Analog SFF, July-August 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  L isn't quite as large as Tad or nearly as weird-looking as Gara olMara the Vithy, the third member of my staff, but is hands-down—not that he has permanent hands—the most intimidating of the three . . . to humans. Hard to pinpoint why. It's not just the way his body parts practically radiate efficiency but are, excepting for his variable eyestalks, utterly unrecognizable—to humans, I should add again. And it's not his aura of absolute confidence. Maybe it's his . . . jaggedness. Where he isn't downright serrated, his body is all zigzags and sharp, hard surfaces that gleam metallically in the dimmest light. And the oddest thing about him is that the total effect of all these angles and edges suggests something ferociously streamlined: a shark, perhaps. Or the first Disney version of Captain Nemo's Nautilus. But you don't need prior knowledge of a Great White to know in your gut that it's not safe to pet.

  After an admirably brief hesitation, Phillips forced himself to walk toward the desk. I imagine he planned to ask questions, but all he could do once he got close to L was stare. After a moment he wrinkled his nose. Under other circumstances, I would've found that comical because L uses something he calls “olfactory camouflage,” constantly matching his body odor exactly to his surroundings, which meant the cop probably smelled himself—from the outside, as it were.

  “How may I improve your life?” L asked him, but Phillips just turned and headed back toward me.

  Braun pulled his eyes off L to glower at me. “We'll be waiting outside for the next four hours, then two other cops will take next shift. We got officers with your wife and kid. You good here?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And thanks for everything.”

  Just then, my cleaning robot decided it simply couldn't eat another joule and it unplugged itself to scurry toward the flakes of dirt the cops and I had tracked in. The seven-foot-tall machine with its multitude of waving steel arms, designed by Tsf to resemble themselves, always made an impression on the uninitiated. So if the cops departed with a little extra haste, we must forgive them.

  L extruded a limb and waved it to attract my attention. I walked over to his desk. “Such rude myrmidons.” His voice emerged from the device he wore as a pendant, a personal voice amplifier. Although he could duplicate virtually any kind of noise and had proved a supergenius at languages, he needed mechanical assistance to be loud enough for human ears. “Still, I ignore their slights for I have more interesting matters to discuss. But first I must ask, are you in need of therapy yourself from the recent trauma?”

  “I remain sound in mind and habitually unsound in body.”

  “Delightful news!”

  “Some detectives asked me for a client list. Can you take care of that?”

  “With ease. And since the subject of lists has arisen, have you scrutinized your revised schedule for today? I transmitted it an hour ago.”

  “I'm sure my DM got it, but I haven't looked it over.”

  “Then I shall summarize. I canceled all your appointments for this week save for your usual daily failure with Cora.”

  “You did? Why?”

  You wouldn't think anything that appeared so alien could look smug, but L managed it. “Being reduced to fragments might be less than therapeutic for your clients.”

  I rubbed my tired eyes. “You're borrowing trouble. The bomb squad checked out this building from the roof down and the police have been watching the place nonstop since yesterday.” I didn't mention the government surveillance or the invisible bomber on yesterday's videos.

  “Are you familiar with the English phrase ‘better safe than sorry'?”

  “Oh. Point taken.”

  “Your gift of free time is adorned with lagniappe!” L shifted position to jut over the desk as if he were about to launch himself into space. “You now have the leisure to hear about my latest discovery. Doctor, are you familiar with the term ‘acronym'?”

  I stifled a groan. “Sure.”

  “Ah! Then did you know that acronyms were once referred to as ‘cable codes?’ “ L used the temporary limb to point at an open book in front of him, one of many on his desktop including both volumes of the compact OED. L had become a serious—make that an obsessed—student of human cultures and languages, which in turn had become a damn nuisance.

  “That I didn't know,” I stated with an abundant lack of enthusiasm.

  “If you wish to remember it, you only need memorize AWORTACC, which itself is an acronym standing for—”

  “Acronyms Were Once, etcetera. L, I'm starting to understand the way you think.”

