Seeklight

Daenek assumed that the mertzer with the faded gold trim on his jacket and stiff cap was the captain. The man gazed moodily through the central window at the landscape, taking occasional sips from a cup filled with a dark, steaming liquid. How much has he changed, wondered Daenek, since the day he kicked Stepke off his caravan?

The translator led Daenek towards the captain, whose small, hard eyes glared at them from over the rim of his cup. He growled something in the mertzer language. The translator looked abashed and replied in a hurried murmur.

The captain’s eyes moved across Daenek’s face, then back to the land beyond the windows. “Lost in a storm,” he muttered disgustedly in English. “Well, find the fool a place to sleep until we reach the next village. We’ll let him off there.” He turned away slightly, as if the matter were of no interest.

“Excuse me, sir,” broke in Daenek. He saw one of the other mertzers leave the control panel and walk towards them. “I was wondering—if I couldn’t be of use to you. That is, uh, that it might be worth letting me sign on with you.”

The captain turned his head and looked at him coldly. “Why should it be?”

“Well, you see, I’ve got a kind of talent—for languages.”

Daenek had worried whether telling this might expose his real identity, but the possible benefits of staying aboard the caravan had finally outweighed his fears. “I can learn any language there is in a day.”

“So?” The eyes stayed hard.

Daenek was taken aback for a second. “Well, I could be a translator. For your negotiations in the different villages.”

“We’ve got a translator.” The captain pointed with his cup.

“Standing right next to you.”

“But he’s getting old.” Daenek glanced at the old man beside him, then quickly away. “And he’s not as good at it as I am. Or would be, if you give me a chance.”

The captain grunted. “Who cares? Damn villagers take what we give ’em. And if they don’t like the prices, I don’t listen anyway. What good’s a translator? I need some strong backs around here, not useless talents.” He turned away, bending his head back to drain the last from his cup.

Looking nonplussed, the old translator tugged at Daenek’s sleeve and stepped towards the door being held open for them.

With an exhalation of bitter disappointment, Daenek was about to follow him out when the fourth mertzer, who had watched the scene from the bridge’s far end, stepped forward and spoke to the captain in a low voice. The captain listened and fingered his chin. Daenek pulled away from the translator.

The mertzer in the leather jacket and cloth cap stopped speaking, and the captain nodded. He looked over at Daenek.

“The chief mechanic here,” he spoke gruffly, “says he’s short-manned. Do you mind getting grease rubbed into your skin?”

Daenek looked at the expressionless face beneath the cloth cap, then back to the captain. “No,” he said.

“Get him signed on,” said the captain to the translator.

Dangling his empty cup from his hand, he walked over to one of the windows and stared out.

The translator grabbed Daenek’s arm and pulled him towards the door. The chief mechanic nodded silently at Daenek but before he could say anything they were out of the bridge and the door closed in front of his face.

“The head mech seems to be good luck for you,” said the translator as he led Daenek back down the stairs. “He led the party that was searching for the tread plate and found you instead. And short his crew is, too, since a drive cylinder exploded a week ago and killed two men. They just signed on another new man yesterday. Which serves to prove that some men’s misfortunes are blessings for others. You’ve got a place on board, if not—” He cast a sharp glance over his shoulder at Daenek. “—the one you were shooting for.”

“I’m sorry about what I said.” Daenek felt his face start to burn.

The old man snorted. “If I’d known you wanted to be a translator, I’d have warned you of your chances. Once, when I was younger, there were a dozen of us. But time’s slid past us.

When I’m gone, that’ll be the last of talking to the villagers at all—someday you’ll just grunt at each other like animals.” His voice darkened with loathing.

They reached the bottom of the tower and stepped out onto the sunswept deck. “Well, come on then, lad,” said the translator, brightening. “If you’re going to be a mertzer, you’d best learn to speak like one first. A language in a day, eh?”

Chapter IX

It soon became obvious that there were no special procedures for the beginning of mertzerhood—that one such as Daenek becoming a mertzer was so rare and isolated an event as to need no special rituals surrounding it. The faces on board the caravan seemed to form around a waiting suspicion, as if saying beneath the flesh Can you ever be one of us? Can you?

Just wait, thought Daenek. He grinned at his image in the mirror hanging on the wall of the translator’s compact room.