Secrets in the Stars (Family Law)

by Mackey Chandler

  "Hey, I think you'd have found this anyway," Choi said, nodding at the screen. "You were going to search for fissures and boulder gouges and stuff, right?"

  "Yes, but not artificial structures. That was a direct result of your hypothesis," Ernie assured her.

  "Oh... Well, glad to be of help," she said modestly.

  * * *

  "I wonder if the Caterpillars just trailed along watching the Badgers, or if they did their own survey of the planets?” Lee said, after the possible structures were revealed.

  "Ask Captain Fussy," Gordon suggested. "I never thought about it since they are so hard to talk to. They seem content to just watch us. It's too difficult to ask them. Maybe he had some clue from how they maneuvered. Whether they stuck tight with him as he orbited the planets or stood off."

  "They are hard to talk to... " Lee's voice caught changing pitch, and she looked hard struck.

  Thor and Gordon looked at each other and then stared at Lee. She seemed to be unaware. In fact her mouth was hanging open from whatever epiphany had seized her.

  "I presume you have some further insight about that?" Thor prompted her.

  "Maybe," she said, suddenly shy. "I mean I don't know, but I had a thought. The Caterpillars seem to be ahead of us technologically in some areas... "

  "In most," Thor said, when she let the statement hang.

  "Maybe," Lee allowed again, much more tentatively than she usually was, "but remember how we noticed right away that the Badgers were very skilled at communicating with us when we met? We're ahead of the Badgers in a lot of ways, yet we saw right away we weren't as slick as them, having just been through meeting the Bunnies.

  “I think we are more generally advanced than the Badgers and their friends, but they seem to have learned a lot in meeting each other. The Badgers may be holding back figuring it's our fleet and command. I think we may have assumed the Caterpillars, being so advanced, must be just as advanced at meeting and communicating with new alien species. Maybe expecting them to step up and initiate it. But if they don't have experience that's not true and it's not going to happen. For all we know when they ran into the Biters that may have been their first alien contact."

  "It's not like nobody was trying at all," Thor said. "Luke sent quite a few images and words to them. He finally just burned out, because he wasn't getting any response. A couple people have tried to find some pattern in the hooting sounds and gotten nowhere."

  "Luke works hard but doesn't have a lot of imagination," Lee said as kindly as possible.

  "Well, meeting the Biters as a first contact could put you off meeting new races at all," Thor said.

  "Really! But it makes me wonder if it isn't more than having a very different video format that's been holding us back. They may have no skills with meeting strangers. We are a lot different than them. I mean, everybody we've met has hands and feet. Well, except whatever dragged our lander under on the water world. We're much more like everybody else we've met, and it helps. They may not even have the concept of translation," Lee guessed. "What if they only have one language?"

  "Derf only have one language," Thor asserted. But after the look Gordon gave him he modified that. "Somebody from the other side of the ocean may sound pretty strange, but the written language is, uh, very similar."

  "Huh, somebody from the Isle of Fire sounds like an ill cow bellowing," Gordon said. "Though it isn't a good idea to tell them quite so plainly."

  "I'd like a chance to try drawing pictures and seeing if I can establish a few words with them. I did pretty well with the Badgers, didn't I? Could I use the 3D?" Lee asked Gordon.

  "Sure. It's not my private system. I can trade consoles with you and let you sit here to use it. All the functions will route to any seat on the bridge," Gordon assured her. "But if you aren't that impressed with Luke, and think the Badgers are so much better at interspecies communication why aren't you asking your friend Talker to help you get through to the Caterpillars. You certainly seemed... affable enough with each other."

  "Affable... " Thor said, and snorted disdainfully. "She's got him wrapped around her finger, too."

  "Thanks, I'll start making some notes and sketches," Lee said, ignoring Thor. Gordon ignored him too so she must have been right not to dignify it with a response. Especially the too.

