Suzette Elgin - Native Tongue

Thomas caught himself sharply — he’d been woolgathering, and the two men were watching him silently.

“Well?” he said. “You’ve won. Are you satisfied?”

“You’re free to go, Mr. Chornyak,” said Smith wearily, “if there’s nothing else you want to talk about.”

“You called me here, man, not I you.”

“As a courtesy.”

“Ah. Courtesy. I value courtesy.”

“We didn’t want you to hear about the… incident… on the news, Mr. Chornyak. And your orders are that no contacts between you and the government are to be held in any other way than this, unless they are the ordinary routine of linguistics. We did as you requested — and that also is courtesy.”

“I will be sure to inform Mrs. St. Syrus of your courtesy,” said Thomas, bowing.

“You won’t, either,” blurted Jones. “That’s not what you’ll do, you… you filthy Lingoe! You’ll — ”

Smith sighed. That was really a bit much, he thought. He’d been prepared for clumsiness, that’s why they picked Jones; but this was a little more than he thought justified by the role. Now Thomas Chornyak’s face would register faint distaste… ME ARISTOCRAT, YOU CAVEMAN… there it went. And he wouldn’t say a word. And then he would start entering data in his wrist computer… there he went.

Smith often thought that if he could just spend a few months, round the clock, with some linguists, he could learn to do the things they did. So much of it was so obvious. Except that there must be something else that wasn’t obvious, because when he tried the things he thought he’d picked up in his observations they never did work. Never.

Dear sweet Jesus, how he hated Lingoes.

Hurrying down the hall with the two men, Smith disgusted and Jones humiliated, Thomas almost ran into an equally hurried group coming round a corner. Four men in dress uniforms and a woman all in black… a lovely woman. In such a place, at such an hour?

“Funny thing, that,” he noted. “What’s going on?”

“Her name is Michaela Landry, Mr. Chornyak,” said Smith. “She was the mother of the last volunteer baby Interfaced — we told you about that. Her husband died almost immediately after having the baby picked up… a freak accident… and she’s been brought in to accept the Infant Hero medal in the man’s place. It’s all top secret, sir, of course.”

“I see. And now she will go back to her parents’ home, I suppose. Poor woman.”

“No, sir. She’s completely alone, no family of her own at all. But her husband’s brother took her in, and he’s given her permission to work.”

“What kind of nursing does she do?”

“She was in the public hospitals before this, sir, but after what’s happened, understandably enough, she doesn’t feel she can face any more of that. She’s looking for a post as a private duty nurse… and we’ll see that something just happens to come her way very quickly. Poor thing’s had about enough, without having to sit around alone thinking about it.”

“It’s a very sad story,” Thomas said, stepping into the private elevator that would take him to the roof, “and a damn shame all around.”

“Oh, she won’t stay mopey long,” Smith said. “Somebody will marry her within the year… she’s a lovely piece.”

“So she is,” Thomas agreed.

And he went home to wait for the contact from St. Syrus Household, which should come early tomorrow morning, if not sooner.

Michaela was more than satisfied with the post she’d found. Verdi Household was surrounded by old oaks and evergreens, tucked into the arm of a bend in the Mississippi just outside Hannibal, Missouri. It was nothing at all like Washington D.C., although she’d been warned to expect that its summer heat would make Washington’s seem almost pleasant in retrospect. The house would have been called a mansion if it had held an ordinary American family; for the throng of linguists it was adequate, but no more than that, and could not have been considered luxurious. As for the grounds, Michaela suspected that they might have been criticized if the public had known much about them, because the Verdis had a fondness for gardens and didn’t appear to have spared much expense in those behind the house. But out in the country like this, with a stretch of woods between them and the highway, no one was likely to know. Linguists didn’t have visitors because they didn’t have time; and they adamantly refused to allow members of the press on their grounds.

In spite of the crowding in the house, the Verdis had found a room with its own bath for Michaela, and a window overlooking the river. She was in the corner of the house on an upper floor, and to get down to the common rooms she had to go all the way around an outside corridor and across a walkway that went over the roof of the Interface. When she’d first arrived, that had worried her, and she’d gone immediately to the senior woman of the Household to express her concern.