City of Ruins - By Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page 0,104

floor, heading toward that little table.

Someone has brought out a third chair.

The lieutenant stands when she sees me. She’s no longer wearing that black uniform, which I gather was something official. She wears a white shirt and black pants, along with a loose jacket that has writing on it that I can’t read. I suspect this is a more informal uniform, but I don’t really know.

She’s also younger than I would expect. I’ve only watched from a distance, since there is no way I can oversee this language transfer.

She smiles at me, and beckons toward the chair.

I put my hand on the side, then wait. She understands. We sit together.

Al-Nasir sits as well.

I wait for her to speak.

She says, “Boss—?” then looks at Al-Nasir for confirmation.

He nods.

She says in good, if accented, Standard, “My captain would like to meet you.”

“Okay,” I say.

“He would like it one leader to another,” she says.

“Okay,” I say, not quite sure what she wants.

“He would like you and Fahd to come on board ...” and then she says a word I do not understand. “The meeting would be private.”

“On board the ship?” I ask.

She nods.

“I haven’t figured out that word yet,” Al-Nasir says to me softly, even though we both know the lieutenant can hear. “I think it’s the name of the ship.”

My heart is pounding. I would love to go on board that ship. “My team will come with me, of course.”

She shakes her head. We’re communicating a lot better than I would have expected two weeks ago.

“My captain would like you and Fahd only,” the lieutenant says. At least I think she said Al-Nasir’s first name. She mangled it terribly.

“That’s not our custom,” I say. “I go with my team.”

She looks at Al-Nasir. I can’t tell if she wants him to convince me otherwise or if she doesn’t understand me.

“Boss wants all of us to go with her,” he says to the lieutenant.

“I understood that,” she says without frustration, even though I can see it in her eyes. “I do not know the word ‘custom.’”

“Now you see what we’ve been doing?” Al-Nasir says to me. “It seems fine, and then we hit a word that we can’t translate.”

“I have no idea how we’ll have a meeting, then,” I say.

She looks at me. She understood that.

“I am a—” And then she says another word I do not know. “I learn— Again, a mystery word. “—and I am good at it. But I cannot learn—” A third unknown word. “It is too much to learn in a short period of time. So, we have a—” I’m getting really frustrated with this. I’m suddenly quite happy that Al-Nasir has taken point on it. “—and it can figure out—” I glance at Al-Nasir. He’s staring at her as if he’s getting some of this. “—faster than I can.

“I’m sorry,” I say, letting my frustration show. “I didn’t understand that at all.”

“I think she said they have a computer program that will help us communicate,” Al-Nasir says.

She looks at him, then at me.

“Maybe we should wait until we understand each other better,” I say. Much as I want to get inside that ship, I don’t want to do it on their terms. I want my team to come with me. I want us to be safe.

She sighs and looks at her hands. Then she glances at the ship, then she looks at me and leans forward just a bit.

“We have waiting too long,” she says, and the grammatical mistake makes me relax a little. She’s not scary brilliant, just good with languages, like Al-Nasir. Unlike me.

“We need to know things,” she says, “and we cannot get that—” Another word, but this time I can guess. “Information,” “knowledge,” whatever those things are that she needed to know. “—from our—” And as she says that last word she looks at the consoles.

“You need information?” I ask, looking back and forth between her and Al-Nasir, to make sure we both understand correctly. “From us?”

She nods.

“And you need it now,” I say.

She nods again.

“Why not two weeks ago?” I ask.

“We cannot understand enough then,” she says. “This is the first time we can talk clearly. With you and my captain. And the help of the—”

This time I recognize the word she used. She used it before.

“That computer program or computer or whatever,” Al-Nasir says.

“You’re sure of the translation?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I’m not sure of anything, Boss.”

“Can you bring the—” I try to say the word she used, mangle it, wave my