Barely coherent after my abrupt awakening from cold sleep and the urgent directive to report to the Heinlein’s Communication and Information Center, I arrive looking for First Officer William (Hopalong) Cassidy. My orders must have come directly from Baptiste Dubois, Captain of this first interstellar mission, because Hopalong would let me sleep forever to give himself a clear shot with my wife, Ellen.
Computer connections flicker atop the CIC briefing table. Wall monitors provide status updates. Most of the flashing data are meaningless to me.
A panorama of the exoplanet Proxima Centauri b dominates the largest monitor. Twenty-seven percent more massive than Earth, the planet is a rugged rock whose mean distance from its dwarf red star qualifies for goldilocks status. That and its nearness to Earth are why planners chose it for our first stop on this interstellar quest.
Eight people clutter the CIC. Most faces are familiar; I remember their names from training. However, cold sleep consumes eighty percent of each crewmember’s three-point-six ship-years ride to Proxima Centauri, and domestic discord occupied most of my awake time, so none of these folks are my friends.
Crowded. Surely they’re not reviving everyone at once. We don’t have that many bunks to share.
Share bunks … I hope they don’t awaken Ellen at the same time as Hoppy.
Hoppy is not in CIC, but hyper-polyglot Dr. Raahi Chandragupta waves.
“Over here, John.”
Clearly, he intends to brief me. A balding, slightly built, middle-aged man, Raahi speaks seventeen modern languages. He is my linguistics senior because he speaks six of the languages that I am fluent in, all except for my seventh, Navajo, Diné bizaad.
However, we’re as likely to encounter aliens who speak Diné bizaad as any language that Raahi mastered.
Actually, my specialty is xenolinguistics, not individual languages. That won my wife and me joint berths on this voyage.
“Buenos Días, Juan.” Raahi grins. “Good morning.”
He does that to irritate me. Spanish is not listed in my curriculum vitae.
John Horacio Hernandez is the name on my Arizona birth certificate, not Juan. My parents don’t speak Spanish, but I picked up some Tex-Mex while visiting my Spanish-first grandparents in El Paso.
“Which morning?” I’m in no mood for his academic digs. Despite his cordial air, Raahi doesn’t consider xenolinguistics a legitimate field. I continue in Diné bizaad, “Yá’át’ééh abíní. It is good, this morning. What’s happening?”
“We lost three probes. Commander Cassidy suspects an alien attack. He wants an interpreter.”
“Alien attacks? Surely just malfunctions on the probes.”
“Laser-like beams struck the probes. We lost telemetry, and the probes crashed.”
Probes aren’t shielded. Neither is the Heinlein. We’re equipped for moderate radiation, heat, and small punctures, but not alien attacks.
“Any radio signals?”
“Background noise. No patterns. No communications.”
“Intelligence destroyed our probes,” I say. “Therefore, that intelligence is armed. Have they fired on the ship? No? The probe destructions are warnings. That’s communication.”
“There’s more—”
I ignore Raahi and examine the exterior view on the big monitor. Planetology is my secondary interest. Proxima Centauri b orbits at an average seven-and-a-half-million kilometers from the red dwarf star. The exaggerated elliptical orbit spans eleven Earth days.
The display updates. The exoplanet is not tidally locked, but, similar to Mercury’s 3:2 resonance orbit, this rock completes two rotations for every revolution around its star, a 2:1 resonance orbit. Its strong magnetic field suggests a liquid core. The thin atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide. Little inclination, so the poles remain in twilight throughout the short year. Frozen water covers the poles and liquid water forms one vast ocean and numerous scattered lakes.
Looking every bit the popinjay in Navy whites, Cassidy waves from the door. “To the bridge, Hernandez. Your shuttle awaits.”
“My shuttle?”
The Heinlein has no shuttle. Our powered maintenance platforms are neither aerodynamic nor powerful enough to land on a planet. Neither is the Heinlein. Our expedition is designed for orbital survey missions only.
Hoppy’s lopsided smirk suggests a one-way adventure for me. He beckons and slips out of the CIC.
Reluctantly, I follow.
On the bridge, Hoppy hovers near Captain Dubois, who early-on shaved his gray-streaked beard after someone joked that he looked like Captain Nemo.
Dubois says. “Did Commander Cassidy brief you, Dr. Hernandez?”
“No, Sir. He mentioned a shuttle. I didn’t know we had one.”
Dubois raises an eyebrow.
“I asked Chandragupta to brief him.” Hoppy shrugs.
Hoppy’s reason for not briefing me is clear. Her name is Ellen.
“See that spot?” Dubois taps the image of local space on the bridge monitor. “Magnification.”
The monitor zooms until a pink ovoid dominates the scene. Pink, all pink. Light diffusion from the red star onto a white surface. The ovoid is hinged open across a minor diameter. The interior looks empty.
“That’s our shuttle?”
“This shuttle is from the Proxima Centauri aliens.”
“They sent a giant egg?”
“It arrived after the destruction of our probes,” Dubois says. “Hasn’t repositioned since.”
“Armed?” I glance at Hoppy.
“We don’t know.” Dubois says. “They destroyed our probes without warning, and we’ve detected no radio signals. Doesn’t radio go with advanced technology? Commander Cassidy believes the egg waits to transport our envoy to the surface.”
