by Stan Ruecker
“Sure enough,” Lucy said. “The one in front is carving as it goes.”
“And watch when they change direction,” Ray said. “Then the other one takes over the carving.”
“So what do you think it is?” Lucy asked.
“My first guess is that these are conversations, Lucy.”
“They could still be art,” she said.
“Or accounting,” Ray pointed out. “That would explain why they’re making records.”
“Maybe they represent some kind of contracts,” Lucy suggested. “That’s why there’s three of them. Two for the contract, and one to witness.”
“I think we’d need to see more being written,” Ray said. “But at least we know that there can be more than one author per building.”
“And we know how they’re written,” Lucy said.
Ray bit his lip.
“Can we even say that much?” he asked. “Maybe they still aren’t a form of writing at all. Maybe something else is going on, and the carving is just some kind of side-effect.”
“It seems pretty deliberate, though. They did come here to do it.”
“Maybe it’s just a ritual,” Ray suggested.
“It could be almost anything,” Lucy said. “But we do know several things definitively.”
“They came here to do it,” Ray said. “They didn’t just get there by accident.”
“Not true,” Lucy said. “We can’t say that for sure. Maybe they periodically just stumble out of their atmosphere and end up here and do this carving.”
“You’re right. Okay. But we can say that in this case, more than one creature carved on the same building.”
“Correct. We can also say that in the case we observed, only one of them carved at once,” Lucy said.
“And the others appeared to follow,” Ray added.
“We also know the creatures themselves can survive outside their atmosphere, and can propel themselves with enough force to reach escape velocity.”
“That’s about it, isn’t it?” Ray asked.
“I’m afraid it is.”
“That isn’t much to go on, is it?”
“That’s why I prefer bipeds,” Lucy said. “They’re easier to figure out.”
“Okay,” Ray said. “Here’s what we should do. If we really do want to figure out what they’re doing, we should try to analyze the marks on the blocks. We could look for repetitions, for one thing.”
“That’s just statistical,” Lucy pointed out. “It doesn’t help us with the translation.”
“Good point,” Ray said.
“What we really need is a Rosetta stone.”
“Several different languages all saying the same thing.”
“Exactly,” Lucy said. “That’s the only way to figure out somebody else’s language. If it is a language. We don’t even know that much.”
“How long do you think it would take?”
“I haven’t got a clue,” Lucy said.
“You learned English, didn’t you? You must know how long that took.”
“Yeah,” Lucy admitted. “But you guys provided plenty of Rosetta stones. There’s hardly anything you do that isn’t done in half a dozen different languages. And there’s visuals for a lot of it. Even visual dictionaries.”
“Good point,” Ray said.
“And why were we doing this again?” Lucy asked. “It was something about them knowing physics, wasn’t it?”
“No,” Ray said. “I realized I was wrong about that when you pointed out that you know all kinds of physics I don’t know. For that matter, half the people on Earth probably already know more physics than I do. I’d just like the chance to talk to them, to see what they’re like.”
“Big,” Lucy said. “I can tell you that much. Even if we could figure out what they mean by all this engraving, it wouldn’t be easy to simulate it. Any one of those things masses more than all of me.”
“So we’re stuck,” Ray said.
“It looks like it. So what do you think I learned about human beings from this experiment, Ray?”
“We know when we’re beat,” Ray said, glumly.
Kevin loses sleep
Kevin Fliegel was still having trouble with the alien virus. He sat in his livingroom with a palmtop. As a professional computer guru, he maintained a dignified contempt for voice interfaces, relying instead on his Dvorak keyboard. He typed another note in his working log, then got up and went into the kitchen, carrying the small machine in one hand. He’d been to the refrigerator three times already, so he knew there was nothing to find, but somehow he always went looking for food when he was working on a problem. He took out a bottle of water and poured a glass, then sat down on the floor with it.
Maybe if I just… he thought, and started typing.
Two hours later he got up with a kink in his neck and spilled the glass of water.
At least I know that won’t work, he thought, taking off one sock and using it to wipe up the spill.
He turned on the T.V. for a few minutes, but there was nothing good on. He left it running for company, and went to the bathroom.
Maybe it’s not really a virus at all, he told himself. Maybe it’s a message of some kind.
But then if it were a message, he looked at himself in the mirror, it wouldn’t have had to hide itself everywhere like that.
So it’s not a message. Or if it is, it’s a hidden message.
He went to his terminal and dialed up another pizza.
But even if it isn’t a message, he thought. That doesn’t mean it won’t contain information. Maybe, for example, it has comments in it. Just because our compilers strip out all the comments, he reasoned, that doesn’t mean an alien compiler would have to. If they had plenty of capacity, they maybe wouldn’t bother. Not that I could read the comments anyway, if they were in an alien language. But wouldn’t that be something? I could be the first person to find an alien language.
On the other hand, he thought. It’d be great just to figure out what the code is supposed to do. If it is working code, and not just some encrypted message.
He finished off the night with a call to his supervisor, Karen.
“Hi,” Kevin said. “How’s your night going?”
