Tongues Read online

Tongues

  by

  Brian Rappatta

  Infinite Jester Publications

  Copyright 2006 by Brian Rappatta

  This is a work of fiction. All incidents, dialogue, characters and locations with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures and locations, are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life locations, historical, or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Reviews for the work of Brian Rappatta

  “One of the joys of reading anthologies is discovering exciting up-and-coming authors—with breathtaking new visions, innovative writing styles, etc.—and in the 22nd annual edition of Writers of the Future, that literary bliss couldn’t be more satisfying. If the dozen winning stories featured within are any indication, the future of the genre is in more than capable hands.”

  Review of Writers of the Future Volume XXII, by Paul Goat Allen

  “Brian Rappatta’s “Tongues” is a tale about recognizing and listening to our god—but do we really understand what he is saying? Another fantastic volume of varied voices, this volume adds to the stature of the contest and shows that the future remains in good hands with a new group [of writers] ready to move onto the bestseller lists.”

  Review of Writers of the Future Volume XXII, by Barry Hunter, Baryon Magazine

  “A few of the stories merit particular applause . . . . Many stories challenge the reader to ponder complex scientific concepts such as cosmology, nuclear fusion, cellular biology, and xenolinguistics, especially in “At the Gate of God” by Joseph Jordan and “Tongues” by Brian Rappatta. Without oversimplifying the material, each author manages to make the complicated subject matter understandable and relevant to the theme of the story.

  Review of Writers of the Future Volume XXII, by VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates)

  “ . . . [the] editor proves that the future of horror is a certain guarantee: should any of these new scribes persevere with works even remotely as fine as the ones presented here, then we are in for some very fine reading in the near future. Pick up a copy of Shadow Regions and make certain to check out the stories from Justin Gustainis, Bill Carl, Brian Rappatta, and Teri Fleming, as well as that of veteran horror extraordinaire Gary A. Braunbeck. You’ll be glad you did.”

  Review of the anthology Shadow Regions, by Michael Laimo

  Author of Dead Souls and The Demonologist

  Tongues

  By Brian Rappatta

  That last night on Penitentiary, as the drugs the guards had put in his last meal began to take hold, Seamus knew he’d be waking up a long time later on a new planet and with a new religion.

  The emergence from the transit death was always the same: one huge inrush of breath, the lungs jump-starting again after long disuse, the body clawing its way back from death. Disorientation, caused by the blindness of deep stasis. And then the gagging and the puking as the body tried to purge the aftereffects of the slow-trans drugs.

  He was not alone this time, though. There were hands, warm on his chest as he shivered. And then a voice, calling to him. “Dr. Martinez! Dr. Martinez, can you hear me?”

  He tried to focus on the voice even though his sight would not return for several hours. “Wh—” Where am I? was his first question, but his stomach heaved, and he vomited. He couldn’t tell for certain, but he thought he must have gotten some all over the man who had called his name.

  Finally, Seamus managed, “Who are you? Where am I?”

  “I’m Reverend Thomas Huntsberger,” said the voice. “You’re on Onomayu.”

  Seamus didn’t know where Onomayu was, and he didn’t much care. “Reverend? What de—de—denom—?”

  “I represent the Protestant Union.”

  Protestant, Seamus thought. So I’m Christian again. It should have been comforting. After fifty-two years, he’d finally returned to the church of his youth.

  “You can save your time, Reverend,” Seamus said. “You might as well send me back to Penitentiary. I’m not converting.”

  “Oh, we didn’t bring you here to convert you, Dr. Martinez. We need your help.”

  Even worse. Seamus was almost relieved when a wave of nausea rolled over him.

  If this was a penal facility, Seamus couldn’t prove it by his cell. It was a spacious room, with a real bed, not a poor excuse for a cot like on Penitentiary. It had its own alcove bathroom stocked with towels and shampoo, and when Seamus experimented, the hot water even worked. The entirety of the wall opposite the bed was a screen connected to the terminal set in a small table. He spent many hours catching up on the soccer scores from Saturn’s lunar leagues for the past decade.

  The second morning, a boy, maybe sixteen years old, appeared at his door. “Good morning,” he said to Seamus.

  “To you, too.” There were no guards with the boy. Odd. “Pardon me for saying this, but you don’t look much like a prison guard.”

  “Oh, I’m not a guard, sir. I’m just — the Reverend’s assistant. I’m Alan. I’m here to take you to him.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t left your room yet. There’s lots to see.”

  “You mean the door wasn’t locked?”

  Alan looked aghast. “Of course not. We would never do that.”

  “Then you won’t last long in the corrections business, I’m guessing. Lead on, then. Let’s go meet the fine Reverend.”

  Alan led him back down the corridor, past the room where he had awoken. Then the boy stopped at a lift. He pushed the call button, and the door opened immediately. “After you, sir,” Alan said.

  Sir? This place was already much better than Penitentiary. Seamus stepped into the lift.

