Alien Tongues

by M. L. Janes

  Ben had brought my breakfast on a trolley. I had felt hungry earlier but now I felt sick. Could I bear to watch the news? Damn it, everyone goes a bit insane sometimes. And I was faced with perhaps the worst kind of physical agony – who could really blame me? I was just a working, single fem, nobody special. Every day we see someone do something crazy in a news segment and we forget about it. How about the billions of people whose naked pictures you could find, even ones of them having sex? The one good thing about embarrassing stuff – there is just too much of it everywhere about too many people to make any real difference.

  So, heart in mouth, I steeled myself to turn on the news. Among the headlines, it took only a moment to find, "Escape from Quick Matter – A Pilot's Incredible Story." Wincing, I opened it to find one of the most famous Center Network cros anchors, Ed Row, hosting the story.

  "We've all seen movies about quick-matter," he began. "Some of them are horror stories, others are science fiction about traveling to an alternate universe. But until yesterday, no one had entered a quick-matter's deadly vortex and lived to tell the story. This is the story of Meg Moon, a First-Class Pilot of Gold Wings, employee of Nebula Fleetlines, fem from the Dust Belt, and survivor of a visit to the funnel of QM81 – a previously unmapped QM of which she could have had no inkling until caught in its death-spiral."

  My first feeling of relief came from this last statement. It was already being acknowledged that the quick-matter was unmapped, removing any doubt that something I had done had caused me to miss it. Ed Row then introduced a panel of "experts" who he said would be providing commentary to the story. One of them was Professor Joy, leading authority on the mathematics of QMs. Wow.

  "Panel," he told them, "I'm just going to go straight to the video taken within the cabin. I'm afraid the soundtrack is no help as all we can hear is the roar of the engines, the starting of which had woken Meg from a nap. But each of you has told me that, in your area of expertise, it's clear what is going on here. So I'm going to ask you in turn to walk us through this video, OK?"

  Now I felt a dramatic lightening in my chest. No soundtrack. Even though people could see my face and ridiculous actions, they could not hear my curses. How easy were my lips to read? It seems the panel was OK with the arrangement. A celebrity cros medical doctor was asked to take up the commentary from when I first sat down at the console.

  "Watch her stare at all those screens. You can just tell she is approaching what they call in cognitive science the "moment of synaptic resonance."

  Ed Row jumped in. "That's what popular science calls the "Brain Bang", isn't it?"

  The doctor laughed indulgently. "Yes, Ed, that expression has a sort of intuitive appeal, doesn't it? I mean, what we're talking about is something machines are not wired to do. Machines operate in logical sequences , so they are not so good at inspiration. What the brain can do is suddenly pull together seemly unrelated material by finding some entirely new pattern which just happens to a new situation. A leap of logic, a brainwave – we have many expressions for it. Our brains have sections for language, for mapping, for face recognition, even for moral decisions. During this so-called "Brain Bang" we somehow see a solution which gets its source from a whole cluster of these sections."

  "Yes, got you." Ed seemed worried the doctor was going on too long and losing their audience. "Jill." He turned to a fem psychologist. "Meg is now grasping her mal's shirt. What's going through her mind here?"

  I'm telling him he's a stupid ape, I thought, but luckily you can't pick that up. The fem replied, "I think that's a sure sign of the Brain Bang. She's desperately trying to communicate to the mal that he must follow her instructions. She's excited with her discovery, but she also knows this is going to be very tricky with a mal."

  "And can you explain whys she needs the mal to help?"

  "I will do that," interrupted the expert, older fem engineer on the panel. I think she was one of the main architects of the last Gold Wing series. "But let's wait until he sits at the console – it'll be clearer then."

  I could not believe what I was hearing. An alternative story was being dubbed onto my silent movie. We watched Ben pull me out of the control chair and carry me over his shoulder. Surely I'm found out now, I thought. Much of my beating on his back was not visible, but a number of thumps were.

  Ed and several of the panel chuckled at that sequence. "That's truly amazing, isn't it?" Ed exclaimed. "Doctor, please help us!"

