The Flowery War

by Tim Andersen

  I could see my grandfather was wearing a headset.

  “The Trolls communicate on multiple harmonics. He is listening to the two main ones, completely unaware of the ten other ones.”

  My grandfather was speaking about the mutual friendship between humans and Trolls, but it was hard to follow because it was being translated into Trollish.

  Smith frowned at it and said, “masterful given the rudiments of technology at the time, but---” he paused and spoke to the screen again, “run spectral analysis Smith One.”

  The image now squeezed to one side and the other side filled with graph lines, each representing a different frequency of the Troll speech. “Watch as their representative speaks.”

  I watched. The audio played and the lines of Smith's analysis jumped and wiggled. We waited and Smith said, “there!” and jabbed his finger to a spiking line at the bottom. “On the eleventh harmonic: grave offense.” The audio continued to play, “again, grave offense, grave offense, grave offense,” he repeated every time the line jumped, “but nothing on the two frequencies your grandfather was aware of,” he said, pointing to the two top ones.

  He pressed a button and the image vanished.

  “After the meeting,” he continued, “we did not hear another word from them for five years when their missile barrages started. Most of our fledgling colonies, destroyed or evacuated, Mars Beta, obliterated in a sneak attack. Nearly a million people killed in only a few months and years of skirmishing before we sent Fenn in again to clean up the mess.”

  He did not say it, but I could hear the implied “he made”. I knew about the war from sims. Human beings and Trolls had battered each other with unmanned, interstellar missiles and ground robots (no one would have dreamed of sending a manned war party at the time, and robots did a better job for far less cost) for years, neither gaining the upper hand, until diplomacy won out, but Smith seemed to take a particular pleasure in describing the horrors that my ancestor had supposedly caused.

  Smith gave the impression that he was just getting warmed up, and I made no move to interrupt. I was actually curious. “The trouble with Vanchar Fenn was that he was almost too good at this. He knew that most basic principle of dealing with non-human cultures is to become one of them. To think like them in your heart. And he did everything by heart, no social models, no scientific method, pure intuition. He spent years preparing for the mission to see the Trolls, learning the nuances of their culture, studying brain scans that had been obtained, trying to get inside their minds. When he went to their home world, he was planning on communicating with them like they communicated with each other and see everything from their point of view. Sounds good doesn’t it?”

  I nodded.

  He smacked the table with his hand making me jump. “No!” he shouted. “Don’t you see the flaw? The Trolls did the same thing. He was expecting them to act like Trolls and so he was going to play the part of the Troll. The Troll representative, Fenn’s counterpart, planned to act like a human. You see now? Each one, trying to imitate each other’s species. It was a disaster and the horrific offense against the Troll people came from Fenn trying to act like a Troll when the Trolls thought he was acting like a human. Do you understand?”

  I was blank, not wanting to admit that I did not understand at all, but not wanting to say that I did for fear that I would be accused of not understanding as before.

  “It’s the simulacrum principle, Fenn. When some non-human thing is made to imitate a human, the closer it becomes to acting like one, the more offensive it becomes. Think of humanoid robots. Why did they never take off?”

  “Too expensive?” I offered feeling stupid.

  “Ha! The rich would have bought them, but they didn’t because the designers could not make them perfectly human, and the nearly human robots were simply repulsive by virtue of coming too close and missing the mark. A robot that is obviously a robot is perfectly acceptable to people. Bipedal robots approximating the human form are sold every day despite their general uselessness, but give the robot human-like skin, eyes, hair, a personality, etc. and it becomes a monster. That is what Vanchar Fenn became to the Trolls—a monster.”

  “What about the Troll representative? Didn’t he do the same thing?”