“Envoy … you mean me? I’m no ambassador.”
Hoppy’s grin widens. “But who better to talk with them?”
My spine chills. Fortunately, weak knees can’t betray me in this ship-spin, low gravity.
“How will I return?” Thankfully, my voice doesn’t crack.
Dubois scratches his chin as if he misses his beard.
“We’ve packed survival gear and computers,” Hoppy says. “Also a jury-rigged shelter with a week’s supply of oxygen and supplies.”
“A week?” My throat goes dry. I can’t swallow.
“Relax.” Hoppy grins. “A chlorophyll emulator can free oxygen from the carbon dioxide atmosphere. In an emergency, you can crack water.”
“I won’t order you to go,” Dubois says, “but you’re our contact specialist. Isn’t finding alien life why you signed on?”
Nope. I signed up because Ellen, my xenobiologist wife, wanted to go to the stars. I would have happily taught A&M undergraduates for the rest of my life.
Technically, I lost Ellen years ago, but in terms of my waking ship hours, it’s been less than a month. Maybe contacting aliens down planet is a good distraction. I won’t have to see Ellen with Hoppy.
“Sure.” I say. “Why not?”
“Excellent,” Dubois says. “We’ll fit you with a repurposed maintenance suit with power-assisted joints and transfer you to the alien egg. Commander Cassidy volunteered to accompany you.”
Hoppy is going too? That’s worse than going alone.
#
After transferring supplies to the egg, crewmen wrap us in gel cushions and stuff us inside a partially-inflated acceleration bubble. The bubble looks makeshift. Deflated, it’s a transparent, one-meter beach ball lined with hundreds of inflatable chambers. Fully expanded, the diameter is three meters, large enough to wedge us against the egg’s interior.
I feel like a yolk.
I’m lightheaded, hyperventilating, by the time the crewmen leave. Yawning doesn’t help. I try diaphragm breathing.
Hoppy switches off my oxygen. Confused, I reach for the valve. He fends me off. When my breathing slows, he restarts the oxygen.
The egg vibrates. The shell closes and blocks exterior light. The acceleration bubble control panel provides ghostly illumination.
Unseen engines rumble the egg. Acceleration presses us against the gel cushions. The pressure subsides when the rumble ceases. We’re out of orbit and falling towards the rocky surface of ….
Proxima Centauri b is a stupid name for a planet. I christen her Halchii’, which in Navajo means red area.
Hoppy unpacks a sidearm. He hooks the gun to his pressure suit and smiles.
I sigh and close my eyes for the pounding fall.
#
After the egg opens, we struggle free from the acceleration bubble. While Hoppy deflates the bubble, I step from the egg and become the first human to walk on an exoplanet. Me, not Hoppy. Let Ellen mull that.
Speaking for posterity, I declare, “Humans reach for the stars, and Halchii’ is the first exoplanet we touch.”
My words aren’t relayed to the Heinlein—we haven’t set up an antenna—but the suit records them for upload.
“I thought Mars was really red.” Hoppy scans the horizon. “But this world is a portrait of rusty desolation. Even the lake looks like blood.”
Whelmed by the crimson panorama, I hadn’t noticed the nearby lake.
Also, I resent that his words are more poetic than mine.
“Eighty-five percent of Proxima Centauri radiation is infrared. What color did you expect, Hoppy?”
He hauls a large box from the egg and widens his stance. “My name isn’t Hoppy. Call me Cassidy, or Bill. Don’t call me Hoppy, and I won’t call you Twerp. Deal?”
Twerp. Is that what he calls me in private? I grit my teeth.
“What’s in the boxes?” Pleased that the nickname irritates him, I change the subject. “More six-guns?”
“No six-guns,” he says as if he confronts a moron clueless about weapons—which he does. “Stuff for our shelter and chem-lab supplies.”
Hoppy is no scientist, but he studied undergraduate biochemistry.
“I don’t trust this egg,” he says. “Let’s unload. I’ll set up our shelter while you move the remaining supplies.
Except for the deflated acceleration bubble, I unload the cargo using my converted dock-loader suit’s mechanical enhancements. After years in space, the task still isn’t easy, and gravity here is stronger than Earth’s. Meanwhile, Hoppy erects our shelter forty meters from the egg and fifty meters from the lake.
The sky is patent-medicine pink, not blue like the Earth’s. The lake spreads red water to the pale magenta horizon. Like refuse from an impact crater, a twenty-meter ridge surrounds the lake for as far as I can see. The ridge is the hue of rusted iron.
Five hours later, I crawl into the lightly pressurized shelter and strip off my suit. Hoppy is reporting to the Heinlein.
“… about seventy degrees north of the equator near the north twilight zone and within two klicks of the laser source? Got it. How much daylight is left?
“Days average just over 260 hours.” The ship voice sounds like Dubois. “Daylight is 130 hours including long twilights. The nights are the same. You have seventeen hours of sunlight remaining. Watch the radiation readings. The stellar winds here are 2000 times more powerful than Sol’s. In ten hours, you’ll be into the long twilight before sunset. The atmospheric pressure is 2.5 bars consisting of 96% CO2 with traces of nitrogen. The mean temperature at your location is 300 Kelvin with acceptable variation. We worry about nascent solar flares and corona ejections, but nightfall will protect you from the worst. Have the aliens attempted contact?”
