"So we agreed we'd go with what we could get right then. I'd leave on the Godspeed, which would be stopping along the way at Aphasia and Barnard's World. Then nine months later, Helen would leave on the Quicksilver, which would be stopping just once at Serendipity. Only thanks to the relativistic effects, she'd actually end up beating me here by something like eighteen months."
Cove stood abruptly, panicking when his feet left the floor. Fuhrmann shot up to steady him, but Cove moved to the viewport and watched as the planet below swung out of sight. "We shouldn't have done it that way," he said, and the words seemed to come from somewhere far distant. "Whatever we did--either coming here or staying there--we should have done it together. Damn, why was I so stupid?"
"You're hardly stupid, Miles," said Fuhrmann, laying a somewhat cold hand on Cove's shoulder. "You're a genius, really. You are."
"Yeah, sure."
"Listen, your work shows a remarkably intuitive understanding of communications protocols, a flair for creative problem-solving--what we like to call an ability to think outside the box--and a ... a rareconversance with some of the less well-known ramifications of subquantum physics. The research teams are already wrangling over who gets first crack at you. You've got algorithmic teams, pure theorists, language deconstructionists, even one team working on faster-than-light communication--" Fuhrmann broke off, smiling with embarrassment. "Sorry if I wax a little overenthusiastic, but I get very excited about the prospects here for someone as smart as you are."
Cove shook his head. His face felt frozen. "Well, I'm at least smart enough to know the smarts we're talking about aren't the kind that are really important. Helen was my touchstone for things like that." A tear formed in the corner of his eye, but without sufficient weight to cause it to fall. He dabbed it with the tip of his finger. "She always told me I was too intelligent for my own good, and not smart enough by half."
"That doesn't sound like such a constructive thing to say to someone."
Heat flared in Cove's chest. "Well, it all depends on who's saying it, and how they're saying it."
Fuhrmann nodded and removed his hand from Cove's shoulder. "You're right. I apologize."
Cove sighed. "Forget it. I don't expect anyone else to understand." He turned back to the viewport. "It's funny, though--I can't imagine her not being with me, and at the same time I can't imagine her ever leaving behind her whole life on Enoch. Which probably only proves her point." He laughed without mirth. "So in the meantime, she decided she really didn't love me enough, or she met someone she liked better, or ... oh, who knows what happened."
"You do realize," said Fuhrmann with a strangely jarring brightness, "that imprecision on extremely long relativistic trips isn't such an unusual thing. It only takes a small variation in the ship's velocity to throw the arrival off by a year or two from our frame of reference, or even more. From the ship's reference frame, they hardly notice the time delta, but we certainly do on this end."
Cove turned his head from the viewport, one eyebrow raised.
"Were you aware that your own flight arrived about six months early?" said Fuhrmann. "Maybe you missed the announcement in all the confusion of reawakening. The point is, relativistic navigation is really as much an art as a science--a little like what you and I do. Schedules don't mean a lot."
"How--how can we find out...?"
Fuhrmann cocked his head and pointed at his left eye. "Right here. I just subvocalize my query, and I can pick up the results on my eye. What was the name of her ship again?"
"The Quicksilver," said Cove, his excitement mounting. "You can really find out just like that?"
"Just like that." Fuhrmann stared again at the invisible point in front of his face, scowling a bit, but then his expression relaxed. "Well, theQuicksilver hasn't been in port here anytime in the last century."
Cove felt both his eyes and his smile widen, and for a moment it seemed that his heart was whole again. "Then--then it's still on its way here."
Fuhrmann nodded. "It certainly looks that way. In fact, it looks as though--oh, dear." His scowl returned, fading to a look of resignation. "Oh, oh, dear."
Fear galvanized Cove's skin. "What? What?"
"Miles, I think you had better sit down."
"No! What?"
Fuhrmann would not meet Cove's gaze. "Miles ... I'm sorry. It seems there's another explanation for the delay. You mentioned theQuicksilver being scheduled to stop in the Serendipity system. Well, there's a civil war in progress there. Or at least there was thirty years ago, which is the most recent information we have." He coughed. "When the Quicksilver entered the system, it was ambushed by a rebel armada. They apparently mistook it for, er, a troop ship."
Cove stood with his mouth open, while the revolving stars outside seemed to stretch out and spin around him. "What are you saying? Are you saying...?"
Fuhrmann's forehead wrinkled. "Er, I'm afraid so. I'm--sorry."
"No! Oh, my God, no!" Cove gripped his head in both hands and turned in a circle, oblivious to the stares of the diner's other patrons. "Was she on it? Oh, God, please tell me she wasn't on it! Please!"
"Miles, I don't know," said Fuhrmann quietly.
Cove seized the shorter man by the front of his tunic. "What do you mean, you don't know?"
"Just that," Fuhrmann said with only a trace of perturbation. "Miles, the ship didn't have time to check in at Serendipity before it was destroyed. The only copy of the passenger manifest would still be on Enoch, and they won't know to transmit it back here until they've heard about the incident from Serendipity. And since Serendipity is closer to us than it is to them, they won't get the signal on Enoch for another ten years."
