C. Cherryh: Cuckoo's Egg

"But then earth would know there's no stopping it. No undoing the messages once we've started sending. And we can hold here at Gatog indefinitely. We can stand off the ghotanin, and it won't take much more than that nine years for ships from the other side to get here if they hear us: some think so, at least. One year, two, at the rate that ship might go. They might have been here years ago-if we're right about that speed. They might come tomorrow. They may be waiting for their answer. We had no way to read them-until now. When they come, whatever they intend, you'll be here. Safe. A voice like theirs. Perhaps they'll remember their pilot when they see you. Perhaps they'll wonder. Maybe they'll begin thinking and hesitate at whatever they plan. Gods know, in ten years maybe we'll have learned to fly that ship."

"Does the earth have to bleed that long?"

"Maybe it does. Or maybe when earth knows what your solution is a lot of people will stop and think about it. Remember you're hatani. Of the guild. That's something the world understands. That's part of my solution too. When the panic dies, shonunin will remember the guild passed you. They'll know it's a true judgment."

"No one likes a hatani under his roof. Sagot told me so."

"Yes, and you've been near eighteen years under theirs. It's true. People begin searching themselves for guilt. They imagine judgment on their sins. They know you read them. They see your face and they know you read them. Even I, minnow. I killed you once, remember. Conscience is dreadful company."

"Duun." Thorn walked back to him, slowly, on the trackless floor; Thorn reached out his hand, slowly, slowly, and touched Duun's face, the scarred side. "So you know I could," Thorn said. And took his hand away,

There was quiet in the room. Technicians stood about the walls, hatani, tanunin and kosanin. "Sit by me," Thorn said, and Duun settled down in the seat beside him. Thorn hesitated over the keys, checked this and that. He spoke, quietly, steadily into the microphone and it went out, starting the long journey messages would take each day. Minutes to the earth and hours to Gatog Two and Dothog; nine years to another star. Duun's skin tightened. He had heard that voice, speaking that language, for two years before they silenced it the first time; doubtless others had the same reaction. It would create new panic on earth, in the station. Perhaps Nonnent would hear it in their lonely journey, if they had waited to hear it, and know that they had won.

There was a translation. Thorn read that out, which was only for their solar system. ("I'll have to keep working with the tapes," Thorn had said, for there were the originals at Gatog: there were written documents. They had a vast library of them here; and other tapes. Thorn dreaded it; Duun knew how much. Thorn had heard that voice too, twin of his own, in its rage and agony. But the computers built more and more complex fields. They had certainty on some words. They had broken the alphabet. They worked out the phonics and that study branched and multiplied, on a strange story of strange people a hatani had learned to read.)

"The message is," Thorn said: "I am Haras. One. Two. Three. I am Haras. Star G. Oxygen. Carbon. I am Haras. I hear you. The world is the earth. The star is the sun.I am a man. Hello."