The Terrans

by Jean Johnson

  “The darker-skinned male with the short black hair is Commander Robert Graves—you would say Captain Superior, I think. Robert is our chief pilot, and he holds a military rank equal to my rank of Major, save that his is associated with piloting,” she glossed over. “The dark-skinned woman is Lieutenant Commander Ayinda Mbani; Ayinda is our navigator and her rank would be equal to your rank of Captain. Behind them, the short-haired blond male, is Lieutenant First Grade Brad Colvers, copilot to Robert. Brad’s rank is the equivalent of a Leftenant Superior.

  “The lady with the black hair is Dr. Maria de la Santoya, a civilian contracted to work with the Space Force, and the long-haired blond fellow here is Specialist Lars Thorsson, our mission geophysicist and backup navigator. In military terms, I function as the communications officer, and now that we have made First Contact with non-Terrans, in both military and civilian terms, I am in charge of this mission.”

  Jackie made sure to speak slowly and carefully, at a measured pace, so that her companions could pick out their titles and names and give a friendly wave to match face and body to name and rank or designation. Everyone looked at each other, giving little nods, then Brad spoke.

  “I’m going back to the cockpit. I’ll send Maria in to greet everyone.”

  “Good idea, thank you. She can give us a report on their health,” Jackie added. “Maria will be joining us shortly. I’ll introduce you to her, then translate while she discusses your health. We have been presuming that you are somehow fellow Human beings like ourselves—that is the name we call our own species—but we are not yet completely sure. She will have more information from her monitoring efforts.”

  “Captain Ma’an-uq’en swore that we’d be rescued by a powerful new set of allies,” Ba’oul stated while they waited. “But if you will forgive my initial impressions, you do not seem very advanced, and thus not very powerful. You seem powerful, as a Great One, with your holy abilities, but . . . you don’t even have artificial gravity.”

  “True, but we have only just begun to learn things about each other,” Jackie countered as Maria poked her head in through one of the hatches. “Time and more language transfers are required before we can learn more. There you are, Doctor.” She quickly ran through the introductions of the others, adding, “. . . and I have told them who you are, and that I will translate your health report on each of them.”

  Maria blinked, drew in a breath, and shrugged, gripping the edge of the doorway to keep herself floating in place. “They all have a little bit of nutrition deficiency, but not by much. That captain of theirs will need to eat when he wakes up, but otherwise they are all quite physically healthy. Psychologically, you would know better than I. No outward signs yet of microbial infection from our germs to theirs, though their immune systems have been stirred. I’ve been having them swap medbands with the others in the crew so that our own health can be monitored—I can’t wait to get back to the station so I can monitor everyone because that’s the only place that has enough bracelets, plus better equipment.

  “We might suffer some sort of cold or fever in the next week or so. It depends on how quickly and how well our immune systems can recognize the intruders and fight them off—we could be very sick, going into quarantine, or we could be just fine. We had three spare bracelets, but we really needed two more on this mission. Robert, hand your medband to Jackie; she’s been in physical contact the longest.”

  Peeling it off, he sent it tumbling gently along the length of the cabin. Jackie didn’t even have to guide it telekinetically, but then their pilot had plenty of experience at maneuvering in zero-G conditions, including sending things to companions across a cabin. Catching the band carefully, Jackie latched it over her left wrist, just in front of her ident bracelet.

  Maria nodded in thanks and continued. “My medical opinion is that we need to hurry back to MacArthur to get into quarantine, where we can have access to a much greater array of medical aid and be monitored much more thoroughly. The longer we delay, the worse our bodies will suffer from the effects of hyperspace sickness and disease-based sickness. The combination is rarely pleasant.”

  “Are they Human, though?” Jackie asked.

  “The DNA scanner says they are”—the doctor shrugged, flipping up her hands—“though I suspect all of them have a little bit of extra code in their genes. I suspect it’s to make them look like they were painting twentieth-century ‘modern’ art on themselves,” Maria added dryly. “That much, I’ve been able to determine, is not paint. Well, the one with the red stripes has some sort of paint on his face, but the rest of them are all just . . . dirty? They’ve been caged up without a bath for a while now . . . in case you haven’t smelled it.”

