by Nick Webb
She glanced at Shin-Wentworth and mouthed Mare of All Colors?
The professor grimaced. “Sorry, ma’am. The program still has some bugs, and he’s also trying to use Itharan words and sentences that more closely align with ours, and that leads to some interesting word choices. What he actually said was you send greetings above and beyond, female horse of the combination-of-all-colors-together-in-one.”
“Oh. They— they don’t have a word for white? It’s combination-of-all-colors-together-in-one?”
“Yes, ma’am. They have a remarkably inefficient language,” said one of the professors, “almost absurdly inefficient, though I find it strikingly beautiful. It seems they lack many words we find common, and instead use other words to describe those words. Such as combination-of-all-colors for white. Black is absorber-of-all-colors. Weapon is shortener-of-life, and the style of weapon is merely added on as additional descriptors. A gun, for example, is extremely-efficient-shortener-of-life-from-a-distance. And food—”
“Thank you, Professor. I’ll sit for a syntax lesson later.” Whitehorse turned back to the Itharan. “I welcome you to our ship,” she began, trying to use as basic of words and phrases as possible, and pausing to give the translation program time to do its work. “Do you need food or water?”
The Itharan held up both hands, all six fingers, and closed them suddenly. A clear . . . no? “You are generous, Leader Mare. We accept your offer. Perhaps I shall ghingza gryk klollog eat more than you?” He began expelling air quickly and Whitehorse could swear he was laughing. Or the Itharan version of it. She glanced back at the xenolinguistics professor.
“Partaking of food is almost a sport to them, Captain—I was about to tell you. I don’t know the cultural or anthropological origin of that behavior and attitude towards food, but it is clearly an important part of their social customs.”
“Any idea what . . . ghingza gryk klollog means?” she muttered.
“No idea, ma’am. I assume it relates to the sport of eating. But I can only guess at this point.”
She turned back to the Itharan. “It is decided then. Let us move to a place we can sit and eat and talk about what you came to discuss. May I have your name?”
“I designate myself Long-torsoed-eater-of-magnificent-things-who-often-thinks-too-much-for-his-own-good-and-enjoys-warm-rare-salt-baths-in-the-dark-for-uncommonly-long-periods-of-time-of-the-clan-Klollogesh-first-in-importance.”
Whitehorse tried to find something to say before realizing her mouth was still hanging open. “That . . . is . . . a great name. Can I . . . call you something shorter?”
“Shorter? Why? Does my name bring you distress?” the alien replied.
“No! If using a shorter name offends you, I apologize,” she said quickly. The translation computer had no sooner finished its work when the alien exhaled breaths in rapid succession.
“It pleases me to cause you great discomfort in an awkward situation, Leader Mare. You show discomfort in a great way. A powerful way. It pleases me. I know we shall be ghunza tlosh great friends. Ghingza gryk tallog sta for this year and many more to come.” More rapid breathing. She sure hoped that was laughter.
“Well then. How about calling you Klollogesh?”
“Yes. That is mostly and temporarily agreeable to me fligli ghosh. And I shall call you Leader Mare until you get so offended by it that you express your violent frustration by beating an underling dhash shoglin.”
Oh my god. These Trits.
“I . . . don’t know how to respond to that,” she said honestly.
“More discomfort! That is delightful to me! Friend Mare, let us go consume vast quantities of food together fliglish ghash. And talk of our mutual friend.”
Their what? “Excuse me, our mutual friend? Who might that be?”
He indicated the professor with all three fingers of one hand. “Your brain friends that seek to understand our language plohlosh shlogun told me that you fought the Galactic Scourge together with an old friend to my people. Let us sit together and discuss him.”
“Galactic Scourge? Is that the Swarm? The race of beings that nearly destroyed my people?”
“Yes. The same.”
“And my friend? To which do you refer?” Though even as she said it, Whitehorse knew, somehow, exactly who he was talking about.
