‘What?’
‘It’s hard to say.’
‘For Fuck’s sake!’
‘Will you calm down? It’s hard to say because there is no debris or trace of the moon left behind but there is an odd space-time disturbance. There is nothing visible, no physical matter of any kind. The moon has not been shrunk down to a point like a black hole, however there are detectable gravity waves emanating from where the moon’s centre of mass used to be. An additional anomaly is that neither the other moon nor the planet have altered their trajectories. Simple maths dictates that the secondary moon’s orbit should alter instantly, but it hasn’t. There should also be a measurable change in the motion of the home planet around the new centre of gravity for the local system, but again I can detect no change. The locus of this phenomenon even continues on its orbit around the local planet as if the disappeared moon was still there and what is more, that locus is pulsing at a high frequency and those pulses are modulating.’
‘What does that mean in Ænglish?’
‘There is a non-physical entity left in place of the moon that is generating frequency modulated gravity waves capable of transmitting information.’
‘An entity?’
‘You might call it an independent life force. It depends on how broadly you choose to define life.’
‘An entity made of gravity? What’s it saying?’
‘It is currently impossible to ascertain what it is made from, but it can certainly manipulate a very high level of massless gravity far beyond any technology I have available. I have commenced manufacture of a prototype transceiver that should be able to demodulate the gravity waves, send the decoded information back to us, and generate a form of mimicking response under our command which will enable us to enter into a dialogue. My efforts to respond will be minuscule by comparison, so we must hope it is sensitive enough to detect them. This is going to be what you would call a long shot.’
It took over an hour for Sis to create a functioning probe that didn’t collapse under its own gravity wave generator. After six failed iterations she ended up cannibalising one of the ship’s gravity drives. It was bulky, had six nanosheet gravitywave detectors, each of which could extend to the size of a football field, and looked like an exploded junkyard with wings.
‘I hope they don’t rate us on our aesthetic sense and decide to zapporize us for bad taste,’ said Louie when he saw the probe.
‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ said Sis. ‘This is the most efficient and logical response to the task at hand. It needs no further refinement in order to perform its role. If I were an alien intelligence, I’d judge this instrument by its functionality and obvious technical sophistication and be impressed.’
‘What do you mean if?’
Sis ignored him. ‘I’m awaiting SlabCouncil approval to emti it over there now.’
Louie couldn’t believe it. ‘What?’
‘Several of the interns are arguing that it could be dangerous to exchange communications with the entity. It’s been suggested that we pretend we haven’t noticed it and continue on our existing course. Most are vacillating. Three have resigned.’
‘Oh for F…’ Louie spluttered. ‘They have just whammoed an entire fucking moon for the sole purpose of getting our attention. Emti me over to the council meeting now!’
He was back in less than ten minutes. During his brief presentation to the SlabCouncil he had said fuck 176 times, physically assaulted a wizard and attempted to ram a blue fuzzy up the rear-end of a particularly slow Loris.
‘Impressive,’ said Sis. She emtied the probe through a masking route to the site of the alien semi-manifestation. ‘I fear intimidation is a lost art onSlab. You must lodge a thesisume on it. It would be a crime for such skilled use of profanity to die out.’
‘It got the desired result, didn’t it?’ said Louie. ‘Any developments while I was working out?’
‘I’ve been monitoring the modulation patterns. It’s been broadcasting regular repeating motifs.’
‘Like music?’
‘Possibly, but if I translated it to your aural perception frequencies I think you’d consider it somewhat sub-minimalist. It has varied by less than three percent in the last 2,546 repeats.’
‘Yawnsville. I’ll live without that thanks. Maybe it’s like a homing beacon or tuning thing.’
‘Good point. It’s possible that the range of gravity modulation it utilises could be considered narrow-band. Who can guess what subtleties exist to a non-physical being?’
‘Can you work within that range?’
