Universal Language Page 4

  Jalila breathed deeply again. The complex blend of scents was different now, though she hadn't moved and there was no breeze to stir the fragrance. When she drew another breath, it had changed again, the acrid smell of coffee replaced by a syrupy sweetness with a mild vinegar undertone.

  Folcrum closed his eyes and inhaled again. "Lots of secrets, if you know how to listen."

  Jalila smelled roses and sawdust and wine...then salt water and leather. The fragrance of the garden shifted with each passing moment, scents rising and fading and resurging in unpredictable combinations.

  Or were they so unpredictable after all? Perhaps, Folcrum wasn't speaking figuratively when he said that the garden was talking. Perhaps, there was more to the scents than a random mixture of olfactory stimuli.

  Folcrum opened his eyes and nodded. "There's a secret here for you, too. The secret of the word you said."

  Jalila frowned. She smelled walnut and cucumber and gardenias.

  "Nalo could not tell you," said Folcrum, "but I know how to listen."

  Inhaling again, Jalila strained to detect patterns in the play of perfumes, but they still seemed to fluctuate without reason. Even if what she was being led to believe was true, she was not able to take advantage of it. Even if there was a fourth language on this world, and vital information was flowing around her in the form of scent signals, she could not understand it.

  "I will tell you this much now and the rest later," said Folcrum. "The Vox people were not the true mazeesh."

  Jalila stared at him, stunned. If not for the gag, her mouth would have fallen open in dumbstruck shock.

  *****

  Chapter 9

  By far, Oric and Giza had the most elaborate markings of any Vox Jalila had yet seen. As Folcrum introduced them, Jalila found it impossible to look away from the ornate tracery that decorated their fur coats.

  Typically, Vox sported the painted designs on their scalps, backs, and abdomens, but Oric and Giza were covered in them. Every conceivable shape appeared on their bodies, covering every inch of fur, creating an impression at first of great chaos and then of great artistry the longer Jalila looked.

  Oric was the first to step forward and offer his hand. "Welcome. Thank you for coming." Swirls and stars and intersecting rays were painted in silver on the black fur of his chest. Intricate characters ran along his arms and legs, etched in multiple delicate brush strokes. Interlocking diamonds and loops encircled his waist in a chain, and a beautifully detailed burst like a bouquet of flowers bloomed in gold and turquoise on his belly.

  Giza stepped forward next, his bright blonde fur a sharp contrast to Oric's dark coat. Deep red whorls and curlicues twined around his head and down his throat like interlaced vines. Dark green characters scrolled in double diagonal streams from his left shoulder to his right hip. His arms were crosshatched in violet on one side, stippled in umber and aqua on the other. A blossom of overlaid figure eights graced his every joint, from his elbows and knees to the knuckles on his hands.

  "I am honored to meet you." Giza bowed, then gestured toward a simple stone bench. "Have a seat if you like."

  As soon as Jalila sat down, one of the furry butterfly creatures fluttered into the gazebo and lighted on her knee. She jerked involuntarily, but the beautiful lifeform remained in place, its luminescent wings slowly fanning.

  "It won't hurt you," said Folcrum. "It's a kava. It's good luck."

  The creature was much larger than butterflies back home, and its wings were as big as Jalila's hands, but it seemed to weigh nothing at all. As it looked up at her with frosted, prismatic eyes, a yellow tongue zipped out and flickered in the air.

  Jalila couldn't take her eyes off the kava, partly because it was so lovely and strange and partly because she wasn't sure what it would do next. Giza might have realized this, because he came over and gently lifted the creature from her knee, then placed it on his shoulder.

  "I could use some luck too, if you don't mind," he said, and then he made a sound like a chuckle. "We all could. Maybe we better pass this around."

  As Giza slowly returned to his seat, Oric coughed loudly. Both of them had a touch of unsteadiness in their movements, as if they were very old...older than Folcrum, certainly, or at least not in good health.

  "Jalila," said Oric. "I wish we could hear your voice. Unfortunately, silencing voices is one thing our leaders do well."

