Trident's Forge (5 page)

K
exx sat
next to Mei on the banks of the small lake at the center of the village, watching in rapt attention as the children swam, splashed, and squealed in the water. The
human
children, as the visitors called their race were, to be blunt, simply terrible swimmers. Even the youngest among the G'tel village were comfortable moving through the water as soon as they entered the world.

But whatever they lacked in competency, the strange, pale little creatures more than made up for it with sheer, screaming excitement. Their joy was infectious, quickly spreading among many of the village children who had come running down to the lake to see what all the noise was about. Without a second thought, and much to the surprise of the horrified parents who came looking for them, many of the G'tel children jumped in and started splashing the visitors, spraying them by blowing water through hollow stems, and challenging them to see who could stay underwater the longest. In this last category, the human children inevitably lost, but giggled anyway.

Kexx couldn't remember seeing anyone have so much fun while being so profoundly awful at something. But more importantly, it was the first time ze'd seen any of the visitors and zer own people interacting so freely. For the children in the water, all of the fear, mistrust, and apprehension of the last three Varrs had simply disappeared. They played like they'd all been friends since their naming. Even the ring of nervous parents standing around the shores of the lake, both G'tel and human, soon lost interest and sat or laid down to enjoy the afternoon sun. Even a pair of bearers, usually nervous and fearful, had come out to enjoy watching the frivolity.

Leave it to the innocence of children to set fear aside in favor of an afternoon free of their daily chores. Glancing around at the adults sunning themselves, Kexx realized that maybe that spark still burned in everyone.

Ze looked over at Mei's face, trying to gauge zer expression. It wasn't easy. The visitors' skin was, well, dead. It was a single color, uniform and unchanging like the sunbleached flesh of the recently departed. Even Kexx found it unnerving at times.

The humans couldn't produce either the contrasting patterns that G'tel used during the daytime, or the waves of gentle blue light they used at night. In fact, the only change in the human's skin Kexx had seen at all was a slight reddening, but that seemed to have more to do with too much time in the sun than trying to communicate anything. Instead, the visual cues for their language were hand gestures, shifts in the tone and volume of their childlike voices, and frustratingly subtle, rapid movements and changes to their strangely contoured faces.

Right now, for example, Mei's soft mouth was turned up at the corners, small creases had formed on zer cheeks, and zer eyes were half shut. Kexx had come to recognize this arrangement as either contentment and happiness, or squinting against a bright light. Which one was it now? Was it both? There was no way to know.

Before the visitors arrived, it never occurred to Kexx to think of the spoken and visual parts of their language as separate components, but now it was foremost on zer mind. Mei was proving to be a fast learner, but even as ze mastered the words, they were flat, devoid of emotion, intentions, and all the tiny social and hierarchal nuances that Kexx had always taken for granted.

Mei was equally aware of the problem and trying fast to come up with zer own solutions. Conversations with zer were held back by zer limited vocabulary, but that was changing with shocking speed as ze picked up new words by the handful daily, much faster than even the brightest G'tel child. But her progress with the visual part of G'tel language was just as slow and plodding as Kexx's was with zers.

Mei noticed Kexx staring and zer expression changed once more. Ze'd tried to explain to Kexx that among zer people, staring at someone was considered rude. But among G'tel, watching someone intently was polite. It meant you were paying attention to what they were thinking, saying, or feeling, clues to all of which were on the skin for everyone to see.

“What, Kexx?” Mei said in zer mouth's best approximation of the words. Then, she slowly ran three fingers widely spaced up her arm. Ze was trying to mimic the pattern of stripes G'tel would make to convey the emotion behind the question. Stripes radiating out from their chest and down their arms was a signal that the person was trying to push away defensively, or in annoyance. But stripes moving from their hands toward their core was an invitation to come closer out of curiosity or concern. Mei was trying to say she wasn't offended and wanted to talk.

Very clever, this one.

“You are happy?” Kexx asked.

