Secrets in the Stars (Family Law)

by Mackey Chandler

  "If the Caterpillars open the door and let us set up screens and show them how our video works then I imagine they'd do it again for us. I'd take the machine back over and let them show us how to use it," Lee said.

  "How would you ask them since we can't talk yet?" Gordon said.

  "I'd just walk around it and look clueless. Lean in and look at it from different sides. Maybe pick up the bag and set it back down a couple times. If they're anywhere near as smart as we think they are it should be obvious pretty soon that I have no idea at all what to do with the stupid thing. Say we gave them a can of self heating stew and they stood there fumbling around with it. It might look like a grenade to them for all we know.

  "When they didn't know how to lift and pull the tab to open it or punch the dimple to start it heating, then I think we'd figure out they didn't get how it works pretty fast. Thor here would be pounding his console, yelling at them within a minute, two minutes tops, telling them to pull the damn tab and push the stupid dimple in!"

  Gordon looked at Thor to see his reaction. "Probably," Thor admitted. "I'm not especially patient."

  "You can also figure they're not going to let us blow the thing up, even if that's possible, right there inside their ship," Lee said.

  "I can't find any fault in the reasoning," Thor admitted.

  "Me either," Gordon said, "but I still want somebody else to do the walk around and look stupid."

  "They won't do it as well as I would," Lee said.

  "Perhaps not," Gordon agreed. "However, they only need to do it well enough."

  * * *

  To everyone's satisfaction, the shuttle was admitted into the alien ship. The hatch closing cut off all communications. Waiting while cut off like that was nerve racking, but at least the big ship didn't take off with the shuttle and crew. They might have taken an entry request as asking for another trip to the world they'd shown the crew of The Champion William before.

  The big ship could have made its way home again from that far world. The shuttle didn't have jump capacity. They'd been instructed to not voluntarily leave the hold if taken to that far world. However, the Caterpillars had a sort of tug that could force a vessel to enter the hold. They'd seen a ship of the Biter aliens who had got aggressive with the Caterpillars taken that way. What they could force in they could force out. All that worry was for nothing. The Caterpillar ship stayed right on station.

  Inside the hold Jon set up his displays and the rotating bust. He didn't wait to see if they provided atmosphere. He had everything lined up and connected before he noticed his suit going slack from external pressure. He didn't intend to retreat to the shuttle. The Caterpillars had grown to tolerate physical proximity of the humans before. However Jon was never one to make things needlessly difficult for himself. When he was through setting up he opened a folding chair and made himself comfortable to wait. When the shuttle crew assured him he had sufficient partial pressure of oxygen he opened his faceplate up but left the helmet on.

  By the time the Caterpillars appeared Jon had stood and walked around a couple times, stiff from sitting. He also was hungry and starting to have his doubts they'd appear. They hadn't discussed what they'd do if they were allowed in but then ignored. He decided he'd leave the setup sitting running unless he was flat out ordered to bring it back. It would run several days on internal power. Perhaps even if they had to leave it would be inspected afterward.

  The Caterpillars who entered looked exactly like the bunch on video. They might be the same, but they had yet to figure out distinguishing marks. There were six of them and only gross differences like the number of segments making up their length were obvious to Humans. The races they'd met that were similar to them, or the animals they were used to, seemed much easier to tell apart than these creatures. Perhaps the length of tentacles or the way they held them was distinctive – to them.

  Jon put the screens facing away from the shuttle and halfway to the hold bulkhead so they came to it before him. He'd retreated slightly toward the shuttle before he opened his chair and sat. The aliens did a little dance around the line of equipment inspecting it, jockeying for position. Two of them went around the back side and did a walk past inspection. They spent a good half hour until each of them had looked every piece over and waved what had to be sensors and cameras over them before they got brave enough to touch. Once they did however the fine tentacles traced every detail and followed the cables they decided to use instead of wireless.