“Your great friend! The greatest friend dharmasha ghosh. He helped my great ancestors make Ithar, the world you call Chantana Three. He helped us to hide from the ghilimsha ghoshaga Galactic Scourge when they destroyed our planet. Threes of threes of exponentiations of solar cycles ago. And he told my great ancestors rholishlik ghoshantik ghash to look for him among his own people when the Galactic Scourge falls. And they have fallen, and now we seek him as he asked.”
She mouthed, threes of threes of exponentiations, and glanced at the linguistics professor.
“Tens of thousands of years ago, basically,” he offered.
“I see,” she said slowly and turned back to Klollogesh. “And this friend’s name?”
“To us, his name was cantankerous-old-man-of-few-words-who-enjoys-silence-and-ethanol-and-long-periods-of-brooding-whereupon-he-bursts-into-frenzies-of-work-and-sport-and-has-great-insight-and-wisdom-in-spite-of-all-protests-to-the-contrary. In your language? I apologize. He never told us.”
Whitehorse reached toward one of the technicians and motioned for him to hand over his datapad. She flipped through a few menus and tapped on a file. She held it up to Klollogesh to see. “Is this the man?”
The alien took the datapad in his six fingers and studied the picture of Captain Tim Granger. His official IDF service photo.
“He looks very young tlohthla shoghosh. But yes, my belief is that this is cantankerous-old-man-of-few-words-who—”
She interrupted him. “Tim Granger. You’re saying Tim Granger helped your people escape the Swarm—what, thousands of years ago and helped you cave out your new home under the surface of this planet?”
“Yes, Friend Mare.”
“And that he told you to seek him out when the Swarm was destroyed?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say why?”
“Yes.”
She waited. When no reply came, she blurt it out. “Why?”
“To warn him. He told us to warn him ghoshaga tloth. He said he’d be very forgetful and that we must warn him.”
“Warn him of what?” Whitehorse felt a deep pit opening up in her stomach.
“We can tell only Cantakerous-old-man-et-cetera the full message. In certain truth, I and my partners have disagreed about the certitude of being able to tell even you, his companion in heroism, even the first lines of message. It was passed down to me from ages back. Threes of threes of exponentiations of solar cycles. My ancestor received it directly from Cantankerous-old-man-et-cetera himself. It was taught to me as a youth. I was made to remember and repeat on command. They advised that I conceal from you tlohthla ghoshag sa shaltha, but I prevailed over my partners, being the genetic and hereditary caretaker of the message. So I give you: the prologue.”
The alien cleared his throat, as if preparing to give a long speech. He puckered his lips out and squeezed them back in and made some noises that reminded her of a singer warming up his lips and voice for a performance.
And when he spoke, it was English. Terrible, broken English. And it wasn’t spoken so much as sung, but she understood all the same.
“In the beginning, I came to help you survive the Swarm. To hide your people inside the ground. I lived forever, from the beginning of time. When I return it will be as a half-man, mortal and weak. I created weapons to stop the Swarm. Some will work, some will not. And some have become perverted and lost. A people—a weapon, a race of deadly force and determination. A foe worthy of the Swarm, but gone astray. They will try to overthrow and remake all good things to their own ends. To take by force what was withheld from them. Beware. The half-man, mortal and weak, is key.”
Whitehorse held a hand to her mout
h. This was it. A first concrete clue about the nature of the Findiri. All they had up until now were rumors and memories from an old man that were woefully lacking in detail.
The alien paused, its mouth still open, as if deciding whether to continue. “I stop now. But will give the rest of the message to Cantankerous-old-man-et-cetera himself dhloshlag gloshlag sa sha. When can we see him?”
Whitehorse shook her head. “I’m sorry, I can’t promise you can see him soon. He’s . . . unavailable at the moment.”