“Good,” Karen said. “Really good. I was just finishing up washing my dishes.”
There was an uncomfortable pause.
“I’m working on this virus,” Kevin said. “I had this idea maybe it wasn’t working code at all. I mean, not like a program or something, but more like an encrypted message.”
“Why would a probe leave an encrypted message?” Karen asked. “Why not leave a normal message, like everybody else?”
“Maybe it wanted us not to figure it out right away. Maybe it’s like a time-delay thing, and the probe calculated how long it’d take us to figure out the encryption.”
“I suppose it could happen,” Karen said. “On the other hand, I might be the reincarnation of Elvis.”
“It could be important,” Kevin protested. “Somebody should be figuring this out, and if it has to be me, then I’m going to do it.”
“They’re going to notice sooner or later,” Karen said. “You’re just going to get yourself in trouble, is all you’re going to do.”
“It’s not like I’m breaking a law or something,” Kevin said.
“I think you should erase the thing and forget about it. You know as well as I do that law has nothing to do with anything. People will think it’s too dangerous.”
“Who thinks it’s too dangerous?” Kevin demanded.
“Me, for one,” Karen answered.
“Have you told anyone about it?” Kevin asked.
“No,” Karen said. “I’m not an idiot. I just think we should erase the thing and forget about it. You got it cleaned off everything, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” Kevin said. “It isn’t any danger to anybody. I’ve already isolated and cleaned out all the volumes I found it on. I’ve got it just on my local s
ystem.”
“How do you know you got all of it?”
“There’s no way to know for sure,” Kevin said. “Unless we wiped the whole system back to before the probe showed up. But I’m ninety-nine percent sure I got it before it spread too far. It’s smart, and it’s fast, but it can’t jump off equipment that’s been disconnected from the network, and that’s the way I did it, by isolating the area it hooked into and cleaning each piece. If that didn’t do it, nothing will.”
“You can never be too careful,” Karen said. “Are you coming in tomorrow?”
“No,” Kevin said. “I’m still on holidays. I’ll give you a call.”
“Well, keep on plugging away at it,” Karen said, “If you think you have to.”
They hung up, and Kevin went into the living room and picked up the palmtop.
Why would an alien ship leave an encrypted message? he thought. Or better yet, why would it leave an encrypted piece of code that doesn’t do anything except hide?
If it’s hiding, it must be waiting for something. So the question is, what’s it waiting for? Some particular date, maybe, and it triggers itself. But then I’m assuming it’s dangerous, just like Karen thinks. But if it isn’t dangerous, why does it hide?
That, he told himself, is easy. It hides because it doesn’t want to get deleted. The real question is, when will it decide to quit hiding and actually do something. What’s the trigger?
Saying hello to the neighbors
Lucy had parked herself just over the same rise they’d visited before. The methane creatures were still engaged in their elaborate carving dance on the other side of the hill. Ray was working out a song on the flute when he suddenly had an idea.
“Okay,” he said, putting the flute down. Lucy stopped humming along. “How about this. I go outside the ship and wave at them. Just because they’re so tactile doesn’t mean they aren’t visual, too.”
“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “They’re pretty big.”
“That just means I wouldn’t have to get too close,” Ray said. “They might be used to seeing things farther away.”
“And for another thing, they move pretty fast,” Lucy continued. “What if they’re aggressive?”
“Then we run away.”
“You’ll be on foot,” Lucy pointed out.
“Okay, so I won’t run at all. I’ll stay put, and you’ll pick me up quick and we’ll take off at astronomical speeds.”
“I think it’s a crazy idea, Ray.”
“Not so crazy,” Ray said. “And it never hurts to try. Besides, I could use another walk.”
“What if you get killed?”
“Are we explorers, or aren’t we?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “I’m definitely a probe. But I thought you were a troubleshooter.”
“How about adjuster?” Ray said. “Then you could think of this as me trying to adjust our lack of information.”
“You’re just curious,” Lucy said, “That’s all it is.”
“Curiousity is a powerful and useful motivator,” Ray said.
“Oh brother,” Lucy said. “So now he gets sententious.”
“I read it in a book,” Ray said modestly.
“I still think it’s a crazy idea,” Lucy said. “I don’t care how many books you’ve read.”
“It’s just a little moonwalk,” Ray said. “I’ve taken moonwalks before, right on this same moon.”
“Okay,” Lucy said. “You win.”
“But you’ll come get me if there’s a problem,” Ray said.
“Yes,” Lucy promised. “I promise.”
Ray headed straight over to the airlock and put on his suit. Cinnamon came along, ready for anything in her own right.
“I don’t think you can come along this time,” Ray explained to her. “We don’t have a spacesuit for a dog.”
He paused for a minute. Or do we, he thought.
“Lucy,” he said. “How hard would it be to put together a suit for Cinnamon?”
“No harder than to put one together for you,” Lucy said. “Which, to tell the truth, was a piece of cake.”
“Why don’t I take her along?” Ray said.
“And risk both of you?”
“There isn’t that much risk,” Ray said. “And besides, she could use a walk, too. Maybe you should put a leash on it, though. A long one, but still a leash.”
