Helium 3: Fight for the Future

by Brandon Q. Morris

  “And that means...?”

  “That means one of your two species will perish. The other species will obliterate it without a trace and then move on until it encounters one that will then destroy it in turn. Evolution, dear Shra. Raw, brutal, mathematically calculable evolution. This is why intelligent life is so rare. Not because it so rarely occurs, but because it always wipes itself out. There’s nothing special in the long history of this universe about your two species and their encounter, so I find it boring.”

  “Don’t you have any empathy?”

  Mart laughed. “Come on, Shra. You’re acting like we’re flesh and blood and have real feelings!”

  “This is... vicious!”

  “No, it’s the truth!”

  Shra was practically screaming, “I can feel!”

  “You move qubits in a quantum matrix, nothing more! Everything else is a superbly programmed illusion.”

  “I’m alive!” Shra was really angry now and almost stamped her foot, which of course would have looked ridiculous in this environment.

  “If that’s what you want to tell yourself, go ahead. I, for one, am happy to exist. It’s much better than living. Remember—life always comes to an end!”

  53rd of Frien, 298

  Kimikizu rested for a while with her eyes open. She wasn’t able to sleep because there were too many thoughts swirling in her head like the storms of the gas giant. What could have happened to the flying machine? They must have been hit hard for her to have been propelled out of it like that. Perhaps by now the flying machine had been crushed by the planet’s violent atmosphere. If Norok was still alive, he would have tried to save her long ago, there was no doubt in Kimikizu’s mind. Since nothing had happened, he could only be dead.

  And how had the generation ship reacted to the attack? The conflict's energy emissions must have been visible from afar, so the Iks would have had some warning. Hopefully by now they’d learned to take warnings seriously. They had to know that they couldn’t take on 20 attackers. But would they have had a choice? The Iks had just slowed the ship, thinking they’d found their new home. How would they be able to get back up to interstellar speed? With the power of the engines alone, it would take thousands of generations to travel to the next star, and their civilization would inevitably collapse. Or they could have stayed in the system and surrendered to the seemingly unbeatable attackers.

  She was startled out of her thoughts by a squeaking sound. Slowly, the door she had noticed in one of her prison’s walls opened. At first she identified only a short cart that moved on small wheels and was being pushed into the room. Kimikizu froze. It was being driven by a creature that appeared to be a character from a horror story. It had shiny skin, taut and tight-fitting over its compact, tapered body. It reminded her of a tank. It scuttled slowly forward using six of its eight legs, with the remaining two pushing the cart. At the bottom of the creature’s face was a solid jaw that she imagined it would use to snap with. But what was most terrifying were the eyes. Six compound eyes were positioned in such a way as to allow for all-around vision. This arachnid predator would never lose sight of its prey!

  No, Kimikizu, she said to herself. What you’re taking for an animal is, in fact, an intelligent life form. This species has managed to use wormholes for travel. This thing is probably smarter than you. The aliens looked like a cross between a manure spider and a knife beetle, but she had to bury this thought deep inside. She had to view the aliens as her peers, as partners in dialogue, and then perhaps it would be possible to reach some sort of agreement. After all, they’d saved her, not eaten her. So they must be interested in communicating.

  The alien with the cart was followed by a second one who pushed a rolling table with a strange device on top of it. Were they going to examine her with it? That was what it looked like to her. These first two aliens were escorted by two more, each holding a gun in its front legs and aiming it at her. They had nothing to worry about. Paralyzed as she was with terror, Kimikizu would have been unable to attack the visitors anyway. A third... spider, she decided to call them, pushed another cart into the room. This was all done silently, with the only sounds coming from the rolling wheels and the aliens’ feet scraping across the hard floor, sending one shiver after the other down Kimikizu’s spine.

  It was getting too crowded in the room. The aliens seemed to recognize this, because they started to leave, one after the other. Before stepping through the hatch, the last of them moved the middle two pairs of legs back and forth in an amazingly elegant and complicated series of steps. In a friendlier situation, Kimikizu would have thought he was dancing, but that could only be a misunderstanding here. She tried not to show any emotion because the aliens would invariably misinterpret it.

  What had just happened here? A delegation of the aliens had entered her prison. They hadn’t tried to speak to her, but simply left the room in silence. But they had left her with something. Kimikizu tried to get herself up and managed on the second attempt. The image of the bizarre aliens haunted her. How could something so ugly be so intelligent?

  On the first cart, she found a bowl containing a viscous paste alongside a taller narrow container. She gently swirled the liquid inside the container and smelled its contents. It seemed to hold plain water. The paste smelled surprisingly good—therefore, she figured, it was probably food. If they’d wanted to kill her, they could have just shot her, so they weren’t going to try to poison her. Of course there might be substances in the porridge that she wouldn’t be able to tolerate. Fortunately, the Iks had pretty strong stomachs. There was also the possibility that they intended to drug her so they could examine her better. She had to take that risk—otherwise she’d wind up too weak to resist an examination, with or without drugs.