  “Ah! Ah! But AWORTACC is not only an acronym. In this context it is also a pneumonic! A pneumonic is—”

  “Hate to interrupt,” I lied, “but what came in those crates over there in the corner?” The five large boxes in question were shiny and tan-colored, certainly not cardboard or wood. They all lay side-by-side, which made me suspect they were heavy.

  “A new patient. He, she, it, or something else, no judgment implied, arrived early this morning.”

  I glared at him. “Why can't you get it through your . . . look, you're supposed to call me the minute—oh hell, never mind.” I'd been down this road too many times before, and it always terminated in a dead end. Despite all my pleas, requests, and orders to inform me the instant a new alien patient arrived, L would never call me at home. He always had some rationale; perhaps the real reason involved religion.

  I'm probably handing you the wrong impression. I thought highly of L, and in most areas he was great at his job. True, his constant verbal games had gotten old enough for their beards to grow mustaches, but I loved to hear him talk about exotic beings he'd met and his own species, the Pokaroll. His take on psychological matters was always fascinating. An example? Well, he told me once that the most surprising thing that ever happens in a person's life is getting born, or in his case hatched, and that all artistic expression amounts to an attempt to handle the shock. Could be true—for Pokarolls, anyway. Back to my story!

  “How,” I asked through teeth trying to unclench, “did the boxes get here?”

  “A Tsf Trader brought them,” L said.

  I went from glaring to staring. “Just how long ago?”

  L didn't need to consult a timepiece any more than I did, but unlike me his internal chronometer was natural. “Three hours, no minutes, and twelve seconds.”

  “What did this Tsf say, exactly?”

  The translator emitted a rapid series of clicks—Tsf speech.

  Patience, Al, I told myself. “In English, please.”

  “Get on the horn, pal, and tell the Doc he's got ‘splainin’ to do.” Yep, sounded like a Tsf. Whoever had programmed their translation devices had squeezed in every cliche, slang term, tagline, and snowclone inflicted on the human race during the last century. As I'd once suspected but now knew, they'd been acting in strict accordance with the ET Operating Manual and had been monitoring our entertainment transmissions for decades.

  I glanced at the boxes again wondering which one, if any, had contained my new patient; they all appeared identical.

  “Did the Trader vouchsafe his or her name?” I asked, hoping that “vouchsafe” would keep L from his daily ritual of pestering me for a new word to play with.

  He generated a thin finger, used it to flip open the OED's P to Z volume, turned a few pages, extended an eye-stalk to study the practically microscopic letters, and made a little squeal of joy. “Yes! The Tsf vouchsafed the name Deal-of-ten-lifetimes.”

  “Deal! Haven't seen him since—”

  “Him is currently a her, Doctor, judging by the green cilia coloration.”

  “Got it. So what information did she leave me concerning the patient?”

  “She vouchsafed none.”

  I was already regretting forking over that particular word. But that wasn't my main problem. “Hang on. I'm supposed to be treating an alien I know nothing about? Again?" I'd also been vouchsafed no clues about Cora, my long-term patient who'd come with Tad, but the Tsf had only been indirectly inv
olved with that fiasco.

  “Perhaps you could discuss it with the Tsf herself?”

  I blinked a few times. “You mean Deal is stillhere? For God's sake, why didn't you say so right away?”

  “Why rush? Life is brief and the one thing we lack time for is excess haste.”

  I took a slow breath. “Where is she?”

  “Gara's demesne.”

  Well, I thought, at least Deal won't be the weirdest thing in that room.

  * * * *

  At the polished door to Gara's office, I faced my reflection and a decision. Should I follow shop practice and knock before entering, or obey Tsf protocol and walk in cold? Among Traders, only those who questioned their welcome would knock. So after glancing at the environment readout to make sure the office's present atmosphere wouldn't poison me, I touched the open-sesame plate and the door slid aside.

  This room, like every room in the building, was expansive with a sky-high ceiling; after all, some clients might be gigantic. Alien equipment edged the space with oddly curved surfaces in unexpected hues, all gleaming in the morning light through the tall windows that Gara needed, but not for seeing. Her spooky computer must've been put away in whatever en-suite pocket dimension Gara used for storage.

