“You’re on your own, Mr. Landreau,” Barnstable said at last.
“Bear in mind that you’re vulnerable while on alien ground, and we cannot adequately protect you. But . . . I’ll allow it.”
“Great! I’m ever so pleased you see it my way.” Jilamey patted the Admiral companionably on the back. It was cheek and Jilamey knew it, but Barnstable suffered it expressionlessly. “Now, where can I get a suit?”
* * *
“You guys act like you have nothing to lose,” the xeno technician said as he suited up in the landing bay, listening to Todd, Ken, Hrriss, and Jilamey all eagerly speculating on what they might find aboard the alien ship.
Like all men raised on Earth, Commander Frill had a soft voice that was currently afflicted with a quaver of fear. His quiet manner of speaking prompted the creation of his nickname, Frail, which he was not. Frill was tall, a bare centimeter shorter than Todd Reeve, with thick, solid arms and a burly chest. He was an All-Spacedep champion wrestler. Neither he nor the medic assigned to the mission seemed to share the sense of exhilaration the Doonarralans felt.
“Wrong, friend,” Ken said. “I have everything to gain!” He grinned with unaffected delight at the challenge he was about to face. “My batting average’s pretty good in first contact, you know. Lighten up. You’re making history. And it could be fun!”
“Fun, he says,” the medic observed, checking his gear. Ensign Lauder had been volunteered by his section chief, an honor he clearly would have foregone if he could have thought up a valid pretext. A slender, brown-skinned man with narrow shoulders, Lauder was to run scans, with permission, on who or whatever they met. The rebreather unit on his back was cycling at twice normal speed. He was very young.
“Hey, easy does it,” Ken said, laying a kindly hand on the medic’s shoulder. “If you want to back out now, no blame’ll be attached.”
“No, sir!” the medic said, gulping. “I’m no coward.” With an effort, he brought himself under control. His respiration slowed, and his face went from flushed ocher to a more normal tawny shade.
“No one said you were, son.” Ken smiled.
“If there are no more delays?” Greene asked with a touch of rhetorical sarcasm.
Todd nodded as if the question had been serious and put his clear plastic helmet on his head. Grommets around the neck bolted to the bubble with a final-sounding snap.
“We arrre waiting for you,” Hrriss said. His pupils had narrowed to thin slits, and his ears lay slightly back to avoid contact with the headgear.
“Let’s go,” Todd said.
* * *
The shuttle left the lock and dipped slightly below the edge of the bay before the engines engaged fully. Todd felt insignificant as they left the big ship behind them. Frill, who was flying the craft, nudged the controls to pilot a wide-angle route toward the stranger, approaching with the sun at their back to get the best view.
The leviathan lay before them, huge and black. Todd admired the shape, wondering what sort of naval architects had designed it and why this shape was chosen. Hrriss’ eyes glittered in the lights from the console. He must be wondering the same things, Todd decided. What purpose was served by the irregular bulges along the length of the central core? Ali Kiachif had speculated that the ship had substantial artificial gravity, undoubtedly to help maintain the muscle tone of the massive inhabitants that Commander Greene’s probe had revealed. As they drew nearer, Todd was flatly amazed at the incredible size of the vessel. Beside it, they were a pinpoint, a dust mote. Behind him, Commander Frill let out a low moan, and was quickly reprimanded by a shake of the head from Greene.
Todd recognized a thrill of terror underneath his enthusiasm and anticipation. Was this how his father had felt thirty-four years before, when he got his first glimpse of a nonhuman, sentient life form? What if, after all his proud and confident words, the creatures inside this gigantic ship were unfriendly? And what if the “visitors” mistook the purpose of the shuttle and shot at it now that it was getting so close? What if they refused to allow the Doonarralan ship aboard? Well, that only meant his assumptions had been wrong. But he hated to think that Admiral Barnstable and Captain Hrrrv could be right.
