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Stories from the Verse
In Version
Chapter 8: Kondor 224
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Beam 160
“The thing is,” Derek was saying, “I can pretty well understand what the aliens are saying to each other, but I’m not certain whether I can speak to them.”
Joe pondered the notion of being able to understand a language but unable to speak it, but Derek continued.
“A lot of indications suggest that these are this universe’s version of the same little green men we encountered in our last world, slightly more advanced technologically and with a language that has diverged slightly from the same root. My translation programs give me outputs that are syntactically strange sometimes with words that can’t possibly fit the context, but with a bit of extrapolation I can make sense of it. On the other hand, I don’t think I can translate a message into their language. Not yet, anyway.”
“Well,” Slade said, “you wouldn’t want to--not yet, anyway. As soon as you let them know we’re listening to them, they’ll stop talking, try to hide what they’re saying or worse, try to mislead us by sending false communications.”
There was Slade, always thinking strategically. Of course, it was good to have that as part of the mix, even if Kondor thought it overkill.
“So,” Kondor asked, “what are they saying?”
Derek paused a moment, leaning forward in his seat to look at his laptop. When he had designed the house for himself and Vashti, he had included a large room and ordered a long oval table and a dozen human-sized padded chairs on casters--a bit small for Slade, a bit large for any of the birds, some of whom were present for this meeting. It reminded Kondor very much of military briefing rooms, which he thought might be adding to the feeling here that they were preparing for war. The avian guests included professors from engineering and linguistics, Slade’s friend from the military program, the university president, and a couple of government officials he didn’t know. Shella was sitting near the parakeets translating their conversation into birdsong. The birds weren’t really saying anything, but were listening rather intently.
“They seem to be cataloging locations, putting labels on a map. They’ve got population centers and centers of technology--the university, of course, which particularly interests them because of our expanding use of gas and electricity, but also telegraph and telephone operating stations, and manufacturing plants for steam engines and other equipment. They seem to be focusing on everything that isn’t agriculture or wilderness, at least at this point.”
Slade nodded. “They’re obviously trying to determine targets for a first strike.”
“I don’t know that it’s obvious,” Kondor objected. “If they’re on a trade mission, they’re going to want to know what we have to offer and what we might need that they can offer us.”
“Oh, come on,” Slade objected. “What could they possibly imagine we could offer them? They have spaceships, for goodness sake.”
“We don’t know their situation. They could be looking for minerals or other resources.”
“All of which,” Derek suggested, “are available plentifully in space.”
“They could be interested in buying processed metals or manufactured goods.”
Derek was nodding, but Slade was obviously not persuaded.
“Or they could be looking for food,” he said, “and trying to decide whether to put fowl and lizard on the menu.”
A twitter ran through the attending birds as Shella translated this.
“I think if that were the case,” Kondor said, “we would have heard of abductions by now, as they attempt to study a few individual specimens.”
“I don’t know if that’s so,” Derek suggested. “If I were doing a planetary survey, I would start with simple plants and small animals. After all, DNA and protein chains and such are going to be reasonably consistent across all life on a planet, and it’s probably a lot simpler to study the simplest life forms you can easily examine than to deal with larger animals. I mean, if you wanted to get a look at chlorophyll in your lab, would you pluck a few blades of grass, or drag in a redwood? We study mice and fruit flies because we get answers faster and easier. I think any intelligent race would do the same.”
“So they might already know whether the creatures on this planet are edible,” Slade said unhelpfully, again causing a stir among the birds.
“Or they might already be narrowing down who they want to contact to begin negotiations.”
A bird chirped something, and Kondor realized that had he been using the language link trick he would have known what was said, but Shella translated it quickly enough. “So, our government should be prepared to meet with them?”
“Well, yes and no,” Kondor said. “That is, you will want to be involved in whatever contact happens, but they might not come to you first. After all, if they want steel or glass or copper, they’re going to find the places where those things are made, and contact the people who have what they want. If they want wood, or produce, or fish--well, you get the idea. There’s no particular reason to assume that they would begin by opening talks with the government, even though that’s what we would probably do.”
“Also,” Derek added, “they have the same language problem we have, only twice complicated. First, it is unlikely that they have language banks of anything similar to our languages, as we have of theirs. Second, your language is so entirely different from theirs that they will be struggling with the analysis, even with their computers, for a while before they make any headway.”
“Which suggests,” Kondor put in, “that the first contact we have with our alien guests will be initiated by us, from here, when you’ve gotten through the quirks in their language.”
Derek nodded, although the look on his face suggested that he hadn’t actually thought of that. “I’ll keep on it,” he said.
“But no test programs yet,” Slade said. “We don’t want them to know we’re listening.”
“Of course not,” Derek answered. Kondor decided that it was reasonably good advice, since of course once they knew that couldn’t be changed, so they should listen as long as they could. He still had reason to hope that this would be a peaceful interaction, but felt that there were good arguments on Slade’s side.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #476: Versers Deduce. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
