by Rick Cook
Of course not, Jenkins thought. Why the hell should we?
He turned to Sharon. “Dr. Dolan, what about you?”
Sharon shook her head, reddish curls flying. “I barely met the language requirements for my Ph.D.”
“Perhaps I could be of assistance,” Father Simon put in.
“Do you have a talent for languages, Father?”
“Well, I do know Latin and the discipline that involves is a wonderful basis for learning any language.” Or so we used to tell them at seminary, the priest thought.
Carlotti considered. “Well, it doesn’t look like you’re going to be doing much astrometry. If you think you can handle it, do it.”
“I’ll need help, of course,” Father Simon said. “Especially computer time.”
“You’ll get everything we can give you, Father,” Jenkins promised. “Even if we have to strip the programs out of the navigation computers.”
To Billy Toyoda it was a sheer waste of time. Why bother reporting to the captain in person when you could call him up on the screen quicker and easier? But the captain wanted to see him in person, so he pulled himself onto the bridge and over to Jenkins’ station.
“Toyoda reporting.” He even tried to salute like he’d been told to.
Jenkins looked up in distaste. Not only was the computerman’s salute ludicrous, the man was nearly fifteen minutes late. But he decided to confine himself to more immediate matters.
“Mr. Toyoda, it is customary when on the bridge to anchor yourself to something,” Jenkins said caustically. “This is a ship, ships do move and it is very distracting for bridge personnel to have to dodge flying bodies when they change acceleration.”
“Sorry, Captain,” Billy said, unabashed, and did a fairly neat but inexpert maneuver that brought his toes in contact with the deck.
“I would also appreciate it if in the future you would respond on a more timely basis when I send for you.”
“Sorry, Captain. I was in the middle of something.”
Jenkins decided to leave it at that.
“Mr. Toyoda, we are going to need to use the computers to communicate with the aliens. Your superior tells me you are the best man for this kind of thing, so I’m assigning you to handle it.”
“Heavy job,” Billy Toyoda told the captain lazily. “We’ve got MIPS to burn, but this stuff isn’t specialized for what you want.”
“Specialized or not, it’s what we’ve got. How soon can you get a translation program up and running?”
“Hard to say. I’m gonna have to scrounge around to see what we’ve got that we can convert.” He paused and grinned mischievously. “Probably have to cannibalize stuff from the astronomers’ software.”
“How long?” Jenkins asked, keeping a tight rein on his temper.
The computerman shrugged. “We can have the basic stuff in a few days. Beyond that, depends on how complex things are and how good their sand is.”
“Sand?”
“Yeah. You know, their processors.”
Since processors were made of gallium arsenide and other more exotic materials Jenkins was as completely in the dark as he was before he asked the question. But he decided not to pursue it.
“Well, get started Mr. Toyoda, and keep me posted.”
Billy grinned and mimed a salute. “Aye, aye, Captain, sir.” He flipped neatly and kicked off a console to dive for the door.
Jenkins watched him go distastefully.
“I just hope that little punk is as good as he thinks he is.”
“No one’s that good,” Iron Alice told him. “But he’s very good.”
Jenkins just shook his head.
The first part, the easy part, was to translate the signal. The optical channel was pretty well out. The aliens’ frequencies were too different from the ones the humans used and there was no easy way to convert the equipment.
That left radio-frequency communications. By responding in the rf band to every laser signal, the humans were able to get the aliens to respond on a mutually satisfactory frequency. The aliens used a very complex, sophisticated encoding scheme to pack the maximum amount of information into their radio beams. But it was still child’s play for the Maxwell’s computers to determine the scheme and the basic protocol involved. With that information it was the work of only a few hours to translate the signal into audio and video components on the human’s equipment.
Jenkins was on the bridge when Billy Toyoda called him.
“Captain, we’ve got video from the aliens,” the computerman said.
“What is it?”
“Dunno. But we’ve got the signal. You can put it up on your screen if you want. Channel 614.”
Jenkins nodded and punched up the image. He expected a diagram or perhaps writing. Instead he found himself staring into a pair of unblinking yellow eyes.
Owls! thought Captain Jenkins when he saw his first alien.
It was illusion, of course. From the front, the great staring yellow eyes and the hooked beak looked owl-like. The downy gray body covering, something between feathers and fur, accentuated the effect. But when the creature moved its head and Jenkins saw it in profile, the illusion was lost. The beak was real enough, but it was the end of a short muzzle.
Jenkins looked down at Billy’s image in the corner of his screen. “Is that a live picture?” he asked sharply.
“I think so.”
“How fast can you encode a video signal and beam it out?”
“Few minutes.”
“Then do it. Apparently they expect to look at the people they talk to.”
Once the video channel was established, the real work began. The principle was simple. Take a black box, human or electronic, it doesn’t matter. Now give it inputs and compare each output with the desired output for that input. Next introduce a correcting signal proportional to the difference between the desired and actual outputs. Correct the output. Now repeat the process, over and over and over again until the output is sufficiently close to the desired output. Next you move on to a new input/output pattern and repeat the process.
