by Dave Gordon
“We are well,” Tuya answered in her typically brusque manner.
I felt the light-hearted tone of the Captain's question deserved a bit more of an answer. “We are doing very well, the pod is quite roomy.”
“Perhaps we should give you a smaller pod, then,” the Captain said straight faced.
I was taken aback but recovered quickly. I laughed and said “Maybe so, it will be hard to go back to my cabin if we are out there too long.”
The Captain chuckled and Tuya smiled. Commander Alworth walked in. He took a seat without saluting. The Commander and the Captain had a casual relationship having served together for so long, I supposed.
The Captain said, “We have decided to take a pod to the source of the signal.”
I tried not to look too surprised. I had expected a debriefing, not a tactical planning session. The idea that I was in a meeting that consisted only of the Captain, the Commander, Tuya, and myself was a shock. Only a few weeks ago I had been just another anonymous crewperson. I tried to replay the steps that led to the meeting, but I could not make the connections.
The Captain said, “Our chief navigator, Lieutenant Mayward, is still in sickbay with a concussion. I will be assigning the navigation mission to you, Shipman Tular. Now, since Shipman is not a rank suitable to missions of this sort, and since you have shown initiative and imagination; I am promoting you to rank of Ensign.” He stuck out his hand.
I rose and shook his hand saying, “Thank you, sir!”
“You will have a new cabin assignment when you return from the mission. Now about the mission,” he said.
The crew would consist of the Captain, Tuya, myself, the trade representative from the Earth Trade Commission, a pilot, and a technical specialist whose role it was to assess alien technology. We would also be taking a security detail of four. It was those guy's job to get shot if things went badly.
“What about the Triton?” I asked. Tuya cocked an eyebrow at me. I knew she was questioning the wisdom of asking the Captain about his own ship.
The Captain answered as if there were nothing out of line. “The pod will be making best speed. The Triton will be able to follow our navigation for a few days. We have no other navigation crew to man the in the pod Ivonovich. The Triton will remain in place until we return,” he said.
“What about Hansen?” I asked. He was the Navigation Tech that had the third shift.
The Captain had a pained look. He hesitated briefly, cleared his throat. He said, “Shipman Hansen was killed in the collision. We suffered eight casualties. I am sorry to beak the news of the death of your shipmate this way.”
Abel Hansen was young and eager. His thick Euro accent made him sound exotic. Everything he said sounded like a joke. With him gone and Mayward down, there was not a single person who could be relied upon in the pilot pod. “What if we download our navigational data into a probe and send it the back to the ship. We could send one every few days. A small pod could retrieve the probes. The data could fed directly into the navigation system. If we took enough probes, we could get the Triton most of the way there,” I said.
The Captain and the commander sat there for several seconds. I again feared that had I offered a laughable suggestion. The Commander finally said, “I can not see a problem with that. We'll need to run it by the Chief,” referring to the Chief Engineer, “but it should work just fine.”
“Ensign, I believe you are bucking for Chief,” the Captain said chuckling. “I think you are going to make it, too. OK, then, we'll get started in twenty four hours. Good job every one.” The Captain stood and looked at me. He paused for a moment as if searching for words. He said “Ensign, you will bunk with Lieutenant Zhia!tu", and walked quickly out.
I wondered at this breach of protocol. Only married couples, trios, and other related groups could share quarters. I gave Tuya a furtive glance. She seemed unfazed by the event. I wondered if the prospect of Tuya in a foul mood had anything to do with it. I knew from experience those could injurious.
The Commander smiled at me and said “If you keep coming up with those pearls, he's going to expect one every meeting, you know.”
The Commander exited. Tuya crawled up onto the table on all fours and started nuzzling my face. She cooed, “Will you still love me when you are one of those powerful men you warned me about? What happened to my little Shipman, he's all grown up?”
I was afraid someone would walk in and see us making out on the Captain's table. There was no stopping Tuya in anything so I just enjoyed the attention. Finally she pushed my chair over backwards, leapt over me, and scooped me up before I hit the ground.
“Come", she said, “we only have twenty four hours before we are on a small ship full of people.” She carried me most of the way down the first passageway before I could get her to put me down.
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Chapter 6
The Captain stood on the deck of the pod hanger assessing the crew that stood lined up in front of him. A pilot named Vincent, whom I had met before during a Scurm binge, stood to my right. Tuya stood to the left. An Earth Trade Commission (ETC) representative, who really did not look as though he belonged in space, stood impatiently at the end of the row. A young and eager technical specialist that was obviously looking forward to the mission stood on Tuya's left. He had been finding whatever assignments he could just to keep busy. Now, at last, he was going to do his real job which was trying to figure out how the alien technology we were about to encounter worked. Four grim security personnel stood at rigid attention, jaws set, steely eyes focused on a dangerous future. I imagined the security crew had to practice constantly in order to maintain the determined “we do not fear death” countenance through years of inactivity. The security squad had brought a nice assortment of armament. I was not certain what we would do with a Class 2 Multi-vector Higgs device. Maybe we would pulverize a moon to demonstrate our awesome stupidity.