  "Well, such gravity fields can have strange affects upon our central nervous systems," came the reply. "sometimes, it can temporarily paralyze parts of the body. It seems that Ms Moon has at that moment lost the full use of her legs and at the least cannot trust herself to walk in such an accelerating environment. Her mal, who has much thicker thighs and calves, seems still to be functioning normally."

  "And the signals to the mal's back?" Signals!

  The older fem engineer interrupted again. "It's clearly a sequence of controls he is going to operate for her," she explained. "I think you can see… left, right, left, left, right, left….again, we will see this more clearly when the mal is at the console."

  Now I just gazed, wide-eyed and open mouthed, as if I were part of the breakfast audience. After all, I was listening to the experts.

  Ed Row reached round to his back as a kind of demonstration. "Blows on the back – the sort of sequence you're going to remember pretty well for a short while, still feeling it! And of course we're dealing with a mal here – you need to be creative if you want them to memorize something."

  There was a murmur of agreement from the panel. I found I was now slowly eating my breakfast as I watched. The screen was now showing Ben jamming the buckle on my harness. Of course, someone said I had instructed him to do that and then strongly tested it when he stood back. Once he was seated at the console, I shouted my orders to him, as loud as I could above the noise of the rockets. The psychologist noted how I was putting all of my energies into shouting my instructions, a frail fem pushing herself to the limits of endurance. Though I was hardly frail, I did somewhat appear so on the screen.

  Now the engineer went through the sequence I was obviously instructing Ben to follow, repeating the pattern I had tapped on his back. It was now clear, she explained, why it had to be the mal at the console and not the pilot. With his much greater reach, he was able to pull the levers with the precise timing necessary. When the console had been designed, for instance, no one had ever imagined trailer and cabin rockets being fired simultaneously, but for this unique maneuver it was essential. The mal was acting like my extended arms, and it was my torrent of words that controlled him.

  It was Ed who asked the obvious question. If a mal doesn't communicate verbally, how could he follow my words? There was a silence. Then the cros doctor said slowly, "Well, you see, Ed, mals understand a lot more than we usually give them credit for. And I suspect Ms Moon has been training hers to do small jobs around the ship. He could probably follow simple instructions very well."

  Ed nodded and moved on. Something struck me. Though we all suspected what the doctor said was true, no one really liked to hear it. It made the mals seem more like us. And it was much better for our peace of mind to see them as quite insensitive creatures. Outside of the Sperm Bank scientists, most people other than a certain portion of single fems knew very little about what mals could do. Those single fems wanted to keep that knowledge in the privacy of their own homes, and everyone else had no wish to change that.

  Finally, viewers were treated to the spectacular firing of the trailer rockets. "Oh, Galax!" Ed remarked, "We really need to have music with that, don't we? Mo, you have it? Let's give it a whirl…" The huge arcs of fire were accompanied by "My Homeland 'Cross the Void" which is a stirring anthem by itself. Together with these visuals and the idea of some frail fem bravely fighting her way out of a death-spiral would have brought tears to many a commuter than morning. Maybe when Al had said "heroine" he might just not have been joking…

&nbs
p; The video switched to a feed from the tractor which had been ejected at right angles to the trailer and cabin. Its camera had a perfect view of huge trailer and tiny cabin, drifting apart and rotating slowly in opposite directions. It was perfect choreography with the anthem. The enormous plume of rocket energy rotated along with the trailer and headed for the cabin. There were muffled gasps from people in the studio as the fiery plume struck the cabin and drove it out of view.

  "Professor Joy," Ed said, the studio camera showing the anchor staring, transfixed, at the still-rotating trailer with its spiral of flame. "Can you possibly explain why Pilot Moon was not incinerated by that blast?"