Hoppy glances at me. I shrug.
“No,” he says. “The egg hasn’t moved since we landed.”
“The consensus here is that for an advanced civilization to have survived on this planet from an earlier epoch, it must have gone underground. Our orbit is taking us from line of sight very soon. We’ll adjust our trajectory so that we pass overhead and keep communications open for one hour in three. You’re in command, Mr. Cassidy. Keep us … estimate … wha—”
Communications break up.
Dubois didn’t ask my opinion about underground aliens. Although I concur with the logic, it’s too early for a firm hypothesis.
“The connection’s gone for the next two hours,” Hoppy says. “What’s this about underground aliens?”
“If changes in Proxima Centauri forced civilization underground, then we should look for a cave entrance to an alien city. The egg would not have landed here if that entrance is far away. The planet has no moon, and so the night will be very dark. Because of the solar winds, we should not search until twilight. Therefore we sleep for the next eight hours.”
“Fine. You’re the expert on planets and aliens.” His concession surprises me.
“Uh, okay.”
“I’ve downloaded topographical photos,” Hoppy says. “I’ll design a search strategy. You want input?”
Cassidy and I have had enough conversations for one day.
“No thanks. You’re the search strategy expert.”
I unroll my sleeping bag, and trying to keep Ellen from my thoughts, I snuggle in.
#
The red shadows lengthen as Proxima Centauri approaches the horizon. We partition the ragged rim surrounding the lake and select north based on the direction Halchii’ rotates. I follow the ridge north from our camp, and Hoppy searches south. Neither of us attempts to scale the ridge. After years spent in low shipboard gravity, climbing is too dangerous in high gravity. Rather, I shine my spotlight into the dark hollows seeking evidence of alien artifice. They wouldn’t hide the entrance without a resident enemy.
Twilight descends, reducing the reflected stellar red that tints the white beam from my spotlight. Afterwards, when my beam shoves back the darkness in a crevice, the igneous rocks resemble those found on Earth. A kilometer south, the flicker from Hoppy’s spotlight sparkles the ridge. Two hours into our search, the Heinlein passes overhead, but we have only monotonous search data to upload.
Even with power-assisted joints, I’m exhausted after five hours of searching under the heavy gravity load. I slow significantly, but I won’t ask Hoppy for respite. The Heinlein takes another overhead pass and we complete a second upload before they go out of range.
Hoppy calls a halt to the search.
Only a half kilometer from our shelter. That’s the short distance I travelled north alongside the rugged ridge.
I trudge to the lake’s edge for a smoother trek and shuffle along the red pebble beach. Walking back will be easier. My shoulders sag and my neck hurts. I carefully pick my way across the gravel, afraid that if I fall, I will struggle to rise under the heavy gravity.
“Alert, Hernandez.” Hoppy’s intercom voice sounds strained.
I cast around. I’m twenty meters from the lake and ninety meters north of our shelter.
Two figures, each a hundred-fifty centimeter high, wait near our shelter.
I stop. Stupid. Stupid.
My fault for asserting my expertise. We are the aliens’ guests. I should have anticipated they might come to meet us. Does Hoppy recognize my error?
“Your show,” Hoppy whispers.
I exhale slowly. First meeting. All on me. I don’t extend my arms with palms up as a sign that we are unarmed because that’s not a universal greeting. Besides Hoppy wears a sidearm.
These are aliens. They may not even have hands, or if they do, they may not use them the same way. We share no common context. Surely they have something like a hand. If they have technology and weapons, surely that requires hand-like manipulation.
Make no assumptions. I must see them better.
Hoppy waits on the lakeside of the shuttle egg some eighty meters south of our camp.
I take two steps back and then three steps forward. I pause and then take one step forward. Then two steps.
I feel stupid. Was that ballet of displayed caution necessary? Slowly, I approach the two aliens.
The alien on the left is larger than the other. Each wears a bullet-shaped protective cover with enclosed atmosphere. Apparently, they don’t breathe CO2.
Caution. Don’t assume too much.
Based upon the pale copper tinge under the red sun, their covers’ true color is white. Sitting atop a spindly tripod that adds a half meter to their heights, neither cover suggests arms or legs. Perhaps truncated egg better describes their gear. Another egg theme. Perhaps they reproduce using eggs. However, the cover surface is rough, looking worn and well-used.
I’m giddy. I can’t keep my thoughts straight.
I step closer. A mechanical waldo with a lobster-like claw extends from the front of the taller one’s suit. The waldo operates with exposed actuators and cables rather than living arms. Ah, that vindicates my earlier premise about hands.
One mystery leads to another. Technology provides another way to manipulate your environment. What provides the technology?
Now the tripods are clearer. No organic legs either. How do they walk? Each tripod appears to be mechanically controlled.
The aliens don’t move. I pause four meters away. Fatigue forgotten, I intercom Hoppy.
“Circle wider, Cassidy. Move slowly.”
Hoppy walks the shore line and nears our shelter. “Are they armed?”
The upper half of the larger alien’s cover turns transparent revealing more scratches and abrasions. I can’t distinguish a face, only a dark form within the clear dome. Three bright Vs blink atop the form. Perhaps eyes. Surely they have eyes; other than sex, nothing else offers a better evolutionary advantage. Three eyes. A tripod support. There’s a pattern here.
