David Almandsmith
CHAPTER 1
Unusual object detected approaching Planet Castor. Spectrum indicates extreme temperature.
John stopped loosening bolts on the motor he was repairing in the maintenance shed on the outskirts of New Moscow. “Huh. Munchie, you can see something that far off? Must be pretty freaking big.”
Negative. Too small to resolve. Detected by heat signature.
John Carpenter, Governor of New Earth, picked up the red rag at his side and wiped some of the grime off his hands as he considered what the AI had just told him.
“My first thought is ridiculous.”
Similarly my analysis suggests an extremely unlikely identification.
“Spaceship?”
That or an unmanned probe. Correction, probe lacking sentient beings.
“No shit? Well it’s not from Old Earth. They would’a told us. ¿Which do you think it is, occupied or not?”
Insufficient data. Will continue observing.
“Holy fuck, Munchie. We may finally meet the little green men we’ve been looking for … for like forever.”
Possibly so. I now have enough data to conclude the object is decreasing its velocity relative to our New Sol system and is on a trajectory that could use Planet Castor to decrease velocity further.
“Munchie. How much time do we have if it’s coming here?”
Calculating. . . Assuming it uses current rate of change in velocity, four point seven g’s, it could arrive in fourteen point six days.
“Ah shit. And what kind of creature can withstand a constant five g deceleration? At least we have a couple of high energy lasers on Trillium overhead. Other than that we’re pretty defenseless. Give me an open com to Captain Najima.”
Open.
“Captain, got a minute?”
“I hope this is audio only. You caught me in the head.”
“Head?”
“Bathroom, you dirt crawler. What’s up?”
“Munchie has something to tell you.”
“Controller. What’s so damn important?”
An alien craft has entered the New Sol system. Potentially, it could reach us in about two weeks.
“John, has this anything to do with you naming the controller Baron Von Munchausen?”
“Not at all, Captain. I sarcastically gave it that name because the controller isn’t capable of lying. No, I think we indeed are expecting visitors.”
A silence was punctuated by the sound of a flushing toilet.
“I suppose you would like me to perform maintenance on our lasers. Well they’re fine. They vaporize stuff like micrometeorites almost daily.”
“Yeah. That was it, mostly. You can confer with Munchie over details, but you and I need to coordinate our messaging; you with your crew and I with the towns down here.”
“Governor John, if they’re coming to fry us, I doubt our lasers will be effective against a prepared attack.”
“Well yeah, Najima, but the lasers will give us bluffing room. We could use full laser power and tell them the lasers were set to ‘tickle.’ Besides, it might only be an unmanned probe. Sorry, I mean an unoccupied probe.”
“Ok. I’m not going to sugarcoat the info to my girls. They’re savvy.”
“Yeah. Well down here I’ve got to deal with a cohort of testosterone-poisoned colonists and some militant women. Talk to you soon.”
“Well, keep me posted. Ciou.”
“¿Anything new, Munchie?”
Slight possibility of radio emission; perhaps radar sounding for coming transit of Castor.
“Keep me apprised.”
Using some gritty mechanics soap, Governor John Carpenter cleaned the last of the grease from his large sturdy hands at the shop’s sink. He then climbed out of his coveralls, hung them up on wall hooks alongside the other coveralls, and stroked his short nappy hair as he considered his next moves.
Clear carrier signal coming from alien object on several frequencies simultaneously. Repeats on another set of frequencies. Continuing.
“Any audible message?”
Signal carries audio frequencies. Very high probability it encodes information.
John furrowed his brow at that. “Play it for me.” John listened for a moment.
“Hold it. Enough. Is it all like that?”
It repeats every seventeen point four seconds.
“Repeat? It’s all buzz and clicks.”
There are short patterns that repeat frequently. Slightly longer patterns that repeat less frequently. Some patterns do not repeat. Conclusion: the sounds are indicative of messaging. Transmission has now ceased.
Munchie, what do you hear if you slow down the audio?
My analysis is at gigahertz increments. I can play it for you slower but there is no content difference. There are frequencies above your ability to hear but they carry no additional information. Transmissions have now ceased.
“Ok, ok. Have you made any sense of the transmission?
Very high probability it contains information.
“Yes, but what information?”
Unable to determine. Transmission has resumed.
“Same thing?”
Negative. No buzzing, just clicks consistent with prime numbers in the duodecimal system.
“No shit?”
Message stopped at nine five.
“Ninety-five isn’t a prime,” John said derisively.
Nine Five duodecimal is one hundred thirteen decimal which is a prime number.
“Ok. Ok. Let’s aim Trillium’s antenna at them and give them a bunch more prime numbers using one of their radio protocols and emulating their clicks. Twenty more primes should be enough – sent in duodecimal. Are base ten prime numbers still prime in duodecimal?”
Numeral systems do not change number attributes. I am discussing your plan with Captain Najima on another channel.
“Dang! This is fucking awesome! I’m certain I saw this in a holo when I was a kid.”
The Captain declines to do as you suggested. She correctly pointed out that such a transmission would reveal her exact orbit allowing it to be targeted.
“Oh. Yeah. Right.”
She suggests using one of our communications satellites instead. It would be a far weaker signal but perhaps the alien vessel could detect it. Recommend burst transmission for prime number sequence. If they destroy the satellite we will not have lost anything irreplaceable.
“Ok. Let Najima know before you proceed. I’m going to set up a meeting with the Colony Council.”
John took his raincoat off the back of a chair, pulled it on, donned his hat, and stepped out into the light afternoon drizzle.
The two-kilometer walk to the village recreation hall wound between vegetable gardens, chicken coops, pig stys, milk cows, sheds, small single-family houses, and larger cohousing agglomerates. Here and there were neighborhood shops selling just about anything from groceries and beer to matches and sewing needles.
The helter-skelter arrangement of homes, livestock, and businesses, bothered John. He wanted the Council to pass reasonable zoning and planning regulations to make it easier as towns grew into cities; which he expected they would eventually do. Previous Councils had never been able to force such regimentation on the independently-minded colonists.
“Munchie, put the Council members on audio.”
John could not decide how to spin the situation, so he decided to merely fill them in.
“Hi. This is John on the line with Planet Council members, so pause what you’re working on and put on your scarlet and gold robes.”
Phoebe’s voice was first. “Oh damn. I forgot to order those robes. If I do that this evening, we could have them in about four hundred years.”
Stern answered in his booming baritone with, “Uh. How about mud-splattered overalls?”
“That works for me,” John replied. “Are you on the line Venus, Eris?”
Eris affirmed with a “Yo John.”
There was a dull thump followed by Venus’ voice colored with irritation, “I can listen while I knead these loaves of bread.”
John started off with, “Well guys. You are NOT going to believe this, but . . . .”
Chapter 2
John, full of worry and excitement, barely slept that night. His partner, Svetlana Jemison, heavy with their second child, slept soundly beside him.
Neither of the two kids were genetically related to John and Svetlana since the colony was still in the process of building genetic diversity. The new baby could be as black as John or lighter than Svetlana.
Munchie controlled fertility and pregnancies, at least until New Earth’s population reached around fifty thousand. No one minded. They grew up, they courted, they fucked, they got married, they argued, they had children, and they lived happily ever after – sort of. It’s just that only the zygotes prepared by Trillium’s crew to be Homo sapiens astra were the beginnings of each baby colonist. Those defrosted zygotes were chosen from a supply of 180,000 that were prepared over 400 years ago on Old Earth for humanity’s first extrasolar colony. Before a zygote was implanted, however, its genome was edited to deal with the different partial pressures of the atmospheric gases on New Earth and to protect against several toxins created by the indigenous flora.
Also, all the colonists carried implanted biomodulators – b-mods – that controlled female fertility, thus preventing nature from running its usual random course. The b-mods did a great deal more, however. They were like little pharmaceutical factories that helped each colonist deal with fatigue, infections, toxins, anxiety, frustrations, depression, manias, and sore muscles.
John grumpily watched the clock until it was time to get up. He fixed cups of tea for Svetlana and himself before waking three-year-old Max. He and Max washed up and got dressed together before attacking breakfast. Svetlana joined them at the table.
“Since I’m such a bulbous blob,” said Svetlana, “would you take Max to daycare this morning?”
“Yeah, glad to.”
“And don’t go planning an amorous rendezvous with Chrissey. Her husband Paul is still pretty pissed at you.”
“Hadn’t crossed my mind, . . . yet.”
“Oh, and dear, I forgot to tell you that Paul and Chrissey’s daughter, Stella, wants you to make her a blaster gun to kill the aliens.”
John replied, “Well if she comes up with a good blueprint, I’d be more than happy to.”
Svetlana stirred her porridge before asking, “Are you worried about the aliens?”
“I’m trying not to be so worried that it clouds my judgment, but it’s possible things could go bad. It’s a good sign that they are not trying to sneak up on us and that they reached out to us with a little math.”
