by Huskyteer
“we would not allow it. we will remake them in our own image, and they will not know hatred, nor selfishness, nor deception, nor lust. we will remake them pure.”
“Guess there was a fourth solution. Make the people not be people. Piss on you,” Jake said, kicking off towards the doorway. “Piss on you all. Feyat, you can put it back in that trap. Or not, I don’t care. Just don’t come after me, either of you.”
* * * *
He made it back to his quarters without throwing up, and counted it a success. In his bunk there was another fox. He was too exhausted to be surprised.
“Hey,” said the other fox. “Are you me? You smell kinda like me.”
“I hope not, for your sake,” Jake answered. He glanced around, then shrugged and slipped into the bunk. The other fox put an arm around him. It helped.
“You’re not Rayfe, are you?” the fox asked. “I promise I didn’t do anything.”
“Nah, don’t worry, I’m just some guy,” Jake said. His fur was a sticky mess but the fox didn’t seem to mind. “And Rayfe’s not so bad. Well, I guess he is, but he doesn’t want to be. And you’d be Fox, right?”
“Fox!” said Fox. “Rayfe is too bad. One time he found me in the woods, and he hunted me, and he caught me, and he ate me, and the next day he pooped me out and ate me all over again.”
“Okay, that’s way too gross. Maybe don’t tell me any more about him, please?”
“Okay,” said Fox. “Oh! Skarra had a message about you. I’m supposed to worship you, or you’re supposed to worship her? I forget.”
“Let’s, um, let’s not worry about worshipping right now, okay? I think I’ve got something better. Or, at least, not worse than the options on the table. How would you like to hear some stories?”
“Is Rayfe gonna be in them?” Fox asked, with trepidation.
“Yeah, but don’t worry. I think you’ll like these. Now,” Jake said, dropping into the familiar patter his mother had used, “these are stories of when people—that’s me—and gods—that’s you—walked the Earth together. There were many people, and many gods, and sometimes they fought, and sometimes they loved, and sometimes they did both together. This is a story about Rayfe the Dog and Fox. Rayfe was a great friend of the people, and he loved them all, and they loved him. Now, one day Rayfe was guarding a great, fat chicken for them. He was worried, because he’d smelled the droppings of Fox the day before, and Fox was the quickest and slyest of the gods, far cleverer than he was.”
“But I don’t think I am.”
“Hush,” said Jake, “we’re working on that. So Rayfe was pacing back and forth, sniffing the air, when he heard a voice come from the woods…”
Hundreds of miles below them, under its blanket of stars, the Earth shifted in its sleep.
THE LANGUAGE OF EMOTION, by Bill Rogers
The landing pod plunged into a downdraft. Whitemane squealed in terror. “Belt, go break your legs in a gopher hole!” he said, using the tiny fingertip motions of Smallsign.
“There is no reason to curse us. How did we offend?”
The little ship shuddered and then rolled nearly inverted as the turbulence got even worse. Whitemane snorted and rolled his eyes. Their whites showed all the way around. His ears were folded back and his lips trembled. “How? How did you offend? You incompetent meat-eating idiotic machines! You’re trying to kill us! Stop trying to crash this pod. How do you offend us? Gods, how could even computers be as stupid as you are?”
In the corner of his eye, Belt signed back, using the full-size gestures of Language, of course. There was no reason for Belt to use Smallsign. Belt projected its persona to Whitemane’s eye via a tiny mirror on the equitaur’s utility bridle. Nobody but Whitemane could see it.
“It’s no surprise that we-the-computer-Belt are stupid. After all, you-the-stallion-Whitemane programmed us. We might have been geniuses if others had done the job.”
Whitemane stopped trembling and perked up his ears. “That’s a joke. We-the-stallion-Whitemane never programmed you for humor. Are you sure you haven’t developed intelligence?”
“How would we know? Could you prove that you yourselves are intelligent?”
