Helium 3: Fight for the Future

by Brandon Q. Morris

  Then what the alien did next served as a powerful demonstration of his intelligence. He took the cup of water, drank it down to the last drop, turned it upside-down to show that it was empty, and then asked for more water.

  One of the guards should bring him more water, Tolkut ordered. Our guest should know that we can understand him.

  Tolkut could see on the screen as a guard, aiming his gun at the alien as a precaution, brought a full cup of water into the cell.

  The first verbal action-reaction sequence had been a success!

  The Techweaver explained, Now we know that we can record and accurately reproduce his air vibrations, and he understands them. From here it gets complicated, because now the computer has to try to develop a syntax and grammar, and this initially has more to do with guesswork than with knowledge. I’m going to start by introducing ourselves. Our thread vibrations will be translated into airwaves, which we hope will provide an equivalent representation of what our terms mean.

  I want to conduct the conversation! From the outset, Tolkut had wanted to lead the way in developing communication. The Techweaver wasn’t happy about this, but all the same, he withdrew in order to leave Tolkut with the thread.

  We Mendraki, I Tolkut, he drummed on the thread.

  The alien moved its hard mouth and produced airwaves.

  Mehntraak, Tohlkutt, the reception thread vibrated.

  Even though there were still some deviations, it was evident that the concept worked in principle.

  The alien opened his hard mouth again, and Tolkut felt the vibrations on the receiving thread.

  We Iks, I Kimikizu!

  After a slow start, the conversation gradually progressed faster and faster. The more words and combinations of words available to the computer, the more accurate its translations became. Grammatical structures emerged, sentence formations became more precise, and it was possible to define the meaning of individual terms more clearly. The pulses flew by, and after some initial misinterpretation, they understood each other better and better.

  There was only a brief interruption when Kimikizu expressed the wish for more food, which Tolkut immediately indulged since he was also feeling hungry. He had the paste brought again, since he had nothing else available and, amazingly, Kimikizu even seemed to like the paste. In the meantime, Tolkut helped himself to some ratzel cookies, which consisted of flour made of the ratzelworms grown on board. The dry sweets were extremely nutritious, even if they had no particular taste.

  Then the conversation resumed, and Kimikizu surprised Tolkut with a request.

  I want to see Tolkut. Face to face. Better for communicating. Better for understanding.

  Tolkut immediately agreed, even if voices were warning against it.

  We can’t be sure we can trust it, cautioned one of Tolkut’s officers.

  We won’t be able to progress past a certain point without trust, replied Tolkut. And in my opinion, this point has been reached!

  They also brought the transmission/reception unit into Kimikizu’s cell. Since both the vibration transducer and the remote station were connected via radio to the central computer, this posed no problems.

  Tolkut closed the cell door behind him. It was the first time he had been alone with the creature, which had pulled back to the wall farthest from the door and settled in there. He probably wanted to avoid giving any signals of aggression.

  “Hello, Tolkut!”

  The Shipmaster felt the greeting on his thread.

  Hello Kimikizu, he drummed back, as the creature observed him carefully.

  “That... interesting communication!”

  Your airwave communication is no less foreign to us!

  “You no receive airwaves?”

  No, we have no organ designed for this.

  “You sometimes steps like a dance. Meaning for communication?”

  We use it to express our feelings and moods, as we do with our pheromones and through the positioning of the mandibles.

  “We airwaves... modulate for feeling. Loud. Quiet. Sharp. Evil. Angry. Other. Many. Emotions in airwaves!”

  Thread vibration is thread vibration. We can only express emotions using other methods.

  “I don’t feel pheromones. Iks have no organ for pheromones.”

  Yes, you always smell the same. I’ve already noticed that. And you don’t dance.

  Kimikizu quickly opened and closed his hard mouth, which produced staccato-like airwaves. Tolkut performed the steps of amazement until it occurred to him that Kimikizu wouldn’t know what to make of it.

  What was that? The computer couldn’t do anything with these words.