“You go ahead and chat with Munchie. I’ll get Max ready for daycare.”
As she got up, Svetlana gave John a kiss on his forehead before taking Max into his bedroom.
“Munchie, you didn’t interrupt me overnight. That’s a good sign; I’m guessing.”
Nothing negative, John. More buzzing and clicking. I have speculations to share with you.
“Ok. Like what?”
Apparently the buzzing and clicking are not created by instruments, but by individuals.
“And you base this on . . . what?”
Identical buzz and click patterns show minor differences in audio spectrum and millisecond differences in speed in the same transmission, and greater differences in separate transmissions. Hypothesis: we have been listening to two different sentient beings who communicate with buzz and click patterns.
“We’re listening to voices? That’s creepy. So you think their language is like, what? Morse Code?”
At present, that is a fair analogy. We now know the patterns for the term ‘prime number’ and for several mathematical operations.
“That’s hardly enough for a cheery conversation. How do we expand our knowledge of their vocabulary? And yeah, how do we teach them some of our vocabulary?
When they are close enough for our com satellite to transceive with a broader bandwidth, we can send images, words, and pronunciations. They may or may not do the same.
“Dear,” called Svetlana. “Max is waiting for you.”
“Ok, Max. Let’s go see your friends at daycare.”
“And John, stay away from Chrissey.”
“Svetlana dear, you are the least jealous, jealous woman I know.”
“And how many jealous women are we talking about . . . dear.”
John may have blushed, but with his dark skin, it was difficult for Svetlana to know. He stepped over to Svetlana, gave her a kiss on the lips, and took Max’s hand in his.
“C’mon, Max let’s get going while the going’s good.”
During their short walk through the village, they were stopped four different times as folk wanted John’s opinion on the aliens and the threat they posed. John shared his guess that the aliens had twelve fingers since they expressed numbers in base twelve. As far being a threat, John assured them that Trillium’s lasers would be sufficient. He neglected, however, to say for what they would be ‘sufficient’. Indeed the lasers probably would not suffice as serious weapons if things evolved to out and out combat.
At the daycare center it was clear that Chrissey was intentionally avoiding eye contact with John. John figured that was all to the good . . . for the moment.
As he walked alone from the daycare center, John continued conversing with Munchie.
“Hey Munchie. I forgot to ask, were they able to hear our transmissions?”
Affirmative, John, but not during the first three point seven hours. Then they echoed our series of prime numbers back to us followed by examples of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, squaring, and powers of three. We responded with other examples of the same operations.
“Hell of a way to build a relationship. At least we now know their words for the numbers and basic math operations.”
Yes, but apparently they have no words for the numbers; they buzz the values in duodecimal.
“Oh. I guess that’s sensible but yesterday you said they clicked the numbers.”
Their buzzing seems to be a rapid version of clicking. They demonstrated that numbers can be clicked at various tempi until a speed is reached that you sense as a buzz.
“Yeah. With your gigahertz hearing, you probably don’t hear it as a buzz as we humans do.”
That is a fair statement.
“So, any hint of belligerence?
None, but that is also consistent with an intent to do us harm.
“Munchie, you have access to every historical and hollywood battle and war. Based on those, what should we be doing? What should I be doing?”
According to historical and fictional conflicts, you should be building a clandestine subterranean shelter able to withstand extreme overpressure.
“By extreme overpressure, you mean explosion. Right?”
Correct.
“Well, then. Let’s get the engineers together and start the process.
No. You asked for advice based on historical and fictional responses, but this is neither historical nor fictional. The aliens have traveled for decades as a minimum. They will not just strike and leave if their intent is to eliminate us. They will continue until they are certain their mission has been accomplished.
“Ok, smart ass. What do you recommend?”
Assemble numerous pathogens that your subspecies of human are not susceptible and prepare them for possible use on aliens. Similarly with potential biotoxins.
“Well, crap. Let’s get started.”
Trillium’s crew is already working on this.
“Shit. You can be so perverse.”
It is not my intention.
“Do we even know whether aliens are on that spaceship? Couldn’t it still just be a probe.”
High probability of sentient beings on vessel. I intentionally transmitted mathematical errors a few hours apart. Responses from the starship showed evidence of different origins. Analogous to two humans responding with slightly different accents.
“Hmmm. Clever. Good work. My morning emergency meeting is in less than an hour. Keep me informed of anything new.”
John entered the recreation center, settled himself at his desk, and contemplated what to say to the Council, how to frame it, and what needed doing.
CHAPTER 3
“Keke, we still don’t know if there are sentient beings there. So far, evidence suggests we are dealing with a clever computer.”
“Zzkezzke, how do you explain a computer making simple mathematical mistakes?”
“Keke, I believe it intentionally made mistakes to test our responses.”
“Zzkezzke, you really believe their computers are imbued with intentionality? Computers cannot exercise duplicity.”
“Keke, our computers cannot exercise duplicity. Perhaps we are dealing with computers designed and built by a superior race.”
“Zzkezzke, just because their computers are different, does not mean the makers are superior to Kickiks.”
“Keke, good point. It may be they are no more advanced; just different. It may be they themselves are far more prone to duplicity; perhaps also prone to falsehoods and selfishness. But those could not be their dominant traits or they would not have been able to cooperate in building and sending a starship to this system. This is such a bewildering situation.”
“Zzkezzke, bewildering, challenging, and dangerous. But we accepted this responsibility and we are the first to make contact with a computer built by space aliens. With luck, we will make contact with the aliens themselves.”
“Keke, especially fortunate if they don’t kill us.”
“Zzkezzke, I hate to think that after spending fifty endstars on this mission, our lives could end at any moment in melted shrapnel without learning more than we have been able to glean.”
“Keke, as we’ve known from the earliest planning, if there are intelligent creatures on the planet, they fear the same. My turn to rest. Wake me early if there is something important.” Her eyes remained open but her neural signals ramped down as Zzkezzke fell asleep.
Keke gnawed on a candy bar as she ran a visual check of navigation and life support data. It took her only a moment since her two eye stalks worked independently to view the numbers and gauges.
Zzkezzke and Keke were nestled deep into their acceleration couches as their ship, Brilliant Cocoon, continued braking on its trajectory toward the second planet from the star named Kezzkezzzzkekeke.
***********************
Keke pressed a switch with one of her fingers. The mechanism sent a pleasing pattern of a few millivolts to Zzkezzke’s abdomen. “Zzkezzke, time to wake up. We are still alive.”
“Keke, I feel awful. Everything hurts. How much longer until the end of deceleration?”
“Zzkezzke, at least one six more days. Best not to think about it. I’ve queued up the first of our raster scan recordings. Wish I could watch their reactions to drawings of us.”
“Keke, is there now evidence that aliens live on the planet?”
“Zzkezzke, look at this enhanced thermal image; just inside the night zone. The patterns resemble growths on a culture plate. Exciting.”
“Keke, That is good. Now the more they know of us, the less likely they will attack. Roll the animation!”
***********************
Receiving low bandwidth raster scan. Animation. Forwarding to your e-pad.
John stopped massaging Svetlana’s back. “Sorry, dear. We have an extraterrestrial movie to watch.”
“Technically, aren’t we extraterrestrial?”
John didn’t answer as he sat down on the floor so both could view his e-pad screen. John exclaimed, “Oh my god, it’s a bug!”
The video was only a line drawing, but it was unmistakably insect-like. The ‘bug’ was stationary as the camera view moved around it. Creepy as hell. Ugly as sin. Two moth-like antennae shared the top of its head with two stalks. Then the view stopped moving around. The animated alien began walking on its six legs. It circled around, approached the camera, and then stopped.
“Oh shit,” was all John could say as he looked into the alien’s ‘face.’
The ‘face’ was nothing more than serrated vertical vise-like jaws. When they opened and snapped back together, John dropped his e-pad. He quickly picked it back up in time to see four articulated limbs fold back onto the side of its head. The two stalks began to move about.
“That’s enough,” John said as he put the e-pad back into his shirt pocket and secured it with the pocket’s Velcro flap. “It creeps the bejesus out of me,”
“You’re a wuss,” Svetlana said. “You’ve seen enlarged photos of grasshoppers, ants, and beetles and stuff. If this is what the aliens look like, they are no worse.”
“Creeps me out,” John repeated as he got up from the floor.
“Munchie,” said Svetlana, “give me a copy on my e-pad.”
Svetlana reached over and picked up her e-pad from the side table. She then rolled over onto her back and started watching the alien animation again.
John just stood there muttering, “Ugly. Fucking ugly,” before he noticed his wife’s distended belly and enlarged breasts as she lay on the bed. He took a deep breath and lay down beside her. Together they watched the line-drawn video again and again while stopping and backing up several times.