"Oh, God, that's eighty years, at least," Cove said. "And with the likelihood of packet loss along the way..." His voice dropped to a whisper, and darkness crept in at the edges of his vision. "Even if I live past a hundred, I'll probably still never know. Never."
He returned to the table and drifted down into his seat, moving like a fragile leaf in the low g. Only one thought kept the darkness at bay, though it was several moments before he could articulate it. "Fuhrmann, you said something about research in FTL communication."
Fuhrmann sat down opposite Cove. "That's Dr. Saimamba's team, yes."
"Get me on it."
"Well, I can put in a recommendation..."
Cove seized the other man's wrist. "Get me on it."
Fuhrmann indicated his helplessness with a shrug. "I'll see what I can do, but--"
"You promise me," Cove said with grim focus, feeling the darkness contract around him. "If your company wants to keep me here one minute longer, then you promise me now."
Fuhrmann picks up his bulb and finishes his coffee before speaking, the better to conceal the troubling mixture of satisfaction and discomfort he feels. To get the result you want, as he has always believed, you need only present the problem in the correct terms. No falsehoods necessary--only facts, properly ordered.
Not all the facts, either--only the necessary minimum. The fact, for instance, that Kim Saimamba has paid Fuhrmann handsomely to get the kid onto her research team--that's nothing Covio needs to know. Her hunger for a Hawking Prize-- similarly irrelevant.
And then there are the disturbing rumors he picks up here and there in the company, rumors conveyed in whispered fits and snatches...
He sets aside the empty bulb, which has completed its job and now rattles as hollowly as Fuhrmann fears he will when he stands up from the table. He takes Covio's hands in his own and gives them a solid squeeze, staring straight into the young man's eyes. "You'll get on that team, Miles," he says, with just the precise degree of solemnity and determination. "I promise you that."
The young man's eyes widen in surprised gratitude, trembling on the verge of dissolution, and Fuhrmann has a moment to wonder how plausible it is that the company has really translated its interest in highly motivated researchers into a galaxy-spanning network of independent saboteurs.
An
d then Covio's brave front crumbles into keening sobs, and Fuhrmann can only pat the young man's hand to no effect as the grief pours out like a river. If the rumors are true, he will have many more such scenes to look forward to in the coming years.
Murmuring empty words of comfort, he tries without success to swallow the ashes in his mouth--ashes like the cold remains of a blasted starship.
TED CHIANG
Ted Chiang (born 1967) is an American speculative fiction writer. His Chinese name is Chiang Feng-nan.
Chiang's short fiction works have (as of 2013) won 4 Nebula awards, 3 Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer, 3 Locus awards, and others. Critic John Clute has praised Chiang's "tight-hewn and lucid" style, and says Chiang's stories have "a magnetic effect on the reader."
Story of Your Life, by Ted Chiang
Ted Chiang has only published three SF stories prior to this one and his first, “Tower of Babylon”(1990), won the Nebula Award; another (“Understand”) won the Asimov's Readers Award in 1991, and he won the John W.Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1992. He is a careful and accomplished writer, and his work is distinguished by originality combined with the high quality of his re-imaging of old SF ideas. This is his fourth published story, his first in more than five years (he seems to have a satisfying life in the Seattle area that leaves him little time for SF writing). It is the longest story in this book and may well be the best. The theme of communicating with aliens was prominent in the SF fiction of 1998, but nowhere better done than here. It appeared in Starlight 2. In a year that was not notable for many strong original SF anthologies, this novella helped Starlight 2 (which contained both fantasy and SF stories) stand out.
- intro from Year's Best SF 4, ed. David G Hartwell
Your father is about to ask me the question. This is the most important moment in our lives, and I want to pay attention, note every detail. Your dad and I have just come back from an evening out, dinner and a show; it's after midnight. We came out onto the patio to look at the full moon; then I told your dad I wanted to dance, so he humors me and now we're slow-dancing, a pair of thirtysomethings swaying back and forth in the moon-light like kids. I don't feel the night chill at all. And then your dad says, “Do you want to make a baby?”
Right now your dad and I have been married for about two years, living on Ellis Avenue; when we move out you'll still be too young to remember the house, but we'll show you pictures of it, tell you stories about it. I'd love to tell you the story of this evening, the night you're conceived, but the right time to do that would be when you're ready to have children of your own, and we'll never get that chance.
Telling it to you any earlier wouldn't do any good; for most of your life you won't sit still to hear such a romantic—you'd say sappy—story. I remember the scenario of your origin you'll suggest when you're twelve.
“The only reason you had me was so you could get a maid you wouldn't have to pay,” you'll say bitterly, dragging the vacuum cleaner out of the closet.
“That's right,” I'll say. “Thirteen years ago I knew the carpets would need vacuuming around now, and having a baby seemed to be the cheapest and easiest way to get the job done. Now kindly get on with it.”
“If you weren't my mother, this would be illegal,” you'll say, seething as you unwind the power cord and plug it into the wall outlet.
That will be in the house on Belmont Street. I'll live to see strangers occupy both houses: the one you're conceived in and the one you grow up in. Your dad and I will sell the first a couple years after your arrival. I'll sell the second shortly after your departure. By then Nelson and I will have moved into our farmhouse, and your dad will be living with what's-her-name.
