Since she had nothing to say to the strangers, She-who-had-been-Ragil transmitted the visual image and watched. It would take the transmission eighty-four minutes to reach the strangers. Only then would they get to see the strangers’ reactions. If they were wise traders, they would stop transmitting so they could preserve their privacy, but She-who-had-been-Ragil had no illusions about a stranger following the same rules of logic.
“I believe this is the audio transmission,” the young Grandmother said. Noise filled the temple. Not noise. A voice. It was high but not unpleasantly so. The more concerning problem was that She-who-had-been-Ragil heard no individual words. The sound went on and on for an impossible length of time before a brief pause and then more sounds. She considered her fellow Grandmothers in dismay. How could they interpret sounds that were not discrete units?
When the Imshee had come to Prarownt, they had provided the translations with their computers. This time the strangers brought strange words. But Janatjanay stood where others would not. The Janatjanay Grandmothers transmitted news and called out to strangers to come and stand where none of their kind had stood before. This was their business just as the business of Deidell was metals and ships and the business of the lost Prabrateakil had been hunting.
She-who-had-been-Ragil sent a simplified file modeled after those early files the Imshee had used to teach Rownt how to understand Cy language. If these strangers had the capacity for communication, they should recognize the primer. Hopefully. She-who-had-been-Ragil had no idea where to start on the strangers’ language.
“Grandmothers,” one of the others called. She-who-had-been-Ragil moved to look at the display. An estimate of eight hundred based off scanning technology designed to identify life forms dispersion in preparation for boarding enemy vessels.
“What is the probability of error?” she asked.
“Small. There must be over seven hundred and fifty individual strangers, although there may be far more if some of the strangers are small.”
She-who-had-been-Ragil had translated that. If this was a family ship—if these strangers had brought children—there could be far more than eight hundred individuals if their scanners were correct. She checked the size of the approaching ship. These were small strangers.
Another individual walked into the area of visual transmission. Like the first, his skin was an unfortunate shade of furious.
Eight hundred angry little strangers.
Once again, the universe was changing. She-who-had-been-Ragil had never wanted to be Grandmother during such monumental adjustment, but the waterfall would not change course for the Rownt who complained to it. She would lead her people and hope that this change did not end with her sitting alone in an empty temple after all the sane Rownt fled Janatjanay the way they had Prabrateakil.
Responsibility and Regret
When Dana walked into their apartment, she expected to find Luke passed out in their narrow bed. Instead he sat on the end of it, a boot propped on the lower rail of their best chair. He wore his vid set and a furious expression.
When he saw her, he faked a quick and unconvincing smile as she pushed the door shut. Hopefully, there wasn’t a problem.
Scratch that. Given Luke’s thunderous expression, some problem had come up, but Dana hoped it didn’t involve money. With both of them working, they struggled to pay the bills on this place. Dana didn’t think either of them could pick up any more hours, and if Luke tried, he would fail out of school. In the long run, that would cost both of them. His education—his innate talent with math and AI design—could buy them a ticket out of poverty, but only if he finished his schooling.
That didn’t stop Luke from arguing that he should work more to take the weight off her. Even now, he was pushing the chair toward her with his foot. Dana dropped her tool belt into the bucket on the floor and got off her feet with a happy sigh.
“Put your feet up here,” Luke said.
“I’m fine.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m on hold anyway. Give me your damn feet, woman.”
“Bitch, bitch,” she shot back, but she pulled the laces on her work boots. “What’s wrong?”
“Fucking idiots at the bank, that’s what’s wrong. This world would be a better place if I could press a button and send all the incompetent morons to the front lines.” He mimicked pressing a button. He then pressed his imaginary button harder before pantomiming mashing it with his thumb.
That was not good. If the bank had screwed up, she and Luke would be in deep shit when the rent came due. They’d already used their one free late payment allotment for the year, so a second late payment would create huge penalties. Dana wasn’t sure how to keep Luke in school if that happened.
She wiggled her toes and plopped her right foot in Luke’s lap. “How much did they lose?”
“Weirdly, they mysteriously gifted us with an extra two hundred and twelve credits.” He rubbed her feet, pressing his thumbs against the arch of her foot. Shivers of pain ran up her leg, but when he released it, all the tension drained away.
“Oh thank God.” The fear that threatened to crush Dana’s heart eased. She’d feared he’d been conscripted, although that was unlikely. Talk of peace filled the vids, at least it had until the Rownt had shown up, hovering over Earth with that big-ass ship of theirs. But Dana had seen the government talk about peace in the past, and the damn colonies always pulled out one more campaign, one more damn suicide bomber. And that always led to another round of conscription.
Dana was safe because of her medical problems, but the war was an ever-present threat to Luke, and the university was his only protection.
“You say that now, but they’ll come looking for this money later.” Luke pointed a long finger at her. Every time he got angry, his movements got jerky, like a scarecrow in the wind. The fact that he was tall and lanky reinforced the image. But even if Luke hadn’t outgrown his gawky stage, Dana still adored him. He had dark blue eyes, and his sandy hair flew in opposite directions, even on a still day. Luke complained that his hair did that because it was too fine, but Dana loved running her fingers through it. Luke had smarts and more loyalty and love than any other human on the earth.
But his one great flaw was his ability to see the downside of every situation.
“If we don’t spend it, we can give it back as soon as someone comes looking,” she said.
“Until they accuse us of stealing it.” Luke tapped the eyepiece to make it more opaque. He was probably trying to see what the teller was doing. “Yeah!” he said loudly to whoever was on the other end of the call. “I’m here.” He listened, his face a twisted riot of emotion, none of which Dana could read. He stilled. She pulled her foot away and leaned forward.
“Are you sure?” Luke asked.
Dana watched as the vid display flashed colors across Luke’s face as the teller showed him something. Luke grew more and more still.
“Yeah, can you forward that?” He groped blindly for Dana’s hand. She grabbed him. It couldn’t be his mother. She had died years ago. Dana had only known her at the very end when cancer had wrecked her body. When they’d been growing up, Liam had been Chak’s best friend, and that had put Dana into the annoying sister category. She hadn’t known the rest of the Munsons until the much younger Luke started showing up to pester Chak.