“I don’t know if they’re armed,” I say. Hoppy is approaching too fast. “Slow down. Keep your gun holstered.”
“Are you recording this?” Hoppy asks.
“Of course, I’m recording. Video from the infrared into the ultraviolet.”
The shorter alien spins atop its tripod to face Hoppy. I’m not sure that ‘face’ is an accurate description.
In response, Hoppy stops.
“Slowly,” I say. “Walk to me, uh, Bill.”
Hoppy resumes his walk, and the smaller alien rotates to track him until we stand, Hoppy and I, side by side, facing the alien pair.
The eggs and we.
A white light illuminates the interior for the larger alien. LEDs or bio-luminescence? White lights under a red sun is inconsistent with my view of evolution.
I study the alien’s face. It flattens into a rainbow of colors that washes out details. Difficult to tell whether the face actually flattens or is an illusion from the cascading colors. Later, I’ll freeze the video for a better look. The rainbow display animates, first flickering inside the alien’s suit and then resolving into patterned colors and rolling displays.
Thirty-seven seconds later, the display stops. The aliens swivel atop their tripods. The tripods bounce to life. Stretching and contracting in a way that levels and smooths the ride for the bullet shapes atop them, the tripods skip across the uneven terrain. The two figures disappear into the egg-shaped shuttle, and the lid closes. Moments later, the egg quivers and rises twenty meters. It hovers, turns, and speeds across the lake.
Arms akimbo, Hoppy watches their retreat. “I didn’t think they would abandon us.”
I switch my video recorder to telescopic mode and attempt to focus, but the egg dwindles out of sight before I can set the video to auto-track.
“What happened?” Hoppy asks.
“My fault. I forgot the fundamental precept for an alien encounter: Whatever you expect is likely wrong. However, these aliens appear to be alien aliens.”
“Did you insult them? How will we get back to the Heinlein?”
“Perhaps they left to consult with others.”
#
Even after we de-suit in the shelter, Hoppy remains angry. I unfold a table and attempt to review the recordings, but Hoppy won’t relent.
“You called them alien aliens. What are alien aliens? You’ve been speaking gibberish since the Heinlein’s last pass.”
Speaking gibberish, I like that. It makes Hoppy’s face go as red as the rest of this world. Add Gibberish as language eight on my curriculum vitae.
“Alien aliens.” I force a smile. “Like us, these beings are not native to this planet. They didn’t evolve here. I suspect they are explorers and perhaps stranded.”
“Did they say that?”
He’s in my face, which reminds me that he is a big guy. Probably that’s his intent.
“No. I can’t talk with them. They use light patterns, not sound for communication. That’s one clue that they aren’t from this planet. I have a lot of data to analyze. Don’t you have something to do until the Heinlein passes again?”
“Yeah, the Heinlein. Word came before star set. They’re leaving standard orbit to hide in the planet’s shadow. A stellar storm is brewing on Proxima Centauri, and they expect it to be brutal with ejected mass and high radiation. Night-side will protect us and keep the Heinlein in line of sight, but we have less than one-hundred-thirty hours to convince these aliens to transport us to the Heinlein because if the storm is still going at daybreak, we won’t survive.”
He extends his chin and flexes his neck as if he wants to escape from a too tight collar. Then he glares at me as if looking for a fight.
“You may have given up on life,” he says, “but I have a lot to live for.”
For a moment, I consider murder, but I’m no match for him. Perhaps when he’s asleep … No. I don’t do that stuff. Eventually, I’ll come to my senses, but now I’m too angry to think.
“Did you bring any liquor?” I ask.
“What?” He looks confused.
“Liquor. If I drink myself to sleep, perhaps I can make sense of this after I wake.”
“No.” Hoppy rubs his mouth. “But I’ve got a two week’s supply of ethanol for the fuel cells. I’ll mix something drinkable from the excess.”
The intercom chimes and the communication screen lights. The Heinlein is in line of sight.
“I’ll get it.” I tap my computer. “Sending data.”
My latest upload includes the alien video. Let the Heinlein analyze the light show.
“Right.” Hoppy searches his chem-lab. “Ten centiliters of ethanol mixed with 40 centiliters of water plus fruit juice concentrate. That gets us near twenty percent alcohol.”
“Forty proof? Please use apple juice. I can’t stand orange mimosas. Fermented orange juice nauseates me.”
“Cups?” Hoppy asks. “I don’t drink alcohol from squeeze bottles.”
I set aside my computer, locate two cups, and settle onto a chair, Hoppy completes the mix. He pours into the two cups and sits opposite me.
“I haven’t brewed anything this crude since college.” He tastes and grimaces. “Ugh. Astringent. Pretty bad.”
“Bad?” I gulp and gag. “It’s awful, but I won’t have to drink much.”
I swallow two more swigs.
“Slow down,” Hoppy says. “You might puke. These are big cups. One cup each should do the job. Should I save the rest for later?”
“Sure.”
I count to twenty, then sip. My goal is to drink myself to sleep, not die. I hope Hoppy isn’t a mean drunk.
As if he reads minds, Hoppy says, “Sorry about the ‘not having anything to live for’ crack. I’m frustrated because you’re the guy who has to fix this.”
He looks sincere, and it’s too early for the alcohol to be talking.
“I understand frustration. I often wish I were big enough to punch someone out.”
