Citizen of the Galaxy (12 page)

The woman in bed was shrunken with age but radiated authority. She was richly dressed -- the scarf over her thin hair represented more money than Thorby had ever seen at one time -- but Thorby noticed only her fierce, sunken eyes. She looked at him. “So! Oldest Son, I have much trouble believing it.” She spoke in Suomic.

“My Mother, the message could not have been faked.”

She sniffed.

Captain Krausa went on with humble stubbornness, “Hear the message yourself. My Mother.” He turned to Thorby and said in Interlingua, “Repeat the message from your father.”

Obediently, not understanding but enormously relieved to be in the presence of Pop's friend, Thorby repeated the message by rote. The old woman heard him through, then turned to Captain Krausa. “What is this? He speaks our language! A fraki!”

“No, My Mother, he understands not a word. That is Baslim's voice.”

She looked back at Thorby, spilled a stream of Suomic on him. He looked questioningly at Captain Krausa. She said, “Have him repeat it again.”

The Captain gave the order; Thorby, confused but willing, did so. She lay silent after he had concluded while the other waited. Her face screwed up in anger and exasperation. At last she rasped, “Debts must be paid!”

“That was my thought, My Mother.”

“But why should the draft be drawn on us?” she answered angrily.

The Captain said nothing. She went on more quietly, “The message is authentic. I thought surely it must be faked. Had I known what you intended I would have forbidden it. But, Oldest Son, stupid as you are, you were right. And debts must be paid.” Her son continued to say nothing; she added angrily, “Well? Speak up! What coin do you propose to tender?”

“I have been thinking. My Mother,” Krausa said slowly. “Baslim demands that we care for the boy only a limited time . . . until we can turn him over to a Hegemonic military vessel. How long will that be? A year, two years. But even that presents problems. However, we have a precedent -- the fraki female. The Family has accepted her -- oh, a little grumbling, but they are used to her now, even amused by her. If My Mother intervened for this lad in the same way --”

“Nonsense!”

“But, My Mother, we are obligated. Debts must --”

“Silence!”

Krausa shut up.

She went on quietly, “Did you not listen to the wording of the burden Baslim placed on you? ' -- succor and admonish him as if you were I.' What was Baslim to this fraki?”

“Why, he speaks of him as his adopted son. I thought --”

“You didn't think. If you take Baslim's place, what does that make you? Is there more than one way to read the words?”

Krausa looked troubled. The ancient went on, “Sisu pays debts in full. No half-measures, no short weights -- in full. The fraki must be adopted . . . by you.”

Krausa's face was suddenly blank. The other woman, who had been moving around quietly with make-work, dropped a tray.

The Captain said, “But, My Mother, what will the Family --”

“I am the Family!” She turned suddenly to the other woman. “Oldest Son's Wife, have all my senior daughters attend me.”

“Yes, Husband's Mother.” She curtsied and left.

The Chief Officer looked grimly at the overhead, then almost smiled. “This is not all bad, Oldest Son. What will happen at the next Gathering of the People?”

“Why, we will be thanked.”

“Thanks buy no cargo.” She licked her thin Ups. “The People will be in debt to Sisu . . . and there will be a change in status of ships. We won't suffer.”

Krausa smiled slowly. “You always were a shrewd one, My Mother.”

“A good thing for Sisu that I am. Take the fraki boy and prepare him. We'll do this quickly.”

Thorby had two choices: be adopted quietly, or make a fuss and be adopted anyhow. He chose the first, which was sensible, as opposing the will of the Chief Officer was unpleasant and almost always futile. Besides, while he felt odd and rather unhappy about acquiring a new family so soon after the death of Pop, nevertheless he could see that the change was to his advantage. As a fraki, his status had never been lower. Even a slave has equals.

But most important, Pop had told him to do what Captain Krausa said for him to do.

The adoption took place in the dining saloon at the evening meal that day. Thorby understood little of what went on and none of what was said, since the ceremonies were in the “secret language,” but the Captain had coached him in what to expect. The entire ship's company was there, except those on watch. Even Doctor Mader was there, inside the main door and taking no part but where she could see and hear.

