Universe Between

by Dean Wesley Smith

  Obviously this question haunts her, since the real-life problem appears in “Are We Alone in the Universe?” one of the most thoughtful science fiction tales I’ve seen in a long time.

  Are We Alone in the Universe?

  Darcy Pattison

  “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

  Navy Lt. Blake Rose stepped out of the spaceship and onto Cadee, Rison’s moon, and repeated Neal Armstong’s words to himself. Blake was the first of the advance guard to step out, the first human to stand on Risonian territory. Armstrong had spoken those resounding words a hundred years ago, but they still echoed throughout the universe. And now, they took on a new meaning: this was the first contact, the first face-to-face with Risonians. This day would make or break Blake’s career.

  The glare of the docking bay lights revealed a small group of Risonians a hundred feet away, their escorts. He saw with relief that at this distance, they looked humanoid. Science fiction stories always had aliens as insects or something equally strange. It would be a welcome irony if the Risonians looked almost human.

  Blake grunted, then motioned all-clear to his troop. They trotted out to take up positions creating a corridor that led to the Risonians. Ambassador Rodriguez paced between the soldiers with her head held high, bright eyes looking around. When Surgeon General Baba Ivan passed Blake, the officer nodded to Blake to fall in behind him.

  While they marched toward the Risonians, Blake studied the spaceport: several Rison spaceships were docked nearby, but the vast docking bay was largely empty. Why had they built such a large base? Were there Rison colonies on other planets somewhere? Or was this meeting to invite Earth to start trading with them?

  Then, his attention was riveted on the Risonians. No, they weren’t little green men. Instead, they were amazingly human looking. On Earth, they would look vaguely foreign as if this feature or that was slightly different. Blake thought of his college comparative anatomy class, the one that had piqued his interest in comparing human anatomy to alien anatomy. They had studied the Asian eye which is distinguished from the Caucasian eye by the epicanthic fold of skin that covers the inner angle of the eye. Blake would have to study the Risonian faces and bodies before he could exactly say why they looked alien. For now, he was just glad that Risonians weren’t bugs.

  In all contact with Earth, the Risonians spoke English, or other Earth languages, through computerized translators. First contact had been twenty years ago, but Rison had refused to allow anyone on-planet, no face-to-face meetings, no photos, no exchange of information, just a radio acknowledgment that Earth existed. They had wanted to be left alone, so Earth had been content to ignore them. Until last month.

  Then, Earth Command received a cryptic request for a meeting at the Cadee Moon Base. Would Earth send, please, a delegation for a meeting? And could they bring, please, a medical team?

  Blake had fought to be the lead Navy physician on this diplomatic mission, sending Ivan copies of his twelve research papers on how human anatomy would function in different environments they might encounter in space. It was an impressive résumé, he knew, but the biggest hurdle to his career as a space doctor and comparative biologist was the lack of alien species to study. He couldn’t afford to let this opportunity pass by.

  Ivan called him in for a final interview. “You’re young and the word is, you don’t work well with others.”

  Blake winced. He was blond-haired, blue-eyed and apparently people thought he was charming, until he opened his mouth and started talking business. Chit-chat, just to be social, didn’t work for him. “I am solitary, true.” Blake liked that the Surgeon General was straightforward. He could be straightforward, too. “Some think I am arrogant. But no one knows more than I do about what to look for in alien anatomy, what might threaten Earth.”

  “As you say,” Ivan agreed, then snapped Blake’s file shut and stood to offer his hand. “OK. I’ll give you a chance, but you need to be a group player, don’t shut me out.”

  “As you say,” Blake agreed and shook the Surgeon General’s hand. Then, he grinned because he was going to Rison and he knew it would change his career forever.

  Now, Ivan strode forward, looking impressive in dress whites which made the white hair on his temples stand out in stark contrast to the rest of his black hair. The Risonians wore what Blake assumed were dress-blues, a welcome smear of color in the gray dock.

