"Many of your people die for curiosity, don't they?" Seth asked softly.
Yes
. Sadly.
Perhaps those who would fly to the stars will not feel that so necessary.
She smiled a little.
Perhaps not
.
He held her gaze gently, squeezing her hands.
They were
—
curious
—
that a people so rigid as to require a drug to see the world-within-the-world should spring back so excitedly at a few jovial pranks
. Lo'ela tilted her head.
They find you people
very
curious, my starman
.
* * *
Seth returned with Lo'ela to
Ardello
and faced a skeptical Mondreau with the story of Lo'ela's progress. His arm never left the sea-girl's waist as he stood before the officers, and he answered Mondreau's query as to the nature of their relationship with the statement, "I think the best way to put it is . . . that we have found a
focus
in one another."
Mondreau scowled, and pointedly ignored the mirth visible on several other faces. "Now just what the hell does that mean, Perland? Are you trying to say that you are in love with the girl?"
Seth thought it over for a moment. "I guess you could put it that way, too," he acknowledged.
"Then why didn't you just say so?" Mondreau sighed and looked around the room. "Well, maybe that's not so bad, actually."
"I don't think so, sir."
"Who asked you?" Humming raspily, he rapped his knuckles on the wardroom table. "Did you wish to make another recommendation, then?"
"Um, yes. I suggest that the ships return to Lambrose. Disarm. Give us time to find sea-people willing to learn about starflight. Let us settle the people down and help them find less disruptive ways of
focusing
on humans—that is,
our
humans." Seth met Lo'ela's glance.
Can we do it?
You've done very well so far. If this man is anything like you.
Mondreau still looked skeptical. "That's quite a lot you're proposing. Is your friend—Lo'ela?—competent to speak for her people?"
"No one can speak for all the Nale'nid. That's part of the way they are. But I think we can influence them."
"Without a military presence?"
"Mr. Mondreau—I can't stress too highly—the military presence
intrigues
them. They think it's
curious
that we reacted violently. The worst thing we could possibly do would be to encourage them to
focus
on our violent behavior. They would only want to provoke more of it. Better that they should
focus
as Lo'ela has, or even lose interest altogether."
"Perland, can your friend Lo'ela speak our language?"
"A little. She understands me, and speaks sometimes—but mostly she communicates by telepathy. At least I think it's telepathy."
Lo'ela?
"I am learning your language," Lo'ela said carefully.
Kenelee Savage seemed surprised and delighted. "The Nale'nid are telepathic? That could be a tremendous help."
"Well, not altogether," Seth cautioned. "I think it's mainly a matter of
focus
. I haven't communicated directly with any of the others."
"Yes," said Lo'ela.
Mondreau and Savage digested that, and spoke together in low voices. While they conferred, Lo'ela and Seth stood to the side and exchanged what thoughts they had in wordless glances.
"All right," Mondreau said, turning back to them. "We will accept and follow your suggestions for the time being. Conditional on your assurance of proper Nale'nid behavior."
Seth nodded, with mixed feelings. What if the Nale'nid did
not
cooperate?
"And Perland? You
will
bring Mr. Bonhof back?"
"I'll speak to him, sir." And that, he reflected, was no surer a thing than convincing the Nale'nid.
Lo'ela and Seth returned to the undersea city with a busy time ahead of them. It was mostly Lo'ela's work that had to be done, but Seth accompanied her as she made rounds of many of the people she knew. Often, as he looked on while Lo'ela talked, he had the feeling that the eyes of the listening Nale'nid were, if not actually
focused
upon him, at least alight with interest. Lo'ela talked speedily, softly, in the Nale'nid tongue—first to a blonde waif of a girl living in a nearby bubble-dome; then to a man in the lower levels of the city who reminded Seth of Andol Holme, with features very dense and rugged for a sea-person; then to a woman with dark, reserved eyes, who to all outward appearances was paying not the slightest attention to either of them; then to others, and still others. Seth began to feel lost in the process; but the indications he received from Lo'ela were relaxed and hopeful. Those whom she had convinced, she said, were themselves going on to talk to others.
