Departures

The captain pursed her lips. “Interesting,” she said judiciously, “but I’m not sure how important it is.”

“Something odd is going on there,” Carver insisted. “Nadab knows about evolution, and none of the natural philosophers among the blues does. I’d lay money on that.”

“The other thing,” Michaels said, “is that he didn’t want them knowing about it, either.”

Carver gave him a grateful look. “So you saw that, too?”

“Interesting,” Captain Chen said again. “The more enlightened, the more scientifically oriented a society is, the less the inclination it usually has for harassing its minorities, at least openly. You’d think Nadab would grasp that.”

“I think perhaps he does,” Carver said slowly.

Michaels parted company with him there. “That’s crazy, Jerome. Nobody wants to be persecuted forever.”

“Till my first trip to Ephar, I would have said the same thing.” Carver scratched his head. “But if the greenskins don’t, they certainly hide it well. And I don’t just mean Nadab. None of them seems interested in changing the way things are.”

“They are a small minority,” the captain said, “and very vulnerable because of that. They must know it.”

“That’s true enough,” Carver admitted. “I’ve never seen a greenskin I’d call a fool.”

“Hardly,” Michaels agreed. “A greenskin who was a fool wouldn’t live long.”

“But still-” Carver said.

“Yes, but still,” Captain Chen said. “Yes, it is a puzzle. If it can be arranged so as not to disturb the imperial authorities in Shkenaz, you might pay a visit to the greenskin village.”

“There’s no profit in it,” Michaels said.

“Money and profit are not always the same thing,” the captain said.

The locals’ faces did not show many emotions a human could read, but the set of the blue guards’ ears and the way they only stood aside at the last moment for Carver to pass told the trader plenty about what they thought of his having anything to do with greenskins.

Nadab came out past the village boundary stone to meet Carver. It was safe enough; local noon had only just passed.

The greenskin waved a hand. “Welcome, outlander. Shall we stroll?”

“Whatever you wish, of course,” the trader said, falling in beside Nadab. After a little while he asked casually, “How are you coming with your, ah, editing of the volumes Baasa acquired?”

Nadab did not miss a beat. “Well enough.” Carver shook his head in rueful admiration: the greenskin was as polite as he was uninformative.

They went into the village. Carver had walked past it many times, and seen it from the Enrico Dandolo’s view panels, but he had hoped actually being in it would give him some new perspective on the way greenskins lived their lives. He found himself disappointed. The houses were as he’d already known they were: old, not especially prosperous, but on the clean side by local standards.

Some elderly males stood in the village square. They crowded around to get a good look at Carver. Females and children peered from doorways. Most of the adult males in their prime were working in Shkenaz.

Also in the square was something Carver did not remember noticing: a statue of Peleg. Maybe, he thought, he had not wanted to see it before. He pointed at it. “Why do you have this here?”

“To remind us of our shame.” It was a chorus from all the greenskins in earshot, even the youngsters. Carver realized he must have asked a ritual question. The humiliation drilled into each succeeding generation chilled him. Was this, he wondered, why the greenskins never questioned their oppression?

He doubted it. Surely some rebels would arise to challenge the way things were. Or would they? He was thinking in human terms. The strange smells on the breeze, the proportions of the buildings around him, even the ruddy quality of the light reminded him that those did not apply here. In all his dealing with the locals, he had never felt them so alien as they seemed in this quiet little square.

Lost in his thoughts, he missed something Nadab had said. “Your pardon, I pray.”

“I said, also to remind us of our separation.”

Baasa’s aide, Carver knew, was the most prominent greenskin attached to-not in-Shkenaz. That did not keep several of the old males from hissing at him in anger-or was it alarm? The trader frowned. Nadab had told him something important. The only trouble was, he was not sure what.

He found no easy way to ask straight out. Maybe changing the subject would let him come back later. He said to Nadab, “I must tell you how much I admire the wisdom you and your people display.”

This time, the murmurs from the old males were gratified. “You are most kind,” Nadab said. He pointed toward the Enrico Dandolo. “Our ignorance is all too manifest when set beside such achievements as that.”

“We are not the proper comparison, though, are we?” Carver asked. “I was thinking of how much more you know than, say, the most learned blue savants of the empire.”