The four articulated ‘arms’ were attached to the ‘head.’ Each ‘arm’ ended in three spikes, and each spike had two joints. Twelve spikes in all, hence the duodecimal system. One of each set of three spikes folded toward the other two, able to function much like a thumb. Svetlana and John weren’t certain, but at the end of each flexible stalk seemed to be something like an eye.
“It all makes so much sense, John,” Svetlana said. “With its four hands and twelve spiky fingers, it can manipulate things; it can fashion things. Over the ages, its brain – or whatever it’s got – increased in sophistication to make ever more useful and sophisticated creations which further stimulated the sophistication of its neural system. Evolution, dear.”
“It’s still creepy,” said John. “Munchie, don’t show this to anyone else down here until I work out . . . until Svetlana and I work out how to present this creepy bug to the colony. OK? Oh, and prepare a similar animation of a person to send up to the bugs. With any luck it will creep them out.”
Male or female?
“Well, hmmm. They didn’t show us any sex organs, I think, so make it of a woman with enough pubic hair to cover the details.”
“And Munchie,” said Svetlana, “don’t make her like a Barbie doll. Be real.”
“You know what might really creep them out, dear,” said John, “when they’re close enough for high def video from one of our com satellites, we should send them a porn flick.”
“May I assume,” said Svetlana sarcastically, “that as a service to all humankind you will volunteer to fuck Chrissey in front of cameras.”
“Now that you’ve suggested that, perh…”
Svetlana whacked him on the side of the head before he could finish. Then they both then laughed heartily and hugged lovingly.
***********************
“Venus, Stern Shepard here.”
“Like my e-pad doesn’t know who you are.”
“Yeah. Well. Uh. You said you were kneading bread yesterday.”
“I suppose you want a loaf like everyone else who’s too lazy to make their own.”
“Uh. Well. No. I was hoping you could come over and teach me how to make some.”
“Jeez, Stern. There must be a million video clips that could do that better than I. So what’s the real reason? You know that Alan and I are not about to join you in any fucking orgy.”
“Uh. I’ve got some plum wine here to share with you and Alan. Uh, gets too quiet here . . . sometimes. I got flour from the mill this morning. Bring Alan and some yeast starter over after dinner. Uh, no sex.”
There was a long pause while Venus considered the offer. Usually when they got together, all Stern talked about was colony politics and planning. Although they were both on the Colony Council, Venus did not involve herself in colony governance any more than absolutely necessary. But since all five of her children had grown and left the nest, staying home with Alan was just too damn quiet.
“Sure, Stern. About what time?”
“Twenty hundred. Yeah. Twenty hundred is good.”
“Ok. If Alan won’t come I’ll come alone – with my starter.”
“Yeah, Venus. Good. Best if Alan can come. See you then.”
Venus clicked her e-pad off and went back to repotting her alium.
Stern took a nervous breath and told his e-pad to call Neil. After two rings, Neil picked up.
“Stern, how’s it going?”
“Good. Yeah. Uh, good. Venus is coming over tonight; maybe with Alan. At twenty hundred. Good time for you?”
“Hey, sure. Did you tell them . . . you know . . . about … you know.”
“Nope. Uh. Nothing. Venus is coming to break the boredom. Alan will come for my plum wine. I’m guessing. Oh, I told Venus to bring her bread starter so she can teach me to make bread.”
“Great. I’ll be there at twenty hundred. See you.”
“Yeah. See you.”
CHAPTER 4
John stepped up to the lectern and into the bright light at the end of the low-ceilinged recreation hall packed with colonists; almost as many were standing as sitting. A little display on the lectern told him that another seven thousand were watching and listening to him on their screens; far and away the largest audience any Colonial Governor had ever experienced.
The audience quieted without encouragement.
“As you all have heard by now, the Kickiks’ starship is due to arrive here at New Earth, our home, tomorrow afternoon. I want to share with you what we know and don’t know about these intelligent space travelers. They are super different from us and I’m certain that many of you cringed when you saw pictures of them and uttered, as I did, something like, they’re effing ugly.”
Most of the audience laughed at that. John wondered whether it was mostly nervous laughter.
“Although they look like giant insects from hell, they differ in many ways – chief among those differences is their intelligence. Another is they have internal skeletons in addition to their hard outer coverings.
“As your Governor, I have been working with the Council, the controller, and volunteers to communicate with the two Kickiks on board. Three more Kickiks are arousing from some kind of sleep and will be fully awake tomorrow.”
A hand went up in the audience.
John said, “When I finish with my prepared remarks, there will be plenty of time for questions.
“Kickiks have zero ability to understand our speech. We speak with exhalations creating tones in our larynx and modified with lips, tongue, teeth, mouth shape, and nasal cavity. They do not have a larynx, lips, tongue, teeth, or nasal cavity. They breathe quietly through openings elsewhere in their bodies. They do, as most of you know, communicate chiefly by the sound made by their clicking their hard mandibles together. The only properties of their words – and they do communicate by words – are click, buzz, and silence. As a result, they have evolved with next to no ability to distinguish changes in pitch or timbre.
“Just as we can transmit text by Morse Code using dot, dash, and pause, they speak their language by click, buzz, and pause. Typically, they do this at speeds unachievable by Morse Code experts, but they are able to slow down as much as they wish in trying to let us poorly equipped humans understand what the hell they’re talking about.”
(More laughter)
“Several of us have attempted to talk with them by clicking, buzzing, and pausing some of their words. I’m afraid our human accent is just too alien for them.”
(Some chuckles)
“Our controller is able to handle translating between human and Kickik, of course. So the Kickiks, whose nicknames are Click-click and Buzz-click-buzz-click, or CC and BCBC, have been talking fluently with the controller during the previous couple of weeks. The transcripts are online and I’m certain that many of you have been browsing through them. Furthermore, the Kickiks have allowed their controller to communicate with our controller. The two controllers have been pouring through language lessons and histories together at gigahertz speeds for over 30 hours. As advanced as the Kickiks seem, their controller has not been able to sufficiently analyze the complexities and subtleties of the sounds of human speech. So Muchie, I mean our controller, will be doing the translating. When you meet one, just open a channel with the controller and you, too, can speak to an alien. Hopefully, all of you will have that opportunity.
“Ok, here’s a brief summary.
“Kickiks have a written history going back about half a million years. There are gaps due to natural disasters, so archeology is one of their sciences. They last had an armed conflict about seven thousand years ago. Violent crime is rare, apparently owing more to their psychopharmacological sophistication than to their criminal justice system.
“Socially, they have what we might call a hive mentality. There are five distinct physiological castes and each look very different from the others – at least as adults. They are: the Intelligentsia such as Click-click and Buzz-click-buzz-click; the Helpers, like cooks, garbage collectors, housekeepers, and factory workers; the Protectors that mostly serve to police events and to protect government leaders; the Queens who produce their eggs; and the Males who fertilize the Queens.”
From the audience, “How big are they?”
John responded, “Questions at the end please.”
“Their economic system is sorta similar to that of Old Earth with inter-hive and intra-hive production and trade.
“Their political system is controlled solely by the intelligentsia but they abide by laws protecting rights of three of the other four castes; individuals of the lowest class are tiny males who have virtually no intelligence and, hence, no rights, per se.”
Female voice from the audience, “Right on!”
(Laughter)
“Kickiks have never before encountered space aliens. We are their first. Everything they learn about us is transmitted back to their home world by a series of transceivers they have released in the years of their journey here. Their starship has nearly expended all of its fuel. They do not intend to return; Click-click and Buzz-click-buzz-click will live out their lives here. They knew that when they volunteered for this first contact for both civilizations. They will forever be dependent on supplemental oxygen. They had considered New Earth uninhabitable because our atmosphere has a lot less oxygen than their home planet.
“OK. Time for questions. To answer your question, ‘How big are they,’ imagine something a bit larger than a goat, but with short legs. Since they are not on the metric system and we are not on the Kickik system, we had to work out their size using wavelengths of light. They were already anticipating that difficulty and were ready to walk us through the process.”
(Dozens of voices)
“Whoa. Raise hands, please. OK, you in the third row with the purple scarf.”
“You don’t seem very worried. What makes you believe they won’t try exterminating us?”
“Good question. It’s not a matter of believing one way or the other. I would say there is a 95 percent chance they come with no intention of harming us. For that other five percent, Trillium has both their lasers continuously trained on their starship along with Trillium’s full suite of instruments examining their approach. Also, we have created a landing area for them that has several tons of explosives just below the surface. The controller is in charge of the lasers and the detonators for the landing area. The controller’s reflexes are about a million times faster than our reflexes. The Kickiks have been warned and they told us they would have done the same in our place.
“You, way in the back holding a walking stick.”
“How did they find us, and where are they from?”