  As prearranged, Ivan stepped in front of the Ambassador—just in case there was a problem, he would be the first to greet the aliens, rather than the civilian ambassador. He took another step forward toward the lead man in the center of the Rison delegation and extended his hand in greeting.

  Instantly, the Rison delegation stepped backward and several—obviously body guards—dropped to a knee and pulled weapons.

  Blake shoved Ivan behind him and leveled his weapon, too. Would this whole affair end here?

  Then a high-pitch voice called in English, “Stop.”

  She was obviously young and not in charge of the Rison delegation, but her voice was commanding. “I believe this is an Earthling greeting and is not meant as an insult. Is that right?”

  Dark curls framed a petite, but vaguely alien face. Maybe it was the ears, thought Blake.

  The alien girl stepped past the lead men, her blue dress rippling as she moved. “Allow me to—greet you. In the name of the planet of Rison, and on behalf of President Wellings—” she gestured to the man cowering on her right and then to one on the left “—and Ambassador Saboo, we welcome you to our moon.” She wiped her hand on her dress, then extended it toward Blake.

  Blake’s eyes riveted on that amazing face. Her eyes were blue, without any white showing, her voice musical, her words—

  Quietly, so only he could hear, she said, “Idiot. Shake my hand.”

  Stupidly, he lowered his weapon and put out his hand. Had she just called him an idiot? Where had she learned that word? Her hand was small and cool, and his heart was suddenly throbbing in his throat. She shook his hand up and down once, then dropped it as if his touch burned her.

  Flushed and embarrassed, Blake nodded to her, and watched weapons lower, sheepish grins appear on both sides, and the President and Ambassador both straighten.

  “Dayexi!” A petite older female Risonian, obviously her mother, jerked the girl back behind the guards, where a young dark-eyed man shoved her even farther away from the humans.

  Blake’s eyes followed her, unable to look away, until the girl was hidden from sight at the back of the group. No, he corrected himself, she wasn’t young enough to be a girl. He had underestimated her age, she was probably 18 or 19, a young woman. Then he wanted to slap his forehead because that was counting by Earth years—no telling how old she was in Rison years, or even what that meant. No one knew the life span of a Risonian, their developmental biology, when they were considered adults. But that was something he suddenly wanted to learn more about.

  The Ambassador and the Surgeon General recovered quickly as well. Following the lead of the Risonian President and Ambassador, the Earth officials clasped hands behind their backs and bowed ceremonially. And formal introductions began.

  Blake barely paid attention, though, because his focus was on his tingling hand: he was the first human to actually touch a Risonian. First contact.

  And she had called him an idiot.

  ***

  The bright-white medical lab was equipped with the latest Earth technology, better even than the lab on their ship. How had the Risonians obtained all of this? Blake wondered. It nagged at him while he calibrated the equipment, but there were no answers, only questions. Finally, after the tenth calibration, he drifted to the round window to stare at Rison, which hung in the black sky above Cadee’s surface. Like Earth, this planet was a blue marble, a planet so close to its sun that it should be a barren wasteland, but because it was water-cooled, life teemed here. Earth was 70% covered in water, and Rison was slightly more, maybe 75 or 80% covered w
ith water.

  “What do you think of Rison, Lt. Rose?”

  Blake spun to see Jack Quad-de, one of the Risonian delegation. Dark curly hair proclaimed him as Dayexi’s father, but he wasn’t small like she and her mother. Instead, he was barrel-chested and stared Blake straight in the eyes, both of them just at six feet. “Jack is a human translation of my name,” he had explained when they first met. “You wouldn’t be able to say my Risonian name.”

  After three days, the Earth delegation was no closer to knowing why they had been summoned, but the Risons had insisted they begin cultural exchanges by allowing each other’s medical staff to study the similarities and differences between their anatomies. The Quad-de family, Jack, Jasa and Dayexi, had volunteered for the delegation so the human scientists would have a complete family group to study and Surgeon General Ivan had given Blake the lead on the examinations.