  After a few seconds the lift doors opened onto an enormous room. The ceiling was high overhead, so high as to be almost mistaken for open sky. At the far end of the chamber was a long metal table and a glass window overlooking a vast panorama of mountains. Seamus’s breath caught in his throat; even Penitentiary’s rec gymnasium had not boasted this much open space.

  “Go on,” Alan said. “You can get out of the elevator, you know.”

  Seamus hesitated for a moment. With the ceiling high overhead and the wide window looking out onto the sky, he had the distinct impression of stepping out into open air. But as he stepped out of the elevator, the floor beneath his feet did not give way.

  “I’ll let the Reverend know you’re waiting for him,” Alan said. “He should be here shortly.”

  The lift doors closed, and Seamus was alone—truly alone—for the first time in years.

  He wasted no time. Practically sprinting across the carpeted floor beneath him, he rushed across the chamber to the massive display window at the far end.

  The window looked down upon a valley formed by mountains of some type of rock resembling limestone. In all his travels, he had never seen mountains such as these.

  In the crook of the valley lay a village. He could see the rooftops of a great variety of dwellings. It was hard to get a good read on the architecture from this vantage point, but Seamus thought it looked obviously pre-industrial.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?”

  Seamus started. Such had been his absorption in the view that he’d forgotten where he was, just for a moment. He turned.

  Reverend Huntsberger was short and round, with close-cropped graying hair. He wore spectacles, an affectation that made him look somewhat pedantic.

  “Dr. Martinez, I’m Thomas Huntsberger.” The
reverend extended a hand for Seamus to shake. “It’s nice to meet you, properly, I mean.”

  “You’re my new contractor?” Seamus asked.

  “I am. How do you like our facility? A bit more comfortable than a penal asteroid, I hope?”

  “It’s . . . impressive,” Seamus admitted. “But I’m a little confused. It must have cost a fortune. Why spend so much money on a penal facility?”

  Huntsberger chuckled. “This isn’t a penal facility, Dr. Martinez. This is a retreat center.”

  Seamus grunted. “Retreat center? There’s a new one.” Penitentiary had officially been called a “Rehabilitation Campus.”

  The reverend smiled and shook his head. “No, I’m afraid you misunderstand, Dr. Martinez. You see, we didn’t build this place with the purpose of rehabilitating wrongdoers.” At Seamus’s frown, he hastily added, “Though we are fully licensed to take on confinement contracts, have no fear. Your sentence is safe with us.” He chuckled at his own joke.

  “What about those people down there?” Seamus nodded to the little village nestled in the valley.

  “The Onomayu. A remarkable people.”

  “I see. Pre-industrial, I’m guessing, judging by the architecture?”

  “Very.”

  “Did anybody ask them if they wanted a religious resort on their front lawn?”

  “You needn’t worry about them. We’ve expressly forbidden our guests any direct contact with the natives. Observation only.”

  “I see. So it’s okay to hang out inside the mountain and spy on them, but not to talk to them.”

  Huntsberger frowned. “The arrangement is not ideal, but until their civilization develops it’s the only way we can learn about their culture. They’re quite fascinating, Dr. Martinez.”

  Seamus took his gaze away from the village in the valley. “Is that why you brought me here?” he asked.

  “Of course. Despite your unfortunate imprisonment in the last decade, you’re still a fine xenolinguist.”

  Seamus understood the subtext well enough. “You needn’t waste breath on flattery, Reverend,” he said. “I take it their language is giving you problems?”

  “Yes. They have an incredibly intricate ceremonial language that has completely baffled the computer translation matrices we’ve set up. Their day to day language is fairly straightforward, but . . .”

  “There’s not much that’s fairly straightforward about ceremonial languages in any culture.”

  “I see your point. Why don’t you take a look for yourself?”

  Huntsberger gave a command to the room computer, and the transparent wall began playing video of the Onomayu village. The video opened in a large gathering hall, what appeared to be some form of community hut. Approximately sixty of the natives were gathered around, sitting in clumps on the ground. Then, the entire assembly began chanting one word—retauros—and one man, an elder, by the looks of him, got up and moved to the forefront of the group. The group’s chanting rose to a fevered pitch, and then fell silent. All those assembled in the room watched the man, whom Seamus assumed to be Retauros, expectantly.

  The man spoke, at first in a lilting, cadenced speech that reminded Seamus of a Scottish brogue. The man Retauros was quite a performer, injecting his performance with theatrical rises to thunderous crescendos and alternating with throaty whispers.

  The language seemed to change during the performance as well. Parts of the man’s speech were filled with undulating, vowel-heavy utterances while other parts contained the jarring of several harsh consonants together. Seamus could detect no coherence to the language other than an obvious lilting rhythm; through it all, the audience sat transfixed, and at certain points either laughed or wept in a religious fervor depending upon the tone of the performer.

  The video ended. Seamus was surprised to find that even though he had understood not a single word of the performance, it had given him goose bumps.

  “Well?” Huntsberger pressed. “What do you think?”

  “Fascinating,” Seamus said. “A very stirring performance. The Onomayu appear to take their worship very seriously.”