As they got closer, more detail became apparent to their unaugmented vision. The surface of the alien ship was not actually black, but a matte-charcoal color that probably repelled certain wavelengths of radiation or light. Spotlights dotted the hull here and there, mostly marking out the place where antenna arrays or access hatches lay. These features were only now visible, Todd noticed. The matte coating provided unusually good camouflage of such details.
The shuttle circled a third of the way around the big ship’s central “trunk” until they found what seemed to be an airlock lens, the same one that the probe had approached and entered. Triangular panels pivoted slightly to the left, forming an irislike opening. As Frill resolutely piloted the craft toward the aperture, Todd had the eerie sensation of being swallowed, ingested in one insignificant bite. Smoothly, the tiny shuttle sailed through the enormous circular hatch.
From each of the shuttle ports the passengers stared at the size of the chamber into which they were moving. The landing bay was a virtual cathedral, with shining, metallic walls, at least one hundred meters long—and high. Several craft rested in dry dock inside. Each was at least equal in size to a Spacedep passenger ship. The largest was as big as the administration building that contained Todd’s office in the Human First Village. At the far end of the bay was a set of double doors both tall and broad, made of a translucent gray material. Behind a clear window set high in the left wall the party could see a vast console with rounded view screens glowing blue. The maintenance equipment and freight-loaders were made for bodies a good deal bigger than any Human or Hrruban. Beside a low console not far from the landing deck Todd noticed a man-sized device with the Spacedep insignia: the missing probe. It was still signaling feebly, its colored lights drowned by the brilliant illumination in the bay. The strangest thing about the control console was that there was no sign of a chair. What were these 230-kilo creatures, giant snails? Frill set the craft down on a lighted circle in the shadow of a ship twice the size of an Alreldep scout. The shuttle touched down with a hollow boom.
“Amazing,” Hrriss said, voicing the thought in everyone’s mind. “Ourrr hosts must be immenssse.”
“Seems like,” Jilamey murmured, his mouth hanging open. Ken Reeve just looked around him and grinned in pure joy.
While the party surveyed their surroundings, the airlock wheeled shut behind them, and hissing sounds arose. Greene felt a surge of panic. He was beginning to remember where he’d seen this ship before. It had been on a tape sent to Spacedep by an exploration team. He couldn’t recall any details yet, but he associated the memory with violent death. For once, he hoped he didn’t remember too many details.
Formless shadows passed back and forth behind the gray glass doors. As soon as the hissing stopped, the medical man checked his sensors. All the passengers checked their suit telemetry.
“G-force is zero point five over Earth normal. What’s the atmosphere? Can we breathe in here, Lauder?” Greene asked, his voice hollow in the bubble helmet.
”It’s a nitrox mix, plenty of oxygen,” Lauder said, carefully reading the sensors in the control panel. “Reads like a class-M combination. I mean, I’d call it safe if we came across it on a planet.”
“No trace elements?” Ken asked.
“Some,” the medical man admitted, checking his instruments. “Nothing noxious in any concentration. No bacteria known to be harmful to Humans or Hrrubans, at least in this section. I won’t give the atmosphere a hundred percent clearance, though, simply because I haven’t run a lab analysis on it yet. Keep using the rebreathers.”
“So ordered,” Greene said with a sharp nod.
“Let’s go,” Todd said.
Frill released the
hatch and he climbed out. The ambient temperature in the bay seemed slightly cool. Ken put part of the chill down to the room’s having just been open to vacuum, and his trembling to excitement. The bay was already warming up.
Lauder stepped cautiously onto the deck and avoided the lighted circle. He bent over his scanner. “I wonder if this is what our hosts breathe or if they just made it up for us?”
Hrriss followed the tech. “I wonder where they are,” he said, craning his neck to look up at the high ceiling.
A roar sounded over an unseen intercom, startling them all with unintelligible syllables. The shadows behind the door grew denser, darker, larger, giving an impression of vast size.
“That sounds like the overture,” Todd said facetiously. “Here come the players.”
