The Language of Ghosts

“Behold the mighty eggplant!” Lynn heard Orel’s raspy voice announce. “Noblest of all vegetables!”

A shiver twitched down her back even in the dusty afternoon heat; she stopped there in the middle of the road and let out a groan. Next to her, Malcolm cleared his throat. “Uhh, Lynn? I think your rachnoid—”

“Don’t say it, Malcolm.” She glared at him. “Don’t even breathe it!”

Malcolm shrugged, and Lynn couldn’t help noticing how his rachnoid rode out the motion of his shoulders without even a click of complaint. He reached up and stroked the little robot. “You want me to send Keshia after him?”

The simple question, the assumption that she couldn’t manage her own rachnoid, that was somehow worse than if he’d just started laughing at her. Lynn tried to keep her mouth from tightening. “Don’t worry about it. You just go on ahead; I’ll see you later in town, okay?”

He shrugged again. “How ’bout if Keshia keeps an ear open, then? In case he blows a gasket or something.”

Keshia stirred on his shoulder. “Indeed, Miss Baden-Tan. Though it grieves me to speak so of a brother and colleague, Orel is far from the most reliable of our cluster. Please allow me to monitor the emergency frequencies should you find you require assistance.”

“That’s okay,” she got out through clenched teeth. “I mean, thanks, but he’s just being stupid. Like usual.”

Malcolm shook his head. “I don’t get it. Your Grampa did a great job on my Mom’s rachnoid when the combine grabbed him last fall: you’d think he could fix Orel up no problem.”

Lynn tugged at her backpack. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” She forced a smile. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Okay.” He gave Keshia another pat. “Oh, the Conovers were going into town today, too, so I invited them to join us. Hope you don’t mind.” He smiled, turned, and started back along the road toward town.

Lynn stared after him. Mind? Why should she mind? Just because he had invited her parents’ best friends along on what she had thought was going to be her first date, her first romantic evening alone with Malcolm, an evening she had been dreaming about all week! Why should she mind that her whole life was ruined?!

She spun away then, stalked to the edge of the path and down into the eggplant, all bloated and purple and shiny. Orel’s tinny voice led her straight to him, clinging to a bush with all eight legs and muttering, “So round, so firm, so fully packed…

Like things weren’t bad enough. She snapped her fingers in front of him. “Come on, Orel; this is not how I planned to spend my only day off this week.”

His eyestalks fluttered toward her. “But mistress! Acres and acres of eggplant! How can such things be?”

“It’s the only stuff that’ll grow out here: you know that.” She wiped the sweat from her forehead and squatted down. “Now are you going to walk, or do I carry you?”

His stalks wavered between her and the bushes. “Would you carry me, mistress? I’ll be able to see the eggplant better from the vantage of your shoulder.”

“Fine. But I don’t want to hear one word about how my walking shakes you up, you get me?”

“I shall so endeavor, mistress.”

She reached out an arm, watched him creep up the denim of her shirt, then tipped her head to give him room to settle on her left shoulder, his legs stretching all prickly down along her neck. She blew out a breath, made her way up the slope to the road, and set off toward town again.

It just wasn’t fair. Here she was, the granddaughter of Dr. Marcus Baden-Tan, the man hailed throughout space as the leader of the only successful human colony on an already inhabited world, and she had to live with this stupid, malfunctioning rachnoid. Grampa could blather all he wanted to about Orel’s delicate balance of organic and mechanical systems, the breakthroughs this was supposed to represent, but that didn’t fool Lynn: Grampa always used big words when he was stumped.

Orel was vibrating on her shoulder now, his scratchy voice mumbling things like, “Hear how I shall rave and rant the virtues of the sweet eggplant!” and “All ten worlds proclaim your fame: oh, eggplant, let resound your name!”

Hopeless. Her dreams evaporating under Chaldi’s pale blue sky, Lynn set her jaw and kept walking.

Soon, native plants started appearing in the fields, umsu with its red flowers, tall fronds of boratch, the eggplant now only in a row along the road. Single rendar trees stood at regular intervals, growing closer and closer together as the flats crumpled into hills, until the fields became forest, reddish leaves dark against the blue-white of the sky.

At least now she was out of the sun, though the muggy air of the long Chaldi summer kept things more than hot enough. Soon, pointed roofs began appearing among the trees, so she snapped her fingers in front of Orel till his eyestalks jerked back. “My apologies, mistress. What are your wishes?”

