Everything's pretty friendly. They point, they haggle, they smile a lot, they trade their stuff, and when it's all over, they bow.” He demonstrated, pulling his fist to his heart and dipping his head.

“They're quite generous.” Ivan reached into the collar of his shirt and pulled out a chain with an amulet of the fool's tungsten crystals dangling from it. “One of them gave me this just because I admired it.”

“They are generous,” said Darrel, smiling, “which is why I have hopes that we'll strike a stellar deal for the mining rights. They don't use much of the metal, though they've a fondness for the crystals. And they don't actually mine it. What they do use they've picked up from river run-off and rock fall.”

“But they do use the metal,” Rhys objected mildly.

“For cook pots,” said Darrel. “They make household utensils, statues, that sort of thing. Which wrecks their smelters in pretty short order. I'm sure you've noticed.”

“Statues?” Rhys seized on the word. “Religious icons?”

Darrel's expression was wary. “Maybe.”

“The laws of the Collective are clear about that. If for example, roesel is the substance of which religious items are made —”

“Yes, professor. I know—Sub-section 5A: the ‘Santa' Clause—we're legally bound to respect native religious beliefs and customs.”

Darrel's sarcastic reference to the Protection of Religious Traditions clause in the Collective charter made Rhys cringe. He was certain a glance in a mirror would show a marked increase in the redness of his hair.

“We tried to outline the PRT clause for them,” said Ivan quickly. “To reassure them. But I don't know how much they understood of it.”

Rhys straightened his kilt and stood. “Enough not to accidentally give up things that are dear to them, I hope.”

Darrel's face clouded. “Don't take sides, Professor.”

“Take sides?”

Darrel rose. “I did a little research into your history with Tanaka, Dr. Llewellyn. Your reputation isn't what Ms. Price advertised it to be. You're not a company man.”

“No, I'm an independent consultant.”

“I meant that even when you were on Tanaka's payroll you didn't always put the company's interests first.”

Just short of grinding his teeth, Rhys forced his jaw to relax. “I've done good work for Tanaka. And I've done it without sacrificing the cultures from which we've acquired resources. The company once valued that. I intend to do good work for Tanaka here on Fourier's World—again, without sacrificing the native's interests.”

“The company is changing,” said Darrel, “Don't —”

Ivan Terezov came abruptly to his feet. “Don't take Darrel too seriously, Professor. He enjoys challenges so much he'll create one out of thin air. I doubt,” he continued, ignoring his associate's glower, “that the native's interests are really in conflict with ours.”

Darrel subsided. “Of course not,” he said, and reseated himself.

“The first thing we need to do,” Rhys said, “is establish better communications with the natives than afforded by sign language and pointing. I imagine Yoshi will be ready to help out with that. I'd best go see what she's got for us.”

“May I tag along, professor?” asked Ivan.

Rhys had no objection to that, though he rather suspected the gangly scientist was intended as a nanny... or a spy.

o0o

The Arkuit, as they called themselves, spoke a language that had no articles and no explicit tenses—those were implied. It also had several possessive cases. A noun could be modified by whether it belonged to “me” to “you” or to “us.”

There were no explicit gender pronouns either—the word for “man” (
zhenshin
) was the same as the word for “woman”, the difference was in inflection. The emphasis was subtly on the first syllable the subject was a woman, and on the second if it was a man. You literally said, “Man does this” or “Woman does that.” The only pronoun was a neuter term—
zhin
—that corresponded to the human word one.

The Lingua Franca translator digested this easily, as did Yoshi. By the end of her village tour, she was conversing with Rasimet without half-listening to the murmur of the LF in her ear.

Rasimet was impressed, but showed puzzlement at the changes to Yoshi's voice whenever the LF kicked in and pronounced words for her. The computerized voice was meant to mimic the user's as perfectly as possible, but it had a mechanical quality that several times sent Rasimet into the Arkuit equivalent of a fit of giggles.

Yoshi asked Rasimet about the products of the smelter and was shown cook pots, spoons, household utensils, fittings for carts and the metal bits and buckles the Arkuit used in the harnesses of their draft animals. None of the items were particularly artistic, but they were serviceable. Artistry, Yoshi found, was reserved for statues, ornaments and jewelry. These were beautifully rendered in softer metals and the stunning geifa crystals.

