I'm so glad you agreed to step away from that holoimage for a few hours, Ember-Musk misted.
I've gotten nowhere the past few days with the motion language, if that's what it is. The alien's gestures appear random, almost as if accentuating the smell of a powerful aroma.
A cool breeze blew, and the ground shook. All of the surrounding couples lowered their center legs to maintain their balance until the tremors passed while Ember-Musk lowered himself to his neck in the warm waters. Don't worry, wife. I'll pray for more inspiration.
Why would the aliens hide a hologram within the gaps of their primary transmission? Why encrypt a message within a message? Scent-of-Moss scented. What is this creature trying to communicate to us?
Ember-Musk didn't respond. Scent-of-Moss was with him at this moment, but only physically. He pressed his back against the smooth sandstone sides of the bathing crater, enjoying the magnified tingling sensation whenever the ground shook. While normal seismic activity caused the ground to tremble regularly, whenever a temblor struck, the vibrations increased dramatically. He enjoyed how they caused the searing bathwaters to swirl.
After a few moments, Ember-Musk released the soporific scent of damp greenwood through his facial pores and gently broached the subject he had avoided for far too long: I'm worried about us.
What do you mean?
You hardly ever join me for prayer any more, he scented. And this is the first time you've stepped away from the project in months. It seems that that's all you care about these days...
In response, she released the bitter scent of fresh Barzelian droppings: Ember-Musk, beloved, this has nothing to do with my feelings for you. Beneath the boiling waters Scent-of-Moss pressed her carapace closely against his. This ship is the greatest discovery in history. To finally learn that we're not alone in the cosmos! To have the answers to so many questions so close at hand! Now isn't the time for me to be diverted by prayer.
Wife, how can you scent such a thing...?
Prayer didn't lead to the discovery of the alien ship in orbit last year. Prayer didn't help me discover this encrypted holomessage.
Well I prayed for it, wife, Ember-Musk scented. I prayed for a breakthrough, and it happened.
She released a thick, skeptical fog: You can't rely on faith alone to understand the universe, my husband.
I never scented that. If there's one thing the Prophecies teach us, Ember-Musk sprayed, it's that every successful union requires ... balance. This is why the wife's focus is naturalistic while the husband's is supernaturalistic. He placed his fore-arms on her shoulders. Please, let me be a good husband. Don't shut me out.
They scented nothing for a long while. A child ran past their bathing crater in the direction of the community caverns.
Do you think the alien might be a child? Scent-of-Moss misted. It has no exoskeleton...
Ember-Musk reached for the bucket of rancicus he had prepared, Scent-of-Moss's favorite, and dunked a brush into it.
Enough about the alien. Let's eat, he misted. He slathered a thick layer of food across her face, neck and shoulders. Her pores flared and she ingurgitated heartily.
Blue lightning flashed across the sky. More children skittered into the caverns as razor-sharp hail began to fall. He and Scent-of-Moss lifted their arms out of the waters, exposing them to the vibrating hail, which scraped their crystal protrusions and created intricate patterns in them. A hail-shard occasionally found smooth skin and embedded itself, starting the formation of a new crystal.
As they lay there, Ember-Musk smelled a cloud of contentment enveloping them for the first time in months. He fervently wished that this moment would last forever, that nothing would ever change between him and his beloved. But just as he finished this thought, he sniffed a faint trace of restlessness emanating from Scent-of-Moss, whose thoughts no doubt had turned once again to the mystery of the messages within messages being transmitted by the alien vessel.
* * * *
Ember-Musk left the worship-stones on the basalt shelves and decided to go see Scent-of-Moss in the fore-cavern. She was supposed to have joined him for a prayer session an hour earlier. He had coated himself with a new layer of red paint and felt refreshed and beautiful.
When he entered the work-cavern, he observed her books and metal tools—the magnifiers, power cells, genetic analyzers and translation devices he couldn't recognize—strewn about.