“And now philosophy. You surprise us. Are things really going well? Will we live?”
“Calm your fears. You are not alone. Our trajectory is perfect. We’ve gone subsonic and are mere minutes from landing. Might we ask why, if you fear them so, you agreed to work for the Hukai? It seems illogical.”
“They pay well, and quickly. They might enjoy killing us, but they’d much prefer to just stay away from us.” He shuddered. “That’s good. They are so ugly!”
“You risk your lives just for money?”
“Our herd needs it.”
“We are only computers, but we think it’s unfair that you must lead the wolves away, when you yourselves get nothing for your courage. Tell them-the-mare-Herdleader to risk their own lives, and leave us to browse in peace. Or do you, in fact, hope for some reward for yourselves?”
Whitemane kept his fingers motionless.
Belt gave out a virtual snort. “Keep your secrets, then, if it makes you happy. Brace yourselves. We land in twenty heartbeats. This may be rough.”
The buffeting let up a bit. Then everything went silent. Whitemane took a deep breath and started to relax. And the landing craft crashed into the ground, an impact nearly hard enough to break his ribs. He screamed, a horse’s high squeal of terror.
“Calm yourselves! We’re down and safe.”
“Thank you,” Whitemane gasped. “But why do we weigh so much? We are accelerating—oh. This world’s gravity is too high.”
“About twice our standard. Ears forward! They come!”
The pod rocked a bit, and rocked again. The gravity faded to normal. A few moments later the little ship’s cabin split in half and swung open.
Whitemane rose to his four hooves and blinked, astonished. He had expected almost anything other than the standard hotel room before him. It had a grass carpet and was colored in soothing greens and blues. It would have been almost cheerful, except for the roar of the methane wind blasting past and the disturbing scarcity of windows.
There was one odd thing. The sole window looked out into darkness. Below the window was a video display screen, showing an image of a horse-headed centauroid. Cartoon-like in its simplicity, it stood square on its four hooves with its arms hanging limp at its sides.
Whitemane twitched his fingers. “Their translator-picture faces us directly. Estimate please: Do the Hukai threaten us deliberately, or are they ignorant of our etiquette?”
“Insufficient data. We suggest you speak to them.”
Whitemane snorted in amusement, even as his stomach clenched with fear. “Stupid computers! What else could we possibly do?” But of course Belt was right. Shrugging his shoulders, standing facing somewhere off to the side of the window, Whitemane switched from smallsign to Language.
“We have arrived as you requested. We are ready to work,” he signed.
Lights flashed in the darkness outside, glowing from a Hukai’s body itself. They illuminated it enough that Whitemane could see its ugliness. It had six eyes and as many legs. It was a huge vomit-colored monster of a bug. The sight of it almost made him jump out of his skin.
As its lights flashed, the image on the screen signed to him. “You are being Whitemane, signal archaeologists wide known?”
He tapped a hoof on the floor and bobbed his head. “We are.”
“Retainer twenty thousand standard moneys as agreed being in account you now. Habitat adequate for you surviving?”
“Living conditions appear adequate.”
“Atmosphere storm strong, being danger. In distress press red button wall. Landing pod being safety capsule if breach. Second shelter capsule being in back sanitary room passage, brown doorway.”
“Your concern for our safety touches our hearts. What do you want? What was so critical you couldn’t contract us over hype
rlink?”
“Alien transmission duration passage of time twelve hour six-tenths total, broken several pieces, plus repeatings. You translate.”
“What sort of transmission?”
“Standard Class One radio, being highly in frequency. We fear because it being beamed to us, aliens know of our location. You will understand and tell if making-transmit creatures being threat, being not threat, to Hukai. Deal being agreed?”
Whitemane trembled slightly. He arched his back and stood straight as he could, almost on hooftips. He bared his teeth. Somehow he managed not to lay his ears back. He forced himself to understand what the bug had said, and to form a logical reply.
