Native Tongue

Chapter Eight

“No,” said Thomas, “I will not sympathize with you. Absolutely not.”

“The compassionate linguist,” said Smith. “Always eager to help.”

“No,” said Thomas evenly, “we have never claimed to be compassionate. There have been good reasons for that, which I do not propose to discuss with you — and if you choose to take that as meaning I won’t stoop to do so, that’s your privilege. My personal statement is that I don’t have time to waste in that fashion, and that I resent your taking up what time I do have with this nonsense.”

“We regret that you find our efforts useless, Mr. Chornyak,” said the man bitterly. “We’re not lofty scientists here, moving through our days in the sublime pursuit of pure knowledge — we are ordinary men, doing ordinary jobs. One of those jobs, about which my personal statement is that I think it is both pathetic and stupid, is to serve as liaison between you and the government in situations which both you and the government prefer not to have the public know about. And which I assume you’d be distressed to have the rest of the linguists know about… But I am ordered to do this; and I do it as well as I can.”

Thomas knew the taste of failure, listening to this man who was, as he said, only trying to do an impossible job because it was what he was expected to do and had agreed to do. He was sharply aware that if his own father knew what was taking place here today he would condemn Thomas in terms that would not be pleasant or give quarter. Situations like this only made the breach between public and linguist wider and more poisonous, only played into the hands of those who gained by that breach… and he must find time, somehow, to mend some bridges and span the gap. If only he could be six people and be in as many places at one time. If only the government would listen to the linguists’ warnings that there was a limit to the number of Alien tongues it was possible for them to acquire and use on that government’s behalf — which would have meant curbing the dizzying rate of expansion into space and colonization. Curbing the public greed for more room, more opportunity, more new frontiers…

“Smith,” he said, trying not to think about it, “I have nothing but admiration for your devotion to your duty. That is not sarcasm, that is not empty politeness, it is simply the way I feel. You don’t have to explain your situation to me, I understand that it’s awkward and distasteful. But I can only repeat, man, that I told you. Didn’t I, Smith? I warned you, right here in this room, less than a month ago, and you would not listen. Isn’t that true?”

“You warned us, yes.”

“And what did I warn you of, Smith?”

“That if we tried to Interface that baby it would die horribly, just like all the others. You warned us, and you were right; and you are entitled to whatever warped satisfaction that gives you, Chornyak.”

Thomas sat back in the chair, his lips slightly parted, holding the government man with his eyes until the red flush had spread from Smith’s neck all the way to his forehead. They had not sent poor Jones into the arena this time, and it was just as well.

“All right, all right!” Smith spat at him. “That was a shitty thing to say! And I retract it. I’m sorry.”

Thomas let that hang in the air. He let his face and his body and his hands do the work for him, and he said not one word. Smith didn’t disappoint him.

“It’s not the same thing,” the man said through his teeth, his hands fiddling aimlessly with a scrap of paper on the table before him, his shoulder hunching. “It’s not the same thing at all… it’s not like somebody’s kidnapped one of our kids and destroyed it that way. It’s very, very different. You Lingoes, you don’t have any feeling for your kids, you breed them like flyers come off assembly lines, they’re just products to you. Shit, I’ve heard you, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard you, talking about it… You don’t say, ‘Hey, my kid won a prize at Homeroom today, we’re proud of him,’ naah… I’ve heard you! ‘That boy means two more Alien languages added to the inventories of Household So-and-So.’ ‘The girl has a certain value, she increases our assets by three little-known Earth languages in addition to the Alien language for which she has primary responsibility.’ JEEzus, you talk about your kids like they were stocks and bonds, or the effing corn crop… you don’t care about them! If you cared about them, I’d feel different about this, I’d feel sorry for your people, sorry about your kid, sure… but shit, Chornyak! They don’t mean anything to their own families — why should they mean anything to us?”

Thomas considered it carefully, pleased to note that his earlier consciousness of guilt had completely disappeared, and decided that he could spare a few minutes. For the good of his battered spirit and this dolt’s soul. It had been a long day. He was, he decided, entitled.

“Tell me, Smith,” he asked, “how’s your history?”

“My what?”

“How’s your background in history? The usual mass-ed courses? And surely a little something extra to prepare you for government service?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Do you remember, Smith, the sums of money poured into a cure for the epidemic of child abuse that swept this nation in the late 20th and early 21st centuries? Do you remember when it was not safe to put even the most hardened and streetwise criminal into a prison if his crime was child abuse, because the other inmates would kill him like a mad dog, and less gently?”

“I read about it. Everybody knows about that.”

