The Chirikti bobbed up and down on its four limbs, acknowledging communication, and then its right rear flank rippled with a fast pattern of light pulses. The photo-chromatic suit of its nearest neighbour caught the pulse and passed it on, as did the next and the next. My query, encoded as a staccato pattern of colours, sped outwards like the reflected flash rippling through a turning shoal of silver fish. It fanned out as it propagated, passing from one individual to two, then four until it became a wave-front of information rolling across the entire inner surface of the spherical chamber. The Chirikti I had spoken to went back to working on the computer node.
“Did it work?” Mina asked.
“As far as I can tell,” I replied. “It accepted my request and passed it on. That’s about as much as we could have hoped for.”
“So what now?” Jura asked.
“We wait. It will take some time for the request to propagate through the whole vespiary. The response time will depend on how many Chirikti know the location of the diamond and how far away they are.”
“So all these colours are Chirikti talking to each other?” Mina asked.
“Exactly. Humans have encoded our language in the written word, allowing us to save, copy, and transmit data. The Chirikti have done the same thing using colour and light. Any pheromone-posture grapheme can be encoded as a different shade and the order of the syllables maintained either as a printed spectrum of colours or a series of individual coloured pulses. The light can be transmitted much easier and quicker than pheromones and the signal remains coherent.”
We busied ourselves in recording as much of the photic conversation as we could, and I constantly monitored the local pheromone concentration. I had to have something to show my employers on my return after all.
Although there was too much to translate all at once, I kept an eye out for certain key phrases and set up an autonomous program to parse as much of the information as I could. There was still a chance that our ruse would be discovered. As our “material requisition” was passed to more and more individuals, it took up an ever-greater percentage of the vespiary’s information bandwidth. The more individuals that knew we were here, the greater the intelligence of the combined meta-mind who might turn its attention on us. One Chirikti might accept an oddly formatted request; a meta-individual of several thousand combined Chirikti, however, might have the experience or just the prudence to question our motives.
The Chirikti were not a true hive-mind--their communication methods were too slow for a true synergetic consciousness to emerge--but any doubts expressed by an individual would be encoded along with the other information in the signal and could be amplified as it was passed on.
But for now there was no sign that our presence was in any way objectionable. I made Mina and the others help me with the monitoring equipment. Having something to do steadied their nerves and the action also reinforced the I.D. imprint of the shibboleth. We were broadcasting the fact that we were visiting academics. If we acted out of character, we would draw a lot of unwanted attention: shibboleth or no shibboleth.
After about twenty minutes of work, the reflected wave front of information reappeared in our chamber. There was an obvious ripple in the shimmering riot of colours around us: a shrinking circle of light converging on our position.
Jura shifted nervously. The converging wave was a bit too much like being at the centre of a target.
“Stay calm,” I said as the wave front broke around us and concentrated on the individual I had first approached. As the colours splashed across its surface it laid down its tools and orientated itself towards me.
I checked the chemical sniffer on my suit. The Chirikti was emitting a complex cloud of ketones. The sniffer broke down the concentration for me and displayed it graphically in the heads-up display on the inside of my faceplate. I translated directly, bobbing up and down slightly in acknowledgement as I did so.
“Any luck?” Mina asked.
“It’s basically saying follow me,” I replied. “Although ‘me’ isn’t strictly accurate as the Chirikti language uses pronouns differently.”
“Have they found the diamond?”
Was Mina’s voice always that deliberate? Either her stress levels were rising, or perhaps I was reading too much into it. Working with non-humans tended to make me hyper-sensitive to subtext.
“It didn’t mention it,” I said. “But based on the overall format of the returning light pulse, I’d say results were most likely positive.”
“Most likely?”
“It’s not an exact science, Mina. I’ll review the spectrography on the fly as we move, but the light has been evolved for Chirikti compound eyes. Doing a visual analysis without tools is like trying to out-sniff a bloodhound.”
“On the move...?” asked Albright Smith: the words too fast, the tone of the query almost timid. Was he stressed too?
Jura pushed past me. “Like the bug said... Follow me.”
The neuter was the only one of us whose voice wasn’t displaying signs of stress. And it was the only one who I wouldn’t mind being a little cowed.
“Did I ever tell you how the Chirikti hunt?” I asked casually. “They spit out a thick mucus that hardens on contact with the atmosphere. They trap their prey and then devour them whole, re-ingesting the mucus along with the trapped prey. Once they’ve caught you, they tend to work inwards from the extremities... slowly. It’s one of nature’s more unpleasant ways to die. I’d advise staying behind me.”
Jura squared up to me, its chest plate level with my helmet, before bowing theatrically and waving me past.
“Be my guest, Professor,” it said as I passed.
The Chirikti took half a dozen crab-like steps to its nearest neighbour and touched it with its foreleg. Two of the fore-limb palps were specialised to deliver packets of sticky pheromone similar to our shibboleths. Our guide deposited a chemical marker on its neighbour and then scuttled back to work on the computer node.
