Native Tongue

Chapter Twenty-three

This was a splendid, and a rare, occasion. Looking down the tables spread with the heavy white linen (real linen, taken from chests in the storage rooms where is had been folded away along with other Household valuables rarely used), looking at the gleaming silver and crystal, Thomas wondered just when they had last done this. It had to have been years ago, unless you counted the Christmas dinners… and even for those, they didn’t bring the linens from the chests, or invite guests from the other Households. This opulent display was in honor of his seventieth birthday… and the last one, come to think of it, could only have been for some other Head-of-Household’s seventieth birthday. Long ago, in this house, it would have been the celebration for Paul John. As if the number seventy had some significance.

But it was of course only an excuse. To stop the round of work and study and breeding and training and recording. To spend time in eating and drinking and good fellowship. To spend time renewing acquaintances, seeing old friends you might not have seen except in passing for years and years. Such excuses were few and far between, with only thirteen Heads of Lines to turn seventy.

They’d been enjoying themselves, no question about it. First there had been the magnificent food, such food as the public was led to believe the linguists gobbled every night, and the fine champagne, and the exotic wines from the colonies. All of that with the women still at the tables, and the conversation restrained by their presence to politics and shop talk… but delightful nevertheless.

And now the women had gone off to whatever it is that women do when they are alone together — gossip, Thomas thought, always gossip — and the time for real conversation had come. The solid useful talk of men, who know and enjoy one another and can speak freely together. Not gossip, certainly. The bourbon had come out, and the best tobaccos; the room had a warmth that it never had at Christmas. Thomas smiled, realizing that he was genuinely contented, for that moment at least. So contented that even the thought of the latest D.A.T. catastrophe could not distract him. Not tonight.

“You look smug, Thomas,” his brother Adam observed, pouring him some more bourbon. “Downright smug.”

“I feel smug.”

“Just because you survived to seventy?” Adam needled him. “That’s not so remarkable. Two more years, and I’ll have done the same.”

Thomas just grinned at him and raised his glass to touch the other man’s in a satisfactory clink of mutual congratulation. Let Adam pester; nothing was going to spoil his mood tonight.

He pointed down the table with his cigarette, at the huddle of men in splendid formal wear complete with neckties. “What are they talking about down there, Adam? If it’s as good as it looks, I may move down where I can get in on it. Which is it, sex or the stock market?”

“Neither one. Surprise.”

“Oh? Not women, not money?”

“Oh, it’s women, Thomas. But not their arms and their bosoms and their bottoms, my dear brother. Nothing erotic.”

“Good lord. What else is there to talk about, when one talks of women?”

He paid attention then, trying to hear, and scraps of it floated up to him over the general hum.

“ — damned angel, all the time. Can’t believe — ”

“ — one single ache or pain, can you believe it? It’s unheard of, but God what a relief! I was — ”

“ — how it used to be, whine and nag and whine and nag from morning till night — ”

“ — how to account for it, but — ”

“ — damn, but it’s good, you know, having — ”

Thomas shook his head; he couldn’t hear enough. Just a word here and a phrase there, drowned in satisfied discourse.

“All right, Adam,” he said, “I give up. What are they talking about?”

“Well… I don’t know anything about it myself, living as I do in single blessedness. But if they are to be believed, something has come over all the women.”

“Come over them? They all looked just as usual to me — what do you mean, come over them?”

“According to them — ” Adam made a large gesture, to include all the men at the tables “ — the socialization process has finally begun to take hold, and the women are recovering at last from the effects of the effing feminist corruption. High time, wouldn’t you say?”

“That’s what they’re saying?”

“That’s it. Women, they tell me, do not nag any more. Do not whine. Do not complain. Do not demand things. Do not make idiot objections to everything a man proposes. Do not argue. Do not get sick — can you believe that, Thomas? No more headaches, no more monthlies, no more hysterics… or if there still are such things, at least they are never mentioned. So they say.”

