The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers (read along books txt) 📗

just not in the way … not in the way most people mean.’

Roveg started to grasp what Tupo was trying to say. ‘You’re arguing that calling your collection natural history rather than geology is valid because life did, in fact, establish itself here, and is therefore a key part of the planet’s history.’

‘Yeah. Exactly.’

‘Tupo, I have to say, I’ve never heard that perspective before, but I truly enjoy it. You should write a thesis one day.’

Tupo made a face. ‘I hate writing.’

‘Well, then stick to curation, because this is a very fine museum.’

The child shuffled xyr paws. ‘It’s okay,’ xe mumbled happily.

Roveg’s gaze shifted away from the feather as a surprisingly familiar item leapt out of the crowd. ‘Ah!’ Roveg said, reaching forward. He picked up the three-dimensional ceramic object from the table. ‘You have a poem stone! Wonderful!’

Tupo blinked at him. ‘It’s a what?’

Roveg looked at the label the child had affixed below the stone: Unknown sculpture, 248/306, found by Tupo. ‘Where did you get this?’ Roveg asked.

‘Oh,’ Tupo said. Xe looked around the floor. ‘There were some other Quelin here a while ago, and they forgot it in the garden.’

Roveg tried to catch Tupo’s eye. ‘Did you take it for your collection before or after they left?’

The child became interested in a pebble near xyr forepaw. ‘Umm … well …’

‘I’m not your mother, Tupo,’ Roveg said. ‘You could always try to mail-drone it back. But theft is a long, proud tradition for many museums, so that decision’s up to you.’ He turned the poem stone over between his toes. It was of charming make – the sort of thing you’d buy at a tourist trap, but endearing all the same. He hoped its former owner hadn’t been too sad over its loss. ‘So you don’t know what this is?’

Tupo quickly stuck out xyr tongue, the Laru body language for no.

‘Do you know how Quelin writing works?’

Another blip of the tongue.

Roveg set the poem stone down and looked around for something he could use. A vial of dirt – that would do. He walked to the Early Eras table and pointed. ‘Would it be all right if I emptied out one of these?’ he asked. ‘I’ll clean it up, of course.’

‘Uh … sure?’

‘Thank you,’ Roveg said. He emptied the vial onto the table. ‘Could you assist me, please? I need this as flat as possible, and I believe your paws are much better for that task.’

Tupo did as asked, looking puzzled but intrigued. A few seconds later, xe’d provided Roveg with a flat patch of dirt.

Roveg flexed his frills. Yes, it would do. He extended a right foreleg, and with its pointed tip, he drew a neat vertical line in the dirt, dividing the makeshift canvas cleanly in two. Then, with deliberateness, he took both a left and right foreleg and began to tap tidy indentations, starting near the dividing line and then spreading horizontally in opposite directions. He completed one pair of lines, then another pair above it, then another. After a moment, he leaned his torso back up and looked at Tupo. ‘What do you see?’ he asked, gesturing at the patterns.

‘Dots,’ Tupo said.

Roveg expanded his abdomen happily. ‘To you, yes,’ he said. ‘To me, these are sentences. This is how we Quelin write.’ He pointed closer. ‘Look carefully. What do you see?’

The child squinted, rubbing xyr lips together fervently as xe extended xyr head over the dirt. ‘They’re the same on both sides. Or … wait.’ Xe frowned harder. ‘They’re kind of different.’

‘Ah, you’re clever, Tupo. Yes, that’s exactly right.’ Roveg gestured at the sentences. ‘Everything I’ve written on the left side has the same literal meaning as everything I’ve written on the right. They are the same words. But each side represents a different means of speaking. Right now, I’m speaking to you with the vocal organ in my throat.’ He tapped his exoskeleton right where it lay over his oesophagus. ‘This is the only thing I use when speaking Klip. But when I speak Tellerain—’

‘That’s your language,’ Tupo interjected.

‘That’s right. When I speak Tellerain, I use both my throat and my … hmm. You don’t have a word for them in Klip. The … hard structures I have in the back of my mouth. They make sounds like this.’ He rattled his mouthparts together in quick staccato, releasing a chord of loud clicks that amounted to nothing but pure gibberish.

Tupo was delighted. ‘Do that again.’

Roveg obliged; the child laughed. Roveg continued with the impromptu lesson. ‘Tellerain is, in a way, two languages in one. Take the word for …’ He looked around the museum. ‘Rock. What’s the word for “rock” in Mululo?’

‘I don’t speak Mululo.’

‘No?’ Roveg was surprised by this. It seemed extreme for Ouloo to not teach her child xyr own official language.

‘I know, like … a few words. But I speak Piloom with Mom.’

‘Oh, my mistake. I didn’t realise your mother’s from Ulapot.’ A small Laru agricultural colony, located in Aandrisk territory. He’d heard of their regional language, but never heard it spoken.

Tupo was surprised. ‘Nobody ever knows Ulapot.’

‘Of course I know Ulapot. They export the best redreed in the Commons. So, what’s “rock” in Piloom?’

‘Oelo,’ Tupo said.

‘Interesting. In Tellerain, there’s only one word for “rock”, but you make it in two ways. Spoken through my throat, the word is trihas. Spoken with my … other things, the word is—’ He released a crisp set of clicks. ‘Put the two sounds together, and you get …’ He demonstrated the layered word.

Tupo attempted to mimic the clicks with xyr tongue, and failed spectacularly. ‘I can’t do that.’

‘You don’t have the mouthparts for it. No one does, and so no one can speak proper Tellerain aside from us, just as no one can fully speak Hanto or colour language. There aren’t many other sapients who make the attempt, but those that do only speak Simplified Tellerain, which uses the mouth sounds only.’

‘But that’s not … that’s not the whole word,’ Tupo said.

‘The meaning comes