Remnant Population полностью

Suddenly the task of teaching the creatures her language looked hard again. She needed the simplest words human children learned by themselves, the no and yes of every mother’s discourse.

“Switch makes the lights on,” she said. “Switch makes the lights off.” She demonstrated again; Bluecloak looked at her with slightly widened eyes. Now she went very slowly indeed. “Switch not make light.” Bluecloak blinked. “Not make light,” Ofelia repeated. “Make light on. Make light off.”

“Nnnaht.” A cock of the head. Then Bluecloak touched its talons to the light switch again, and turned the lights off. “Lllahtss awk. Nnnnaht lllahtss.”

“Not lights,” Ofelia agreed, in the dark room. She turned the lights back on. “Switch makes lights on. Makes lights off.”

“Aaaks lllahtss on. Aaaks lllahtss awk. Nnnnaht aaaaks lllahtss . . .”

“That’s it,” Ofelia said. It was going to work after all. It was quicker than a child, quick to realize what “not” meant. But it was walking back to the freezer. Ofelia followed.

“Ghrihzhuh aaaaks kuh.”

“Freezer makes cold, yes.”

Bluecloak moved to the sinks, and tapped the faucet control. “Aaaks yahtuh.” Ofelia shook her head. “Makes water on. Makes water off.”

Bluecloak waved its hand under the faucet. “Nnnaht yahtuh.”

“That’s right,” Ofelia said. “Not water now.” She touched the control. “This makes water on.”

“Aaaks yahtuh naht.”

“That’s it. It doesn’t—” She realized it couldn’t follow that yet. “Not make water, make water on. Like lights.” She was amazed at the quickness of its thinking, the way it checked its understanding.

Now it gestured, as if throwing something outward. “Aaaks lllahtss.”

Oh. It wanted to know what did make the lights. She was too tired to deal with this; it would take days and days and days to explain the powerplant, electricity, wires, tubes . . . even if she could remember it all, which she couldn’t.

Perhaps it would understand the pictures in the control room, though the others hadn’t seemed to catch on. Ofelia led the way to the control room. Behind her, she heard a click. When she looked back, Bluecloak had turned the lights off. Amazing.

The control room, with its many banks of switches, keyboards, display screens, and light panels, brought a hiss from Bluecloak. Ofelia brought up the maintenance manual for the electrical supply, and scowled at the illustrations as she scrolled past them. All too complicated. She knew what they meant, but they would confuse another human, let alone one of these creatures. She turned to say something to Bluecloak, and saw that it was staring at the screen.

“Aaaks . . .” Its hand gestured up, rolling, as the screen display scrolled. What makes move? Ofelia wasn’t ready for this. She didn’t know how to explain the scrolling image to children, let alone to an alien creature who didn’t speak her language. She worked her way out of the maintenance manual, ignoring Bluecloak’s noises, and found the education files. Here, at the simplest level, with the clearest illustrations, she might find something Bluecloak could follow.

There was the sketch she remembered, a cutaway of the power plant, showing the connections to the other buildings. “Powerplant,” said Ofelia, pointing to the drawing. “Makes electricity.” No, that was too hard. “Makes zzzzt. Zzzzt in wires.” She moved her finger along the lines. “Zzzzt makes light.”

Bluecloak’s unreadable expression could have been anything from eager comprehension to total confusion. It reached a talon to the screen, pointing to the blocky drawing of the power station. “How-huh laaant.” Close enough. Power plant. Then Bluecloak moved back, to the door, and waved a circle.

“Oh—where is it? I can show you.” Ofelia heaved herself up, locked the controls with the drawing still on the screen, and headed for the door. Bluecloak, unlike her first creatures, moved aside readily. She led the way outside. The other creatures were huddled in the lane, noisily discussing something in louder voices than she’d heard before. At the sight of Bluecloak, they all fell silent. Bluecloak uttered a single complex squawk, and two of them fell in behind it.

Ofelia did not hurry. She had already done that dance; her knees crackled. Besides, she wasn’t sure she should show Bluecloak the power station. Right now her creatures respected the limits she had set; they respected her, because she could make the lights work, the water flow. They had never asked to see the power station; they didn’t understand how everything worked. Surely Bluecloak couldn’t possibly understand, just from looking . . . but what if it did? What if these creatures could use the tools, the machines? If they could control that themselves, if they didn’t need her, what would happen to her?