AT THE END of the hall, the gray glass doors parted and slid soundlessly into the walls. Todd and the others waited, mouths agape, as their hosts entered the landing bay. For all their height and girth, they made little sound when they moved.
“Stars!” whispered Frail, his voice sounding hollow through the sides of his plastic helmet. “Mother always said I’d meet someone bigger’n me.”
The first of the aliens to enter, a bulky creature covered except for its face and the pads of its forepaws with thick, long fur of light honey-brown, stood just over two meters in height. Its face had a square muzzle with a black, leathery nose, black-fleshed lips, and two deep-set, eyes the color of red wine protected by thick, smooth-skinned eyelids fringed at the edges with more honey hair. Todd was amazed to see that its facial features were arranged in the same way as a Human’s or a Hrruban’s.
Its shoulders sloped from a thick neck toward a huge rib cage, and downward over a powerful lower body supported by very short but thick legs. It wore a pouch-laden belt and ornately decorated collar cut from a scaly hide of some kind. Todd thought it resembled snakeskin—but what a snake! If the size of the scales was any clue, it had been equivalent to a Great Big Momma Snake. The alien blinked at the visitors curiously before standing aside to make way for the two other aliens. The being behind it, identical in appearance but black-brown in color, was nearly two and a half meters tall. It too wore a collar, this one more elaborate than the first alien’s, consisting of woven strips punched and stamped with complex designs. From one side of the collar depended a loop of decorated hide that circled the upper part of the big alien’s arm. Todd wondered if the attachment might serve some specific purpose, concealing miniaturized devices, or was it a mark of rank, or both?
The third alien, of the same dark brown as the tallest being, but with a white patch on the throat that covered part of its chest like a bib, was just over one meter high and wore only a simple belt and collar of scaly leather.
With plenty of hairy fur to protect them from weather, the aliens had as little need for clothing as the smoother-coated Hrrubans. The three moved forward with commendable grace, until they were within ten meters of the party. Then they stopped in a line facing the landing party, regarding their visitors with calm, wine-colored eyes.
At first, Todd was taken aback by their sheer size. These creatures were terrifying, as if animal giants out of a children’s story book had come to life. With that thought, their appearance struck Todd as hilariously funny. He felt a childish urge to break into giggles.
“It’s the Three Bears!” he whispered under his breath to Hrriss. “I sure hope they don’t want me to tell them a story.”
“I do not undrrrstand,” Hrriss whispered. Inside his helmet, his ears were laid back tight against his round skull.
“Earth fairy tale. They look just like bears, creatures that were found on Earth up to the last century—ugh! Tell you later.” He stopped talking as Ken elbowed him in the ribs.
“Shush! You notice? They don’t want to appear aggressive,” Ken said. He smiled widely at the beings, and let the set of his shoulders hang loosely. “They’re waiting for us to close the distance.”
“Wait a minute,” Greene protested, grabbing Ken’s arm. “Consider the size of them!”
“They’re friendly,” Ken said, calmly taking the man’s hand away. “They’ve brought one of their young along to show us they mean us no harm—in fact, that they trust us. You’d never bring a baby where you intend to be the aggressor, nor where you expect threats.”
“That’s a baby?” the medic asked, agog.
“It must be,” Ken assured them. “Look at the way it’s acting.”
Todd understood completely what his father meant. The small alien was more awkward than the large ones, and kept looking up at the tallest one for reassurance. “That’s his—or her—cub.”
“Well, I don’t know . . .” Frill murmured, unsure. He swallowed nervously. The medical man stood with his mouth hanging open while his telemetry gear went wild making recordings.
“Keep your mind on the job,” Greene said peevishly. “Come along!”
“Yes, Commander,” the two navy men replied. The group moved closer to the aliens, and stopped three meters away as the medic faltered once more. The three creatures watched them calmly, waiting.
