Rebka walked across to him. “Busy?”
“Middlin’. Passes the time. I think they’re alive in there.” Nenda stood up straight and stared at Rebka questioningly. “Well?”
Rebka did not resent the chilly tone. Neither man was one for casual conversation. “I need your help.”
“Do you now. Well, that’ll be a first.” Nenda scratched at his arm, where droplets of corrosive liquid had raised a fine crop of blisters. “Don’t see how I can give it. You know as much about this place as I do.”
“I’m not talking about that. I need something different.” Rebka gestured to Louis Nenda to follow him, and did not speak again until they were out of the room and far away along the corridor. Finally he halted and turned. “I want you to act as interpreter for me.”
“All this way to tell me that? Sorry. I can’t speak to silver teapots any better than you can.”
“I don’t mean World-Keeper. I want you as interpreter to Atvar H’sial.”
“Use J’merlia, then, not me. Even with my augment, he speaks Cecropian a sight better than I do.”
“I know. But I don’t want J’merlia as interpreter. I don’t want to use him for anything. You’ve seen him. He’s been our main interface with the construct, but don’t you think he’s been acting strange?”
“Strange ain’t the word for it. You heard Kallik, when J’merlia first rolled up an’ joined us? She said she thought her buddy J’merlia might have been Zardalu brainwashed. Is that where you’re coming from?”
“Somewhere like that.” Rebka did not see it as a Zardalu brainwash, but he would have been hard put to produce an explanation of his own. All he knew was that something felt wrong, impossible to explain to anyone who did not already feel it for himself. “I want to know what Atvar H’sial thinks about J’merlia. He’s been her slave and interpreter for years. I don’t know if anyone can lie using pheromonal speech, but I’d like to know if J’merlia said anything to Atvar H’sial that sounded bizarrely different from usual.”
“You can lie in Cecropian pheromonal speech, but only if you speak it really well. You know what the Decantil Myrmecons say about Cecropians? ‘All that matters to Cecropians are honesty, sincerity, and integrity. Once a Cecropian learns to fake those, she is ready to take her place in Federation society.’ Sure you can lie in Cecropian. I just wish I were fluent enough to do it.”
“Well, if anyone understands the change in J’merlia, I’m betting it’s Atvar H’sial. That’s what I want to ask her about.”
“Hang on. I’ll get her.” Nenda headed for the other chamber, but he added over his shoulder, “I think I know what she’ll tell you, though. She’ll say she can’t talk sensibly to J’merlia any more. But you should hear it for yourself. Wait here.”
When the massive Cecropian arrived Nenda was already asking Rebka’s question. She nodded at Hans Rebka.
“It is true, Captain,” Nenda translated, “and yet it is more subtle than that. I can talk to J’merlia, and he speaks to me and for me in return. He speaks truth, also — at least, I do not feel that he is lying. And yet there is a feeling of incompleteness in his presence, as though it is not J’merlia who stands before me, but some unfamiliar simulacrum who has learned to mimic every action of the real J’merlia. And yet I know that must also be false. My echolocation might be fooled, but my sense of smell, never. This is indeed the authentic J’merlia.”
“Ask Atvar H’sial why she did not tell her thoughts before, to you or me,” Rebka said.
The blind white head nodded again. Wing cases lifted and lowered as the question was relayed. “Tell what thoughts?” Nenda translated. “Atvar H’sial says that she disdains to encourage anxiety in others, on the basis of such vague and subjective discomforts.”
Rebka knew the feeling. “Tell her that I appreciate her difficulty. And also say that I want to ask Atvar H’sial’s further cooperation.”
“Ask.” The open yellow horns focused on Rebka’s mouth. He had the impression, not for the first time, that the Cecropian understood more than she would admit of human speech. The fact that she saw by echolocation did not rule out the possibility that she could also interpret some of the one-dimensional sonic patterns issued by human vocal cords.
“When World-Keeper returns, I do not want communication to proceed through J’merlia, as it did last time. Ask Atvar H’sial if she will command or persuade him, whatever it takes to get J’merlia out of the way.”
Nenda held up his hand. “I’m tellin’ her, but this one’s from me. You expect At to trust you more than she trusts J’merlia? Why should she?”
“She doesn’t have to. You’ll be there, too. She trusts you, doesn’t she?”
That earned Rebka an odd sideways glance from Nenda’s bloodshot eyes. “Yeah. Sure she does. For most things. Hold on, though, At’s talkin’ again.” He was silent for a moment, nodding at the Cecropian. “At says she’ll do it. But she has another suggestion, too. We’ll go back in, an’ you ask any questions you like of J’merlia. Meanwhile At monitors his response an’ looks for giveaways. I think she’s on to somethin’. It’s real tough to track your own pheromones while you’re talking human. J’merlia won’t find it any easier than I do.”
“Let’s go.” Rebka led the way back into the flare-lit chamber. It might be days before World-Keeper returned — but it might be only minutes, and they needed to find out what they could about the new and strange J’merlia before anything else happened.
There had been one significant change since they left the chamber. J’merlia had moved from his corner to crouch by Kallik. He was speaking rapidly to her in her own language, which Rebka did not understand, and gesturing with four of his limbs. Atvar H’sial was close behind when Rebka walked up to the pair. J’merlia’s eyes swiveled, first to the human, then on to his Cecropian dominatrix.
“J’merlia.” Hans Rebka had been wondering what question might yield the quickest information. He made his decision. “J’merlia, have you been lying to us in any statement that you have made?”
If anything could produce an unplanned outpouring of emotional response, that should do it. Lo’tfians did not lie, especially with a dominatrix present. Any response but a surprised and immediate denial would be shocking.
“I have not.” The words were addressed to Rebka, but the pale-lemon eyes remained fixed on Atvar H’sial. “I have not told lies.”
The words were definite enough. But why was the tone so hesitant? “Then have you concealed anything from us, anything that we perhaps ought to know?”
J’merlia straightened his eight spindly legs and stood rigid. Louis Nenda, on instinct, moved to place himself between the Lo’tfian and the exit to the chamber. But J’merlia did not move in that direction. Instead he held out one claw toward Atvar H’sial and moaned, high in his thin throat.
And then he was off, darting straight at the flaming column in the middle of the room.
The humans and the Cecropian were far too slow. Before they could move an inch J’merlia was halfway to the wide pillar of flaring blue-white. Kallik alone was fast enough to follow. She raced after J’merlia and caught up with him just as he came to the column. As he threw himself at its blazing heart she reached out one wiry arm and grabbed a limb. He kept moving into the roaring pillar. Kallik’s arm was dragged in with him. There was a flash of violet-blue. And then the Hymenopt had leaped backward fifteen meters. She was hissing in pain and shock. Half of one forelimb had been seared off in that momentary indigo flash.