  “Rison is very similar to Earth,” Blake replied.

  “Yes,” Jack said. “We think that we could easily breathe Earth air and swim in Earth oceans. But we wonder if there would be surprises. Is there something about our anatomy that makes Earth dangerous for us?” He tapped the window’s glass and traced the circle of Rison, an oddly wistful gesture.

  To himself, Blake added, “Or something that makes you dangerous for Earth?” Seen from the Cadee Moon Base, clouds swirled over Rison. Aloud, Blake asked, “How many continents are there?”

  “Four.”

  “And I assume your scientists are trying to figure out if Rison holds any surprises for Earthlings, as well. Is there something about human anatomy that makes Rison dangerous for us?”

  Jack’s eyes blinked, but he answered smoothly, “Of course.”

  Something in Jack’s answer was off, Blake didn’t believe it. Or was it just something strange in the blink of his eyes, something that made the motion alien? It just made sense, though, that Rison scientists would study humans as closely as Blake intended to study Jack. To Blake, with his training as a doctor and his residency in secret Naval hospitals in comparative biology, this dual examination made sense. They needed to study each other before allowing either to have access to their respective planets. For example, there might be normal bacteria—or the alien equivalent of bacteria—in one that would kill the other, or that would act as invasive species. It was best to take this slowly.

  Turning business-like, Blake said, “If you’ll follow me, sir, I’ll show you the examination room. We’ll start with some basic scans, blood work. . . “

  The examination of Jack Quad-de, citizen of planet Rison took two days, and then with trembling hands, Blake carried his tablet computer into Ivan’s office—kindly provided by the Risonians—and sat in a comfortable fake-leather chair scrolling through reports: CTs, MRIs, X-rays, blood work, and other chemistry reports.

  “You like that chair? Comfortable?” Ivan asked.

  Blake looked up. “You noticed it, too? They know more about us than we know about them. The lab equipment, our beds and bedding, the food, this chair. It’s like they’ve studied us for years.”

  “Yes, it worries me. But they aren’t perfect. That slip up with the hand shake,” Ivan said, “that was strange. But the girl—Dayexi?—she took a chance, and it turned out right.”

  Blake remembered her hand, cool and soft. And her insult. Maybe she didn’t realize that calling someone an idiot was an insult. He reminded himself to stop thinking about her, something he was finding hard to do. Instead, he should pay more attention to the worrisome thought that the Risonians knew far more about humans than they should.

  And that meant, back to business. So far, Jack Quad-de had been examined, but not the females, which would start tomorrow.

  “So. Report,” Ivan said and leaned back in his comfortable chair.

  “They are mermen.”

  Ivan sucked in air and demanded, “Say again.”

  “They can breathe air or water.”

  Ivan leaned forward now, and nodded, his white eyebrows furrowed in concentration. “You’re sure.”

  “You want the long explanation?”

  “No, no, I trust your expertise. But, they BREATHE water?”

  “I think when they go underwater, their lungs fill up and they can take oxygen from the water.” Blake pulled out an MRI and handed it to Ivan. “And something else. The inside of their legs have special hair-like structures. Basically, they can Velcro their legs together.”

  “A tail?”

  Blake nodded and pointed out details of the hair-like structures.

  For the next hour, Ivan pored over the medical reports. Finally, he stretched and walked to the window of his office. Rison was just setting, but the half-globe that was still above the horizon glowed blue and white against the dark of space. “Mermen and mermaids. They live in their oceans, not on land.”

  “Yes, sir.” Blake joined him at the window.

  Together they waited as the Rison moon turned on its axis and Rison slipped out of view.

  “Have they allowed you in the Rison section of the base?” Ivan asked.

  “No. Just the human section and the medical labs in the middle,” Blake said. Each section is separated by extensive air locks and decontamination units, all controlled from the Rison side.

  “What do they want?” Ivan whispered.

