Dark Firmament

by Ezra Manes

  Use the translator, Dawn suggested sharply.

  Joqi took several deep breaths, trying to calm down. His quick retreat to the safety of the exoskeleton robot was spontaneous. He must overcome this deep rooted fear!

  Joqi linked with the translator, and said, “I mean you no harm.”

  This caused the Clac to stop all activity. It stood silently on all appendages, apparently trying to understand what Joqi was saying.

  “Apogee…apogee,” squeaked the translator.

  What the heck? Apogee was a term describing a point in an objects orbit. Was the Clac concerned about its spacecraft crashing into the planet?

  The translator squawked again, “Apology…apology.”

  Did the alien want him to apologize? But apologize for what? Clearly the translator algorithms obtained from Earth’s archives needed updating to more accurately translate the Clac language.

  “Apologize…you helped!” the Clac said, shuffling nervously again.

  Do I apologize, Joqi thought. No, it’s apologizing.

  “What will help?” Joqi conveyed via his translator.

  “Will ... repair,” the Clac said. “Need ... rest.”

  After a moment, it added, “What ... you?”

  Joqi was sure a lot was being lost in the translations using Earth’s algorithms. That was something they must work on, but later.

  “I am Joaquin, a human.”

  After a long pause, the Clac said, “I ... Cssyza ... szswn”

  “Cssyza,” Joqi said, trying to repeat what he assumed the Clac’s name was. He had no idea what szswn meant, unless it was its species. His translator pronounced the Clac’s name as “Sissy-za” and its last word as “zwin”, all one syllable.

  To further answer the question about what he was, Joqi stepped out of the exoskeleton and began removing his spacesuit. Once stripped, except for light undershorts and magnetic shoes, he walked closer to the alien to let it examine him. The alien indeed gave off a rotten odor, but not as bad as he had expected. He smiled as he turned completely around, remembering the viewing custom he and Ecina performed before they were married.

  The air in the compartment was acrid, and it became more difficult for him to breathe as the seconds ticked by.

  Apparently Cssyza’s inspection was complete, for it slumped to the floor. Joqi quickly donned his spacesuit, and then took several deep breaths to clear his lungs and satisfy his need for more oxygen. He retrieved the floating bandage material and tape, and proceeded to apply a new compression bandage on the alien’s back. It remained still throughout the process.

  After Joqi applied the bandage, Cssyza rose and walked up the back bulkhead to a row of cabinets. It opened one cabinet and retrieved a clear container full of small round lavender balls. It took out several and swallowed them, and brought the container back down to the deck. Joqi suspected the balls were some kind of medicine, perhaps like antibiotics the Zilans used to clear up infections.

  Joqi was impressed with the agility of the injured szswn and its ability to walk up the metal bulkhead. The alien apparently had some kind of gripping mechanisms at the wrist joints just above the leg appendage claws.

  He communicated with Cssyza to see if anything else could be done, but it again reiterated it needed rest. Joqi explained the terminal orbit the alien’s vessel was in around the large planet, as best he could. Cssyza indicated it understood the situation, but refused to relocate to the Horizon Quest as Joqi suggested.

  Joqi sensed something like shame when the szswn communicated its understanding of the situation. For some reason it preferred staying aboard its ship, even if that meant certain death. Perhaps letting its ship get into this dire situation would be viewed very unfavorably by those back on its home world.

  After a tedious communication session, Joqi got Cssyza’s okay to use robots to install a temporary patch over the hole in the external hull. This would enable pressurizing the hull to facilitate future internal repairs. It meant that entry and exit from the ship would be through the ship’s airlock chamber.

  When Joqi prepared to leave, Cssyza tapped a claw on the metal floor to get his attention.

  “You…affect…Cssyza.” The alien shifted nervously on its eight legs. “You…affect…me.”

  “What do you mean, affect?”

  The alien slumped to the floor and closed its four eyes. As far as he could tell, it was in a dormant state much like the condition it was in when pinned under the metal beam.

  Puzzled and unsure what else to do, Joqi turned and walked out of the compartment in his exoskeleton robot. On the way back to the Horizon Quest, he wondered if Cssyza was a male or female of its species. That was a question that could wait until they knew each other better.

  Right now he desperately needed to get back into the smart plasma pod.

  CHAPTER 10

  I need access to the szswn ship specifications, Dawn conveyed. Or we need Cssyza to identify hull points where we can safely attach pushing struts.

  Dawn’s pressing message pulled Joqi’s thoughts out of a plasma induced meditation. He agreed with Dawn. They needed to act fast; the damaged ship would crash into the planet in another five orbits.

  Dawn had calculated the center of mass of the alien’s vessel. She accomplished this by observing the initial tumbling of the vessel when encountered in orbit around the large planet, plus measuring the amount of force the propulsion robots had exerted to stop the vessel’s tumbling.

  She displayed a 3-D model of the vessel with a transparent hull, showing her estimation of the vessel’s internal structure based on several scans of the ship. The center of gravity was highlighted just forward of the engine room, along the centerline of the vessel running front to back. Dawn indicated the engine configuration was probably that of an advanced ion-drive propulsion system.