“OK. A two-fer. As you know, Trillium ran its FECS rockets for a quarter century to slow down on its way here. One of the Kickik’s orbiting infrared telescopes was able to image the heat from the rockets but not until one of Trillium’s planetary slingshot maneuvers aimed its engines directly at their planet. If they are being truthful about that, then they do not know from which direction Trillium came. Good thing. We can’t trust them. Since they do not know where Old Earth is located, none of you is permitted to point toward it or give any other information that may give them a clue. Not the type of sun, not the number of planets, not the time it took Trillium to reach here. Nothing nothing nothing. Telling them will result in incarceration. Also, the Kickiks have been told that any attempt to learn the location of Old Earth is simply not permitted.
“Ok. What was the second part of your question? Oh. Yeah. Where are they from? They are similarly barred from revealing the location of their home planet for the same obvious reasons. Because CC and BCBC would not have embarked on their journey before Trillium arrived 160 years ago, you would think that gives us a fairly small set of star systems as candidates. But, at this time, we know nothing about their propulsion system or whether they coasted between acceleration and deceleration. Bottom line, their system could be the closest system to here or it could be farther away than Old Earth. We have a reciprocal agreement with them to not ask where they came from.
“Front row, you.”
“How are you going to keep them from passing an infection on to us?”
“Another good question. Thank you. We will erect a sealed tent around their descent vehicle and conduct tests. For more detail, our Director of Biology, Dr. Gus Cooper, and the biologists on board Trillium will be posting a page on this later tonight. From that page you can also access information about their life cycle; and yeah that’s also something like insects.
“Over here against the wall, the woman with the dog.”
“So their home planet knows where we are and likely has the ability to send an armada with the power to kill us all. We don’t even know where they live and we don’t have much more than slingshots for weapons. Big freaking problem. You and your fellow Councilmembers have screwed up big time. We trusted you and you failed us.”
“I agree that we are not in an enviable position, strategically, but it could be much worse. New Earth’s atmosphere prevents the Kickiks from coveting our planet. And if it’s true they have avoided armed conflicts for thousands of years, we should hope they are proud of that and won’t needlessly end their long record of peaceful relations.
“As far as having little more than slingshots and the explosives we use for mining, governments have always needed to balance bread versus guns in their budgets. We’ve had the good fortune of being able to build our colonies without wasting resources on weapons, other than for vaccines. We humans had been looking for other advanced civilizations for over a millennium using our best technology, but with zero success. So we decided not to burden our economy with preparations for something so unlikely. And now, our best strategy, if one could call it that, is to show hospitality, because any show of antagonism toward our weird-ass visitors will bring us certain destruction.”
A man in the second row jumped to his feet. It was Neil, one of the miners who was vacationing here. Next to him sat Councilmembers Stern and Venus and Venus’ husband, Alan.
Neil’s shouted, “You incompetent fools. You assholes are going to get us all killed with your ….”
Stern yelled, “Quiet!,” at Neil as he grabbed the slighter man and pulled him back down into his seat. Neil folded his arms angrily and said nothing more.
John paused a moment before addressing the thousands who witnessed this. “I appreciate that emotions can run high at this juncture, but we all need to remain calm if we are to get through it unscathed.
“More questions? You, the young lady in the middle there with the shiny necklace.”
“Ah, my friends and I wanted to know, you know, at least we wondered, you know, whether Click-click and Buzz-click-buzz-click engage in, well, you know, like sex.”
People laughed. John could have kissed the young lady for lightening the mood.
CHAPTER 5
The fireball shooting across the daytime sky was impressively bright. Nearly every New Earther watched as it silently broke into segments and then into streams of molten metal leaving trails of smoke. It was the propulsion module of the Kickik’s starship burning up on entry into New Earth’s atmosphere. A moment after the last flare died, the sky was suddenly covered with dozens of bright points of light that burned after-images onto the retinas of everyone watching. Those flashes were Trillium’s lasers vaporizing the pieces of debris that could have been large enough to analyse.
It was all part of the policy to placate the aliens, now descending in their crew module. The Council had agreed to destroy leftover fragments of the propulsion module so humans could not reverse engineer Kickik interstellar rocket technology. John sighed at this loss but agreed to it because the Kickiks held all the aces in this high-stakes game. However, it also gave the colonists the opportunity to demonstrate Trillium’s laser targeting abilities. Miles above, streams and puffs of grey-white smoke slowly contorted, thinned, and moved resolutely east.
Crew module passing through one hundred k. Buzz-click-buzz-click reports good fix on landing beacon. Trajectory nominal.
John strained to see the approaching spacecraft but the light blue sky was serenely unblemished. He reached out to Svetlana and pulled her pregnant body tight against his side.
Crew module passing through fifty k. Trajectory nominal. Detecting encrypted transmissions from crew module directed away from New Earth. Attempting to determine direction.
Still nothing in sight.
Crew module passing through ten k. Trajectory nominal.
“I see it,” a woman’s voice called out.
“Me too,” sounded a youngster.
Then John saw it; just a tiny speck, directly overhead in a pale sky. He noticed that he had been holding his breath and his heart pounded. John turned to Svetlana, gave her a brief kiss, and started jogging toward the landing zone. John had to zig and zag around the folk staring straight up.
He reached a wall of people who stood at the edge of the restricted landing zone, three hundred meters from the patch where the alien module was expected to set down. John joined the crowd watching the crew module swiftly fall out of the sky. Just as John was convinced the module was certain to disastrously slam into the ground, multiple rockets flared and the module settled in the middle of the landing circle. No crash. No detonation of the buried explosives. Just a cloud of dust drifting away from the crowds in the light breeze.
Fire fighters in hazmat suits carrying assorted gizmos, began walking from the perimeter toward the Kickik craft. Long minutes passed as the hazmat crew bustled about taking readings and reporting them to the controller as they ventured ever closer to the space craft. On some unseen signal, three carts driven by more folk in hazmat suits left the perimeter and trundled toward the Kickik lander. Methodically, the fire fighters erected a framework for a dome. When they finished applying a covering over the framework, hiding the craft from view, most colonists returned to their quotidian chores.
John remained there, watching electric power cables being run out to the dome. The exhaust fans with their microfilters started up, sucking the covering firmly over the dome’s framework. Only then did the biologists and chemists in their hazmat suits with yellow scarves venture from the perimeter carrying two cases each, and walk to the dome’s airlock. Each took their turn disappearing into the hidden interior.
“Munchie,” said John, “anything of interest so far?”
The Kickiks have submitted the samples agreed upon. Vials of body fluids, cabin air, and swabs of surfaces. I will keep you informed.
John, jazzed by the momentousness of the occasion, stood alone watching nothing happen for another two hours. As the evening breeze turned chilly, John turned and slowly strolled back through the village to his family.
***********************
Together with biologists on Trillium, the scientists conducted hundreds of tests over the next three days. Aside from the fact that complex protein structures were built from an assortment of amino acids, and the fact that nucleic acids apparently encoded genetic information, nothing in Kickik physiology resembled Earth physiology. Their somewhat different nucleic acids were not arranged in a double helix; the set of amino acids in use was different; there was no citric acid cycle or ATP; there were no mitochondria. Somehow the Kickiks ‘breathed’ in oxygen and exhaled carbon dioxide along with dozens of trace organic compounds.
They ate food and shit faeces. Figuring out how their physiology ticked might, in time, be understood, but the Kickiks had been careful to not give the colonists any biological samples that would elucidate too much, presumably because they feared a thorough knowledge of their physiology would allow humans to manufacture deadly toxins. Although their basic physiology was all quite baffling, the goal was only to learn whether Kickiks posed harm to colonial biology and the answer was, ‘probably not.’
***********************
John shouldered his way through the crowd while calling out, “Coming through. Coming through.”
All watched as the fire fighters finished removing the final pieces of the dome’s framework and loaded them back on the carts. As he waited, John was joined by six mayors, all but one of his fellow Colony Councilmembers, and heads of various agencies. Eris happily volunteered to keep her distance so there would be at least one surviving councilperson if the controller detonated the explosives.
The signal was given and the dignitaries began walking toward the spacecraft across the bare dusty ground. As they neared, John noted that the crew module was at least twice as large as he earlier estimated. As they continued at a dignified pace toward the module, the fire fighters carried the ramp from where it sat 20 meters away. John took his position at the bottom of the ramp as the rest lined up in the order that was hashed out in interminable discussions.
In his earbud, John heard Munchie say the Kickiks were continuing to test the air to confirm nothing toxic had been added. A few seconds later, the hatch door opened a couple of centimeters; it was about two meters high and a meter and a half wide. Another few minutes passed. The door smoothly swung open. Out came a monster that barely fit through the hatch. It was not one of the Kickiks.
