“Attention. Attention,” said a voice seemingly coming from thin air, though in fact it came from the tiny transceiver almost hidden in the fur behind Jarrikk's left ear. It spoke Guildtalk with the unmistakable accent of a Hasshingu-Issk computer. “Docking procedures commencing. Translator Jarrikk, please report to main lock.”
“Jarrikk, acknowledging,” Jarrikk said. He put the datachip back into his collar, then turned to the blank wall across the chamber from the door. “Mirror,” he said, and the wall turned reflective. Jarrikk smoothed the fur behind his ears and gave his snout a quick rub, then spread his wings as much as he could, the familiar tight pulling of his old wound stopping him before he had the left one open much more than halfway. Still, he thought, looking at his reflection, they opened far enough to show their lack of insignia. He thought it was time to do something about that, and he should be able to find a first-rate insignia artist now that he was finally back on a S'sinn world . . .
. . . half-S'sinn world . . .
He shrugged that thought aside, annoyed that it even came up. He had seen several humans in the Guildhall over the years, and though he had never spoken to one, much less Translated with one, he hadn't tried to tear their heads off, either. What more could anyone ask?
He closed his wings a little too quickly, causing a sharp needle-jab of pain, and headed for the lock.
Just before he reached it he heard the faint, distant rumbling of docking. “Attention, attention,” said the voice again. “Submitting to station gravitational field in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . now.” Jarrikk suddenly felt lighter. With a new spring in his step, he entered the lock. The Hasshingu-Issk captain of the
Dikari
raised a clawed fist by way of greeting, and Jarrikk raised his own fist back, but didn't say anything; he could feel the captain's intense concentration and didn't want to disturb him.
The inner lock door suddenly dilated open, letting in a puff of much warmer air carrying a rich assortment of odors that made Jarrikk's snout wrinkle reflexively. He hastily smoothed his expression as an Ithkarite stepped heavily into the dock, wearing a bright green watersuit with the binary-star symbol of the Commonwealth Peacekeepers emblazoned in red on his chest. As most Commonwealth bureaucrats did, he spoke Guildtalk, albeit badly. “Welcome to Commonwealth Station 190-489,” he squeaked. “I am Peacekeeper Ishta, Co-commander, Second Class. Captain Hi'i'liss and . . .” Ishta paused, obviously listening to a voice in his own ear. “. . . Translator Jarrikk, please accompany me to my office. In the meantime, Captain, you will open your ship for weapons inspection.”
“Certainly,” Captain Hi'i'liss growled. “First Mate Jo'a'rimm stands ready to assist.”
“Excellent,” said Ishta. “Then if you will follow me . . .”
Jarrikk trailed Ishta and Hi'i'liss out through the lock and down a narrow corridor to another lock, which opened into a huge, echoing space cluttered with loading equipment, cargo containers of every shape and color, and a dozen more Peacekeepers, half Ithkarites and half Hasshingu-Issk, waiting in dual ranks. A sharp stink of ozone and burning metal assaulted Jarrikk's nose from the far end of the dock, where a S'sinn worked on a deck plate with a cutting laser.
Ishta nodded to the Peacekeepers, then led Hi'i'liss and Jarrikk toward one of several doors of various sizes and shapes on the far side of the dock. Glancing back, Jarrikk saw the twelve Peacekeepers filing into the docking tunnel.
A two-tone alarm note sounded, and the station computer said, “Here follows Station Status Update number two-seven for this rotation. Newly docked: Guildship
Dikari,
from Commonwealth Central. Next arrival:
Wings of Blackest Night,
inbound from S'sinn dikk, now on final approach vector, estimated arrival in one thousand beats. Next departure:
Maishista,
Ithkarite trader, undocking in two thousand four hundred beats. Just arrived:
Sri Lanka,
Earth vessel, still undergoing weapons search. Status unchanged:
Hunter's Claw,
S'sinn trader, awaiting customs inspection. Report ends.”
Jarrikk felt a faint prickle of unease. Humans just arrived on the station, and one S'sinn ship already docked and another inbound. If he were the station commander, he'd double his security watch.