The Chief Officer was carried in and everyone stood. She was settled on a lounge at the head of the officers' table, where her daughter-in-law, the Captain's wife attended her. When she was comfortable, she made a gesture and they sat down, the Captain seating himself on her right Girls “from the port moiety, the watch with the day's duty, then served all hands with bowls of thin mush. No one touched it. The Chief Officer banged her spoon on her bowl and spoke briefly and emphatically.

Her son followed her. Thorby was surprised to discover that he recognized a portion of the Captain's speech as being identical with part of the message Thorby had delivered; he could spot the sequence of sounds.

The Chief Engineer, a man older than Krausa, answered, then several older people, both men and women, spoke. The Chief Officer asked a question and was answered in chorus -- a unanimous assent. The old woman did not ask for dissenting votes.

Thorby was trying to catch Doctor Mader's eye when the Captain called to him in Interlingua. Thorby had been seated on a stool alone and was feeling conspicuous, especially as persons he caught looking at him did not seem very friendly.

“Come here!”

Thorby looked up, saw both the Captain and his mother looking at him. She seemed irritated or it may have been the permanent set of her features. Thorby hurried over.

She dipped her spoon in his dish, barely licked it. Feeling as if he were doing something horribly wrong but having been coached, he dipped his spoon in her bowl, timidly took a mouthful. She reached up, pulled his head down and pecked him with withered lips on both cheeks. He returned the symbolic caress and felt gooseflesh.

Captain Krausa ate from Thorby's bowl; he ate from the Captain's. Then Krausa took a knife, held the point between thumb and forefinger and whispered in Interlingua, “Mind you don't cry out.” He stabbed Thorby in his upper arm.

Thorby thought with contempt that Baslim had taught him to ignore ten times that much pain. But blood flowed freely. Krausa led him to a spot where all might see, said something loudly, and held his arm so that a puddle of blood formed on the deck. The Captain stepped on it, rubbed it in with his foot, spoke loudly again -- and a cheer went up. Krausa said to Thorby in Interlingua, “Your blood is now in the steel; our steel is in your blood.”

Thorby had encountered sympathetic magic all his life and its wild, almost reasonable logic he understood. He felt a burst of pride that he was now part of the ship.

The Captain's wife slapped a plaster over the cut. Then Thorby exchanged food and kisses with her, after which he had to do it right around the room, every table, his brothers and his uncles, his sisters and his cousins and his aunts. Instead of kissing him, the men and boys grasped his hands and then clapped him across the shoulders. When he came to the table of unmarried females he hesitated -- and discovered that they did not kiss him; they giggled and squealed and blushed and hastily touched forefingers to his forehead.

Close behind him, girls with the serving duty cleared away the bowls of mush -- purely ritualistic food symbolizing the meager rations on which the People could cross space if necessary -- and were serving a feast. Thorby would have been clogged to his ears with mush had he not caught onto the trick: don't eat it, just dip the spoon, then barely taste it. But when at last he was seated, an accepted member of the Family, at the starboard bachelors' table, he had no appetite for the banquet in his honor. Eighty-odd new relatives were too much. He felt tired, nervous, and let down.

But he tried to eat. Presently he heard a remark in which he understood only the word “fraki.” He looked up and saw a youth across the table grinning unpleasantly.

The president of the table, seated on Thorby's right, rapped for attention. “Well speak nothing but Interlingua tonight,” he announced, “and thereafter follow the customs in allowing a new relative gradually to acquire our language.” His eye rested coldly on the youngster who had sneered at Thorby. “As for you, Cross-Cousin-in-Law by Marriage, I'll remind you -- just once -- that my Adopted Younger Brother is senior to you. And I'll see you in my bunkie after dinner.”

The younger boy looked startled. “Aw, Senior Cousin, I was just saying --”

“Drop it.” The young man said quietly to Thorby, “Use your fork. People do not eat meat with fingers.”