  “Be respectful, Doctor,” Jackie admonished, watching Maria wrinkle her nose. “They didn’t exactly have a choice in facilities. And from what I understand, the jungen as they call it is something which everyone is infected with from the womb onward, and which after a weeklong fever, marks them with these colors and patterns. I haven’t found out the reason why just yet, but there is one, I am sure.” Switching languages, she said, “Our doctor says that you are indeed fellow Humans as far as we can tell. This means that we will be able to render medical aid. For the moment, you appear to be mostly healthy, but each side is now exchanging pathogens, viruses and bacteria. We will each likely be sick for a while, some more so than others.

  “It is important that we get this ship back to a space station with proper quarantine facilities, where we can be monitored by several professionals. Our method of interstellar travel accelerates biological processes, making us hungry, thirsty, nauseated, and so forth. It is a very swift form of flight, but can only be undertaken safely in short hops. We will be able to get under way as soon as your captain has awakened and eaten, and the doctor has checked him to make sure he isn’t . . . uh . . .”

  Jackie found herself blinking and trying to sift through the thousands upon thousands of words she had learned. After several seconds, she gave up and used different phrasing to work around the fact that the V’Dan didn’t seem to have the word for allergic.

  “. . . We will make sure before we jump that he is not suffering from any food-borne illness. It is important for his ability to communicate that he be allowed to sleep at least three hours, so we will have that much longer to wait before making the first of several jumps. It will take us approximately ten jumps, and more than two days—Terran days, we don’t know what your time units are, just yet—to get back to our base station,” Jackie explained. “We limit multiple jumps to three or four at a time, with several hours’ rest in between because they do strain our biology. Undertaken in moderate, well-spaced amounts, they do not pose any significant risk of bodily harm. We do not take any risks with yourselves that we do not undertake ourselves, and those risks have already been minimized.

  “The doctor will want us to take just one jump, then monitor your health for a while, to see how well your biology reacts to a full jump, rather than the tiny one we endured getting ourselves beyond the range of the Salik.” Switching languages, she said, “Maria, my apologies, but you were thinking rather loudly that you just want one long jump with a pause first, to monitor their health, before undertaking three hyperspace jumps in a row. I took the liberty of informing them that this is what we will do.”

  “De nada,” Maria dismissed in Spanish, lifting a hand. “I’m not Colvers, to fuss over someone overhearing my loudest thoughts. It is no different for a telepath in such moments than for a regular person overhearing a conversation in the next room. You cannot help it, not when I’m the one stressing my thoughts . . . perhaps even in the hopes you would overhear.”

  “Gracias,” Jackie returned, grateful for her understanding.

  “De nada,” Maria repeated, and grinned. Then dropped her grin and pointed her finger. “And I need you to eat something again. You just expended another large amount of your inner resources, transferring a language. When will it be safe for you to do a
nother round? So far only you and Sleeping Beauty in the next cabin over can interact with these people.”

  Jackie nodded and held up a finger, switching languages. “I will need to eat something, then I will have enough energy for one more transfer before we will make the first jump, at which point I must eat again, and sleep. As we will be stuck with each other for several eating-and-sleeping cycles, and as this is not a formal moment, I am going to state that it is socially and culturally acceptable to use our first or given names, not family names and ranks or titles, from this point forward, until we are once again in a formal situation of introduction and formal negotiation. Which will not happen for a while, as I have said.

  “With that in mind, Dai’a, I would like you to be the next person to receive a language transfer. Will you give me permission?” Jackie asked politely.

  “I am the next-in-charge. You will give this language to me,” Shi’ol stated sharply.