“Just for a few three’s of moments? I could go up to his room, give him the message ginzaga glosh lag, receive his instructions, then return. It would please me.” He was indicating up toward the ceiling with a hand, and that’s when Whitehorse understood that the alien thought Granger was on the ship.
“Oh, he’s not here; he’s not on the ship. He’s on Earth, far away.” She counted in her head. “Many threes of threes . . . of threes . . . of three lightyears away.”
“Earth? Where is Earth? We will go there gloshag tlitlith.”
Whitehorse could only imagine the uproar that would happen in society if an unknown alien ship suddenly showed up in Earth’s orbit. Especially in the aftermath of the destruction of Britannia. There would be civil pandemonium. If anyone knew she’d had anything to do with them showing up, her head would roll. Her mission, the ISS Volz’s mission, was foremost to translate the Itharan language and facilitate the establishment of diplomatic relations, and secondarily to understand the physics behind their levitating continental crust. Not to escort a new alien race back to Earth so they could cause shock and anxiety among the population, just to deliver a message. Even if it was for Granger.
But one thing was clear. Someone needed to get that preliminary message to Granger. And if the rest of the message held critical details about the Findiri, and the Trits were only going to tell Granger the rest in person? Well then by God they needed him here, and soon.
“We can discuss the location of Earth later. But first I will ensure that your prologue is delivered to Granger, and in the meantime we will make preparations for you to deliver the rest in person. My partner, Commander Ethan Zivic, will deliver the preamble himself, and arrange for you to meet him.”
A voice from behind nearly made her jump. “I’m going where now?”
CHAPTER SIX
Sol Sector
Earth
Omaha, Nebraska
Sally Danforth Veterans Medical Center
“Mr. Rice, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Again, apparently,” said Granger with a smile and an extended hand.
The lab looked sterile and uncluttered, but full of state-of-the-art laboratory equipment hooked up to centuries-old computer monitors. Old-fashioned whiteboards lined the wall. The room as a whole suggested that Lieutenant Commander Tim Rice had a sharp, focused mind, paid great attention to detail, possibly had a slight case of obsessive compulsive disorder, and appreciated old things that still had use.
Which meant they would get along very, very well.
“Captain Granger, I think I may have found something in the medical archives that might help with the short-term memory. Long-term is another story, but short-term—well, come have a look.”
He’d grown used to this, and he supposed it was a good thing that he remembered enough to be able to grow used to it: people talking to him as if they’d known him their entire lives.
It was something he experienced a lot. Nearly everyone acted like they knew him. Dozens of people came up to him every single day to shake his hand—on the street, an elevator, a restaurant, even at the medical clinic where he went for his ongoing care and monitoring since his miraculous return.
He remembered that too. How could he forget waking up after what seemed like a billion years, naked, in a Skiohra reproduction machine.
“I hope it’s just a pill. Because son, I do not want another scope stuck up my ass. Why can’t I forget that, instead of whether or not I got laid last week.” He stopped following Rice for a moment. “Wait. Did I get laid last week?”
“You were with me almost every waking moment last week, Captain.”
Granger looked him up and down. “And we didn’t . . . ?”
“No, sir.” Rice had sat down at a computer and was scrolling through some data.
“Well, that’s the same as I remember, at least.” Granger sat next to him and stared at the monitor. “What are we looking at, son?”
He pointed to a few spots on the screen with long words like somatostatin receptors and bombesin-like peptides. But it was just gibberish to him. Give him some q-jump vectors and starship ops maintenance records and he was all over that, still, after all these years. But medical jargon? It may as well have been one of the more obscure Dolmasi dialects. “This is not enlightening, son.”
“It looks like there were a few people in the last hundred years or so that have had a similar type of memory displacement like yours. One of them, a Mr. Surithayan, was in a shuttle accident and nearly died. He did die, in fact, but they tried a full-body transplant, back before that was banned. The donor had been in a ground car accident himself and was brain dead, so they took Mr. Surithayan’s brain, snipped a few nerves and such, and moved him over to the donor’s body. For years he had what they called displaced memory syndrome, which looks very similar to what you’re going through.”
