Citizen of the Galaxy

Chapter 8

Thorby had two choices: be adopted quietly, or make a fuss and be adopted anyhow. He chose the first, which was sensible, as opposing the will of the Chief Officer was unpleasant and almost always futile. Besides, while he felt odd and rather unhappy about acquiring a new family so soon after the death of Pop, nevertheless he could see that the change was to his advantage. As a fraki, his status had never been lower. Even a slave has equals.

But most important, Pop had told him to do what Captain Krausa said for him to do.

The adoption took place in the dining saloon at the evening meal that day. Thorby understood little of what went on and none of what was said, since the ceremonies were in the "secret language," but the Captain had coached him in what to expect. The entire ship's company was there, except those on watch. Even Doctor Mader was there, inside the main door and taking no part but where she could see and hear.

The Chief Officer was carried in and everyone stood. She was settled on a lounge at the head of the officers' table, where her daughter-in-law, the Captain's wife attended her. When she was comfortable, she made a gesture and they sat down, the Captain seating himself on her right Girls "from the port moiety, the watch with the day's duty, then served all hands with bowls of thin mush. No one touched it. The Chief Officer banged her spoon on her bowl and spoke briefly and emphatically.

Her son followed her. Thorby was surprised to discover that he recognized a portion of the Captain's speech as being identical with part of the message Thorby had delivered; he could spot the sequence of sounds.

The Chief Engineer, a man older than Krausa, answered, then several older people, both men and women, spoke. The Chief Officer asked a question and was answered in chorus -- a unanimous assent. The old woman did not ask for dissenting votes.

Thorby was trying to catch Doctor Mader's eye when the Captain called to him in Interlingua. Thorby had been seated on a stool alone and was feeling conspicuous, especially as persons he caught looking at him did not seem very friendly.

"Come here!"

Thorby looked up, saw both the Captain and his mother looking at him. She seemed irritated or it may have been the permanent set of her features. Thorby hurried over.

She dipped her spoon in his dish, barely licked it. Feeling as if he were doing something horribly wrong but having been coached, he dipped his spoon in her bowl, timidly took a mouthful. She reached up, pulled his head down and pecked him with withered lips on both cheeks. He returned the symbolic caress and felt gooseflesh.

Captain Krausa ate from Thorby's bowl; he ate from the Captain's. Then Krausa took a knife, held the point between thumb and forefinger and whispered in Interlingua, "Mind you don't cry out." He stabbed Thorby in his upper arm.

Thorby thought with contempt that Baslim had taught him to ignore ten times that much pain. But blood flowed freely. Krausa led him to a spot where all might see, said something loudly, and held his arm so that a puddle of blood formed on the deck. The Captain stepped on it, rubbed it in with his foot, spoke loudly again -- and a cheer went up. Krausa said to Thorby in Interlingua, "Your blood is now in the steel; our steel is in your blood."

Thorby had encountered sympathetic magic all his life and its wild, almost reasonable logic he understood. He felt a burst of pride that he was now part of the ship.

The Captain's wife slapped a plaster over the cut. Then Thorby exchanged food and kisses with her, after which he had to do it right around the room, every table, his brothers and his uncles, his sisters and his cousins and his aunts. Instead of kissing him, the men and boys grasped his hands and then clapped him across the shoulders. When he came to the table of unmarried females he hesitated -- and discovered that they did not kiss him; they giggled and squealed and blushed and hastily touched forefingers to his forehead.

Close behind him, girls with the serving duty cleared away the bowls of mush -- purely ritualistic food symbolizing the meager rations on which the People could cross space if necessary -- and were serving a feast. Thorby would have been clogged to his ears with mush had he not caught onto the trick: don't eat it, just dip the spoon, then barely taste it. But when at last he was seated, an accepted member of the Family, at the starboard bachelors' table, he had no appetite for the banquet in his honor. Eighty-odd new relatives were too much. He felt tired, nervous, and let down.