  Jalila winced. For a while, she had been distracted and hadn't paid much attention to the gag...but at the mention of her condition, she realized how much it still hurt.

  "I want you to meet someone." Oric nodded at Folcrum, who got up and left the gazebo. A moment later, he returned with a female Vox in tow...copper-furred and scrawny, carrying a garden hoe.

  Apparently, she was one of the many Vox tending the Garden of Yesterday...but that was of secondary interest to Jalila. Her attention was immediately drawn to the Vox's mouth...specifically, what was covering it.

  It was the same kind of gag that was locked in place over Jalila's own lips.

  "This is Yama," said Oric. "Six years ago, the Vox spoken language underwent a major revision. It was decided that the revision was too extensive for the existing Lexicons to be reeducated.

  "So they were silenced. Yama and many like her." Rising from his stone bench, Oric went to Yama and took her hand in his. "She hasn't spoken a word in six years. She has only been able to eat by inhaling a nutrient-rich mist.

  "Some of us escaped," said Oric. "Like Giza, Folcrum, and myself. But Yama was not so lucky. She did not make it to the Garden before the damage was done." Raising her hand, he kissed it gently, then released it. "But her suffering is nothing compared to what will happen tomorrow."

  "A revision conference is set for tomorrow." Giza stroked the fur of the kava perched on his shoulder. "Every Lexicon in the world will gather in one place, in the capital city above us, for reeducation. They are supposed to learn of the changes being made to the Vox languages by our government.

  "Instead, they will be massacred by the Free Speakers," said Giza. "This so the Speakers will be able to replace current languages with a forbidden tongue."

  "Their own version of it, anyway," said Folcrum. "One that will pave the way for their ultimate goal."

  "Revolution," said Giza. "Ending with power in their hands."

  Oric bowed to Yama, and she left the gazebo. "Who is in power makes no difference to us," he said, turning to Jalila. "We do not concern ourselves with such matters. But we will not stand by while Lexicons are slaughtered. Even if it means we must sacrifice our own lives in the process."

  Giza chuckled. "Not that we expect the same sacrifice from you, Jalila. Don't worry."

  Jalila worried anyway. She wondered if they were suggesting their plans included a suicide component.

  "Your being here with us has already hurt the Free Speakers," said Oric. "You were to be the figurehead around which everyone would rally. Nevertheless, one thing is certain. They will go on without you."

  "And we will stop them," Giza said firmly.

  Jalila wanted to ask how they planned to accomplish that and what role she would be expected to play...but she couldn't speak through the gag. She couldn't even write in the dirt, because the Vox wouldn't understand.

  After thinking for a moment, she reached into the right hip pocket of her gray jumpsuit and drew out the handgun she had taken from the Free Speakers' camp. Lifting the weapon, she aimed it away from everyone and pretended to fire it several times, jerking the barrel up as if there was a recoil after each shot. Then, she pointed at the gun and shrugged, raising her free hand with palm up in a questioning gesture.

  "Guns?" said Oric. "No guns."

  "We won't use them," said Giza. "We won't need them."

  Jalila waved the gun and pointed over her shoulder, indicating the direction from which she had come...and by extension, the Speakers.

  This time, Folcrum spoke, perhaps because he had seen her acquire the weapon in the first place.
"We know the Free Speakers are armed. Don't worry. We have a plan to stop them without firing a shot."

  Lowering the gun, Jalila replaced it in her pocket. The Vox could go unarmed if they liked, but she had no intention of relinquishing her weapons until she was safely back onboard the Ibn Battuta...if she ever got there.

  Raising her hands, she again shrugged questioningly, hoping the three Vox would divulge more details of their plan. They either didn't understand what she wanted or chose to ignore her curiosity.

  "You must excuse me," said Oric. "I have much to do to prepare for tomorrow."

  "As do I." Giza rose from his bench. As he stood, the kava drifted from his shoulder, fluttering past Jalila and out of the gazebo. "We leave soon."

  "In the meantime," said Folcrum, "perhaps you'll try the nutrient mists that sustain Yama. This has been a long day for you, and you'll need your strength tomorrow."