I sip my drink. The taste is improving.
“You mean me?” He measures me over his cup.
“I don’t like you.”
“Look, I don’t make plays for guys’ wives. This happened before I realized … I’m sorry, okay. Not about loving Ellen, but—”
“This isn’t a good topic.” I take a bigger sip. It’s sour.
I don’t remember the rest of our conversation, except at some point we were crying or laughing—I’m not sure which. When I wake ten hours later, I’m tucked in. Nearby, mouth agape, Hoppy sprawls atop his sleeping bag.
Across the shelter, the computer displays the remaining time. One-hundred-eighteen hours to escape Halchii’ or die from the Proxima Centauri temper tantrum.
#
“The egg returned,” Hoppy says after he removes his pressure suit. “Forty meters away. I did a three-sixty on it with my spotlight. The hatch remains closed. They aren’t welcoming us back aboard.”
I glance up from my computer. He cracks a quick-meal and waits while it warms.
I’m not sure why he went outside. Only blackness out there except for the spectacular pinpoints of starlight. However, the return of the shuttle is good news.
“The Sháńdíín aren’t ready to release us yet. They won’t return us to the Heinlein until they know we received their message. Before I can interpret it, I must understand the Sháńdíín.”
I named the aliens Sháńdíín which is Diné bizaad for light beam. Cassidy dislikes the name because he can’t pronounce it.
“If they have a message, why bring us here?” Hoppy’s eye exhibits a tic. “Why not send us the message in space?”
“They tried three times using colorful communication lasers on our probes. That didn’t work out well. Three probes blinded and crashed.”
“Does the Heinlein concur?”
“Heinlein communications are iffy because of the stellar flares, but I spent the last hour arguing with Professor Chandragupta. He and two mathematicians are looking for a Rosetta Stone. They believe the recorded light display carries frequency modulated intelligence, embedded codes for language symbols perhaps representing phonemes in the Sháńdíín language, much like we encode English into a digital form and transmit it electronically. He’s approaching the translation as if it’s a written, encrypted language.”
“You don’t agree?”
“No. In my opinion, the colored flashes are the language. If Chandragupta is correct, we haven’t enough time to decipher the coding before trying to translate. Remember less than one-hundred hours remain until daybreak. Then we fry in the stellar flares.”
“Radiation poisoning. We won’t fry—”
“Not the point.”
“Okay.” Hoppy rubs his cheek to suppress the tic. “The ship pursues decoding a signal—”
“Which won’t work. It’s an alien language.” I don’t remind him that Diné bizaad is a human language, and the Axis powers never translated messages from Navajo code talkers. “Does the light show share some commonality with human languages? How could it? Chomski claimed that the difference between an alien and human language is so great that the only way to learn an alien language is by discovery, a tedious process requiring alien feedback, not something that can be done in a hundred hours from thirty-seven seconds of flashing lights. Even if we start with some universal irrational constant like π or e, there is no Rosetta Stone.”
“Will it help if Lum and Abner return for another performance?”
“Lum and Abner? You mean the two aliens?”
“Lum and Abner were a comedy team.” Hoppy grins with a boyish twinkle in his eye. I hate when he does that. “Lum is the tall one. Abner is shorter. While you were sleeping, I ran across their names in the Heinlein’s archives while searching for Hopalong Cassidy. You’ve been naming everything, so I thought….”
“Do you expect them to return?”
“I pointed a spotlight and a camera at the egg.” He turns his computer screen to display the half-lit shuttle. “That egg is pretty beat up. I’m surprised we made it down unscrambled. Anyway, I hope to smoke them out.”
Unscrambled. I almost laugh. I doubt Hoppy realizes he made a joke.
I have a semantic worry. Will the aliens interpret Hoppy’s spotlight as an inquiry or as our response?
Nevertheless, I must keep him busy elsewhere. “What about life in the lake?”
“Checked it. Traces of organic byproducts, but nothing living. Too much episodic radiation. If we had the equipment to core a mud sample from the deepest part of the lake, that might show something interesting.”
#
Another sleep period passes. Eighty-seven hours until daybreak. The Heinlein offers no hope that the stellar storm will abate.
Hoppy’s outside again. Not counting the mumble before he left, he hasn’t spoken since we woke five hours ago. When he isn’t working with his chem-lab, he’s wandering around the planet’s surface. His face shows the strain of worry and high gravity.
I’m exhausted. My favorite way to think is while pacing, but the heavy gravity quickly wears me down. The Heinlein offers nothing new. I’m convinced that Raahi’s decode-then-translate approach won’t yield results, but then his life isn’t at stake.
For the umpteenth time, I review the video of the aliens’ light display. I fast forward until the egg rises, and then I slow the video while the egg flies over the lake. I magnify and repeat at regular speed.
There! A splash and ripples. Well, probably a splash and ripples. Perhaps the egg didn’t vanish over the horizon. Two kilometers out, it dives into the lake … Of course, that’s the message. The Sháńdíín live underwater, not underground.
Deep water offers protection from radiation and flares. Perhaps not as good as solid rock, but….
Hoppy shuffles in from the airlock and removes his helmet. He looks worse than I feel.
Talking to Raahi on the Heinlein is a waste of time. They relentlessly pursue their focus on de-cyphering molecular details. That leaves me to skip minutiae and examine the big picture.