I tried to run an analysis on the chemical marker, but its effects were too localised to get a good reading. Each Chirikti passed the chemical signal on to its neighbour and we followed it through the crowd of scintillating, jewelled bugs. As each passed the marker on, it immediately went back to its former business. We never followed the same individual for more than a few seconds.
Our succession of guides led us to a narrow corridor that was little more than a crack in the rock. Chirikti were fewer here and we followed some individuals for up to a minute before being passed on. We turned and then turned again, following a rough counter-clockwise spiral heading deeper into the vespiary. I wondered what would happen if they took us down a route that was too narrow for humans. Already Jura was forced to turn sideways to negotiate some of the tighter areas.
“Ask it where we’re going, can’t you?” said Albright Smith, his voice strained with the effort of climbing and something else. His breathing heavy but fast.
“Just relax.” Mina’s voice was like anaesthetic: like Prester John’s at the start of his sermons, before he whipped his audience into foaming apoplexy.
“Fucking bugs,” said Jura. “How do you know they’re not leading us to the brig or into a garrison?
“Because they don’t have a brig or a garrison. Just relax and enjoy the ride. Not many people have been this deep into a vespiary.”
“Have you? I mean, before?” asked Smith. I didn’t answer.
“I’ve got a partial on the returned light signal,” I said instead. “There was definitely directional information and a kind of telomeric suffix that shortens every time it’s passed on to a new individual. That probably measures distance, but I can’t see any material modifiers for carbon. That might just be an accent thing. Each vespiary is slightly different. It’ll take a few more minutes to get a full translation.”
Our Chirikti guide stopped in its tracks. The colours on its soap-bubble clothing took on a greener hue and then it scuttled sideways and disappeared into a crack in the rock
hardly wider than its disc-like body.
I checked my chemical sniffer. There was no sign of the signal that had caused the Chirikti to lead us here.
“So where is it?” Jura asked.
I instructed everyone to turn off their suit lights while I scanned the darkness looking for any electromagnetic clue as to why the Chirikti had abandoned us. There was none. We had been abandoned in darkness.
◆◆◆
"I still say it won’t work?" Jura said. It sat on a plastic packing crate which sagged noticeably under the neuter's weight. I had set up a makeshift classroom for Mina and her crew in the hold of Mina's ship. She had only sprung for a cheap limpet dock on the outer wheel so we were pulling one and a half gravities. Jura didn't seem to care and there wasn't enough meat on the bird-like Smith for the gravity to get a hold of. My feet were killing me.
"It's our best chance," I said.
"I say we wait until they wait until they break orbit, follow them nice and quiet, and roll a canister of methyl-phosphate into the nest. Then we just walk in and take what we want."
"We're not jacking some family-run tug,” Mina said. “You're talking about fifty million cubic yards of alien vespiary ship. There isn't enough MP in the system to gas them all. Even then how are you going to find the crystal? It would take three lifetimes to search that rock."
"I'd rather spend years searching a ghost ship than hours in the middle of a swarm, waiting for it to attack."
We'd been around this block before and I was getting tired of seeing the same streets.
"Just stand still: that's all you have to do,” I said. “Can you stand still for an hour without killing something?"
"Well, I've sat here listening to your theories on amateur larceny for twice that and you're still alive. But I still say we gas the fuckers."
"I will not be a party to genocide!"
"If I remember my history, you already have been. What's the matter, Junior? Your old man wasn’t this squeamish."
"Fuck you, Jura!"
"I bet you wish you could. But I had that option surgically removed."
Jura sat back on the creaking packing crate and folded its arms against the slabs of muscle on its chest. It shared a wink with Smith who looked like he was going to send out for popcorn.
"Why don't we take a break?" Mina said.
"It was just starting to get interesting," Jura protested.
Mina turned to the giant, a slim stiletto against Jura's battleaxe. "That wasn't a request. Why don't you go and shoot some rats or whatever else it is you do for fun."
Jura sighed and hauled its bulk up off the crate with Smith following behind as if drawn away by the big neuter’s gravity.
"I was serious," Mina said once they were out of earshot. "Jura's a better ratter than any cat. Costs more to feed though."
"It's a bloodthirsty oaf, and it’s going to get us all killed,” I said.
"Don't let it get to you. Jura was always a prick... even before it exchanged it for a cloaca. But it's not stupid. It'll do its part."
I followed Mina to the flight deck and we sat down in the two pilot's couches. The stars wheeled by outside at nauseating speed, but at least the padded couches were a respite from the sapping gravity.
"How's the phrase coming along?" Mina asked.
"Nearly done. I’ve checked it against all the standard simulations. It's about ninety-five percent accurate which is as good as we can expect. I can still fine tune the pheromone mix a bit, but it’s just about ready."
"And what about afterwards?"
"We walk out the way we came in?"
"And if they won't let us?"
"Then we go to plan B."
"How's that coming along?"
I thought back to the untested, uncalibrated pile of components on my desk back in my apartment. There weren't any simulations that I could test that on.
"It'll be ready,' I said.