The door in front of them irised open, and Ishta motioned Hi'i'liss and Jarrikk through an airlock into a small, oval chamber, its walls glistening with moisture. Jarrikk was glad the Peacekeeper had chosen to wear his watersuit rather than make the two of them suit up; like most S'sinn, he'd had no experience with being under water until his Translation duties had demanded it. He'd learned to control his instinctive panic, but he still hated it.
The Ithkarite's computer terminal, a crystal ovoid, stood on a green pillar in the center of the room. He waved a manipulator over it and it lit up with symbols meaningless to Jarrikk. Ishta studied it. “Yes . . . everything seems to be in order, Captain. No cargo?”
“None,” said Hi'i'liss. “Our sole purpose is to convey Translator Jarrikk here for his assignment.”
“Translator Jarrikk,” said Ishta. “Your identchip, please.”
Jarrikk opened the collar compartment and handed over the chip, but almost dropped it when his fingers brushed Ishta's gloved manipulators. Whereas until that moment Jarrikk had felt only the ordinary casual competence and slight boredom of an official doing his job, when he touched Ishta he suddenly sensed suppressed excitement and even a touch of fearâboth connected with his presence.
He stared hard at Ishta as the Peacekeeper casually turned and put the datachip into a depression in the base of the crystal egg. “Again, everything seems in order.” No questioning of the confidentiality of the assignment, Jarrikk noted; of course, that was how it should be, but now it seemed suspicious. Ishta slipped the datachip out of the terminal and handed it back to Jarrikk, who returned it to his collar. “You may return to your vessel and proceed to the surface as soon as weapons check is concluded and certified. Thank you.”
Hi'i'liss nodded once, sharply, then strode out, anxious, Jarrikk could feel, to get back to his ship. Jarrikk followed more slowly, pausing at the inner door of the office's airlock to glance back at Ishta. Now that he'd been sensitized to it, he could still feel the Ithkarite's strange excitement.
He didn't know why, but he knew Ishta had been eagerly awaiting his arrival. Maybe he already knew all about Jarrikk's assignment.
If that were so, Jarrikk thought as he went down the corridor, he wished the Ithkarite would share the information, because so far, its confidentiality extended even to him. As was frequently the case in the Guild, exactly who he'd be Translating for, and why, wouldn't be revealed until he reached his destination.
Which shouldn't be long; the weapons inspectors were already emerging from the docking tunnel into the loading area.
He started toward the tunnel, but a loud, harsh voice startled him. A surge of anger accompanied the noise: only that kind of violent emotion could carry over the hundred spans or more to the mouth of the next docking tunnel, where two Ithkarite Peacekeepers faced one shouting human, whose heavily accented Guildtalk was peppered with other sounds that meant nothing to Jarrikk. “. . . (untranslatable) Guildship is already cleared to leave and we've been undergoing weapons check for half a rotation! You've taken every (untranslatable) thing in there apart and you haven't found anything because there's nothing to (untranslatable) find! I've got delivery deadlines to meet on the surface! This is (untranslatable) harassment and I intend to . . .”
Higher-pitched shouts drowned out the human's voice; shouts from a half-dozen S'sinn, emerging into the loading area from another of the doors behind Jarrikk. “Hey, flightmates, look! A wingless slime grub!”
“A nightcrawling stinkworm!”
“A coilworm turd!”
“No, no, it's even more disgustingâit's a human!”
The human might not have understood the insults, most of which couldn't have been translated into Guildtalk anyway, but maybe he'd picked up enough S'sinn to get the gist of them; he stiffened, broke off yelling at the Peacekeepers, and glanced quickly around the loading area. No other humans were in sight. He glanced at the Peacekeepers again. “I trust you will expedite your search,” he said with sudden restraint, then hurried back down the docking tunnel.
Jarrikk's eyes narrowed. The human's anger hadn't gone away; it had just shifted focus to the S'sinn. Jarrikk had the distinct feeling that if the Commonwealth did not confiscate all weapons from ships coming to this world, the human would have very shortly returned with armed friends. As for the Ithkarite Peacekeepers . . . they were difficult to read accurately at that range, but amused contempt suggested itself.
There was nothing amused about the contempt of the S'sinn and, with a shock, Jarrikk realized they'd already forgotten about the humanâthe contempt was for
him!