The monster stood at the top of the ramp and roared with such a deafening buzz that it scared the hell out of John, hurt his ears, and left him shivering with fright. The monster swung enormous pincers from side to side. It had sharp spikes randomly arranged all around its shiny dark brown exoskeleton. Something metallic rested on its back. Then came a brief series of clicks and buzzing.
John, it is a Protector. It said ‘Come up the ramp and greet me.’
John wanted to tell Muchie to go fuck itself and it could damn well go up the ramp without him. But everything is being recorded for posterity so John briefly checked to learn whether he had wet his pants, and then began ascending the ramp with as much steadiness as he could manage. John had been expecting to greet the other creepy Kickiks, not this deadly rhinoceros beetle nightmare. “Simply place your face lightly against the Kickik’s flat mandibles for a moment,” was the ghastly method of greeting he had prepared for with the Kickiks; mandibles that could snap open and crush his skull in a heartbeat. “Simply,” my ass. And this monster’s mandibles could just as easily decapitate me. And flat? It’s mandibles were jagged scythes ending in crossed scimitars!
John reached the monster all too soon. Unlike Click-click and Buzz-click-buzz-click, the monster had compound eyes recessed into its ‘head’ just above the awful pincers. John stopped a meter short of the pincers and wondered what would happen next. Munchie’s spoke soto voce into John’s earbud:
Click-click says you must step forward, hold the tips of the Protector’s pincers, one in each hand, and then let go and step back.
Oh shit. John’s feet did not move. John argued with his feet. They resolutely refused to move. He threatened them with athlete’s foot and ill-fitting shoes for the rest of their lives. Eventually they caved. John’s feet stepped forward. Face to pincers with the beast, John gingerly put his hands ever so gently around the tips of those twin guillotines. They were carving-knife sharp on their inner edges. John just as gently released them and stepped back.
The pincers buzzed and clicked out another pattern.
The Protector says ‘Recede. Leave the ramp.’
John wasted no time putting space between himself and the ‘Protector.’ The monster then followed him down the ramp on its six legs. John now understood why they were instructed to build such a sturdy ramp. When its huge body cleared the bottom of the ramp, it turned ninety degrees and stepped back. The Protector loudly clicked and buzzed again.
The Protector says ‘Behold, my most righteous protectees now approach to your credit and for your admiration.’
Two shiny smooth insects the size of goats, but on six short legs, came through the hatch. They were not CC and BCBC. Side-by-side they proceeded down the ramp. Their smooth exoskeleton plates were an iridescent purplish green. They also had a metallic contraption on their backs. Like CC and BCBC, they each sported two tall bushy antennae and two eyestalks. They took positions on either side at the ramp bottom, near the Protector. Next came Click-click, or maybe it was Buzz-click-buzz-click. She descended the ramp waving all four arms to the welcoming dignitaries as her head swiveled slightly side to side and her eyestalks undulated. As she neared the ramp’s bottom, the other of the pair appeared in the hatch, and likewise waved as she walked down the ramp.
Click-click and Buzz-click-buzz-click stood side by side between the smaller creatures. Clicking and buzzing.
Over the PA system that was set up for the occasion, the controller’s voice sounded out:
Buzz-click-buzz-click says ‘We apologize for our uninvited presence in your hive and on your land. Our purpose is peaceful. We are happy and honored to meet with you and your colony. We await your judgment.’
John barely got out his first words as his voice cracked and shook.
“We wel – welcome you in p-peace to our home where we are pleased and privileged to have you as honored guests for as long as you wish. We are honored to be the first aliens your hives have met. Because you are the first space travelers we have the pleasure of meeting, this moment will live proudly in our annals of history for all time.”
Clicks and buzzing came from a speaker that was held by one of the mayors. It was Munchie’s translation of John’s welcome.
A commotion erupted among the dignitaries. “Fool! Run! I triggered it! It’s going to explode!”
A smoking metal ball rolled on the ground as people stumbled and dashed to safety.
There was additional confusing activity. Three of the dignitaries had their hands secured behind their backs and were being led away back toward the crowds standing three hundred meters distant. They were Alan, Venus, and Stern.
John calmly walked over and picked up the smoking metal ball and handed it to Frank, head of Emergency Services.
“You’ve got the other two grenades, Frank?”
“Wally took them. Well done, John.”
“Neil deserves all the credit. He’s the one that learned that Stern was up to something. He asked Neil to fashion grenades and got Venus and her husband to join them. Shit, Neil sure shocked me at last night’s meeting with his fake outburst. I guess he was trying to allay their doubts.”
John turned to face the dignitaries and Kickiks. “Come with me, everybody. The ceremonies are finished. It’s time for some food and drink. It’s not every day all of us can hang with space aliens at the rec hall.”
CHAPTER 6
The gathering in the rec hall appeared thoroughly normal; tables along one wall held food and beverages; young men and women carried trays of hors d’oeuvres and collected empty dishes; the noise level was high with a hundred echoing voices; special guests were surrounded by layers of curious folk.
“So tell me, Buzz-click-buzz-click” John asked as he looked toward the two eyestalks, “why the hell did you surprise us, and scare the shit out of me, with that fuck-ugly monster I had to shake hands with?” John’s e-pad clicked and buzzed as it delivered the question translated into Kickik.
“John,” Wally’s partner, Valentina said, “you’re talking to an emissary from another planet. You can’t use language like that!”
“Not a problem, Valentina. Munchie excises the expletives as he translates. At least I think he does.”
Before BCBC finished buzzing and clicking, the controller began delivering the translation over John’s e-pad.
John, Valentina, Svetlana, Wally. Please forgive Click-click and me. We are embarrassed by the incident. Before we departed, the Chief Protector insisted we begin the first contact in a manner that would instill fear and dread into you, the aliens. We attempted to disabuse her of the notion that the appearance of one Protector, or even dozens of Protectors, would frighten aliens who have the technology to span the distances between stars. Protectors are not known for their intelligence, but they have political clout. In the end, we knew that the appearance of a Protector would not cause serious problems.
“Bullshit, BCBC,” John replied. “I sure as hell was instilled with fear, all right. I damn near wet my pants and almost shook too much to speak.”
The controller translated the comment into Kickik.
BCBC slapped all four hands against the sides of her head and buzzed continuously for three seconds. The buzzing went fast to slow, loud to soft.
Buzz-click-buzz-click is laughing at your humorous statement.
“No shit? Damn, I could be an interstellar comedian. This calls for another drink.”
Svetlana locked one of John’s arms in hers. “No, dear. Unless it’s the orange juice.”
“Ok, dear. I’ll be right back with New Earth’s finest O.J., for both of us”
“Buzz-click-buzz-click,” said Svetlana, “you must know by now that your appearance is kind of scary to us, but please tell me what you think of our appearance.”
Svetlana’s e-pad translated the question into Kickik as she talked. As soon as the Kickik began ‘speaking,’ the controller began translating back.
Valentina, Svetlana, Wally. You remind me of newly-hatched larvae, squishy and flexible. You must bleed easily. Our larvae have no developed neural system for thinking, so it took some effort at first to consider you the intelligent beings in your colony. We have also learned that your larvae never go through another stage; they simply grow larger. And amazingly, you can balance continuously upright on only two feet. Something we have never before seen. Your feet do, however, each have a built-in platform. That must help.
John returned with two cups of orange juice. Svetlana took her cup. She was glad that John didn’t hear the comment about bleeding easily. He’d already lost too much sleep these last weeks.
“And then there is the matter of olfaction,” Svetlana said. “Do we have an aroma about us? The five of you have a slight odor of hydrogen sulfide; not too bad, but distinct. Actually, I do not know if you can even smell odors.”
Wally, Svetlana, Valentina, John. Our antennae give us a very excellent sense of smell. We can tell which hive a friend has visited and sometimes which individual the friend was with. Some books claim that a great time ago, a Kickik that smelled of a different hive would forfeit her life. No longer; we journey freely between hives, and many hives have merged. Your odors are complex; a potpourri of many compounds. I will venture to guess that at least one is a type of sulfanyl alkanol. In time, I hope I won’t find your odors quite so objectionable.
A Kickik Helper arrived carrying a cage about 20 centimeters on a side and, buzz-clicking, held it for BCBC who opened the top and took out one of the four bulbous animals inside while buzz-clicking.
Valentina, Wally, Svetlana, John. I apologize for not offering these to you. For you they could be toxic. So forgive me. I too am thirsty.
BCBC held the animal with all four hands, placed the animal’s rear end against its slightly open mandibles, and squeezed. A liquid passed from the bulbous animal into BCBC’s mouth. John and Wally turned and swiftly walked to the men’s room.
BCBC returned the noticeably diminished animal to the cage, and the Helper walked away through the crowds toward Click-click.
Svetlana said, “That was awesome, BCBC. There are insects on our home planet who – ah – quench their thirst in the same way. One is called an ant and … I don’t remember the other’s name. There must be countless parallels between the sociobiology of your home planet and that of our home planet.”