We are not without civilizing influences, my Seth,
she said, trying to ease his concern.
We do not harm one another without willing permission, and we do help each other as your people do. My problem is trying to convince my people that your people are people
.
"Uh-huh," said Seth, and waved her onward.
Racart still worried him. The Ernathene remained brooding and uncommunicative, and Lo'ela could offer no insight beyond saying that he had "not yet returned." He had refused either to speak or to listen when the two had come back from
Ardello
, and Seth was beginning to wonder if the Ernathene would ever want to accompany them home to Lambrose.
Upon retiring from a day's trek about the city, they found Racart, still as though in a dark trance, staring out into the sea. Seth stood beside him. "Mona wanted me to say that she misses you," he said.
Racart did not stir. His gaze was apparently fixed, beyond the
glid
dome, on the tumbled rocky slope where the bottom fell away beneath the city. The sunlight was growing dim, and the more distant parts of the city were lost in ocean shadows. Even looking upward toward the surface, the water was a deep, darkening blue. Soon the soft glow of bioluminescence would begin to spring into visibility throughout the city.
"She's very anxious about you," Seth said.
Racart stared. His eyelids barely flickered. Presently, he turned. "Yes," he said, almost inaudibly. "You will have many people to go with you when you return to your starship."
"Perhaps. We're going to Lambrose soon. Will you come with us?"
Or are your thoughts so darkened that they will not let us
—
or even Mona
—
reach you
?
Racart's eyes refocused, and for a moment Seth thought that he had made contact. But Racart suddenly rose, and without a word or a sign walked out of the dome.
He did not return that night, nor the next day, nor at all during the days before the journey to Lambrose.
* * *
Seth held Lo'ela's hand and took a last gaze around her dwelling before they traveled no-distance in almost no-time to the Ernathene settlement. They arrived in Lambrose in the street alongside the wharf, and from there walked through the center of town toward the
Warmstorm
Mission Headquarters. The one Ernathene who recognized Seth on the street greeted him rather solemnly and a bit suspiciously, with a cautiously neutral, sidelong look at Lo'ela. But in fact few people were wandering about, as all major production activities had been resumed, and most able workers were at their jobs. It was a breezy and, for Ernathe, sunny day, and Seth enjoyed the walk and the fresh look at the city he had left a good many days before (he never had gotten around to asking just how many days before). The street seemed brighter, clearer, and the small shops and homes and the large processing buildings particularly hard-edged; three dimensional. Colors leapt to Seth's eye—the reds and yellows on buildings, in peoples' clothes, and the blazing gold of Lambrose—colors practically absent on the seafloor.
They turned off the main street and proceeded along a side avenue to Mission Headquarters. Sea-people were now arriving on either side of their path, and when Seth glanced behind he saw a number following, as well. The air was beginning to fill with glinting sea-mist, making numbers difficult to judge; but he estimated that roughly forty to fifty Nale'nid actually entered Headquarters behind him and Lo'ela.
One of the last to enter was Racart. He walked directly into the midst of the waiting Nale'nid, remaining conspicuously out of reach of the many people who recognized and hailed him. Seth was surprised—and happy—to see him; but he failed in an attempt to catch his eye, and he feared that Racart was no readier than before to join the company of his own people. Aside from his presence in Lambrose, he seemed little changed from the last time Seth had seen him.
Richel Mondreau stepped out onto center stage, but he had to call at once to Seth and Lo'ela for help in asking the milling Nale'nid to settle in the empty seats. Racart remained where he was, in the middle of the group, making everyone on stage nervous with his unseeing stare. Mondreau began speaking as soon as the room was quiet. The communication was at best awkward—Mondreau to Seth to Lo'ela to the other Nale'nid; but Mondreau nevertheless spoke with solemn concentration, as if addressing his own crew. Seth visualized, for Lo'ela to relay, Mondreau's surprisingly concise description of flux-travel as it was to the starmen, what they hoped to accomplish, and where they had failed. He called upon Seth for elaboration, and even upon
Warmstorm's
, master, Captain Gorges, who spoke with a jovial smile from the rear of the stage. Mondreau stressed the need of his people for
mynalar (mynalar-e
for medical purposes,
mynalar-g
for starflight); he stressed the need for Nale'nid cooperation on Ernathe, as well as (possibly) in space.