He turned slowly to find a dozen red eyes glaring at him. He folded his crippled wings tightly and said, “Greetings, flockmates. I am Translator Jarrikk.”
He received no reply. One by one, they turned their backs on him and strode toward their own docking tunnel, until only the leader remained. Only he spoke, and then only one word. “Traitor,” he hissed. He spread his wings, clapped them once, sharply, the blast of air buffeting Jarrikk, then strode after his ship-mates, leaving behind a miasma of utter disgust that Jarrikk could almost feel clinging to his fur like the stench of something dead and slimy.
“Welcome home,” Jarrikk growled.
In his quarters, as the ship shuddered and pulled away from the station, he regarded his reflection again. Any other S'sinn could see at a glance he could not fly even when his wings were not spread enough to show the left's scarred membrane; the gnarled muscles of his damaged shoulder made a small but, to S'sinn, obvious and disfiguring lump beneath his pelt. He knew it was difficult for some S'sinn to accept that a Flightless One lived; he'd felt the shock of the S'sinn traders he'd Translated for on his previous missions. He'd warned himself that on Kikks'sarr, divided among S'sinn and humans, his people would find it even more difficult to accept that such a one served the hated Commonwealth. He'd thought himself prepared for that reaction.
Now, he wasn't so sure.
They made planetfall within half a rotation, setting down in the same spaceport where Jarrikk had raged at the Commonwealth delegation when it came to declare an end to the war. His mirror-wall now a vidscreen, Jarrikk looked out across the landing field to the distant lights of the city, barely visible through a driving rain.
Home?
he thought. It didn't feel like it. Not after his encounter in the station.
Now, when he thought of home, he thought of the Guildhall. And maybe that was as it should be. Karak would certainly have said so.
Yet Jarrikk could have wished he felt a little more glad to be here.
The transceiver behind his ear beeped. “Captain Hi 'i'liss here, Translator. We're receiving a vidcall for you.”
“Please display it in my quarters, Captain.”
“Displaying.”
The image of the rain-swept spaceport disappeared, replaced by that of an anonymous S'sinn in front of a blank stone wall. “Welcome, Translator Jarrikk,” said the S'sinn.
“Thank you.”
“We have contracted for your services on a matter of some urgency,” the other continued. “I regret the imposition, but we require your presence at once.”
“No imposition,” Jarrikk said. “I am entirely at your disposal during my assignment here. Where should I go?”
“A vehicle is already on its way to your ship. It will bring you to us. We look forward to meeting you in person.”
“And I, you.” The screen blanked. Jarrikk scratched his chest thoughtfully. Not very informative. He'd grown to hate communicating by vidscreen, where his empathy was useless. Maybe someday the Swampworlders would come up with a way to transmit emotions over long distances. He doubted it; their peculiar “wet” technology didn't mesh very well with things like vidscreens.
The Captain spoke to him again. “Translator Jarrikk, your transportation is here.”
Already?
“On my way, Captain.” He quickly collected his Translation case from a wall compartment and made his way into the corridor and down it to the nearest liftshaft. “I'm afraid I've had no indication yet of how long this assignment will take, Captain,” he said as he sank toward ground level. “You'll just have to stand by until I get more information.”
“Understood and accepted. Good luck, Translator.”
The lift deposited him at the very base of the ship, in an area inaccessible except when the
Dikari
was on the ground. It contained the
Dikari
's own ground transports, a large hatch for unloading and loading them, and a small hatch for personnel. Jarrikk removed his transceiver and handed it to the Hasshingu-Issk on duty; the crewman set it aside, then opened the hatch and extended the ramp.
Jarrikk squinted up at the pouring sky, growled deep in his throat, and then stepped out into the storm, moved down the ramp, and splashed through puddles to the groundcar, which he really thought could have been brought much closer to the hatch. “An Ithkarite would feel right at home,” he muttered.
A door in the side of the silvery ovoid opened, and he climbed gratefully into the warm, dry interior. A different S'sinn from the one who had called greeted him, physically masking quite well, Jarrikk thought, his shock at the fact that the Translator he had been eagerly awaiting was flightless. “Welcome, Translator,” was all the new S'sinn said, as the door closed behind Jarrikk. “I am Yvekkarr. Please make yourself comfortable; the drive will be a lengthy one.”