  “Like I said, Fenn, he was too good at this. The Troll made a lousy human and Vanchar Fenn didn’t even notice that he was trying to communicate like one. When the Trolls take offense on their 11th harmonic, it means that they need time to consider a response. They mulled it over for five years, as is their way, while Vanchar Fenn assumed that the human race didn’t interest them. When the Trolls attacked, he realized his mistake. The next time he met with them he was all human, and they realized their mistake too. It was his fault, and he knew it, though he kept that a secret his whole life. He knew it, and I know it, and now you, his own grandson, finally know.” He paused to let that sink in, as if I should be grateful to him, then he continued, “I’ve taken pains to keep from making the same mistakes he did, using reason instead of intuition. If my software had been available forty years ago, it never would have happened. It would have predicted the response, which is why your first responsibility will be to learn it.”

  “Okay,” said I.

  Smith seemed to be done with me because he had turned to look at the door at the back of the room from which the elderly man was emerging. Upon seeing me he stepped forward to shake hands. “Lars Crispin,” he said. “I’m your mission specialist.”

  “You handle the equipment then,” I asked, relieved to have someone other than Smith in the room now. Crispin had a warm smile and a comfortable, strong handshake.

  “That and everything else, but the xenofolk,” he said. “I pilot and look after the ship, take care of things when you’re out in the field, and I handle the weaponry too.”

  “Weapons?” I said.

  “Sure, “he said. “You never know when you’ll get invited to some planet and the bugs will just up and try and take the ship. Some have no sense of property. They think that everything that comes within view is a gift just for them. We’ve had to run for our lives more than once. Never lost anyone yet though,” he said, laughing, and then added, “to the aliens at least. Mr. Smith here’s a different matter altogether.”

  Smith gave Crispin a sour look. “What Lars here is saying,” he said, “is that I uphold everyone to a high standard and so does the Diplomatic Corps. This is where the cream of the cream comes to train. Two out of three recruits are gone after a year and only one out of six complete the three year training. Either you succeed in the tasks I set for you, or you’re out and you have nowhere to go but down.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  Smith scrutinized my face. “Good,” he said. “Crispin and I have work to do before we launch. I’ve assigned you to assist Lika.” He stopped talking and turned away, and I stood there for a minute before understanding that that was my dismissal. I briefly thought about going home and continuing my weekend but surmised that Smith meant that I should help Lika now. Grateful to have survived my first meeting with Smith, I left the room in search of the woman who had been there before, assuming that she was Lika.

  I found her name on the touch directory as Lika Townsend listed under Smith’s name. She and I were both in office 551A. Smith had 551B. I rode the elevator to the 5th floor.

  The door was shut and there was no window. I knocked and heard a grunt from inside. I opened the door. The woman I had seen earlier was sitting at a desk by the far wall of a windowless office. She whirled to look at me. She looked scared out of her mind.

  “It’s not---” she started to say, then relaxed. “Oh God,” she said, “I thought you were Tolan,” and turned back to what she was doing without as much as a hello.

  In the movies offices always have stacks of paper piled on every surface, and one wonders how people got anything done. The “Paperless Act” of 2052 banned paper from government offices, but that did not mean modern offices were any less cl
uttered. This one seemed more dirty than cluttered. Given the grime of spilt coffee on the floor, the cleaning robots had not been in here lately. Two desks, one for each of us, shoved together looked as if they had been salvaged from a junkyard, scratched, dented, and patched with rust.

  Topping each was a concave white screen about two meters long and one high. Usually, you only saw these in the inner sanctums of serious sim gamers. Only full body sim booths were more immersive. I had never used one because they were so expensive. Looking over Lika’s shoulder, I saw lines of computer code, bizarre two and three dimensional alien symbols, huge mathematical equations that went from one end of the screen to the other and onto additional lines. She manipulated the display with her hands and the equations rearranged themselves, 3D graphs of sound wave projections remodulated, linguistic symbols shifted and were replaced with other symbols. I marveled at the complexity and worried that I would never understand it.

  Floating above her head was a small three dimensional object, appearing solid but seemingly projected from the device. For a moment I thought that it must be some mysterious alien artifact having to do with our upcoming assignment, but it turned out to be a small gold statue of a laughing, fat Buddha seated in the lotus position.