  "In almost any other part of the Galaxy, she would have been," the Professor replied. "But for a long time now, some mathematics have suggested that extreme temperatures are impossible in such a gravitational field. Instead, the surplus energy tends to become mono-directional. In place of random motion associated with heat, it becomes linear motion parallel to the gravity field. As a result, the energy released by combustion is dissipated more in the form of accelerating matter away from the gravity source, rather than in higher temperatures. Hence the abnormally strong thrusts that drove the cabin to safety. It's been nicknamed "cold propulsion" but until today we weren't sure it could exist."

  "So we've just discovered a new law of physics?" Ed asked.

  The Professor paused for emphasis. "More than that. We've just discovered how to escape quick-matter. Interstellar travel has suddenly become much safer. With a little bit more engineering now, these accidents will now become a thing of the past."

  I turned off the program. I had gone from fear of ridicule, to relief, to amusement, to a sneaking sense of pride, and now to unbearable guilt. I was being lauded as a pioneer of safer space travel and it was a complete fake. I called Al back.

  "It's unbelievable," I told him. "I just watched the Ed Row Breakfast Special."

  "Not bad, was it?" Al smirked. "But it does get even better. They've since discovered that you could have taken a safer route to save yourself, but it would have destroyed the information feed back to home. So they're now saying you greatly risked your life to gain new knowledge to keep us all safe."

  "Oh, stop it!" If I heard more I was going to scream. "Al, I need to tell you something. It was all just an accident. I really did nothing to save myself at all."

  Al didn't even look surprised. "Honey, I know that's how it must feel. They can't stop analyzing Brain Bangs on the chat shows today. Everyone who's had one says the same as you."

  I wanted to say it was Ben's Brain Bang, but I knew Al had a lower opinion on mals than most people, and would only conclude I had thought of the dumbest way to avoid fame. I needed to speak with Jo, whose analytical mind I suddenly needed for a change. I found an excuse to end the call with Al and reached Jo. After the expected expressions of concern and my insistence I was fine, I explained exactly what I recalled of events. He listened without interruption, no judgment showing on his face. When I had finished he left a few seconds' pause and then asked, "Meg, how are your feelings for Ben these days?"

  I didn't like the question but I respected Jo's way of thinking. I replied, "He's warm and cuddly. He's gorgeous looking. He helps me clean up stuff, and he can fix a reasonable meal. I haven't fallen in love with him, if that's what you mean. I am not one of those dopey fems on the afternoon chat shows."

  "Oh, now you tell me," Jo said teasingly. "Meg, you heard that Professor talking about cold propulsion. Weird things happen inside quick-matter. Who knows what happened to your brain function? You say you felt exhausted and slept for twelve hours. Let's say that in your dreams you replayed the nightmare, but with Ben acting as hero instead of you. Somehow, the dream stuck in your long-term memory and your short-term recollection of actual events faded. I know it sounds unlikely, but let's say it's one-thousand-to-one. Let's say the chances of Ben having the Brain Bang is a million-to-one. These are the only two possibilities. That means there is a 99.9% chance that what you heard on the news is true, Meg. That's pure math."

  "Can't we clear all this up?" I asked. "Get a better analysis of the sounds and lip movements on the feed?"

  Jo shook his head. "Unlikely. The feed came live from the death-spiral. It's badly corrupted. What little they can actually make out supports everything you've heard – and believe me they would like to know more because they'll use it in training courses for the next millennium."

  "And the black box?"

  "Under your feet, and incinerated. Despite the name cold propulsion, you were still within a whisker of becoming toast yourself."

  "Gal!" Suddenly everything I took for granted about my memory was turned upside down. I swung round in my chair. Ben had taken the breakfast trolley but left me with more coffee. "Jo, tell me what I should do."

  "My advice is, accept the 99.9% as the truth." One corner of his mouth turned up in a small grin. "Meg, you have some uncanny abilities. The way you can read the aggregate thinking of ten billion fems is stranger to me than digging yourself out of quick-matter and forgetting you did it. Now, sheer fortune has made you a star and the public want to play with you for a while. Let them. It's a good-news story and everyone feels a little happier. And you'll never have to worry again about the price of a pair of shoes. Your biography alone will make you rich."