  Though Jalila was reluctant to ingest anything on Vox that she hadn't had the opportunity to analyze, she nodded. Because of the planet's light gravity, she had felt lightheaded since stepping out of the scout barque...but she was convinced that the more extreme lightheadedness she now felt was due to a combination of exhaustion and hunger. She hadn't eaten a thing since breakfast onboard Ibn Battuta, which seemed like an eternity ago.

  As Oric and Giza headed off into the garden, Folcrum led her down a path between rows of tall scarlet cacti draped in winking green and gold blossoms. The air smelled like cedar and lilac and baking bread all at once...then tobacco and pepper and coconut.

  As they walked, Folcrum placed a hand on her shoulder. "I hope you're not too worried. Everything will work out, I promise."

  Jalila nodded and tried to look confident, though she was anything but.

  "We'll protect you," said Folcrum. "And when the Lexicons are safe, we will find your friends."

  At the end of the cactus-lined path, Folcrum led her to a hut with walls of red bamboo and a roof of thatched crimson fronds. When he opened the door and ushered her inside, she found herself immersed in aromatic steam.

  "Breathe deeply," he told her, "and slowly. Give yourself time to absorb it before breathing out."

  The steam was thick and smelled of concentrated honey and warm milk. In the middle of the hut, she saw its source--a stand of chest-high plants topped with glowing purple cups like the pods of poppies, emitting plumes through the holes in their sieve-like caps.

  Jalila pulled back her glossy black hair and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and held it in her lungs, then released it. She felt fine...and, amazingly, a little less hungry.

  As she continued breathing in the nutritious fumes, she wondered what the next day would bring. She wondered what would happen when the Lexicons and Free Speakers clashed. She wondered if al-Aziz and Farouk were still alive, and she wondered if they still had a hope of saving the world from the invasion fleet.

  She swore she would do everything in her power to make things come out right. She'd been given a second chance after what had happened on Pyrrhus VII, and she wasn't going to waste it.

  No matter what it cost her.

  *****

  Chapter 10

  A wave of panic surged through Jalila as the crowd pressed around her.

  Though she was relatively safe in the middle of the group of Lexicons from the Garden of Yesterday, she felt the same rising terror that she had experienced in the mob in the ministers' tower. On all sides, the Lexicons were surrounded by hordes of strangers...what seemed like millions of Vox, all moving in the same direction.

  As the Lexicons and Jalila followed the flow of Vox along the street, her heart pounded. Already overheated from the heavy cloak the Lexicons had given her to wear, she felt trickles of sweat run down her sides and back.

  If not for her guns, she would not have been able to hold on to even the small degree of composure she had left. She patted each of them in turn, as she did every few meters--the rifle slung over her back under the cloak, the handgun nestled in the hip pocket of her jumpsuit uniform. The knife was still in place, too; she could feel the holster in her boot, rubbing her ankle as she walked.

  Folcrum walked beside her, his white fur radiant in the morning sunlight. During the entire trip through the tunnels from the Garden of Yesterday to the surface, he had never strayed from her. She wasn't sure if he stayed close out of genuine concern or because he was assigned to guard her...but she took comfort from his presence, especially in the heart of the crowd.

  She only wished he would tell her where they were going and what exactly would happen when they got there. She still felt as if she were blindly stumbling forward, reacting to events without being able to anticipate or fully understand them.

  After winding through a maze of streets in the heart of the city, the hordes of Vox flowed into a huge plaza, framed on all four sides by sprawling buildings. The expansive structures were see-through like all Vox buildings, multicolored and layered in tiers, their upper levels rimmed in balconies with elaborate balustrades. The base of each building was fronted by grand archways and columns atop broad stairways...all of it transparent, all tinted with pastel colors.

  Though the square was filled with Vox, it was nowhere near as packed as the streets had been. Jalila's panic faded a little; she was still worried someone would recognize her as the visitor who'd spoken the forbidden slur, but not so worried about being trampled to death.

