Free Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan

suggest we go meet them before they come looking for us." A mischievous expression touched the corners of his mouth as he watched Evan crawl from cover and dust twigs from her trousers. "You can stop sneaking, Dr. Wilson."
     
     
"Begging the captain's pardon, but I wasn't sneaking."
     
     
"What would you call it?"
     
     
Evan straightened and, as if surprised he should ask, said, "Pussyfooting, sir."
     
     
Captain Kirk laughed. "All right. Don't."
     
     
The party set off down the trail to ever louder squawks and rustlings as the welcome-homes leapt from branch to branch to keep pace with them. The path veered abruptly to the left and down and spilled into a wide opening between the ancient trees. In the clearing beyond, gigantic flowers of a dozen shapes and colors bloomed in the sudden sunlight.
     
     
Kirk spread a hand, silently commanding a halt. Spock took a single pace more. His action was perhaps deliberate, for it gave Uhura an unobstructed view; what she had thought flowers were brightly colored tents.
     
     
Emerging from doorways, tending cooking fires, rising from open-air looms, startled Eeiauoans- no, Uhura thought, correcting herself immediately, Sivaoans!- froze and stared at the Enterprise crew members.
     
     
There were about three dozen of them that she could see, but she had the uncanny feeling the number was considerably larger. This was confirmed by Chekov, who said in a whisper, "They're in the trees, too, sair."
     
     
The captain nodded and said, "Keep still and make no threatening gestures." With exaggerated slowness, he holstered his phaser, spread his empty hands out at waist level and took two cautious steps forward. "We come in peace," he said. "On behalf of the United Federation of Planets, my people greet your people."
     
     
Uhura could tell the universal translator was doing its job. The Sivaoans' ears pricked forward to listen. Half a dozen children of varying ages drew close to adults for security, but they did not take their eyes off Captain Kirk.
     
     
"I am Captain Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise, a Federation starship currently orbiting your world. These are members of my crew." He introduced each in turn and each stepped forward slowly and calmly, to the same unblinking scrutiny. Spock, for once, got no second look. That didn't surprise Uhura- Sunfall would have considered Spock well within the range of human variation.
     
     
When he was finished, Kirk stepped back and waited. Save for the continued stares, there was no response. "Suggestions, Spock?" he said, at last, sotto voce.
     
     
"Perhaps Lieutenant Uhura might be of some assistance."
     
     
"Yes. Lieutenant?"
     
     
"I'll try, sir."
     
     
"Lieutenant," said Spock, "may I suggest you try the oldest form of the language you know well?"
     
     
Uhura was puzzled. "That would be like speaking Latin, Mr. Spock."
     
     
"Indeed," he said, "and another scholar might well be able to converse with you, despite the fact that neither of you knew the other's contemporary tongue. In two thousand years, this people's language has surely diverged from a common root."
     
     
"I see," she said.
     
     
However much she might remind herself that these were Sivaoans and should not be judged on Eeiauoan terms, she had little else to go on. So, as she stepped forward, she focused on the one that seemed to her most friendly- a Sivaoan that, in all but coloring and youth, might have been Sunfall's twin sister.
     
     
The Sivaoan's tail and legs were longer than average. Her fur was short; a beautiful silver gray on her back, ears, and tail; a striking white down her chest and belly. Her face bore a triangle of white reaching from between the eyes, over the nose, and down across the lower half of the cheeks and muzzle, giving her the appearance of wearing a silver gray mask over her copper eyes.
     
     
As Uhura advanced toward her, the two youngest children started to back away. Uhura stopped. Very slowly, she knelt...and the