Embassytown

as this, had they not known somewhere, to some degree, that each of us was a thinking thing. Spanish and its comrades responded at first as if of course, so what; then slowly as YlSib pressed the point many times, with growing fascination, confusion, or what might be anger or fear. At last I saw what I hoped was a fitting sense of revelation.

She is speaking, YlSib said to them. The girl who ate what was given to her. Like I speak to you.

“Yes,” I said, as the Ariekei stared. “Yes.”

Language was the unit of Ariekene thought and truth: asserting my sentience in it YlSib made a powerful claim. They told them that I was speaking, and Language insisted then that there must be other kinds of language than Language.

“Make them say it,” I said. “That what I’m doing is speaking.”

Spanish Dancer said it. The human in blue is speaking. The others listened. They struggled, but one by one managed to repeat it.

“They believe it,” I said. This was where it began to change.

“Translate,” I said to YlSib. “You know me,” I said to the Ariekei. “I’m the girl who ate, etcetera. I’m like you, and you’re like me, and I’m like you. I am you.” One of them shouted. Something was happening. It spread among them. Spanish Dancer stared at me.

“Avice,” said Bren in warning.

“Tell them what I say,” I said. I looked at Spanish. I met its almost-eyes as urgently as if I were talking to a human. “Tell it. I waited for things to be better, Spanish, so I’m like you. I am you. I took what was given to me, so I’m like the others. I am them.” I shone a torch on myself. “I glow in the night, I’m like the moon. I am the moon.” I lay down. “They know how we sleep, yeah? I’m so tired I lie as still as the dead, I’m like the dead. I’m so tired I am dead. See?”

The Ariekei were staggering. Their fanwings flared, folded and opened. They reached for me with their giftwings, making Bren gasp, but they didn’t touch me. They said words and noises.

“What’s happening?” Yl or Sib said.

“Don’t stop translating,” I said. “Don’t you dare.” The Ariekei sounded together, a moment’s horrible choir. They retracted their eyes. “Don’t stop. I’m the girl who ate blah blah. What have you said with me all this time? Everything you said’s like me is me. You’ve already done it. It’s all just things in terms of other things.” I stood before Spanish Dancer. “Tell it its name. Say: There were humans a long time ago who wore clothes that were black and red like your markings. Spanish dancers.” I heard YlSib neologise “” .“I can’t speak your name in Language, so I gave you a new one. Spanish Dancer. You’re like, you are a Spanish dancer.”

One by quick one the Ariekei shouted then went silent. Their eyes stayed in. They swayed. No one spoke for a long time.

“What’ve you done?” whispered Sib. “You’ve driven them mad.”

“Good,” I said. “We’re insane, to them: we tell the truth with lies.”

Like sped-up film of plants in the sun, Spanish’s eye-coral at last budded. It started to speak and said two trickles of gibberish. It stopped and waited and started again. Yl and Sib and Bren translated but I didn’t need them. Spanish Dancer spoke slowly, as if it was listening hard to everything it said.

You are the girl who ate. I’m . I’m like you and I am you. Someone human gasped. Spanish craned its eye-coral and stared at its own fanwing. Two eyes came back to look at me. I have markings. I’m a Spanish dancer. I didn’t take my eyes off it. I’m like you, waiting for change. The Spanish dancer is the girl who was hurt in darkness.

“Yes,” I whispered, and YlSib said “,” Yes.

Other Ariekei were speaking. We are the girl who was hurt.

We were like the girl...

We are the girl...

“Tell them their names,” I said. “You move like a Terre bird: you’re Duck. You drip liquid from your Cut- mouth, so you’re Baptist. Explain that, YlSib, can you? Tell them, tell them the city’s a heart...”

I’m like the liquid-dripping man, I am him...

With the boisterous astonishment of revelation they pressed the similes by which I’d named them on until they were lies, telling a truth they’d never been able to before. They spoke metaphors.

“God,” Yl said.

“Jesus Christ Pharotekton,” said Bren.

“God,” said Sib.

The Ariekei spoke to each other. You’re the Spanish dancer. I could have wept.

“Jesus Christ, Avice, you did it.” Bren hugged me for a long time. YlSib hugged me. I held onto them all. “You did it.” We listened to the Ariekene new speakers call each other things in unprecedented formulations.

There were two poor bewildered remnants that could not, no matter what I said, that stared at their companions uncomprehending. But the others spoke in new ways. I’m not as I’ve ever been, Spanish Dancer told us.

MUCH LATER, when we’d been hours in our camp, I took a datchip, slowly, mindful of how long it had been since a fix, and played it. It was EzCal saying something about the shape of their clothes. Those two still unchanged, Dub and Rooftop I’d called them, which hadn’t shifted with the others, responded with the usual addict fervour to the sounds.

None of the others did. I looked at the Ariekei and they at us. They took slow steps, at last, in all directions. I don’t feel... one said. I am, I am not...

“Play another,” Bren said. EzCal spoke thinly to us about some other nonsense. The Ariekei looked at each other. I am not... another said.

I picked up another and made EzCal mutter the importance of maintaining medical supplies, and still only those two reacted. The others listened with nothing more than curiosity. I tried more, and while Dub and Rooftop stiffened the altered Ariekei made querying noises at EzCal’s ridiculous expositions.

“What happened?” YlSib stuttered. “Something’s happened to them.”

Yes. Something in the new language. New thinking. They were signifying now—there, elision, slippage between word and referent, with which they could play. They had room to think new conceptions.

I threw the chips to them, laughing, and they began to go through them. Our clearing was filled with overlapping voices of Ez and Cal.

“We changed Language,” I said. A sudden change—it couldn’t undo. “There’s nothing to... intoxicate them.” There only ever had been because it was impossible, a single split thinkingness of the world: embedded contradiction. If language, thought and world were separated, as they just had been, there was no succulence, no titillating impossible. No mystery. Where Language had been there was only language: signifying sound, to do things with and to.

The Ariekei sifted the datchips, listening with disbelief at how they heard what they heard. That’s what I think. Spanish Dancer remained bent, but its eyes looked up at me. Perhaps it knew now, in ways it could not have done before, that what it heard from me were words. It listened.

“Yes,” I said, “yes,” and Spanish Dancer cooed and, harmonising with itself, said: “'

27

ONE BY ONE as the night went on the Ariekei withdrew, and one by one they began to make terrible sounds.