Mei exhaled fully, then laid back on the ground with one of zer strange, ridged arms tucked behind zer head and closed zer eyes.

“Yes. Many,” ze whispered. Kexx assumed ze'd meant to say “very” instead of “many,” but the distinction was a small one and zer meaning was conveyed regardless. It was a drastic change from the days after Mei and the rest of zer people had washed ashore. They were all on the verge of starvation and sick as uliks caught out in the sun. Six of them had already died by the time they arrived from… wherever they'd come from. It was nearly a full Varr before they recovered, and two more of them died in the process.

Through the grace of Xis, all of the children had survived, including Mei's own child, Sakiko. What had happened to the child's other parent, or the bearer, ze hadn't said. Maybe there was nothing to say, maybe it was too painful. Kexx couldn't begin to imagine what the survivors had been through out on the open ocean for so long. There was a reason G'tel swam and fished in the shallows near the shore. The deep ocean held dangers colder and darker than anything living under the stars. To build their “boat” to float out among those dangers seemed like madness. But Mei was not mad, none of the humans were. They just saw things differently, as if they saw… more. Kexx didn't understand what, but ze desperately wanted to.

One of the children squealed in a way that seemed designed specifically for rupturing eardrums, drawing the attention of every adult of both peoples. But a burst of laughter followed, confirming that all was well. How fortunate it was, Kexx thought, that the one thing they all shared and understood was laughter. Maybe it needed no translation. Maybe it was Xis's way of reminding them all of what was most important.

Without warning, Sakiko came running up on the two of them, still dripping wet from the pond.

“Mama!” ze screamed, “Fula splashed me!”

Mei sighed heavily, then propped zerself up on zer rigid arms. “So splash zer back, Sakiko. Ze's playing with you.”

“But it got in my eyes!”

“Can you still see?”

Sakiko pawed at the ground with zer feet. “…A little.”

“Then you're fine. Go play. Kexx and I are talking.”

Sakiko's tiny face and soft, pliable features turned towards Kexx. In just the six Varrs since the humans had arrived, ze could already recognize the changes in the child's face, to say nothing of zer speech.

“Hi Uncle Kexx.” Sakiko waved zer hand in a human gesture of greeting, the imagined slight by Fula forgotten.

“Hello, Sah-Key-Coo,” Kexx said, still struggling with the name, much to zer embarrassment. Kexx still didn't understand the “uncle” title. Mei had tried to explain it as a kind of family relationship that Kexx also didn't understand, but ze felt honored regardless. Kexx returned the greeting wave and approximated a human smile.

The relative calm of the day was broken by the sounds of argument coming from the temple. Kexx sat up to get a better look at the commotion and saw three of the elders standing outside the temple shouting and waving their arms. Their patterns passed wildly between anger, confusion, and near panic. Most unlike elders, who were less prone to emotional outbursts after their transition. It did not bode well.

Mei noticed too and moved to stand up, but Kexx put a gentle hand on zer shoulder. “What?” ze asked.

“Stay here, Mei.” Mei nodded zer head, a gesture Kexx knew meant acceptance, even if zer face looked sour, somehow. Kexx left Mei by the lake and jogged up to the group arguing outside the temple.

“Elders,” zer skin flashed deferential patterns. “What's wrong?”

“Truth-digger Kexx,” Tuko, the village chief, grabbed zer forearm. “We have a new problem.”

Ze was the youngest chief in a century, only a year past zer transition to elder. There was still much color in zer crests, and the heat and strength of a young warrior lingered in zer bloodways. Even after the transition, the attributes of youth clung more tenaciously to some than others.

Kexx returned the grip. “What is it, elder?”

“It's the
rovor
.” Zer mouth twisted awkwardly around the unfamiliar human word for the emissary. Kexx looked at Tuko expectantly until ze continued. “It's talking.”

“Let me get Mei, ze can help to translate for–”

“No, you don't understand. It isn't speaking human. It's speaking
our
language.”

