Interference Read online

  I took the branch from her hand and scented protect. “Mothers must show kindness and love. Now look how cold Chirp is.” He whined a bit more. I took an extra scarf from the basket and handed it to her, then showed her how to dry him. She giggled heartlessly.

  He puffed question. “Too many people, too quiet.”

  True. At midmorning, adults—Humans and Glassmakers alike—should have been working in the fields or the workshops, and children should have been in school. And if they had free moments, they should have all been preparing for the Spring Festival. Instead, too many people hustled between houses or paused at doorways, speaking in hushed voices. No laughter. Cloths covered their mouths and noses.

  A man who worked for me in the carpentry workshop passed us.

  “Blas,” I called, and held out my hands. Welcome.

  He approached and took them, and his hands felt hot.

  “Your daughter?” I asked.

  “She’s at home. Her fever’s broken, so she’ll be fine.” But he coughed. He looked tired, different from the tiredness at the end of a good hard day of work. And he wobbled on his two legs. He was very sick.

  A cart clattered behind us. “Here’s what we need,” he said. A worker pulled a cart filled with jars and covered dishes: food, tea, and medicinal fruit, delivered to the door of households with sick members. Another of Ladybird’s urgent projects—seven deaths already, and the epidemic had not peaked, not at all, so said the doctors, theirs and ours.

  “Rest well,” I said. I wish you happiness. He loved his daughter, and rightly so. The scents from the cart reached me: savory, sweet, and medicinally bitter.

  He managed to smile. “I have to plan my change for the festival!” But tomorrow he might be in bed with aches and chills, and dead before the festival eight days away. Influenza, they called it, a latent virus hiding undetected deep inside someone’s cells, a contagious respiratory infection common on Earth they thought they had deliberately left behind, yet our visitors had brought this like a gift and delivered it after being here for a score of days. It had only made the Humans hate and suspect them even more—behind that charade of welcome.

  But influenza did not sicken Glassmakers. I did not want to be in the middle, yet the middle kept finding me.

  I turned toward the greenhouse, a short walk away. Rattle was waving the wet scarf with the jerky movements of a baby, but with intent. “Be careful!” I said, and took it before she could slap Chirp on the head. I imagined slapping her, tensing claws and … no. No!

  Ladybird sat on a bench outside the greenhouse, studying a wax tablet with the major who managed the city’s defense and emergency plans. She murmured something to him and stood as we approached. I entered, took Rattle’s basket and set it on a table, and sent Chirp outside. “This will be fast,” I said. I hoped the warmth of the greenhouse would make the baby nap. I got ready to say no.

  Ladybird entered and threw the bolt on the door. “Earthlings barge in almost anywhere,” she complained. Then she took a deep breath and reached for my hands. “We need something, and we think you could have Scratcher get it for us. From the Earthlings.”

  Scratcher was working in the clinic—keeping watch on the Earthling doctors, whom Ladybird did not trust and who could not quite believe workers might be clever, so Scratcher saw and heard everything.

  “You desire something from a doctor,” I said. “To cure the influenza?” I felt hope and unease at the thought. If they had a cure, why not share it?

  Rattle curled up. Relax and rest, I told her. Obey for once! I thought.

  “We have a cure,” Stevland said in a soft, Human male voice, almost monotone, like all Human voices, emanating from a beautifully carved wooden box, a speaker. “It exists, for what good it does. Some proteins can weaken the virus, but then the body’s immune system must complete the task. Earthlings can make this protein with their equipment, and I can make it and put it in fruit faster, and we are giving it to the ill. The Earthlings’ bodies have more experience with varieties of this virus, and they can fight effectively. Our Humans’ bodies react with confusion. So the medicine they created helps too little. What we want instead is a small object that they call a neurotransmitter that is implanted in Earthling brains to permit communication.”

  “They communicate mentally by radio,” Ladybird said. “We knew from the first that they do that, and now we know how.” I tried to judge what she was thinking. Wide tense eyes, eyebrows close together and wrinkling her forehead, her chin slightly forward: fear, perhaps. What she knew frightened her.

