The Trilisk Ruins

by Michael McCloskey

  ***

  Once on the vessel, Kirizzo turned his resources toward learning to communicate with his hosts.

  Kirizzo worked for several subcycles on the problem. He had been recording and cataloging their movements for some time now, but had not had the chance to analyze the data in depth. He began this analysis once it became obvious that he would have a lot of time available.

  He realized that the movements the creatures made were too simple. They could not encode enough information for a meaningful dialog. He pondered the meaning of this new discovery.

  Either the aliens were much more modularized than his race and could function with very little interaction, or else they were using other means to augment the transfer of information.

  The first idea did not fit what he had observed of the creatures. When the time came to break off the alliance with the third one, the original two had quickly organized a plan and acted in a coordinated way to leave the other behind. That implied that they had exchanged a plan. A slight chance existed that the two had done this kind of thing many times and didn’t have to communicate much to select a plan, but that seemed unlikely.

  Kirizzo decided to examine the second possibility in more detail. How could they be exchanging information?

  He scanned the radiative emanations of the environment and picked up several frequencies being used for information transfer. This examination revealed that the humans had artificial means of communication much like himself, via small devices embedded in their bodies. He monitored these frequencies and started a group of experiments to try and inject his own transmissions into the system to learn more.

  Once again the bandwidth proved to be low. Hardly any information passed at the frequencies where he detected activity. But it might be that their devices just weren’t exchanging anything right now.

  When he jumped in on the channel and sent some transmissions of his own, he followed the protocol but lacked the one-time link codes that the others used. They worked on a principle of using passcodes to connect, but each passcode was good for only one use. He didn’t have enough samples to try and crack the pattern. For now, it seemed all he could do was eavesdrop on the coded messages.

  Still, this system was a more modern veneer added onto their original state in nature. Kirizzo wondered if effective communication was required before any civilization could become advanced. It would have taken a long time for the race to become coordinated with an extremely limited mode of communication. He doubted his race would have been as successful without their original communication system based on limb movement.

  That meant that they might be able to exchange information using senses that Kirizzo lacked. They could have been using media that escaped Kirizzo’s attention the whole time. The idea that their primitive base language used movement exclusively, as his race did, was probably a bad assumption on his part.

  In order to make further progress, Kirizzo would have to learn about the senses utilized by the creatures. These natural “primitive” capabilities would be what they used in their simplest forms of transferring ideas.

  Kirizzo moved through the large chamber to which he had been directed. The walls were monotonously regular, almost perfect in their boring rectangular theme. He found this style to be gratingly dull, but he had expected as much after seeing their simulated environment in the alien installation.

  Artificial radiation streamed down from above. The obvious deduction here was that the creatures could sense this light as Kirizzo could. He worked his way further around the many storage containers that littered the area. The wall had an embedded device in it, shielded by a metal grille. He scanned this area and analyzed the function of the site.

  The system placed in the wall converted electronic impulses into movement with a network of wires and magnets. The resulting vibrations could conceivably range into frequencies beyond the ability of his mass sense to detect. A possibility occurred to him. An experiment was in order.

  Kirizzo couldn’t move his legs fast enough to emulate the vibrations the device produced, but he could reproduce them with one of his defense modules. The defense module was capable of extremely quick interception, and its drive could cause the module to vibrate rapidly if he told it to change directions back and forth very fast. He instructed the device to drop into contact with the floor and utilize its movement system to buzz at high frequency.

  Kirizzo experimented with the setup, starting at a low frequency that he could sense with his mass detection. As he increased the speed of movement, the disturbance quickly left his range. He instructed the module to continue in ascending frequencies up to its limit. When he sensed a larger mass approaching, he became distracted from the experiment.

  One of the aliens burst into the room. Kirizzo saw that it was the smaller one, brandishing a primitive weapon. He immediately stopped creating the vibrations, concerned that perhaps he had broken some taboo of their culture. The alien seemed to calm, lowering its device. Had he alarmed it?

  Kirizzo repeated the experiment and watched the alien. It showed obvious alarm as the module vibrated again, raising its weapon and stepping back. It sensed the movement of his module.

  It appeared that these creatures used an even more sophisticated movement sensor than Kirizzo was naturally capable of. This revelation shocked him a little, since he had thought the creatures devoid of nonvisual motion sense altogether. But the evidence here suggested that they could detect movements at a much higher frequency than Kirizzo could, a rate of millions of vibrations per subcycle.

  Did it detect the movement of the sphere or the ship’s deck? Or the resulting movement of the molecules of the atmosphere? It could even be the high-frequency impact of the shock waves on its outer integument, Kirizzo realized. Either way, it was a fascinating method of information transfer.

  The breakthrough gave Kirizzo the tools he needed to begin analyzing the alien language. Unfortunately, it meant that they might not be able to communicate without artificial help. Still, being able to understand the creatures would aid in achieving his next goal.