  “I don’t know, sir. But they have studied us, probably since our first radio contact twenty years ago. And finally letting us study them is part of some plan. We aren’t here by chance.”

  ***

  “This is my. . .” she paused. “I believe you would call him my cousin, Swann Quad-de.”

  Dayexi Quad-de stood in the middle of Blake’s lab and a tall Risonian hovered near her and his hand hovered over the weapon at his side.

  “We’ll start with some basic scans, blood work. . .”

  “No.” Swann Quad-de stood in front of his cousin.

  Dayexi gently shoved him aside and, without looking, said, “You may go.”

  Blake and Swann stared at each other for a long moment and Blake got the message: don’t mess with my cousin or you’ll answer to me.

  Abruptly, Swann spun away and stalked out.

  Blake felt like a clumsy teenager, fumbling with the tourniquet to take blood samples, or positioning her hips for an x-ray, or running a finger along the Velcro structures of her calves. But the science—the comparative anatomy—calmed him, kept his mind on the business of figuring out what Rison wanted.

  And he decided to push harder. After she was dressed again and sitting in a chair in his office, he asked, “Do you swim?”

  Dayexi said, “Of course. As you can see—” she gestured to the window where Rison hung over them—”Rison is covered with water.” She looked down at her hand, then looked up, her blue eyes riveting Blake. “Would you like to swim with me later this evening?”

  Startled, he said, “Where?”

  “I believe you were a champion swimmer while in school?”

  So, they had studied the ambassadors Earth had sent. How were they getting information so easily? He should be scared, but his heart thumped from excitement, hoping he might get to see her in action in the water.

  “Yes, I did swim team and took state championships in breast stroke,” Blake’s reply was almost automatic, reciting the bare bones of his career.

  “You took state championship three years in a row. Impressive.”

  Blake shook his head. “And I know nothing about you. Did you take state championship in something?”

  A musical laugh filled his office. “Communications. I took top honors in English.”

  “And?” Blake encouraged. Once she started talking, she hoped she wouldn’t stop.

  “Well, I also took top honors in Chinese.”

  “And?”

  “OK. English, Chinese, Spanish and Braille.”

  Blake sat back stunned. The Risonian study of Earth was more extensive than he had imagined. “Why Braille?”

  “At first, we
didn’t know it was only for the unseeing ones. We thought it was just a different way to read in the dark. Or under water.”

  Her eyes went suddenly wide, as if she realized she had said too much.

  So, it had taken the Risonians a while to figure out their culture. But they had that twenty-year head start. Now, Blake sucked in a breath and tried to quell the rising fear.

  Rising, Dayexi said, “At 10 pm—Cadee Moon Base time—be at the airlock entrance to the Rison quarters. Be dressed to swim.”

  Before Blake could respond, she was gone.

  ***

  Blake executed a perfect racing dive and fell into the rhythm of the breast stroke. On the Obama Moon Base, there were only the bathtub-sized pools that generated a current that he swam against. This pool—how had they managed to build it on their moon base?—was huge, perhaps 30 meters square, large enough for a dozen or more to swim laps at the same time. The water was salty, similar to the Earth oceans. Gentle lights and warm water made it a cozy room. And they had it all to themselves. Even the bottom of the pool was lit with soft lights.

  “Risonians eat a late supper,” Dayexi explained. “Earlier the pool would have been crowded.”

  Blake pulled out on the opposite side and watched Dayexi. In her human bikini, she would stand out on any beach on Earth as a beauty. Perfectly proportioned, Blake thought, and graceful.

  “Doctor, are you ready to compare anatomy?” she called. Without waiting for an answer, she dove into the clear water and sat on the bottom while she gulped water. When she shoved up, her legs were together, as powerful as a tail on a porpoise or shark. She was deliberately demonstrating the Risonian anatomy, he realized.

  She rose out of the water and called in a bubbly voice, “The water is fine. Come in.” Then she dove and lashed her tail downward to create a tremendous wave that smacked his face and body.