  Rattle dozed in her padded basket on the table, curled up, her baby fur like a bundle of tan wool waiting to be spun. She had been born the day after the Earthlings came, so for me, all the tragedy of raising a future mother was mixed with all the troubles brought by these newcomers. Troubles and lies that kept getting more complex and vexing.

  I breathed deeply before I spoke, feeling my hands tremble. “You propose theft. I desire to avoid that.”

  “If we could make one of them by ourselves, we would,” Stevland said. “Radio reception technology, which I have, is much simpler than radio transmission. I need to transmit, and I need their technology.”

  “But they will notice it is missing. They may blame my Scratcher.”

  “Their doctor has several with him,” Ladybird said, “and he’s careless and distracted. The clinic is in a tangle anyway with so many patients.”

  “Why steal? If they have so many, we could ask for one.”

  This question made Ladybird tense her lips.

  “They have told us about it,” Stevland said in that false voice, “but they do not want us to have this technology. They say they do not have the facilities to give it to Humans. This may or may not be true, but what is true is that it gives them an unquestionable advantage. But for what? I am listening to them, and I am worried. They have many factions, and they are willing to work secretly against each other, or against us. All they need is the courage to act.”

  Rattle fidgeted. She never slept properly.

  “Perhaps you will tell me more.” I had lost much trust in Stevland since the Earthlings came. He seemed to care more about them than Glassmakers.

  “I can show you what I am receiving now. Their broadcasting antenna has been placed on one of my stems at Queen Chut’s suggestion, and she has placed a receiver antenna for me in the same stem, so I can hear very clearly.”

  The speakers began to hiss and Earthling voices sounded, two men. I understood only their intonation and the word “Om” in a dismissive tone, then laughter. I seemed to smell malice—it was my imagination, but their tone reeked of it. One said, “Omparkash Bachchan z fukal!”

  “I will explain,” Stevland said. “These are Pollux and Mu Ree Cheol speaking via radio, linked by their transmitting equipment. They spend much of their time discussing the faults of Om. The word ‘fukal’ means ‘tulip’ or ‘idiot,’ roughly.”

  “Team leaders always are criticized,” I said. “And perhaps rightly. Om is hesitant, afraid, perhaps. But afraid of us or his own team?” My words felt weak compared to those voices. And one Earthling never ceased to tell me how bad Humans were. That would include Ladybird as bad. What would they say about Stevland if they knew about him?

  “Jose’s told us about their weapons,” Ladybird said. “Do you trust them?”

  I feel uncertain, I answered. Uncertain about everything. Fear of Earthlings was a Human grudge that affected their judgment.

  Ladybird curved her lips unhappily. “We can’t trust them about what they can do to us or to each other,” she said. “All you need to do is ask Scratcher to take a neurotransmitter. Once we have it, we can implant it in Stevland, then he can be part of their communications network.”

  “And there is more,” Stevland said. “I can only show you the sound of their transmissions, but they share what they see, and certain of them look at Pacifists in a very worrisome way.”

  True. Those wet little hole
s for eyes could not disguise what they looked at, and Earthlings did not understand that I could see behind myself as well as forward. I had seen their looks of disrespect, and I had smelled the human’s sexual arousal sometimes, too. I could refuse to cooperate, but that would change nothing except to leave the Earthlings with an advantage.

  “If one of them learns something,” Stevland said, “they can all learn it if they wish to tell each other. Also, with these neurotransmitters, they can retrieve information stored on their transmission equipment, and I wish to have access to that, too. And beyond that, their bodies send information about where they are and about their health. Thus they are diagnosed faster and cured more effectively.”

  I saw a flaw in his plan. “What exactly will you do when you have it? If they know so much about each other, they will know you are not one of them when you transmit.”