  “You are currently being watched very carefully to see just how arrogant and offensive you might act,” Jackie returned neutrally. “Your language transfer will wait until after I have had a chance to consult with your superior officer as to how to deal with you. Please take the intervening time to review how you have chosen to address me, how you have spoken about myself and the other Terrans, and please think carefully on exactly what sort of impression you are giving us Terrans on what the V’Dan Empire is like in how it treats the strangers it meets. In the meantime, I thank you for whatever patience, courtesy, and discretion you do display.”

  “It is you who must impress me, as the current representative of our government,” Shi’ol countered, chin lifting a little.

  “According to what I learned from your own captain, you have not been granted any legal authority to claim any sort of representational position. Only he, as the military superior in this group, has that right of representation—I did not learn everything of your culture, but he was careful to inform me of that much,” Jackie replied levelly. “I wondered at first why he was so careful to insist upon that . . . but now I do not wonder nearly as much.”

  Spots of pink appeared on the other woman’s cheeks, clashing a little with her grass-green spot clusters.

  Dai’a spoke up before Shi’ol could, dragging the topic back to Jackie’s question. “Will this language transfer thing hurt?”

  “You may have a headache, and your dreams will be awkward for a week or so. You must also speak as much as possible in the language once it is learned, using it more often than your own tongue, to make sure it sets itself in your mind,” Jackie cautioned her and her fellow V’Dan. “It will be as exhausting as running a long race, the kind that takes hours to travel, for all that it will be mental running. But it will be worth it.

  “First, I will teach all of you to speak our main trade language, Terranglo. Then I will teach the members of my crew how to speak V’Dan, along with the observers who will be watching over us in quarantine. Oh—please forgive me, as I almost forgot,” Jackie added, wincing a little internally. “Everything you do—which all of us will be doing—from the moment you came into view of my helmet cameras to the moment that quarantine ends will be recorded and observed. This is not meant as an invasion of your privacy but rather as a safety procedure.

  “At no point will any of those recordings leave Space Force Special Forces Judge Advocate General jurisdiction—that’s the legal and ethics division of our military. There may be requests for publicly accessed interview recordings,” Jackie added, “but unless there’s an act of lawbreaking involved, if you choose to refuse, our laws will help enforce your decisions on the right to relative privacy. We would not monitor anything if it weren’t for the fact that we need to monitor for cross-contaminating illnesses, health-wise. For everyone’s safety, yours and ours, that level of monitoring cannot be refused. Please take reassurance that we six will also be under that exact same level of scrutiny for that same reason as well.

  “Additionally . . . though we do not assume that you are, we do realize you are a new group, with an entirely new culture and attitudes, and the military will want to make sure you don’t turn out to be insane, brutal murderers at some point,” she finished, injecting a touch of humor into her tone. “We’re hoping that you are not, and we believe these are reasonable precautions that your own military and government would want to take, so it’s only fair to our way of thinking. Our ethics, however, require us to mention it up front.”

  “. . . Right,” V’kol stated. “Well, it’s good to know that, as you snoop upon us, you have some ethics—this is what we call mild sarcasm,” he added. “No true offense is meant.”

  Jackie smiled. “None taken. Irony is endemic among our shared species. Dai’a, have you made up your mind? Would you like to be one of the first interpreters for your people, alongside your captain?”

  “If it doesn’t hurt,” the green-and-cream-striped woman offered hesitantly. “Then . . . yes, please?”

  Jackie nodded. “I’ll do it as soon as I have eaten.” Switching languages back to Terranglo, she said, “I’ll be getting some food, doing a language transfer on Dai’a, here, and by the time it’s done, Li’eth should have awakened, had time to eat, and then we can jump. Dai’a and I will sleep while the doctor monitors everyone for a few hours, then we’ll string a few jumps, everyone will rest for a bit, then I’ll transfer a few more languages. First the V’Dan—they call themselves, their language, and their planet V’Dan—and then I’ll take two volunteers among our own crew to learn their language. By that point, we should be within hopping distance of MacArthur Station, whereupon we can all have a nice hot shower, a long nap, and I can begin transferring languages to everyone else.”