“Perhaps the aliens are a threat to all Treaty species. The aliens may have beamed their signal to us, not to you.”
“If threatening you, you worry for yourselves. Hukai being worry for Hukai only. You will understand transmission?”
“We can’t tell you whether the beings who sent the transmissions are a threat. We may be able to tell you the meaning of the transmission, but you have to decide for yourselves whether the senders threaten you.”
“Your heart rate and blood chemistry indicate approaching panic attacks,” Belt signed in the corner of his eye. “You should breathe deeply, close your eyes for a moment, think of yourselves in green pastures—”
Whitemane shook his head and smallsigned back, desperately. “Stop speaking! Put your hands at your sides and keep them there! We are trying to think. Do not distract us!”
The bug hesitated for a few moments, flashing away. Other shapes stirred in the murk beyond the glass, lights flashing on them too; other bugs, a rolling swarm of things horrible beyond belief, surrounding him. Surrounding him everywhere. There was no escape at all. There was nowhere he could run. He could feel his heart racing and his skin trembling.
The bug didn’t seem to notice, or perhaps it just didn’t care. “Acceptable,” the picture signed. “You will understand transmissions quick, before eight days, fee five million standards. Much quick! Your failure being unpleasant you.”
Whitemane bared his teeth. He shifted his hooves until he faced the window directly. Belt’s persona signed desperately in the corner of his eye, something about stress hormones, neural overloads, and not doing anything stupid, but he didn’t feel like paying attention.
“We can do our best. We-the-stallion-Whitemane are the best signal-archaeologists in Treaty space, in the entire Cluster. If we can’t do the job for you, nobody can. If we fail, you need not pay us.”
The bug flashed its lights. “No. You accepting contract, you being not fail. You will understand transmissions, yes yes! Before eight days for five million standards.”
“We can’t do that. Not enough time!” Belt signed.
Whitemane felt his heart pound. He could barely hold his head up, he was so frightened. He saw his reflection in the window, jittering on its hooves, charging at the window until he nearly hit it, signing words that were pure nonsense. He watched himself do this, lost in terror.
“We aren’t afraid of you bugs, or your threats. We will crack the signals in two days, for twenty million standard.”
“Accepted. Being failure not!” The image on the video screen went motionless.
Whitemane fell to his knees. He shook. His surroundings seemed to darken as he nearly fainted.
“Well, now you’ve done it,” Belt signed. “We tried to tell you to calm yourselves, but you wouldn’t listen. There is no way out except to solve their problem. We suggest you get to work. Now.”
He panted and raised his head again. “We have been cornered-mad!”
“Do you think we don’t know? We would have sedated you if alien contact protocol allowed it. Your heart and blood chemistry were as if wolves were tearing out your throat. But stop trembling and get to work. Should we sedate you now?”
Whitemane took a deep breath and picked himself up off the floor. The carpeting had spared him from any injuries; good. “No. All is not lost, believe it or not. Signals from species primitive enough to use radio are usually simple. If we can’t understand them in two days, probably we can’t understand them at all.”
“True. There is hope.”
“There’s one good thing. The Hukai said these signals were beamed toward our star cluster. That means the aliens sent them to us deliberately. There’s no reason for them to do such a thing unless they want us to understand their message. Therefore, the aliens shouldn’t have encrypted it. Let’s find out. What is the form of the first message?”
“Binary data. 1,679 values.”
“If they meant us to understand it, they would have used some obvious mathematical trick to make it easy for us to decode. What’s the mathematical significance of the number 1,679?”
“Analyzing. Results. 1,679 is the product of two prime numbers, 73 and 23.”
“That old trick again! It must be a rectangular matrix 73 units wide by 23 high, or vice-versa. Show it to us.”
In the corner of his eye, Whitemane saw Belt’s persona pull a scroll out of midair and unroll it for him. The patterns on it were interesting indeed. Nodding, he got to work. Anything was better than worrying about what the Hukai would do to him, when he failed to fulfill this impossible contract.
