The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [128]
“Daughter of the Fifth House.”
“That’s right.” She had never thought she’d be glad to hear that pretentious title her mother loved to invoke. “Can you understand what I’m saying? Do you know where you are?”
“Holmes in the drawing room,” he said thoughtfully. “The Dancing Men.” Enlightenment dawned on his face. “Sato with the Anti-anna!” Deanna recognized the allusion to the famous moment when inspiration had struck the inventor of translator linguacode, while Geordi was able to identify the Dancing Men as a code broken by Sherlock Holmes. Apparently Data was deciphering regular communication sufficiently to understand it, though communicating in his own variant of Tamarian idiom.
Once they were satisfied the process had worked, Data was deactivated again and his chip reset to default parameters. To everyone’s relief, he appeared to function normally once reactivated. It seemed to prove that the reprogramming technique would be a valid means for communicating with the Tamarians. After a second test confirmed the results of the first, they decided it was time to proceed.
The team traveled to the rendezvous point aboard the U.S.S. Krishna. As before, the Tamarians had chosen a meeting place midway between Federation territory and their own. This time, they allowed Data, Troi, and Borges to beam aboard their vessel, though a sizable contingent of armed guards met them in the transporter room. “Don’t worry,” Borges told Deanna sotto voce. “It’s part of the ritual.”
After a period of waiting, the Tamarian ambassador and her aides entered and stood before the party. Ambassador Denin touched the small metal talismans attached to her tunic in a certain sequence and spoke, the translator filling in some of the nonverbal meanings. “Menos [king] of Kyjo [City]. Menos at the [city] gates. [Guarded welcome.] His feet unmoving [determined].”
Data strode forward, making similar gestures. “Uzani [king] of Fenmir. Uzani [arriving] at the gates. His army on the plain [waiting].” He removed his phaser and laid it at Denin’s feet. “Uzani. His sword [and theirs] laid down [in friendship]. His neck bare [vulnerable, trusting].”
Denin removed a small but sharp talisman from her tunic and tapped it ritually on Data’s exposed neck. “Uzani risen [accepted]. Uzani [guest] at Kyjo.”
As Data rose and began a ritual exchange with Denin—a UFP insignia pin for one of her talismans—Deanna sighed. The translation may be a bit clearer now, but it was prettier before.
The ensuing dialogue went on for hours, yet it served as little more than an introduction. Tamarian was not a compact language; it was built more for poetry than efficiency. When Data was “tuned” back to normal afterward, he confirmed that the negotiations would be lengthy. From what he had divined, the extensive enactment of tales would be a vital element. “I suspect they teach their own children in much the same way,” Data told the others in Krishna’s briefing room. “Through repetition, the young gradually learn the meanings of individual words through their overall context and usage, rather than being taught each word discretely.” Deanna reflected that a similar method had probably been used for millennia on Earth and elsewhere before anyone had conceived of schools or grammar books.
Gaining mutual cultural insight, Data explained, was vital to the contact process. “The Tamarians are migratory by nature and have been traveling among the worlds of their home sector since before they even developed warp drive. Like the ancient Polynesians of Earth or the Shesshran of Daran V, their history is replete with cases of rediscovery and reconquest of colonial populations during successive waves of new migration. As such, contact incidents play an integral role in their history and culture. It is not enough for them simply to be aware of a neighbor’s existence. Their history tells them that encroachment between neighbors will inevitably occur, and it