“My wishes?” Lynn spat out a laugh. “I wish I didn’t need you along to talk to the tayshil. In fact, I wish you were on the next warpship out of here. Or I wish I was.”

“Now, mistress.” One of Orel’s stalks bent around to blink at her. “We are both too organic to survive travel in warp: you know that. And as for the tayshil, even if their vocal range were not beyond human hearing, their languages—”

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Science.” She batted the eyestalk away. “Just remember: no talking to anyone on your own about eggplant. You only translate what I say, right?”

“I shall so endeavor, mistress.”

“Good. Now plug in.” She pulled her hair away from her ear, felt a tickle as Orel ran his translator leg up to her neural shunt, a slight jolt as he plugged in, and the silence around her bloomed with sound, pixigs chirping in the trees, the garbled chatter of a metin scuttling through the underbrush beside the path, tayshil voices from the town ahead, the tinkle of the crystal nets that hung from every market stall on a trading day. The road wound around an outcropping, and then Lynn was passing through the gate posts into Hasquirk.

Not that this was really Hasquirk. Lynn had only been to the actual city down along the coast a few times with Grampa, but its neat, round houses and red glass spiral buildings sure made this place seem like the subordinate farming village it was. Lynn looked from the thatch huts to the packed-dirt road, and blew out a breath.

Orel stirred on her shoulder. “Did you speak, mistress?”

Lynn didn’t bother to reply; she just stalked past the huts, through the row of red adobe warehouses, and out into the marketplace. Booths sat in zigzagging lines, dark-furred tayshil examining the wares or shouting from the stalls, the shimmering chime of the crystal nets filling the air. The spicy scent made her smile despite everything, and with it being market day, no one had a radio blaring: the rattles and quacks of tayshil music made her teeth ache.

“Sure, and if it isn’t Miss Lynn!” a voice called, and she turned to see Mr. Chonik, recognizable by the golden rings flashing from the floppy tips of his ears: the only other tayshil who wore jewelry were the officials Grampa met downtown, and Mr. Chonik was the local mayor or something. He flicked a claw at her from his booth. “Bright waters to you, miss, and how be that grandfather o’ yours?”

Lynn started toward the stall, flicking her fingers in return and muttering under her breath, “I really wish you’d drop the stupid dialect, Orel.”

“But, mistress, my translations must reflect the richness of the tayshil languages. Mr. Chonik’s northern origin is obvious from his speech, so the brogue I give him—”

“Just shut it down.” Times like this made Lynn glad that human voices were pitched too low for tayshil ears. “Grampa’s quite well, thank you, Mr. Chonik,” she said, coming up to the booth. “I hope you and your family are the same.” As always, she had to blink at the stereo effect: her actual words in her ears and Orel’s translation translated back through her neural shunt. Most folks had their rachnoids filter out this echo, but then most folks could trust their rachnoids not to start ranting about eggplant.

Mr. Chonik pursed his lips in a tayshil smile and leaned forward, one four-fingered hand coming up to stroke Orel; Lynn puckered in return and reached for the metin dug into the back of Mr. Chonik’s thick neck. The metin tapped her arm with one chitinous leg, and Mr. Chonik straightened up. “Well now, Miss Lynn, how’d you find those ghost stories I lent you?”

Lynn grinned. “Oh, Mr. Chonik, these are even better than the last ones. I mean, that whole scene in ‘The Rattling Wall’ where the ghost comes gibbering out of the woods, into the murderer’s house and tears his head off, it’s terrific!”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it.” His eyes widened. “It’s not proper reading for someone of my stature in the community and all, but, aye, that one’s my favorite, too. Now, what can I help you with this fine day, Miss Lynn?”

“Oh, I’m just wandering.” She pulled at her backpack. “It’s almost Grampa’s birthday, so I was going to pick up one of Ms. Bahsh’s carvings for him.”

His cheek pouches fluttered. “That’s right: you folks celebrate your actual birth rather than your joining.” He touched his metin, his lips pursing. “You might be interested in knowing that up north where I come from, potted umsu’s the traditional joining day gift.” He spread his hands. “Just for a bit of variety, if you like.”