* * * *
“We are struck with wonder, sometimes. Did these strange creatures know, when they sent a beam of radio into space, that they might be creating the longest-lasting artifact of their civilization? Think on it. If they beamed this signal from the Neighbor Galaxy—and they must have—it’s been on its way to us for over ten thousand standard years. Perhaps as much as thirty or forty thousand.”
“We are computers, and you didn’t program us for wonder. And yet we can recognize that your information is exceptional.”
“Have we decoded the message completely?”
“We can’t tell you. We still don’t know whether the central image is a picture of the senders’ body form, or another binary number. But probability is high that our interpretation is accurate enough to satisfy the Hukai.”
“Now we know much of the aliens,” Whitemane signed slowly, musing. “They’re carbon-based oxygen breathers. They tell us they come from the third planet of their solar system. There are enormous numbers of them. They sent us this message using a radio dish. We don’t understand their chemical information, but it appears the aliens might have a typical long-chain genetic molecule; as it seems to be a representation of a double helix, perhaps it’s one of the DNA or RNA variants. That should reassure the Hukai. These aliens aren’t methane-breathers. They wouldn’t want Hukai worlds.” He shuddered as another blast of the eternal gale outside rocked the habitat, roaring. “Who would?”
“Perhaps the Hukai are eager for war. War against a species not advanced enough to resist them.”
“We-the-stallion-Whitemane believe the Hukai only want survival. Knowledge, beauty, and wonder seem lost on them; fortunately, the so-called glory of conquest seems to be lost on them also.”
“Perhaps. Speaking of survival, your fatigue and stress chemicals are reaching dangerous levels. You should sleep.”
“But we still have most of the messages to decipher!”
“We are your expert systems. We have already determined most of the remaining messages are two- and three-dimensional matrices, based on multiples of prime numbers, as the first message was. We can apply your methods to decode most of this material while you sleep.”
“We should sleep, then. But we are afraid!”
“Courage! The herd goes with you. You are not alone.”
That was a lie! But Belt was almost as good as a person, and Belt was right about Whitemane’s fatigue. His legs were about to tremble right out from under him. Bobbing his head, Whitemane walked to his cushions and settled down to rest.
* * * *
“That’s all but the last message. Have you been analyzing it in background while we finished the others?”
“You ordered us to.
Why then ask? Of course we did.”
“Have you found any hints on how to crack it?”
“No.”
“Try a Class 6 cipher. The aliens like prime numbers; start a substitutional key based on the lowest primes and work your way up.”
“A cipher on what? How? We can’t even determine the digital encoding of this signal. There are no bits, just a continuing, unpredictable variance in frequency. The variance repeats itself every few minutes, so it must be some kind of information, not just some random variation. But there seems to be no data in it.”
Time was slipping away, and he had no ideas. It was too much for Whitemane. “We are going to die here. We will fail, and the Hukai will collapse this habitat on us. We’ll be crushed like a mouthful of soft grain. Belt, record everything we have done here. Record to our mare-friends that we love them, and would have had them be our harem for life, had the gods allowed. Our regrets to the herd for failing in our duties to them. Put it in your permanent storage, multiple redundant copies. Use your disaster-hardened memory.”
“We comply. But why?”
“If we are to die, we would like something of us to remain. Perhaps when we die your memory will survive. Perhaps the Hukai will send it home, or someone else will find it some day.”
“You are cornered-mad again. What are the chances such a message could ever reach people who cared? But take courage! There are still six hours. We have only the last message to decode.”
Whitemane sprung to his hooves and spun in circles, but there was nowhere to run. “It doesn’t contain data!” he signed, his arms flailing wildly in a shout. “We wouldn’t think it is a message at all, except it repeats itself again and again! We will die here, we will die!”
He threw himself on the cushions and curled himself into a tight ball again, trembling all over. His foamy sweat broke out all over his body as he shivered.