  It seemed Deal was the weirdest personage in the room, although I suppose Deal might've said the same about me. He was—she was—average size for a Tsf, a bit shorter than me while hogging more floor space, and that hadn't changed. Yet she looked so different just from the altered sexual coloration that without L's heads-up I might not have recognized him—damn it!—her. I gazed around more carefully and still couldn't spot my physical therapist, which didn't prove Gara was absent. The room had shadows and she could be doing her version of fly-on-the-wall.

  Deal stood in place, spinning fast enough to let most of her limbs extend straight out through centrifugal force. This gave me a splendid and unwanted peek at her gondola.

  What's a gondola? Sorry, of course you wouldn't know. It's this massive, corrugated structure where Tsf keep their brains, digestive organs, and a heap of fangs. No, you don't see them on DM-TV, or on the newswebs because Traders don't care to reveal that much of themselves, and the World Media Administration plays along. That's why the only parts of Tsf anatomy shown in broadcasts are the ten outer limbs with those seaweedlike fronds halfway down the curves. Just between us, the fronds are bundles of cilia; the longest cilia act as fingers, the medium-size ones are sensory organs, and the short hairs flip like switches, making the clickety-clicks of Tsf speech. Traders also have three thick central legs to protect and support their gondolas.

  If you ever actually met any Tsf, Pastor, I bet two things would surprise you: they smell just like curry, and their tiny clicking hairs can make one hell of a racket. I imagine the noise could bring a twinge of nostalgia to any retiree who'd once worked in a typist pool back in the days of manual typewriters.

  Deal stopped spinning and a few dozen of her optical cilia pointed at me. Wide bands of some elastic material encircled four of her limbs: Trader pockets. One pocket held a Tsf translator device. Deal started clicking and the translator spoke up.

  “Doc Morganson? That you?” The English came out in a parody of a western drawl, a new variation on a consistently bizarre theme.

  I smiled. “Tricky to tell humans apart, Deal-of-ten-lifetimes?”

  “No way. But I reckon your mug don't look the same.”

  “Probably all the new worry lines.” L, I thought, would love this conversation. How long has it been since “mug” was slang for face?

  Deal's optics stretched out a bit further and a score of additional eyes joined in to peer at me. “Matter o’ fact, you appear more buoyant than I recall. Of course, back at the corral, mostly I saw you lyin’ down on the job.”

  I nodded with sudden understanding. “Right. On your Parent Ship you mostly saw me on my self-propelled couch and in much heavier gravity.” Tsf evolved on a world with almost five times Earth's gravity and kept some of the extra squeeze on in their space station fulltime. “I must've looked more . . . saggy then. If you don't mind interrupting our reunion, where's the new patient?”

  After months of experiences with various Traders, I'd come to interpret Deal's minimalist twitch either as a sign of surprise or a gesture indicating contempt for my stupidity.

  “In the reception area,” Deal said. “You didn't notice them there crates?”

  I stared at her and not because of the fake-cowboy dialect. “You mean my patient is still packed in one of those boxes?”

  “In every dang one, you'd best believe.”

  Time out, I told myself.

  Ever run your Data Manager's CPU non-stop for a year or so? The whole system gets logy and little errors start popping up. In this case, my brain was the device needing a reboot. I'd forgotten my own number one rule for dealing with ETs: never make assumptions. That explosion hadn't taken me out, but apparently it had shorted my circuits.

  Maybe I swayed a little. The Trader placed limbs gently on both sides of my shoulders to add support. “What's the dealio, partner? You ain't ridin’ so steady in the saddle.”

  Distracted and irked with my own foolishness, I blurted out the question I hadn't dared ask for over a year. “Why the hell are Tsf translators programmed to make you Traders sound so hokey? It's annoying, not to mention frustrating. Do you know that some of the slang you throw around is so obsolete that I'd need my great-grandfather to tell me what it means?” Of course, I was instantly ashamed of myself, and I hadn't even been honest. Usually, I enjoy the varied quirkiness of Trader speech.