“Really? Well, I’ll look around.” Some other tayshil were coming out of the crowd toward Mr. Chonik’s booth, and Lynn heard Orel’s raspy voice in her ears: “Mistress, note the quiver in the whiskers of these approaching tayshil. It indicates anger and leads me to believe that Mr. Chonik is needed in his capacity as judge to settle a dispute.”

Mr. Chonik had caught sight of them now, and a slight quiver passed over his own whiskers. Lynn pushed out her lips and flicked her fingers at him. “Well, thank you for your time, Mr. Chonik. I’ll see you later.”

His lips barely twitched. “I certainly hope so, Miss Lynn. But at any rate, a good morning to you.”

Lynn walked around the booth and into the market, tayshil voices weaving up to her from ahead. But behind, things had grown quiet, and she looked back to see the tayshil around Mr. Chonik’s booth staring after her, their whiskers visibly twitching. She blinked, cold prickling at her back, then put a few booths between them and herself. “Hey, Orel, you don’t think they’re angry at me, do you?”

“Unlikely,” the rachnoid buzzed. “Our behavior has been within the bounds of propriety, and their lack of xenophobia makes the tayshil unique among known peoples. Your grandfather attributes this to their symbiotic relationship with the metin, but the reluctance of the tayshil to discuss this and most metin-related questions, however—”

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Science.” Lynn poked his carapace. “This is my day off, remember?”

“But mistress! The questions!” He began tapping her back. “All evidence indicates that metin and tayshil cannot reproduce without each other, one metin born for each tayshil child! Yet we find metin wandering wild in the woods!”

“Orel…”

“Before joining, young tayshil and young metin are no more intelligent than, say, large canids, yet these wild metin produce a warbling that seems too structured to be merely—”

“Orel!” She flicked a finger into his side.

He jumped on her shoulder, his eyestalks turning to blink at her. “Mistress, that is very painful.”

“You know the rules, Orel. On Monday, I’ll find this all fascinating. Till then, I don’t give a rip, understand?”

She felt him slump against the side of her head. “I shall so endeavor, mistress.”

“Good.” She wandered then, not sure if she wanted to find Malcolm, until the bright red of shurtri caught her eye, stacked in bunches next to some huge eggplant: boiled shurtri was Grampa’s favorite, just right for his birthday dinner. So she stopped, and when the proprietor turned, a tayshil only Lynn’s height with a farmer’s vest and a scar marring the fur along the left side of her face, Lynn pursed her lips and reached for the tayshil’s metin.

But the other drew back, her whiskers twitching. Lynn blinked: no one had ever done that before. She left her hand outstretched, thinking maybe the farmer had misunderstood, but the tayshil jerked her chin and said, “Use that hand to pick your root and pay me, invader: that’s all I need from you.”

The back of Lynn’s head suddenly felt tight: she’d never heard a tayshil use the word “invader” before. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. She moved past, but the farmer followed, her arms crossed, and Lynn found herself clearing her throat. “You, uh, you’ve got a lovely selection here. Really.” She felt like an idiot immediately and pulled her mouth shut, but she heard her voice continue along the neural link: “And your eggplant, ma’am! So robust! The finest I’ve seen in weeks!”

“Orel!” Lynn said through clenched teeth, but the rachnoid was already going on: “They seem almost hydroponic! I’ll wager you use natural deterrents against the flea beetles and that your farm is near the mountains, yes?”

Lynn pushed her lips out and clapped a hand over Orel’s face: she hated it when he did this! After all, to tayshil thinking, the rachnoids were just metin, joined with a human into one mind. With normal rachnoids, that wasn’t far wrong, but Lynn had never been able to think of a way to explain to the tayshil that Orel was not a normal rachnoid.

She was just starting to back away, determined to take Orel off somewhere and yell at him, when the farmer pursed her lips. “You know your eggplant, huh? The one good thing you humans’ve done, I’ll admit that. Helped a lotta dirt farmers ’round here, this stuff growing out on the flats the way it does.” She pointed the smallest finger of her left hand at Lynn. “So you pick your choice, and I’ll not bite your head off, deal?”

Lynn stared, Orel’s voice buzzing in her ear: “Point your left pinkie at her, mistress, and agree.”

“Uh, sure,” Lynn said, raising her hand and pointing. “Deal.” She heard Orel translate it, saw the tayshil purse her lips, turn, and greet another customer. Lynn blinked, then looked down at the shurtri. “Orel, what’s going on?”

