by Tom Germann
The two of them had arrived at the spot where the two Kah-Choo were standing. The aliens didn’t seem to be in a rush and Brent kept talking while the pair of Kah-Choo looked Two over.
“Then this little guy came in. He was wearing the same ship suit that you see him in now. When he came in, the doors opened. There were normally two guards in the hall—well, another dozen came in along with the big guy and another guy flanking, I guess, the boss. They all got really nervous as this guy moved closer to us. Tim, the guy who tried it on when they invaded, was trying to get us to charge the boss and take him prisoner. Yeah, no. One push of a button and everyone would have been dead. Then Tim tried it on his own. The guards knew he would, but they let him try it. I think they were testing us. Tim started trying to charge the little guy and four of us tackled him. We had all rolled around close to the boss and those guys. Man, I tell you, I thought for sure that they were going to kill us all. But the little guy said something and they all calmed down. Then he started trying to communicate with us. You know, talking doesn’t work. Everyone’s perceptions are too different and our computers mirror us in that way. He didn’t try talking. He used pictures. That took us a few days. He would stay for a little while and then leave. I think it took a lot out of him to communicate this way with us. I can tell you this, though: He is not a bad guy. We were on one meal a day and most of us were starving; we were able to get it across that we needed more. We get two meals a day now, and a snack. He also seemed upset when he realized that two of our personnel were kids. I mean, when he found out, they were taken away and came back with their ship suits. The Kah-Choo started loading our processed ore and shipping it up, but they didn’t seem like pirates. They weren’t kind but they weren’t bad, either. Oh yeah, and they scanned us with some sort of machine. After all this, I think they are here for some answers. They think that some humans did some bad things to them. I pray to God that I misunderstood what they were communicating to me, but I don’t think I did. My only hope is we didn’t do what they think we did.”
Brent paused again. Two had been silent the whole time. “I think I’ve talked enough; I don’t want to take too long and upset them. Do what I do and try not to be threatening. Those demo charges are still on the domes and they have lots of soldiers all over.”
I could see Two nod jerkily at Brent.
Brent turned and then bowed to the small figure. It looked silly to see a guy in a poorly-fitting ship suit do a ceremonial bow. Two bowed as well, carefully following his lead, and they both held it. The small figure returned the bow and then everyone straightened up.
The little guy was making some sort of hand gestures to the two of them, and I couldn’t make out what they were doing.
Brent tried filling in the blanks. “Okay, that is what we all agreed to mean little ones or maybe young ones. Mmm, I think he wants you to bring your young ones over. Why would you have kids here? You don’t have kids, do you? No, I can’t see you bringing kids to deep space on a Marine ship. Hmmm. Also, he wants to talk to you about the outpost here in this place.”
Two was still quiet. The comm line was still open but she hadn’t said much the entire time.
Finally, she spoke. “Eight, I want you to come over here. Leave your weapon and move really slow. I don’t want them getting the idea that we are being hostile.”
I left my weapon and carefully pushed myself up. I half-expected to get shot, but nothing happened.
One’s voice came over the line. “Don’t trust these scumbags, Two! They’re just trying to get you to lower your guard so they can take us out easier!”
“One, if they wanted to take us out, they could have detonated the mines, used their heavy weapons, or moved forward with the heavy weapons they have mounted on that heavy armour. Have you looked at the weapon loadout signatures? I also think they let us land. They put too much effort and planning into this trap. And it worked. But they didn’t kill us, and it doesn’t make sense to try to take prisoners. So let’s see what we can find out instead of going psycho and causing casualties we don’t need. Just relax until we know things are bad.”
I could hear cursing from One. It sounded like he had completely lost it.
I walked up to the group slowly and stopped a safe distance away. Then I bowed to the short rat guy. He returned the bow and gestured me over.
I moved up next to Two.
As soon as I was next to Two, the small rat did something to the board. I could see a small control panel and then the board came alive. It was some sort of display. There was a star system with just a few planets. The scale was not the best, but I could tell that some planets were bigger than others. There was so much data on the screen, but I had no clue what the symbols meant.
The image showed planets with some moons following a circuit around a star. There were also several blips that I guessed were satellites or Kah-Choo points of interest orbiting. Then there was the one big blip on a moon. An outpost.
The rat made some adjustments and the data all disappeared, but then a ship icon appeared. At least, I guessed it was a ship. It entered the system and started slowly moving inward. Several of the Kah-Choo blips disappeared and the ship was still heading for the outpost or base.
Other icons separated from the ship and I had the feeling that the Kah-Choo were under attack. I shivered in my armour. This looked similar to what had happened to our outpost.
The Kah-Choo outpost disappeared seconds later. The screen cleared. Several pictures formed.
They had been taken on the surface of the moon. The area was razed like ours had been, but in this case there were Kah-Choo around and there were bits of the outpost still left.
Whoever had done this had not been as thorough with them as they had been with us.