  Joqi transmitted the 3-D model to Cssyza, and expressed the urgent need to identify pressure points on the spaceship’s external hull they could use to push the ship safely away from the planet. He indicated points near the tail of the ship would be best. They could then use those points to more easily accelerate the ship into a trajectory back toward Cssyza’s home world. Towing the ship was an impractical option in the near term; pushing it was the best approach considering their time and resource constraints.

  Cssyza was a quick study and understood the urgency. It verified the location of the ships center of gravity, and identified points along and around the back half of the ship that represented major structural strength. That was good enough to support nudging the ship out of orbit around the planet. They would have time later to work out just how much force those points could withstand. And considering the large gap in understanding each other’s language, time was what they needed.

  Dawn deployed most of their reconfigurable robots to attach to the damaged ship’s external hull in a strut configuration that could cradle the nose of the Horizon Quest. Joqi wasn’t too keen on this approach. If the structure failed, they could damage all or most of their robots. But with their time constraint and lack of large structural beams to work with, it was the best approach. It was fortunate that the ship was a medium sized survey vessel, or they would have to consider more drastic measures, including rescuing Cssyza against its will and letting its ship crash into the planet.

  I detect several asteroids approaching our orbital path, Dawn conveyed with a sense of urgency. They must be associated with the one that damaged the alien’s ship.

  Great, that is all we need now, Joqi replied. The asteroids were likely now captured in orbit around the brown dwarf. Have the robots go to the opposite side of the szswn ship away from the asteroids.

  I have done so, Dawn replied. The track of the asteroids reveals that three are of primary concern to us.

  Can our high power lasers deflect them?

  No, they are closing on us too fast, Dawn said. However, the lasers can disrupt them.

  He knew what she meant; disrupt like in pulverizing them. He didn
’t like revealing their laser capabilities to the szswn, but there wasn’t much choice.

  Position the ship to track and disrupt them, he commanded.

  Dawn did so, resulting in only dust and small fragments of the disrupted asteroids hitting the ships. Joqi scanned and analyzed the asteroid dust and was surprised at the high metallic content in it.

  Looking again at the damage to the szswn ship, he had another concern. They didn’t need a surprise from a faster asteroid that could hit the Horizon Quest before they could detect and destroy the asteroid.

  We need to program our sensor control systems to automatically detect very fast incoming threat objects and fire the lasers automatically to destroy them.

  That capability exists, Dawn replied. I will set the timing and object description parameters and activate the automatic control system.

  Good. But be careful setting the descriptor parameters. We don’t need to shoot any of our flying robots down. Joqi smiled when Dawn didn’t respond. She surely understood that he was joking, but so far he had never known her to include any humor in her speech or actions.

  Dawn directed the robots to continue their task of building the strut assembly. The robots worked quickly as a team and configured their bodies into the desired structure at the backend of the szswn spaceship. Per Dawn’s direction, the robots avoided attaching to points in the engine exhaust area. Dawn eased the Horizon Quest in behind the ship, and then moved the Quest forward to nestle in the strut assembly, much as it had in the strut harness of the Sayer Research Station orbiting Zilia.

  On the next orbit segment as they turned back toward the large planet, they pushed the spaceship out of orbit and toward the szswn’s home world.

  • • •

  The massive brown dwarf and its orbiting planet receded quickly into the background as the Horizon Quest pushed and accelerated the szswn vessel into a trajectory to intersect its home world. Cssyza indicated early on that it had reestablished communication with its mission controllers. They first expressed shock and bewilderment at the turn of events. Having their survey vessel and pilot rescued was appreciated. Having it done by humans was not. And as best Joqi could interpret, they were fearful about what this might mean for their future.

  While Dawn focused on accelerating the two spaceships along the necessary trajectory to intersect the Cssyza’s home world’s orbit, Joqi stayed busy interacting with Cssyza, gaining a better understanding of it and its language.

  Early in their interaction, Cssyza asked Joqi how many humans were onboard his spaceship. Startled, he almost said one other, Dawn. He thought about it for a few seconds, and had a better idea, at least for the near term. He told Cssyza he was the only human onboard, but that his spaceship was an intelligent, self-aware entity in its own right, one that operated all systems as Joqi directed.

  He could tell this was a difficult concept for the szswn to comprehend. Cssyza asked if the robots were also self-aware entities, and Joqi said no. He explained they were self-organizing extensions of the spaceship, or of himself when needed, like the exoskeleton he rode over to the szswn ship. This seemed to mollify Cssyza for the time being.

  After Dawn was satisfied the two ships were on the right flight path to intercept the home world, Joqi asked her to conduct a detailed study of the solar system. He had the uneasy feeling a time would come when they would need to know much more precisely the details of this solar system.

  Dawn agreed, and conveyed, I have initiated the study.

  She paused, then added, Joaquin, I know the stress you felt when out of the smart plasma. You need to meditate frequently like your brother suggested, building up your tolerance for being out of the plasma.

  Implied in her statement was the assumption he would need to spend time out of the plasma to interface with other szswns when they arrived at their world. Joqi agreed, and thanked her, before turning his attention back to understanding Cssyza and the szswn species.