  Ben was back on the other side of the cabin, sketching just as he had done before the death-spiral. He had walked past several times while I watched the news but had shown no interest in the video. It seemed as if he just lived in the moment, his thoughts wholly unconnected with past events. If I failed to acknowledge his role, what was the damage? Certainly, Ben didn't seem to care. Was it at all possible something like that mattered to him? Could he even remember what he did?

  "Another thing," Jo was saying. "If you repeat the story you told me, a lot of croses are not going to like it at all. They will be convinced it's invented, and can only assume you are some radical, half-crazy fem with an agenda to create some kind of mal equality. You may go from hero to demon in a very short time. And someone will file a petition to have Ben put down. There are enough crazy laws out there to get that passed in some district, then he'll be kidnapped and taken there to the local Bank."

  Truth and reality. In one sense, they were opposites. After talking to Jo I began sifting through my overloaded mailbox. Some very famous names reaching out to me personally. Some were very eligible croses. A new, glittering world beckoned me. Why did it make me feel such a fraud? I hadn't told any lies. Maybe I should just refuse to comment on what happened, let people believe what they wanted to believe. Why was that wrong? I looked over at Ben as be sketched busily. Above all I had to protect him. When I took him from the Bank I had promised myself I would help him live as long as he could. For me, having a pet mal creates a guilty feeling anyway, like I am using him. I have to feel I am giving something back in return.

  I had doubled my vow of protecting Ben when I had discovered that Ben was so good at protecting me. On our first trip together, I had had to stop in some forsaken fueling station which was busting at the seams with fem truckers. Most were the short-haul variety who never strayed too far away from anywhere with a saloon in it. Some of the fems were half my size again, with muscles that most mals wouldn't be ashamed of (if they could feel shame!) It was a fabulous pick-up location for croses who could stomach the noise and dirt. You could see how horny some of those fems were acting, trying to persuade the few decent-looking croses to go back to their hotel rooms with them.

  I walked around one saloon with Ben, trying to find a table where we could sit and eat. The only table with enough space was already occupied by a middle-aged cros, reading a book while he ate dinner with a knife and fork. I asked him if it was OK if we sat at the table. He glanced at Ben, and I could tell he wasn't very comfortable with mals, but I think he was too polite to say anything and acquiesced with a wave of his hand. I was very tired, so decided that was good enough for us. I was reading the
menu when a large fem strode up to the table carrying two drinks. "Hey, Sister," she said to me, "You're in my seat."

  "I don't think so," I told her. "This gentle-cros here just gave us permission to sit down." I looked at him for confirmation, then realized from his expression what must have happened. She had been trying to chat him up, gone to get a drink, and he had been hoping she would not return – our presence being a disincentive to her, or so he thought. Now that he was faced with her determination, he caved in cowardly fashion.

  "I didn't say anything," was his pathetic response.

  "Sir," I said with appropriate sarcasm, "I think your hand gesture was eloquent enough, and now it seems that this trucker-girl wasn't exactly welcome back." I turned to her. "Love, if he had wanted your ass in this chair, he would have made a point of saving it for you. The fact that I'm reading the menu while he's quietly reading his book tells you something about his enthusiasm, doesn't it?"

  I regretted my words the moment I said them. I had simply been too tired to judge the mood of the fem. She handed the drinks to some friend who had arrived beside her and then started to take a swing at me. I was preparing to block the punch but it never arrived. Ben was holding her arm fast. She tried to hit him with her other hand, but he grasped that arm too. She struggled for a moment, but realized the strength behind the holds was far more than she could handle. Her friends clearly decided this was not worth escalating. They all seemed shocked not only by Ben's swiftness, but the fact that nothing at all registered in his expression. It gave the impression that he could have been capable of doing anything at that moment, and no one wanted to test just what.

  The fem took a step backwards as a signal of retreat and Ben let go. "Mals should be banned from saloons," she muttered. "Who knows when one starts going crazy and kills someone? And as for fems who sleep with mals…" She looked at me. "Should be a law against such perversion. Disgusting, it is!"