He was quivering on her shoulder. “Unknown. Such animosity is unheard of in human-tayshil relations.”

“You seemed to know that bit with the finger.”

“In tanaksh, a local ball sport, the gesture signals a truce between two players. I felt it best to take the offer.”

Lynn blew out a breath. “Yeah.” She dug through the shurtri till she found a bunch with the veins still pink, then turned to the eggplant piled in the next bin. “Well, I guess we’d better buy one now that she thinks I’m an expert.”

Orel gave a little wiggle. “Oh, mistress, may we? That one to the left there, just beneath that one, yes, oh yes, the very one…” His voice trailed off as Lynn pulled one of the vegetables from the stack. “Oh, such tone, such clarity! Truly a virtuoso eggplant, mistress!”

She looked at it. It was an eggplant, the same as every other eggplant she’d seen since Grampa had introduced the things. She shook her head and walked around the stand to where the farmer was taking money from a customer.

When the tayshil turned, both her lips and her whiskers seemed to twitch. Lynn dug out some coins, held them up, and caught her breath as the farmer’s spindly fingers twined about her wrist, the scar bristling the fur along her left cheek. “We have a truce, human, so heed me: go back to your settlement and do not return for the next three days. That’s all.”

She let go of her wrist then, poked through the coins, and held one up as change. Lynn took it slowly, and the farmer’s lips twitched; she gave Orel a quick poke, and Lynn barely had time to brush her metin before she had slipped away.

Lynn stood for a moment, then moved to the side of a water seller’s cart, slung off her pack, and squatted down to load her vegetables in. “Orel, can you contact Malcolm and Keshia? See if anything weird’s happened to them today.”

She’d gotten the shurtri in and was making room for the eggplant when Orel said, “Mistress, they do not respond.”

Her hands froze. “Try the Conovers.”

“I have, mistress. All frequencies are blanketed with static, even those normally used by tayshil broadcasting.”

She was turning to him, a “What?” on her lips, when the ground shook, and black smoke blossomed into the air above the warehouses that ringed the marketplace. More rumbles, and smoke began pouring up all across town.

Shouts slapped at her neural link, “Kill the invaders!” and groups of tayshil in beige vests rushed howling from the warehouses, clubs in their hands, knocking shoppers to the ground, leaping at the booths. Another string of explosions, and the smoke covered the sun, a sudden twilight falling.

Through the rising screams, Lynn could just hear Orel’s buzzing voice: “Mistress! Quickly! We must take shelter!”

“What’s going on?!”

“Unknown! But I would rather not be here in the center of it!”

Something whizzed overhead, dropped into the middle of the marketplace, and flame started licking up from the stalls. Lynn grabbed her pack and took off for the road out of town.

The smoke was spreading along the ground now, making it hard to see. “Is this the right way?!” she had to call more than once, shattered booths looming out of the darkness and making her change direction.

“As far as I can tell, mistress,” Orel would reply, sometimes adding, “Bear left, if you can,” or “Around to the right here, mistress.” Finally, she heard, “I believe we are nearly to the warehouses, mistress. From there, we can—” His voice broke off, then hissed, “Mistress! Shapes ahead!”

An abandoned booth lay in pieces to her left; Lynn jumped into it, peered out through the cracks, and saw several tayshil come running out of the smoke. Firelight glinted from the ears of one, and Lynn realized it was Mr. Chonik.

They ran past, and Lynn was just about to stand and wave when one of their heads exploded, dark glop spraying forward as the figure fell. Lynn saw Mr. Chonik spin sideways, liquid spurting from his stomach, then he folded up and dropped onto the roadway.

A group of tayshil in vests came racing up then, two with tubes that she recognized as tayshil guns. One fired into the smoke after Mr. Chonik’s companion, and the other placed his weapon against the head of the still-twitching Mr. Chonik.

Then lights sprang on, cutting through the smoke from the other end of the marketplace. They converged on the group, and two heads blew up; Lynn heard bullets ping past, and she threw herself down into the wreckage. The lights dashed over the gaps in the boards, more shots rang out, then the spots streaked away through the haze.

It took her a moment to uncurl, to get to her knees and peer over the booth’s remains. In the dull glow of the smoke, Lynn could see six tayshil bodies sprawled, only Mr. Chonik’s still with a head. Lungs stinging, eyes tearing up, Lynn could only stare, her knees and elbows frozen.