The Nale'nid gazed lightly at Lo'ela and chatted quietly among themselves as the speech proceeded. Seth had the impression he was watching two superimposed, but entirely separate meetings. It was an unsettling feeling; he wondered if the Nale'nid were listening. Glancing at Racart, he saw that the Ernathene's expression was indistinguishable from the Nale'nids.
It goes well,
Lo'ela told him.
Mondreau went on: "There are two other races. One called the Lacenthi, one called the Querlin. Neither is human, neither is friendly, and both are growing and expanding in the Cluster. They will try, if they can, to overwhelm us. To smother us. To crowd us out of existence. With our present techniques we cannot hope to counter them, or to develop the vitality among all the human worlds to stand strong before them . . ."
Seth was beginning to have trouble keeping the words centered in his thoughts for Lo'ela to absorb. (He suspected that she was able to translate most of it without assistance, anyway.) He was surprised when Lo'ela advised him:
He is losing their attention, too.
Seth gazed into the faces of the Nale'nid and gained an immediate sense of
disinterest
. He nodded to himself, realizing that he should have anticipated it and warned Mondreau. What interest would the Nale'nid have in stories of hostile races—except perhaps as a matter of mischief and curiosity?
When Mondreau came to a pause, Seth leaned close and murmured, "I think you had better stick with the starship-rigging aspect. They don't seem overly impressed about the Querlin and Lacenthi."
Mondreau glanced at him and cleared his throat.
Before he could resume, however, a Nale'nid man spoke up. His softly musical voice rode clearly over the background of mumblings. "We har entrested, uh-yes, hin your flying of ships hin the stars. That we have never done, and we find hit a fine good
focus
." He smiled broadly, and settled back in his chair.
Seth and Mondreau stared for a moment, then as one turned to Lo'ela. "Do they all feel this way?" asked Seth.
Lo'ela's eyes darkened with concentration. She spoke a few words in her own tongue, and listened to some quiet mutterings. Her eyes turned bright.
Yes, it seems so. Je'le is the only one who focused on your language well enough to speak. But many will go
.
"Can you repeat that aloud?" Seth asked, with a glance at Mondreau and back at Gorges.
Lo'ela did so, clearly.
She had barely stopped speaking, when loud rumblings outside shuddered through the building. The sounds of a sudden-breaking storm. The walls trembled in gusting winds, and from outdoors came the sounds of shouts and of banging doors. A moan resonated from the roof and chorused through the room. "Those sound like gale-force winds," Kenelee Savage said worriedly from a side window. The building tremored again—with rain pelting thunderously down on the roof and battering on the north and west walls.
Seth looked darkly at Lo'ela.
Is this something your people are doing?
Mondreau saw his glance and tensely asked the same question.
Lo'ela flinched, and Seth caught no words but only a whirl of confused, conflicting thoughts. He looked at Mondreau anxiously.
"Well?" Mondreau roared.
Seth shrugged, helplessly. The tumult continued for a minute, then tapered—and as suddenly as it had struck, the storm ended. Rainwater could be heard running down gutters along the roof. A phone shrilled.
Lo'ela gathered her nerve and said loudly, in a strained voice, "Some of the people have sent their greetings!" She gazed at Seth nervously and avoided Mondreau's stare altogether. "They say they no longer will interfere."
Savage raised his voice: "Nale'nid have been reported all over town, in and out of the plant, and running in the rain." He looked outside, saw that there was no more rain. He listened on the phone for another moment. "No reports of actual trouble, though."
Grumblings from about the stage indicated that a number of people were having second thoughts. "It strikes me," called Londel, First Officer of
Warmstorm
, "that the people we are trying to recruit as starship pilots—note that—
starship pilots—
seem to possess something less then the requisite emotional stability. Are they children? What have they been doing? What have they done to that gentleman, Racart Bonhof? What has that man been through, that he sits there not speaking?"