  A side door that I had not noticed opened, and the Buddha disappeared. Smith’s face appeared and said, “we have our launch scheduled for Wednesday, Lika. I expect that model to be perfect before Monday. And get Fenn started on my Standard Model.” He then shut the door without giving me a glance or a “how are you two getting on”. Lika banged her fist on the desk and started typing furiously on a pair of touchboards positioned above her narrow thighs. The Buddha reappeared, automatically.

  I wondered if I should bother to interrupt her when she said without looking at me, “you can have a seat. I’ve got to finish this.”

  I sat down at my desk opposite her. My own screen, which was blank, blocked her from my view. I could not see a switch or button to turn it on. Curious, I ran my fingers across the surface. It felt like wet glass. I rubbed my fingers together to feel if they were wet. The screen came to life. An orange substance like molten glass appeared to drip from the top of the inner rim. Curious, I watched as the substance assembled itself into the manufacturer’s logo, a glass Klein Bottle. The Klein Bottle solidified, revolved as if in sunlight, and then lunged at me. I ducked reflexively, and heard a simulated shattering sound behind me. I chuckled. That would get old quickly.

  The screen was large and filled my entire viewfield. The intention was total immersion but without the discomfort and disorientation of VR goggles. I looked around for a touchboard but could not see anything. In the center of the screen a wide green button, rimmed in a golden frame, said, “press me”, in white letters. I reached out and touched the spot and felt a small vibration in finger. I recoiled as if shocked. The screen had a haptic interface.

  The button dissolved.

  The once white screen now appeared totally black except for what looked like a piece of paper pinned to it like an old fashioned bulletin board. I reached out to touch it, and it expanded to fill the entire screen. At first it appeared to contain nothing but garbled black squiggles. I leaned forward, squinting, putting my head right into the mouth of the screen. With my nose only a few centimeters from where the squiggles appeared to be, they resolved into words. Curious, I leaned back again, and they turned into squiggles again. Whatever the message was, it could only be read from a precise distance away. Testing, I found that even a variation of three or four centimeters from the distance where they were legible, and the words became unintelligible. No one can read it over my shoulder, I thought. The message read:

  Meet me in room 223B in ten minutes upon receiving this. If you value your life, make an excuse to get away and tell no one where you are going.

  “If I value my life?” I thought. A cold shiver ran through me, and my body felt numb. In a moment I saw the message dissolve into blankness, self-destructing. There was no clue as to the sender. It could be a prank, I thought, some sort of hazing, surely! But who could it be? Smith did not seem to be the kind to indulge in hazing. Maybe Crispin or Lika or some, as yet, unknown member of Smith’s team wanted to have fun with me. Maybe I would walk into the room and get sprayed with water or locked in or some other harmless gag. I hoped that was it: better humiliation than death.

  Then again, I thought, what if it was serious? Perhaps somebody was making threats against me. The message said, “if you value your life…” did that mean that the writer was threatening me or was the author trying to protect me from some unknown danger? What if they wanted to kidnap me? Abductions of diplomats were not unheard of by both aliens and outworld humans. Usually they happened off world, not from within the headquarters of the diplomatic service, but still there was the possibility.

  I considered whether I should go. On the one hand, if there was a threat against my life, and these people were trying to warn me, I ought to go. Besides, I could not imagine anyone wanting to harm me. I was nobody. My mother was a famous politician and cabinet minister, and so, there was the possibility of a politically motivated kidnapping or, conversely, some attempt to tarnish her reputation by putting me in a compromising situation. It could be a member of the press or a tabloid reporter desperate for a story. That sort of thing had happened before, especially, when my mom was campaigning. This was an unlikely tactic for a mainstream news source but not necessarily for an underground paper. The message had not revealed enough to help me decide. I felt angry at the message’s author for not providing more information and felt like it would serve him or her right if I did not show up, did not give him or her a story or an opportunity to humiliate me or scare me with some false rumor of an assassination plot against me or whatever he or she wanted.