If the black box is a human you call this “teaching,” or perhaps “operant conditioning.” If the box is a computer it becomes “boltzman programming” or one of a half-dozen or so similar terms. Either way, eventually the system learns to match up inputs and outputs.
The principle may be easy, but the process is not simple. Billy Toyoda became red eyed and haggard overseeing the computers, guiding them and easing them out of local minima and trying to find appropriate strategies for altering the “weights” of the connections to produce the most accurate translations in the least time.
First came the easy things. Numbers, mathematical operations, basic logical operations. The computers handled that part pretty much on their own, although Billy hovered over them in cyberspace like a broody hen.
Then they moved on to the harder parts, the more human parts. First came the concepts of verb tenses. This thing happens now. This thing happened in the past. This thing is a continuing process which stretches from the then to the now and on to the future. This thing was a continuing process which was started and finished in the past. This thing is a continuing process which will start and finish sometime in the future.
Even with the computers to help, it was difficult. The verb tenses did not match, but then they seldom do. The aliens’ concept of “now” had more in common with the physicist’s notion of simultaneity than with the English present tense. Even the distinction between “I” and “those like me” was blurred by human standards.
Father Simon was invaluable for the work. He had no formal linguistic training but he was patient and possessed a keen analytical sense. He was however, only one of a small, constantly shifting group that worked on turning the sounds and images into a comprehensible language. Somehow—part aptitude, part common agreement—the priest was the human who appeared before the cameras.
The aliens took a somewhat different approach. Four or f
ive of the habitats sent signals to the Maxwell, with different teams of aliens working at each one. Only one habitat seemed to use the same speaker every time. It was obvious that the aliens were monitoring each other’s transmissions and perhaps exchanging information because a word or concept learned by one seemed to be instantly known to all the others.
The diversity had its advantages, but it placed a cruel load on the priest. Father Simon worked at the screen for hours at a time, gesturing, speaking, listening patiently and consulting with Billy Toyoda to improve the translation software.
Beyond the mechanics of translating the words, the software was vital. There was no way humans and aliens would ever speak each other’s language unaided. Beaks could not be used like lips to shape sounds, and humans lacked the aliens’ resonating chambers in the muzzle. A large part of the alien language was gestural. Posture and movement were critical to interpretation and some “words” would have required a human contortionist.
Sometimes, in spite of computers and beings on both sides working themselves to exhaustion, the results weren’t quite what was expected.
Father Simon studied the alien on the screen carefully. This was the one who always appeared for his habitat, he knew, and there was an indefinable something else about him, something that set him apart. Now they were to the point where they could start exchanging referents. Perhaps the source of that difference would emerge there.
The priest pointed at himself. “Simon,” he said, pronouncing the word carefully.
The alien tapped himself on the beak and his mouth moved. There was a pause while the computer searched through its data base for the word or phrase that most nearly conveyed the same meaning. Since the word was presumably a name, the program had unusual latitude to seek even non-English words if they matched more precisely.
“Der Fuhrer,” the computer announced.
Father Simon started. Well, if that’s the translation of the being’s name . . .
“Der Fuhrer,” he repeated, pointing at the screen.
Gradually, both sides built up their store of concepts until they could begin to discuss substantive issues, even fairly abstract ones.
“What do you call yourselves?” Father Simon asked the alien on the screen.
The literal answer was something like “the descendants of those who chose to live in space.” The computer boiled it down to one word.
“Colonists,” the image on the screen said.
“Where are you from?”
The great yellow eyes regarded him without blinking. “Another star. Thousands of cycles ago our great Branch arrived here.”
“In a ship like ours?”
Again the unblinking stare. “Not like yours. Bigger. Much bigger.”
“Ah, yes,” Father Simon said. The alien’s stare was making him nervous. “Do you have ships like ours?”
“Yes.”
“Forgive me, it was just that since we came we have not detected any faster-than-light ships in the system.” The alien showed signs of agitation. “I do not mean to pry,” the priest added hastily.
“Why have you come here?” the alien asked.
“We came looking for knowledge,” Father Simon told him. “At first astronomy—star knowledge—then when we found out the system was inhabited, we wished to learn about you.”
There was a pause while the computers at both ends of the link translated what the priest had said. Then the alien’s mouth moved.
“Knowledge is good,” the alien said. “Do you offer knowledge in return?”
“Yes, we would offer knowledge in return.”
“Knowledge of your . . .” the words stopped and there was a long pause while the computers went looking for the correct meaning “. . . thing that moves between stars?”
“Our star drive?” Another long pause while the computers conferred.
“Yes, the star drive.”
Father Simon frowned. “I thought you had faster-than-light travel.”
“Yes.”
“Then why do you want to trade for that?”
The alien froze and suddenly the screen went blank.
