Remnant Population

“Aaaks yahtuh…” with the dropping intonation that she suspected meant a question. Ofelia tried to back her mind up: if “ghrihzhuh aaaaks kuh” meant “freezer makes cold” then maybe “aaaaks” was the closest it could come to “make.” In that case, it had just said “make water.” Ofelia felt smug. It wasn’t that hard, to someone who had dealt with generations of babies learning to talk. She was too old to learn their language, but they could learn hers.

“Make water on,” she said, turning the control to strengthen the stream. “Water on.” She turned it off.

“Make water off. Water off.”

“Aaaaks yahtuh on.” Ofelia was surprised; the “on” sounded quite accurate. Why couldn’t it say “make” if it could say “on”? Bluecloak tapped the control. “Aaaaks yahtuh on.” Ofelia turned the control again. Bluecloak dipped its head. Approval? Agreement? Thanks? She didn’t know.

“Aaaaks yahtuh awk.” Make water… awk? Off. Ofelia turned the control. “Water off,” she said. Again that bob of the head, then Bluecloak turned away, clearly searching the room for something it expected. Something the others had told it about, no doubt, but which of the many things? Ofelia decided on the obvious, and went to the door.

When it followed, she pointed out the light switches, then up to the ceiling lights. “Lights,” she said. Then, with a touch. “Lights off. Lights on. “Its “l” trilled, a wavering sound prolonged beyond anything Ofelia had heard before. “Llllahtsss.” The word ended in an explosive tss. “Llllahtsss on. Aaaaks lllahtsss awk.” Ofelia turned them off. Bluecloak reached out and turned them back on, repeating its new phrases: “lights off; lights on.” Then it tapped the switch itself, not hard enough to trigger the control.

“Switch,” Ofelia said. “Light switch. Switch turns lights on and off.” She said it slowly, a careful pause after each word.

The creature attempted a sound. Ofelia recognized only the “chuh” of the word’s end; whatever the creature had heard and tried to reproduce didn’t resemble “swih” at all. The creature cocked its head at her, and she tried again. “Switch” did not lend itself to the slow stretching she had used on the other words: when she tried to slow it down, her own version didn’t sound right to her. This time Bluecloak produced “khuhtch.” That must be the best it could do. Ofelia could accept that, for now. It was a lot closer than she’d come to making most of their sounds. “Khuhtch aaaaks lllahtsss.”

Ofelia translated as she would for a toddlers speech. Switch makes lights? Now how was she going to explain that the switch didn’t make the light, but controlled it? Did she need to explain that yet? If she didn’t, she’d have more trouble later on — she knew that from experience. She’d already gone astray when she’d agreed that the faucet controls made the water on or off.

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.