Departures

“You half-built beings have an easier time of this than I,” Nadab complained. He had to twist his body awkwardly all the way up the stairs, and slowed Patrice and Carver, who were behind him.

Captain Chen stalked over to the intercom, flipped a switch to channel it through the outside speakers. “Get away from our ship!” she roared to the blues below. The volume control was all the way to the right; she must have sounded like an angry god. She went on, “Nadab is under our protection. We do not allow you to harm him.”

One of the blues ran, hurrying back toward Shkenaz. The rest stayed where they were, though for upwards of a minute they simply stood in place, giving up their pounding on the cargo hatch. Carver thought the noise had stunned them. More attuned to the subtleties of his people’s body language, Nadab said, “They do not believe their ears.”

When the blues did regain their tongues, he was quickly proved right. “But the greenskin has violated his parole,” a guard shouted, and even the humans could hear his incredulity. “He is now ours, to do with as we wish.”

“He is not,” Captain Chen declared, still at the top of her electronic lungs. “You forced him to stay outside his village past sunset. Otherwise he would not have.”

“What has that to do with it?” the blue yelled back. “The act is all. Had the gods wished him to live, they would not have let us detain him.”

“Oh, shut up,” Captain Chen snarled, but in Trade English. She clicked off the intercom and the outside mike. “Let them scream their fool heads off out there. Eventually they’ll get tired and go away.”

“No, they will not,” Nadab said.

“Well, then, let them have their fit. They can’t hurt the ship, and now-” The captain pointed at the switched-off intercom- “they can’t bother us any more, either.” She folded her arms across her chest, glowered at the greenskin. “Now, perhaps, you will start making sense of yourself.”

“I am more curious about what you intend doing with me,” Nadab said.

“How you answer our questions will make a difference in what we decide, you know,” Carver told him.

The greenskin considered. “Yes, that has some truth to it. Very well; ask what you will.”

Despite the invitation, the control room stayed silent a moment. Patrice spoke first; working as she did with computers, she was used to breaking down questions into the smallest possible pieces. She said, “Why did you say bettering your people’s lot was not the same thing as taking an equal part with the blues in the life of the empire?”

“Because we better ourselves precisely by not taking an equal part,” Nadab replied at once.

“Riddles,” Michaels said. Carver just suppressed an urge to kick him in the shin.

“Riddles have answers,” Captain Chen said sharply. She glared at Michaels, who looked away; even the boldest man thought twice about risking her anger. She turned back to Nadab. “Go on.”

“I would think the matter obvious,” the greenskin said. “As Carver showed me, you people grasp the concept of life’s changing over time, depending on the circumstances brought to bear upon it.”

“Evolution,” Carver supplied.

“If that is your word; I have not met it before. We have been aware of it for something close to two thousand years ourselves.”

The humans stirred. “Longer than we have,” Michaels muttered. This time, no one shushed him. He went on. “Our arts were at a much higher level when we first thought of the notion of evolution than yours are now, to say nothing of what yours must have been so long ago. If what you say is true, how did you learn of it so quickly?”

“And what does it have to do with the greenskins’ plight?” Captain Chen asked.

Nadab opened and closed his hands several times. “Are you all blind?” he said, in the local language this time. He returned to Trade English. “Think: what restrictions have applied to us greenskins since the one we never name slew Peleg and fled under cover of darkness?”

“That’s why they don’t let you out at night!” Carver said.

“Yes, of course,” Nadab said impatiently. “Can you not answer a question without being diverted down a double hand-no, excuse me, you would say half a dozen-sidetracks? “

Carver threw the greenskin a curious look. He saw he was not the only one doing so. Always before, on Ephar, he had felt himself more able, more sophisticated than the locals. Now, though, Nadab seemed in control of things, not any human. Taking turns, Carver and his companions spelled out the prohibitions greenskins had to endure: no intermarriage, no owning land, all the rest.

“Enough,” Nadab said at last-yes, he was in control.”What sort of lives do we lead, then, as a result of all this?”

“Narrow ones,” Carver told him. “Forgive me, but that is the truth as we humans see it. You are restricted to a tiny handful of trades among the many in the empire, and insecure in your hold on those because you are so vulnerable to the blues.” The rest of the people in the control room nodded. Carver pointedly added, “As the events of the day have shown.”