  Cssyza’s comment about him “affecting” it puzzled Joqi for some time. But each time he brought up the topic, Cssyza diverted the conversation to another topic. The szswn insisted that most of their interaction be via communication links, not in person. This was okay with Joqi at first; he had no desire to leave the smart plasma command pod. And for all practical purposes, visiting Cssyza while in a spacesuit was no better than interacting via video. Nor did he savor additional direct interaction with the alien, for it brought fearful unease to the forefront of his thoughts.

  Why was it so difficult to communicate with the szswn? Why were those on Earth never able to fully decipher the Clac language? Joqi reviewed the videos they had collected of his conversations with Cssyza. He reviewed again and again the recordings of his first few encounters with the szswn.

  He noticed that Cssyza shuffled its front legs a little when talking. He halted the 3-D video under review and restarted it from the beginning. Yes, the front legs shuffled a little as the szswn talked. And the two mandibles moved as well, in a rhythm similar to that of the front legs.

  He realized the szswn language was much more complex than anyone had imagined. It was a combination of leg/mandible sign language in sync with audible expression. A communication dance that provided flourish and continuity to the szswn language!

  I believe you are right, Dawn conveyed. Such insight—a language dance!

  We must learn this dance, Joqi replied.

  Both Dawn and Joqi closely examined the videos of his interaction with Cssyza. From the observed “cause and effect” interactions, they documented many basic steps in the szswn language dance involving front leg and mandible movements. The mandibles were more expressive than the legs, which seemed to provide the flourish to the language.

  Interaction with Cssyza improved greatly when Joqi added basic speech mannerisms by movement of his feet and arms, mimicking the movements of the szswn’s front legs and mandibles when communicating. In addition, he discovered Cssyza had a small, cream colored panel of skin just under its mouth slit that vibrated at different frequencies when it spoke. The frequencies were just above the spectrum of human hearing.

  Joqi had a fabricator robot build a panel for his translator that could receive and transmit the frequency components synchronized with the other speech elements. Dawn reprogrammed the translator to include adaptive algorithms to interpret the szswn’s spoken language, which, with Joqi’s use of sign language, richly enhancing communication with Cssyza.

  Cssyza expressed its pleasure at the extent Joqi went to understand the szswn language elements. It became very cooperative and proactive in teaching its language to Joqi. He quickly learned more gestures, adding a comprehensive sign language element to their conversations. He and Dawn were correct in assuming the leg movements provided flourish to the szswn language, much as hand movements do for human language. And the added translator panel rounded out Joqi’s communication capability.

  Once Joqi was confident in his ability to communicate fully with Cssyza, he asked several question about the szswn species, their history, and conditions on their home world. After some subtle prodding and offering information about his own people, Joqi managed to get Cssyza to provide general information about its species. It became clear that Cssyza still felt deeply indebted to him for freeing it from the damaged ship. He and Dawn saved Cssyza from certain death.

  As Cssyza explained, the szswns were driven to develop space travel capability by the impending demise of their local star. The star had increased its luminosity significantly over the past 1,000 years, driving temperatures up significantly on the szswn species home planet. The exact time when the star would expand rapidly before imploding was unknown, but they knew it wasn’t too far in the future. They knew all life on their world would die before the star expanded very much more. The star’s increasing luminosity would heat the planet’s atmosphere and surface to temperatures that would eliminate all life on the planet.

  The szswns had closely monitored changes in their star for over 2
,000 of their years, or about 1,600 Zilan years. More recently, they achieved spaceflight within their solar system, starting about 700 years in the past. They hoped it would provide an avenue of escape for enough of their young ones to ensure the survival of their species among the stars. They began a search in earnest for evidence of other habitable planets around stars reachable with “generation ships”.

  The szswn generation ship concept was similar to what Joqi had learned about the generation ships sent by Earth over 200 years earlier to colonize the planet Hope. Those aboard generation ships made the trip awake, in close knit communities living half-way normal lives. The ships from Earth had enough supplies to support up to three generations of colonists, if need be.

  In their search for habitable planets, the szswns discovered electromagnetic emissions from a faraway planet, indicating the presence of other higher intelligence life-forms in their neighborhood of space. This planet was Earth, located some 140 light-years from the szswns’ solar system. This prompted a more widespread search for other solar systems hosting advanced life-forms, and they discovered the planet Zilia, which also had resident advanced humanoids.

  The szswns also discovered the planet Hope, which had a biosphere that could support life, but they detected no emissions attributable to higher life-forms. Considering the time it took for signals to travel from Hope to this solar system, the szswns should detect signals from there in the near future, if they were still monitoring that region of space.

  Joqi told Cssyza his home world was Zilia, but stopped short of revealing that his grandfather was born on the planet Hope. He was surprised the szswn had not asked about his origin already. He provided a brief overview of conditions and society on Zilia, hoping to elicit more information from Cssyza about its home world.

  Cssyza made a very intriguing observation. The szswn found it curious that three planets in close proximity, cosmologically speaking, would have similar life-forms. And two of the planets hosted similar intelligent humanoids. It seemed logical to the szswn that life-forms from one planet were taken to the other two worlds to seed life there.