Tongues Read online

  “How’s it going?” the reverend asked.

  Seamus grunted. He leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair. “Not well. I’ve hit about ten brick walls. As far as I can tell, the Onomayu’s ceremonial language has no grammar whatsoever.”

  “But that’s impossible, isn’t it?”

  “Normally, I’d say yes. But I can’t even pinpoint a common vocabulary. I have yet to find a single word in common between two people’s speech. It’s like they’ve each developed their very own individual vocabulary.”

  Huntsberger frowned. “Odd.”

  “Well, religions don’t usually make much sense, so why should a language of worship?”

  Huntsberger stiffened. “Well, I’ll leave you to your work.” He turned to leave.

  Seamus sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” Huntsberger turned back around. “It’s just . . . I’m frustrated. I need more time.”

  “I wish I could give it to you. But we have retreats scheduled in exactly two and a half weeks. Scores of people will be coming here, and they paid the price of admission to see the Onomayu. I’m sorry. I have no control over that.”

  “I know,” Seamus said. “But have you considered that maybe I’m not the best person for the job?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, maybe somebody with more religious background would be more intuitively suited to this project. They might be able to—”

  “I have the utmost confidence in your abilities, Dr. Martinez. But if I might ask . . . why have you not used the survey android? Surely if you were actually to go to the Onomayu village you would have more resources at your disposal. You could interact with the people, ask about their customs.”

  “We don’t know enough,” Seamus said. “The survey team did a horrible job of studying the Onomayu. There’s no way, based on the data I’ve got, that I could take that android in there and make it behave in culturally appropriate ways. I need more time.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not sure what to tell you,” Huntsberger said. “This may sound like a platitude to you, but if you trust in God, he’ll show you a way.”

  Seamus glared at the reverend. “That’s all you’ve got to offer? ‘God will show you the way?’ With all due respect, Reverend, where was God on Menaus? I ought to know better than anyone: when you traipse in without a full concept of the culture you’re entering, people tend to die. And there’s not much God can do about that.”

  “This isn’t the same situation, Dr. Martinez. If you take the survey android in, the Onomayu will never know they’re in contact with an extraterrestrial. Nobody’s going to die.”

  Seamus threw up his arms in frustration. “Fine, then. I’ll take the bloody android in tomorrow. But if anything goes wrong, let it be on your conscience. I’ve got enough on mine already.”

  Seamus timed his arrival in the Onomayu village just right. He meandered up the main thoroughfare leading through the center of town just after sunup, only shortly before the morning kamin-na ceremony was to begin.

  A group of children playing in the street greeted him first. They came up to him, laughing and brimming with exuberance, and they took turns taking his elbow—the android’s elbow, really, but he felt it just as if it were his own arm—in the ritual Onomayu greeting.

  The oldest of the children, a boy analogous to a human adolescent, was accorded the honor of saying the words of greeting. “Be welcomed to Onomayu-eska,” he said.

  “Many thanks for the welcome,” Seamus said, and accorded the boy a polite nod of his head.

  Seamus was not too practiced at reading Onomayu facial expressions yet, but he thought the boy looked . . . ashamed. “I apologize for my rudeness,” the boy said.

  “Um—” Seamus considered. He hadn’t anticipated this. “Rudeness? I do not understand. I have perceived no rudeness.”

  The boy looked relieved, but slightly puzzled. “I have no kamin-néa to offer you. Is it not custom in your village to greet strangers from far away with the kamin-néa?”

  The android’s translation matrix offered no translation for the word kamin-néa, but Seamus assumed it meant some sort of words of welcome in the kamin-na. “Yes, it is customary,” Seamus said, “but I have had a long journey, and I am tired, so I hope you will forgive me, too, if I have no kamin-néa for you?”

  The boy actually smiled, and Seamus relaxed. So far his instincts had been right. And he couldn’t have asked for better luck in making his arrival in the village. Children were an incredible source of information on native customs, and usually were not reluctant in the slightest to answer questions.

  “Would you prefer lodging?” the boy asked. “There is room in my hut. You have much gear.”

  The android was carrying a large pack on its back to cement the illusion of a traveler from far away, but thankfully Seamus had been able to disconnect the load from the android’s tactile interface; his own back just wasn’t up to it. “Thank you,” he said. “I would appreciate that.”

  The still nameless boy led him toward one of the huts. A few of the children followed behind at a respectful distance. The arrival of a stranger in town was a rare occurrence, but the children apparently observed a protocol of some sort whereby the boy was accorded the sole status of guide.

  Two adults, both men, were loitering in front of the hut where the boy led Seamus. As they caught sight of Seamus, they came over to greet him. They took his elbow just as the children had.

  “Be welcomed,” the taller one said. “You are from far away?”

  “Yes. I have come from Onomayu-idru, over the mountains.”

  Seamus waited. He’d deliberately chosen a village far away, almost a month’s travel time on foot. Hopefully, the men would have heard of it, but would not have visited it themselves. It was a gamble. His file on his village of origin was quite thin if they started asking questions.

  The two men exchanged a look. “Far indeed,” the taller one said. “You have our respect.”