Ken steeled himself. “I feel inferior, inhibited, and intimidated, as Kiachif would say if he was here. The sheer size of them! One of us has got to take action.” He swallowed, and put a hand on Todd’s arm. “Well, as the first and most successful xenolinguist in Earth history, we’ll see what sense I can make out of whatever noise they make. Wish me luck, boys.”
“You can do it, Dad,” Todd said firmly. He clasped his father’s arm, imparting confidence.
“Find out everything you can about them,” Greene added. “Tell them as little as possible about us.”
Todd shook his head pityingly at Greene. The man had absolutely no idea how long it took to establish the most superficial linguistic exchange.
Ken opened his arms wide in a gesture he hoped projected friendly intent, and walked right up to the furred trio.
“Greetings, and welcome to the skies of Doonarrala,” he said, speaking as cheerfully and enthusiastically as he could, though his heart was pounding in his throat. “We come in peace. We hope you do, too.”
Echoing his gesture, the three aliens opened their upper limbs and stretched their flexible muzzles up and back so that their teeth were showing: sharp, white stalactites almost as long as a human hand.
“Fardles! Now, those are fangs!” Jilamey whispered. His face was pale but his eyes glittered in fascination.
* * *
“We must be very careful, Captain,” the Gringg linguist said, glancing upward at her. He was nervous about the possibility of disease, though he had been assured by the ship’s physician that an alien species was unlikely to carry germs that could infect them. Still, he, like all the others aboard, were volunteers. If it cost their lives to discover the truth about this species, so be it. The linguist swept the hold with one more nervous glance, to reassure himself that there was nothing there to discourage these small interesting beings. “One of them approaches. Remember there is certain knowledge we must not reveal yet.”
“I know what to do. Is it a female or a male, Eonneh?” Captain Grzzeearoghh asked, looking Ken up and down curiously. “These creatures are all so skeletal! And so small and weak!”
“It is difficult to know. But since some of them wear garments under those protective shells and some do not, that is clearly the demarcation. The unclad one’s body configuration slightly resembles our males, so that must make the tall ones female.”
“So they have a female linguist or first speaker,” Grzzeearoghh noted. “How interesting. We shall have to converse much on the divisions of labor among gender once we have established communication. But she moves like a Gringg, slowly and carefully. I am glad. I find hurry so disconcerting.” The captain raised her head and called out a command that made the aliens at the other end of the hall jump. “Rrawrum? Have you se
nt the message notifying Homeworld that we have been contacted and are carefully following procedure?”
“I am getting it done now, Captain.” Rrawrum’s voice echoed overhead in the cargo bay, a little loudly to Grzzeearoghh’s thinking. She would have to ask the technician to correct the sound level when she had a moment. It was making their visitors nervous. Every care must be taken to put them at their ease. The strangers should have no cause to view them as a threat. My cub should help to reassure these small aliens, the captain thought.
“Tell them also that we are beginning contact.”
“As you wish, Captain.”
“Mama,” Weddeerogh interrupted, as Ken stopped a meter away. “What is she doing?”
“She is identifying herself, I think,” the Captain said, patting her cub on the head. “A pity their voices are so soft. I was not paying attention!”
* * *
Ken activated the recording unit at his side and put his hands to his chest. “My name is Ken Reeve. Ken Reeve.” He extended one hand slowly toward the largest “bear,” and pointed. “And you?” He gave the words the strongest interrogative tone he could.
The massive head swung toward him, and the rubbery lips receded behind the teeth again in a passable reflection of the Human’s smile. Ken was impressed by the flexibility of the aliens’ faces, and their ability to imitate expressions. Todd was right: they did possess a superficial resemblance to Earth bears. Their coloring, shape, and musculature were very much like that of the ancient species Ursa. They seemed to be made for defense, armed with heavy claws and a thick, loose skin. And they were so unconsciously powerful. If they proved to be unfriendly, they could tear him apart without trouble. The likeness to bears was not exact, of course. These beings had tails about the length and thickness of his forearm, covered with shaggy hair. What purpose did the appendages serve? Balance? Defense?
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