Well, thought Reuben, the best way to find out about this man was by talking with him. He clearly didn’t—or wouldn’t—speak English, but, as Reuben’s old grandmother used to say, there be nine and sixty ways to skin a cat.
“Ponter,” said Reuben, using the one word he’d picked up the previous night.
The man was silent for a moment too long, and he tilted his head slightly. Then he nodded, as if acknowledging someone other than Reuben. “Reuben,” said the man.
Reuben smiled. “That’s right. My name is Reuben.” He spoke slowly. “And your name is Ponter.”
“Ponter, ka,” said Ponter.
Reuben pointed at the implant on Ponter’s left wrist. “What’s that?” he said.
Ponter lifted his arm. “Pasalab,” he said. Then he repeated it slowly, syllable by syllable, presumably understanding that a language lesson had begun: “Pas-a-lab.”
And with that, Reuben realized he’d made a mistake; there was no corresponding English word he could now supply. Oh, perhaps “implant,” but that seemed such a generic term. He decided to try something different. He held up one finger. “One,” he said.
“Kolb,” said Ponter.
He made a peace sign. “Two.”
“Dak,” said Ponter.
Scout’s honor. “Three.”
“Narb”
Four fingers. “Four.”
“Dost”
A full hand, digits splayed. “Five.”
“Aim.”
Reuben continued, adding a finger at a time from his left hand until he had heard numerals from one to ten. He then tried the numbers out of sequence, to see if Ponter would always give the same word in response, or was just making it up as he went along. As far as Reuben could tell—he was having trouble keeping track of these strange words himself—Ponter never slipped up. It wasn’t just a stunt; it seemed to be a real language.
Reuben next started indicating parts of his own body. He pointed an index finger at his shaved head. “Head,” he said.
Ponter pointed at his own head. “Kadun,” he said.
Next, Reuben indicated his left eye. “Eye.”
And then, Ponter did something astonishing. He lifted his right hand, palm out, as if asking Reuben to hold on for a minute, and then he began talking rapidly in his own language, with his head slightly lowered and cocked, as if speaking to somebody over an invisible telephone.
“This is pathetic!” said Hak, through Ponter’s cochlear implants.
“Yeah?” replied Ponter. “We’re not all like you, you know; we can’t just download information.”
“More’s the pity,” said Hak, “but, really, Ponter, if you’d been paying attention to what they’d been saying to each other and to you since we got here, you’d already have picked up a lot more of their language than a simple list of nouns. I have cataloged with high confidence 116 words in their language, and with reasonable confidence guessed at another 240, based on the context in which they have been used.”
“Well,” said Ponter, somewhat miffed, “if you think you can do a better job than me …”
“With all due respect, a chimpanzee could do a better job than you at learning language.”
“Fine!” said Ponter. He reached down and pulled out the control bud on his Companion that turned on the external speaker. “You do it!”
“My pleasure,” said Hak, through the cochlear implants, then, switching to the speaker—
“Hello,” said a female voice. Reuben’s heart jumped. “Yoo-hoo! Over here.”
Reuben looked down. The voice was coming from the strange implant on Ponter’s left wrist. “Talk to the hand,” the implant said.
“Umm,” said Reuben. And then, “Hello.”
“Hello, Reuben,” replied the female voice. “My name is Hak.”
“Hak,” repeated Reuben, shaking his head slightly. “Where are you?”
“I am here.”
“No, I mean where are you? I get that that thingamajig is some kind of cell phone—say, you know, you’re not supposed to use those in hospitals; they can interfere with monitoring equipment. Could we call you back—”
Bleep!
Reuben stopped talking. The bleep had come from the implant.
“Language learning,” said Hak. “Follow.”
“Learning? But …”
“Follow,” repeated Hak.
“Um, yes, all right. Okay.”
Suddenly, Ponter nodded, as if he’d heard a request that Reuben hadn’t. He pointed at the door to the room.
“That?” said Reuben. “Oh, that’s a door.”
“Too much words,” said Hak.
Reuben nodded. “Door,” he said. “Door.”
Ponter got up out of the bed and walked toward the door. He put his large hand on the handle, and pulled the door open.
“Um,” said Reuben. Then: “Oh! Open. Open.”
Ponter closed the door.
“Close.”
Ponter then swung the door repeatedly open and closed.
Reuben frowned, then, getting it: “Opening. You’re opening the door. Or closing it. Opening. Closing. Opening. Closing.”
Ponter walked over to the window. He indicated it with a sweep of both hands.
“Window,” said Reuben.
He tapped on the glass.
“Glass,” Reuben supplied.
The female voice again, as Ponter lifted the window up in its frame, exposing the screen: “I am opening the window.”
“Yes!” said Reuben. “Opening the window! Yes.”
Ponter pulled the window down. “I am closing the window,” said the female voice.
“Yes!” said Reuben. “Yes, indeed!”
Chapter 13
Adikor Huld had forgotten what Last Five was like. He could smell them, smell all the women. They weren’t menstruating—not quite yet. The beginning of that, coinciding with the new moon, would mark the end of Last Five, the end of the current month and the start of the next. But they all would be menstruating soon; he could tell by the pheromones wafting on the air.
Well, not all of them, of course. The prepubescent ones—members of generation 148—wouldn’t, and neither would the postmenopausal ones—most members of generation 144, and just about everyone from earlier generations. And if any of them had been pregnant or lactating, they wouldn’t menstruate, either. But generation 149 wasn’t due for many months, and generation 148 had long since been weaned. Of course, there were a few who, usually through no fault of their own, were sterile. But the rest, all living together in the Center, all easily smelling each other’s pheromones, all synchronized in their cycles: they were all about to begin their periods.
Adikor understood well that it was hormonal changes that made so many of them testy at the end of each month, and why his male ancestors, long before they’d started numbering generations, had headed for the hills during this time.
The driver had dropped Adikor off near the home he had been looking for, a simple rectangular building, half grown by arboriculture, half built with bricks and mortar, with solar panels on its roof. Adikor took a deep breath through his mouth—a calming breath, bypassing his sinuses and his sense of smell. He let the air out slowly and walked along the small path through the arrangement of rocks and flowers and grasses and shrubs that covered the area in front of the house. When he got to the door—which was ajar—he called out, “Hello! Anybody home?”
A moment later, Jasmel Ket appeared. She was tall, lithe, and just past her 250th moon, the age of majority. Adikor could see Ponter in her face, and Klast, too; lucky Jasmel had inherited his eyes and her cheeks, instead of the other way around.
“W-w-what—” stammered Jasmel. She fought to compose herself, then tried again. “What are you doing here?”
“Healthy day, Jasmel,” said Adikor. “It’s been a long time.”