Suzette Elgin - Native Tongue

“Oh, dear…”

It was an argument that went round and round like a canon, and it would go on as long as there was privacy and leisure enough to sustain it, because it had no answer. If Aquina was right, then they were indeed seriously behind. But they were so busy! The only ones who had the free hours that might have gone into actually setting one of the plans in motion were those too ill or too old or otherwise unable to do any of the tasks involved. And there was no way out.

The governments of Earth had no limit in their greed; every new Alien people contacted meant new Alien treasures to be sought after, and a new market for the products of Earth, and that meant a new Alien language to be acquired. There were never enough infants, never enough Interfaces… again this year a resolution had come up in the United Nations, proposing that the linguists should be compelled by law to establish one of the Households in the Central American Federation, one in Australia, one somewhere else — it was not fair , the delegates thundered, that all the Households should be located in the United States and in United Europe and in Africa, when everyone needed them equally! And then of course the delegations from the African confederations and from United Europe had leaped up to protest that they could hardly be included in the accusations of linguistic imperialism, since it was the United States that hoarded ten of the thirteen Lines.

It kept happening. As though they were a public utility, or a military unit, and not private citizens and human beings at all. It made no difference, because there was no way that the Lines could be compelled to spread themselves “equitably” around the world at the pleasure of its populations. But the constant pressure to do more, to be more, never let up. Why, the governments wanted to know, couldn’t each linguist child be required to master at minimum two Alien languages instead of one, thus doubling their usefulness? Why couldn’t the women of the Lines be required to use the fertility drugs that would guarantee multiple births? Why couldn’t the time each infant spent Interfacing be increased to six hours a day instead of three? Why… there was no end to their whys, and nothing but the stern grip of the Judaeo-Christian paradigm kept them from adding a question about why the men of the Lines couldn’t take a dozen wives apiece rather than one.

As there was no end to their demands, there was no end to their prying. The linguists had spotted the men from the various intelligence services within days of their being planted in the Households, and had been much amused. They might have been fine secret agents, but they were rotten plumbers and carpenters and gardeners. And the ones assigned to so enflame the passions of the women that they would manage to marry into the Lines had been hilariously obvious.

The women of the Barren Houses had no time, in such an atmosphere, to set contingency plans in operation. Every day there was less time. Even these brief gatherings in the parlor, armed with the needlework for excuse, just to discuss what there was not time to do and to fret about it, were becoming more and more rare. And more brief, with everyone but the very oldest obliged to meet multiple deadlines.

As they were obliged now, all of them leaving in a rush except Susannah, who no longer went out to work on negotiations, though she still put in long hours as a translator and at the computers storing data. Aquina had to leave, for all her determination to do something; and Susannah was left alone with Nazareth and the usual flurry of everything being up in the air.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “Surely you aren’t on holiday, Natha? Aren’t there at least six places you’re supposed to be, at the same time, fifteen minutes ago?”

“Yes,” laughed Nazareth. “And I’m late for all of them.”

“And still sitting here?”

“I’m trying to make up my mind which of the six to be late to first, dear Susannah.”

“Mmmm… I perceive. And I perceive something else, Nazareth Joanna Chornyak Adiness.”

“What else do you perceive, with those wise old eyes?”

“That you are not worried,” Susannah pronounced.

“Ah! What very sharp eyes you have, grandmother!”

“But you aren’t. Are you?”

“No. I’m not worried.”

“Everyone else is, my dear. Not just Aquina. If it were only Aquina it wouldn’t matter. But everyone else.”

“I know.”

“They try to keep from thinking about it, but they are upset.”

“Yes.”

“Well, then — why are you so serene. Nazareth? What aren’t you saying? Why are you unconcerned?”

“I don’t know.”

“Truly?”

“Truly.”

“Nazareth?”

“Yes, Susannah?”

“Do you know something we don’t know? Again? As you knew that it was time to begin teaching Láadan, and we didn’t know? As you knew that it would work, that teaching, and we didn’t know?”

Nazareth gave the question serious consideration, while Susannah sat looking at her steadily.

Finally, she answered, “Susannah,” she said slowly, “I am so sorry. But there’s no way to explain. I’m not able to explain.”

“Perhaps you ought to try, nevertheless.”

“If I could, Susannah, I would. And when I can, I will.”

“And how long will that be? Before you feel that you might be able to begin to attempt to try?”

“Nazareth began folding her work away, smiling.

“My crystal ball is broken. Susannahlove,” she teased. “And I must go, or it won’t be just six places I need to be at once, it will be a dozen. I have to clear some of them away.”

This was a splendid, and a rare, occasion. Looking down the tables spread with the heavy white linen (real linen, taken from chests in the storage rooms where is had been folded away along with other Household valuables rarely used), looking at the gleaming silver and crystal, Thomas wondered just when they had last done this. It had to have been years ago, unless you counted the Christmas dinners… and even for those, they didn’t bring the linens from the chests, or invite guests from the other Households. This opulent display was in honor of his seventieth birthday… and the last one, come to think of it, could only have been for some other Head-of-Household’s seventieth birthday. Long ago, in this house, it would have been the celebration for Paul John. As if the number seventy had some significance.