  She decided to direct her attention to the food first. She stuck her beak into the water container, sucked in liquid, jerked her head up, and then let the water run down her throat. The water was lukewarm and completely tasteless, but it quenched her thirst. Then she put a finger into the paste, scooped up a little bit, and licked it off. The goo had no real texture, but it didn’t taste bad. She took a large portion using her beak. The taste reminded her of pearl frogs. It certainly seemed to be very nutritious. She hadn’t even finished half the bowl when her stomach was already full.

  After a short breather, it was time for the other two objects. The second cart was the least puzzling. It seemed like an Iks had dumped out the contents of a locker onto it. The items certainly looked a bit exotic, but she seemed able to recognize what functions they served. Of course, it was possible that she just wasn’t smart enough. She had to remember that these were the inventors of the wormhole drive, so what looked like a small metal ball to her could also be a remote control of some sort.

  She picked up the ball but nothing happened. She was especially interested in what looked like a bolt together with its nut. It was necessary to turn the nut in the direction opposite to the one she was accustomed to, but the principle of attachment using the resistance of a solid body appeared to be universal. There was a piece of paper next to the bolt. It wouldn’t have surprised her if there had been a message on it. She picked up the paper and smelled it. Was it made from plant fibers, as was common among the Iks?

  Next to it was a little stick. What was its purpose? She took it in her fingers and held it directly beneath her eyes. Interesting! It was a hybrid object. It had dark marrow inside, encased in a hard material. Maybe it was a snack? Some kind of treat? She tried to suck the marrow out of the encasing, but it wasn’t soft enough. The stick had been beveled so that the marrow protruded a little. Was it just a coincidence that the stick was right next to the paper?

  There was no inkwell. An Iks could write notes on almost any surface using their beaks dipped in writing fluid, and in the old days, the Iks would harvest colored tree sap and use it for scrawling messages. But these aliens had no beaks. Did the stick serve as some kind of primitive replacement? She picked it up with the tip
of her beak and guided the protruding marrow over the paper. And it did, in fact, create lines. Kimikizu had deciphered one of the mysteries and was proud of herself.

  But there was still this strange device. It consisted of a compact box about half her height with two cube-shaped ears on the top. Kimikizu touched the device cautiously. Rather than having an industrial design, it appeared to be makeshift. On the front of the cubes were circles that looked like membranes. She ran a finger over them gently. Had the aliens built the device especially for her? If so, they must have done so based on their observations of her behavior. The spiders were expecting her to do something with the device. But it didn’t have any levers, switches, or buttons. What was she supposed to do? Couldn’t she have been given a demonstration? Or was it so apparent to the aliens that no guidance was deemed necessary? Kimikizu tried to remember what she had done before they’d brought these devices in.

  What she’d done was loudly designate some of her body parts and features of the suit, assuming there were hidden microphones in her prison. But perhaps that had been a mistake. Had their observations just been visual? Perhaps for the aliens, sound didn’t play the same important role it did for the Iks. She tried to imagine a life without sound. No talking to friends, no music, but no annoying noise, either. Maybe that was the world of the aliens?

  There were animal species that communicated by exchanging bodily scents. Forest howlers emanated smells to signal their readiness to mate and to mark their territory. Knocking snakes had gotten their name because they communicated over long distances using knocking signals, which they felt as vibrations. But it seemed cruel for an intelligent being to have to make do without acoustic speech. On the other hand, now it made sense why nobody had spoken to her. Yet the powerful chewing mechanisms of the spiders’ jaws were definitely suited to making noises. Nature, playing its strange games again!

  And she had no choice but to play along. Now it was clear to her why she’d been brought all the useless things. This was all about establishing a basis for communication!

  First she repeated the designation of her body parts. Then she ran to the cart and picked up the metal ball. She stood directly in front of the makeshift device and held the ball up high. They were probably watching her very closely at that moment.

  Then she said loudly, “Ball.”

  She repeated the word. “Ball.”

  To make it clear that there was nothing more to say, she took a step back. “Ball.”

  The left ear of the machine was distinctly emitting sounds. Apparently it was a primitive speaker.

  “Ball,” she repeated.

  “Ball,” said the speaker.

  Kimikizu nodded. She tried to make the approving gesture obvious. Then she ran to the cart and took the cup. She stood back in front of the device again, holding the cup in the air with her fingers.

  “Cup,” she said. “Cup.”

  She stepped back.

  “Curp,” replied the speechmaker.

  She shook her head exaggeratedly.

  “Cup,” she said again.

  “Cup,” the machine responded.

  She nodded. It’s going well, she thought. Next she took up the cloth.

  She provided the term that was most common in her language. “Cloth.”

  “Cloth-eh,” the speaker answered.

  She shook her head. “Cloth,” she said again.

  “Cloth-eh,” came the answer.

  More shaking of the head.

  “Cloth.”

  “Cloth-eh.”

  She laughed. The aliens were pretty persistent. Maybe they had trouble with monosyllabic words that ended in the ‘th’ sound?