  Deal stopped clicking. When she resumed, the voice from the translator sounded entirely different. “My dear Doctor, the programming is precisely calibrated, I assure you. We are Traders and our goal is profit, mutual profit whenever possible. We calculated that by configuring our speech patterns to make us sound colorful we would ease human reactions to our obvious physical, mental, and technological superiorities.”

  “I see. Smart.” And how very cynical.

  “We have learned that ease between species lubricates the friction of trade. With particularly frail species, we do our utmost to project harmlessness.”

  I tried to keep my face from expressing disappointment that Trader zaniness was all for show. Perhaps Deal couldn't read human non-verbal cues, but considering what I'd just learned about Trader shrewdness, I wasn't betting on it. “As to the patient, shouldn't we do some, um, unpacking?”

  “Indeed, but first I suggest you examine this item.”

  She pulled what appeared to be a small cylinder from one of her elastic bands and gave it a tap. The cylinder unfolded and unrolled into a wide, stiff sheet of thin plastic. Deal passed the sheet over to me. It weighed almost nothing and for a moment was entirely blank. Then embossed patterns developed on its surface and the patterns darkened into elaborate illustrations that resembled, more than anything, those horrid pictorial assembly instructions included in kits from, say, Ikea.

  “Touch an illustration,” Deal suggested.

  “Okay.” It was distinctly warmer than the surrounding plastic, and the embossing felt taller than it looked. Also, it vibrated slightly under my finger. “Interesting. So this is a . . . one-size-fits-all-senses instruction sheet?”

  “Our conclusion exactly, Doctor. The beings who sent us this document were clearly unsure about the nature of our sensory organs so they allowed for an assortment of possibilities. Even the color contains self-illuminated wavelengths well beyond my perceptions.”

  “Huh. I just see an intense brown.” I squinted at the drawings. “When this machine is put together, is it supposed to be a life-support unit for my patient?”

  “We believe the machine is your patient although it appears to be what you refer to as a ‘robot.’ If we obey these diagrams, you will learn why I have brought this problem to you.”

  I studied the illustrations more carefully. They were laid out in a spiral pattern, but the a
ssembly order was obvious from the way the robot—assuming that's what it was—became progressively more elaborate. The reverse side of the sheet had a lengthy parts list. Even with twelve arms including my two, putting this thing together wouldn't be a quick job. I checked the time.

  Not wanting any virtual buzzers, gongs, or even a quiet internal word to further abrade my nerves, I had my DM place a countdown stopwatch at one edge of my vision, where I couldn't forget it, yet it wouldn't block my view. I set this timer for an hour and twelve minutes and started it running, further validating my self-diagnosis of a mild case of OCD since I had no good reason to meet with Cora at that specific time every workday. But that was my schedule, and I was sticking to it.

  “How heavy are those boxes?” I asked.

  “When full, some outweigh us both while others are less massive. In either case, they are easy to transport due to the adaptable material coating the bottom surfaces. Apply steady pressure to any side, and those surfaces become frictionless.”

  “Slippery when pushed?”

  “So I said. I assume from your query concerning weight that you wish to open these containers in another location?”

  “I do. If this robot really needs my . . . services, I'd like to build it in one of the rooms dedicated to extraterrestrial patients.”

  “That is sensible since the automaton, once complete, will be far more challenging to transport. This will require several trips if we work alone.”

  Tad could help, theoretically, but the fastest road to chaos I'd ever found was to have her help; her grasp of any job tended to be more miss than hit. L knew to distract Tad if she showed up, so I wanted him at his desk. And Gara was nowhere in sight.

  “Let's do it ourselves.”

  “Then we shall begin.”

  Deal was right about the boxes sliding along easily, although it took a while to get them moving, and the heavier ones adored sliding straight when you wanted them to turn. Still, five minutes later they were all sitting pretty in one of my controlled-environment rooms.