“Perhaps not,” Ukatonen admitted, “but it does seem to be necessary.”
“Ukatonen, she does not mean you well,” Eerin warned him.
“I understand. She kept us prisoner on board ship. She is afraid of us. But perhaps if she knew us, she would not be afraid.”
“But if she is your enemy, Ukatonen, the more she knows about you, the more opportunity she has to hurt you,” Analin pointed out.
“Perhaps, Analin, but I must try to reach harmony with her.”
“That will be hard, en,” Eerin put in. “And you must be cautious. First we must know more about her.”
“That, at least, is easy,” Analin said. She unzipped her backpack, and took out a thick envelope. “This is a dossier on General Burnham that I had prepared when I was working on the quarantine story. It is quite thorough.”
“I see,” Eerin said. “Thank you, Analin. It will be a big help.”
Eerin went over the general’s file with Ukatonen, but almost everything in it seemed incomprehensible to the enkar. It only reminded him of how much he had to learn about humans.
At last, after most of an evening spent in explanations that clarified nothing, Ukatonen looked up at Eerin. “I think it’s time I called the general up and talked to her. There is nothing more I can learn from this file.”
“Are you sure, en?”
Ukatonen nodded.
“Then we will call her tomorrow morning, before our first interview.”
The next morning, Ukatonen sat down at the computer, the comm number for General Burnham emblazoned on one arm in Standard skin speech. He closed his eyes for a minute, thinking over what he was about to do. Burn-ham’s background was a confusing blur to him, but he could tell that the humans were scared of her. She held the responsibility for many humans in her hands, but not kindly. Best to think of the general as the leader of a pack of predators, he decided. He had to try and reassure her that he and his people were not a threat to humans or their territory. It would be hard— she was already afraid of the Tendu— but he had to try to understand her, to make her less afraid of him, to reach harmony with her.
He opened his eyes and looked up at the others.
“I’m ready,” he said, and keyed in the comm sequence.
“General Burnham’s office, may I help— ” The man’s eyes widened as he saw Ukatonen.
“That’s her secretary,” Analin whispered.
“Good morning. I am Ukatonen. I would like to speak to General Burnham. Is she busy?”
“Um-ah… please hold,” the secretary said. The screen went dark. The word “holding” flashed on the screen in blue. Ukatonen glanced up and saw that Eerin and Analin were both smiling.
“He’s flustered,” Analin said. “That’s good.”
The screen lit up again. The secretary was back, looking a bit calmer. “May I ask the purpose of your call?”
“I wish to speak to the general,” Ukatonen said.
The secretary glanced sideways, then back at the screen. “Yes, but why?”
“See how he keeps looking away? The general is there in the room with him, listening to what you’re saying,” Analin whispered. She was standing off to one side, out of range of the comm unit’s camera.
“Thank you,” Ukatonen said to Analin in skin speech, the words flowing across his back. To the secretary he replied, “I was hoping that she could explain why the Expansionists seem to be afraid of my people.”
“I see,” said the secretary, hesitating. He looked sideways again, clearly listening to someone off-screen. “The general will speak to you now.”
There was a pause, and then the screen switched to another office. General Burnham was seated behind a desk. Ukatonen recognized her from her photograph. Her face was soft and round, but there were hard lines in it.
“Good morning, General Burnham,” Ukatonen said.
“Good morning. I understand you wish a lesson in politics?”
“I wish to understand humans better, yes,” Ukatonen said. “I do not understand the nature of the Expansionists’ concerns about the Tendu. I was hoping that you could enlighten me, so that we could reach harmony in this matter. It is not good that there is fear between us.”
“I am in the military, Ukatonen,” General Burnham told him. “It is my duty to protect humanity from outside threats. You and the other alien showed up without warning. It is natural for me and those who believe as I do, to urge caution. If you had waited, Earth would have extended an invitation.”
“And Eerin would have had tg choose between her family and her child.”
“Who?” General Burnham asked.
“It is our name for Dr. Saari,” Ukatonen explained.
“I see,” she said. “Dr. Saari’s decision to adopt an alien child was a flagrant violation of our Contact Protocols. Choosing between the child and her family was a consequence of that decision,” General Burnham said. She sounded angry. It was time to back down, Ukatonen realized, but he could not let Eerin’s difficult choice go undefended.
“Our decision to come with her was a consequence of that choice also. It seemed to us to be the least harmful course. We cannot cross the great emptiness without your ships, General. There are only two of us, and Moki is not yet an elder.”
“But he’s not exactly a child, either,” General Burnham replied.
“Not as you understand it, but Moki needs Dr. Saari as much as a human child needs its mother, perhaps more. We came with Dr. Saari so that she could see her family without deserting her bami. We agreed to abide by your Contact Protocols, General Burnham. You have the word of an enkar that we will cause harm to no one.”
“I have heard that, yes,” Burnham admitted. “But I do not know how much you can be trusted. Remember,” she said, “it is my duty to protect humanity. We must be wary.”
“My promise to abide by the protocols was a formal judgment. If I fail, I must kill myself,” Ukatonen explained. This woman was as hard and seamless as the shell of a purra. There was no way in past her defenses.
“I understand that,” Burnham said, “but your people are still unknown to us.”
“As humans are to the Tendu. You possess more knowledge of us than we do of you. That is the other reason I am here, General. I wish to understand your people. How can I gain your trust? How can we reach harmony?”
Burnham shook her head. “Trust is not my job,” she said. “Caution is. Thank you for calling.”
Ukatonen inclined his head, “Thank you for speaking with me, General. I have learned much.” He felt a hollow sadness in his stomach at the general’s hostility. How could a person live in the world and think this way? How had she grown to be like this?
The general frowned, as though regretting even this short conversation. “Goodbye,” she said, and reached to touch the disconnect button.
Ukatonen stared at the blank screen for a moment, then shut down the computer. He took a long deep breath and let it out again.
“So hard,” he remarked to himself in skin speech. Aloud, he wondered, “Why is she like that? She must be very sad and lonely.”
“There are many humans like her,” Eerin told him. “Trust is not easy for us, en. We have fought among ourselves for so long. Remember how long it took me to learn to trust you.”
Ukatonen nodded. “I do not think that she trusts anyone,” he said. He felt as though he had stared too long at the empty ocean of space. How empty the general must be, barricaded within the walls of her suspicion.
Moki watched the blur of people coming and going. They all wanted to talk to Eerin about the Tendu. Some of them were important people from the Survey, which was somehow part of Juna’s atwa. The rest of them were from the press. Moki was still trying to understand what the “press” was. As far as he could determine, it was an atwa that involved telling people what was going on. But the people in the press atwa preferred to talk to Eerin or Ukatonen. They ignored him, or talked to him as though he had trouble understanding them.