  There was a bit of a stir and hooting when they found they could pivot the video camera on its mount. Several of them took a turn moving the camera. By the way the stood they were watching the resulting change in the images. That was encouraging. Jon had completely forgotten he was hungry.

  When the hatch opened again it was some of their floating freight carriers. They came in with one alien on the first plate and the other following behind. They lined up closely in front of the equipment and all stood looking at him. It was so obvious Jon laughed. One picked up the camera and took it toward the plate as far as the cable would allow before setting it down. His fellows gabbled and hooted at him. Perhaps they were worried how delicate it might be.

  Jon got up, careful not to move to quickly for fear of startling them. He went over and was pleased when the shorter Caterpillar that moved the camera stepped just out of his way but didn't retreat for the hatch or seem frightened. Jon flipped the locking lever and pulled the cable from the camera. Of course the display it was attached to went out and a wave of hoots and few whistles erupted. That was a new sound. He turned the cable toward the alien, showing him the contacts recessed in the connector.

  The alien staying close was very brave and reached with one of the longer tentacles. He didn't reach inside and touch the pins however. He flipped the locking lever a few times and watched how it made a ridge close from each side of the connector housing.

  "You're no dummy are you, guy?" Maybe it was silly to talk to him, but it felt right.

  Jon demonstrated inserting the cable termination again and locking it. That got a few hoots when the screen lit back up. When he withdrew it this time he held it toward the alien in his open hand. One of the larger tentacles hovered over it and then he chickened out. Jon changed his grip on it, moving his hand down on the cable so the alien could avoid touching him. Even though he had suit gloves on apparently that was the problem.

  The alien whipped a tentacle tip around the cable three or four turns and then wound a second layer back across the first turns. He pushed it in the receptacle and the camera started to tip. Jon shot a hand out quickly and kept it from tipping over. All of them froze at the sudden move and didn't make a single hoot for a heartbeat, then resumed as if nothing had happened. Jon withdrew his hand a lot slower. The alien thought about it a bit and switched tentacles, positioning the old one to support the camera and grasping the cable with the new one. He pushed it home right the first time and locked it like he'd done it a thousand times. Jon hadn't had such a thrill of discovery since he'd been a teenager.

  "OK, I better show you this," Jon said, out loud. He pulled the cable out and tried to insert it flipped over. It wouldn't go in since it had a round-cornered trapezoid shape, both ends sloped the same direction. The alien didn't even try it, just waved a tentacle and gave a little hoot.

  "Yeah, yeah that's obvious, huh? Don't mean to imply you're stupid." Jon pulled the cable again and took a step back. The alien wasn't stupid, but he was overly polite. He moved the pedestal and camera a little move towards the floating plate and sat it back down.

  "That's why we brought it guys. Let's make clear we expect you to take it," Jon declared, and stepped up and lifted the assembly for him onto the work cart or whatever they called the thing. Once he did that the fellow trained on the cable showed the rest of them how they worked and they had all the pieces loaded up and ready to haul away in short order.

  Jon wasn't sure what proper protocol might be so he just turned and walked away, folding his
chair and heading for the shuttle lock. He finally remembered to be hungry too.

  * * *

  "You know, we could load up the alien machine and send it over on another shuttle," Lee said.

  "Are you in a hurry for some reason?" Gordon asked.

  "No more than usual," Lee said. "I just figured it a really big hold or hangar. It looked like it could hold four of The Champion William without crowding, much less another shuttle."

  "We have no idea how it's going. I'm not going to interfere. We may learn things from them when they come out that will help present their machine back to them too," Gordon decided.

  "I wonder where they got the bag of dirt?" Lee asked. "Did anybody run an analysis of the dirt to see if it is special?"

  "Sending it to your screen," Brownie said. "It's sterile. Sand and the sort of mixed minerals you'd find on a water world from weathering. Not from a living world unless they went to a lot of trouble to clean it up."

  "I wish we'd thought to get a bag of dirt off the Badgers' world. Then we could send that over with their bag too," Lee said. "Too late now."