Dropping his helmet on the table, Hoppy slumps into a chair. He doesn’t look at me. He adjusts his computer screen, runs his fingers through his hair, and sips a cup of water.
I grimace. I don’t want to talk with him, but there’s little choice.
“May I bounce some ideas off you, uh … Bill?”
“What?”
“I want to talk about the aliens. I need feedback on my ideas.”
“From me?”
“I’m getting no help from the ship.”
“You want my help?” Does he perk up? Hard to tell.
“Feedback. Just to be sure I haven’t led myself astray.”
“Yeah. I can do that.” He sits upright.
“Messages don’t always come via a formal language. They need context whether by words or actions. Therefore, I must understand the Sháńdíín.”
“The aliens, right? Got you.”
“Yes. I’ve made a number of assumptions, but I need a bigger picture. Here’s what I’ve inferred. Check whether my assumptions seem reasonable. Okay?”
“I’m ready.”
“My first assumption is that Sháńdíín aren’t native to this world. Here’s my rationale: 1. They wear environmental suits, perhaps holding water rather than atmosphere. However, I could be wrong. With technology, they may have avoided evolutionary pressures by altering their environment rather than adapting. 2. Proxima Centauri is a dwarf red star. Red and infrared dominate the ambient light. Yet when I analyze their light show, the colors spread across our visible spectrum. If they were native to this planet, I would expect their light show to include more infrared. 3. If a biological light display is the way they communicate, then that suggests a biological inclination. If so, then perhaps what we saw as communication was their faces lighting up rather than something electronic. Based on the wave lengths we’ve seen, the colors they use evolved under a class G star like the Earth’s sun or Alpha Centauri A, which, if I remember correctly, is only a quarter light year away. Opinion?
“Huh? Sorry. I was thinking about what you said about a biological light display. I’m not a biologist, but I’ve been scuba diving near Australia. I’ve seen a display like these guys use. Not as large but just as spectacular, and the animal doing it can morph its shape.”
“What animal?” I’m intrigued. I hadn’t thought of Hoppy as a source of useful information, but the image of him scuba diving fits.
“The flamboyant cuttlefish. Not large. Poisonous, but its display is impressive.”
I whisper to my computer, “Find flamboyant cuttlefish.”
Seconds later, a list of fifty-three cuttlefish articles scrolls onto the screen.
“As for the rest….” Hoppy rubs his chin. “Nope. I don’t believe that the aliens are visitors here. Where’s their spaceship? The Heinlein is right. They moved their civilization underground, but they don’t trust us enough to show us where.”
“That makes no sense. They don’t live underground. How would an underground civilization notice us in the sky? Why would they have a shuttle craft capable of reaching us in orbit? Besides, I traced the egg’s flight. It didn’t disappear into a cave. It submerged in the lake. If there are more Sháńdíín, then they live underwater.”
I select the first cuttlefish entry in the list.
“You mean underwater like fish? Squid people? I don’t buy it. Hey, I reviewed your video several times. To me, it looks like the egg splashes the water as a distraction then veers left out of the frame. As a pilot, that’s what I would have done to lose trackers. If you had set the camera to auto-track, you would know that. Assuming you’re right, why do they hide underwater?”
“Maybe they are aquatic. Maybe staying underwater protects against stellar … here we go.”
The cuttlefish article scrolls onto the screen. Cuttlefish belong to the class Cephalopoda, literally a brain with feet. Their color displays are muscle controlled not chemical like a chameleon. Apparently, this requires a lot of brain power to manipulate all the muscles that control the individual color cells. Big brains. Very smart creatures. Relatives include squid and octopuses. I hadn’t considered how much brain power a Sháńdíín needs to control a light display. Cuttlefish also change shape. Are the aliens possible shape shifters too?
“Aquatic? How could these aliens evolve underwater?” Hoppy asks “What kind of technology develops underwater? Dolphins are smart, but they don’t create microchips.”
“Maybe they were amphibians. Maybe they develop their technology on land but have a preference for the water. I just don’t know.”
“Ha! When I looked up Hopalong Cassidy, I ran across a lot of old entertainment videos, some of them really bad. One was named The Attack of the Squid Creature. Something shaped like a squid could fit in those suits they have.”
He sounds sarcastic, but that’s twice he said he looked up Hopalong.
“Why did you look up Hopalong Cassidy?”
“I was angry and thinking about rearranging your features, but I thought I should check first. Actually, Hoppy was a pretty good guy.”
“Regardless, I didn’t intend the nickname as a compliment.”
“Look. I’ve tried to work with you, Hernandez, but you’re an asshole. I promised Ellen I would make peace, but you….”
Ellen. He would drag Ellen into this.
“Let’s get this straight, Hoppy. You stole my wife. I don’t like you, and I never will.”
Hoppy stands and pounds both fists into the table. The table collapses from the onslaught, and his computer tumbles to the floor. He glares at me. He’s very good at glaring, but I glare back although I’m suddenly reminded that he’s a trained fighter.
He shakes his head, mumbles under his breath, and puts on his helmet. He retrieves a package from his chem-lab and says nothing when he carries it out the airlock.
#
An hour after he leaves, I pour a half glass of Hoppy’s ethanol brew. I’m tempted to drink more, but it’s too potent.
Inspiration pushes aside my anger and thirst.