  "Here we are." Folcrum swept a clawed hand around to encompass the busy plaza. "Speech Center. Heart of our world's languages.

  "All these people are Lexicons." Folcrum gazed around at the square's population. "Every working Lexicon in the world...plus our retired and revised ones."

  "You don't see this often," said blonde-furred Giza, on Jalila's other side. "The last was six years ago, but you rarely see a major revision twice in ten years."

  "Even without the threat of violence," said Folcrum, "it would be an exciting day."

  Jalila's group passed a crowd engaged in a discussion of pronunciation so spirited that it seemed on the verge of becoming a fistfight. Further on, a spotted brown Vox howled at passersby from a pulpit, protesting proposed changes to a class of multi-tense verbs. A choir at the center of the plaza sang a thesaurus, with different sections--bass, tenor, alto, soprano--singing different strings of words with related meanings. Everywhere, the crowd communicated excitedly in the three Vox language modes--chattering, gesturing, buzzing, and clicking.

  Under other circumstances, the plaza would have been paradise to Jalila. As a linguist, she would have loved experiencing such a vibrant, language-focused event on an alien world, humming with the exchange of ideas and the on-the-spot evolution of multilingual syntax.

  Unfortunately, she was too preoccupied with life-and-death concerns to enjoy what could have been one of the most exhilarating experiences of her life.

  Angling through the crowd, Oric led her and the others to one of the stairways flanking the plaza. Tightening the cloak around her, Jalila followed the Lexicons up several stairs, where they stopped to survey the area.

  "Look," said Folcrum after a moment. "That food vendor by the fountain."

  Peering out from the hood of her cloak, Jalila saw the fountain midway across the plaza. At a cart set up alongside it, two Vox served food to waiting Lexicons. Though they were some distance away, she immediately recognized one of the vendors.

  "Nalo," said Folcrum. "His people are positioned around that and three other carts."

  Jalila saw a second cart parked on the far side of the fountain. The other two carts sat at opposite ends of the plaza, near the main entry points.

  Seeing the carts, Jalila understood the Free Speakers' strategy. They had used the carts to transport their arsenal of weapons into Speech Center. Once the shooting started, they would pin the Lexicons between fire from both ends and the middle of the plaza, cutting off their escape.

  It would be a bloodbath.

  "Three of us to each cart." With a claw
ed finger, Giza counted off threesomes from the group of twelve and pointed toward each trio's target.

  Jalila was relieved when he selected Folcrum and Yama to accompany her. She knew Folcrum best of any of them and felt a bond with gagged Yama.

  "You know what you have to do," said Oric. "We must go now."

  The four teams split up and headed for their targets. As Folcrum led Jalila and Yama through the crowd, Jalila nervously checked the gun in her pocket and the rifle on her back.

  Her team's target was Nalo himself.

  "Lexicons are more than walking dictionaries, Jalila," Folcrum said as they approached Nalo's cart. "Watch this."

  Leaning on the cart's boxy storage compartment, Folcrum addressed brown-furred Nalo. "Three fil'chaka," he said pleasantly. "And what do you have to drink?"

  Nalo looked distracted. "Lucat and oob'suela," he said, staring off across the plaza.

  "I would like three chio vishi," said Folcrum.

  "No chio vishi," Nalo said irritably. "Lucat or oob'suela."

  Folcrum nodded. "Would you please excuse me for a moment?"

  With that, Folcrum turned, threw back his head, and emitted a piercing howl.

  All eyes in the vicinity locked on him. All nearby chatter and activity ceased.

  "Codamoxsu Voxlo!" Folcrum pointed at Nalo. "Codamoxsu!"

  Pieces of what Folcrum had said were familiar, but Jalila didn't recognize the combination and inflection. The closest she could come was "cutting up" or "butchering" the language.

  Immediately, Lexicons from all around converged on the cart.

  "This one mangles our language every time he opens his mouth," said Folcrum. "Here, of all places, in Speech Center, he shows contempt for our rules!"

  "I said nothing wrong!" Nalo glanced around nervously at the surrounding Lexicons. "He lies!"