Thomas frowned, and he thought about it. Was it true? When had he last had to put up with insolence from Rachel? To his astonishment, he found that he could not remember.

He raised his glass high and shouted down the table, to get their attention; and because it was, after all, his celebration they turned courteously to see what he wanted of them.

“Adam here tells me all our women have gone to open sainthood,” he said, smiling, “and I’m ashamed to say that I not only haven’t noticed, I don’t find it easy to believe — it’s a good deal more likely that Adam’s confused. But if he’s not, it sounds like a damn drastic change… is it all of them? Or just a few?”

They answered without any hesitation. It was all of the women in the Households. Oh, perhaps the very oldest were still a bit cross now and then, but that was age — even old men could be annoying. Except for that, it was all of them, all of the time. As Adam had said, the distortions of the twentieth century had apparently finally been laid to rest, and the new Eden was come on Earth.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Thomas declared.

“No doubt, brother, no doubt,” Adam said, with a foolish smirk on his face. Adam had had too much bourbon.

At the next table Andrew St. Syrus raised a hand and said, “Let me just take a poll, Thomas… all right? Tell me, all of you — how long has it been since you sat and listened to a woman nag? Or watched one sit and blather endlessly about something that no one in his right mind could possible have any interest in? Or blubber for hours over nothing at all? How long?”

There was a murmur, and some consultation, and then they agreed. It had to be at least six months. Perhaps longer. They had only begun to notice it recently, but it must have been going on quite a long time.

“But that’s amazing!” said Thomas.

“Isn’t it? And wonderful. And all in time for your seventieth!” And up came the bourbon glasses in a toast.

“Oh, and those tiny ones,” said someone across the room. “Oh, to be fifty years younger!”

A roar of laughter went around the room, with the usual jeers about dirty old men, but there was support from the other tables.

“They are so incredibly sweet, those tiny tiny girls,” mused the fellow who’d brought it up. A Hashihawa, he was; Thomas could not remember his first name. “And they have the most charming concepts. Chornyak, perceive this, would you? I have a granddaughter — hell, I have two or three dozen granddaughters — but this one in particular, she’s an adorable little thing, name of Shawna, I think. At any rate, I heard her just the other day, talking to one of the other little girls, and she was explaining so gravely how it was, that what she felt for her little brother was not ‘love’ qua ‘love’, you know, it was… I don’t remember the word exactly, but it meant ‘love for the sibling of one’s body but not of one’s heart.’ Charming! Just the kind of silly distinction a female would make, of course, but charming. Ah, it’ll be a lucky man of a lucky Line that beds my little Shawna, Thomas!”

“What language was she speaking?”

The man shrugged. “I don’t know… who can keep track? Whatever she Interfaced for, I suppose.”

And then the examples began coming from others. The charming examples. The so endearing examples. Just to add to the conversation and explain to Thomas, who clearly had not noticed what was going on around him lately. Not a lot of examples, because the subject went rather quickly to the more interesting question of the next Republican candidate for president of the United States. But at least a dozen.

Thomas sat there, forgetting his bourbon, something tugging at him. Adam was staring blearily at him, accusing him of thinking of business instead of celebrating like he was supposed to do. But he wasn’t thinking of business. Not at all. He was thinking about a dozen examples, a dozen “charming” and “endearing” concepts, from nearly as many different Households. That should have meant roughly a dozen different Alien languages for the examples to have come from. But it didn’t sound that way. Few of the men had remembered the actual surface shapes of the words, but Thomas had been a linguist all his life; he didn’t need all the words to be able to perceive the patterns. They were all, every one of them, from the same language. He would have staked his life on it.

And that could mean only one thing.

“Sweet jesus christ on a donkey in the shade of a lilac tree,” said Thomas out loud, stunned.

“Drink up,” Adam directed. “Do you good. You’re not half drunk enough.”

He was not drunk at all, he was stone cold sober. And a whole bottle of bourbon would not have made him drunk at that moment.

It could only mean one thing.