“What in the world . . .” Father Simon checked the link. It was intact, meaning the alien had deliberately shut off transmission. Then just as suddenly the screen cleared and there was the alien again. Or rather, Father Simon corrected himself, an alien. Looking closely, he didn’t think it was the same one.
“A problem,” the alien said. “Sorry.”
“Quite all right,” the priest said, nonplused by the jack-in-the-box routine. “Ah, I had asked about the star drive.”
“We have a star drive.”
“Then why do you want to trade for ours?”
The alien’s mouth moved for a long time before the computer spoke.
“Knowledge is good. Knowledge is always good.”
Father Simon frowned. Obviously, he wasn’t getting the full meaning of what the alien had just said. That was one of the problems with the programs at this early stage. He didn’t suspect that he had just missed an elaborate equivocation because of the imperfect translating software.
“Knowledge is good,” Father Simon agreed. “But you do not keep starships in this system?”
Again a long answer and a long pause for translation.
“We know of starships.”
“Yet there aren’t any coming and going here?”
“Sometimes.”
“But not while we have been here. We would have detected them.”
“You cannot detect a starship until it makes its presence known.”
“That’s not . . .” Father Simon stopped, his mouth hanging open. “It isn’t the same kind of drive, is it?”
“It is faster-than-light travel.”
“But not our kind. That burst of RFI is characteristic and inherent in the drive. If you knew about our drive, you would have known about that.”
“We have faster-than-light drive,” the Colonist repeated, obviously agitated.
“But not like ours?” Father Simon pressed.
The alien hesitated. “No,” he said finally. “Not like yours.”
“How is it different?”
“Many ways.”
“It’s not as good, is it?” Father Simon asked shrewdly. “It doesn’t work as well. Otherwise you wouldn’t try to hide it.”
The screen went blank.
“Well, that’s a confirmation of a sort,” the priest said to the blank screen. Then he punched up a second frequency.
The Ship’s Council met in one of the large conference rooms down on the A deck—the part of Spin furthest out from the core with the highest gravity and hence the most desirable part of the ship.
Affectation, Peter Carlotti thought, looking out over the empty seats. The room was big enough to hold nearly a hundred people, but aside from the members of the Council only Sharon Dolan and Father Simon were present. Anyone else who was interested was tuned in on a screen. He sighed inwardly, turned his attention back to the Council meeting and waited for the others to pounce.
The meeting had droned through twenty minutes or so of routine business and Carlotti’s report was the next item on the agenda. He didn’t expect it to be routine at all.
“And the next item is the report from the contact committee,” Aubrey said. “Dr. Carlotti?”
“There’s not a lot to report,” Carlotti told his fellow Council members. “We’re making significant progress, but it’s slow work.”
“Excuse me, Dr. Carlotti,” MacNamara interrupted, “but I’d like to know when we will be able to talk to the aliens.”
There was a murmur of assent from the rest of the Council.
“I wish I could give you a definite time frame, Doctor, but it’s not easy. There is still a great deal we do not understand about the aliens’ language, and communication is painful and full of difficulties.”
“But we can communicate?” MacNamara asked. “We can start actually talking to them?”
&n
bsp; “We communicate, but only on a very elementary level. That’s one problem.” He took a breath. Here it comes. “The other problem is that so far the software is only trained on Father Simon.”
“You mean Father Simon is the only one who can talk to the aliens?”
“Right now, yes. To speed things up we didn’t attempt to train the computer on other human voices.”
“Dr. Carlotti, we have been in communication with the aliens for nearly four weeks,” MacNamara said. “There are nearly two hundred scientists on this ship who are eager to start learning from them. But so far Father Simon is the only one who has spoken to them and except for their language we have learned nothing from them.”
Carlotti hesitated. “We have found out one other thing. They don’t have our star drive.”
“What?” Aubrey interrupted. “They haven’t told us that.”
The astronomer shrugged. “I don’t think they intended to. It slipped out when they were talking to Father Simon. Or he deduced it rather, and forced it out of them. He is amazing.” Father Simon looked uncomfortable.
“But no star drive . . .”
“Oh, they know of a star drive, but it isn’t ours. It is a lot clumsier, apparently, and a lot more expensive to use. Also their ships have to be huge. The one called Derfuhrer says their starships are nearly as big as one of their colonies.”
“Well, if you have to move a lot of people to start a colony . . .”
“I said they know of a star drive, I didn’t say they use it.”
“How do they move?”
“Generation ships.”
“You mean they take hundreds of years to travel from system to system?”
Carlotti shrugged. “It apparently suits them. They live their entire lives in artificial structures, so it doesn’t matter much whether the structure is in orbit or moving through interstellar space.”
“They’re cut off then. One star system from another.”
“Physically, yes. But they seem to maintain communications with other solar systems by laser. I gather that travel doesn’t count for much with them. Even within this system most of their contact is electronic. Not many of them have seen more than one colony.”