  “Thank you,” Seamus said. Inwardly, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I am Ceratuë,” the taller man said. “This is Aranai.”

  “It is a privilege to meet the both of you.”

  “You will be staying here? May I take your pack?” Ceratuë asked.

  “Thank you.” Seamus surrendered the pack. Ceratuë took it and disappeared into the hut.

  “So,” Aranai said. “Who is your patron here in our village?”

  Seamus blinked. “Patron?”

  “Yes. The one who will guide you.”

  “Oh.” A guide. Seamus made a mental note to make an adjustment to the translation matrix when he got a chance. “I have only just arrived here. I have no patron.”

  The man’s eyes grew wide. “You have only just arrived? Then . . . Enkiru,” he indicated the boy who had greeted Seamus, “gave you welcome?”

  “Um, yes, that’s correct.”

  “Please, forgive us. It was not our intent to offend. The boy has no kamin-na.” Aranai glared at the boy.

  “I have taken no offense. The boy . . . Enkiru? . . . has been very welcoming to me.” He tried to flash the boy a reassuring grin. He hoped the boy interpreted the expression correctly.

  The boy, Enkiru, stepped forward. “I will serve as patron,” he said to Aranai.

  The older man hissed. “But you . . .”

  “I am old enough,” the boy said. He stood tall and proud, as if challenging the man. “It is my right. I saw him first.”

  The android’s receptors rendered I saw him first as a rather petulant statement, but Seamus could tell something else was at work here. This was a matter of mores.

  Aranai sighed. “Very well.” He turned to Seamus. “It is no insult to refuse this boy’s offer. He has no kamin-néa, nor kamin-na.”

  Seamus looked from the boy to the man. Already, in less than ten minutes in this village, h
e was out of his depth. What would a real Onomayu do in this situation? What was the culturally appropriate thing to do?

  He had no idea, so he decided to trust his instincts. He bowed his head in a gesture of respect to the boy. “I am honored by your offer. Will you please be my patron?”

  The boy returned the nod of respect. “It is my honor.”

  At that moment a bell of sorts rang out nearby. The boy’s eyes flickered off in the direction of the sound for just a second. “Will you come to morning kamin-na?” the boy asked.

  “I would consider it a privilege,” Seamus said. He had to try hard to keep an edge of excitement out of his voice. The android’s speech emitters would pick up whatever inflection he gave. But as Enkiru led him through the village, he could not contain a nervous flutter of excitement. This was what he had come for.

  Easily a good half of the settlement’s four hundred residents had already packed into the meeting hall when Seamus arrived with the boy.

  The meeting hall was at the center of the settlement, and it consisted of little more than a thatched roof on a dozen evenly-spaced support beams. Low seats fashioned out of some native greenish wood arced around a central dais. By some unspoken custom of the Onomayu, those present had clustered in the back seats, leaving the front ones for those to come after.

  At first Seamus thought the gathering hall was curiously devoid of decoration of any kind—strange for a place of worship in any culture—but as the boy led him by the hand into the hut, he saw that his initial observation was wrong. Each of the support beams held intricately carved designs of stunning detail and artistry, most of them depicting what Seamus surmised to be various deities in the Onomayu pantheon.

  Enkiru led him by the hand to one of the support beams at the back of the hut. The boy stopped in front of the beam and broke hands with Seamus. Then, he knelt and pressed his forehead to a blank spot toward the bottom of the beam. He remained like this for several seconds, his eyes closed as in worship, then he straightened up. He looked at Seamus expectantly.

  Conscious of the gazes of the assembled villagers nearby, Seamus knelt down and pressed his forehead to the same blank spot as the boy had.

  And as he did so, all the background conversations of the villagers stopped. Even though the android’s receptors didn’t come complete with a sixth sense, Seamus could still feel the stares of all the Onomayu.

  After a few seconds, he stood up and turned expectantly to the boy. Enkiru was looking at him in what he assumed was a smile. Interpreting facial expressions on alien species, however humanoid, was always a difficult proposition. Seamus had done his homework, but he was still a little out of his league.

  The boy then led him to the forefront of the seats, which were empty. He gestured for Seamus to sit on the front row of benches, which Seamus persisted in thinking of as pews. Somewhat self-consciously, Seamus sat.

  Almost immediately, the conversations resumed behind them. The android’s audio receptors delivered the hubbub of conversations to his ears, though the translator could not filter out any individual conversations.

  Enkiru was watching him expectantly. To fill the need to say something, Seamus said, “If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were talking about me.”

  The humor didn’t translate. “They are.”

  “Oh? What are they saying?”

  “They are wondering why you would choose someone with no kamin-na to be your guide. They are wondering if you have no kamin-na yourself.”

  Seamus didn’t know how to respond to that. Fortunately, he didn’t have to. At that moment a crowd of villagers entered the worship hut, and the seats all around him began filling up.

  Seamus noted that these new arrivals were mostly older members of the community, some of them with the graying hair of middle age. Seamus cross-referenced the android’s visuals with the databases on the aliens, and identified eleven men and women who had spoken the kamin-na in the daily gatherings over the past few weeks. He made a mental note of this; if the social hierarchy of the village dictated that the best kamin-na speakers sat at the front of the worship, he would have possible means to determine relative quality of each of the speakers.