“Yes. So they do. We’ve stamped out child abuse, haven’t we, Smith… at least we’ve stamped out its excesses and its obvious physical forms. We value our children now, we treasure them, because they are the future of the human race. We no longer leave the molding of their minds and their characters to the random attention of ignorant pseudo-teachers in a parody of education. We no longer leave their diets and their exercise and their medical care to whatever chance factors happen to come their way — our children are cared for now with the very best that this nation can provide, for their bodies and their minds and their spirits. And it makes no difference where they come from or who their parents are, they are all cared for that way. You are aware of all that, Smith.”

“And damned proud of it. So what?”

“Well… Smith, do you consider yourself a man who is fond of children? In contrast to the linguists, for example, who see their offspring only as economic resources.”

“You’re damn right! They’re human beings, they’re not effing investments!”

“You love children, Smith?”

“Yes, I love children! What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Well, then, Smith,” Thomas asked gently, “would you explain something to me? Would you explain to me why it is that the government has not moved to take the children of the linguists away from them? If, as you imply, we treat them coldly and callously, and exploit them — ”

“You do, dammit! You violate the child labor laws before the poor kids are even out of the cradle!”

“Ah… a forceful phrase… And why is that allowed to go on, Smith? If you took your own child and put it to work in a cornfield from dawn to dark, as we linguists put our children to work in government affairs, the authorities would step in and take that child away from you for its own good, wouldn’t they?”

Smith had seen what was coming, suddenly, too late, and he squirmed, and swallowed bile, and chewed on his lips.

“But nobody moves to protect our children from abuse, Smith… why is that?”

“Look — ”

“And when you did take a child from us, Smith, one of our abused children destined for a life of unremitting toil and unrelieved grim labor, why is it that you didn’t take that poor little creature for whom this government has such concern and consideration… and compassion, Smith, such compassion… and put it straight away in a good home with parents who would love it as it deserved to be loved? Would treat it as it deserved to be treated? You’re a compassionate man, who loves children; why was that infant taken to an Interface — which is precisely and exactly what would have happened to it if you’d left it in our care, except that we would not have killed it — and put to work at three and a half weeks of age?”

“Oh, god…” The words came choked from Smith’s throat, and they were forced past his lips like solid objects rather than a string of sounds.

Thomas leaned back and stared at him, all open amazement and wonder.

“Well,” he said, “I believe you began this conversation by accusing me, and all my relatives, of a lack of compassion, Smith. As you define compassion, you and your government. And that’s very interesting. Because I have never in my entire life taken a helpless newborn child away from its mother and given it to strangers. I have never in my life taken a helpless infant and deliberately put it into an environment in which I knew it would suffer abominations and could not, could not possibly, survive. I’ve never done that, and no linguist has ever done that — we linguists, in our total lack of compassion and decency, Smith — we would not do that. You people, on the other hand, you people — ”

He leaned across the table, and he hammered his words home with a blow of his first for every stress.

“ — you have done it over and over and over! And you would do it again tomorrow if you had the chance! You dare talk to me of compassion!”

Smith was gasping, fighting not to twist openly as he twisted inside, fighting not to writhe openly before this monster he was paid to face.

He did not want to think about it. He would not, would not, think about it. He had never considered that question, why it was that the U.S. government, that would have stepped in instantly if any other child, let alone whole generations of children, had been mistreated as the linguist children were said to be mistreated, not only did not interfere but paid enormous sums to cooperate in that abuse. It was not a thought that he was willing to let get the least tendril of purchase in his mind.

“Are you having a little trouble there, Smith?” Thomas asked him, smiling as a shark smiles.

“Go home, Chornyak,” said Smith hoarsely. “Just go home.”

“What, and leave this question just hanging there?”

“Yeah, leave it hanging there! I don’t want to hear any more about it, Chornyak!”

“Well, I couldn’t do that, Smith.”

“Mr. Chornyak — ”

“I have a certain responsibility here,” Thomas continued. “I can’t raise a major issue like this and just leave you in confusion. That’s not polite. That’s not decent. That’s not compassionate. That’s not even scientific — not when I know the answer, Smith. And I do know the answer.”

“For God’s sake, Chornyak. Please.”

“The answer,” Thomas went on inexorably, “is just as simple as it can be. If my children, and the children of the other Lines, did not spend their lives in endless toil, your children, Smith — and all the rest of the dear little children of this United States and all its comfy colonies — could not be provided with perfect food and perfect housing and perfect education and perfect medical care and the leisure to thrive and live the good life. There would not be enough money to provide all your children with the good life, Smith, if ever we uncaring linguists decided that our children should know that good life, too. You love your children, you see, on the weary backs of ours.”

“That’s not true. It’s not true.”

“No? I’ll listen to your explanation, then, Smith.”