Out among the bodies, though, something was moving. Lynn blinked; a metin was creeping onto Mr. Chonik’s shoulder, its eyestalks waving. A high keening voice came to her then, words tickling her neural link: “Alone, bereft, a ghost flitting fitfully, I am dead and yet I live, alone, bereft, a ghost flitting fitfully, I am dead and yet I live, alone…”

“Orel?” she finally got out. “What’s happening?”

“I do not have enough information, mistress.”

“Me, neither.” The voice was still whispering in her shunt, the same phrase over and over. “Is that the metin?”

The rachnoid leaned forward. “Metin do not talk.”

“Well, I’m hearing something. Aren’t you?”

“I am. The metin… it appears to be speaking what might be some archaic form of—”

“Great.” Lynn dropped to her hands and knees and crept out from the wrecked booth.

Orel’s legs grabbed tight at her shoulders. “Mistress! What are you doing?!”

“Getting our information. Hang on.” Other than the wavering voice, all she heard was a crackling now and again: either guns firing or wood burning. Lynn did her best not to think about the things that stuck to her hands as she crawled to the bodies, glad she couldn’t smell anything but smoke. Teeth gritted, she skirted around to Mr. Chonik’s side.

The metin had made its way to his leg, its voice repeating in her neural link: “…I am dead and yet I live, alone, bereft, a ghost flitting fitfully, I am dead…”

“Okay,” she whispered to Orel. “Talk to it.”

His bristly hair dug at the back of her neck. “Mistress, I have no idea what to say.”

“Fine. Just translate, then.” She lowered her head. “Mr. Chonik, can you hear me?”

She heard Orel’s translation, then a faint voice saying, “No, I can hear nothing. I will never hear anything again.”

Lynn blinked. “Then how did you hear my question?”

“I didn’t.” The metin stopped on Mr. Chonik’s lower knee. “I am but a ghost flitting fitfully.”

Orel buzzed in her ear. “My apologies, mistress. Its syntax is changing even as it speaks. It seems to be using two different constructions: one for itself joined to Mr. Chonik, and a second for itself now.”

“Great.” Lynn held out a hand. “Former Mr. Chonik, will you come with me?”

The metin waved its antennae a bit more, then raised its two front legs. “Do you offer sanctuary?”

Lynn licked her lips. “Yeah, I guess I do,” she said, but she stopped when she didn’t hear the phrase translated. “Orel, tell him we do.”

The rachnoid fidgeted on her shoulder. “Perhaps, mistress, you should reconsider.”

“What? Why?”

“The phrase which I rendered as ‘sanctuary’ has a ritualistic sound to it. We are entering unknown social areas, and I do not wish for us to become tangled in matters too deep for our understanding.”

“Uhh, Orel, I don’t think we can get tangled any deeper.”

“Mistress—”

“Orel, this is Mr. Chonik! Or, at least, what’s… what’s left of him…” She forced herself to swallow the lump in her throat. “We can’t just abandon him! And, c’mon, what about all your metin questions? I mean, the answers are right here in front of us, if we can get it back to the settlement!”

The rachnoid buzzed. “I thought this was your day off.”

Lynn flicked a finger. “Offer it sanctuary already.”

“As you wish, mistress.” Through the neural shunt, then, Lynn heard: “Yes. I offer you sanctuary.”

The metin touched her fingers. “I accept. A ghost can do no more.” And with that, it began creeping up her arm.

Lynn watched it, her neck tingling. “Orel, the ghosts in Mr. Chonik’s stories. Do you think—”

“We ought not to jump to any conclusions, mistress.”

“But it makes sense, Orel! Gibbering, wandering the woods, seeking vengeance: they’re the metin of folks who’ve been murdered!”

Orel tapped her back. “Only those murdered incorrectly. With a shot to the head, the metin is killed as well.”

By now, the metin had crawled up to Lynn’s other shoulder, and she touched it gently. “Are you comfortable?”

“I am a ghost.” Its antennae tickled her ear. “I shall never be comfortable again.”

She had to swallow as she turned to look into the smoke. “Orel, any luck with the radio yet?”

“None, mistress.”

“Great. So which way do we go?”

