“Became necessary.”
“Yes, Mr. Chornyak.”
“I don’t follow you, Smith.”
He told him. He told him about the dead infants, about the meeting with the technicians, about the final decision that it had to be a linguist baby the next time.
“You were supposed to be advised of this in advance,” Smith lied. “But when news came in of the baby’s birth in California there wasn’t time to talk to you first — we didn’t know when we’d get another chance like that, you see.”
“And where is the baby now?”
“In one of our safe houses, sir.”
“Your friend here — does he have a name?”
The junior man cleared his throat uneasily and said, “Yes, sir. I’m Bill Jones, sir.”
Thomas carefully entered that information on his wrist computer, and smiled at them. John Smith and Bill Jones. Sure. And they all lived happily ever after.
“And when does the baby go into the Interface?”
“In three weeks, Mr. Chornyak. We can’t wait any longer than that, in view of the current crisis.”
“Ah, yes. The current crisis. Which is?”
“We don’t know, sir. We aren’t told. You know how that is, Mr. Chornyak. Need to know.”
“All right, I’ll assume the existence of the current crisis for the moment — it’s that or stay here all night, obviously. Given that assumption, Smith, do you suppose you could just explain to me, without a lot of fluff and quaver, why this extraordinary crime has been authorized — no, that’s not strong enough — has been committed by the government of the United States? Against a Household of the Lines, to which this government owes much and from which it has suffered no injury? Kidnapping — ” A corner of Thomas’ upper lip twitched, once. “ — is a crime. It is not a trivial crime. It carries the death penalty. I suggest that you explain to me why an official of my government has felt justified in kidnapping one of my relatives.”
Smith hesitated, and then said, “Sir, we explained to you.”
“You explained to me that you have failed in your experiments using human infants in the Interface with the lifeforms. Yes. I understand that. That does not surprise me — you were told that you would fail. What I do not understand, however, is why that set of entirely predictable events lead in some inexorable manner to this crime.”
Feeling that if he was ever to seem more than a cardboard character in this exchange this was his moment, Jones spoke up.
“Perhaps you’d let me handle that, John,” he said carefully.
“By all means, Bill. Have at it.” Smith shrugged. It wasn’t going well, and it probably wasn’t going to get any better, but he didn’t intend to let that bother him. He’d met with Chornyak before, on different but almost equally uncomfortable occasions. He’d met with linguists hundreds of times. And he knew that there was absolutely nothing an ordinary citizen could do if a linguist decided to structure an encounter in such a way that that citizen would look like a perfect ass. That was one of the skills the Lingoes learned, it was one of the things they trained their brats in from birth, and it was one of the reasons they were hated.
Jones appreciated it greatly when the Lingoe putting him down was a male, at least… when it was one of the bitches, he got physically sick. Oh, they observed all the forms, those women; they said all the right words. But they had a way of somehow leading the conversation around so that words came out of your mouth that you’d never heard yourself say before and would have taken an oath you couldn’t be made to say… He knew all about linguists. You couldn’t win, not face to face with one, and he knew better than to try. Let Jones beat himself to death on that rock if it appealed to him; he’d learn.
“Sir,” Jones began, “it’s like this.”
“Is it,” said Thomas.
“We of the federal government have of course heard and read the official statements of the Lines to the effect that there is no genetic difference between linguist infants and the infants of the general population. And we are capable of appreciating the reasons for that position, in view of the regrettable friction between the Lines and the public.” He stopped, and Thomas tilted his head a fraction, and Jones felt deeply inferior for no reason that he could understand; but he was into it now and had no choice but to go on. They’d been told to be very careful with this man.
“You know what he can do, don’t you?” the chief had said to them, holding on to his desk with both big fists and leaning at them like a tree. “That man, all by himself, can just give an order. And every single linguist in government contract service would just stop what they were doing. That means every last interplanetary negotiation we have in progress — business, diplomatic, military, scientific, you name it — every last one would simply STOP. We can’t do a damn thing without the Lingoes, god curse their effing souls and may they fry one and all in hell. But that man, may he fry especially slowly, holds this government hostage. Do you understand that, Smith? You, Jones, do you remember that?”
And why, thought Jones, bewildered, had the government then sent him? Smith, maybe… he understood that Smith had experience in dealing with linguists. But why him? Why not some real superstar?
Smith, who was watching him in mild amusement, knew the answer to that question. The government, which was composed of bureaucrats, felt that sending anyone obviously important to deal with Thomas would give Thomas an indication of the way he owned us all, and that that would be a tactical eror. As though Thomas himself were unaware of the facts of the matter… So they sent a team. One experienced ordinary-looking agent, with no spaghetti and no flash, just your average government token. And one very junior bumbler to set him off. Poor Jones.
“So, Mr. Chornyak,” Jones labored, “we of course understand the motivation for that stance on the part of the Lines — but we also know that it isn’t really in accordance with the facts. That is, we know that in actuality the genetic difference does exist.”
“All that inbreeding,” Thomas murmured courteously; and Smith chuckled inside as Jones swallowed the bait.
“Exactly,” said Jones happily.
“Unnatural practices.”
Jones looked startled and declared that he hadn’t said that.
“There is some other sort of inbreeding, Mr. Jones?”
“Well, there must be.”
“Oh? Why must there be? We could establish the sort of systematic genetic difference you suggest — claiming, by the way, that the linguist Households deliberately lie — we could only establish that sort of systematic genetic difference by systematically fucking our first cousins, generation after generation. Switching to sisters would do it even faster, though it might give us some other kinds of genetic differences. Two-headed babies. Armless babies. Headless babies. That sort of thing.”
“Mr. Chornyak, I assure you — ”
“Mr. Jones, I assure you that I did not leave my home, where I have important duties to see to on behalf of the government you claim to represent, and fly here through vile weather and a traffic pattern managed by lunatics, to listen to you attack the sexual habits of my family.”
It was too much for Jones, entirely too much. He had no idea how he’d gotten to the point where he now found himself, and he sat there opening and shutting his mouth like a toad.
“Mr. Chornyak,” said Smith, moved by pity, “do come off it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Stop torturing my associate, Chornyak. It’s not nice. You are behaving like the Ugly Linguist. And the fact that he makes it so easy doesn’t make it any more sporting.”