  "You know, being able to talk about tentacles might be handy for whoever goes back to that water world."

  Gordon just blinked and looked at her.

  "Well, they do have that in common," Lee said, reasonably.

  "I know. It's just jarring how you jump around from one idea to the other with no warning," Gordon said. "They don't always look connected to us."

  * * *

  When the fleet got ready to return across the system to the planet with structures, Lee asked Talker to come over and help her try to talk to the Caterpillars. He irritated her a bit by asking if Gordon was aware of the project. She almost told him she wasn't Tish, and bit it off before she said it. When they brought him over he had a bag, so she was happy he understood it wasn't a one shift project. She took his hand, Badger style, and took him to his room and the bridge. Hand-holding he understood at a deep emotional level and it calmed him. It had taken her a while to understand how important it was to Badgers. Maybe there was hope that what had moved the Caterpillars would reveal itself too.

  Lee and Talker sat at the 3D camera and tried to tell them why they were backtracking. Lee made sure to put on shoes for groundside with treaded soles so she could show them that they were like the boot they'd found and the one on the whole leg. They held a com tablet with pictures of the boot and a diagram of where they found it in the system. They showed the leg they'd given the Caterpillars and the new boot beside the one still attached. They even showed a separate image with the boot on the leg circled. The Caterpillar watched, but were impossible to read.

  "Perhaps they can't really process flat images?" Talker said in frustration.

  "They sent and received images of the different races back at your world," Lee said.

  "From this ship?" Talker asked. "The one following us?"

  Lee looked surprised and then embarrassed. "I'm not sure. There were three ships. A smaller one." She grimaced. "Not really smaller. Way bigger than any of ours, but under a kilometer, smaller than the other two that came in with it. The smaller one seems to have been the one our people met off in another system chasing the Biters. Then they showed at Far Away. We assumed they followed our guys back. But it's not like they ID'd themselves in the transmission. We might have been talking to the smaller ship, not this one that took The Champion William away."

  Talker got that crease between his eyes she suspected was a Badger frown.

  "Show me the messages," he said.

  Lee got the images that Chance Ochocinco on the fast courier Road Runner had been in charge of, with a small away fleet doing survey work. He'd ordered the images sent to the first Caterpillar ship they met. Einstein on the Sharp Claws actually composed and transmitted them. Talker studied the mosaic image of all the races sent to them. The Biters were excluded.

  "Then later, around your world, Gordon exchanged this images with the three Caterpillar ships," Lee said, "As you pointed out I'm not sure which ship he was talking to."

  "May I point out, these successful communications are all multiple images," Talker said.

  "Mosaics, yeah. Well, except for the one. That's an outlier," Lee admitted.

  "I suspect that image was like them shouting – LIE!" Talker told her.

  "OK, so what is your point. Why does it matter?" Lee asked.

  "I suspect that they think a little differently than us. Not to judge it as better or worse, but very much differently, than how Humans or Badgers think. We on rare occasions have a Badger born who has a very hard time thinking the same as what we consider 'normal'," Talker said. "They may not speak grammatically. Indeed they may not even speak sequentially. And often they don't process written language correctly and get
it all jumbled if they try. Perhaps these folk are all like that and it is normal for them. They might make perfect sense to each other."

  "So it isn't really the video format that was the problem?" Lee asked.

  "No, I mean, what are the chances they went straight to super definition 3D? Pretty hard to do without a long development path," Talker insisted. "No, it's how we edit the video, even if they did have a hard time processing it. I suspect our plain sequence of images doesn't make sense."

  "I remember reading something similar. Give me a second to do a search," Lee asked. Talker was patient while Lee looked through the web fraction and read.

  "Yeah, Humans have cognitive disorders like that. People who can't use normal syntax in speech or have difficulty reading facial expressions, sometimes even recognizing individuals. They write letters backwards and such, but they may be better at odd things like mental calculation."