She felt the rachnoid shift, saw one leg point up the road. “From what I can make out of our surroundings, I would guess this way, mistress.”

“Okay.” Rising into a half-crouch, Lynn started scooting along in the direction Orel had pointed, the voice of the metin still whispering along her shunt: “…flitting fitfully even in sanctuary, I am dead and yet I live…”

She hadn’t gone far when Orel hissed: “Shapes ahead!”

Lights flashed on, a voice called, “Stop or we’ll shoot!” and out of the smoke came a group of tayshil dressed in pale vests; four or five had weapons, all pointed at her. One stepped forward, and in the light from behind, Lynn could see a scar puckering the fur along its left cheek. “Human,” the farmer’s voice came to her. “I told you to leave town.”

The others had moved up to surround her, and Lynn heard one say, “Hey, that thing’s got two metin.”

Voices mumbled from the circle, and the farmer stepped closer. Her eyes moved from Orel to Mr. Chonik’s metin and back again, and she scowled into Lynn’s face. “What’re you up to, human? Where’d you pick that up?”

Lynn licked her lips. “It’s Mr. Chonik’s. Your shooters got him in the stomach, then ran off before finishing their job. Even I know that’s not right.”

Fur bristled over the farmer’s face, and she spun to glare at the tayshil behind her. They had all taken a step back, their ears flicking, and even the farmer looked a little shaky as she turned to Lynn again. “So. That still doesn’t explain what you’re doing with it.”

Lynn thought quickly. “Well, it asked me for sanctuary.” She didn’t hear the translation, so she stopped. “Orel? Tell them it asked—”

“Mistress, let me remind you that we are entering unknown areas of social discourse. Caution may be—”

“Orel, we’ve got a real, live ghost here, and they’re the murderers! Remember Mr. Chonik’s stories? They’ve got to be scared! If we stick with the metin, I’ll bet they won’t mess with us! Now, go on: tell ’em!”

A brief moment of silence, then Lynn heard Orel’s version of her voice: “It asked for sanctuary. I’m granting it.”

The farmer brushed her cheek fur. “Right. You speak the language of ghosts, human?”

Lynn reached up and touched the metin on her shoulder. “I do, yes.”

The tayshil all gave a hiss; several jumped another step back. The farmer’s whiskers stopped quivering. “You… you lie. You lie, human!”

Even in the smoke and the heat, the sweat on Lynn’s forehead had gone cold. Knowing Orel would speak her words in the steady voice she couldn’t manage, she said, “Would you like me to ask it the names of its assailants?”

The farmer’s ears sprang up, and one of the armed tayshil stepped forward. “How?” he asked. “How can a thing like you know the language of ghosts? You’re an invader, not a—”

“Shut up!” The farmer whapped the other in the chest, then turned back to Lynn. “I think you’d better come with me back to headquarters, human.”

Lynn raised her left pinkie. “Another truce, then?”

The others just stared, but Lynn saw the farmer’s lips purse. “All right,” she said, pointing her little finger. “Another truce.” She turned to the tayshil who had stepped forward. “Dirosh, take the troop around the perimeter again. I’ll escort this human myself.”

His hands twitched on the gun barrel. “You sure, Prin?”

“Hey, didn’t you see?” The farmer flicked her fingers at him. “Me and this human, we’ve got a truce.”

“This isn’t a game, Prin! These are invaders!”

The farmer whapped him in the chest again. “Get going, Dirosh.” She looked back at Lynn. “What’s not to trust in a face like that?”

Dirosh swiveled his head toward Lynn, and Lynn tried her best to look harmless. After a moment, he let go of the gun with one hand, flicked his fingers at the farmer, then called out, “All right, let’s go! We’ve got a town to secure here!”

The group trickled past—wide around her, Lynn noticed—till they were lost in the smoke. Prin stood with her arms crossed, then said, “This way.”

She started off, and Lynn followed. “Orel,” she muttered, “any idea which direction we’re headed?”

The rachnoid shifted on her shoulder. “Back into town, I would guess, mistress. Away from the road, at any rate.”

“Great.” She stuck close to the farmer, the scene of heads being pulped still vivid in her mind: one stray bullet, that was all it would take.