Valentina, Svetlana. Although there are many possibilities in biology and behaviour, they are not infinite. If you can find an audio-visual archive of the similar behaviour you mention, we would like to transmit it back to our home planet.
“I would be glad to do that for you. Of course, everything must be approved first. As you know, we do not want you knowing where our ancestors came from.”
Svetlana, Valentina. Likewise with us. Merely analyzing a photo exposed in daylight will reveal much about the home star. It is best to be hive-friendly, but also hive-cautious.
“Well,” said Valentina, “BCBC, let me at least venture a guess about your planet. I’m guessing that your planet’s gravity is stronger than here on New Earth.”
Valentina, Svetlana. What is your evidence for that?
“Your legs are stout and relatively short; much more than sufficient for our planet.”
Svetlana, Valentina. No comment.
“That’s fair. Except for you and Click-click, the others have what appear to be tanks on their backs. Are you willing to explain, or would that be too revealing?”
Valentina, Svetlana. If you look closely at my dorsal side, I also have an oxygen tank. It is shaped and colored to blend in with my integumental plates. Your atmosphere has less oxygen than is comfortable. For us it is like venturing to a very high altitude. We will need your assistance in resupplying oxygen for our tanks. I trust this is agreeable.
Wally and John returned in time to hear about resupplying oxygen.
“No problem, BCBC,” said John. “We have a shop that makes some wizardly clever shit. One of the things they make concentrates oxygen from the air for some of our older folk. They’re portable. We could make something to make it easy for you to carry. How soon do you gals need these?”
John, Svetlana, Wally, Valentina. Our supply will run low in about .. four of your days.
“OK,” said John. “We had better go talk to Mae. She runs the shop. Personally I have no idea how long it will …. Shit! What the fuck is that?!” John jumped back and pointed.
Wally, Valentina, John, Svetlana. That’s one of my cleaners. They crawl out from between my plates sometimes. Not sure why. Maybe to get a little air. You moved fast and spoke loudly. Apparently you were surprised. Your cleaners must be smaller than ours.
CHAPTER 7
“CC, Rusty. This is where the copper ore is sprayed with dilute sulfuric acid to leach out the copper,” John explained, as he read from the sign posted along the visitor’s walking route. The Kickik custom of naming to whom you are speaking every freaking time you open your mouth was curiously becoming second nature to John. Today, he and CC had traveled by van since early dawn to visit the colony’s copper mine about 70 kilometers from the ‘capital’ of the colony where the Kickiks landed in New Moscow.
John, Rusty. This ore must therefore be copper oxide instead of a sulfide ore.
“Absolutely correct,” Rusty replied. “You certainly know quite a bit about copper refining. I’m impressed.”
John noted that under his helmet, Rusty’s original green tint when introduced to CC, was almost back to a normal skin tone. Just about everyone who met one of the Kickiks turned a bit green or became exophthalmic or stammered; sometimes all three.
Rusty, John. Please forgive me. I knew nothing about processing copper, but our controller persists in informing me about details of your technologies as I visit your important sites. I should refrain from parroting those bits of information as though they come from me. My education is shallow.
“CC, Rusty, hey, no problem,” John responded. “I’ve learned a hell of a lot listening to you repeat what your controller dredges up and transmits to you; over our network.”
***********************
Connecting the Kickik’s controller to the colony’s data network was a nerd nightmare. Even the controllers weren’t able to solve the Gordian knot mess of marrying Kickik electronic protocols with the colony’s TCP/IP network. The task was accomplished, however, thanks to Yelena, an extremely talented technician.Yelena just silently sat at her desk, occasionally pencilling cryptic notes for hour after hour, until she quietly drafted a workable process. (This demonstrated that sometimes derivative intelligence is not sufficient; an element of sentient imagination was needed to solve this problem.) The process that Yelena designed kept Kickik communications in their own virtual network. Only the two controllers could ferry messages between networks, and only to each other. This prevented the leaking of critical secrets, like the locations of the home planets.
As the Kickik communications portal was being built, Yelena caught one of her IT crew creating a ‘backdoor’ to give him access to Kickik data. The Justice Department sentenced him to one year at half pay, and transferred him to working at the HVAC shop.
Once the Kickiks could piggy-back on the colony’s network, CC and BCBC began visiting sites away from New Moscow. They recorded their observations and conversations and sent them off to their home planet via their bread-crumb trail of transceivers. This allowed the colony’s controller to discover the direction to the first transceiver but, short of sending a probe out to find it, there was no way to know the location of the second Kickik transceiver. The Council guessed that the location of the first transceiver was probably placed so that it bore no clue as to the true direction to the Kickik home world.
The presence of the Kickiks totally disrupted communications with Old Earth. No longer could Trillium’s gargantuan radio antenna be aimed at Old Earth for two-way communications; Kickik technology could very possibly be monitoring the aim of Trillium’s antenna. Munchie assured the Council that transmissions from Old Earth were essentially undetectable without an antenna near the size of Trillium’s four-kilometer dish.
CC and BCBC toured farms, water treatment facilities, sewage treatment plants, recycling plants factories, reservoirs, the various mines, and all the rest of the resources and infrastructure that made the colony possible. They also ate with families and met with groups; musical groups, hobby groups, neighborhood groups, and more. Fortunately, the Kickiks were able to digest most of the foods eaten by colonists. Also fortunate, the Kickiks bodies were sufficiently flexible that they had no trouble using indoor and outdoor plumbing – except they had to leave outhouse doors open to accommodate their body length.
The Kickik tours gave the Council heartburn. They worried about giving the Kickiks a leg up on some technology. They worried about Kickiks finding some clue as to the direction to Old Earth. As to the first worry, it seemed that Kickik technology was in no way inferior. As to the second worry, all it would take is their noticing a youngster pointing to Old Earth in the night sky. For that reason, Kickiks were tightly chaperoned at night, even during the months when Old Earth was not in the night sky.
***********************
Rusty, John. Before we proceed to the electroplating vats, my alimentary canal is acting abnormally. Please lead me to a restroom.
“CC,” said Rusty, “follow me. There’s one not far from here.”
John followed along and remained outside the restroom with Rusty, not so much for sake of modesty, but mainly to avoid the disgusting smell of Kickik shit. An inordinate amount of time passed before CC reappeared.
John, Rusty. I must apologize. I made a mess in your restroom and there are no proper tools in there to clean it up.
“Hey, not to worry,” said Rusty as he pushed the door open to assess the problem. Rusty quickly closed the door shut and resumed his former green complexion. “Uh, I’ll get maintenance to clean it up. No problem.”
Rusty, John. It is better that I complete this tour another day. I am experiencing some amount of discomfort. I should return to the Brilliant Cocoon. Again my apologies.
“CC, Rusty. That’s OK with me. Rusty, would you lead the way to your cafeteria before we leave. We’ll need a snack on our drive back.”
In just a few minutes, CC nimbly entered the van through the back doors and made herself comfortable on the cushion that was fashioned for the Kickiks. John closed the back doors, took his position in the driver’s seat, bid Rusty good-bye, and set off for New Moscow.
The dirt road wound through the hilly bleak terrain in the midday sun; not a tree, not a plant, just dirt and rocks. Bridges spanned three streams along their route. Farther along, the road skirted a lake covered with a brown slime of native New Earth organisms.
Twice during the first 20 kilometers, CC asked John to stop so she could shit out the back of the van. The stench was abominable.
“CC,” said John, “have you ever been sick like this?”
John. Not like this. I feel very bad. It is not like the time I ate a pepper. This is much worse.
“CC, I’ll arrange a doctor’s appointment for you.”
John. The translation is not clear for me.
“Munchie, try again with that translation, and get it right this time.”
John. Now I understand, but your doctors know little about Kickiks. Please just take me to Brilliant Cocoon where BCBC has medicines. Now I must sleep.
“CC, pleasant dreams.”
Thinking about the situation, John considered that perhaps the feared infection had finally happened. Colonists all grew from zygotes that were modified by Trillium’s crew to withstand various harmful New Earth biochemicals and microbes. Similarly, the infants were vaccinated against several New Earth microorganisms that could make them sick. Kickiks, on the other hand, had been left wide open to potential toxins and microbes.
“Munchie, get the biologists and chemists who have been working on Kickik … uh, biology, medicine, whatever, and have them at the Cocoon by the time we get there with, you know, test tubes, equipment, and such. We don’t want to lose one of our aliens. Oh, yeah, also tell BCBC.”
John drove a little faster than was comfortable on the bumpy winding road, but Kickiks never seemed to mind the jolting and jostling. Maybe the higher gravity on their home planet made New Earth’s bumps feel relatively gentle.
As John drove along the dirt road, he frequently looked back at CC, but it was hard to know if she was OK, or even still alive.