“You know I can’t explain anything to you, you bastard. You’d twist my words around like you’ve done now, you’d lay traps I can’t get out of, you’d put words in my mouth — ”

“And ideas in your poor little head,” Thomas rapped out, letting all his disgust show, on all channels of communication. “If what I say is not true, Smith, teach me! Teach me the truth, and I will see that it is spread to all the other linguists. When you were a little boy, you were in the circles of children holding hands and dancing round our little ones, screaming ‘Dirty stinking Lingoe, dirty stinking Lingoe!” Weren’t you, Smith? But those dirty stinking Lingoes put the food in your mouth and the soft clothing on your back and gave you the time to play and to learn and to know tender love. Would you like to come home with me, Smith, and thank them? Or you can thank me, if that’s more convenient… I used to be one of those children in the center of the circle, I’ll do as an example.”

“It’s not true.”

Smith was clinging to that, because he felt dimly that it was very important that he cling to it. He did not remember why anymore. He did not remember hearing anything in the Training Lectures that had any bearing on the way he felt right now. He did not remember how he had come to be so confused or when he had begun to feel so strange and so ill, but he knew that there was a magic charm in the three words that he could use to ward off evil if he could only keep saying them and let nothing else past them.

“It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true,” he said. “It’s not true.”

Thomas had no intention of telling him whether it was true or not. He had more useful things to do than continue this kindergarten exercise, and it was time he got to them.

“Smith!” He snapped the word, cracked it like a whip, cutting through to the man’s attention.

“What?”

“I want you to listen to what I’m going to say, Smith, and I want you to go back and repeat it to your bosses. Do you think you can do that, or shall I send for somebody else to do it for you?”

“I can do it.” Wooden words. Wooden lips.

“This MUST NOT HAPPEN AGAIN,” said Thomas, “This kidnapping trick. This government baby-killing. For the sake of many many factors you do not even dream of, I have put together a story that will keep the lid on it this time, something that we can tell the police, something that I can tell St. Syrus Household. This time! But I can’t do it twice, Smith. I can’t work miracles. I won’t try — it must not be repeated, you hear me? You’ve had your chance, you’ve tried out your ignorant hypothesis about genetic differences and the imperative for putting a baby on the Lines in your cursed government Interface — and it didn’t work, Smith! It didn’t work. As I told you it would not work. And it will never work. I warn you — you tell your bosses, I warn you all — don’t try it again.”

He left the man nodding and mumbling in his chair; he made no effort to hide the contempt he felt for any male so easily broken, slapping down on the table the white card with the cover story Smith was to take back to whoever had the privilege of dealing with him today, and he went out the door of Room DAT40. It closed behind him with a soft sucking noise, but he was certain that Smith would be able to hear it slam in his head.

And it would of course only take Smith twenty minutes to wall off everything he’d heard Thomas say, so that it would never bother him again. Thomas knew all about that process, as did his father, and his father before him. That speech he’d made was a set piece, an extended cliché; it must come up two or three times a year. And nobody, so far as Thomas knew, had ever needed more than half an hour to put it out of their consciousness forever. They marveled sometimes, in the Lines, at the efficiency of the mental filters that kept from the masters even the realization that they were slavers… allowed to be slavers by the grace of the slaves, but slavers nonetheless.

It might have been possible to understand it, he thought as he headed for the roof, if it had been only their women. In the poverty of their perceptions, prevented by nature itself from ever having more than a distorted image of reality, women might very well create for themselves a picture that included nothing but the parts of reality they enjoyed looking at. That was to be expected, and however irritating it might be, it was not something that could be held against them. But it wasn’t just their women who lived in fantasy, it was their men as well — and that, thought Thomas, was not possible to understand. You could despise them for it, or you could try to find it in yourself to forgive them for it — but there was no way to understand it. How could they manage to look straight at the truth, and, like females, not even see it? Or smell it… God knows it stank.

Thomas found it difficult at times to stay out of the ranks of those in the Lines who settled for despising, and never mind the rest of it. That was not the way to solve the problem — it was a womanish surrender to the easy way out — but it was exceedingly tempting.

He had one more thing left to do before he could go home. He was weary, and short on patience now, but he saw no reason why Andrew St. Syrus should have to make the trip to Chornyak Household again to hear his fairy tale. What Thomas had to tell him could have been told by comset just as well as in person… but to do that would be to appear completely without manners or family feeling, and that wouldn’t do. Resigned to the inescapable, he punched the computer keys in the flyer and gave the screen as much of his attention as he could spare from the evening traffic.

The coordinates came up, he punched them in, and the flyer turned toward the west. And when Andrew walked out onto the roof of the building where he’d been tied up in an after-dinner session of the Department of Health he found Thomas waiting for him.

“Chornyak,” he said. “Something’s happened.”

“Yes. And it’s not good, Andrew. I won’t pretend it is.”

“Tell me.”

