by Keith Laumer
me."Captain, I get a figure of over a hundred million tons mass; andcalibrating the scope images gives us a length of nearly two miles."
I let that sink in. I had a strong and very empty feeling that thisship, if ship it were, was not an envoy from any human colony.
The annunciator hummed and spoke. "Captain, I'm getting a very shortwave transmission from a point out on the starboard bow. Does that soundlike your torpedo?" It was Mannion.
"That's it, Mannion," I said. "Can you make anything of it?"
"No, sir," he answered. "I'm taping it, so I can go to work on it."
Mannion was our language and code man. I hoped he was good.
"What does it sound like," I asked. "Tune me in."
After a moment a high hum came from the speaker. Through it I could hearharsh chopping consonants, a whining intonation. I doubted that Mannionwould be able to make anything of that gargle.
Our Bogie closed steadily. At four hundred twenty-five miles he reversedrelative directions, and began matching our speed, moving closer to ourcourse. There was no doubt he planned to parallel us.
I made a brief announcement to all hands describing the status of theaction. Clay worked over his televideo, trying to clear the image. Iwatched as the blob on the screen swelled and flickered. Suddenly itflashed into clear stark definition. Against a background of sparklingblack, the twin spheres gleamed faintly in reflected starlight.
There were no visible surface features; the iodine-colored forms andtheir connecting shaft had an ancient and alien look.
We held our course steadily, watching the stranger maneuver. Even atthis distance it looked huge.
"Captain," Clay said, "I've been making a few rough calculations. Thetwo spheres are about 800 yards in diameter, and at the rate thestructure is rotating it's pulling about six gravities."
That settled the question of human origin of the ship. No human crewwould choose to work under six gee's.
Now, paralleling us at just over two hundred miles, the giant ship spunalong, at rest relative to us. It was visible now through the directobservation panel, without magnification.
* * * * *
I left Clay in charge on the bridge, and I went down to the Com Section.
Joyce sat at his board, reading instruments and keying controls. So hewas back on the job. Mannion sat, head bent, monitoring his recorder.The room was filled with the keening staccato of the alien transmission.
"Getting anything on video?" I asked. Joyce shook his head. "Nothing,Captain. I've checked the whole spectrum, and this is all I get. It'scoming in on about a dozen different frequencies; no FM."
"Any progress, Mannion?" I said.
He took off his headset. "It's the same thing, repeated over and over,just a short phrase. I'd have better luck if they'd vary it a little."
"Try sending," I said.
Joyce tuned the clatter down to a faint clicking, and switched histransmitter on. "You're on, Captain," he said.
"This is Captain Greylorn, UNACV Galahad; kindly identify yourself." Irepeated this slowly, half a dozen times. It occurred to me that thiswas the first known time in history a human being had addressed anon-human intelligence. The last was a guess, but I couldn't interpretour guest's purposeful maneuverings as other than intelligent.
I checked with the bridge; no change. Suddenly the clatter stopped,leaving only the carrier hum.
"Can't you tune that whine out, Joyce?" I asked.
"No, sir," he replied. "That's a very noisy transmission. Sounds likemaybe their equipment is on the blink."
We listened to the hum, waiting. Then the clatter began again.
"This is different," Mannion said. "It's longer."
I went back to the bridge, and waited for the next move from thestranger, or for word from Mannion. Every half hour I transmitted a callidentifying us, followed by a sample of our language. I gave themEnglish, Russian, and Standard Interlingua. I didn't know why, butsomehow I had a faint hope they might understand some of it.
I stayed on the bridge when the watch changed. I had some food sent up,and slept a few hours on the OD's bunk.
Fine replaced Kramer on his watch when it rolled around. ApparentlyKramer was out of circulation. At this point I did not feel inclined topursue the point.
We had been at General Quarters for twenty-one hours when the wallannunciator hummed.
"Captain, this is Mannion. I've busted it...."
"I'll be right there," I said, and left at a run.