  “No words. Emotion. Merriment! Iks also dance. Joy. Fun. Party.”

  Ah, you only dance for entertainment? But also as an expression of joy? That’s not so different from us.

  “Maybe not. Maybe Iks and Mendraki are not so different!”

  Tolkut hadn’t noticed the time passing. All he noticed was that the computer’s translations were getting better and more accurate. How long had he been in Kimikizu’s cell?

  Eventually he asked, Has my appearance frightened you? We Mendraki look entirely different from you Iks.

  “A little!” Kimikizu admitted. “But we never expected other creatures we meet to look like us. The universe and creation are too diverse for that.”

  Do your females look like your male Iks, or are they also smaller, like ours? What role do they have in your society? Are they only there to lay eggs, or do they have other tasks?

  Kimikizu made the airwaves expressing the merriment and didn’t seem to want to stop. At first, Tolkut was afraid of having touched on a cultural taboo, but then it dawned on him that the Iks was really enjoying himself.

  Was there something funny about my question?

  “Your question? Nothing! But the premise for your question? Everything!”

  I do not understand you. The computer must have produced a translation error.

  “No, Tolkut, the computer didn’t make a mistake. You did—or rather I did, because I didn’t make it clear right from the start. I’m a female Iks, Tolkut!”

  Tolkut staggered a few steps back in shock. He didn’t know how to respond. Kimikizu was a female? An intelligent female? A space-traveling female who acted autonomously? An independent female? The notion confused him more than he cared to admit.

  That’s... that’s... surprising, he drummed, not knowing what else to say.

  “From your question, I see the female Mendraki don’t play a big role in your society.”

  Tolkut wasn’t sure how to answer. However, what annoyed him most was that he felt a hint of embarrassment that he couldn’t explain, either.

  It was best to end the conversation at this point and continue later. They both needed a rest—and he had to process Kimikizu’s surprise first!

  I need a break, he drummed. And it would certainly do you good to gather your strength. I’ll have more food and water brought to you.

  “The paste doesn’t taste bad, but I don’t suppose you have any giant dung beetles or blue rice here?”

  I don’t know this food. The paste doesn’t taste very good to us either, but it seems to agree with you.

  “It’s not fine dining, but I have to make do with what you have here for me.”

  Then I’ll be going now. Thank you, Kimikizu, for the conversation!

  “Hey, Tolkut, am I your prisoner now, or what’s my status? Can I see your ship?”

  No, I’m afraid it’s too early for that. Tolkut avoided responding to Kimikizu’s question about his... her status.

  He turned, knocked on the door, and left the cell as the sentinel opened. A look out of his back eyes showed Tolkut that Kimikizu remained thoughtfully in his—he still had to get used to the fantastic disclosure—in her cell.

  He had a lot to think about, too!

  54th of Frien, 298

  Kimikizu was annoyed. The suit was not suitable as a sleeping pad, and she realized she shoul
d have asked for a more comfortable bed! She didn’t dare dream of a sleeping roost, as the room was too low for that. And how did the Mendraki feel about personal hygiene? She longed for a dust bath, but even just a shower with water would have been welcome. She turned to the other side. She would ask for it tomorrow morning.

  An hour later, she still hadn’t been able to fall asleep. She could feel her system moving from the digested food. She moved as far as from her bed as was possible in the narrow cell and relieved herself. The smell didn’t bother her, as it was a completely natural process, but it still wasn’t appropriate to contaminate the living area with it. But what other choice did she have?

  She thought of Norok and wondered if he was still alive. She should have asked the alien about that as well, even if he probably wouldn’t tell her the truth, or perhaps didn’t even know. The cell was starting to feel smaller and smaller. She was cut off from everything. She had no idea what had happened to the flying machine and it wasn’t even sure that the generation ship had noticed the attack.