A few patrols stopped them, but they were all wearing the pale vests and all seemed to recognize the farmer. Lynn saw other bodies, their heads gone, sprawled around the market, saw groups of tayshil huddled together, armed tayshil standing around them. But wasn’t this an antihuman riot? Why were they holding other tayshil? She cleared her throat. “May I ask, Ms. Prin, what all this is about?”

“No,” came the reply. “Just walk.”

So she walked. After a few minutes, they came to the ring of warehouses and passed through them into the village. Thatched huts slid by in the smoke as the farmer led Lynn around corners and down streets. “You recognize anything, Orel?” she muttered.

“No, mistress. I am only familiar with the market and the government buildings around Mr. Chonik’s house. I would hazard a guess that we are on the other side of town.”

Down a few more streets, and smoky torches began appearing on every corner, armed tayshil standing beside them; they waved, and let her and the farmer continue. Around one more corner, and Lynn found herself staring at a well-guarded and torchlit hut, twice as long but narrower than any of the others, tayshil in pale vests filling the street in front of it. And sitting on the ground by the door were four humans: Mr. and Mrs. Conover, their daughter Lucy, and Malcolm.

Lynn felt her shoulders loosen. “Orel, can you get in touch with their rachnoids from here?”

“Possibly, mistress,” she heard, then she saw the four all suddenly sit up. Malcolm tried to rise, but several tayshil swung their weapons toward him. Orel’s voice came to her: “They say they are fine but are concerned for our collective safety.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Lynn muttered as the farmer led them into the press of dark-furred bodies.

“Make way!” the farmer was yelling over the mumble of the crowd. “Coming through, here!”

The tayshil parted before them, some with a hiss and a jump, till they came to those guarding the humans. One of them flicked her fingers. “One more, huh, Prin?”

“No,” the farmer replied. The two stroked each other’s metin. “This one’s gotta go inside.”

“Why?” Malcolm was on his feet again, the others following. “What’d she do? You can’t—”

“Malcolm, please.” Mrs. Conover took his arm. “What’s going on, Lynn? No one’ll tell us—” She broke off then, her brow wrinkling. “What’s that on your shoulder?”

“Enough,” the farmer said, her whiskers fluttering. “You humans have been in collaboration with our invaders since you arrived here, and right now you have exactly one chance to avoid their fate.” She crooked one of her thumbs at Lynn. “If this one comes out alive, you and your settlement will be released into her custody. If she doesn’t, you’ll go to trial with the rest of the invaders. Understood?”

“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.

Lynn spread her hands, started toward them, thought of something, and turned back to the farmer. “Prin, can we get vests? I’d rather not have anyone taking shots at us.”

“Sure thing, Speaker.” Prin took hers off and handed it to Lynn, then called out, “Hey, Tair! You guys give the humans your vests, okay? I’ll round you up some more, but they’ve got traveling to do yet.”

One of the guards flicked her fingers, and she and the others began undoing their vests. Lynn came up to the group just as the baffled humans were taking the vests from their former captors. Lynn raised her hands before they could start asking and said, “Don’t translate, Orel. Let’s get back to the settlement first. This’s all some sort of civil war or something, but I think we’re okay for now. Translate, Orel. Speaker Rogateth has told me some interesting stuff, and we’ve got to get back to the settlement to share it with the others. There was a lot going on here that we didn’t know about.”

They stared at her, but Mr. and Mrs. Conover nodded, shrugging into their vests, their rachnoids scuttling up and around to avoid being buried by the cloth, Lucy looking too scared to ask any questions. Malcolm shook his head and grinned. “I’m glad I don’t come into town with you every day,” he said.

Lynn forced a smile—well, so much for romance—and the guards laughed, their eyes opening wide. One of them gave her a torch. “You’ll need this till you get out of town; I’ll bet this smoke stretches halfway down the hills.”

“I’ll bet.” Lynn took the torch. “Any idea how to get back to the road from here?”

The tayshil laughed again, then gave a series of directions that Lynn hoped Orel was taking note of. Lynn pushed out her lips, stroked the guard’s metin, waited till she’d tapped Orel, then muttered, “Which way, Orel?”

“Straight ahead, mistress, for seven blocks.”

“Right. Come on, folks.” She pushed through the furry bodies. “And Orel?”

“Yes, mistress?”

“The next time I say anything nasty about eggplant, you just whap me right in the side of the head, understand?”

She felt his legs grip tighter along the back of her neck. “I shall so endeavor, mistress.”