Mannion was writing as I entered ComSection. He stopped his recorder andoffered me a sheet. "This is what I've got so far, Captain," he said.
I read: INVADER; THE MANCJI PRESENCE OPENS COMMUNICATIONS.
"That's a highly inflected version of early Interlingua, Captain,"Mannion said. "After I taped it, I compensated it to take out therise-and-fall tone, and then filtered out the static. There were a fewsound substitutions to figure out, but I finally caught on. It stilldoesn't make much sense, but that's what it says."
"I wonder what we're invading," I said. "And what is the 'MancjiPresence'?"
"They just repeat that over and over," Mannion said. "They don't answerour call."
"Try translating into old Interlingua, adding their sound changes, andthen feeding their own rise-and-fall routine to it," I said. "Maybe thatwill get a response."
I waited while Mannion worked out the message, then taped it on top oftheir whining tone pattern. "Put plenty of horse-power behind it," Isaid. "If their receivers are as shaky as their transmitter, they mightnot be hearing us."
We sent for five minutes, then tuned them back in and waited. There wasa long silence from their side, then they came back with a longspluttering sing-song.
Mannion worked over it for several minutes. "They must have understoodus, here's what I get," he said:
THAT WHICH SWIMS IN THE MANCJI SEA; WE ARE AWARE THAT YOU HAVE THIS TRADE TONGUE. YOU RANGE FAR. IT IS OUR WHIM TO INDULGE YOU; WE ARE AMUSED THAT YOU PRESUME HERE; WE ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR INSOLENT DEMANDS.
"It looks like we're in somebody's back yard," I said. "They acknowledgeour insolent demands, but they don't answer them." I thought a moment."Send this," I said. "We'll out-strut them:"
THE MIGHTY WARSHIP GALAHAD REJECTS YOUR JURISDICTION.
TELL US THE NATURE OF YOUR DISTRESS AND WE MAY CHOOSE TO OFFER AID.
Mannion raised an eyebrow. "That ought to rock them," he said.
"They were eager to talk to us," I said. "That means they wantsomething, in my opinion. And all the big talk sounds like a bluff ofour own is our best line."
"Why do you want to antagonize them, Captain?" Joyce asked. "That shipis over a thousand times the size of this can."
"Joyce, I suggest you let me forget you're around," I said.
* * * * *
The Mancji whine was added to my message, and it went out. Moments laterthis came back:
MANCJI HONOR DICTATES YOUR SAFE-CONDUCT; TALK IS WEARYING; WE FIND IT CONVENIENT TO SOLICIT A TRANSFER OF ELECTROSTATIC FORCE.
"What the devil does that mean?" I said. "Tell them to loosen up andexplain themselves."
Mannion wrote out a straight query, and sent it. Again we waited for areply.
It came, in a long windy paragraph stating that the Mancji foundelectro-static baths amusing, and that "crystallization" had drainedtheir tanks. They wanted a flow of electrons from us to replenish theirsupply.
"This sounds like simple electric current they're talking about,Captain," Mannion said. "They want a battery charge."
"They seem to have power to burn," I said. "Why don't they generatetheir own juice? Ask them; and find out where they learned Interlingua."
Mannion sent again; the reply was slow in coming back. Finally we gotit:
THE MANCJI DO NOT EMPLOY MASSIVE GENERATION-PIECE WHERE ACCUMULATOR-PIECE IS SUFFICIENT. THIS SIMPLE TRADE SPEECH IS OF OLD KNOWLEDGE. WE SELECT IT FROM SYMBOLS WE ARE P
LEASED TO SENSE EMPATTERNED ON YOUR HULL.
That made some sort of sense, but I was intrigued by the reference toInterlingua as a trade language. I wanted to know where they had learnedit. I couldn't help the hope I started building on the idea that thisgiant knew our colony, in spite of the fact that they were using anantique version of the language, predating Omega by several centuries.
I sent another query, but the reply was abrupt and told nothing exceptthat Interlingua was of "old knowledge."
Then Mannion entered a long technical exchange, getting the details ofthe kind of electric