Scent-of-Moss stared motionless at the alien's holoimage, which continued to emit the same irritating vibration. When she sensed his approach, rows of pores on her shoulders opened and a fog of frustration filled the air.
He decided not to nag about the missed prayer session.
Scent-of-Moss then activated a second projector and the holoimage of Tang-of-Mint, the Lead Naturalist, appeared. Tang-of-Mint was responsible for collecting and synthesizing each deciphering duo's findings, and he filed regular progress reports all decipherers could access. The projector's circular base spun slowly—first left, then right, then left again—spraying a mélange of highly technical odors Ember-Musk had trouble following.
After Scent-of-Moss finished sniffing the report, she turned to him. There's been no progress deciphering the holomessage, but other teams have made some headway with the written text in the primary transmission, she misted. They've also analyzed the alien's movements and theorize that instead of an exoskeleton it has an internal frame beneath its rubbery covering.
Ember-Musk jetted an acrid puff of doubt. Internal? That defeats the purpose of an exoskeleton.
The varying coloration of its face also suggests that it has a circulatory system like ours, though it's difficult to tell where its pump is located, Scent-of-Moss scented.
Ember-Musk released the scent of a sandy shore at high tide.
It's so smooth and delicate, she sprayed.
He gently scraped her rear-arms to relax her.
It's perfectly symmetrical, she continued. Just like us, only it has a single arm and leg on each side rather than two. And it has only one eye. No corresponding one exists on the right side if its face.
The single eye is certainly unusual, Ember-Musk scented. What about those thin transparent tubes it sometimes attaches to its arms?
The tubes may be decorative, like the fabrics in which they sheathe themselves, Scent-of-Moss answered.
Ember-Musk reached out and gently moved his right fore-hand through the holoimage, tracing the outline of the alien's diminutive, almost vestigial, snout. He imagined how such a soft, fleshy being might feel. Shuddering, he pulled his fore-hand away and rested it on the projector base.
Scent-of-Moss, he scented. The projector is ... vibrating. Is it damaged?
No, it appears to be a defect with the transmission itself. I detected it a few days ago, but haven't been able to clear it up. For all their technological achievements, the aliens aren't infallible apparently.
Scent-of-Moss turned the projector's dial and another message entry began. The alien had changed the colors of its peculiar fabrics, but otherwise stood there the same as always, scentless, silent.
* * * *
—holo-seg 11 of 15 [] shiptime 13:24:35 [] 11/19/2251—
The stalemate dissolved as the ranks of the Reviled grew exponentially. While the Fissure continued to spew them out, our casualties increased to the tens of millions and continued rising.
I've seen it firsthand. I've seen up close the way the enemy kills. I've seen them...
Dear God, help me forget, help me forget...
* * * *
Are you certain that its motions don't convey a message, wife? See how it covers its facial cavity with its hand and lowers its head? Ember-Musk misted.
* * * *
It's beyond horrible, beyond monstrous. Their sharp, black tongues pierce the jugular. The victim alternates between gagging and shrieking, while...
Carla, oh, Carla...
* * * *
Yes, its shoulders also shudder during this section, Ember-musk, S
cent-of-Moss misted.
The transmission now seems to be operating normally. The projector has stopped shaking, Ember-Musk sprayed, his hand on the circular base. No, wait, it's begun vibrating again...
Damn them! Damn their twisted smiles! Monsters, aliens, demons, what difference does it make? In the end, they destroyed my life, they obliterated our civilization! And for what purpose?
What were they feeling? What were they thinking?
[ ... ]
Breathe. Breathe.
I've got to get a hold of myself. I have to focus. I have to finish. My personal history is irrelevant. My life is irrelevant. What matters is the larger picture.