  Huntsberger nodded. “There is something about the way pre-scientific societies worship, you have to admit. They’re so—ardent. They don’t have any concept of science to temper their zeal.” Seamus was surprised to find that the reverend didn’t sound pompous or overblown at all as he said this; rather, he sounded wistful. “There are people who still want that. Sometimes, this is as close as they can get.”

  “So . . .” Seamus took a deep breath. “You want me to crack this ceremonial language for you.”

  Huntsberger nodded eagerly. “Exactly. If anyone can do it, it’s surely you, Dr. Martinez.”

  Seamus sighed. He closed his eyes. This was it. He would have to refuse, and of course they would send him back to Penitentiary. No more private room, private bath—no more private scenery with a real sky just on the other side of the glass . . . .

  Before Seamus could open his mouth to speak, Huntsberger spoke again. “Before you say anything, I have some good news for you, Dr. Martinez. I spoke with an advocate on Earth about your case. He’s positive he can use your service for the church as evidence of good faith toward your rehabilitation. He thinks he can get your sentence commuted to the time you’ve already served plus five years parole.”

  Seamus’s refusal suddenly died on his lips. “What?”

  “He thinks he can get your sentence commuted to—”

  “I—I heard you.” Seamus held up his hand for him to stop. “But—I don’t understand. How?”

  Huntsberger grinned. “We have certain influence with the arbiters on Earth.” He flashed Seamus a broad schoolboy grin. “You could be a free man in a very short period of time, Dr. Martinez.”

  “I—I’m not sure . . . The last time I worked on a project like this . . .” People died.

  “Think of it, Dr. Martinez. If you can submit a full syntactic analysis and a basic lexicon of the Onomayu ceremonial language, the church is willing to submit a post-facto plea bargain for a lessening of your sentence. What do you say?”

  Seamus felt distinctly like a rat in a maze chasing cheese. That Huntsberger had played him perfectly, with just the right amounts of flattery and temptation, did not escape him. He looked out the window, once again transparent, at the Onomayu village in the valley. What could it hurt?

  He considered his words carefully. He did not look at the reverend. “I’m not sure I have the moral fiber to refuse.”

  Huntsberger beamed. “Excellent. The Protestant Council is expecting the analysis in a month. I’m sure you’ll be wanting—”

  “A month?” Seamus said. “I can’t do a full syntactic analysis and a lexicon in a month. It would take twice that just to make preliminary observations—”

  “Normally, yes. But there have been some improvements in ethnographic investigation since your imprisonment, Dr. Martinez. We have a tool that will help you along.” He pressed his finger to his ear to activate an implant. “Now, Alan.”

  The lift doors opened, and a figure emerged. It was a male humanoid, of some race Seamus had never seen. The man’s skin coloration was a light olive, and the face contained two bright brown eyes with retinas much darker than humans’; the nose was flattened, with two tiny nostrils that seemed to appear out of nowhere just above a small mouth ringed by darkish green lips. The man’s similarity, in structure if not in coloration, to a human from Earth definitively placed his planet of origin as somewhere along the Kzrjemian arm of the Milky Way.

  Seamus watched as the man crossed the room to stand before the table. “Well, what do you think?” the man said—in Alan’s voice.

  “What the—?” Seamus muttered.

  “Survey android,” Huntsberger said. “State of the art. And damned pricy to have tailor-made. With this you can have full interaction with the Onomayu people, and their cultur
e will never be compromised.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Of course. Cuts down on the observation work considerably. All the anthro surveys into pre-scientific cultures are using them these days.”

  “Are you seriously considering letting a convicted murderer interact with the Onomayu?”

  “Come now, Dr. Martinez. You’re hardly a convicted murderer. You were convicted as an accessory to murder. It’s not the same thing.”

  Over the next ten days Seamus, with Alan as his assistant, immersed himself in the anthro team’s reports and findings of the Onomayu. He read every word of the logs of each of the team’s ten participants, making notes and jotting down further questions, then rereading the survey team’s results one more time.

  In all, he was astounded at the poor quality of the research team’s findings. They’d been on the planet for three weeks and four days, and then had abruptly packed up and left, leaving all their research files and studies open. When Seamus had queried Huntsberger about it, the reverend had merely shrugged. “They were due somewhere else. Onomayu was a low priority.”

  Although they had a functioning computer translation matrix for the Onomayu’s day to day language, Seamus spent far too long studying its grammar and syntax.

  After two weeks, Seamus had to confront the possibility that he was stalling. He’d learned almost all he could about the ceremonial language, or the kamin-na, from covert video surveillance of the Onomayu’s ceremonies. The computer was still baffled, and so was he. As far as he could tell, the kamin-na had no set structures that he could latch onto as a point of departure. He was tempted to declare it just a load of gibberish and have done with the whole affair, except for the nagging question: how could such an elaborate system of gibberish come to hold such a vital role in the Onomayu society?

  On the fifteenth day, Reverend Huntsberger entered the room Seamus had occupied as a lab. Huntsberger took a rather disinterested look around the room at the clutter of computers and monitors. He’d been mostly absent for the past two weeks, leaving Seamus and Alan to their research in peace.