The prisoner's birdlike warbling reached Corry Padmasam's ears as she turned the corner at the top of the narrow stairs. The alpha sequence she'd started this morning in preparation for interface kicked in, heightening the lingster's senses till she was aware of the separate grains of packed earth in the wall and subtle movements of the stale air, as well as minute variations in the alien's pitch and tone.
The Tlokee guard, padding on five of its six legs beside her, gestured impatiently with one black-furred leg. High Mother had ordered this interview with the prisoner, and in the guard's view, High Mother was god. With the sixth leg, it held a dim lightstalk--mostly for her benefit, Tlokee eyes being adapted to underground darkness. She thought of the warning from the ferry captain who'd brought her here: High Mother had an unpredictable temper and a taste for violence.
The stairs led down from the maze-like tunnels of the warren, ominously cold and dark in contrast to the warmth and luxury of High Mother's quarters. She rubbed briskly at her arms. New Tlok was a world of sharp contrasts: scorching days and icy nights, a planet with an atmosphere as thin at its surface as Earth's was high in its mountains. She'd been a lingster for a long time and she'd served the Guild of Xenolinguists with dozens of aliens on worlds all over the Orion Arm, and she was no longer excited by the idea of meeting a new one. Lingstering was a young person's trade. Time to retire.
High Mother Q'taka M'ung Zy, conqueror of this planet she'd renamed New Tlok, had explained this morning that she needed a lingster to forge an interface between the language of the rulers and that of the native race displaced by the recent immigration of the Tlokee. "We are not an uncivilized people, dear lingster Corry," High Mother had said, the dull gold fur of the head ruff that marked a queen of her species unfolding and folding. The Tlokee resembled a child's favorite stuffed animal, but lingsters knew better than to judge by appearances. "We wish to bring these poor refugees into Our caring embrace." Corry must've looked skeptical at that, for High Mother added, "And it would be pleasant to count the wealth We have here, the beasts and the harvest."
William of Normandy had managed to get his Doomsday Book without benefit of a lingster, Corry thought as her escort fumbled with a wooden door at the bottom of the stairs. She spent most of her off-duty hours studying Terran history, a hobby that sometimes allowed her insight into the pronouncements of the Guild but only occasionally helped in the field. Earth seemed to have worked its way through a rather minor series of choices, as far as societies along the Arm were concerned.
The door swung open and she stepped into the cell. The guard set the lightstalk in a niche on the wall.
The prisoner--disinherited original inhabitant of the planet--was vaguely humanoid, with gangly legs, a small head and large eyes, luminous in the guard's dim lightstalk. Where a bird would've had wings, the creature sprouted thin, knobby arms with an extra joint, and it quivered with a fear so potent Corry could smell it: a sweetly acid odor like urine and sour sweat. Guild lingsters often encountered reluctance in subjects--a lingster's ability to create interface was often perceived as mystical, perhaps even magical--but rarely fear like this. For a moment, she felt apprehensive.
As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she realized the alien did have wings; the dull reddish-brown feathers bedraggled and broken-looking, they seemed hardly capable of lifting a hollow-boned bird let alone this skinny starveling.
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