“You don’t know — ”
“I do know. The baby will die, as all the other babies die. Or it will be mutilated so horribly that it will have to be put to death in the name of decency, as has also happened. And we will comfort the mother in her grief, as best we can.”
Thomas knew precisely what Smith was thinking. Why, Chornyak, he was thinking, don’t you threaten us with what you really can do, and with what every one of us knows you really can do? Why don’t you threaten to pull out the linguists, every last one of them, and plunge the world into chaos? Why do you pretend that you are just a citizen like any other citizen?
Well… let him wonder. Thomas had no intention of telling. Nobody knew, or would ever know, except when time came to pass on the leadership of the Lines. Then he would have to explain to the next Head that that trump card was being held for one situation — for the time when the government, after murdering who knew how many hundreds or thousands of innocents in their Interfaces, finally stumbled upon that unique non-humanoid species whose perceptions could be tolerated by humans. On that day, which might be ten thousand years away, or ten days, the government would suddenly decide that it was in the Interfacing business and could do the job of acquiring Alien languages on its own. And it was then that the government would hear the linguists’ terms: either the Lines kept that part of the Interface industry as they had all the rest, or every linguist involved in negotiation, no matter how crucial, would walk out and participate no more. It was not the intention of the linguists to see their own offspring wasted in this random search for the chance species that would break the perceptual barrier between humanoid and non-humanoid; on the other hand, it was not the intention of the linguists to see their power lost to the government or the public.
Governments, and people in general, were likely to take power and do damn fool things with it, like carrying on nuclear wars and cutting each other up with chain saws and laser scalpels. The linguists had a way to curb some of that, an awesome power for all its limitations, and they would keep it in the Lines where it would never be subject to the follies of bureaucrats or simple ignorance.
Thomas had a responsibility, and sometimes it was unpleasant. Sometimes, when he listened to the very little boys in the Household complaining that they didn’t understand why they had to do without everything just because stupid people thought linguists made too much money, and how they thought it was sucking up to go on like that… sometimes he was tempted.
He remembered when he’d been a little boy like that himself. It was during one of the times when energy was wasted, inexcusably — a time of government “market adjustment.” There had been a kind of portable force field that whirled around the outside of the body and could be set to keep the temperature within a certain range. It let you do away with winter clothing, and it made it possible to wear ordinary clothing in summer with total comfort. It hadn’t lasted, because even the rich who loved such toys quickly found such squandering of resources intolerable. But while it was available, the children had had a good time. They had discovered that if you got a few of these fields whirling at top heat setting and a few others at maximum cold, you could get a baby tornado going in the middle of the circle of children, and you could watch it suck up leaves and grass, and if you were daring you could stick your finger into its center where everything was totally still.
Thomas had stood there, six years old and bundled in a plain cloth coat, stamping his feet against the cold and rubbing his frozen fingers together. The other children were in a little park that he had to pass on his way to and from school, and they were blissfully comfortable in that cold in light shorts and shifts — except for the ones who were providing the maximum cold settings, of course. They were cold like Thomas, colder even. But they were having fun. He would never forget how he had watched and longed to play that game, wanted to have a baby tornado to play with, wanted to be part of that circle… he’d gotten chilblains, standing there. And no sympathy.
“You’re a little fool, Thomas,” they’d said to him at home. “Linguists can’t have such stuff, and you know it, and you know why. You’ve been told a thousand times. People hate us, and we do not choose to feed that hate for trivia. People believe that we are greedy, that we are paid millions of credits to do things that anybody could do if we’d only tell them how — we do not choose to feed that perception, either. Now go study your verbs, Thomas, and stop whining.”
Thomas caught himself sharply — he’d been woolgathering, and the two men were watching him silently.
“Well?” he said. “You’ve won. Are you satisfied?”
“You’re free to go, Mr. Chornyak,” said Smith wearily, “if there’s nothing else you want to talk about.”
“You called me here, man, not I you.”
“As a courtesy.”
“Ah. Courtesy. I value courtesy.”
“We didn’t want you to hear about the… incident… on the news, Mr. Chornyak. And your orders are that no contacts between you and the government are to be held in any other way than this, unless they are the ordinary routine of linguistics. We did as you requested — and that also is courtesy.”
“I will be sure to inform Mrs. St. Syrus of your courtesy,” said Thomas, bowing.
“You won’t, either,” blurted Jones. “That’s not what you’ll do, you… you filthy Lingoe! You’ll — ”
Smith sighed. That was really a bit much, he thought. He’d been prepared for clumsiness, that’s why they picked Jones; but this was a little more than he thought justified by the role. Now Thomas Chornyak’s face would register faint distaste… ME ARISTOCRAT, YOU CAVEMAN… there it went. And he wouldn’t say a word. And then he would start entering data in his wrist computer… there he went.
Smith often thought that if he could just spend a few months, round the clock, with some linguists, he could learn to do the things they did. So much of it was so obvious. Except that there must be something else that wasn’t obvious, because when he tried the things he thought he’d picked up in his observations they never did work. Never.
Dear sweet Jesus, how he hated Lingoes.
Hurrying down the hall with the two men, Smith disgusted and Jones humiliated, Thomas almost ran into an equally hurried group coming round a corner. Four men in dress uniforms and a woman all in black… a lovely woman. In such a place, at such an hour?
“Funny thing, that,” he noted. “What’s going on?”
“Her name is Michaela Landry, Mr. Chornyak,” said Smith. “She was the mother of the last volunteer baby Interfaced — we told you about that. Her husband died almost immediately after having the baby picked up… a freak accident… and she’s been brought in to accept the Infant Hero medal in the man’s place. It’s all top secret, sir, of course.”
“I see. And now she will go back to her parents’ home, I suppose. Poor woman.”
“No, sir. She’s completely alone, no family of her own at all. But her husband’s brother took her in, and he’s given her permission to work.”
“What kind of nursing does she do?”
“She was in the public hospitals before this, sir, but after what’s happened, understandably enough, she doesn’t feel she can face any more of that. She’s looking for a post as a private duty nurse… and we’ll see that something just happens to come her way very quickly. Poor thing’s had about enough, without having to sit around alone thinking about it.”
“It’s a very sad story,” Thomas said, stepping into the private elevator that would take him to the roof, “and a damn shame all around.”