T
he mood
inside the temple was hushed, guarded. All but a handful of village elders and a couple of important guests had been unceremoniously herded out of the dome and ordered not to reenter or speak about what they'd heard until the elders had decided what to do about it.

Tuko stood at the center of the assembly, gripping the ancestral spear of the village chief. The rover, for its part, sat at the center of the floor as passively as it ever had, except for the bizarre, mouthless voice filling the air. Over and over, it repeated the same message:

–
G
reetings
. We long to know your people in friendship. We come in calm. Watch the sky for our great bird. –

“
W
hat in Cuut's
name does
that
mean?” The question came from Kuul, a young, ambitious fighter many years yet from zer transition. Ze'd succeeded Tuko as head of the village's warriors after Tuko's transition and ascension to chief. Kuul made no secret of the disdain ze had for the humans, or zer disapproval of their continued presence in the village.

“I was hoping our truth digger would know,” Tuko said. “Kexx has spent more time with the humans than anyone.”

Kexx ignored the accusatory undercurrent of Tuko's statement. “Have you tried asking it?”

“Of course we did, but it just repeats the same words. It's stupid. It can't think,” Kuul spit back.

Kexx's skin pattern changed, dialing back from confusion and alarm and returning to a slow pulse showing deference. “Chief Tuko, Mei has explained to me that this…” ze swept a hand toward the rover, “…isn't alive like an animal, or even a plant. It is a tool, like a spear or a plow.”

“Plows and spears don't move and talk by themselves!” Kuul objected.

Kexx bowed slightly. “I would like to ask permission to bring Mei into this conversation. Ze can explain this better than I can.”

“Ze can barely speak our language,” Kuul said.

“Ze is learning very quickly. Faster than I did as a child. Ze can answer our questions. We just have to have the wisdom to listen.”

Tuko flexed zer fingers in a signal of annoyance. “You give your pets an awful lot of praise. Maybe too much.”

Kexx lowered zer bow a fraction more. “You appointed me as this village's truth-digger. My task is to learn that which can be known, and to share it without distortion so that your wisdom may be built on bedrock instead of sand. You've never expressed doubt in my work before.”

Tuko put a hand under Kexx's chin and pulled zer back upright. “Just remember who your people are, and where your loyalties belong.”

“I haven't forgotten, elder.”

“Fine. Bring your pet so we may ask our questions.”

Kexx said zer thanks and went to retrieve Mei from by the lake, but the humans had already packed up and left. Kexx asked one of the G'tel children where their new playmates had gone. Ze pointed uphill to the outskirts of the village where the humans' shelter had been hastily built near the halo tree's inside edge. Several of the adults saw Kexx approaching and moved to block zer from entering.

Kexx reached the shelter and slowed to a walk as ze neared the line of humans. “I need to see Mei,” ze said, but if anyone understood, there was no sign of it on their stony faces.

“Mei,” Kexx called out, hoping ze would be heard over the growing sounds of alarm echoing through the rest of the village. Something was happening back down the hill.

Kexx spotted one of the G'tel children who'd been playing in the water. Ze cupped zer hands and shouted as loud as ze could. “Cho! What's wrong?”

Cho stopped and turned to face zer. “The elders say the emissary's message changed. It's counting down to something.”

“To what?”

“I don't know.”

“They come,” came the small voice from right beside zer. Kexx nearly jumped out of her skin from the shock. Ze looked down to see Mei standing a step behind zer, holding and staring at some sort of flat, shiny rock Kexx had never seen before.

“Who, Mei? Who comes?”

“The rest of us.” Mei turned the rock around and held its perfectly flat, polished surface so Kexx could see it. Ze nearly pushed the ornament away to press Mei for an answer, but then something on the surface of the rock caught zer eye.

It was a picture, like a simple painting, except it was
moving
, as if it was trapped just below the surface. But the rock was thin, impossibly thin. Kexx reached out in bewilderment to touch the moving painting, but jumped back as the image changed entirely again in response to zer finger, replaced by rows of small squares containing their own simple pictures in bright contrasting colors.