The last set of images stuck in my mind for a long time after. There was some sort of enclosed vehicle, then a close-up of the airlock. The vehicle was a bit bigger; it looked like it could have carried a dozen people, maybe a few more of the rats, depending on how big they were. The last image was taken from inside the buggy. There were only a few rat-people inside. They were all dead and it hadn’t been an easy death from the looks of it. I was guessing their atmosphere had run out and they had died struggling to breathe. A vehicle like that wouldn’t be self-sufficient for long. I could see their suffering in the way the corpses had been clawing at walls. Two were holding each other.
I felt sick.
The small rat turned the image off and the earlier scene came back. The ship was just entering the screen from the top.
He pointed at the icon, then tapped it and turned, pointing at first Two and then myself.
I thought it was pretty obvious that they were saying that we had done this. I looked at Two and she didn’t say anything. There wasn’t much too say. We couldn’t communicate except in the most basic way and we weren’t set up to interact with aliens. I didn’t even know how you said ‘no’ in sign language to a Kah-Choo. If I shook my head no, would I be saying yes? Or insulting them?
I could hear Two breathing. “Eight, they want you here with us and they are trying to communicate. I got that much. They think we attacked their base—at least, that was what I got from that and it seemed pretty clear. We’re going to try to communicate with them, telling them how we thought they had attacked our outpost, and I think it has to be you as they are watching you, not me.”
I looked and she was right. Both the big and small one were watching me. I shrugged.
“Okay, Two, but how much do I give them? I mean, I have the files backed up here in my system—I was going to review them later—but I can’t show them ‘cause I don’t have a projector and I don’t know how to transmit to their board here.” I had a thought. “I can try drawing it out?”
“You do that, Eight. If you have the files here, though, maybe we can make it work. Try gesturing that you want to use the board.”
&n
bsp; We weren’t supposed to give out any information to aliens. Information was power and we had been told that failure to remember that could cause miscommunication and death. Many deaths, possibly.
I had to try, though, and Two seemed to be agreeing.
I pointed at the board and then made gestures like I wanted to use it. The small rat moved away and I walked over to it. I looked at the controls and there was a data port, but it was completely different from the plug I could access. I carefully pulled my data port out of its armoured section and pretended to plug it in a few times and then shrugged.
The two were still watching me and Brent was off to the side.
He clicked on. “That was good. I think they are starting to understand that we want to work with them but our tech is too different. We tried drawing, and sometimes they got some of the basic ideas. Oh, hey! They have wireless on this board! Can you scan it and do a data dump that way?”
That was a really good idea, if it worked. I doubted it would. “Two, I’m going to clear a spot here and start drawing, okay?”
“You go ahead, kiddo. Four, you’re the resident tech guy. Can you come up here and get the freq for this wireless system and then see if we can have Eight push the data through it? A picture is worth a thousand words. Or in this case, a few million.”
Four’s voice came back immediately. “Check on that, Two. I’m leaving my weapons and walking slow now.”
I tuned them out and started clearing a spot I had found. I was going to use the ground as a map model and hoped they would try to understand. Or at least, didn’t decide to just kill us as we upset them.
I pushed some of the larger rocks away and lifted a few into position.
I used a large stone to represent the sun and then there had been six planets and two moons with a few large asteroids. I tried to work quickly and recreate the system that had been hit. I was able to keep the file open and reference it. It only took maybe half an hour for me to lay it out.
Then I stopped and looked at what I was doing. It looked bad.
The two Kah-Choo were still just standing and watching.
So I had the sun, planets, and moons. I needed more. I needed to show them some human components.
I pulled out the batteries for my pistol and popped them down where I was going to use them to represent satellites. Two was paying attention and gave me hers as well.
I used four of my rifle magazines on the correct rock to represent our outpost and a grenade launcher magazine for the processed material.
I still had nothing to represent the Kah-Choo ship. I stopped and rethought that. The enemy ship.
I took a bigger piece of slag and several smaller ones, and put them down to the side.
I could hear Four cursing as he tried to find the frequency, which he did quickly, but then he was trying to figure out how to get the interface to talk to him.
It sounded like he was cursing the Kah-Choo engineers and technicians just as much as he was cursing the human ones.
I got back to my model.
I carefully picked up the large piece of slag and tried to fly it like a kid with a toy airplane. I didn’t move from the far side of my map model because every time I picked up a rock I could see the big rat tense up and I didn’t want to have him call fire in on me.
I put the large slag piece down.
I pointed at the pile of magazines on the rock and pointed at me. Then I pretended to be digging at a slag heap again pointing at the magazines and then I put the slag down on the rock next to my grenade launcher mag.
I heard Ten’s voice click on. “Good going, Eight, you should have been an actor.” Then she was offline again.
I ignored her and everything else.
I pointed at the slag at the side of the map and then pointed at both of the Kah-Choo. The big guy didn’t seem to like that at all and I was hoping that he wasn’t going to take what I was indicating as some sort of insult that he had to fix.
I moved the ‘ship’ forward and then stopped when it was well in the system.