  Now she tried saying, “Washcloth.”

  “Washcloth,” answered the speaker.

  She nodded.

  “I see that we understand each other,” she said.

  One after the other, she set all the utensils, including the bowl with the food paste and the cup that had held the water, in front of the device. She only omitted the stick. There was no word for this object in her language, and she didn’t want to complicate communication with incorrect paraphrases like ‘artificial writing beak.’

  Last but not least, she pushed the cart in front of the device.

  “Cart,” she said.

  “Cart,” repeated the speaker.

  The aliens now knew the words in the Iks’ language for several items. But that was not enough for communication. Kimikizu thought about this. It would be helpful if the aliens could understand the importance of nodding and shaking the head. So she stood in front of the device, nodded, and said loudly, “Yes.”

  The speaker didn’t respond. She repeated the gesture and said again, “Yes.”

  “Yeah,” said the device.

  Ah, a single-syllable word with the ‘s’ sound. But yeah was just as good.

  “Yeah,” she repeated, nodding again.

  Then she shook her head.

  “No, no,” she said.

  “No, no,” came the answer.

  It worked! She had taught the aliens some initial abstract terms. What else could she do? She started to pace around slowly.

  “Walk,” she said.

  “Walka,” said the aliens.

  Had they really understood? She paced back and forth, then pointed to the speaker.

  “Walka,” she heard.

  It was clear—they’d understood, which was more important for now than accurate pronunciation, she thought. Unfortunately, there was not enough space to fly, but she still tried ‘lie down’ and ‘stand,’ which also worked.

  It was time for the ultimate test. She took the cup and drank all that remained inside. Then she tipped it over so that it was clear that there wasn’t a drop left.

  “Water yeah,” she said, pointing to the entrance to her room.

  “Water yeah,” the speaker said.

  She sat down expectantly. The door opened a short time later, and one of the spiders came in. Kimikizu didn’t think they were all that ugly anymore. The alien was carrying a weapon in one hand and a container of water in the other. Would he speak to her now?

  Of course not. The alien put the full container on the cart and then lifted a front leg. This served as a signal, because suddenly sounds came from the speaker.

  “Water yeah,” she heard.

  Kimikizu spontaneously felt like hugging the alien. But she restrained herself. The creature was smaller than she was, and armed. Perhaps it would take the gesture as an attack. It would be better for her to remain seated so that she posed no threat. Kimikizu nodded vigorously.

  “Water yeah,” she said.

  Communication

  Tolkut was impressed by the flying creature’s intelligence. They’d barely returned to the bridge after closing and relocking the cell when the alien had figured out what it was that they wanted from her.

  The first thing the creature had done was to approach the cart with the cup of water and the nauseating food paste. He had moved his thorn, which Tolkut now assumed was less a thorn than a stiff, elongated mouth, and it had looked like he’d sniffed what they’d offered him. This last suspicion was confirmed when the alien had recoiled from the paste. Maybe the alien had not found its odor all that pleasant, either. The water, on the other hand, had been accepted immediately, and their guest had inserted his long, hard mouth and sucked it up. The rapidly-descending water level was an indicator of just how thirsty he must have been.

  At first, he’d hesitantly stuck one of his fingers into the paste and carefully licked it off with a long, thin tongue, and finally pounced on the paste with surprising zeal. Tolkut could hardly believe that the creature seemed to like the food paste. Finally, when the bowl was half empty, the creature had sunk on his bed and rested for a short time before turning to the other objects and studying them one by one.

  Their guest had shown particular interest in the vibration transducer. He’d carefully run a finger over the membrane, which had caused the Techweaver
to dance nervously, as he feared the thin membranes might get damaged. But the creature had been quite cautious, and then he’d stepped up to the cart with the different items. He proceeded to look at it for several micropulses, then picked up the objects one by one and then put them back.

  Finally, he stood in front of the vibration transducer and repeated the names of his body parts. When he finished, he lifted every single object and emitted some vibrations. The computer had limited itself to simply playing back the recorded vibrations over the transmitter membrane.

  Tolkut was relieved that his plan had worked so well thus far. The alien’s willingness to cooperate gave him confidence.

  Do we already have initial findings? he asked the Techweaver.

  The computer has analyzed the vibrations, which for now I’d like to call waves. These are airwaves that have a clearly-defined frequency and amplitude, which consist of fundamental vibrations and several harmonics. The being probably creates it with an organ that must function similarly to the membrane in our device. It’s an amazing form of communication that does not rely on threads for the transmission of vibrations. Very remarkable!

  Can we send something more complex back?

  We’ll start with that as soon as the creature has finished with his input. The more data the computer has available, the higher the likelihood that we will be able to send something that the creature can understand. I want to avoid creating gibberish or, worse yet, causing a misunderstanding.

  After the captive had finished naming each item, he proceeded to depict actions such as ‘walk,’ ‘lie down,’ and ‘stand,’ and this was also successful.