“Well,” Vasil said, doing his best to get back in control. “Whatever your reasons, you are in violation of the order to evacuate, and by your actions you have jeopardized the position of Sims Bancorp—” The old woman muttered something Kira could not hear, but from the expression on her face it had not been complimentary.
“—And you have presented us with an unnecessary dilemma,” Vasil went on. “What are we going to do with you?”
Kira was not surprised when the old woman gave the obvious answer. “Let me alone,” she said, and turned away.
“But — but you must understand the seriousness of the situation,” Vasil said. The old woman turned back. “I’m not stupid,” she said. “I understand — but you came at a bad time. Now go away.” Then she turned and walked off, the long fringe on the back of her cape brushing the backs of her crooked tanned legs. The back of the cape had a single large face on it, in glittery embroidery; the overlarge eyes had long eyelashes like rays extending to the margin of the face. Kira felt uncomfortable, as if the eyes were staring at her, and more uncomfortable for having that reaction. She was not a primitive; she shouldn’t be affected by such obvious symbolism.
“Come back here!” Vasil ordered, but the woman did not turn around. Vasil turned to one of the advisors, but Kira tapped his arm.
“Let me try. She’s a woman, after all, and if she’s been here alone for several years, she may be overwhelmed by all of us.”
“Ma’am, I don’t think—” began one of the advisors, but Kira had already started down the ramp. “You want an escort?” asked the advisor.
“No — she’s not going to hurt me,” Kira said. She was finding it surprisingly hard to walk down a ramp in the protective suit. She fumbled at its fastenings, and opened the front seam. As hot and humid as it was, that wouldn’t help much, but anything -
She made it to the foot of the ramp without stumbling, and then found that the suit’s weight slowed her so that she could hardly overtake the old woman — and the old woman had a twenty meter lead. Already she was at the end of the lane, between the first houses.
“Don’t get out of our sight,” the advisor called. “If you go too far—” She waved vaguely backward, meaning she had heard and would do what she thought best. Admittedly, she probably shouldn’t get out of their sight, when she knew the aliens — no, the indigenes — were somewhere in the area. “Please—” Kira called to the old woman. “Wait for me. They’ll stay back, but one of us must talk to you.” The old woman stopped and turned slowly, as if she were stiff. Kira tried to take a longer stride, tripped, and nearly fell. Now she could see the old woman’s expression clearly. The dark eyes sparkled with amusement.
“Sorry,” Kira said, out of breath. “But — we really do—”
“It’s a bad time,” the woman said again. This close, Kira could see the remaining dark strands in the white hair, the warts and patchy discoloration of a lifetime’s unprotected existence in open air and sunlight. The old woman’s hands were wrinkled and weathered, the knuckles swollen and distorted. She should have looked sick — any individual feature Kira noted had pathology all over it — but the general impression was one of vigor, both mental and physical.
“Which is your house?” Kira asked. She would have to be firm, she knew that. With the ignorant — and colonists like this had almost no education, not real education — and the wavering old, it was necessary to be firm. “We can go there, and you can rest, and we can talk.”
The old woman just stared at her, eyes no longer sparkling. She sighed. Then she scratched the back of one leg with the dirty toes of the other foot. “It will be hot today,” she said. A local custom, to start with the weather? “Is this the hot season?” Kira asked, hoping courtesy would engender trust.
Another long stare. “You’ll sweat in that thing,” the woman said, pointing to Kira’s protective suit. “Yes.” Kira made herself laugh. “It was the advisors. They were afraid someone would shoot us, or something.”
“Advisors… Company advisors?”
“No, the military.” The old woman’s expression did not change; Kira felt she was talking to a computer with a defective I/O subroutine. “Let me explain,” Kira said. “When the other colony was attacked, the orbiting ship went back and told the government—” Never mind the delay caused by the mutiny; she didn’t want to overload the old woman’s capacity. “And then they decided to send us to assess the situation.”
“To kill the aliens,” the old lady said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “No!” Kira surprised herself with vehemence of her answer “Not to kill, to study. To see if they can become allies. We did want to dismantle the powerplant, so they wouldn’t have access to our technology…” Now the old woman was smiling, but it was not a nice smile. “They are very smart,” she said. “They understand it.”
Kira hoped she had misunderstood. “Understand — ?”
“The powerplant. Electricity. Machines.”
Impossible. This old woman didn’t know what she was talking about; she herself couldn’t understand all that. She probably thought being able to move a switch was the same thing as understanding. But perhaps she and the other colonists had known of the indigenes before, even though they hadn’t reported it for some reason. “Did you know about them before — before the evacuation?” “No. We never saw such creatures, not in all my years here, until after that other colony tried to land.” She scuffed one foot in the dirt. “Then they came. They found me.”
“And you showed them everything?” Kira could not keep the tone of disapproval out of her voice. Even an ignorant colonist should have known better than that; she was sure that was part of the lectures given all outgoing colonists. If anyone found an alien intelligence, it was to be reported, not allowed contact with human technology.
The old woman ducked her head, and shrugged, much like a guilty child hoping to escape punishment.
She probably wasn’t too bright — possibly mentally ill, or why else would she have stayed behind? Ignorant, disturbed, and a little slow, she had probably seen the indigenes as something interesting. A wonder they hadn’t killed her.
“Come on,” Kira urged, being consciously gentle again, charming, as she would have been to a slow child. “Show me where you live; let’s have a little chat.”
Now the black eyes were opaque as obsidian, and the old woman’s body seemed to settle, as if she’d turned to stone. “Its a bad time,” she said. “Come back later.”
“You don’t have to worry about cleaning up, if that’s what you meant,” Kira said, imagining the kind of housekeeping this woman might do, she with her cape and loincloth and bare feet. She probably hadn’t washed a dish in the years she’d been here; it would be squalid and horrible, but… “It’s not that,” the old woman said. “It’s just a bad time. Come back later.” She turned away again. “Tomorrow. And don’t follow me.” She walked off, slowly and steadily. The morning sun had burned through the mist, and revealed all the varicose veins on the backs of the old woman’s legs. Kira stood staring after her. She had not had anyone snub her like that since childhood. She hoped she was not one of those academic terrors who demanded deference beyond their rights, but a little common courtesy… she fought down the irritation. She was hot and sweaty, that was all, and the old woman wasn’t quite right in the head. What could you expect of someone who would choose to stay behind, alone — although the old woman hadn’t said that. Perhaps she had had another companion, another old person who’d stayed and now was sick. That would explain a lot.
Kira watched as the old woman kept going, up the street — hardly more than an open way between the houses, not paved at all, though it had a ditch to either side. The old woman turned aside, finally, entering what seemed to be a gap between the houses, or a garden. From here, Kira couldn’t see for sure. She turned, and lumbered back to the shuttle, uncomfortably aware of the warmth of the sun. Sweat soaked her clothes inside the suit already; she could smell herself. It would be stifling by midmorning, and she didn’t like to think about the afternoon.