No, it hadn’t. He could tell by the looks. And he was far from surprised.
“Well, I hope you’ll take a look at it on a fairly urgent basis, since there will be atevi working here. And don’t take humans from the planet completely for granted, either. From your viewpoint, they’re quite different, and words don’t mean quite the same; I was born on the island, myself, and I can say you don’t at all sound like Mospheirans. What doyou do for entertainment, here?”
“Games, sir.” That from a more senior crewman. “Entertainment files.”
“Dice,” another said.
Jase had said entertainment was sparse and opportunities were few. Jase had been vastly disturbed by rapid input, flickering shadows, any environmental phenomenon that seemed out of controclass="underline" Jase standing on a deck on the ocean under a stormy sky was far, far beyond the bounds of his upbringing… an act of courage he only comprehended on seeing this recreational sterility. “Jase enjoyed his planet stay, gathered up some new games. I know he sent some footage up.”
It hadn’t made it to the general crew. There were blank glances, not a word.
“Definitely, we have to talk about the import situation,” he said, with a picture he really, truly liked less and less. “I’m sure the Mospheirans will offer quite a few things you might like.” Give or take the whole concept of trade, which he wasn’t sure they really understood on a personal level. “You’ll have a lot of things to get used to, among them the very fact of meeting people who aren’t under your captains’ orders, who speak your language and mean something totally different. Who don’t mind surfaces bouncing around under them and lights flashing and who are rather entertained by the feeling.” The looks were somewhat appalled. “We, on the other hand, will be largely involved in construction: improving the station, providing fuel, materials, that sort of thing. And we understand you found a problem out in far space. We’re used to dealing with strangers. We hope to deal with your difficulty and solve it.”
That struck a chord, finally. That was something they understood… and didn’t believe.
“Yes, sir,” came from another one, whose name was Lewis. Bren hadn’t forgotten, didn’t intend to forget a single name.
“Have you talked to Jase since he’s been back?” he asked.
“No, sir,” one said, and there were various shakes of the head.
“Interesting,” he said, and had a very uneasy feeling about this place, about the crew, about the whole situation. “But you do know him.”
“Yes, sir.” They seemed to take turns talking. Or they were all wired, like Kaplan, getting their answers from elsewhere.
“Kaplan,” Bren said.
“Sir!”
“Why don’t we take a walk to the Mospheiran delegation, and then over to the mess hall?”
“They’re in the same section, sir.”
“Well, good,” he said. “Why don’t we do that?”
“Yes, sir,” Kaplan said.
“Would any of you like to walk along?”
“We have to get back to duty,” one said.
“I’m sure you do. Well, good day to you all. Hope to see more of you.” Bren smiled and made his withdrawal, saying, in Ragi, still smiling, “Jase was wildly extroverted when he arrived, compared to these people.”
“They seem very afraid,” Jago remarked.
“They seem afraid,” he repeated, following Kaplan. “They were likely put here for us to see. They haven’t seen Jase, and they haven’t seen any of the files we’ve transmitted up, the ones about atevi.”
“One certainly asks why,” Banichi said.
“One certainly does ask,” Bren said. “Kaplan, what are these people scared of?”
“The aliens, sir.”
“Banichi and Jago aren’t aliens. You and I are. That below is their planet.”
“Yes, sir.” Kaplan didn’t look reassured. Nor was he reassured, regarding the ship.
“Ever been in a fight?”? Bren asked.
“Sir?”
“Ever had to fight, really fight, hand to hand?”
“No, sir,” Kaplan said.
“Has anyone on this ship ever been in a fight?”
“I don’t think so, sir, well, a few scrambles between us, but not outside, sir.”
This from a man overburdened with direction-finding, recording, and defensive equipment, a man who looked like a walking spy post.
“Bren.”
“Sir?”
“Bren’s the name. You can call me Bren. For formal use it’s Bren-nandi, but Mr. Cameron is my island name. Is Kaplan what you go by?” Last names were stitched on every uniform, and it was all uniforms, completely identical. Textures had frightened Jase. Differences had frightened Jase. He saw now that everything on the station was one color, the uniforms were all alike: the haircuts were generally but not universally alike… one size fit everyone and one had to train one’s eye to look at subtler differences, which probably were quite clear to someone who knew the body language of every individual aboard. He supposed that Kaplan could recognize an individual from behind and at a distance down the oddly-curving corridors, and that he himself was relatively handicapped in not knowing. The difference he posed must certainly be a shock; the Mospheirans no less so; and what they thought of the atevi was likely like a man looking at a new species: the ability to integrate patterns and recognize individuals utterly overwhelmed by a flood of input, not knowing what was a significant difference.
Three years to build a shuttle?
Three years to bring Jason, who was trying, into synch with atevi ways?
It wasn’t the engineering that most challenged them in building here. It was the psychology of individuals on the ground who for various reasons didn’t want to comprehend, the pathology of individuals having trouble enough inside their own system of recognitions; the pathology of a human society up here walled in and sensitized to a narrow range of subtle sensations, subtle signals.
He’d been uneasy regarding Jase. In Jase’s continued, defended absence, he was growing alarmed, pressing harder. He knew the hostility in his own mind toward these people who were behaving in a hostile way, and dare he think he was part of the difficulty?
It was a long walk through unmarked territory. More and more unmarked, unnumbered territory before they reached the Mospheirans, before sentries admitted them, unquestioned, at least, on Kaplan’s presence, if nothing else. They walked into the small district, drew a curious response from Lund and from Feldman, who walked out from separate rooms.
“Come have a drink,” Bren said. “The cafeteria’s buying.”
Lund and Feldman stared at him. Kroger and Shugart showed up, equally suspicious.
“Our hosts are hostile in manner,” Bren said cheerfully in Ragi, a simple utterance, given the basic vocabulary of the translators, and Feldman and Shugart betrayed a quickly-subdued uneasiness.
“A good idea,” Feldman said with some presence of mind. “We should go.”
“Go, hell,” Kroger said. “What are you up to?”
“Listen to him, Nadiin,” Jago said, and by now Kaplan was looking at one and the other of them.
“Kaplan,” Bren said, laying a presumptive, hail-good-fellow hand on Kaplan’s wired shoulder, “Kaplan, my friend, is there a bar to be had?”
“There is,” Kaplan said.
“Is it on the List?”
“Yes, sir,” Kaplan said.
“Well, let’s all go there and have a drink.” He tightened his grip as Kaplan began to protest. “Oh, don’t be a stick. Come along. Be welcome. Show us this bar.”