The Captain walked slowly down the row with his hands behind his back. I could not tell if he were actually somehow searching for some hidden flaw in each of us, or if this was some kind of ritual designed to let us know that he had our number. In that regard, it was working pretty well. When he reached the end of the line, he turned his back on us and slowly walked to the pod. After he had entered, Tuya strode up to the door and looked back at us with a look that said, “Well, are you coming or not?” The security squad broke formation by stamping once in unison and marching single file into the pod. Vincent looked at me and rolled his eyes. We all piled into the pod.
My plan to bring the Triton along worked well enough, but not as well as I had hoped. A few of the probes were not retrieved by the ship and had to be sent again. It was apparent the pod would outpace the Triton sooner than I had expected. The plan was still accounted as a successful innovation. That was something of a surprise to me. I did not consider the two ideas I had put forward as brilliant. Perhaps the command crew had been ‘out of the trenches’ for some time or maybe they were not used to improvising technical solutions. In the two meetings I had attended there seemed to be an atmosphere that, while not oppressive, was certainly subdued. They were not the kind of place where much brainstorming went on. The lower ranks knew well that the path to success in Earth Fleet was to keep your head down and mouth shut. My trouble was I had a big mouth.
The radio source we were following was weak. That might mean it came from far away or that it was simply not a very strong signal. That sort of thing was Tuya's area. The job of Communications Officer had consisted of determining the source of signals and managing the communications system when Earth Fleet had first explored space. The job evolved into what was perhaps the most crucial role in trade missions. Contacts with alien races required a much more sophisticated Communications approach. Locating signals and establishing communications were the first, and most vital, precursors to trade. The first reaction by any race to the appearance of an alien ship was always a defensive p
osture. It was the Communications Officer's job to see that our intentions were understood. Misunderstandings could result in one of those moments of shear terror.
This particular signal was a bit of a conundrum. The signal occupied a narrow band in the radio spectrum. That fact said something about the origin. A more advanced civilization would probably have constructed a device that transmitted on a wide spectrum. A signal such as this would be more indicative of an old-fashioned probe, but the source was not moving like a probe. The phrasing of the language seemed somewhat similar to those of our own universe. Oddly enough, and for reasons not then understood, the majority of languages in the Milky Way had fundamental similarities. Comparing Earth languages to any given alien language would turn up a basic language structure. The Urians taught us that trick. Other languages could be decoded very quickly once you had the languages of several planets under your belt. That was several hundred million light years behind us, though. There was a lot of doubt if that would hold true in another galaxy. Language is a very important precursor to trade. Our mission would be greatly extended if we had to build our own translation protocols.
I was looking forward to a swift end to the mission. The pod was large but it still felt crowded. Tuya and I were assigned to one of the larger cabins but I would not have called it private. Shared latrines, marginal circulation, uneven climate control; the trip had all the amenities to be expected from a small ship loaded to the max. Still, with the Captain on-board everyone was ship-shape and spit-shined. That was good in my opinion. Better to keep an edge on. Tuya's presence also seemed to be a restraining factor. She was courteous, but not talkative. She had a reputation for being hard-nosed. It was not without merit. I was not immune from her attentions. She left our cabin one morning as I rushed to get out to my station. When I walked to my station she was standing beside my chair.
“You are late for you shift, Ensign Tular", she announced in front of the entire crew. “See that it does not happen again.”
Her eyes were beginning to glow red. “Yes sir!” I snapped a salute. I stood at attention as she coldly held me in her gaze. She returned my salute after several uncomfortable seconds. She finally returned to her chair at the Communications station. I took my seat as the rest of the crew went about their business. I was not concerned. I knew she had done that because she had to. She probably enjoyed it, though. She would probably kick my butt if she thought she needed to and she would have enjoyed that too. I had my ways of getting even, but it took a lot more room than we had there.
The Captain stayed in his cabin most of the time. He and the ETC guy were pouring over trade agreements to prepare for the upcoming encounter. The agreements reached here could affect galactic relationships for a very long time. This mission was to be the Captain's crowning achievement, but the price of failure was just as profound. A bad outcome here would be committed to the annals of history more surely than a good. The old man did not show it except perhaps the lines of his face became more pronounced. He had a chiseled appearance from years of fieldwork on planets with worse problems than Earth. His proud, large nose seemed to recall countless sunburns and his hands were deeply creased. He was a man of average height who gave the appearance of being taller simply by dint of masterful bearing.
His conversations were brief when he spoke to the crew. I felt sorry for him. I could feel the isolation and loneliness he had come to accept as part of the price of command. I decided to have a meal with him. The worst that could happen was a demotion. Having only been promoted recently anyway, I did not think I would miss it much. I approached him as he sat eating alone.
“May I join you?” I asked, tray of food in hand.
“Please do, Ensign!” he said. I could tell he was genuinely pleased to have some company.
“It must be a somewhat lonesome job, being captain,” I said, “People seems to keep their distance.”
“Yes, that's true. On the other hand, the accommodations are better,” he said with straight face.
I laughed. “I suppose so, but I would be afraid of spilling something on the carpet or putting a dent in the table. I guess I'm better off with carbon fiber.”