  Stevland repeated my words exactly in Glassmade, as if I were talking. “I can imitate anyone. I will only monitor them, but if necessary, I will enforce equality among us, the Pacifists and Earthlings. Communications can serve as a weapon, and I have many skills.”

  Ladybird looked at his speakers with tight eyes. Stevland could fight, but as fiercely as the stories said?

  “I am so tired of lies,” I said with anger.

  “The lies trouble me, too,” Stevland said. “I cannot sing at the funerals as I should. I will not sing at the Spring Festival. I cannot speak at meetings or anywhere but in private. And every Pacifist must lie about me. To keep secrets requires constant effort. You are right to feel tired and angry.” His voice carried the emphatic tone Humans used for anger.

  Ladybird nodded in agreement.

  I was right. Angry and not alone in anger.

  My baby dozed on. She was a little mother, and I and my family would care for her until she came of age and developed her own scent, which would be detestable to me and my majors and workers, as our scent would be to her. Then she would flee, or I would drive her out. Until then, I had to protect her. And my family. And all of Pax. But from what? A hunting team had seen the Earthling soldier destroy a band of eagles from a long distance. One Earthling was more dangerous than twenty eagles, and we had twenty Earthlings living among us.

  There was one sane path ahead, though it made me a different kind of angry to follow it.

  “Scratcher is very capable in all things,” I said. “He can do this task for you.” These words were scented with resentment. This conflict was about to get even worse.

  “Thank you,” Stevland and Ladybird said at once.

  “I have no desire to fight the Earthlings,” I said.

  “None of us do,” Stevland said.

  “Perhaps.”

  I opened the door, called in Chirp, and placed the baby’s basket on his back. After the courtesies of departure, we left, back into the cold wet day with low clouds, and headed toward the clinic.

  We had not gone far when a voice called: “Queen Thunderclap!”

  I recognized it. Zivon. The Earthling who wanted me to hate Humans, who said they used us as slaves. But he said that only in private, with no translator. And most of his fellow Earthlings did not treat us Glassmakers as equals. Did he think I was equal?

  Arrogance in motion, Chirp puffed.

  Zivon and the other Earthlings looked different from our Humans: tall, slow, fragile, and thin, just as Earthlings were remembered to be. Like the others, he wore strange clothing, a sort of tight suit that kept him warm and dry and even strong somehow. He also wore a Pax shirt over the suit, billowing over his upper half while the suit clung tight as stockings to his legs. He looked only half-dressed.

  But I paused to let him approach. The day could not become worse than it already was. I did not bother to scent anything, since he would not understand, but Chirp told me, Be careful. I held out my hands, but he did not take them. Yet I knew he had been briefed about our culture when he arrived and several times since then. How should I interpret that? Arrogance, ignorance, or bad manners? He had a reputation for all three.

  “Queen Thunderclap,” he repeated in that simple English that Earthlings knew, heavily accented, then gestured at my worker. “And what is this little one’s name?” He reached into a bag on his shoulder and pulled out a flat, square, transparent tablet. “We can communicate direct, you and me. You can write to me. Queens are the smartest of people on this planet.”

  He held it out, waiting.

  I could write. In fact, I could write fluid English, and I had already learned how those tablets worked. They had radio transmitters, too, so my words would go to everyone, to the information storage, to all parts—so be careful. I took it and began to trace letters on it, which assembled themselves into neatly arranged words. For a moment, I imagined having one in my mind, like a window to elsewhere, to anywhere. Earthlings had great power.

  “My worker is called Chirp in your language.”

  “Chirp. And Thunderclap.” His face tightened up, wrinkled naked flesh. “Do you not think these are bad names? Humans laugh at you, at the sounds you make.”

  I laugh too, happily, Chirp told me. He made the sound of his name, a chirp in any language.

  I took the tablet and in a moment of rancor decided to use my best English to see how good his vocabulary was. “My name evokes the power of nature, a noble name.”

  He read slowly. “What do you call yourself? What does your name mean?”