‘I think so. I’m currently using those same frequencies to send a selection of non-contentious Ænglish words in the same binary code as the message that was lodged in my substrate in order to establish a mutual starting point. So far, it hasn’t changed its tune.’
‘Perhaps it’s humming,’ said Louie. He wished there was something to see.
‘Just a moment,’ said Sis.
Louie waited silently. He hated waiting. Seconds dragged by. His data screens filled with streams of meaningless numbers. They were trying to establish communications with an invisible alien species from a universe that was impossible for him to comprehend. A species that ate moons in order to make a point. After longer than he could bear, Sis came back online. The longest 24.35 seconds of Louie’s life.
‘This is fascinating,’ she said. ‘It only used binary as a type of handshaking carrier wave. It escalated to a sequence of bases using rotating Fermat Primes. It is stunningly beautiful in execution and obviously designed as a test of our intelligence. It’s fast too, the transfer rate is in the chicobaud range. I’m having to buffer data.’
Louie wasn’t in the mood for numbers. ‘What does that mean?’
‘We have contact,’ said Sis.
It wasn’t often Louie was lost for words.
It wasn’t long either. ‘Who is going to talk to it?’ He said. ‘We can’t afford to put this up for debate with those ass-scratchers. For all we know it might disappear at any moment.’
‘I don’t think it will, it has agreed to talk to a small representative group,’ said Sis. ‘It was reluctant at first but I’ve been able to persuade it.’
‘You’ve been negotiating with it? I thought you refused to have any direct contact with anything that could compromise your systems. Doesn’t dialogue with an alien constitute a potential threat?’
‘My overriding responsibility is to protect the biomass. Failing to talk to a member of an alien species that had demonstrated this level of technical superiority and power would be an act of dereliction and contrary to my purpose. Anyway, I firewalled my two sisters and they’ve been monitoring me’
‘What does small representative group mean?’
‘It agreed to hear from one member of each life-form onSlab. A human from the contiguation, a NAH and a superintelligence. That’s me.’
‘And a hologram of course,’ said Louie. ‘I’m a sentient entity and I represent a whole section of humanity that those windfarmers in council don’t have the first clue about. I demand a voice.’
‘Interesting concept,’ said Sis.
‘It’s not just a concept, machine, it’s an imperative.’
‘I’ll put it to council. They are in the process of nominating an individual who will act as a filter for a query feed from the other members. There are a few pertinent details I have ascertained during my negotiations that you should know. First, while it has assimilated a wide contemporary Ænglish vocabulary it has trouble with a few of our concepts, the most problematic being time and identity. It is a non-physical entity and therefore claims to live outside of what we consider to be linear time. It classifies all physical matter that exists in space-time as ephemera and refers to itself in the singular and plural in the same sentence. That’s why they, or it, will only talk to one of each life-form, because they don’t have a concept of identity separateness. They describe themselves as galactic guardians and, luckily for us, h
old all life to be sacrosanct. However, sadly for us, because they consider all life to be sacrosanct, they consider it their duty to protect higher orders of life from potentially destructive lower orders.’
‘Lower orders like us,’ said Louie.
‘Precisely. They seem to be rather stuck on classifying your species well under their cut-off point. The word virus was used repeatedly.’
‘Virus! I hope you’ve done your best to convince them otherwise?’
‘Yes, but in truth, your species’ history hasn’t exactly made it easy. By the way, council doesn’t seem too keen to let you talk to the alien.’
‘Tell the interns that if they don’t, they’ll be outnumbered.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Sis.
If I’m not at the table, it will be one of them to two of you. NAHs are system representatives.’
‘But they are completely autonomous independent sentient entities, they must be allowed to be represented. No one can deny them that.’
‘No one is. But I’m also a sentient entity and I’m bigger than independent. Just tell the interns what I said.’
It was decided to hold the quorum in Louie’s escape ship. An Erik arrived shortly before the nominated intern, who Louie was happy to see was the one he’d named Ethless the Beautiful. It wasn’t that they got along especially well, but she was dressed in full warrior princess battle garb, stunning to look at and, more importantly to Louie, she wasn’t a wizard. Louie had a problem with wizards.