“Good idea,” Lucy said, and a dog-shaped suit appeared in the locker.
At first Cinnamon thought it was another game. She ran away with the suit in her mouth and wouldn’t come within grabbing distance. Then she got one of Ray’s boots and shook the living daylights out of it. But finally it seemed to dawn on her that she was going outside the ship for the first time in her life, and she settled down to sitting and vibrating with excitement. Ray stuffed her paws into their socks and zipped it all together, and the two of them cycled out of the lock.
“How’s my transmission?” Ray asked. “Can you hear me okay?”
“You’re coming through fine,” Lucy reassured him.
“How about you, Cinnamon?” Ray asked, and she barked a couple of times.
“Okay,” Ray said. “We’re going to go up onto that hill over there and try to get the attention of those methane-breathing people. This isn’t going to be a problem. We might as well be taking a walk down to the corner store.”
“Don’t forget to pick up a quart of milk,” Lucy said.
Cinnamon was way ahead of him. Ray jogged a little to catch up, and managed to climb to the top of the hill in time to see all three of the methane breathers stop and rear up on their edges, like so many slices of partly-folded baloney.
“Look at that,” one of them said over Ray’s headset. “Isn’t that a human being over there?”
“Sure looks like it,” another one answered. They were speaking English with a bit of an accent, but it was clearly English.
The third one said something that sounded like fingernails on a blackboard, got a similar-sounding answer from one of the others, and went back to crawling around. The other two levitated off the block and coasted up the hill to where Ray and Cinnamon stood.
Real sports fans
By the time the methane breathers got within a hundred metres or so, Ray had managed to regain enough composure to remember how to speak.
“Hey,” he said. “You guys speak English.”
“Sure,” one of them answered. “Or some of us do, anyway. Bob over there’s never been to Jupiter. He’s not that interested in kelfree.”
“Jupiter?” Ray said. “You mean you’ve been to Jupiter?”
“Sure,” the methane-breather answered. “We go there all the time.”
“You’re such a liar,” its companion said. “Don’t believe everything Archie tells you,” it said to Ray. “He tends to exaggerate.”
“Hi,” Ray said, remembering his manners. “My name’s Ray.”
“I’m Darwin,” the methane-breather said. “That liar over there’s Archie.”
“Okay,” Archie admitted. “So maybe we don’t go all the time. But we’ve gone a few times.”
“No more than twenty, tops,” Darwin told Ray. “Some people go almost every weekend, but not us.”
“Why Jupiter?” Ray asked. “What’s kelfree?”
“Jupiter’s nice,” Archie said. “The people are very friendly. And they have great kelfree matches. That’s the main reason we go.”
“Kelfree’s a game,” Darwin explained. “You play it in teams.”
“Not teams,” Archie said. “But you have sides.”
“It’s like your soccer, only you have five, sometimes six teams.”
“Interesting,” Ray said.
“And there’s no ball, of course.”
“It’s not like soccer at all,” Archie said. “I know what soccer’s like, and it isn’t anything like that.”
“But you get the idea,” Darwin answered.
“Yeah,” Archie said. “It sort of
makes sense.”
“So how did you learn English?” Ray wanted to know.
“We watch your broadcasts,” Darwin said.
“Especially the games,” Archie said. “I never miss an NFL game when I’m on Jupiter.”
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” Ray asked.
“Not at all,” Darwin said.
“That carving you guys are doing over there, with the blocks,” Ray said.
“Hey,” Archie said. “Is that your dog? You know, I’ve never seen a live dog before. Does it do tricks?”
“Her name’s Cinnamon,” Ray said. “She doesn’t know any tricks, yet.”
“Here Cinnamon,” Archie said, but of course she didn’t know which one of them was talking. She tipped her head to one side and whined.
“She’s shy,” Archie said.
“What carving?” Darwin asked.
“On the blocks,” Ray said. “The blocks over there.”
“Oh,” Darwin answered. “You mean the felmeens.”
“Those ones over there,” Ray pointed.
“They’re our bets on the kelfree games,” Archie said. “We always bring somebody along to witness it for us. This time it was Bob. Darwin’s already got his team picked for the cup, and we wanted to write it down so nobody’d welch.”
“Nobody’d welch,” Darwin said. “But it’s better to have a record, anyway.”
Bob had given up waiting on the two of them, and was drifting lazily off the surface of the moon, like somebody trying to make up his mind to leave.
“I think he’s leaving,” Ray said, and pointed.
“That guy,” Darwin said. “I don’t know why you always ask him.”
“He hasn’t got anything else to do,” Archie said. “I figure he should get out once in a while.”
“He should get a life,” Darwin answered.
They both turned over, an elegant rolling maneuver, then flew over to Bob.
“See you later,” Archie called back.
“Nice meeting you,” Darwin said.
“Yeah,” Archie said. “You should come out and catch a game some time.”
“Nice to meet you,” Ray answered, and Cinnamon wagged her tail goodbye. The methane breathers did a complicated spiral maneuver, then accelerated away in the direction of their planet.
Debriefing