“Fork?”

“Left of your plate. Watch me; you'll learn. Don't let them get you riled. Some of these young oafs have yet to learn that when Grandmother speaks, she means business.”

Thorby was moved from his bunkie into a less luxurious larger room intended for four bachelors. His roommates were Fritz Krausa, who was his eldest unmarried foster brother and president of the starboard bachelor table, Chelan Krausa-Drotar, Thorby's foster ortho-second-cousin by marriage, and Jeri Kingsolver, his foster nephew by his eldest married brother.

It resulted in his learning Suomic rapidly. But the words he needed first were not Suomish; they were words borrowed or invented to describe family relationships in great detail. Languages reflect cultures; most languages distinguish brother, sister, father, mother, aunt, uncle, and link generations by “great” or “grand.” Some languages make no distinction between (for example) “father” and “uncle” and the language reflects tribal custom. Contrariwise, some languages (e.g., Norwegian) split “uncle” into maternal and paternal (“morbror” and “farbror”).

The Free Traders can state a relationship such as “my maternal foster half-stepuncle by marriage, once removed and now deceased” in one word, one which means that relationship and no other. The relation between any spot on a family tree and any other spot can be so stated. Where most cultures find a dozen titles for relatives sufficient the Traders use more than two thousand. The languages name discreetly and quickly such variables as generation, lineal or collateral, natural or adopted, age within generation, sex of speaker, sex of relative referred to, sexes of relatives forming linkage, consanguinity or affinity, and vital status.

Thorby's first task was to learn the word and the relationship defined by it with which he must address each of more than eighty new relatives; he had to understand the precise flavor of relationship, close or distant, senior or junior; he had to learn other titles by which he would be addressed by each of them. Until he had learned all this, he could not talk because as soon as he opened his mouth he would commit a grave breach in manners.

He had to associate five things for each member of the Sisu's company, a face, a full name (his own name was now Thorby Baslim-Krausa), a family title, that person's family title for him, and that person's ship's rank (such as “Chief Officer” or “Starboard Second Assistant Cook”). He learned that each person must be addressed by family title in family matters, by ship's rank concerning ship's duties, and by given names on social occasions if the senior permitted it -- nicknames hardly existed, since the nickname could be used only down, never up.

Until he grasped these distinctions, he could not be a functioning member of the family even though he was legally such. The life of the ship was a caste system of such complex obligations, privileges and required reactions to obligatory actions, as to make the stratified, protocol-ridden society of Jubbul seem like chaos. The Captain's wife was Thorby's “mother” but she was also Deputy Chief Officer; how he addressed her depended on what he had to say. Since he was in bachelor quarters, the mothering phase ceased before it started; nevertheless she treated him warmly as a son and offered her cheek for his kiss just as she did for Thorby's roommate and elder brother Fritz.

But as Deputy Chief Officer she could be as cold as a tax collector.

Not that her status was easier; she would not be Chief Officer until the old woman had the grace to die. In the meantime she was hand and voice and body servant for her mother-in-law. Theoretically senior officers were elective; practically it was a one-party system with a single slate. Krausa was captain because his father had been; his wife was deputy chief officer because she was his wife, and she would someday become chief officer -- and boss him and his ship as his mother did -- for the same reason. Meanwhile his wife's high rank carried with it the worst job in the ship, with no respite, for senior officers served for life . . . unless impeached, convicted, and expelled -- onto a planet for unsatisfactory performance, into the chilly thinness of space for breaking the ancient and pig-headed laws of Sisu.

But such an event was as scarce as a double eclipse; Thorby's mother's hope lay in heart failure, stroke, or other hazard of old age.

Thorby as adopted youngest son of Captain Krausa, senior male of the Krausa sept, titular head of Sisu clan (the Captain's mother being the real head), was senior to three-fourths of his new relatives in clan status (he had not yet acquired ship's rank). But seniority did not make life easier. With rank goeth privileges -- so it ever shall be. But also with it go responsibility and obligation, always more onerous than privileges are pleasant.