Because there was no way that the little girls of all those different Households could all be acquiring a single Alien language, all at the same time. No way.

And it began to fall together for him. Things he had half noticed, without being aware that he noticed them. Things he had seen from the corner of his eye, heard from the corner of his ear — things he had sensed.

He looked at the men of his blood, the men of the Lines, laughing and hearty and slightly tipsy and contented, surfeited with the rare pleasure of the evening and one another’s good company. And all he could think was: FOOLS. ALL OF YOU, FOOLS. AND I AM THE BIGGEST FOOL AMONG YOU. Because he was Head not of just Chornyak Household, but of all the Households, and that was supposed to mean something. That was supposed to mean that he always knew what was going on in the Lines, before it could go farther than it ought to go.

How could it have happened? Where could his mind have been?

He said nothing to the others, because of course he could be wrong. There could be some other explanation. There could be some cluster of related Alien languages spread out among the Lines by coincidence, something of that sort. Or he could be imagining the patterns, distracted by the liquor he so rarely drank. He put it aside and concentrated on fulfilling his role as host for the rest of the evening, because it was his duty to do so and because he would not spoil this for everyone else when he might be mistaken.

It dragged on, interminably, all the pleasure gone from it for him. Adam passed out and had to be carried to a cubbyhole in the dorms reserved for just such undignified accidents. Adam could not control his women, and he could not handle his liquor, and no doubt it was unpleasant for him to have to always compare himself with Thomas, and so he drank until he could compare no longer. It seemed to Thomas that this celebration, that had become a mockery, would never end.

When at last it was over, as had to happen despite his distorted time perceptions, Thomas was weak with a mixture of relief and dread. And glad that he could get away now to his office, where no one would dare go at night without his express invitation, and where Michaela Landry would be waiting for him as he had instructed her to be. He had expected to be in an unusually good mood at the end of this evening, and he had wanted her to be there, to talk to.

He still wanted her to be there, frantic as he felt. Not for her body — he had no interest in her body tonight. But for her blessed skill at listening with her whole heart and her whole mind. And for the fact that he could trust her absolutely.

He felt that if he could not have talked to someone about this he would have gone mad. He could talk to Michaela, bless her.

“Michaela, do you understand what I’m telling you? Do you follow what I’m saying?”

“I’m not sure,” she said carefully. “I’m not a linguist, my darling… I know nothing about these things. Perhaps if you would not mind explaining it to me again, I might understand.”

He badly needed to say it all again, that was clear to her. And for once she badly needed to hear it again. To be sure that he was saying what she thought he was saying, and to learn what he had learned. Because the women had not told her, of course, any more than they would have told any other woman who had to live among the men. Not even Nazareth. And Michaela had not guessed.

“Michaela,” said Thomas sternly, “if you would pay attention, you wouldn’t have any problem — it’s not beyond you to understand this.”

“Of course, Thomas. Forgive me — I will listen very very carefully this time.”

“Now you know about the Encoding Project, Michaela; you’re in and out of Barren House constantly, you couldn’t possibly not know. For generations our women have been playing at that game… constructing a ‘woman’s language’ called Langlish. You must have at least heard them speak of it.”

“I think I do remember something about it, Thomas.”

“Well, it’s nonsense, and it’s always been nonsense. In the first place, it is impossible to ‘construct’ a human language. We don’t know how any human language began, but we damn well know that it wasn’t because somebody sat down and created one from scratch.”

“Yes, my dear.”

“And in the second place, if it were possible to do such a thing, it certainly could not be done by women… as is made painfully clear by the travesty they’ve produced. Eighty-plus phonemes. Switching the obligatory word order — by committee, mind you — every two or three years. Sets of hundreds of particles. Five different orthographies, for different situations. Eleven different separate rules for the formation of simple yes/no questions. Thirteen — ” He caught himself then, remembering, and apologized. “None of that means anything at all to you, Michaela. I’m sorry.”