[ ... ]
Six domed cities fell when the Reviled somehow secured an invitation from soldiers posted near the entrances. Since the creatures didn't speak, many people speculated that the Reviled had the ability to mesmerize human beings over short distances, to manipulate them into extending invitations or otherwise doing their bidding. I don't believe this. Not when there was a simpler explanation. You see, we learned through deadly trial and error that simply verbalizing a welcome wasn't sufficient. To be effective, the invitation had to be sincere, heartfelt. And despite all that we suffered, everything we'd lost, there would always be some person who harbored a secret curiosity to see the Reviled, to try to communicate with them. It's part of our nature, I suppose. It shouldn't have surprised us that a trucker or some soldier, one out of thousands stationed at a city entrance, might succumb to the temptation to invite them in.
I have to confess, of all the characteristics of the Reviled, it is this matter of the invitation that perplexed us most of all. Why would a predator stop in its tracks to ask for its prey's permission? The common belief among my people was that the Reviled were demons, cursed by God to roam the universe forever seeking the consent of potential victims who would never give it. Humanity, however, just couldn't resist the temptation of evil.
I don't believe in curses. I don't believe in demons. But I do believe in God, just not a cruel God who stacks the decks against us and lays traps for us that we can't overcome. I believe in a God who's created a universe with rules, and that He's blessed us with an understanding of the scientific method that allows us to make sense of that universe.
So why then do the Reviled need an invitation? I don't believe the answer to that question can be found in the hard sciences. Nothing physical prevents them from entering. No, I'm convinced it has sociological, psychological origins in their alien culture. It must be based on some deep-rooted ritual, some rigid societal stigma, something so outside our experience that it seems nonsensical at first blush, but really isn't. We simply lack the context to understand it.
Once the Reviled secured invitations, they stormed the city entrances. But they didn't get far under the constant glare of the sun simulators, which kept them at bay.
Other cities responded by taking the preventative measure of stationing teams consisting solely of warbots—immune to temptation, immune to curiosity and betrayal—near every point of entrance and egress.
In the decade that followed, while chaos erupted around us, our team continued the construction of The Deliverance. In the meantime, another stalemate of sorts was reached. Humanity relegated itself to fifty-eight slowly expanding domed cities, while the Reviled inherited the rest of the physical world: the mountains, the deserts, the oceans. Earth's remaining animal population thrived, except for chimpanzees, gorillas and other Great Apes, which were reportedly exterminated. From their behavior, it was clear that the Reviled had their eyes set only on higher forms of life as their source of sustenance. Many wondered about dolphins and whales, whether the Reviled had ventured into the ocean's depths to annihilate them too. This confirmed the theory that it wasn't blood per se that they lusted after, but the lifeblood of sentient beings.
During the misguided armistice attempt of the 2240s, we actually manufactured artificial blood to supply to them. Maybe they were just hungry, some had reasoned. But the bags of blood remained untouched, and negotiating with an implacable, silent foe proved impossible.
* * * *
Ember-Musk, I believe that these aliens normally have two eyes. Judging from the discolored tissue on the right side of its face where the second eye should be, I think it may be injured, Scent-of-Moss misted.
Wife, these vibrations the projector base generates ... Have you noticed that they seem to coincide with the pulsing of its facial cavity? Did you ever consider...?
What?
Did you ever consider that it might not be a malfunction? Perhaps this tingling is itself a form of communication.
The pores on Scent-of-Moss's shoulders opened wide and the thick, inspired aroma of moist, mint-fresh lichen permeated the work-cavern.
Ember-Musk turned the dial again. They both leaned forward and placed their open hands directly on the projector-base to better feel the vibrations.
* * * *
—holo-seg 12 of 15 [] shiptime 13:24:35 [] 11/20/2251—
Our planes rained napalm bombs on their approaching masses outside the city perimeter. But the Reviled countered by digging bunkers in which they took cover and waited for the fires to subside; carbon monoxide from the raging chemical fires had no effect on them. A section of one city's dome came down in flames when thousands of the Reviled hurled their blazing bodies at the structure.
And still their numbers continued to increase.