Feedback. Hoppy set up lights and a camera to monitor the egg for feedback. I asked him for feedback on my ideas. If I gave a message to aliens, I would want feedback that they understood the message. Perhaps the Sháńdíín want feedback.
If they want feedback that we understand the message, then we are in deep trouble. They communicate by light. Communications are visible. The light displays are fast and detailed, hence the aliens must have excellent eyesight.
What can I offer except a video montage of our voyage? How do Sháńdíín interpret a video display? I don’t know, but I have no other choice.
I set to work constructing the most important show-and-tell of my life.
#
Hoppy returns intermittently over the next two sleep periods. He never speaks to me although he frequently calls the Heinlein. He usually works at his chem-lab and then exits for several hours, always taking another package with him.
I rework and revise my visual presentation until I’ve trimmed it to a ten minute video. I call Raahi about my feedback plan, but he has no time for discussion because one of the mathematicians trying to decipher the Sháńdíín light display is extracting descriptive statistics from the video. Raahi stops answering my calls after I insist that the light displays are the Sháńdíín language, not the encoded version of a written language.
Now, no one talks to me. In any event, we have no hope of quickly decoding the message.
My interpretation of the display will make a difference in deciphering it. When someone speaks, a listener tolerates limited variation in pitch and tone, but readers are often less tolerant of variations in fonts and spelling. More difficult to decipher than an encoded language, the variations in light communication may require even greater tolerance for variations.
Perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe I’m just another idiot with a degree and an opinion. Call me Dr. Jerk.
Less than twenty hours remain until daybreak.
I need to be fresh. I make another pass through the video, organize my equipment for the light and pony show, and settle into my sleeping bag. I resolve to tell Hoppy my plans, but he doesn’t return before I fall asleep. When I wake, he still isn’t there.
Perhaps he returned and left again. I really don’t care.
I eat breakfast, put on my pressure suit, and carry my equipment out the airlock. My first problem will be grabbing the attention of the Sháńdíín. Caution is a survival characteristic. Surely, even though they are not human, they watch us.
Hoppy’s spotlight illuminates the egg shell and drowns the stars beyond. Otherwise, the immediate surroundings are pitch black.
I set up my equipment to project onto the side of the egg. Before I can turn off Hoppy’s spotlight and start the show, a thump raises a small cloud of dust into the light beam. The dust quickly settles. I pause several seconds then reach for the lights.
Again, the ground rumbles and shakes. Several thumps follow. Dust swirls again. Seismic activity? A volcano? Halchii’ has a molten core, so volcanoes and tectonic plates are possible.
If this star doesn’t get you, then the planet will.
I switch my projector to auto-repeat and turn off Hoppy’s spotlight. The video presentation unfolds on the side of the egg.
Seven hours until daybreak. Seven hours until the radiation whelms us.
I bring a box of essentials from the shelter. That should be another signal to the Sháńdíín that we want to leave.
I collect the two computers and a couple of spare oxygen cylinders and place them alongside the egg. No sign yet that the Sháńdíín noticed my video. On the next trip, I install a backup radio relay to the shelter’s antenna for last minute communications with the Heinlein. Still no word from the Sháńdíín, and no communication from Hoppy either.
Six hours until daybreak. Frustrated, I consider another shelter trip to retrieve a chair. Instead, I pound the side of the egg.
The egg shell opens. Lum and Abner emerge. Was it from some vibration or can they distinguish pounding from thumps? They face the display I animated on the side of the egg.
The presentation flashes from quick views of the Earth to the Heinlein interior followed by pictures of the crew. Next comes a panorama of Proxima Centauri, then an orbital view of the planet followed by photos of the egg shuttle outlined against the red ridge, then back to our shelter with the lake beyond. Finally, the last clip is a mishmash of Hoppy and I standing near the aliens. That’s our common history compressed into ten minutes.
The aliens don’t move while the current loop finishes nor when the next replay starts.
After the replay, colored lights quickly flash between them, and they turn to leave. The egg shell starts to close.
“Wait,” I frantically wave my arms. “Wait there’s more….”
They cannot hear me. Light! Hoping that it isn’t a sign of aggression, I flash Hoppy’s spotlight on them. They stop and spin atop their tripods to face me. The shell stops closing.
“Take us back to our ship. Please.” I extend my hands and point skyward to no avail.
What else can I do? Only one thing.
Quickly, I command the computer to play a different video file, and then auto-repeat. The new image flickers onto the egg shell and attracts their attention. It plays through once and then a second time. Unmoving, Lum and Abner watch.
After the third replay, more colors flash between them. The shell opens full, and the two aliens retreat into the interior.
Afraid that the shell will close behind them, I clop to the opening. The lid doesn’t close. The shell remains open, but the aliens aren’t in sight. Perhaps they have retreated to a hidden control compartment.
Of course. Everything they’ve done is part of their message.
Cautiously, I load our supplies and computers into the bay near our deflated acceleration bubble. Last comes the extra oxygen cylinders. All that remains is to get Hoppy aboard and then perhaps they will return us to the Heinlein.
Hoppy. It serves you right if we leave without you.
I activate my intercom. “Hoppy, uh Bill. Success. I’ve conveyed a message to the Sháńdíín. They’re ready to take us back to the ship. Bill?”
He doesn’t answer.