“It’s very interesting, Thomas,” she said. “And I’m sure it must be important, when a person understands it.”

“It is important. It bears out everything that I’ve said about the folly of both the Project itself and the women involved in it. It is exactly what you would expect to see happen when a group of women took on an entirely absurd task and worried at it in their spare time for interminable years. With committees and caucuses thrown in. It is what I would have predicted, and I do understand the result — and that is the problem.”

“I’m so sorry, my dear; now I really don’t follow you.”

“Michaela, I’ve made a point of checking up on the progress — or regress — of Langlish every six months or so. It’s puerile, mechanical, a kind of overelaborated Interlingua beside which Interlingua looks as authentic as Classical Greek. It has always been like that. It has been a source of amazement to the men of the Lines that our women could produce such a monstrosity… and has been proof enough, if we had needed further proof, that language acquisition skills are not directly correlated with intelligence. But — and this is the point — out of that travesty, that ‘Langlish,’ there could not possibly have developed any coherent system that could be learned and spoken by little girls throughout the linguist Households. It is impossible that that could have happened.”

Michaela noted the signs of strain in the muscles of his neck and shoulders, and moved to a different position where the turn of his head to look at her would ease them.

“But you seem to think that it has happened,” she said. “Or do I still misunderstand?”

“No… I think it has happened. I don’t understand it, it makes not the remotest sense, but I think that it has happened. And I will not have it, Michaela!”

“Certainly not,” she said promptly. “Of course you won’t.”

“I won’t have it,” he continued, as if she’d said nothing. “I have never believed in being overly strict with our women, but this I will not permit. Whatever it is, unless I have somehow got it entirely wrong, it’s dangerous — it has to be stopped, and stopped now, while it involves only a handful of little girls and a gaggle of foolish old women. Damn their conniving souls!”

“Will they tell you the truth about it, Thomas, do you think? If they’re frightened, I mean. I suppose this Langlish must mean a good deal to them.”

“I don’t expect to have to have them tell me,” he said, his face grim and his eyes blazing in a way she’d never seen him look before. “I will put everything else on my schedule for tomorrow aside. I will go to Barren House immediately after breakfast — I may damn well go before breakfast. And I will stay in that warren of iniquity until I get to the bottom of this if it takes me a week. I’ll turn out every cupboard in the place, I’ll look at every program in the computer… and while I’m there, to demonstrate to them that I am not quite as stupid as they may have thought, I will search every container and contraption they allegedly use for ‘needlework,’ with shears in hand if that’s what it takes. I’ll get to the bottom of it, Michaela. Whether they are ‘fond’ of it or not. Whether they dare try to lie to me or not.”

“I see, Thomas. My, what a lot of trouble for you.”

“And if it is what I think it is…”

“Yes, my dear? Then what?”

“Then,” and he struck his desk with his fist so hard that she nearly jumped — not quite, but nearly — “then I will stamp it out. Every last vestige of it. I will destroy it as I’d destroy vermin, and I’ll see to it that it’s done in every one of the Households. And there will be no more Encoding Project, Michaela, I give you my word on that. Not ever. Not ever again.”

Thinking that she must be more careful than she had ever been before, Michaela told him how wonderful it was that he could do all that, and so swiftly and surely. And then she asked him, “But my dear, I don’t think I see why you must trouble yourself in that way. It’s only a language, and they know so many languages already! Is it because they’ve done this without your permission… taught it to the children without asking you first?”

He stared at her fiercely, as if he would bite her, and she sat absolutely still and deliberately tranquil under his gaze until he was satisfied with glaring and clenching his teeth and knotting his brows.

“This Langlish, if they’ve actually pulled it together sufficiently for children to use it, would be as dangerous as any plague,” he told her flatly. “Never mind why, Michaela. It’s complicated. It’s way beyond you, and I’m glad it is. But it represents danger, and it represents corruption — and it shall not happen.”