  "We still have a few landings scheduled on these moons while we wait," Brownie said. "We weren't quite ready to leave when the Dart and aliens got back. We have some samples from other landings, but just tiny pieces. I can have a landing party bring back a sack of loose debris if you like."

  "Please. If they have something with a lot of one metal, something that's an ore," Lee requested.

  * * *

  "Wake up, Jon. They're coming back in," his com insisted loudly.

  Jon muttered something that probably meant, "Yes, I'm getting up." He sat up, rubbed his face with both hands and sealed his soft boots up. He'd never taken them off and still had a suit liner on. He staggered into the head and relieved himself, considered dressing differently for the now pressurized hold, and decided Caterpillars had no idea about the difference between a suit liner and a ballroom gown.

  "Ship – Connect me to the galley deck," he called loudly enough to reach from the head. "Would you have whoever is free bring a double espresso to the lock?" he asked. "I need the caffeine badly. And a com headset, please."

  When he got to the lock the shuttle commander Lord Byron was waiting with the requested drink in hand, the radio headset in his other hand, and the inner door of the lock already open.

  "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bother you, sir," Jon said, embarrassed.

  "I happened to be in the galley and as free as anybody," Lord Byron said. "Don't worry about it, Mr. Burris. I'm not that full of myself yet."

  "Thank you, sir."

  His commander just nodded and didn't say anything about him wearing a suit liner.

  He cycled out quickly since there wasn't that much of a pressure difference now. The Caterpillars were about where he'd set up his displays yesterday. There were six of them, just like yesterday. Jon took the chair from where he'd left it walking much closer to them than before. They shouldn't have any reason to be shy after yesterday. They had a load on the floaters, but not his stuff. This was going to be interesting.

  Jon unfolded the chair and sat down, did a com check to make sure he was in touch with the shuttle, moved the mic to the side out of the way, took the cover off the cup, and had a sip.

  One of the aliens was watching him rather than the others lifting items off the plates. It was hard to tell what interested him. You could tell which way their eyes were looking, but not as exactly as another human. Maybe that would come with experience. He had one of the devices they suspected was a camera in one tentacle and another instrument of some sort in another. He moved his head around a little, not just his eyes, watching Jon unfold the chair. Jon wondered if they had the concept of furniture at all? Perhaps they could stand for hours on end with so many legs. Jon had the sudden insight that with that many legs you could stand on a few and rest others.

  Ah – they did have one of his pieces, the bust on a pedestal. They had even figured out how to switch the turntable on and off, because the fellow setting it up did that as Jon watched. They'd kept the camera and monitors however.

  The Caterpillar who seemed assigned to watch him came up close, much bolder than yesterday. He seemed to be much twitchier about the tentacles, especially the small ones down lower. Jon assumed he had a mouth in there somewhere. He brought the other, unidentified, instrument up and tipped it right over Jon's coffee. Well, that was interesting. He appeared to be scanning it.

  The tentacle wrapped around the instrument unwound a couple loops, and before Jon could react, the Caterpillar plunged the tip in his espresso and swished it around a bit.

  "Holy... "

  Lord Byron quickly cut him off and spoke in his ear through the com set.

  "Before you say too much: Remember they are eventually going to understand what we say, and very likely go back and review every word we ever uttered."

  "Uh, yeah... Holy Mackerel," Jon finished, wisely.

  The alien transferred his instrument to a smaller tentacle and withdrew it into the mass of small tendrils before bringing the big one back to the cup. Just as Jon had moved slowly to avoid scaring the alien yesterday the Caterpillar reached slowly with his larger tentacle and curled it around the cup. Jon had to smile at how delicately he did so. The Caterpillar wasn't assertive. He grasped the cup and didn't tug at all, but the request was plain. Jon let go of it slowly and withdrew his hand, folding his hands in his lap.

  "Are you sure you don't want one last sip, Mr. Burris?" Lord Byron asked in his ear.

