City of Ruins - By Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page 0,98

be a related language with similar sounds. I already have the computer working on it, and I expect to have results before our next meeting with them, which I’m hoping will be tomorrow.”

“Did you set that up with them?”

She shrugged. “As best I could. They seemed pretty startled by us. They seemed even more shocked that we had trouble communicating.”

He wasn’t surprised. He had encountered many different languages on his travels, some of which were so different that it took months to get as far as Perkins had gotten today. Basic introductions were difficult, and from what he saw, she had gotten through those.

“Did you understand anything they said?” he asked.

“I think so, but I’m not sure.”

Coop frowned. She had never given him that response before. “What do you mean?”

“It’s that soundlike thing I mentioned,” Perkins said. “I gave the woman my name. The woman did the same thing, but I think she gave me her rank.’

“Which is?”

“She’s their leader.”

“That’s clear,” Coop said.

“But I’m not sure that’s what she said,” Perkins said. “I thought we were doing pretty well. I said my name, she responded with her title, and then I asked her where we were. The man stepped forward and introduced himself.

“I noticed that,” Coop said.

“His name sounded very different. She spoke a one-syllable word, short and curt. His name was smooth, filled with ‘ah’ sounds that blended into one another. I couldn’t tell how many syllables he used, and I’m not sure, when I repeated it back, whether or not I said it right.”

She clasped her hands behind her back and walked alongside the table, talking to herself as much as to him.

“Names are tricky,” she said. “Because they work off several traditions. Names often have a family history and go through time, all the way back to the beginning of the family. If you do a family tree, you might find that name runs through hundreds of generations. If, of course, you can trace the family back that far.”

“You think that’s the case with his name?” Coop wasn’t sure how she got that from the short conversation.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Names are the trickiest part of language because names aren’t fixed. You’re the captain. You’re Captain Cooper. You’re Jonathon Cooper. And you’re Coop. You might also be Captain Coop Cooper—”

“I get your point,” he said dryly.

“And Coop is a word. Captain is a title, a name, and a rank. Jonathon is one of the oldest names we have, going all the way back to Earth, and Earth documents centuries before space flight use that name.”

“I see,” he said, trying to move her along. “How is this tied to the woman?”

“I think the man introduced himself. And then, I think he said ‘she’s our leader.’ But he might also have just given me her name. I don’t know. What I understood is this. Imagine if you were her. You tapped herself, and said ‘Captain.’ I repeated it, not quite understanding, and gave my name. Then the man came over and introduced himself, followed by, ‘And he’s our captain.’ Or he might have said, ‘and he’s captain,’ and that was a name, not a title.”

“All right.” Coop reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, to calm the pacing. It didn’t work. She didn’t look up. “I want you to consult with Mae.”

“I plan to,” Perkins said. “I’m going to get as much help on this as possible because so far as I can tell, time is of the essence, right?”

He looked at her, feeling the irony.

“Yes,” he said. And considering that she knew that, considering how the meeting went, he asked, “Why did you leave after less than half an hour?”

First contacts could go as long as six hours, if the linguists and diplomats felt they were making progress.

Perkins looked at him, a frown creasing her brow. “The name thing. I got so confused that I wasn’t sure what I was doing. If I was truly misunderstanding everything, then I was just making the situation worse.”

He had never heard her say anything like that before. Perkins had been his most fearless linguist, one Mae worried about because she was afraid that Perkins might inject a misunderstanding into a conversation, due to arrogance.

“You’re thinking of the Quurzod, aren’t you?” he asked.

“If someone like Mae can make a mistake that big, one that would lead to them firing on us, imagine what I can do here.”

Coop shook his head. “What happened with the Quurzod was much more complicated