  Those members of the community that took seats around Seamus greeted him warmly, taking him by the elbow one by one. Seamus greeted them all in kind, and was glad that the android was able to keep a memory bank of all their names.

  At length, a woman whom Seamus surmised to be one of the village elders got up before the assembly, and all the conversations quieted immediately. Then, she spoke some words that Seamus’s translator could not interpret.

  Seamus leaned forward as if to hear better, even though the android’s receptors would function regardless. This was to be his first close-up witnessing of the kamin-na.

  But instead of beginning an impassioned fit of babble, the woman turned to him. She said something that the translator couldn’t make out. She held out a hand as if in invitation.

  Seamus froze. What was she saying? Even though he was not really present in the worship hut, his heart thudded to a frenzied rhythm in his chest.

  The woman said something again, something different this time, and beckoned again. Nervously, Seamus looked to his left and right. All the villagers were regarding him expectantly.

  Enkiru took his elbow and leaned in closer to whisper. “She is inviting you to speak the kamin-na as our guest.”

  “Seamus swallowed. “I—but—I don’t—”

  “Please,” the boy said, and Seamus thought he saw such longing there that his protests died in the android’s speech processor. “I’ve never sat here before.”

  Seamus turned back to the woman. She beckoned again, and said something else in the kamin-na.

  Seamus stood up hesitantly and took a few strides to where the woman stood. She said something that he assumed was thanks, then took a seat in the audience.

  Seamus considered the assembled villagers. They all looked at him expectantly. He pursed his lips, as if he were an actor who had forgotten his lines.

  He considered his options. He had data on all the kamin-na speeches of the last few weeks. He could pull up any one of those, and have the android’s equipment repeat one of those performances verbatim. But as soon as that idea came he discarded it. Every one of the kamin-na speeches he had witnessed on the monitors in the comfort and anonymity of the observation room had been different, and infinitely creative in the types of utterances. Given the phenomenal memories of the Onomayu, plagiarism of such a sort might immediately overturn his welcome.

  So then what? He knew the computer at his disposal could cobble together a random sampling of all the various types of utterances from the various kamin-na speakers and combine them in a completely new and unique way. But that would yield dubious results as well; without syntax, it would be like throwing out random words here and there, and the result was likely to be completely unintelligible.

  So Seamus improvised. The kamin-na always had a strong rhythm. He rationalized that since the kamin-na so far defied all attempts to determine its syntax, it was as good as babble to him. And he could easily babble back to the Onomayu. If pressed, he could always claim that he was from a village where the kamin-na was spoken very differently. He doubted any of the villagers had the experience to contradict him.

  So he disengaged the android’s translator function and spoke the first words that came to his mind:

  “‘Twas brillig and the slithy toves

  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

  All mimsy were the borogoves,

  And the mome raths outgrabe.”

  He’d learned the poem long ago, and the words had stuck with him since. He dredged them from his memory now, giving them the appropriate histrionic flavor with his voice and his gestures, until he was acting out the poem, in English, to a group of aliens who had never heard English spoken in their lives.

  “One, two! One,
two! And through and through

  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

  He left it dead, and with its head

  He went galumphing back.”

  He brought his recitation to a crescendo, and concluded with a bow. Then, he regarded the audience for their reaction.

  The entire worship hut was silent for a stunned instant. Then, all the Onomayu began hooting at once in their culture’s version of applause.

  Seamus accorded the audience a polite nod and returned to his seat. As he took it, he noticed that Enkiru’s eyes were shining, and wet around the edges—from pride, maybe? He couldn’t be certain, but he knew one thing: the boy was not upset.

  After the service, Seamus weathered the congratulations and the elbow-tuggings of scores of the Onomayu villagers. They gave him all manner of accolades, most of them a variation on the theme of “a very interesting rendition of the kamin-na.” A few even said something like, “We shall have to visit your village to hear more.”

  Seamus was relieved that he had not inadvertently made a cultural faux pas in his hasty speech, but still he was no closer to unraveling any of the rules governing the kamin-na. He realized he had an incredible resource in Enkiru: you could ask children things that you couldn’t adults-—not without seeming odd—and children would almost always give you honest answers. But it was impossible to get some time alone with the boy; Seamus was continually besieged by villagers who wanted to meet him and comment on his unusual speaking of the kamin-na.

  Luckily, it was already evening. Only a few hours after the worship ceremony, Enkiru steered him toward the hut where he had stowed his gear. Among the Onomayu, sleeping was a social experience. They slept on the floor of the hut. A pallet had been prepared for him next to Enkiru’s.

  At the same time, all the Onomayu men and women took off their simple garments and settled into their bedrolls. Seamus followed suit, glad that the android had been made anatomically correct, just for such situations.

  Before the last candle was blown out, Enkiru rolled over on his side and addressed Seamus. “I thank you,” he said.

  Seamus was taken aback. “For what?”

  “For accepting me as your patron, even though I am not whole.”