“Lynn?” Mr. Conover’s bald forehead shone in the torchlight. “Do you understand?”
Lynn swallowed. “Orel, don’t translate this. I’m not sure. Wish me luck. Orel, translate this. Don’t worry: once I prove I can talk to ghosts, we’ll be on our way.”
Everyone stared at her then, humans with eyes wide and tayshil with ears trembling. The farmer pointed to the hut’s doorway. “You go first,” she said.
The door was the usual mat of reeds, but it was woven with a more complicated pattern than Lynn had seen before, a pattern that seemed to twitch in the torchlight behind her. With another swallow, Lynn pushed the mat aside.
A corridor lay beyond it, something Lynn had never seen in a tayshil house: they didn’t seem to like interior walls. Another mat hung at the end of the corridor, so Lynn let the outer mat drop, walked to it, and lifted it open.
The room on the other side was lit only by several pits of coals. Shapes moved up and down over the walls, and as Lynn got used to the dim light, she saw metin, dozens of them, perched in alcoves overlooking the room, their antennae flitting shadows along the walls. Their voices rustled like tree branches in Lynn’s neural link, no words reaching her, just sounds. “Orel?” she murmured. “What are they saying?”
His legs scratched at her neck. “Give me time, mistress. It is very like the language spoken by Mr. Chonik’s metin, I think: the root forms, for instance, seem—”
“Will you just—!” she shouted, but she stopped when she noticed another figure in the room, a thin, hairy tayshil squatted against the far wall, double knees folded, the spurs along them telling her he was male.
Something prodded at her back. “All the way,” came Prin’s voice, and Lynn stumbled into the shadowy room. The farmer came up beside her and flicked her fingers at the figure across the room. “Speaker,” she said.
The other tayshil flicked a finger, a breathy voice coming to Lynn’s shunt: “Prin. What have you brought me?”
Words were starting to poke through the background muttering: “Ghost,” Lynn heard clearly, more rustling sounds, then, “This one walks with ghosts.”
Mr. Chonik’s metin, Lynn noticed, had stopped mumbling, its legs tightening around her bicep. Prin was going on: “A human, Speaker. She says she speaks to ghosts.”
“Indeed?” came the breathy voice again, then a louder, harsher voice crashed into Lynn’s shunt, the tayshil across the room lifting his arms, his eyes ghnting at her: “Do you so speak, human? Do you so speak?”
The metin in their alcoves leaned forward, their scratchy voices calling out, “Dr. you? Speak! Speak to us! Speak!”
A shiver rustled down Lynn’s back. “Orel? Can we?”
“Possibly, mistress, if you keep it simple.”
“Great.” She cleared her throat. “I speak. I speak for this ghost. He asks me for sanctuary. I give it to him.”
She heard Orel’s translation through her neural link, his voice more strident somehow, and the metin along the walls all started hissing, “Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” over and over again; even Mr. Chonik’s metin took up the chant, swaying slightly on her shoulder. The tayshil across the room rose slowly, creaking as he slid up the wall. “So,” he said, his voice soft again, barely audible over the metin. “You are a Speaker.”
Prin took a step forward. “She is? You know her to be?”
“They know her.” The Speaker waved a hand. “She walks with ghosts, they tell me, and now I hear that she talks with them.” He flicked his fingers at her. “You are a colleague of mine now. I am Rogateth. You are… ?”
Lynn licked her lips. “Lynn Baden-Tan. I… I know I’m not tayshil, Speaker: I wasn’t born on this planet, but—”
“None of us are born tayshil.” Rogateth reached out and stroked Orel. “We become tayshil after our joining.”
“Whatever.” Lynn poked the Speaker’s metin. “But, sir, you should know that we are not invaders. We came—”
“Invaders?” Rogateth turned away. “You are not from here, as you say, but you are not the invaders. Invaders are those who do not treat our ghosts with respect, who do not treat our ways with respect.”
Lynn blinked. The Speaker raised his arms. “The northerners allowed our ghosts to wander into the woods, for they have no Speakers among them and have no respect for ghosts. These are the few I was able to save.”
He looked back at her. “Return to your settlement and ask your people not to enter this town for three days. Trials must be held and grievances redressed. You, however, Speaker, will be most welcome. I cannot offer sanctuary to the ghosts of the northerners that will result, not after they have sent our ghosts out into madness. Knowing that you would be there to offer it would soothe me greatly. Will you do this?”
Lynn blinked at him. “You mean… all that…” She waved a hand toward the wall. “It wasn’t about us? Us humans?”
Prin crossed her arms. “You humans were suspected of being collaborators. Since you offered your eggplant to us as well as our invaders, though, and now that we see you’ve got Speakers…” She flicked her fingers. “Take your people back to your settlement. I’ll come for you tomorrow, Speaker Lynn. If it were up to me, these northern ghosts could wander from here to Shaffit’s Pit, but it’s not up to me.”
“Indeed it isn’t.” Rogateth pursed his lips. “All ghosts deserve sanctuary, Prin, all ghosts.” He flicked his fingers. “Now go. I must prepare for tomorrow’s trials.” He padded back to the wall, sank down into a squat against it, and Lynn heard his harsher voice again through the shunt: “You know me, o ghosts. Hear me now. Those who made you ghosts will become ghosts themselves.”
“Ghosts!” came the cry from the metin all around. “To live by the ghost is to die by the ghost! All ghosts! All be made ghosts!”
Lynn barely noticed Prin at her arm till the farmer poked her. “Speaker Lynn?”
“What?!” Lynn jumped, sending the farmer back a step. “Oh, right, yeah. I’m… I’m sorry. Let’s go.” She turned and pushed the mat aside, the hissing of the metin still ringing down her shunt. “Orel, what’re we going to do?”
The rachnoid shifted on her shoulder. “Well, first, we are going to get the Conovers and Malcolm home. Then when Ms. Prin comes to collect us tomorrow, we are going to come into town and witness the trials, taking home with us the metin of anyone killed by anything other than a shot to the head. That would be my guess, mistress.”
“But… but why?!”
“Because we have been asked to. I think your grandfather will agree that this is the best course of action.”
“That’s not what I meant, but you’re right.” She rubbed her eyes, then reached for the outer mat. “All this politics going on around us, and we never even noticed. I mean, I can see now why Mr. Chonik and his friends down in the city didn’t like to talk about the metin, but I just wonder what else they neglected to tell us?”
“I’m sure we will find out, mistress.”
The torchlight seemed very bright as Lynn stepped outside, and the muttering all around dropped away. Prin pushed past her and shouted, “All right, listen up! This is Speaker Lynn! She is to be accorded all due courtesy, got it?!”
The tayshil all stared for a moment, then lifted their hands and flicked their fingers. Lynn flicked hers in return, muttering, “What, Orel? Am I supposed to give a speech?”
Before the rachnoid could do more than wiggle, though, the tayshil had turned back to their own conversations, only the eyes of the four humans still on her. “You okay?” she heard Malcolm call to her.