  Robert and Ayinda nodded, and turned to leave the cabin. Maria ducked out of their way, then pulled her head and shoulders back inside the crew compartment. “I’ve already begun sending biology readings of our guests back to the medical staff on the station. They are all lividly curious to know how these fellow Humans came to be, with their colorful hides, their extraneous genetic markers, and whatever led to them being on that other alien race’s ship.”

  “They’re called the Salik, and they are even more nasty than the precognitive visions implied,” Jackie stated. She smothered a yawn. “. . . Pardon me. Right now, I really need food, I need to get Dai’a’s translation session going, and all the rest can wait until we’ve caught up well enough that most everyone can actually talk to each other, rather than relying upon just one or two of us to translate.”

  “Agreed.” Maria pointed at the kitchen compartment. “Go. Eat. Don’t make me shake my finger at you.”

  Jackie pulled herself toward the back door, so she didn’t have to float through and bump against the others. “Yes, Doctor. Of course, Doctor. On my way, Doctor.”

  “And no sass!”

  “Whatever you say, Doctor.”

  CHAPTER 7

  JANUARY 29, 2287 C.E.

  CPP 17BETA SYSTEM

  Nauseated groans erupted around her as they bumped back into realspace. Jackie reached for the electrolyte pack clipped next to her acceleration seat, twisted the straw to break the seal, and started sucking on the contents. She heard a couple of the others fumbling for them as instructed, and one who fumbled for a spacesickness bag, though after breathing slow, controlled breaths for a few moments, Ba’oul did not actually retch.

  This time, she was seated with all five of their guests, as the one person who could translate V’Dan. On the first leg of their escape, she had been needed up front to use the hyperrelay’s emergency channels to contact Premiere Callan, Admiral-General Kurtz, and Admiral Nayak to discuss what to do with this unanticipated First Contact situation. True aliens were one thing, but Human “aliens” were another.

  Admiral Nayak and Admiral-General Kurtz had argued against teaching the non-Terran Humans how to speak and understand Terranglo. Callan and Jackie had argued for giving them that information, so that they could at the very least be
able to read emergency-procedure flyers and be able to communicate with anyone they encountered while guests of the United Planets. She had also explained that it was difficult to transfer only one language at a time and not exchange both languages.

  In the end, Jackie had requested the Premiere—Commander-in-Chief of the Space Force—to make a final ruling. He had put his foot down, supporting her decision to teach Terranglo as well as learn V’Dan.

  Gently, in V’Dan, she said, “Keep breathing, slow and steady. Remember to drink the liquid in small sips at first. Keep drinking it so long as it tastes good. The doctor will be here shortly.”

  “What was that awful ride?” Shi’ol asked. She sounded far more miserable than arrogant, at least. “Traveling faster-than-light never feels that awful.”

  “Yes, why does the ship have to shake?” Dai’a added. “I still feel nauseated by it.”

  “It’s . . . some sort of very strange travel method,” Li’eth tried to explain. “Some sort of tunnel . . .”

  “It is called ‘hyperspace’ in your tongue, and it’s an offshoot of mathematics, along the lines of cosmic strings and space-folding theory,” Jackie explained, removing the straw from her mouth. “We use a great deal of energy tuned in a very special way to force space to bend and connect two points together in a sort of cosmic tunnel, and we force it wide enough so that a ship of this size can go through. The bigger the ship, the larger the tunnel needed, the shorter distance that can be traveled and the slower the ship has to go, with an upper limit on how fast and how far.”

  “How fast and how far is how fast and how far?” V’kol asked. “Do you know the speed of light in the vacuum of space? Can you use that for a reference?”

  “Oh Tee Ell, which in Terranglo is shorthand for other-than-light,” Jackie explained, “can create a hyperrift—cosmic wormhole—big enough to let a ship of approximately this one’s size travel at a distance of roughly two Human resting heartbeats per light-year, with a year being the time it takes for our main world, the one our species evolved upon, to travel a full circle around its parent star. As for how long a Terran year is compared to a V’Dan . . . we don’t know that yet, but I can tell you that we normally sleep 365 times in a single year, give or take a day every so many years.”