Suzette Elgin - Native Tongue

“And it’s all Nazareth’s fault,” said Nazareth.

In the abashed silence, she added, “Any beginning is also an ending, you know. You can’t have just the one.”

Michaela woke before dawn, with a pounding headache, drenched in an icy sweat. Before the soft tone of the Household alarm that roused everyone — unless sick or given some special dispensation — at five o’clock in the morning. Here in the depths of the hill that sheltered Chornyak Household there was nothing else to wake you… no light filtered in here below the earth, except in the long halls that ran down either side of the building, where there was some illumination from the ground floor skylights extending the full length of both halls. And there was no sound… no birdsong, no thunder, no traffic from the streets or skies, nothing. It was absolutely still, and absolutely dark. And except in the dormitories the linguists had constructed the sleepingrooms to offer the maximum possible amount of soundproofing; it was, after all, the only privacy there was within the houses of the Lines.

If the couple who had the room next to yours chose to while away the night in erotic pleasures or forbidden rituals — something Michaela could not imagine in the linguists, who seemed to her almost excruciatingly proper, almost puritanical, but then you never knew — you would never know about it. You would never hear a moan, a gasp of pleasure, an obscene incantation, even a scream of ecstasy at orgasm. The builders of these houses had insisted on that, and it had been very wise of them.

But with the dreams that had been tormenting her nights lately, Michaela needed nothing to wake her, not even the alarm. The dreams were more than sufficient. Dreams in which each of the men she had killed lined up before her and held out imploring arms, begging for their lives back, whimpering pitifully like babies trapped in cellars or small animals caught in fences… She shuddered, and threw back her damp sheets, loathing the feel of them against her skin.

It was so ridiculous, damn it! Except for Ned Landry — and by God, she would kill him again in an instant, if she were given the chance — every one of those men had gone peacefully and probably gratefully to his grave. Every last one had been at the end of a long and fruitful life of hard work; every one had reached that stage of life where none of the physiological systems could really be counted on any longer, and the body began to betray the embarrassed spirit; every one of them had been more than ready for some rest. Rest she had given them. Painlessly. Sweet rest.

Grandfather Verdi, for instance. It was absurd that she should dream of him begging for his life back! He had been so anxious, in a completely healthy way, to be rid of it.

“Like a baby, that’s what,” he would grumble. “Like a baby! Diaper me and bathe me and oil me and powder me, powder me and diaper me like a baby! And feed me baby food , too, filthy stuff! No way for a man to go on, Mrs. Landry, no proper way at all! Bunch of flaming damnfool, that’s what it is!” And he would tug furiously at the diapers that shamed him so, and toss on his pillows, and curse the magnificent genetic heritage that tied him to a world he was good and sick of… he would not have been asking for that life back. He would have been thanking her for the blessing of release. And it was the same with the others.

Except for Ned. And as for Ned… if she had dreamed only of him, groveling and begging and pleading for mercy, she would have positively enjoyed it. She hoped he was burning in hell. Slowly. With some devil always keeping him waiting . She did not regret having killed Ned Landry, any more than she regretted it when she destroyed a polio virus with a vaccine for the children. Same sort of filth, same sort of pestilence, same sort of service to humanity, getting rid of Ned Landry. She was staunchly glad she’d done that.

But the others? It was absurd, and she knew it was absurd, and still they haunted her nights. Even though they were all men. Even though they were all Lingoes. Even though, by rights, they deserved killing.

Pain lanced through her head with the thought, and she smiled grimly into it… you deserved that , Michaela! Because you are a liar. You are a liar, all the way from your head to your toes. THEY DESERVED KILLING… You know better now. And that was the problem. She thought she had escaped from the problem when she left Barren House and redefined her targeted victims so that they would always be only male linguists, but she had been wrong.

Paul John Chornyak, for example. Ninety-five years old. At an age where death would be no more surprising than the sun coming up in the mornings. A bit of a nuisance to Thomas and the other senior men, because he’d once been Head and couldn’t forget it, insisting on attending meetings and being part of the business decisions of the Line. Not that his mind wasn’t still sharp, it was; but his memory wasn’t what it had been, and his patience was a toddler’s patience. She served his meals away from the communal diningroom now, except for Sunday dinner and holiday meals and the odd occasion when he just suddenly decided that he by damn did not wish to eat alone in his room. And even that happened only in the evenings, when he was like most very old people and knew he faced a nearly sleepless night… he hadn’t really needed any sleep to speak of for years, and he got bored waiting for morning. It made him petulant, and he would sometimes insist on going to the diningroom for his evening meal just to cut into the span of the endless evenings and nights. Breakfast, though, and lunch — those Michaela served him in his room, staying with him if he wanted her, listening to him talk. Which meant that any day, any day at all, she could ease him on his way as she had eased the others on, ridding the burdened world of one more linguist.

But she loved the old man.

That brought her wide awake; and she lay there staring at the ceiling, shocked at her own thoughts. It was true. She loved him. She had loved Grandfather Verdi, too; she knew that now. She loved the old women at Barren House. She loved Nazareth Chornyak, whose face she’d begun to seek out first whenever she went into a room where linguists were; she knew she made excuses to touch Nazareth as she passed her, to brush an imaginary thread from her tunic or straighten an imaginary wrinkle… to rub aching muscles after a day of difficult work… yes, she loved Nazareth as well. It seemed to Michaela suddenly that she was running over, brimful and running over, with love. For Lingoes! For filthy, effing Lingoes, unspeakable Lingoes, that she’d hated all her life as did any decent citizen, that had taken her baby and killed it and given her a hunk of metal in exchange… Where had all that love come from? She had not known she had it in her, that ability to love.

Thomas, now, she felt no love for, any more than she’d felt love for Ned. She had turned her attention to convincing him that he had seduced her, because she knew his power and respected it and she knew no other way to make use of it. But she felt no love for the man. Loving someone who considered you only one small notch above a cleverly trained domestic animal, and made no secret of it — that is, loving any adult male — was not possible for her. It would be a perversion, loving your masters while their boots were on your neck, and she was a woman healthy of mind. Like most women she had suffered one violent case of the Romantic Love that everyone learned about in Homeroom and had spoonfed to them (with a giant spoon) by the media. When she was very young. And like most women, that one case had cured her for life.