But he tried to eat. Presently he heard a remark in which he understood only the word "fraki." He looked up and saw a youth across the table grinning unpleasantly.

The president of the table, seated on Thorby's right, rapped for attention. "Well speak nothing but Interlingua tonight," he announced, "and thereafter follow the customs in allowing a new relative gradually to acquire our language." His eye rested coldly on the youngster who had sneered at Thorby. "As for you, Cross-Cousin-in-Law by Marriage, I'll remind you -- just once -- that my Adopted Younger Brother is senior to you. And I'll see you in my bunkie after dinner."

The younger boy looked startled. "Aw, Senior Cousin, I was just saying --"

"Drop it." The young man said quietly to Thorby, "Use your fork. People do not eat meat with fingers."

"Fork?"

"Left of your plate. Watch me; you'll learn. Don't let them get you riled. Some of these young oafs have yet to learn that when Grandmother speaks, she means business."

Thorby was moved from his bunkie into a less luxurious larger room intended for four bachelors. His roommates were Fritz Krausa, who was his eldest unmarried foster brother and president of the starboard bachelor table, Chelan Krausa-Drotar, Thorby's foster ortho-second-cousin by marriage, and Jeri Kingsolver, his foster nephew by his eldest married brother.

It resulted in his learning Suomic rapidly. But the words he needed first were not Suomish; they were words borrowed or invented to describe family relationships in great detail. Languages reflect cultures; most languages distinguish brother, sister, father, mother, aunt, uncle, and link generations by "great" or "grand." Some languages make no distinction between (for example) "father" and "uncle" and the language reflects tribal custom. Contrariwise, some languages (e.g., Norwegian) split "uncle" into maternal and paternal ("morbror" and "farbror").

The Free Traders can state a relationship such as "my maternal foster half-stepuncle by marriage, once removed and now deceased" in one word, one which means that relationship and no other. The relation between any spot on a family tree and any other spot can be so stated. Where most cultures find a dozen titles for relatives sufficient the Traders use more than two thousand. The languages name discreetly and quickly such variables as generation, lineal or collateral, natural or adopted, age within generation, sex of speaker, sex of relative referred to, sexes of relatives forming linkage, consanguinity or affinity, and vital status.

Thorby's first task was to learn the word and the relationship defined by it with which he must address each of more than eighty new relatives; he had to understand the precise flavor of relationship, close or distant, senior or junior; he had to learn other titles by which he would be addressed by each of them. Until he had learned all this, he could not talk because as soon as he opened his mouth he would commit a grave breach in manners.

He had to associate five things for each member of the Sisu's company, a face, a full name (his own name was now Thorby Baslim-Krausa), a family title, that person's family title for him, and that person's ship's rank (such as "Chief Officer" or "Starboard Second Assistant Cook"). He learned that each person must be addressed by family title in family matters, by ship's rank concerning ship's duties, and by given names on social occasions if the senior permitted it -- nicknames hardly existed, since the nickname could be used only down, never up.

Until he grasped these distinctions, he could not be a functioning member of the family even though he was legally such. The life of the ship was a caste system of such complex obligations, privileges and required reactions to obligatory actions, as to make the stratified, protocol-ridden society of Jubbul seem like chaos. The Captain's wife was Thorby's "mother" but she was also Deputy Chief Officer; how he addressed her depended on what he had to say. Since he was in bachelor quarters, the mothering phase ceased before it started; nevertheless she treated him warmly as a son and offered her cheek for his kiss just as she did for Thorby's roommate and elder brother Fritz.

But as Deputy Chief Officer she could be as cold as a tax collector.

Not that her status was easier; she would not be Chief Officer until the old woman had the grace to die. In the meantime she was hand and voice and body servant for her mother-in-law. Theoretically senior officers were elective; practically it was a one-party system with a single slate. Krausa was captain because his father had been; his wife was deputy chief officer because she was his wife, and she would someday become chief officer -- and boss him and his ship as his mother did -- for the same reason. Meanwhile his wife's high rank carried with it the worst job in the ship, with no respite, for senior officers served for life... unless impeached, convicted, and expelled -- onto a planet for unsatisfactory performance, into the chilly thinness of space for breaking the ancient and pig-headed laws of Sisu.