A half hour later, I’m hoarse from calling. How long will the Sháńdíín wait for that idiot to return? Surely, they know about the stellar storm and won’t wait until daybreak to be assaulted by radiation.
“Twerp…. .”
Is that a whisper over the intercom?
“Hoppy? Where are you? We’ve got to get aboard the egg.”
“Too late … for me. I rigged explosives … to force the aliens out of their tunnels to face us….”
That explains the thump and rumbles. Surely, he didn’t plant explosives near the egg.
“Hoppy, they don’t live underground. They are explorers like us.”
“I might concede that….”
“Where are you?” I ask. “I’m only getting direction on your signal, no distance.”
“A half klick north. Doesn’t matter … Explosion rolled boulders down ridge … hit my leg. Compound fracture … no suit tears. I’m sleepy.”
“I’ll come get you.”
“Forget it,” Hoppy says. “I couldn’t carry you in this gravity … How’s a twerp going to carry me. Get in the … egg. Go back to the Heinlein. That’s an … order. You were the first human to set foot on an exoplanet. I get the honor of being the … first to die in another star system.”
My suit recorder is on. Hoppy just gave me permission to abandon him, ordered me, in fact. I stare into the egg interior and wonder whether I can. I’m tempted.
“I’ve no right to ask,” Hoppy says, “but please … tell Ellen I love her.”
With Hoppy gone, will I have a chance with Ellen? Not likely. Not if I leave him. No one else will fault me if I go….
What am I thinking? Like him or not, the man is a human being. Other than stealing my wife, he may be a decent human being. I can’t leave him, but how will I move him to the egg? The suit’s powered joints aren’t sufficient. I need something with big wheels….
The acceleration bubble.
I turn my spotlight into the egg interior and retrieve the acceleration bubble. Fortunately, I remember the terrain north. Rolling the meter-size, beach ball bubble to Hoppy still takes an hour. Then I spend more than an hour inflating the bubble to half-size and securing him inside. Rolling him back to the egg is more difficult because much of my effort is spent keeping the ball from bouncing willy-nilly down the incline into the lake.
Halfway back, a sharp rock punctures two of the external sections. After that, I must heave against the bubble to roll it when a flat spot touches the ground. Several times, I stop and lean against the bubble to rest. Occasionally in the twilight, the glare from my helmet light reflecting off the bubble makes it difficult to target the pale glow of Hoppy’s spotlight on the egg.
By the time we approach the egg, the eastern sky turns an ominous red with daybreak less than an hour away.
I roll the partially inflated bubble up the ramp—it barely fits through the hatch—and into the hold of the egg. That exhausts my remaining energy. I don’t have the strength to inflate the bubble to full size, and so there is no room for me inside. I collapse onto the floor of the egg. The shell closes just as direct stellar rays clear the ridge.
“Looks like … a rough ride back, Twerp,” Hoppy says over the intercom. “Thanks for including … me.”
“You’re welcome,” I gasp when the engines come to life.
#
I don’t remember anything else until I wake in sickbay. Professor Chandragupta sits next to my bed.
“How do you feel, John?” he asks.
“Drained.” I try to sit up, but it takes too much effort. “How is Commander Cassidy?”
Why do I ask about Hoppy? Am I letting Ellen go? I still hurt, but my sorrow won’t make her stay.
“They did surgery on his leg. He should recover. Now, tell me how you translated the alien message. What did it say?”
“I didn’t translate the message. This was never about translation. The light display is a message but not for us. Sháńdíín are smart. They knew we could not possibly translate their message quickly enough. We have too little in common. All they could do was mime for us.”
“Mime? Why did they shoot down our probes?”
“That wasn’t intentional. They blend high-powered, tri-color lasers for long distance communication, and they wanted our attention. Didn’t I explain this before?”
“You espoused a theory that they were stranded and were sending a distress signal via colored lights. I don’t recall long distant lasers. Then their message is a distress signal.”
“Perhaps. The light display is communication—perhaps a cry for help, perhaps a farewell, perhaps something else—but it was never intended for us. They want us to relay it to their home world. My guess is they come from Alpha Centauri AB, Rigil Kentaurus, if you prefer. Isn’t that our next destination anyway?”
“Why not send the message themselves?”
“They use high-powered colored lasers, not digitally encoded radio signals, to express nuanced messages even over long distances. That simulates their normal use of colored biological displays for communication. However, they are so close to Proxima Centauri that the star’s red light washes out their lasers. It’s like trying to speak over an explosion. When I finally recognized their indifference to my carefully constructed video presentation and replayed their light show message, then they knew that we had the message recorded and ready to repeat. Afterwards, they transported Hoppy and me back to the ship.”
“Hmm. You’ve made plenty of assumptions, John, but overall, an excellent working hypothesis.”
“A hypothesis easily tested when we reach Rigil Kentaurus.” I smile and close my eyes. “If I’m correct about the Sháńdíín and their language, you and I, Raahi, will be very busy learning a new language after we arrive there.”
Raahi nods, sighs, and leaves my bedside.
I joined this expedition because my life revolved around my wife, Ellen, who sought a great adventure among the stars. Perhaps her yearning to leave Earth was a message to me, a message I failed to decode. If so, then she left me long before Hoppy arrived.
Forgiveness. That is the next language I need to master. The time has come for me to plot my own orbit and launch my life’s next adventure.