Free Listen by Karin Tidbeck Page A

her caravan over and over again. Each time, the caravan perished because Bård never came. Gunnhild’s companions gave her replies that were pure nonsense, and when Bård finally showed up their love story was interrupted by song-and-dance sequences.
    When Mika got up to have breakfast, he still had an imaginary dialogue with BÃ¥rd going in his head. The food had no taste. He shouldn’t have gotten himself overstimulated. Interpreting would be hard work today. If Mika didn’t take better care of himself, work would be even harder tomorrow, and the day after, all the way up until the crash came and he wouldn’t be able to do much at all. He could have chosen medication, but he wasn’t qualified for any other type of work. His choice was between interpreting or unemployment, and unemployed people weren’t allowed to stay on Amitié. So here he was, unmedicated, employed. And it was still worth it. Every word from the ambassador’s mouth made it worth it.
    The thirty ambassadors claimed to come from an early colony. They were looking for a new home, they said, one that fit them better. No one could really contradict their story; at the start of this era, everyone who could had launched themselves into a galaxy that was absolutely lousy with habitable worlds. No one really knew how many ships had left and where they had come from. People showing up from distant places with strange modifications weren’t unheard of.
    These ambassadors had named themselves for celestial bodies and phenomena. They looked more or less like baseline humans: neither short nor tall, neither slight nor heavyset, most of them with olive-colored to brown skin and dark eyes and hair. The abnormal thing about them was their speech.
    The general consensus was that they spoke an archaic form of English. In the moment they spoke, they were completely understandable. But as soon as they fell silent, any memory of what they had said disappeared. The listener had a feeling of having heard something wise and profound, but exactly what, they didn’t know. Communicating by text didn’t help, as the ambassadors’ written language resembled that of children. It was very obvious that sound was a vital element of their communication.
    A very small number of people could understand them and relay their words. Something about the way their brains were wired gave them a sensitivity to the language that others didn’t have. It had its drawbacks, however. The same sensitivity that made Mika an interpreter also made him sick. But it was only without the medication that he could listen.
    *   *   *
    It was typical of the interpreting company to make Aino come down to the main office, instead of booking a conference room in the spokes or visiting her workshop. Down here, she was clumsy and seemed to be in pain. She sat hunched in her chair, tightly wrapped in her muted shawls. Ambassador Oort arrived dapper as usual, in a teal suit and short hair slicked flat against her skull.
    â€œYou’re here,” she said to Mika.
    Those words held the fact that Oort was glad Mika was there, that she had looked forward to their meeting, and that she would remember their encounter with warmth. The message went through him like a warm whisper, and he stopped drumming his fingers against the tabletop. He was here and only here, now.
    Aino reacted like everyone else at first. She looked awed as the ambassador spoke to her, then confused when the words disappeared from her mind. Mika repeated Oort’s words, a formal greeting. Aino kept her composure better than most and replied to the questions Mika relayed to her. Was she typical of her kind? What was her village like? What did she do all day? What did the others think of her? Why did she look that way? How did they get their voices? Aino replied.
    That the villagers used their children as incubators for large insects. That their throats were then modified during