In a shop two doors down from the smelter, Rasimet showed Yoshi a selection of lovely jewels, pointing out the different colors of crystal and communicating the relative value of the various shades.

“Dark ones are best,” Rasimet said in Arkuit. “Pale ones are lesser. I like golden ones.”

To illustrate, she pulled back the sleeve of her tunic and revealed several bangles with different shades of geifa crystals. The stones in her bracelets ranged from saffron to palest yellow, but it was the bangle composed entirely of buttery golden stones with fiery orange hearts that captured Yoshi's gaze. She gave an involuntary exclamation of awe and touched a finger to the stones.

“Oh, they're lovely!” she said in Standard, then repeated in Arkuit. “
Sympa
—beautiful! That one, most of all.”

“You like?” asked Rasimet, her eyes widening.

“Yes. Much.”

Rasimet glanced down at the bracelets, then slid the one Yoshi had touched from her wrist and held it out to her. “I am satisfied.”

Yoshi shook her head and held out her hand to halt the other woman. “I couldn't... it is dear to you.”

“It is our way,” said Rasimet. “Our ‘culture'.” She said the word “culture” in Standard with obvious pride.

Yoshi smiled, thanked her and accepted the gift, slipping it onto her own wrist.

“Rasimet,” she said tentatively as the two made their way to a bake shop so fragrant it made Yoshi's mouth water. “Do you, um, understand what stranger-people (the word was
hom
, but with an upward inflection) want from Arkuit?”

Rasimet reflected on the question so long Yoshi was afraid she hadn't made her meaning clear. Finally the Arkuit woman said, “Yes. You want roesel and geifa. From Sleeping Isvyerg. We do not understand how.”

The LF hiccupped. “Sleeping Isvyerg?” repeated Yoshi.

Rasimet stopped in the middle of the street and pointed up at the mountains that dominated the eastern skyline. “Sleeping Isvyerg,” she said again. “
Gorosh
.”

The word for mountain. “Mountain named Isvyerg?”

Rasimet tilted her head down to the right in the affirmative.

“What means ‘Isvyerg?'” Yoshi asked.

“Emmm...”

Rasimet considered that, ultimately coming up with another Arkuit word that the LF tripped over. She pointed across the street to where a large, shaggy draft animal was tethered, harnessed to one of the ubiquitous native carts. It reminded Yoshi of a yak. “Isvyerg.”

Seeing Yoshi's confusion, Rasimet laughed. “Bigger,” she said, spreading her arms wide. “Big-bigger.”

Sleeping Big Yak? Yoshi looked back to the peaks with their caps of blue-white snow. They did look rather like a sleeping yak, she supposed.

Rasimet led her into the bakery where the shopkeeper haggled with a customer over some goods laid out on the counter—three round, golden loaves of bread and a knife. It was not a native knife, but an old chef's knife of human manufacture with a blade that had seen much honing.

The Arkuit men looked up as the two women entered the shop. Once their gazes fell on Yoshi, the barter objects were forgotten.

As she moved by the counter toward the shelves of baked goods flanking it, Yoshi gave the knife a closer look. On the blade just below the handle was embossed a symbol that she recognized.

She started to ask Rasimet where it might have come from, but the other woman was already introducing her to the baker.

“Woman is Yoshi,” she told the man, whose glossy coat was a shade of gold not unlike his bread. To Yoshi she said, “This man is Baker Burgat. And,” she added, turning her smile on the other fellow, “this man is Metalworker Oreth.”

Yoshi greeted both men in their language, gratified by their pleased surprise.

Rasimet turned her attention to baked goods then and had a series of words with Burgat that both Yoshi and the LF had trouble tracking. At the end of the dialogue, Burgat held up his hands in a “wait-wait” gesture, then disappeared into the back room. He reappeared with two lovely fat buns with shiny crusts. These he held out to Rasimet and Yoshi.

“For you,” he said. “I am satisfied. Tell other stranger-people of Baker Burgat's shop.”

Accepting the fragrant and still warm bun, Yoshi promised to spread the word among the members of the advance team.