“Years?”
“Unfortunately, yes. But after five years they found something that helped him. A regular procedure, done monthly, followed by a daily pill that regulates brain neurotransmitter levels, as well as— Oh dear, you’re not going to like this part.”
“Don’t tell me.”
“Group therapy.”
“Shit.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
Granger sighed, and tried to read through some of the data on the screen. “Well, two out of three should help.”
“If you’re willing, sir, I’ve already taken the liberty of calling your doctor and asking how quickly something like this could be set up for someone in your position. He said he could do it today.”
Today? Granger gave up trying to interpret any of the incomprehensible data on the screen and regarded the officer. “What’s your role here, anyway? And, let me guess, I probably ask this every time we’re together.”
“Sometimes twice, sir.”
Have the procedure today? Yes, that sounded quite nice, in fact. “You didn’t answer me, Lieutenant.”
Rice began, in a tone that suggested it was a line he’d rehearsed very well over the past few weeks. “I’ve been assigned by IDF High Command to be your assistant during your recovery, and as a dedicated medical researcher to help study, diagnose, and treat your condition.”
“So you’re a doctor then.”
Rice shook his head. “Technically, no. I dropped out of medical school in my final year because of the troubles on San Martin with the GPC. My brother got caught up in it, and my mother begged me to set school aside and join up too and try to get him out of the mess he was in. Apparently when you join the Galactic People’s Congress, at least their militant wing, they don’t let you go easily.”
“You’re GPC?”
“I was, for about a year. But as a result my medical career was on life support, bills were piling high, my mother died, and with nowhere to go and no money I decided to enter the IDF Academy on San Martin. Specializing in medicine with a secondary in science. Did command school, too.”
Granger nodded. “Okay. You should just record that for when I ask in the future.”
“I did, sir.”
“Okay.” The thought kept nagging at him, all through the conversation. Today. You could get rid of this goddamn memory bullshit today, Tim. What’s holding you back? “What does the procedure entail?”
For the first time Lieutenant Commander Rice hesitated and looked slightly uncomfortable, as if he’d been caught in a compromising position, or like he’d messed his pants and just now realized it, only from the smel
l. “Well, there’s a non-invasive instrument that, when combined with an injection, will help repair broken axon connections and stimulate the neurotransmitter glands, but . . . I think that I’ll just cut to the chase here and get to the part you’re not going to like.”
“Try me.” How could it be worse than living with this hellish memory?
Rice took a deep breath. “Okay. There is an experimental drug that, in this case, would be for an off-label use. Years ago, after you fell into the black hole, medical researchers were experimenting with modified strains of the vaccine virus that Admiral Proctor developed toward the end of Swarm War Two. They were seeing remarkable—”
“Full stop, Commander Rice. That vaccine virus she developed was based on Swarm matter. It basically is Swarm matter, modified somewhat to produce anti-bodies that kill the virus that regular Swarm matter produces to assert control over a human mind. But when you get down to it, it’s Swarm matter. You want to inject me with Swarm matter?”
“It’s not Swarm matter, sir. All Swarm biosignatures are basically gone, leaving only the original Valarisi patterns, and even those aren’t viable—”
“Basically gone? The Swarm biosignature is basically gone?”
“It’s all gone. All the psychotropically active protein-producing sites are gone. The only thing left are the molecular sites that produce regenerative stem-cell switch-signal proteins. Basically, they make proteins that, when they attach to certain receptors in certain cells in your brain, those cells will revert to a stem-cell like state and produce substances that will repair brain tissue damage and enhance brain plasticity which should, in theory, allow the regular neural pathways to reorder themselves and arrange themselves into a state where they can process all the vast quantities of raw information haphazardly crammed up there in your gray matter. Sir.”
Well. The kid had done his research, at least.