Chapter Five
Dr. Bendagar was wrong. The alien was not asleep. He was sitting in his cell, contemplating the strange bipeds in whose custody he found himself. The same activity had consumed his every waking moment since they had brought him aboard their ship. Nor was his name “Butch.” His personal label was Sar-Say, descended from the famous Sar-Dva and ortho-cousin to Sar-Ganth, a name recognized in dozens of star systems spread across three quadrants of Civilization.
Sar-Say’s species had been civilized too long for them to rail against fate or vent their frustrations in emotional outbursts about what might have been. Even so, Sar-Say’s recent experiences had been enough to drive the most stolid being to wonder whether the universe might not have a personal grudge against him.
The ship on which he had been traveling was the Hraal, commanded by a Vithian named Muulbra, with a mixed crew of Vithians and Frels. The Hraal had been on the third stage of the journey from Vith to Persilin, maneuvering to approach the stargate on the far edge of the Nala system. They had halted their approach when the Nala stargate computer had warned of priority traffic astern. The traffic had turned out to be a Broan Avenger-class warcraft on high gravs. Rather than make for the gate, the Avenger had closed to within a thousand fel of the Hraal and opened fire.
Captain Muulbra had not even considered wasting his energy being indignant. Whatever reason the Broa had for attacking his ship must seem good enough to them, and one thing the overlords never did was explain their actions to the lesser races of Civilization. Instead of fleeing back toward Nala, Muulbra had ordered his ship into the stargate’s locus in the hope of escaping to safety in the Persilin system. If he had thought the Avenger would break off the attack, he had quickly been disappointed. Both ships reached the invisible boundary of the stargate just as the Avenger unleashed a single massive bolt of energy at its prey.
That bolt had never arrived. Onboard the Hraal, Sar-Say had been thrown from the resting frame in his cabin as alarms began to scream throughout the ship. The blow was not the sharp crack of an energy strike against metal, but rather a massive temblor in space. What had rocked the ship was the strong gravity wave that always accompanies a shift in the focus of a star gate. Sar-Say had barely regained his perch when Captain Muulbra reported that they had indeed jumped through the gate, but not to the Persilin system. A billion fel below them was an unknown yellow sun.
In one sense, they had been extremely lucky. The energy surge that had sent the gate focus skittering across some unknown number of light-vang could easily have dumped them out in deep interstellar space. Had that happened, they would have starved long before the Hraal could have reached another star. Instead, they found themselves close to a planet that reflected the blue-white glow of a water world. There had been no time to rejoice at their good fortune, however. Moments after the captain’s announcement, they were again under attack from the Avenger’s energy bolts.
Captain Muulbra, with half his crew dead and his ship being carved to pieces around him, had made for the nearby planet in the hope of taking to the lifeboats before their tormentor could vaporize them. They had crossed half the distance to dubious safety when they discovered a single ship in orbit around the planet, and another, much smaller craft, in transit between the world and one of its moons. Muulbra had altered course for the strangers in the forlorn hope of distracting his pursuer.
The running battle—or more accurately, the running slaughter—had continued until the Avenger drew close to the smaller of the unknown ships and destroyed it with a single bolt. The attack took less time than the blink of an ocular. Even so, it allowed Captain Muulbra to widen the gap between Hraal and the Avenger. The order for lifeboat stations went out to the surviving crewmembers. Once in the boats, they would scatter while the Avenger took care of the large unknown ship in orbit. If they got well into planetary atmosphere while their attacker was preoccupied, they might yet survive.
Pursued and pursuer had closed the range to the large ship visible only on instruments just above the backlit planetary limb. As the Avenger approached weapons range with the stranger, something mysterious happened. The powerful Broan warcraft had exploded, adding its own substance to the detritus of space. As far as Sar-Say had seen, the stranger had taken no perceptible measures to defend itself. It was possible, of course, that the Avenger had run into one of the tiny bits of matter that cluster close to any planet. To have done so at so opportune a moment, however, was too improbable to contemplate. Muulbra, realizing that the danger ahead was as great as that which had been behind, used a last surge of power from his tortured engines to throw Hraal into an escape orbit. Then, as the engines died, so had the captain and his crew.
In time, the unknowns had boarded the derelict Hraal. Sar-Say had followed their progress by the bumps and scrapes transmitted through the hull despite the airlessness in the rest of the ship. As the sounds grew louder, he had become more frightened. Anyone who would destroy a Broan Avenger might show him little mercy. Then the moment of discovery had come, and despite his quaking, one part of Sar-Say had observed the strangers with detached clinical interest.
They were, like him, bipeds. That was not surprising. Bipeds made up the majority of Civilization’s species. The scientists were still arguing over why this should be. The fact that he did not recognize them in their vacuum gear did not particularly surprise him. The unfamiliar suits covered most of their form. Besides, Civilization was large enough that no single being could be familiar with all the breeds within its domain. Still, he had expected them to recognize him for what he was. When they did not, he had become more than curious.
It was not until after he had been taken aboard their ship and the ship had spaced for the bipeds’ home world that he began to understand what these strangers were. That knowledge had terrified him more than the fight so recently ended.