I put several small pieces of slag behind it to represent the boxed missiles. I pointed at one and then pretended to fire a missile from my shoulder. I took the small piece of slag and brought it against the laser battery. Holding them up and bringing them together I was able to mime an explosion and then I removed the two pieces from my map.
I did that with most of my ‘satellites.’
I did the same thing, miming the missile strike on the outpost and then the meteor strike as well. I didn’t even try to demonstrate the EMP burst or any of the other complex stuff. I just couldn’t do it.
I did show them the ‘ship’ moving into orbit and then a large piece of slag ‘landing’ as the shuttle that loaded the grenade magazine ‘material’ and took it back to the ship.
Then I had the ship leave orbit and exit the system.
Using the props, I had the ship pass near the one satellite that was left and turned it so that the Kah-Choo could see it was following the ship. Then I pointed to us, swooped my hand in, and picked up the battery. I made a point of examining it, then pointed at the slag ship and again at the two of them.
I stopped then and stood there. I was covered in sweat. It had been hard to pull off, and almost two hours had passed, but worse, I was terrified that I had miscommunicated what had happened and now these two aliens would have us all killed.
The small one sort of bowed to me and then walked over to the big one. They moved closer to the map model, even though the big guy pointed at me and then over to the board, which I moved to quickly.
Four was still working away and had been sort of successful.
“Two, did I do a good enough job on that? I thought I messed it up there. . . .”
Her voice was actually warm. “You did a good job there, Eight. You didn’t give away any of our big secrets and you showed them exactly what happened. I just hope that they can see the similarities between what happened to their base and our outpost. I can see how we’ve been set up, but I don’t know if they’ll see it that way or if they’ll figure that we are trying to frame them or something like that.”
Everyone else was quiet as they kept watch and waited. I could still hear One mumbling to himself and Four cursing regularly as he tried to get the systems to communicate together.
The two Kah-Choo looked like they were talking about what I had shown them. The larger one seemed to be pointing something out but I had no clue what. All we could do was sit there and wonder if it would work out.
Miscommunication
The Kah-Choo stood to the side of the open space the youngest Hooman had set up as a diagram and discussed what had been communicated so far.
The Representative did not look at Kaza as he spoke. “So Kaza, what do you think of the dancing and gesturing of the young Hooman?”
The two were on a secure command channel that the rest of the Kah-Choo could not access unless the Representative invited them. Kaza still had two other channels open to ensure that the warriors on the mission did not take offense and attack. This was only a formality, of course. Shiv was off to the side and had the blocking forces well in hand. Complete obedience was being given. Even when the one Hooman had attempted to charge them, the snipers had carefully followed orders and destroyed his weapon. In fact, they had done such a good job that they had only scratched the fool’s armour.
If only all warriors of the Kah-Choo Empire were as well trained and obedient as these. Shiv had done an excellent job.
Kaza gave himself a mental shake and paid more attention to his Lord, the Representative. Kaza had the job of bodyguard and military expert. That second skill set was in need here.
“Most Honoured Lord and Master. . . .”
The Representative’s laugh cut him off. “Kaza, do as you have been directed.”
Inside hi
s suit, Kaza smiled. “Yes, Lord. I first thought that perhaps he was propositioning either you or myself for mating. Given that you are much more a prime specimen of our species with your delicate fur and whiskers, I realized that he had recognized that you were prime breeding material and was trying to impress you.”
There was another snort and then The Representative spoke quietly, “Wait. You have been able to identify male and female through their armour? That was blocking our passive sensors. How did you figure it out?”
Kaza’s grin became even larger on his face. It would have made any of the Hoomans who saw it very nervous. “I didn’t, Lord. You just appear much more delicate than a robust warrior like myself.”
Again the Representative snorted with laughter. “It has been good to laugh, old friend, but we need to get to work now.”
Kaza bowed gently to his Lord. “I think the Hooman is either lying or trying to distract us by claiming that we are the aggressors. Or, perhaps one of their outposts was attacked in the same way. You know as well as I do, Lord, that none of our people have officially carried out any attacks like that.”
The Representative was looking back and forth across the simple map, which neither one of them had recognized. “Really, Kaza? What about the unofficial attacks that may have happened?”
Kaza considered this, carefully turning over what he knew of the unofficial raiders that existed within the Empire and how they were used. “My Lord, if you wish me to swear that none of the . . . discarded ones . . . were involved with this raid, then I would say no. They realize that the only way to regain enough honour to rejoin the Empire fully is to serve a successful term and be useful. Years ago there was the unsuccessful raid on the Hoomans that almost resulted in the destruction of a large freighter. That ship captain has been disciplined, as have his warriors. Yet they were not successful. They know to not take missions that would cost the empire honour, and none would carry out the destruction that these aggressors did. The rules that the emperor has commanded that we all follow ensure this. ‘Do not destroy infrastructure unless the cause is absolutely vital to the empire.’ We did not do this.”