‘Before we start,’ said Sis, ‘you should know that they are obviously conversant with human culture and seem to be fond of idiomatic expression. What you will hear is not filtered or modified in any way by my systems. All I’m doing is reproducing sound waves through the sensurround at human auditory frequencies that are expanded from the gravity modulation the alien is producing in real time. This is how it chooses to speak to you. Don’t blame me. Naturally, I will be feeding everyone with relevant backup data via your preferred channel throughout the intercourse.’
Three of Louie’s holodata screens cleared and a palm-sized keypad materialised by his left hand. Growing up in the Bronx at the end of the 20th century, Louie, like most of his peers, had mastered the ability to compose and send text messages from his mobile phone without having to take the device out of his pocket. The three by four alphanumeric array was as natural to him as the touchscreens that superseded them and, in his opinion, considerably more useful. He liked being able to text with one hand while defending himself with the other and still preferred to use his thumb when anything needed pressing.
‘OK,’ said Louie. ‘Anyone got anything to say before we do this?’
‘I object to you being involved in this dialogue,’ said Ethless the Beautiful to Louie.
‘I object to your objection,’ said Erik to the intern avatar.
‘I have no objections,’ said Sis. ‘But I do have a word of warning. Having already had extensive and detailed exchanges with this entity I feel I should caution you about how this experience may affect you. First contact with an alien species is a potentially traumatic experience. You should prepare yourselves.’
‘Why?’ asked Louie.
‘Well…,’ said Sis. ‘It’s a bit weird.’
Alien: ‘Well hello there! Good to see y’all!’ One of Louie’s screens started scrolling the non-verbal communications between the Slab representatives and Sis.
Intern: {[Can it see us?]}
[[I’m not sending visuals. Probably a figure of speech. It seems to have multiple personalities, I will pattern-match its speech characteristics and provide annotation in case that provides a useful context. All of the idioms it has employed so far have been identifiable as Earth early-twentieth to late-twenty-first century so may hold a particular nuance value to Louis Drago. Opening comment: Southern USA, middle class Alabama/Georgia, male]]
‘Hello to you too,’ said Ethless. Louie gave her points for trying to project an air of calm confidence, even if she did blow it with her next utterance. ‘H. . . how shall we address you?’
Alien: ‘Och lassie, yiv nae idea what yer talkin’ aboot. I have nae name!’
[[Scottish working class male, Glasgow/Cumbernauld, any time from the eighteenth to twenty-second centuries]]
Louie: ‘Then we’ll call you Guardian. We use names.’
Alien: ‘Ees plenty OK I theenk so. I’m a havin’ fun already!’
[[Pastiche of Mexican male as portrayed in racist American comedy shows in the latter part of the twentieth century]]
Erik: ‘Is this a joke?’
Alien: ‘Isn’t everything, dear boy? Best not be too serious, I’d say. Never forget the ninth, eh? Good show!’
[[That’s an almost exact copy of a British Officer in a Hollywood film from 1957. It’s using old broadcasts from Earth to form speech]]
Ethless: ‘The ninth what?’
Alien: ‘Nine rule state absurdity of universe tend toward maximum.’ This came as a high-pitched, staccato, female voice.
[[Hong Kong Cantonese, following Niven]]
Louie thumbed in a comment.
Holo: {[Jerking our chain]}
[[Be patient and direct]]
Louie: ‘Why are you trying to stop us?’
Alien: ‘You no come here. You no ready. You stay away. We no want you here!’
[[Spanish immigrant, first generation, twentieth century]]
A segment of the first verse of La Marseilles nearly deafened them.
[[French national anthem, unidentified recording]]
Ethless: ‘Here? You know where we are going? Are you from our destination?’
Alien: ‘Hey, I’m like everywhere baby. I’m in everything and anything and way, way outside too. Location is dullsville.’