* * *
Doctor Bendagar chose the end of the evening meal to tell Lisa why she had been summoned to orbit.
“You are kidding,” Lisa said after Dr. Bendagar told her that Magellan had brought an alien back from New Eden.
“Not in the least. Would you like to see him?”
“When?”
“How about right now?”
Dieter Pavel joined them as the party left the mess hall to pull themselves halfway around PoleStar’s perimeter using the “fire poles” that lined the corridors. They soon found themselves in a deserted section of the station lit only by widely separated emergency lights. The section had once housed power station personnel and their families, Bendagar explained, and would be reoccupied as the research program grew. The corridors were currently cluttered with all manner of equipment, visible proof of the speed with which the facilities had been prepared for the alien’s arrival.
“Good evening, Technician Vlacek,” Raoul Bendagar said as they reached the transparent airlock that served as a contamination control point. The technician sat in an open framework at a desk that had been bolted to the deck.
“Evening, doctor.”
“Any excitement with Butch?”
“No, sir. He spent the afternoon just sitting in there. He took one nap and turned on the holo about an hour ago.”
“Very well. This is Mr. Pavel and Miss Arden. They are the first contingent of the help we have asked for.”
“About time,” the technician grumbled. “We are stretched thin, what with the captain preparing the ship for a return to New Eden.”
Bendagar pulled himself to the portable airlock and said, “I’ll go through first. You two follow one at a time.”
Lisa was the last to lock through into the corridor beyond. As she exited the contamination lock, she could see the others clustered around an open hatchway a dozen meters farther down the corridor. She moved toward the patch of light spilling forth from the compartment beyond. As she did so, she noted that the hatchway was not open after all. Rather, a sheet of armor glass had replaced the hatch. As Lisa reached the glass door, she turned to see the alien not two meters away. The alien regarded her with yellow eyes.
Her first impression was that she was looking at a monkey.
The alien was small, approximately a meter-and-a-half high and covered with brown fur. Its head was round, with two ears that were vaguely humanoid and which stuck out at right angles to its head. The ears gave the being a slightly comic look. The mouth was a slit in a snout centered just below the eyes, with a series of what seemed to be breathing holes spaced like the holes of a piccolo along each side. It seemed an odd arrangement. Human nostrils and those of most other species pointed down, shaped over the eons by the simple need to keep water from running in when it rained. Surely the same imperative operated on whatever world Butch was from. Or did it?
The being’s body was thinner than that of a human and looked more flexible. The six-fingered hands seemed patterned after a flower opening its petals to the sun. The feet were solid clubs of flesh without toes, making it look as though Butch was wearing moccasins. Except for an equipment belt that encircled his waist, the alien was unclothed. He was male, but not as obviously so as a human male would be if similarly attired.
Moreover, while they watched Butch, he watched them back with an intensity that was hard to match. Except for an occasional blink, he did not move.
Lisa was faster than Pavel in finding her voice. “What progress in communicating with him?”
Bendagar reviewed their attempts during the return to Sol and since they had transferred the alien to PoleStar. He finished with, “He seems totally uninterested in our attempts at communication. Who knows? Maybe his people are telepathic.”
“With those ears, he can obviously hear. How long do you work with him each day?”
“At least two hours.”
She nodded. “There’s your problem. The best way to establish communication with someone is to live with them. When can I move in?”
This last caused Dr. Bendagar to sputter. “Move in where?”
“With Butch, of course,” Lisa replied in a tone that made it seem the most obvious thing in the world.
“You can’t go into that cage. It isn’t safe.”
“Isn’t safe how?”
“We haven’t absolutely eliminated the possibility of interspecies infections, for one thing. Why else do you think we keep this section under quarantine?”
“Surely you must know the probability of us catching something from him is low or else you wouldn’t have brought him aboard this station.”
“Low, but not yet zero. It will still take several months to be absolutely sure,” Bendagar insisted. “Until then, you will have to work through the glass like the rest of us.”
Lisa let loose with a comment that she had not learned in linguistics class. “If I work through the glass, I will have about as much success as you have had. If this is to succeed, it must be a saturation learning experience for both of us.”
The chief scientist hesitated and pondered his dilemma. He noted Dieter Pavel’s look and knew what the government man’s recommendation would be. He had made it clear enough in the office that afternoon that he wanted the alien speaking at the earliest possible moment. Then again, if this impetuous woman wanted to risk her life, who was he to stop her? Finally, he nodded. “Very well. I hope you realize that you are offering yourself up as a human guinea pig for the biologists’ studies.”
“I realize that.”
“What if he bites?” Pavel asked.
Lisa turned to him and smiled. “Then I’ll bite him back. Seriously, I would not suggest this if it were not important. Two rational beings ought to be able to understand one another, but only if they can establish common ground of some kind. This is the only way I know to learn what I must to crack this being’s language—assuming, of course, that he has one. I certainly won’t succeed if I am limited to an hour a day of ‘Me Tarzan, You Jane’ through a centimeter of armor glass.”
She turned to Bendagar. “How do I get inside?”
