A.K.A. The Alien
Page 2
organics really couldn’t make quick decisions. After inspecting the box minutely and learning all there was to learn about it, I decided I might as well join the organics on the outside. The door through which we had come would not move, so it seemed they were trying to contain me in one place.
I left the ship without bothering the organics again. This really wasn’t going well.
1.5. The good fortune ship
I had come to realise I was going about this the wrong way. I really needed to find out about the species before I tried to join in with them. For my fourth attempt I did not bother with an organic body, but went straight to their data-source and stripped it. The organics were quickly aware I was in their system, and did what they could to get me out, but I had absorbed almost everything they had before they had even started their most basic defensive measures. Which included, for some reason, switching on the hive-wide wailing. They really were fond of that thing.
I found that that the organics called themselves humans. They also called themselves humanité, humanidade, ihmiskunta, insanlik, ludzkość, mānava jāti, menneskehedn, Menschheit, rénlèl, wanadamu and rather too many other terms. They lived in sub-sets who spoke different languages and I had learnt the 63 most common languages in the data-source before I checked and realised that only seven of these were represented within the hive. The hive they called a ‘ship’, even though the word ship also meant a vessel that travelled on water. This was a dual use of a word that I thought rather open to all manner of misunderstandings. They had given a name, Bonaventure, to their ship. Which was also used by waterborne ships.
The humans were out by the debris field because they were ‘exploring’. Although humans often went exploring just because they were irredeemably inquisitive, it appeared no-one on board would be too upset if they found a good source of iron ore, gold, or the odd diamond or two along the way, and they currently had a rather sizeable collection of geological specimens stacked in their hold.
Perfect. I was certainly new to them. They were definitely going to be interested in meeting me.
1.6. Sitting at the Captain’s table
It was time to introduce myself properly. As human meals were social occasions, and I wanted to be social, I picked the time of one of their many meals. The humans in the ship lived in a hierarchical society, so I chose one when the people present included many of the most senior crew on board. I waited until they were almost through their main course to make sure they were settled and not too hungry to be interested in me, then sneaked in a chair at one end of the table and sat down as if I was one of the guests. I had made the chair to match the ones already round the table so that I would not stand out.
“Hello,” I said. I thought I would start simple.
The two diners closest to me sprang up in surprise and ones further away swore, while the rest started up their usual blah-blah-blah. The woman at the head of the table was Captain Edith Munk, 47 years old, of Danish ancestry, in good health and currently in negotiations with her superiors about her next posting. She put a forkful of food into her mouth, laid down her cutlery and then patted her lips with her napkin.
“Hello,” she said. “I take it you are the … alien … who has been attempting to board my ship?”
I was not sure I wanted to be called an alien (‘from a different race or country; extraterrestrial’) but after a quick survey of a few dictionaries I conceded there was probably no better word for her to use.
“I am,” I replied, matching her tone.
“Welcome aboard.”
“Thank you.” She was probably being sarcastic, but I am always polite.
“I take it you wish to talk to us.”
“I do.”
“And you thought this is the best approach?”
“I do.”
“I see.”
I smiled to show I was a friendly alien. No-one smiled back.
And then the wailing – which I could now identify as the alarm calling the crew to action-stations – started up. Again.
I switched it off.
1.7. You may call me God
Captain Munk delegated the actual talking to one Lieutenant Shue. I was a little put out that she did not deign to talk to me herself, but I could understand that if I turned out to be a murdering psychopath it was better Lieutenant Shue should die at my hands rather than the captain of the ship. The meeting took place in the dining room after the end of the meal, which had ended surprisingly precipitately after the first course. He sat on one side of the table and I on the other. He had a nexus and stylus for taking notes set out on the table in front of him, even though they were secretly recording the meeting, using both audio and visual media, so I took material from the nearby chair-seat and created a nexus for myself and placed it on the table. It disconcerted Lieutenant Shue when he caught sight of it, so I got rid of it. He was equally disconcerted by that.
“Who, or what, are you?” he asked eventually, after a lot of blah-blah-blah about humans and their ship and where they had come from and what they were doing, and what his name and what his rank was and what his role was on-board.
Members of the Fellowship often appeared to organics in the guise of deities. I could not quite remember if this was policy or personal choice, but it seemed sensible to stick with it.
“I am God,” I announced.
“You are not God,” Lieutenant Shue retorted.
“Well, I am a god.”
“You are not a god either.”
“Okay.” According to the data-source there were many humans who did not believe in deities, and it seemed Lieutenant Shue was one of them.
“Let’s start with your name. What are you called?”
It was considered polite within the Fellowship to take the personal name of some-one you wished to befriend and add it to your own as an outer-name.
“I am Jonathan,” I said, graciously.
He shook his head. “My name is Jonathan. What is your name?”
I knew approximately 51,385 human names from the data-source. It was a little difficult to choose just one at such short notice.
I picked one by random selection. “Ben.”
“You are not called Ben. Ben is a human name. What is your name?”
“I’m a human,” I repeated. Lieutenant Shue frowned. I’m not sure he agreed. “And I’m called Ben.”
“Ben is not your name.”
“Yes it is. Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben.” I paused. “Ben Bonaventure.”
At least the ship didn’t mind if I took its name.
1.8. Agreeing to the Agreement
After much talking, Captain Munk agreed I could stay on the ship for a few days, ‘observing’. They, of course, would be ‘observing’ right back. But before I could start ‘observing’, I had to agree to a few rules. Lieutenant Shue got to explain them to me, so we were allowed into the conference room, with the table safely between us and the recording devices switched on. Lieutenant Shue started by telling me about all the places I could not go unescorted, all of which I had already visited. Nor was I allowed to access their computer again. They knew from my sudden ability to speak their language that I had been in it and accessed information, but they did not appear to realise I had already stripped it entirely.
After a while I grew bored of all the talking and started translating everything Lieutenant Shue said into Mandarin in my head. And then Finnish. And the Mandarin and Finnish simultaneously. I was too busy with that to take much note of what he was actually saying until he got to a bit about hurting people.
“You must not injure, or do anything that could injure, any member of the crew,” he said.
“Injure?”
“Injure. Like when you hurt Technician Smith when she thought you were her brother. When you knocked her down.”
“So technically I have already injured a member of the crew.”
“Captain Munk is prepared to accept that it was not intentional. But nothing similar must happen in the future.”
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“So things that happened in the past don’t count?” I asked. “I’m happy with that. I’ll agree not to hurt any-one. And I won’t go anywhere unescorted and I won’t do any of the other things I’m not supposed to. I’ll agree to all of it. Can we go and do something interesting now?”
“You need to hear all the conditions before you can agree to them.”
“Tell me, Lieutenant Shue, just how, exactly, are you going to make me stick to all these conditions?”
“You will give us your word.”
Here the word ‘word’ really meant ‘promise’. However keen humans might be on communication, they sometimes made it as hard as they possibly could.
“So you get me to agree to all your rules, and then expect me to police myself?”
“Pretty much.” Lieutenant Shue laid down his nexus and folded his hands on the table. I rather liked the gesture – a little world-weary, a little resigned. I imitated his gesture, trying to get it just right, and the Lieutenant frowned at me. I unfolded my hands. Perhaps I should practise my imitating in private. “Realistically, do we have any other options?” he asked.
“Realistically?” I thought it only polite not to comment.
“But if you agree to our requests, we will co-operate with you while you find out more about us.”
“And if I don’t, you won’t?”
“Exactly.”
“And you think I need your co-operation?”
“No,” he said, but then he gave me his tired smile. “But you’ll enjoy yourself much more if you have it.”
“So if I agree to this Agreement, the