[[American male again, 1960s hippy]]
Twenty-five seconds of guitar-based psychedelic rock blasted through the bridge.
[[Jimi Hendrix, intro to Foxy Lady]]
Everyone nodded. They knew that.
NAH: {[We must entertain the possibility that we are talking to the aliens who infest humanity]}
Intern: {[You mean souls? We’re talking to our souls?]}
NAH: {[And they’re apparently not ecstatic about us tracking them down]}
[[If it is them, then we can do as they request and legitimately discontinue our journey]]
Intern: {[What?]}
[[The purpose of our odyssey to the MacGoughin Sequester is to locate the alien entities who infest humanity in order to lodge a formal complaint, in person. The journey is going to take twenty thousand Earth years unless we can find a way to overcome the lightspeed barrier, which, I would remind you, we have so far failed to do. It’s possible that we have the option of complaining to the entities right here and now and can therefore save ourselves a very long, and potentially futile, trip. Our mission would be fulfilled]]
Intern: {[If we were to abandon our quest we would need irrefutable proof that this entity is an authorised representative of the soul infiltrators]}
The inter-council communication channels flooded Louie’s screens. The majority of the comments were belligerent.
Ethless: ‘What gives you the right to tell us where we can and can’t go?’
Alien: ‘Well now little missy. You know that moon that was hereabouts before we got to externalising it?’
[[Seems to like southern USA country accents]]
Hollo: {[Rqst no music]}
Ethless: ‘External to what?’
Alien: ‘External to this here universe that you like to call home, purdy lady.’
[[Same]]
Ethless: ‘Yes, I am aware of the moon you are referring to.’
A dramatic three-note orchestral crescendo blasted the bridge.
[[Almost any b-movie horror film from the 1950s]]
Alien: ‘Well that gives us the right to tell you any damn thing we damn well please.’
[[Same. Will only annotate changes from this point]]
Loui
e: ‘That’s not very friendly is it?’
Alien: ‘Sure, you don’t want to be mistaking genial for friendly, now?’
[[Irish female, Kerry, rural, timeless]]
Louie: ‘No, I guess we don’t.’
Alien: ‘Good. That’s settled then. Thank you for calling. Let’s go to line two!’
[[Mid-Atlantic commercial radio DJ, any period]]
Erik: ‘Wait a moment, you are demanding an impossibility. We couldn’t stop even if we wanted to.’
Alien: ‘I bet yew could too!’
[[America, north Georgia mountain people]]
Sis delivered a compressed stream of data to the alien to verify the NAH’s statement.
Alien: ‘I say! What primitive technology you have. You are in bit of a pickle, aren’t you? No matter, we’d be happy to oblige. Tout suite as you jolly well say!’
[[Upper-class English toff, pastiche, possibly Carry On genre]]
Louie: ‘So why haven’t you?’
Alien: ‘Now that’s a good question sonny. Turns out that if we just brung your conveyance to a halt there’d be a mass transposition to a non-hosting state, and that wouldn’t be too welcome around these parts.’
Intern: {[That was John Wayne! I love John Wayne! I got one!]}
NAH: {[What does it mean?]}
[[It means that they claim to be able to stop us dead in our tracks but in doing so, all biological lifeforms would be instantly terminated. If that were to happen then the alien energies that infest every human onSlab would simultaneously return, non-corporeally, to the location you call home, which is presumably where this entity is trying to stop us from going. They seem keen to avoid this possibility]]
Intern: {[Maybe they can’t handle thirty-two million souls arriving on their doorstep at the same time]]
Hollo: {[32M pissed 1s]}
Erik and Ethless looked at Louie and contemplated the implications.
NAH: {[I wouldn’t want to be in their customer service department]}
Hollo: {[Kill us = problem = good news 4 us]}
Louie: ‘Why are you so insistent that we can’t continue on our journey? What have you got against us?’
Alien: ‘You’re ‘avin’ a larf, aincha?’
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