But such an event was as scarce as a double eclipse; Thorby's mother's hope lay in heart failure, stroke, or other hazard of old age.

Thorby as adopted youngest son of Captain Krausa, senior male of the Krausa sept, titular head of Sisu clan (the Captain's mother being the real head), was senior to three-fourths of his new relatives in clan status (he had not yet acquired ship's rank). But seniority did not make life easier. With rank goeth privileges -- so it ever shall be. But also with it go responsibility and obligation, always more onerous than privileges are pleasant.

It was easier to learn to be a beggar.

He was swept up in his new problems and did not see Doctor Margaret Mader for days. He was hurrying down the trunk corridor of fourth deck -- he was always hurrying now -- when he ran into her.

He stopped. "Hello, Margaret."

"Hello, Trader. I thought for a moment that you were no longer speaking to fraki."

"Aw, Margaret!"

She smiled. "I was joking. Congratulations, Thorby. I'm happy for you -- it's the best solution under the circumstances."

"Thanks. I guess so."

She shifted to System English and said with motherly concern, "You seem doubtful, Thorby. Aren't things going well?"

"Oh, things are all right" He suddenly blurted the truth. "Margaret, I'm never going to understand these people!"

She said gently, "I've felt the same way at the beginning of every field study and this one has been the most puzzling. What is bothering you?"

"Uh... I don't know. I never know. Well, take Fritz -- he's my elder brother. He's helped me a lot -- then I miss something that he expects me to understand and he blasts my ears off. Once he hit me. I hit back and I thought he was going to explode."

"Peck rights," said Margaret.

"What?"

"Never mind. It isn't scientifically parallel; humans aren't chickens. What happened?"

"Well, just as quickly he went absolutely cold, told me he would forget it, wipe it out, because of my ignorance."

"Noblesse oblige."

"Huh?"

"Sorry. My mind is a junk yard. And did he?"

"Completely. He was sweet as sugar. I don't know why he got sore... and I don't know why he quit being sore when I hit him." He spread his hands. "It's not natural."

"No, it isn't. But few things are. Mmm... Thorby, I might be able to help. It's possible that I know how Fritz works better than he knows. Because I'm not one of the 'People.'"

"I don't understand."

"I do, I think. It's my job to. Fritz was born into the People; most of what he knows -- and he is a very sophisticated young man -- is subconscious. He can't explain it because he doesn't know he knows it; he simply functions. But what I have learned these past two years I have learned consciously. Perhaps I can advise you when you are shy about asking one of them. You can speak freely with me; I have no status."

"Gee, Margaret, would you?"

"Whenever you have time. I haven't forgotten that you promised to discuss Jubbul with me, either. But don't let me hold you; you seemed in a hurry."

"I wasn't, not really." He grinned sheepishly. "When I hurry I don't have to speak to as many people... and I usually don't know how."

"Ah, yes. Thorby, I have photographs, names, family classification, ship's job, on everyone. Would it help?"

"Huh? I should say so! Fritz thinks it's enough just to point somebody out once and say who he is."

"Then come to my room. It's all right; I have a dispensation to interview anyone there. The door opens into a public corridor; you don't cross purdah line."

Arranged by case cards with photographs, the data Thorby had had trouble learning piecemeal he soaked up in half an hour -- thanks to Baslim's training and Doctor Mader's orderliness. In addition, she had prepared a family tree for the Sisu; it was the first he had seen; his relatives did not need diagrams, they simply knew.

She showed him his own place. "The plus mark means that while you are in the direct sept, you were not born there. Here are a couple more, transferred from collateral branches to sept... to put them into line of command I suspect. You people call yourselves a 'family' but the grouping is a phratry."

"A what?"

"A related group without a common ancestor which practices exogamy -- that means marrying outside the group. "The exogamy taboo holds, modified by rule of moiety. You know how the two moieties work?"