  "I propose we try presenting our information in a matrix. Each image should be positioned with its relationship to the other in mind," Talker said.

  "Well the lone boot should be next to the connected boot," Lee suggested.

  "And we need to connect it to the planet and site we want to visit," Talker said. "Otherwise it is just associated with the mining site.”

  "Yes, but on another side touching the image of where it was found," Talker agreed. But alone, just connected on one edge, so we aren't saying we are going there."

  "Yes, if we are going back put a picture of our fleet touching the planet and site." Lee said.

  "Yes, and a separate image of the possible buildings we want to visit also touching, but include an image of their ship with ours if we want them to come along," Talker added.

  It took them another twenty minutes to shuffle the images around until they were satisfied. Starting at the top left they had boot – blank – boot and leg. Second row the site the foot was found – blank – the site the leg was found. Third row, blank – a square with the planet and buildings with all their ships so it touched at the corners with the row of sites above.

  "But we didn't fill the grid," Lee complained. "What do we do? Just leave blanks?"

  "Why not? Doesn't that fit the fact we don't know a great deal?" Talker said.

  "Yeah, but filling it up nice and square has a certain elegance," Lee said.

  "We're not even sure this is how they talk and you want to do poetry already!" Talker complained.

  Lee laughed. "Yeah, well maybe I'm getting ahead of myself," Lee admitted. "I'm thinking you could compose more extreme statements by shape. Instead of three squares by three squares you might space it two by six. And horizontal or vertical alignment might mean different things to them too."

  "Or one line of images for something really simple like, They see us, run!" Speaker suggested.

  "Wow, yeah, and I can see a blank square being uncertainty or lack of information," Lee said.

  "Are you confident enough to send it now?” Talker asked.

  "No, but go ahead and do it. I'm never going to be confident until we trade matrices back and forth and it makes sense to both of us," Lee admitted.

  Talker activated the set and displayed the matrix to it.

  A Caterpillar looked out of the alien set at them. They still could not tell which one or read any emotion. But the hooting he spewed forth seemed to indicate he was moved by their composite. Whether it was moved with anger and loathing, or sudden warm camaraderie was impossible to tell.

  "It may take them a bit to argue what we meant and generate a reply," Talker warned.

  "Or they may be laughing their, uh, rearmost segments off and calling everybody to look at what the silly mammals sent," Lee worried.

  "Mammals?" Talker asked.

  "Well, mammal analogues," Lee allowed. "Are you really going to make me say fish analogue and bird analogue for every non-Terran sort of critter when they are functionally the same?"

  "No, not unless you are writing a formal paper," Talker decided. "What are you thinking," he demanded suspiciously. “I can see you are considering something intensely."

  "Talker, you can't possibly read me that well already," Lee complained. "That's Gordon's hobby."

  "And Thor's too, if the chatter on the command circuit is any indication."

  "I'm just thinking about the hooting," Lee admitted. "If it has to be understood as a matrix instead of linear then it may be really complex. You might have to read an instruction on how many rows and columns to assign the rest of the statement. Probably a number upfront too. What if they read them on the diagonal, too? And what if they do different geometries? What if they arrange statements radially around a center one? At different radii to show probability or strength of emotion? "

  "Is there some coffee available?" Talker asked, overwhelmed.

  * * *

  Hoót-hoöt-hôôt – stared at the screen in shock and amazement. These insane scary beings had actually tried to say something coherent. It was as crude as a six segment grub might do, but it clearly was an attempt at structure. But what was the statement? He could read it three ways easily. And a couple meaning held subtle inferences...

  But no. Subtle wasn't something to look for here. The ugly thing was off center, weighed to the side and crooked. It was... curt, without any moving images. Just like the aliens had barked at them before. They weren't trying to be rude, Hoót-hoöt-hôôt realized. They were horribly handicapped in language.