When the road left the barren hills behind, the green patchwork of extensive orchards came into view. In just minutes, they were driving between the irrigated lushness of trees, fields of maize and cabbage, and herds of sheep and cattle browsing on grass. Reaching the bluff with the wind farm, John could see New Moscow below.
“Munchie, I’m just passing the wind turbines. Is everyone there yet?”
BCBC and everyone who can assist is already there or will be by the time you arrive, except for Dr. Slayton. He will be late by perhaps half an hour.
“Munchie, good enough, I hope.”
The final kilometer passed agonizingly slowly, or so it seemed. John had to brake for sheep and dogs in the road. Even some of the colonists took their own damn sweet time to step aside as he approached. John crossed the final three hundred meter radius of the restricted zone around Brilliant Cocoon before he realized that some of his impatience was due to the incredibly foul odor in the van. Dr. Gus Cooper, BCBC, and the two Kickik Helpers wasted no time in easing CC onto a platform cart and rolling her up the ramp and into the landing module. The Protector stood silently by.
Relieved to have passed off the responsibility into more capable hands – human and alien – John drove over to the corporation yard where he used a garden hose to rinse out the back of the van. After re-parking the van in its designated space, John walked briskly toward home where Svetlana, Max, and the baby waited. Also waiting was a shower and a change of clothes. John vowed never again to complain about changing stinky diapers.
***********************
The interspecies medical team quickly put Click-click on life support equipment and dosed her with Kickik medicines. Many hours of lab work revealed the root cause of CC’s illness. As suspected, a native New Earth microbe found something in Kickik innards quite delicious and an infection ensued. Because Trillium had far better research facilities, the Council decided to send samples up to Trillium in geostationary orbit.
It had been years since anything had been shuttled from New Earth to Trillium, so over a thousand colonists – mostly school children – hastily traveled to the launch site. Separate teams prepared the rocket and inflated the balloon. Preparations proceeded quietly as each individual listened to step-by-step procedures from the controller via e-pad. Along with the biological samples, the payload held several kilos of meat, bacon, tree nuts, tree fruits, and wool – all things the Trillium crew could not supply for themselves.
The controller began a 30-second countdown for the benefit of the spectators. At zero, latches released the 20-meter-tall rocket and the gargantuan, but mostly empty, balloon pulled it skyward. Immediately – again for the spectators – the controller announced that the rocket would fire in about two hours. That gave plenty of time for school kids to interview Ferdy and Wally, who were the titular supervisors for the two teams. All of the real supervising had been done by the controller, of course.
When the countdown reached ten minutes, students, teachers, archivists, and townsfolk reassembled in the open field. Several of the kids claimed they could see the balloon. Other kids accused them of fibbing. At zero, a tiny yellow light appeared in the sky. For the first minute, it appeared to be stationary as it slowly dimmed. During the second minute, it clearly was moving eastward leaving a white trail. Only then could they hear a faint roar from the heavens. A minute later, nothing more could be seen or heard except the white trail which slowly gnarled and twisted and faded.
The controller started another countdown; this time for 7 minutes. When the countdown reached twenty seconds, kids began shouting they could see it. The booster stage of the rocket roared and wrapped itself with smoke as it plummeted, slowed, and touched down half a kilometer away on its landing pad. Everybody applauded and shouted their delight.
At dinnertime, thousands watched live video as the rocket’s payload stage slowly drifted into Trillium’s airlock. John punched the air with his fist and yelled, “Yes.” Unfortunately, that woke Jessica who had been sleeping in John’s arms. He handed the crying baby to Svetlana who quieted Jessica with one of her engorged breasts. Max was oblivious to the commotion as he shoveled warm mashed potatoes and gravy into his mouth.
***********************
Dr. Gus Cooper addressed the Colony Council. “OK, here’s the situation, we knew nothing about this New Earth microbe since it did not infect any of our test organisms when Trillium arrived, nor has it infected anything in our colonies since. Thanks to our biomedical teams here and on Trillium, we now have two compounds – antibiotics – that are effective at killing this microorganism, which we’re calling Kickik Infectious New Earth Organism One, or KINEO One. These are relatively safe antibiotics for humans, but because we know so little about Kickik physiology, the two compounds might just as swiftly kill the Kickiks as it clears KINEO One. We are stymied. We are at an impasse. I’m here not just to inform the Council of the situation, but I’m hoping you might see some way out of this conundrum.”
Naoko Sharman, the new Councilmember replacing Venus, stood.
“Doctor Gus, I’m a late comer to alien affairs, but couldn’t we just ask the Kickiks or their controller for details of their physiology … or the sorts of things that are poisonous to them?”
“That unfortunately seems to be an impossibility. You see, if we humans learn enough about their biology, we could theoretically concoct a bioweapon that could wipe out their entire species … if we ever found their home planet. As unlikely as that would ever be – the intention to wipe them out – they cannot take that chance. To be fair, we have asked them to remain ignorant of our physiology … basically for the same reason. Not only have the Kickiks agreed to that, every bit of information they send up to their bread-crumb transceivers is inspected by our controller. If that kind of information is transmitted – or anything encrypted – Trillium will blast a scrambling transmission toward their first transceiver.”
“Cleaners,” John called out.
Naoko sat down as John stood up.
John continued, “All five of the Kickiks are crawling with those creepy cleaner bugs. Isn’t it likely those creepy-crawlers have a fairly similar physiology as our new friends? Hell, we use mice to test antibiotics and shit before trying it on ourselves.”
***********************
John and Jasmin, a medical technician, held sample boxes as they walked up the ramp to the landing module. One of the Helpers welcomed them inside where they found CC and the other Helper comatose in bunk beds. BCBC greeted them. It stank inside like the van that carried CC from the copper mine.
John, Jasmin. Helper Click-click-click-buzz is also now very ill. I also feel worse as the day proceeds. Thank you all for your continuing efforts. I will now collect cleaners from each of us – except from our Protector; he’s weird that way.
The two humans watched BCBC coax out a cleaner from beneath CC’s integumental plates with a sugary snack as CC remained unconscious. The cleaner was broad and flat like a cockroach, only more so. BCBC held the snack in one hand, sprayed the cleaner with some liquid in a spray bottle that she held in a second hand. Something about the liquid made the cleaner lose its footing. She then grabbed up the sliding-skittering cleaner with her remaining two hands and placed it in a sample box. BCBC repeated the process on herself and the two helpers.
Later, back at the medical clinic, Dr. Gus and his team determined that three of the four cleaners also suffered from KINEO One. That saved a fair amount of time that would have been spent attempting to infect them in the lab.
Captain Najima and one of her crew watched from orbit as the first of the two antibiotics immediately killed an infected cleaner. The second antibiotic seemed fine at first, but soon the cleaner raced around clumsily, flipped over, and lay with legs waving in the air. Twenty minutes later, it too was dead.
“Captain Najima,” said Dr. Cooper, “we have a problem.”
“No shit, Dr. Gus,” said Najima. “We’ve been working our asses off here getting the microbe to grow in one set of petri dishes and trying to kill it off in another set. At least their controller told us to avoid antibiotics with various groups, like 2-pentanal or phenylalanine, but it clearly doesn’t want us to know a complete list of toxins. Fuck biochemistry. We could do better with a ouija board.
“Regardless,” continued Najima, “we’ve come up with two more possibilities. Your number five biofactory ought to have cranked out a few microliters by now. We are loading the codes for the other antibiotic now. We’ll transmit that to your biofactory number six in a few seconds.”
Ten minutes later Dr. Cooper injected the third cleaner with the third antibiotic. The cleaner stopped trying to escape and simply stood motionless. After six minutes, it began slowly walking around. After nine minutes, it seemed perfectly normal.
Dr. Cooper drew a tiny blood sample from the third cleaner and put it in a recess on a glass platform which quietly slid into the analytic instrument. Half a minute later the results were baffling. No trace of the antibiotic could be found, but plenty of the KINEO One microbe remained living. Apparently the cleaner had broken down the antibiotic before it could kill off the microbe.
“Screw this,” said Dr. Cooper. “We’re shooting in the dark. If the damn Council would let us study Kickik biology, we would know what the hell we’re doing.”
***********************
The team was ready to try yet another promising antibiotic, number thirteen, on the Kickiks as the sun rose the following morning when word came that Click-click had been pronounced deceased by the Kickik controller.
CHAPTER 8
One of the two Helpers, Click-click-click-buzz, died a few hours after Click-click. The Kickik Protector never became ill.
BCBC and the surviving Helper, Click-buzz-click-click, recovered slowly and presided over the cremation of the dead Kickiks ten days later.
The ceremony was held outdoors at the perimeter of the circle that surrounded the landing craft.
BCBC and CBCC emerged from the ship with blue cloth draped over their bodies. They walked slowly to the bier and stood silently in front of hundreds of colonists – many attended out of curiosity but many came out of reverence for the aliens they had learned to appreciate and feel affection for.