  I wrote, “It is a sound and no more.” I said my name, the low, brusque sound of a close flash of lightning. “What does Zivon mean?”

  He read it, then lowered the tablet fast, his mouth curving down. He shook his head. “What do you call this baby? It is a queen, right?”

  “Yes, a little queen. Rattle. A distinctive sound. Percussive. We can use it in songs to good effect.”

  He muttered something in Earthling language, but he shook his head inadvertently, a sign of no, of disagreement. He did not like our language. He knelt to pet Rattle, but she continued to sleep, even though he smelled like alert. All the Earthlings did. “It is a miracle you have survived on this planet.”

  “No,” I wrote, “mere hard work.”

  “Your work. You do the hard work, the Humans use you.”

  I began to write and realized I would have to write too much.

  He saw my hesitation and said, “You can trust me. Earth has changed since the original colonists left, and I am not like them. You live under Human rule, and it limits you. You are not equals.”

  “One person, one vote,” I answered.

  “They are more than you. They can do what they want.”

  “If they all voted together, yes, but they never do. How do you decide things? Back on Earth. And here. How?”

  “That is not the issue,” Zivon said. “I mean, we know things are unfair on Earth.” He looked down and for the first time seemed to notice the carved stones in the pavement. The Human named Fern had made them, and they were part of a sundial, a beautiful way to measure the hours. Beauty was important to us, but to him? “We can talk about something else, then. Can you tell me about the onions for the festival?”

  “It is what we ate when we traveled,” I wrote. “Wild ones, not crops.”

  “We? Glassmakers or Humans?”

  “Both. We celebrate traveling to this city.”

  “Can you show me how you gather them?”

  “The same way as crops.”

  “How? Can you show me?”

  “Onions right there,” Chirp said, waving at a muddy garden.

  “Those?” Zivon asked, pointing to the narrow children’s flower garden surrounding the history museum.

  Chirp laughed.

  “No. Those are rare flowers,” I wrote, “special tulips and deep-woods lilies and others. Chirp will show you onions.”

  He took a few steps and pointed to some thick green leaves bursting through the wet soil.

  “Can you dig them up?” Zivon said.

  Chirp stepped into the garde
n.

  “But you, Queen. Why not you?”

  “In the harvest, I gather fruit and grain, but I do not dig.”

  “Why?”

  “I am a mother.”

  “So?”

  “Digging is for workers.”

  He read that message for a long time. Rattle stirred on Chirp’s back. He murmured a song to her. Finally Zivon said, “Queens do not dig, you say. Do you understand the word ‘equality’? Do you?”

  “Yes. Glassmakers and Humans are equal.” And Stevland, I could have added, all three of us equal.

  “But you are not equal to a worker.”

  “A family is one thing with many parts,” I wrote. “An eye is not a hand or foot.”

  He made an unhappy face again, muttering in Earthling. Then he turned and walked away. Not even a goodbye. I had done nothing rude or unmotherly.

  “He is scientist,” Chirp said, still laughing. “But he does not know his onions.”

  “We must find Scratcher,” I said. I had learned nothing—or something too hard to describe and not what I had wanted to learn. We were surrounded by Stevland. He must have heard. What did he think?

  At the fountain nearest the clinic, we saw Scratcher filling buckets. I called his name. He set them down and came to take my hands.

  Sad greetings. “We lose this morning an old man to the illness.” He nodded at Chirp, who nodded back, a greeting workers had learned from Humans. Visual communication, much like all those facial expressions.

  His hands in mine felt moist and calloused. Be strong, I scented. “I am troubled, too. And I will ask you to get something for me. There is a small device the Earthlings have in their brains, and they have extra devices in their medical supplies. You will take one of them for me, but they cannot know.”

  He gripped my hands tighter, so tight it almost hurt. That was a surprise. He was usually the calmest person anywhere. “I know what you desire. The Earthling doctors try to explain them to the Pacifist doctors. Like all things, they do not agree with each other.” These many disagreements are tiring.