“I didn’t mind that much,” Ofelia said, out of politeness, because she had in fact become tired of the creatures coming in so casually for frost-scrapings. She had often wished they would learn manners and wait to be invited. Now Bluecloak simply looked at her, standing beside the lane door. “Thank you,” Ofelia said finally. It tipped its head and withdrew.
Within a couple of days, she realized that the other creatures no longer came into her house, and Bluecloak came in only when a wave of her arm invited it. If she wanted a few hours alone — and she still did — they did not intrude. She could cook her meals in peace; she could even, she discovered, shoo them out of the sewing room she preferred, and work on her jewelry again without those inquisitive eyes on her.
It felt comfortable. She relaxed in this new privacy, realizing how she had missed it in the time they had been with her. All over again, this time in familiar sequences, she felt her muscles relaxing, her mind relaxing. It was not quite like having the planet to herself, but it was better than it had been when the creatures first arrived. She no longer felt smothered by their presence. And she could have companionship too. She had never in her life experienced companionship with the opportunity to shut it out when she needed to be alone. Bluecloak seemed to understand, or perhaps these creatures did not intrude on each other all the time as humans did. When she looked, peering from her new privacy as if from behind a veil, she saw that they seemed to let each other alone at times… not as she remembered people doing with each other in the village, grudgingly or angrily, but as if it were natural for any of them to desire time alone. When they were ready for companionship they returned, as she did with more willingness than she had expected ever to feel.
She realized that she was willing because Bluecloak’s lively interest, both in learning and in teaching her, made it worthwhile. Day by day — almost hour by hour — she found that Bluecloak understood her better, and she understood it. Bluecloak now understood — she thought — that humans bore their young inside, and birthed helpless infants. That the things on her chest were organs to nourish those infants. She understood — she thought — that the creatures made some sort of nest, but whether they laid eggs or had babies she could not determine. Her questions to Bluecloak about that didn’t seem to get through. It would have bothered her more, if she hadn’t been reveling in her new — if limited — freedom. It was still a nuisance to have them around, because she knew that they could intrude even though they didn’t. Her privacy depended on their courtesy, not on herself, and in the time alone she had enjoyed most of all her freedom from anyone else’s decisions. But she could shower in peace, singing if she wanted to, without listening for the click of their talons on the tile. She could sit muttering over a tricky bit of crochet, without those great eyes peering her, the hands hovering as if to mimic the motions of her fingers, until their interest made her own hands clumsy.
And when she wanted companionship — when she wanted to listen to their music, or let Bluecloak try out its rapidly increasing store of words and expressions — they were there. Quiet, polite, and eager. She didn’t mind being the center of attention when she could choose the time. In the evenings, when they played music, they offered her any of their musical instruments. She usually shook the gourd with its seeds, but she had finally coaxed a note — breathy but musical — from the handful of hollow reeds. They listened when she played music cubes for them; they even tried to sing along with the children’s songs, and came surprisingly close to the melodies. She tried to hum along with their songs, but worried that she would sing the wrong notes; it was easier to keep a rhythm on the gourd. Bluecloak and one of the others seemed determined to learn to read; they encouraged her to read from the children’s books in the center schoolrooms. She explained about letters and numbers, and soon saw them tracing letters in the air, on walls, in the dust of the lane. They seemed to learn very fast, but she had no idea how fast adults could learn letters if they had not been to school as children. She wondered if the creatures had any written language of their own. Again, her questions to Bluecloak didn’t seem to get through. Did it not understand, or did it not want to answer? She couldn’t tell.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kira Stavi reminded herself frequently that she had not expected this trip to be pleasant. It didn’t need to be pleasant; it was a chance to meet the first alien intelligence ever found on a colony world. On any world, for that matter. What did the usual shipboard nonsense matter, with that in view? Still, it was annoying. All of them had superior academic qualifications — that went without saying — so there was really no need for the covert pushing and shoving, the backbiting, the attempts to impress. They’d all get publications out of this, no matter how it turned out — material for a lifetime’s maneuvering in the academic or bureaucratic jungle. They were not competing with each other.
Except that they were. Primary and backup teams, two sets of paired specialists, eight active minds each determined to make or complete a reputation out of this trip, and too much shipboard time with too little to do besides worry about how the others might frustrate that ambition. The primary team alone could generate, Kira thought, a storycube of problems. Bilong Oliausau had to impress them with her knowledge of neolinguistic AI, and her sexual attractiveness. Ori Lavin, normally a calm, pragmatic Pelorist, almost a caricature of that sect, had reacted to Bilong as if to a shot of rejuvenating hormones, and sleeked his moustache every time she undulated by. He had engaged in one fierce argument after another with Vasil, most of them unnecessary. Vasil, for his part, interpreted “team leader” to mean that both Bilong and the lion’s share of transmission time were his by rights. Kira didn’t care about Bilong’s behavior — she even had a sneaking sympathy for the girl, off on her first long expedition, given a place on the primary team only because the director of the linguistics faculty had chosen this inauspicious time to collapse with a richly deserved bleeding ulcer. Kira had heard about the almost-mythical Dr. Lowaasi, who went through secretaries and graduate assistants with equal voracity. Rumor had it that the linguistics faculty cheered as the ambulance drove away. Anyway, it was no wonder Bilong seemed immature and unstable, and threw herself at Vasil while flirting over her shoulder with Ori. What really upset Kira was the way Vasil hogged the transmission time. Kira reminded herself that her own position was secure. She had tenure; she had a high citation index, and after this it would go even higher. The xenobiologist on the backup team, whose unpronounceable name everyone rendered as Chesva, respected her without embarrassing hero worship, leaving Kira free to do the thinking, and treat Chesva as a normal assistant. Whether the creatures were intelligent or not, whether they signed a treaty or not, she would have exclusive access to the biota… wish fulfillment for a xenobiologist. She had samples already — Sims Bancorp had deposited the requisite samples with the colonial office decades before — but samples were no substitute for observing living organisms in their native ecosystem. All she had to do was survive the voyage without committing assault on her team members.
She reminded herself of this day after tedious day, through the intermediate jumps and the long insystem crawl to the planet. She reminded herself that it would have been worse — it would have taken longer — on most ships. Although it was tempting to think that a larger team would have been less difficult, she knew from previous field experience that large teams could offer just as many opportunities for interpersonal unpleasantness. Here, the small size of the team would force them to cooperate once they were on the planet. And she, the only one presently acting like a responsible adult, would make sure of that. When they were close enough, she joined the others at the wardroom viewscreen. Blue, white, tan, dark green… polar caps, mountain ranges, forests… no wonder someone wanted to colonize it, she thought. If it had been purpose-built for humans, it could not have been closer to ideal. “Needs a moon,” Ori said, as if reading her mind. Sometimes he could; they had been on several expeditions together. Kira took it as a sign that he was getting over his infatuation with Bilong. She smiled at him without saying anything.