  "You have an evil sense of humor... sir," Jon replied.

  The alien carried the cup carefully, almost reverently, to the others and after many hoots and new noises they each carefully dipped a tentacle in turn, and one might assume tasted. One of them exited the hold and seemed to be in a bigger hurry than when they came in.

  The others had a mechanism of some sort positioned in front of the pedestal with the bust on it. It looked more like a studio microphone than a camera; a fist-sized silvery ball with a black handle below it. They also had a low boomerang shape they brought over and laid about a half meter in front of him.

  Jon's handler had returned and was standing to the side. He waved his tentacles a bit and gave a couple hoots like a ferry boat getting ready to undock. Jon had no idea what he wanted.

  The alien stood still looking at him. Jon wondered if he was disgusted at how stupid Jon was or upset with himself for not being clearer. After a bit he tugged the smaller tentacles in close and held the two big ones out straight in front of him. When that got no reaction he swept them both up vertically like a football referee calling a good goal.

  "I'm obviously supposed to know what that means," Jon said, out loud. "But I'm clueless."

  The alien held the tentacles out straight again and slowly made both ends turn up at right angles. Even not having tentacles it looked uncomfortable. Then he crossed and uncrossed them a couple times.

  "Oh, my arms?" Jon asked, holding his arms out and turning his hands up palms out like the alien. That produced a melody of hoots and one of the other Caterpillars came rushing over with one of the floating plates. Really, just super high-tech hand carts, Jon thought.

  The assistant put the boomerang shape on the cart, made it float a bit higher, and then pushed it back in front of Jon, even a little bit closer. The alien did the uncomfortable tentacle waving thing again.

  "Oh, it wasn't close enough," Jon figured out. He reached out straight-armed and crossed his wrists with his palms out just like the alien and uncrossed them, wondering if it was going to play music or what. The air in front of him filled with an image of the bust from hand to hand.

  Jon thought the displays their ships used were high definition. He was wrong. This just looked real. Real as a hole in the air with a view of the bust he'd brought along. He pulled his hands back and the image grew closer. As an experiment he closed one eye and then the other. It was in 3D.

  "Wow."

  "Wow what?"
Lord Byron asked in his ear. "Do you need pom-poms? You look like a drunk cheerleader waving your arms around."

  "We just got richer than we ever imagined. And some of the Fargoers have pretty vivid imaginations. A few of them have been writing million dollar IOUs for their poker games," Jon said.

  "What are you talking about? I see they brought out some things. Are you trying to trade for them?"

  "Yes sir. I certainly shall if they don't offer them freely like we did. Anything they want. Have you ever seen really old grainy movies? The sort that were on actual silver photographic film before they were digitalized? Grayscale even instead of color?"

  "Yes I have. They simply called them black and white during that era. Don't ask me why," Lord Byron said. "I have no idea."

  "Well the Caterpillars just showed me a 3D video system that makes our displays look about as sad as those old movies," Jon told him. He tried withdrawing his hands, but the image followed. He tried taking one back and not the other and it rotated. This was a great display but he couldn't hold his hands out for hours. The alien made the lifting gesture again.

  "Oh... " Jon unbent his wrists and swept both arms straight up away from the display. It stayed put.

  "Damn, this looks so good," Jon said. Lord Byron didn't even reprove him.

  * * *

  "The Champion William reports they will be in orbit above us in a couple hours. They ask if we have any unfinished survey work here with which they can help us?" Brownie said.

  "Brownie, have you assigned anyone to gather Lee's bag of dirt?" Gordon asked.

  "No, sir. I was waiting until I knew somebody was near landing," Brownie explained.

  "Ah, good," Gordon said looking highly amused. "Inform Captain Fenton he may chose whatever moon of the gas giant we are orbiting that suits him, and send a shuttle down to its surface. Whatever else he does of interest is his concern, but we require a bag of soil or loose surface debris. If he can find any rich in metallic elements that is to be preferred."