“Oh, my dear,” Michaela breathed, “if it is so very dreadful as all that… perhaps you should not wait until tomorrow. Perhaps you should go tonight — yes, I am certain that you should go tonight!”

She knew no surer way to keep him from going straight to Barren House than to offer it as her emphatic suggestion, and he responded as she had anticipated.

“If I could be sure that I am right, I would go at once,” he said. “But I’m not quite that sure. There’s no need for hysteria.”

She shivered carefully, and made her eyes wide to tell him that she was frightened, and he laughed.

“Michaela, for heaven’s sake. Nothing could possibly happen before morning, even if I am right — and I’d look like a madman charging over there in the middle of the night if I’ve made an error. Don’t be absurd.”

He went on about it for quite a while; for him, he did a considerable amount of repeating himself. It was the whiskey, she supposed, or the shock of having to entertain the suspicion that the women had put something over on him. Or both.

She let him talk, feeling as if she were not really there in the cramped room but looking at it and at him through a tiny hole in a distant fabric, far from here, high in space and time. Whatever his problems might have been, they were about to be solved; as for her, she had no problems now because he had solved them. For good and for all. Peace filled her like dark slow water… the light in the room was gold melting and flowing.

Here was a murder that she could carry out as she had Ned’s, in good conscience. Here was a service that she could do, for the women of the Lines. She was no linguist and never could be, she couldn’t help them with their language and would only be a burden to them if she tried — but she was as skilled at killing as they were at their conjugations and declensions. She, Michaela Landry, could do something that not one of them, not even silly Aquina with her notions of militancy, could have done. She could save the woman’s language, at least for a time — perhaps long enough, certainly for a good while — and she could pay in some measure for her sins. If there had been deaths before at her hand that were not justified, if she had done harm, this would be a kind of recompense.

And no need to wait for opportunity, no need to be clever, because she had no intention of trying to escape. Not this time. She was tired, so tired, of playing the role of Ministering Angel while something in her writhed over questions she couldn’t answer, and the men she’d killed tormented her nights with their pleading. Now there would be an end to that, and the Almighty had mercifully granted her the privilege of a worthy end!

When he had fallen asleep, worn out with drink and with talk, she took a syringe from the nurse’s case that she kept always with her at night in case of an emergency, and she gave Thomas a single dose of a drug that was swift and sure. He made no sound, and he did not wake; in ten minutes he was quite dead, and past all hope of heroic measures. She moved him to the floor, long enough to close the couch that served them for a bed, and then she bent and maneuvered him onto it again — she had not spent all these years lifting and turning patients for nothing. She was strong enough, even for a man of his bulk, gone limp in death. She dressed him as he’d been dressed for the banquet, loosening the necktie, making it look as if he’d just stretched out there to take a nap. He often slept in his office, and no one would be surprised that he’d done so after the celebration.

And then! Ah, the wicked nurse, her sexual advances spurned by the upright moral Head of Household even in his slightly tipsy state, fell upon him and repaid his years of kindness with murder most foul! Out of nothing more than her wounded pride… She could easily imagine the newslines and the threedy features… CRIME OF PASSION! VINDICTIVE NURSE CRAZED WITH LUST AND MADDENED BY REJECTION, SLAYS TOP DOG LINGOE! It would be a seven days wonder. Maybe eight days. Maybe, since it was Thomas Blair Chornyak, much longer. It should buy the women many months, even if some other of the men had begun to notice what was happening, because the transfer of power for such an empire as the Lines constituted could not be a simple matter.

She had never been so calm, or so content. She was sorry that she would have to leave Nazareth Chornyak… dear Nazareth. But if Nazareth had known of this, she would have been grateful to have Michaela do for her what she could not do herself. It was a fitting gift to leave for her.

Michaela took her nurse’s case and went to her own room and her own bed; she fell asleep at once and slept without a single dream to disturb her rest. And she didn’t bother to undress. When they came for her in the morning, as they would the moment they saw the empty syringe beside the corpse, she would already be dressed to welcome them.