I know how this story ends; I think about it a lot. I also think a lot about how it began, just a few years ago, when ships appeared in orbit and artifacts appeared in meadows. The government said next to nothing about them, while the tabloids said every possible thing.
And then I got a phone call, a request for a meeting.
I spotted them waiting in the hallway, outside my office. They made an odd couple; one wore a military uniform and a crew cut, and carried an aluminum briefcase. He seemed to be assessing his surroundings with a critical eye. The other one was easily identifiable as an academic: full beard and mustache, wearing corduroy. He was browsing through the overlapping sheets stapled to a bulletin board nearby.
“Colonel Weber, I presume?” I shook hands with the soldier. “Louise Banks.”
“Dr. Banks. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us,” he said.
“Not at all; any excuse to avoid the faculty meeting.”
Colonel Weber indicated his companion. “This is Dr. Gary Donnelly, the physicist I mentioned when we spoke on the phone.”
“Call me Gary,” he said as we shook hands. “I'm anxious to hear what you have to say.”
We entered my office. I moved a couple of stacks of books off the second guest chair, and we all sat down. “You said you wanted me to listen to a recording. I presume this has something to do with the aliens?”
“All I can offer is the recording,” said Colonel Weber.
“Okay, let's hear it.”
Colonel Weber took a tape machine out of his briefcase and pressed PLAY. The recording sounded vaguely like that of a wet dog shaking the water out of its fur.
“What do you make of that?” he asked.
I withheld my comparison to a wet dog. “What was the context in which this recording was made?”
“I'm not at liberty to say.”
“It would help me interpret those sounds. Could you see the alien while it was speaking? Was it doing anything at the time?”
“The recording is all I can offer.”
“You won't be giving anything away if you tell me that you've seen the aliens; the public's assumed you have.”
Colonel Weber wasn't budging. “Do you have any opinion about its linguistic properties?” he asked.
“Well, it's clear that their vocal tract is substantially different from a human vocal tract. I assume that these aliens don't look like humans?”
The colonel was about to say something noncommittal when Gary Donnelly asked, “Can you make any guesses based on the tape?”
“Not really. It doesn't sound like they're using a larynx to make those sounds, but that doesn't tell me what they look like.”
“Anything—is there anything else you can tell us?” asked Colonel Weber.
I could see he wasn't accustomed to consulting a civilian. “Only that establishing communications is going to be really difficult because of the difference in anatomy. They're almost certainly using sounds that the human vocal tract can't reproduce, and maybe sounds that the human ear can't distinguish.”
“You mean infra- or ultrasonic frequencies?” asked Gary Donnelly.
“Not specifically. I just mean that the human auditory system isn't an absolute acoustic instrument; It's optimized to recognize the sounds that a human larynx makes. With an alien vocal system, all bets are off.” I shrugged. “Maybe we'll be able to hear the difference between alien phonemes, given enough practice, but it's possible our ears simply can't recognize the distinctions they consider meaningful. In that case we'd need a sound spectrograph to know what an alien is saying.”
Colonel Weber asked, “Suppose I gave you an hour's worth of recordings; how long would it take you to determine if we need this sound spectrograph or not?”
“I couldn't determine that with just a recording no matter how much time I had. I'd need to talk with the aliens directly.”
The colonel shook his head. “Not possible.”
I tried to break it to him gently. “That's your call, of course. But the only way to learn an unknown language is to interact with a native speaker, and by that I mean asking questions, holding a conversation, that sort of thing. Without that, it's simply not possible. So if you want to learn the aliens' language, someone with training in field linguistics—w
hether it's me or someone else—will have to talk with an alien. Recordings alone aren't sufficient.”
Colonel Weber frowned. “You seem to be implying that no alien could have learned human languages by monitoring our broadcasts.”
“I doubt it. They'd need instructional material specifically designed to teach human languages to non-humans. Either that, or interaction with a human. If they had either of those, they could learn a lot from TV, but otherwise, they wouldn't have a starting point.”
The colonel clearly found this interesting; evidently his philosophy was, the less the aliens knew, the better. Gary Donnelly read the colonel's expression too and rolled his eyes. I suppressed a smile.
Then Colonel Weber asked, “Suppose you were learning a new language by talking to its speakers; could you do it without teaching them English?”
“That would depend on how cooperative the native speakers were. They'd almost certainly pick up bits and pieces while I'm learning their language, but it wouldn't have to be much if they're willing to teach. On the other hand, if they'd rather learn English than teach us their language, that would make things far more difficult.”
The colonel nodded. “I'll get back to you on this matter.”
The request for that meeting was perhaps the second most momentous phone call in my life. The first, of course, will be the one from Mountain Rescue. At that point your dad and I will be speaking to each other maybe once a year, tops. After I get that phone call, though, the first thing I'll do will be to call your father.
He and I will drive out together to perform the identification, a long silent car ride. I remember the morgue, all tile and stainless steel, the hum of refrigeration and smell of antiseptic. An orderly will pull the sheet back to reveal your face. Your face will look wrong somehow, but I'll know it's you.
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