  Several eyes needed to see this before he replied. Wisdom is multiplied by the abundance of a word, he remembered the school phrase so often repeated. The matrix was one word to him, and his language an infinity in which a word was composed at need and might never be repeated. Linear sentences were for simple limited minds or something like 'I see you' – baby talk. Hoót-hoöt-hôôt called six of his peers to solicit their consensus.

  * * *

  "As soon as the Sharp Claws gets done scooping fuel we'll all go back to the damaged world," Gordon informed them. "Do you have any idea if the Caterpillars are going to accompany us again?"

  "No more idea than before. They haven't replied to us and I'd rather not send more until they make some kind of reply," Lee said. "We tried to say to come along, and why."

  "Unless we messed up and said don't come along, it's none of your business," Talker worried.

  "Then we'll just go, and they can do as they please," Gordon said.

  "You know, the last time we had the caterpillar on their projector there, I thought I saw some pattern to the way he held all his fine tentacles," Lee said.

  "Can you describe it?" Talker asked her.

  "Not in detail, but there was kind of a wave from the center out when he saw our message. Just about the time he made his first hoot."

  "Play it and see if any of us see it," Gordon demanded.

  The video was short and looked straight at the display. Of course it lacked the 3D aspect and it wasn't as sharp, but only in comparison to the alien's system. It was plenty sharp to see each fine tentacle. It only when you looked at the two video systems running side by side it was apparent how much better the alien system was. You felt like you could reach out and touch them.

  "Yeah, I saw it," Thor said first. "Of course what it means beyond maybe surprise is hard to say. But it does seem spontaneous, not an affectation."

  "Why do you say that?" Talker asked.

  "There was no delay. It rippled out as soon as the hoot started. Now Gordon here is the master of the raised eyebrow, but that's a learned Human gesture and he does it consciously for added emphasis. It's a learned language of gesture and he hesitates. Almost imperceptibly, but it's there."

  Gordon replied, but only with an eyebrow raised high and cocked at a sharp angle.

  "See?" Thor said.

  Chapter 16

  "Sharp Claws reports fueled and ready to maneuver," Brownie reported.

  "Tell them when to move and which direction," Gordon said, not interested in the details.

  "Giving them a minut
e window and a general arrival time. Seven tenths G transit so they can all figure their own path and it'll be much the same. It's not like we're running to jump and it's fussy."

  "Yes?" Captain Fussy of the Dart asked. It was the first time he'd tried a joke in English.

  "If I even knew what time units the Caterpillars use I could tell them we are leaving," Brownie said frustrated. "Think on how to ask that," he directed at Lee and Talker.

  When the High Hopes started to move the alien video display came alive. Fortunately it was recorded by the camera looking over Gordon's shoulder. A square of three windows on a side was as simple a statement on which the group of Caterpillars could agree. But they all nine ran very fast video simultaneously. The bridge crew all discussed it after slowing the video down and comparing the relationships at length. It was humbling.

  "They're smarter than us," Lee decided, and boldly declared it before anybody else was brave enough to say it aloud.

  "At the very least they are quicker," Talker agreed.

  "I have to dissent," Thor said.

  "Of course you do," Gordon said.

  "Seriously, I can see the advantages of that sort of a mind," Thor allowed, "but our plodding linear way is not without benefit. Can they ever say anything but the simplest statement without ambiguity? It may be an elegant language but sometimes, like fighting a ship, you want short plain orders that can't be misinterpreted."

  "It must be fun if they have a legal system and have to argue cases in a court," Talker said.

  "Just tell me plainly if they are coming along," Gordon asked.

  Talker looked worried. Lee grimaced and admitted, "I'm still not sure."

  "Yes, because they are already moving with us," Brownie said.

  * * *

  For as little atmosphere as the planet had, the sky was remarkably bright. Pink tinted toward violet, and much stronger near the horizon, which gave it a tunnel effect. Straight overhead a few bright stars showed through in full light. It was cool, but nothing the suit heaters couldn't handle.