  What I wanted was insurance, but there was nothing. It seemed silly to try and bring a weapon with me. I looked around the room at potential weapons: a coffee mug, not exactly a disabling bludgeon, a tablet, a mobile, again not good for defense unless the opponent was a computer that could be infected with some devastating virus. There was not even a cable to use as a garrote. The building’s electrical systems were all wireless. Not experienced in hand-to-hand combat except for two weeks of karate classes at the age of eleven, I could not take down a determined foe with anything short of a gun or stunner. I could not get one of those on this short notice.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, standing up.

  Lika grunted and went on typing. I could not be sure she had heard. She probably did not care.

  Stepping out of the office, I peeked down the corridor to make sure Smith was not there. Running into him was the last thing I wanted right now, but there was no one. All the usual workers were at home enjoying their Friday morning coffee. I bolted towards the emergency stairs and opened the ancient door, shuddering as a loud creak broke the weekend silence. Inside, the stairwell was musty and at least a hundred years old, having been retained from the structure that had previously occupied the site of the Fenn Building. Rusty girders with chipped light blue paint and well-worn steps were a testament to generations of government employees who had served first the United States and then the World Government over the previous century.

  I had an idea and headed down to the ground floor. In the deserted cafeteria I found the shelf containing various condiments and grabbed a pepper shaker. I had once seen a movie where somebody used pepper as a weapon during a fight. I smiled as I imagined throwing pepper at my would-be assailant and he or she shrieking and covering his or her eyes while sneezing violently as I ran away.

  Ready with my pepper, I climbed back up to the second floor. The directory showed 223B as vacant. I found it and knocked. A voice, vaguely familiar, called, “come in.” I opened the door while gently unscrewing the cap on the pepper shaker. The room was dark. I could make out a dim human form sitting on a chair in a room otherwise bare of furniture. My heart pounding, I watched whoever it was stand up and come toward
s me, and I got ready to lob the shaker. The form reached a hand out and I took a step back, raising the shaker. Then the lights went on.

  “Close the door Goshan,” said Greg Trexel. He glanced at my hand with the upraised pepper shaker. “What’s the pepper for?” He turned around and walked back to his chair, sitting down with a sigh.

  I closed the door and slipped the pepper into my pocket, feeling a bit silly. “What’s this about?” I said, turning my embarrassment into irritation.

  “Sorry for all the cloak-and-dagger, Goshan,” said Trexel, inviting me to sit on another chair to the left of the door. He leaned back. “I had to be sure that nobody knew that we were meeting, especially not Smith,” he said. “Smith feels proprietary over his trainees and would not take kindly to, what he would infer, as my jumping the chain of command. He could even reject your employment under him if he thought I had somehow ‘tainted’ you.”

  “I thought you made those decisions,” I said. “Where does Smith get all this power to decide who goes and who stays?”

  Greg chuckled. “Partly it’s just tradition, Goshan. Smith owns you and that’s how it has always been done. Mainly it’s that what Smith wants he gets around here. As long as Stoss and the Minister think that Smith gets results that others can’t, he gets what he wants.”

  “Stoss? John Stoss, the Director?” I asked.

  “Yeah, he’s in love with Smith, probably because he doesn’t have to talk to him. He just gets the reports. Smith has never failed, and Stoss is bent on results. He doesn’t care if Smith is a jerk as long as those results keep coming. It’s also Stoss who I need to keep in the dark about our meeting here.”

  “How did you know that Smith or Stoss wouldn’t get hold of that note you sent me?” I asked.

  “Firstly I coded your console to read your fingerprint and facial details. I also coded the note only to be visible if you were the only one in front of the console. Those consoles are used for playing games usually. Smith likes them because they’re so versatile, but they were first developed for classified work, and they retain a lot of the security features, if you know how to activate them. It was a bit of a risk, sending you a note right under Smith’s nose, but I needed you to come right away.” Trexel leaned forward now. “Where did you tell them you were going?” he asked.