“Do you mean now?”
“Why not?”
He sighed, recognizing her determination. “What will you need?”
“A sleeping bag, my kit bag, and enough food to last me a week. Give me space rations. I will switch to real food once I am sure the smell will not upset our guest. Oh yes, and I want the camera turned off in the head whenever I need to use it.”
“Very well.”
“Now, how do I get inside?”
Bendagar reached for his communicator. “Wait, I’ll call for some of the station maintenance people. They will unbolt this door for you.”
* * *
Sar-Say watched with apprehension as the barrier was removed and one of the bipeds floated into his cage. At first, he thought they were after more tissue samples. He prepared himself to be prodded and poked again. He was surprised when, after the others handed several bundles to the creature, they replaced the thick transparency that kept him prisoner.
The newcomer was female, he observed, or at least of the subgroup of creatures he had tentatively identified as such. The cylindrical roll she carried had the looks of one of the null gravity beds they had provided to him for sleeping. In addition, the other packages were similar to the small rectangular packets from which Sar-Say had observed the guards eating on more than one occasion. It was then he realized that this creature intended to take up residence inside his cell. Evidently, then, this knowledge seeker would attempt to establish communication with him. It was a turn of events that he had been expecting.
After stowing her gear on the far side of the compartment from where Sar-Say’s own sleeping mattress was hung, the female pulled herself to a point just beyond reach and lashed herself to a chair. She then leaned forward, showed her teeth in the ferocious gesture that Sar-Say had learned signified mirth among these beings, and spoke two syllables: “Leee ... Saa!”
As she uttered the sound, she gestured in her own direction, then bared her teeth again and gestured toward Sar-Say. When he did not respond, she repeated the performance. He continued to watch her in silence as his brain worked overtime to resolve a dilemma he had been considering ever since his capture.
It had taken Sar-Say several days to come to the realization that these people were ignorant of Civilization. The situation was not without precedent, of course. There were stations throughout the Broan dominion that swept the stars for telltale signs of a technologically advanced species. Once detected, a flotilla of warcraft would use dozens of refocused stargates to converge on that system. Usually a show of overwhelming force was sufficient to gain a species’ grudging acceptance of Broan domination. Sometimes actual fighting took place. In either event, the decision was never in doubt. A species either submitted to the overlords or else they were exterminated.
However, this was the first time such outsiders had, in effect, discovered Civilization for themselves. The situation held great danger, but also, the prospect of great opportunity. Properly exploited, it would bring considerable profit to Sar-Say and all his line. Everything turned on what he told these beings of the situation out among the stars. To be caught in a lie would be disastrous. It would likely end his life and all possibility of personal profit. Yet, the whole truth would be equally disastrous. How much to tell these strange bipeds and how much to conceal? That was the dilemma.
There had been no need to commit himself so long as his captors were content merely to watch him. With the arrival of this knowledge seeker, however, the time for contemplation had ended. Eventually he must acknowledge their attempts at communication. Once committed, he would have to tell them something of Civilization, and whatever that something was, it would have to be self-consistent. He had spent his time in captivity mapping out several versions of “the truth.” Each had its advantages and its risks.
The problem was that any advanced species possessed computers—by definition! With computers comes information theory, and that leads to a scientific theory of language. Shortly after inventing the infernal machines, most species quickly developed software that could analyze an individual’s speech—say that of a prisoner—and determine from the content whether that individual told the truth. The method was not 100% accurate, of course; and it worked less well on aliens than on one’s own species. However, given a sufficiently large sample and the time to study the subject’s pronouncements, the internal inconsistencies would inevitably become apparent. No thinking being can remember everything when forced to substitute imagination for actual experience over a long period.
Since Sar-Say expected his captors would use the technique on him, he dare not stray too far from the truth. In fact, the longer the bipeds studied him, the less he would be able to conceal. No, if he was going to lie, he would have to limit it to something simple, but vital. To escape detection, his secret must be small, and heavily swaddled in a wrapping of truth.
Sar-Say reviewed one last time what he knew of these people, of their current state of knowledge, and what they were liable to learn about him in the future. He considered ... contemplated ... then made his decision. His twin hearts picked up their beat. For he was at a convergence of the star lanes. From this moment on, he would be committed. There would be no turning back.
Sar-Say sat and watched the female go through her elaborate pantomime for perhaps the twelfth time. Again the two syllables “Leee ... Saaa” echoed through the compartment.
Slowly, as though he was just beginning to understand, Sar-Say bent his own arm to touch his chest. He, too, bared his teeth, although that expression among his people was more an invitation to battle than a sign of mirth. Then he opened his mouth and let the sounds that he had practiced mentally a thousand times issue forth.
“Sssarrr ... sssaayy...”
His peripheral vision was quite good, better he judged than that of his captors. Thus, he was aware of a brief commotion beyond the glass, but not its significance. Had he been able to hear the oath that issued forth from Raoul Bendagar, he would not have understood it, although some of the emotional content might well have bridged the gap of interspecies ignorance.
“Well I will be goddamned!” the chief scientist muttered in a low monotone. It was more of a prayer than a curse.