Mina looked at me for a long second, then nodded and went back to gazing out at the wheeling stars. She pulled out a hip flask and took a swig, booted feet up on the console.
If Father had ever been plagued by self-doubt, then it never showed. There were hours of recoded sermons as well as propaganda videos from the High Frontier. Every shot of my Father showed him serene and in control with that iconic knowing smile like a stage psychic hearing every secret whispered into his ear from a hidden microphone. I looked across at Mina, saw the same smile.
"You need this as much as we do, you know," she said.
“What I need,” I replied, “-is my bed and eight hours away from your psychotic team mates.”
“They’re your team mates too. And the last thing you need is to crawl back into the hole you’ve dug for yourself on the Folly.”
“That’s my life you’re talking about.”
“You know, you could actually learn a lot from Jura. Do you think it cares about other people’s opinions?”
“What makes you think I-“
“Do you know how many siblings I’ve found hiding out in places like the Folly? I know why you live out here... why you work with aliens... why you’ve changed your name and your face.”
“I like my life,” I said.
“Bullshit! You hate it. I know that because I’d hate it. We’re the same, you know? No matter how much you try to deny it. You, me, Father.”
“Father was a mass murderer.”
“That was his choice. It was also his choice to create us. You can’t just deny everything he did, not without denying yourself. You shouldn’t have to hide at some back alley university, hoping like hell that nobody recognises you.”
I looked out at the wheeling stars. The star Rho Cassiopeiae was a bright, faintly red pin-prick. When I was growing up in the foster house on Xuxa, the death of Cassiopeiae had been a big deal. Although light years distant when it had gone nova, it had knocked out satellites and power distribution networks across half the planet.
When I came to Lansky’s Folly I outran its death throes and so here it was again, long dead and yet still shining: ready to fuck us up all over again.
◆◆◆
We stood in the dark tunnel while I re-examined my original request. It was faultless; the Chirikti could have refused, but there was no way they could have misunderstood.
“Perhaps the signal dispersed,” I said. “I’ll try again.”
We clambered through the rock until we came across a small group of Chirikti tending a fungal garden on the rock wall. I approached cautiously and delivered my query a second time. There was the same initial acceptance and wait while my request was actioned. The signal returned and we followed a succession of three Chirikti guides until the last one abandoned us in a tunnel a few hundred yards from where we had started.
I asked again, and again. Each time my query was accepted but then, apparently, countermanded. Our final guide took us only half a dozen steps.
“What’s the problem, Professor,” Jura asked.
I paused while I reviewed the data.
“He doesn’t know!” said Smith. His voice was noticeably shaking now. Even the others must see that.
“I never said this was going to be easy,” I said.
“He doesn’t fucking know!”
“You’re still getting a reply though, right?” Mina asked.
“Yes, but it appears to be over-ridden almost immediately.”
“And you said there’s something in the language that signifies distance?”
“Where are you going with this?”
“If we keep moving and keep asking the question, we can triangulate those distances... Get a bearing: find the diamond ourselves.”
Mina used the distance we had travelled so far to make a rough calibration, and we set off to make a good baseline before trying another reading.
All I could hear was panting over the open channel. The Chirikti tunnels branched in all directions and our pressure suits weren’t built for spelunking. I watched the others as they climbe
d. Mina, deliberate and focussed: every movement a ballet of economy as if someone had told her the location of all the handholds in advance. Albright Smith was just the opposite: burning energy in a flurry of avian ticks and flinches and half-movements. Jura, powering up the slope, driving its mass of grafted muscle as if it was stolen.
After twenty minutes of scrambling through the rock, we came to a large cylindrical space like an old lava tube. It was crawling with Chirikti. Once again I asked my question and translated the returning signal. Mina blip-casted the output from her mapping software onto my faceplate. Three green lines converged on a spot in the middle of the asteroid.
“About a quarter of a mile, give or take,” Mina estimated. “We’ve got enough air-just about.”
“Going to be more like double that,” Jura said. “These tunnels aren’t exactly straight.”
“Then we eat into the reserve,” Mina said. “That’s what it’s there for.”
Smith started to pace up and down. “We should go back.”
“We’re not going back empty-handed,” said Mina.
“Maybe I should check the shuttle.”
“We’re not splitting up either,” Mina replied. “The shuttle’s fine.”
“How do you know? This could have been a stalling tactic; they wanted us out of the way.”
“Just calm down,” I said to no effect. Smith was still pacing up and down and gesticulating wildly. It was his wet-wired raptor neurons, I realised-claustrophobia. His falcon hind-brain wasn’t taking well to being trapped inside a trillion tonnes of bug-infested rock.
I noticed a few local Chirikti turning towards the commotion. “You really need to calm down,” I said again. Smith ignored me.
“They’ve done something to the shuttle, I’m sure of it. They know why we’re here.”
More Chirikti turned towards us, their disc-like bodies turning like the wheels of a giant clockwork engine, each cog ratchetting onto its neighbour until twenty of the aliens had turned to face us.
And the Lion Said Shibboleth Page 2