The Kickiks stood silently for two minutes before together stepping forward to the bench with the butane torches decorated with ribbons and hissing with flame. They spoke in perfect unison at an unusually slow cadence as the controller translated to e-pads throughout the colony.
With the absence of Click click and Click buzz click click click, my hive is now less for all time. With the absence of Click click and Click buzz click click click, I am now less for all my days.
Each picked up a torch with all four hands and lit the bier. That was all. They replaced the torches on the bench and slowly walked back to their ship.
The dead branches trimmed from orchards of fruit trees caught fire swiftly. None of the colonists moved. They had never before witnessed a cremation and stayed partly out of morbid curiosity but also out of respect.
Most turned toward their homes after the bier collapsed and the fire’s roar lessened. A few stayed as tears lightly caressed their faces before falling to the dusty ground.
CHAPTER 9
It was Jessica’s first birthday and she was in a silly mood. The instant Svetlana said, “Let’s put a fresh diaper on you,” Jessica took off running and squealing with laughter. As she dashed into the front room, BCBC caught Jessica up in her four arms. That made Jessica laugh all the harder. Svetlana tossed a fresh diaper to BCBC who caught it in one hand as the other three hands eased the giggling Jessica onto the floor. John watched the diaper change, again trying to figure out how their alien friend managed to finish the process in little more than a second. BCBC put Jessica back on her feet. Still laughing, Jessica ran off into the kitchen.
Although Kickik fingers were spiked, they had soft pads, and they could make the spike tips hard, or instantly as squishy as a wet kitchen sponge. BCBC, Max, and Jessica enjoyed playing together, with Munchie translating when needed. John liked watching them, especially when BCBC juggled their toys or entertained them with a little legerdemain. John saw just how handy four hands could be.
BCBC spent a lot of evenings and weekends with the Carpenter-Jemison family ever since her partner died of KINEO One. BCBC was quick to make herself helpful, and the discussions they had were often intellectually stimulating. Svetlana enjoyed talking with BCBC about social customs, modes of entertainment, and about life in general – for both species. John often asked BCBC for advice on colony planning, projects, and politics. John was a bit surprised at first that BCBC demonstrated such acumen with regard to political situations. Except for some slight nuances, political concerns and strategies were remarkably similar in the two civilizations.
A favorite activity for BCBC was the bedtime story. Either John or Svetlana would read the story on an e-pad with the two kids on either side. BCBC usually lay next to Max with her nearest eyestalk leaning over to see the pictures. Munchie would translate to the Kickik controller, which would transmit via the network to BCBC’s communication device at the base of her left antenna. Often there would be an involved discussion between the controllers lasting a few milliseconds as to how best translate the text. BCBC inevitably found the stories intriguing, or funny, or both.
No longer did the family or BCBC notice the other species’ odor.
***********************
John, our wind turbines are much larger than yours.
“BCBC, give us some credit. We’re just a small colony. I’ve seen holos of the wind turbines on Old Earth and they are ten times the size of these.”
John, your power inverters have some minor advantages over ours but your basic design is far from optimal. I wish I were permitted to share our blueprints with you.
“BCBC, perhaps things will be different in the future, you know. Like maybe someday humans and Kickiks will cooperate to the advantage of both of us.”
John, thank you friend.
“Hey, BCBC. You haven’t been out to our lithium mining operation. Is that something you’d like to do next week?”
John, CC visited there and we transmitted all the required information back to our hives. I think I’ve seen all the mines I will ever want to. I would like to visit your schools for children. This is not something we have been asked to do; it’s just something I am interested in doing.
“BCBC, does this mean you’ve sent back everything you were tasked with?”
John. Yes. Everything including maps showing the locations of your facilities and homes.
“Uh, BCBC, why maps of homes?”
John, for research purposes. We came with tasks to carry out and we followed them as best we could.
“BCBC. Do your maps have the exact global coordinates for everything?”
John, as we were required to do; within three meters accuracy.
“What the fuck is that for?” John asked somewhat angrily. “What possible reason for that unless it’s for targeting?”
John, don’t be paranoid. I think the mission planners just wanted to be thorough in data collection for social analyses.
“Munchie, be alert. Especially watch that Protector.”
The Protector has been monitoring your conversation. She just hurried up the ramp and into their ship. I will detonate if anything suspicious occurs.
“I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Detonated.
John saw the flash followed by a column of dirt and smoke rising a couple of kilometers away. Just above the smoke was something like a fireworks display.
“Shit. What the fuck happened?”
Attention everybody. Take shelter. We are under attack. Take shelter now. I repeat we are under attack. Everybody must immediately take cover.
Something screamed over John and BCBC at about the moment the noise of the blast hit them. It was moving too fast to see. Then it was gone and once again everything was back to normal – until John felt a few pieces of sand or something land on him.
John, don’t breathe. These sticky crystals are sublimating into poison gas.
“What the fuck?”
John, don’t even talk. Just sit. I can talk without breathing and I can breathe through the oxygen concentrator. If we sit here calmly long enough the gas might blow away. Hold your breath.
John sat on the dusty ground and held his breath.
John. Good. Stay calm.
John helplessly shook his head side to side as he sat next to BCBC.
John, we lied to you about our thousands of years of peace so that you might not kill us when we landed. There are small short-term inter-hive wars continuously on our planet; sometimes worse. Also, the Protectors lied to Click-click and me. We were told there were no weapons on board. We were told that mapping your colony was just for research purposes. Stupid, stupid, stupid of us to believe them.
John stared at BCBC and slowly shook his head, as if to say, “No, no, no, no.”
John, dozens of crystal weapons will fly over all of your colony. They will release crystals where your people are. Your controller, Munchie, is now telling everyone to avoid breathing, get inside, and close doors and windows. Many of you humans may yet survive.
John’s arms and legs started twitching. Muscles on his face twitched.
John, if only there were a strong breeze to clear the air.
In one giant spasm, John gasped for air. The effects of the gas were immediate. His body arched in agonizing tetany. He then ceased to be aware.
EPILOGUE
It was the hangover from hell, thought John, only worse. Why did Jessica let me drink so much? Jessica? No, that’s not her name. Lana? Chrissy? Whatever in hell her name, she let me drink too much. Damn, it’s too bright here. Turn off the lights. I must be at the eye doctor’s office. They shine bright lights.
Everything aches.
John tried to yell for the doctor to turn off the lights that hurt his eyes but something was stuck in his mouth.
Must be the dentist, John concluded. She uses bright lights and sticks things in my mouth.
John yelled, but with something stuck in his mouth, it was muffled. Better than nothing, John concluded, so he continued yelling. Suddenly his yell was very loud which pleased him.
“Take this thing out of my mouth,” John insisted. “I don’t want to be in Dr. What’s-Her-Name’s dental office anyway.”
“John, you are in the hospital. There is nothing in your mouth now.”
“Turn the fucking light off, damn it.”
“John, I couldn’t see you if this room were any darker. I’m your nurse this shift. My name is Gordon.”
“Are you the teacher in this school room?”
“John, this is a hospital room and I’m your nurse.”
“Why is there a hospital room in the school?”
“John, you are not at a school. You are in the hospital.”
“The light is too bright.”
“John, just relax and close your eyes if it’s too bright. Good. Now raise your right hand and give me a high five.”
Both of John’s arms jerked spastically.
“Now are you going to let me out of this freaking school so I can go home?”
“John, you are in the hospital. You suffered from exposure to a nerve gas.”
“The nerve of them,” laughed John. “The nerve of them.” John continued to giggle at his joke.
***********************
BCBC’s body had been found in the wind turbine farm lying next to an unconscious John Carpenter, the Colonial Governor. The oxygen concentrator that BCBC normally wore, was lying by them with its output hose in the Governor’s mouth. The Governor’s belt was looped under his chin and over his head, holding his teeth tightly against the hose. Bits of cloth from the Governor’s shirt had been jammed into his nostrils.
Nearly three thousand colonists died that day. Twenty-three thousand survived in relatively good health. Another thousand were in the same category as the Governor: alive but severely handicapped. All of the livestock that lived around people’s houses died. For most of the survivors, the warnings given by the controller saved them; the warnings made effective with BCBC’s description of the weapons.
The Governor’s wife and daughter survived unscathed at home. His son, Max, died while out enjoying the afternoon on New Moscow’s soccer pitch, along with the rest of the daycare center’s kids and staff.
With the Kickik spacecraft destroyed and their controller along with it, Trillium aimed its huge antenna toward Old Earth and radioed the events of the previous months. Old Earth would receive those signals in about 47 of their years.
Stern Shepard, Venus Tereshkova, and Alan Aldrin were released from detention. Stern Shepard was voted into the office of Colonial Governor in the special election that followed.