“There isn’t any easy way to do this, Andrew. It’s a matter of getting it over with, and we can do it right here as well as anywhere. Or we can go somewhere quiet and have a drink, if you like…”

“No, no,” said Andrew. “This will do.” He leaned against the side of his flyer, near Thomas and out of the wind that was bringing in a thunderstorm. “What’s happened?”

“The investigators I’ve hired, Andrew… they got to the bottom of the mess. You remember Terralone?”

“Terralone?” Andrew shook his head. “What is it? Or who is it?”

“It’s a cult. A cult of lunatics, top grade. Real prize lunatics. Terraloners believe that any contact with extra-terrestrials, even if it happens to be the only hope of the human race for survival et cetera, never mind that, any such contact is the essence of evil.”

St. Syrus took a long breath, and let it out slowly.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Oh, yeah, I remember. Mostly, they picket.”

“Picket, squawk for the threedy cameras, do the odd bit of terrorism. Badly. And have ceremonies, Andrew.”

“Well?”

“Well, that’s what happened to the infant, my friend. I wish it was prettier.”

“You’re talking rot, Thomas — there aren’t any pretty ways for kidnappings to end. Let’s have the rest of it.”

“One of their farther-out loonies took the baby, they had a ceremony that they claim is a payment on humanity’s moral debt for contaminating itself by stepping off this little rock, and the baby is dead.”

“Dead how?”

“Andrew,” said Thomas firmly, “you don’t want to know any more than that. I’m not going to tell you any more than that. But the baby is dead, and there’s no way to get the body back to its mother — God be praised — and it’s over. They burned the body, Andrew… it’s finished.”

St. Syrus nodded, jerky and quick, and jumped at the thunderclap that rattled the flyer’s shell.

“We’d better get out of this,” he said, “or we’ll be going home by ground transport.”

Thomas put one hand on his shoulder, as gently as he could.

“They’ve got the son of a bitch,” he said, “and he’ll live the rest of his demented life in the Federal Mental Hospital in the South Bronx. He’ll never set foot outside that place again — that’s been seen to. And he’s young, Andrew. He’s looking at maybe seventy years in that place. You can tell the parents… he’s going to pay, and pay, and pay.”

“Well. It’s done with.”

“Yes. And there won’t be any leaks to the press now either. The authorities have no more interest in a wave of copycats raiding the maternity wards than we do. The lid’s on tight.”

“Thank you, Thomas.”

“I didn’t do anything to be thanked for, friend. Bringing the child back to you safe, that would call for thanks. This?” He shrugged. “This isn’t something you say thanks for.”

St. Syrus didn’t answer, and Thomas went on.

“You can tell the parents the truth if you feel that’s the appropriate way to handle it — I can’t think of anything better than the truth, myself. But except for them, the story to the Lines is that the baby died in the hospital. One of those mysterious things that takes a baby out sometimes, for no reason anybody can explain. And it was cremated there at the hospital at our request to avoid the possibility of contagion.”

“Thomas, the other women in my Household aren’t going to swallow that. It’s been a month.”

“You tell them that it took the government this long to notify us, Andrew,” said Thomas bitterly. “Tell them there was a computer foulup and the baby’s records got lost — tell them it took this long to straighten it out. They’ll be angry enough about that to get their minds off the mourning. All right?”

“I think so. Yes… that should be all right. It’s plausible enough.”

“If the parents want a small, very quiet, very private memorial service — and if it suits you to permit it — let them have it. No reason why not, so far as I’m concerned.”

“All right, Thomas.”

“It’s all clear to you now, man?”

“The authorities get the truth — they’ll know about Terralone. And the parents. Everybody else gets the killer virus story, with computer foulup for addendum. Logical, reasonable, and the end of the matter.”

“Thank god.”

“Yes. Thank god. And it won’t happen again.”

“You think not?”

“Not if the government wants working linguists,” said Thomas grimly. “I made that very clear. You’ll see security around our infants like they were solid gold, Andrew.”

“On the public wards?”

“That’s their problem. If they want to move the women to the private wings at their expense, I sure as hell won’t cross them; if they want to make a spectacle for the public and think up some fantasy to leak to the media, that’s also up to them. But there’ll be no repetition of this particular incident.”

Thomas watched St. Syrus take off, and then he headed for home, watching the streaks of lightning off to his left, anxious to get inside before the storm broke. Though Paul John would have said he well deserved the rain, and the wind, and a lightning bolt to boot. Cutting pathetic brainwashed government men to shreds and turning their heads to cottage cheese was supposed to be something a linguist resorted to only in emergencies. He’d stomped all over little Smith just because he wanted to do it, just because he was tired.

I’m getting old, Thomas thought, but I’m not getting wise. That’s misrepresentation. I’m supposed to get wise…