As we grew more and more desperate, we tried every conceivable strategy to destroy them. Biologists designed a deadly strain of super-leukemia that killed in a matter of days and implanted the cancer cells in our frontline soldiers. We exterminated thousands of the creatures in this manner, for the Reviled couldn't resist feeding on them—even when it surely must have become obvious the soldiers were poisoned. But ultimately, the most effective way to kill them required us to sacrifice our own people—an unacceptable approach given the sheer number of enemy forces that continued to flood through the Fissure.
Eventually, we developed an airborne virus that targeted white blood cells—since they consumed blood, we reasoned, maybe this would affect them. We loaded the virus onto bombs that we dropped in the vicinity of their bunkers. The city's entrances had to be bio-sealed to protect the general population, but we exterminated hundreds of thousands of the Reviled in this manner. Countless motes of fine, golden dust scattered in the wind.
In response, the Reviled launched their most ruthless counteroffensive of all.
* * * *
Ember-Musk entered the fore-cavern and Scent-of-Moss immediately emitted the excited stink of burning sap-scum: Your hunch was right, Ember-Musk! There's no question, the pattern of vibrations is a sophisticated form of communication. The opening and closing of the large orifice below its snout corresponds with the patterns, suggesting that part of the alien's internal anatomy allows it to generate the vibrations! I've informed Tang-of-Mint and he's notified the other teams. We've got everyone working on analyzing these patterns...
How is such a thing possible? Ember-Musk scented. Wouldn't its world's natural seismic and weather activity mask this type of communication?
Perhaps they evolved on a planet less geologically active than ours, Scent-of-Moss answered. One where it might be feasible to utilize such a complex and tenuous form of communication.
True, it has no center leg to stabilize itself. But still, how would they communicate over even modest distances?
In the same way we have pores, they must have biological vibration detectors, Ember-Musk! It's the only thing that makes sense.
He had never breathed such excitement from Scent-of-Moss before. Behind her, the image of the inscrutable one-eyed alien continued flaring its face-cavity, gesticulating wildly.
* * * *
—holo-seg 13 of 15 [] shiptime 09:03:22 [] 11/22/2251—
While we frantically made final preparations to board The Deliverance for liftoff, the reports from other cities came streaming in. The Reviled h
ad uncovered the early programming designs for the warbots in laboratories and research facilities outside of the domed cities. Within weeks, they had developed their own warbot prototype and launched a coordinated assault against forty of the fifty-eight domed cities. Their warbots, requiring no invitation to barrel through the city perimeter, squared off against our own AI devices and eventually, in the resulting pandemonium, soldiers were dragged off and somehow compelled to extend invitations. Clad in black, high-tech skinsuits and goggles that shielded them from the sun simulators, the Reviled stormed the cities like giant, mutant rats, day and night, with no letup.
How can I possibly convey to you the utter turmoil, the total panic in the air...?
Once they'd destroyed the sun-simulators, the dark, enclosed cities served as perfect holding pens for their—there's no other word for it—livestock. They reveled in the enclosed quarters, silently gorging themselves.
[ ... ]
One by one the cities fell until eventually, just a few days prior to The Deliverance's scheduled liftoff from New Houston, the warbots of the Reviled crashed through the frontline defenses. Within hours, we were defeated.
How I wish the story ended there.
[ ... ]
Why? Why did you forsake us, God? Why did you abandon us to their depravities? Didn't you hear our prayers? Were we so utterly unworthy?
* * * *
Wife? Ember-Musk scented. He stepped into the fore-cavern to deliver the news.
It's slow going, Scent-of-Moss misted absentmindedly as she gazed intently at the holoimage, but I've managed to enhance the vibrations. Others have started to break down tiny bits of information.
Wife, he scented, a message came through from Tang-of-Mint a few moments ago. The Council has called another meeting. He stepped between her and the holoimage and finally got her attention. One of the other deciphering teams ... he scented. They've decoded the primary transmission.
* * * *
When they entered the yawning Grand Glacial Cavern, the sweet-sour tang of lingering curiosity swirled in the air. The decipherers who had decoded the primary transmission had not yet arrived.
Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #214 Page 15