Read Online The Tatja Grimm's World by Vinge Vernor - Free Book Online Page B

Tatja Grimm. She was looking across the sea, her tall form slumped so her elbows rested on the railing and her hands cupped her chin. The ex-priest must have seen her at that instant. He came to an abrupt halt, and his whole body seemed to shiver.
    “Does he know ?”
    Rey shook his head. “I think he does now.”
    In many ways the girl was different from that night at the village. Her hair was short and red. Without the fake bust, she was a skinny pre-teener—and by her bearing, a discouraged one. But she was nearly six feet tall, and her face was something you would never forget after that night. The priest walked slowly toward her, every step a struggle. His hands grasped the railing like a lifeline.
    Then the girl glanced at him, and for an instant it seemed the Termiter would run off. Instead, he bowed … and they talked.
From up on the editorial deck, Cor couldn’t hear a word. Besides, they were probably speaking Hurdic. It didn’t matter. She could imagine the conversation.
    They were an odd combination: the priest sometimes shaking, sometimes bowing, his life’s beliefs being shot from under him; the girl, still slouched against the railing, paying more attention to the sea than to the conversation. Even during the Welcoming Back she had been like this. The praise had left her untouched; her listless replies had come from far away, punctuated by an occasional calculating look that Cor found more unsettling than the apathy.
    After several minutes, the priest gave a final bow, and walked away. Only now, he didn’t need the railing. Cor wondered what it must be like to suddenly learn that supernatural fears were unnecessary. For herself, the turn of belief was in the opposite direction.
    Rey said, “There’s a rational explanation for Tatja Grimm. For years we’ve been buying Contrivance Fiction about alien invaders. We were just too blind to see that it’s finally happened.”
    “A visitor from the stars, eh?” Cor smiled weakly.
    “Well, do you have a better explanation?”
    “ … No.” But Cor knew Tatja well enough to believe her story. She really was from the Interior. Her tribe’s only weapons were spears and hand axes. Their greatest “technical” skill was sniffing out seasonal springs. She’d run away when she was eight. She moved from tribe to tribe—always toward the more advanced ones. She never found what she was looking for. “ … She’s a very quick learner.”
    “Yeah. A quick learner. Tredi Bekjer said that, too. It’s the key
to everything. I should have caught on the minute I heard how jimi found her ‘praying’ to the noontime shadow of her quarterstaff. There she had reproduced one of the great experiments of all time—and I put it down to religion! You’re right; there’s no way she could be from an advanced civilization. She didn’t recognize my telescope. The whole idea of magnification was novel to her. Yet she understood the principle as soon as she saw the mirror.”
    Cor looked down at the print deck, at the girl who seemed so sad and ordinary. There had been a time when Cor felt the start of friendship with the girl. It could never be. Tatja Grimm was like a hydrofoil first seen far astern. For a while she had been insignificant, struggling past obstacles Cor scarcely remembered. Then she pulled even. Cor remembered the last day of rehearsals; sympathy had chilled and turned to awe—as Cor realized just how fast Tatja was moving. In the future, she would sweep into a faraway Coronadas Ascuasenya could never imagine. “And now she understands us, and knows we are just as dumb as all the others.”
    Rey nodded uncertainly. “I think so. At first she was triumphant; our toys are so much nicer than any tribe’s. Then she realized they were the product of centuries of slow invention. She can search the whole world now, but she won’t find anything better.”
    So here she must stop, and make the best of things. “I—I really do have a theory, Boss. Those old