"They take turns having the day's duty."

"Yes, but do you know why the starboard watch has more bachelors and the port watch more single women?"

"Uh, I don't think so."

"Females adopted from other ships are in port moiety; native bachelors are starboard. Every girl in your side must be exchanged... unless she can find a husband among a very few eligible men. You should have been adopted on this side, but that would have required a different foster father. See the names with a blue circle-and-cross? One of those girls is your future wife... unless you find a bride on another ship."

Thorby felt dismayed at the thought. "Do I have to?"

"If you gain ship's rank to match your family rank, you'll have to carry a club to beat them off."

It fretted him. Swamped with family, he felt more need for a third leg than he did for a wife.

"Most societies," she went on, "practice both exogamy and endogamy -- a man must marry outside his family but inside his nation, race, religion, or some large group, and you Free Traders are no exception; you must cross to another moiety but you can't marry fraki. But your rules produce an unusual setup; each ship is a patrilocal matriarchy."

"A what?"

" 'Patrilocal' means that wives join their husbands' families; a matriarchy... well, who bosses this ship?"

"Why, the Captain."

"He does?"

"Well, Father listens to Grandmother, but she is getting old and --"

"No 'buts.' The Chief Officer is boss. It surprised me; I thought it must be just this ship. But it extends all through the People. Men do the trading, conn the ship and mind its power plant -- but a woman always is boss. It makes sense within its framework; it makes your marriage customs tolerable."

Thorby wished she would not keep referring to marriage.

"You haven't seen ships trade daughters. Girls leaving weep and wail and almost have to be dragged... but girls arriving have dried their eyes and are ready to smile and flirt, eyes open for husbands. If a girl catches the right man and pushes him, someday she can be sovereign of an Independent state. Until she leaves her native ship, she isn't anybody -- which is why her tears dry quickly. But if men were boss, girl-swapping would be slavery; as it is, it's a girl's big chance."

Doctor Mader turned away from the chart. "Human customs that help people live together are almost never planned. But they are useful, or they don't survive. Thorby, you have been fretted about how to behave toward your relatives."

"I certainly have!"

"What's the most important thing to a Trader?"

Thorby thought. "Why, the Family. Everything depends on who you are in the Family."

"Not at all. His ship."

"Well, when you say 'ship' you mean 'family.' "

"Just backwards. If a Trader becomes dissatisfied, where can he go? Space won't have him without a ship around him; nor can he imagine living on a planet among fraki, the idea is disgusting. His ship is his life, the air he breathes comes from his ship; somehow he must learn to live in it. But the pressure of personalities is almost unbearable and there is no way to get away from each other. Pressure could build up until somebody gets killed... or until the ship itself is destroyed. But humans devise ways to adjust to any conditions. You people lubricate with rituals, formalism, set patterns of speech, obligatory actions and responses. When things grow difficult you hide behind a pattern. That's why Fritz didn't stay angry."

"Huh?"

"He couldn't. You had done something wrong... but the fact itself showed that you were ignorant. Fritz had momentarily forgotten, then he remembered and his anger disappeared. The People do not permit themselves to be angry with a child; instead they set him back on the proper path... until he follows your complex customs as automatically as Fritz does."

"Uh, I think I see." Thorby sighed. "But it isn't easy."

"Because you weren't born to it. But you'll learn and it will be no more effort than breathing -- and as useful. Customs tell a man who he is, where he belongs, what he must do. Better illogical customs than none; men cannot live together without them. From an anthropologist's view, 'justice' is a search for workable customs."

"My father -- my other father, I mean; Baslim the Cripple -- used to say the way to find justice is to deal fairly with other people and not worry about how they deal with you."

"Doesn't that fit what I said?"

"Uh, I guess so."

"I think Baslim the Cripple would regard the People as just." She patted his shoulder. "Never mind, Thorby. Do your best and one day you'll marry one of those nice girls. You'll be happy."

The prophecy did not cheer Thorby.