“We have a small staff on-board trained in the care of wood and wool objects, did you know that?”
“Really? No, but I do not get out there much. In fact I've only been on the Captain's deck a few times,” I said. The tray of food in front of me was beginning to loose its appeal so I ate faster.
Noticing how I regarded the food, the Captain said, “I think at least one food scientist should be required to accompany each long tour, don't you? Maybe then they would come up with something more appetizing.” He too was having trouble staring down his tray.
“I do not understand how something nutritionally ideal can be so awful,” I said. “I mean, does it have to be gray? Can't it be blue or red?” Complaining about the food was a service-wide preoccupation.
The Captain rose and said, “Thank you for the company. It makes bad food a little better.” He deposited his tray into the cleansing unit and went to his cabin.
I finished my meal. When I turned to rise several people were staring at me. “He's a nice guy, you should get to know him,” I said to the group. That seemed to satisfy them. I went to the Navigation station and reconfirmed that we were still headed for the emissions source. I had not made a single course correction since laying in the initial coordinates, but it was my job to check, recheck, and double check our course.
Tuya walked over and leaned down to whisper in my ear. She said, “My little Ensign is so brave,” and then she bit my ear hard.
I stifled a cry as Tuya walked away. When I touched my ear, I found it was bleeding. I turned to look at Tuya and she looked back at me over her shoulder licking her lips. I vowed to torment the vicious little vampire to tears when I got the chance. A couple of the security squad members were smirking. I wondered if they had considered what they would do if Tuya decided to taste their blood.
The shifts ran together, one after another. The signal improved as we got closer. The Triton eventually fell behind but it was several weeks closer than it would have been without my ‘plan'. The Captain began eating with several of the crew. Eventually we all began eating together except for the security squad. They kept to themselves. The ETC guy almost never came out of his cabin. I learned that the pilot's job was almost as boring as mine. His duties could be summed up as ‘do not touch anything'. The Technical Specialist, Wyan, had absolutely nothing to do so we had a running poker game almost all the time. Tuya did not join us. She considered the game to be a childish exercise in probabilities. Tuya was kept busy trying to decipher the signal we were receiving. There had been some progress on that front. She was confident that the language would be coded by the time we reached the source. Once it was coded, it could be down-loaded into the interpretation devices for use at the first meeting.
Tuya arose from her station a few days later to announced the codification of the alien language was complete. Everyone cheered and congratulated her. She managed a small smile. The language was first-person specific, which was great. First-person specific is the same as Earth's languages with the word ‘I’ referring to one's self. A first-person non-specific, such as the telepathic language of Addia, is one where the word ‘I’ might refer to any number of persons. A second-person specific is one where ‘I’ always refers to the same person but someone other than the speaker. Second-person multi-specific was when a specific group is referred to as ‘I'. It went on forever. The variations are quite complex, that's why a relatively simple structure such as first-person specific was good news. Even the ETC guy looked happy.
The language came together slowly. Even after several weeks of collection we had amassed a relatively small amount of data. One night after our shifts as we lay in our bunk, Tuya said she believed she had deciphered the language. She said the message was a warning to avoid the planet that the beacon orbited. The message was from a signal beacon a ra
ce called the Ti'nettis had placed in orbit. Their experience on the planet near the beacon had evidently not been very good. The warning said the planet had no advanced technology but the inhabitants were very dangerous. Tuya was perplexed about what that meant.
As was I. No technology but dangerous, what could that mean? Our technology was our badge, our flag. When meeting new races it was our shield and banner. If the inhabitants of the planet were able to fend off a space-going race such as the Ti'nettis with no technology, well, what did that mean? I did not think the information would stop the Captain, there was too much tied up in this little venture to pass it up. We could wander around Andromeda for another year and not find another trading partner.
Tuya fell immediately to sleep as I lay there trying to imagine a dangerous non-technical race. I had not been in space that long but I knew what made one race more dangerous than another was their technology.
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* * *
Chapter 7
Tuya spoke softly to the Captain at the beginning of the next shift. The two of them retired to the Captain's cabin. They re-emerged after several minutes. Tuya resumed her post and the Captain knocked on the ETC guy's door. They had a hushed conversation after which they had a lengthy meeting behind closed doors. The rest of the crew had a good notion of what was being discussed. We tried to pay attention to our duties but the tension was mounting.
The Captain came out of the ETC guy's cabin and said “All hands!” That meant to rise and face the officer speaking standing at attention without forming ranks. He waited for the rustling of uniforms and equipment to subside. After pausing several seconds, he said, “Lieutenant Zhia!tu has informed me that she has decoded the signal.” There was a slight rustling as the crew reacted to the news. The Captain continued, “The signal is a warning beacon placed in orbit by a race named the Ti'nettis. The beacon states the inhabitants of the planet have no technology but are very dangerous. The beacon further states that contact with the inhabitants of the planet is to be avoided. We have no further information on the race that left the beacon. I have decided to continue the mission. A tactical plan will be forthcoming. Until then I urge you to keep your mind on your duties. Dismissed.”