  Maybe it had crossed into the gas giant’s blind spot, or was too far down in its atmosphere. She had to warn the other Iks so the leaders wouldn’t have the ship steered in the direction of the gas giant. It would be best for them to leave the ecliptic and get as many wingspans between themselves and the enemy as possible. Maybe then there would be enough time to resolve the conflict differently.

  Kimikizu considered her options. She could sit around sleeplessly in her prison and remain subject to the aliens’ whims. Tolkut seemed undecided about what should be done with her. Surely he had some superiors who could suddenly condemn her to death, in which case she’d have no way of influencing further developments.

  It was always better to be active. The room she was locked in was certainly not designed as a prison. The Mendraki, like their own species, certainly hadn’t foreseen an encounter with enemy aliens. So this was probably a converted storage room. When designing a storage room, it wasn’t necessary to make sure it couldn’t be broken out of. It was simply a matter of keeping the cargo passively in place. Engineers who designed storage units that were as secure as prisons were inefficient, which didn’t seem consistent with the Mendraki’s nature.

  Where was the weakest point? It had to be the door. The walls of the storage room were solid, made from one piece. In every construction, openings that were added later were considered weak points. There were probably several. There had to be vents, for example, but the door was the only one she would be able to fit through.

  Kimikizu got up and ran to the entrance. Then she tried to simply slide the door open. She had seen that it had slid to the right, so she pushed in that direction, but nothing happened. She wasn’t strong enough to force the lock. Breathing heavily, she sat down again. Her experiment at least offered a new insight—she would immediately find out whether she was under constant surveillance, or if they didn’t think it was necessary to keep watch over her during the night.

  Nobody came, and no warning came over the speechmaker, so it was likely that nobody had noticed her little experiment. Of course, it was also possible that her guards didn’t think it was necessary to intervene. Yet she still had resources about which the aliens knew nothing. They were in the sleeve of the spacesuit—the power boosters that were a part of the standard equipment.

  She sat down next to the suit and started to take it apart at the left arm. She had been taught this during her apprenticeship, in case she had to make any technological repairs herself. There were power boosters in every joint, but she just needed one, which she got from the joint connecting the forearm to the upper arm. It consisted of two bars of hardened metal conjoined by an artificial muscle. The muscle was able to increase and decrease the angle between the bars, or to pull and push. The bars became narrower toward the end so they could be sewn into the fabric of the suit.

  The joint looked primitive to Kimikizu, but from experience she knew that it worked perfectly. Supposedly the artificial muscle could provide ten times more power than an Iks. She got up, then sat down again. She had to consider her escape carefully. If she forcibly opened the hatch she could expect the alarm to go off, in which case there would be no time to think.

  Should she use the suit? It made her far stronger and resistant to the cold of outer space, but it was bulky and would get in the way as she moved throughout the ship. She detached the breathing mask and put it around her neck, just in case there were individual areas of the spaceship that did not contain any atmosphere. She wouldn’t be able to escape to the outside of the ship with this equipment, but that was not her intention. In space she was sure to be overtaken very quickly anyway.

  But what was it that she wanted, anyhow? Her main goal was doubtlessly to warn the generation ship. To do this, she probably needed the ship’s transmitter. The Mendraki did not use acoustic signals, but they could modulate radio waves, evidenced by the device in her cell, which had no cables. It certainly wouldn’t be easy to access the foreign technology, let alone use it correctly, but she would have to try.

  Under other circumstances she would have headed for the cockpit, the central station. But she was sure there would be a relatively large number of enemies there, even at night. She was unarmed and therefore would not be able to overpower them. But the radio transmitter itself had to be on the ship's outer hull, and there also had to be cables transporting signals to the antenna. Kimikizu had the advantage that when she closed her eyes, she could see magnetic fields—and, as stated by the Milimizu law, every current-carrying cable was inextricably linked to such a field. She’d have to find a cable that ran from the control center to the hull.

  Yet this failed to solve the problem, because there was probably more than one such cable. It would be relatively easy to rule out mere power cables. The fields they created didn’t change, so it was just a matter of paying attention to the lines that had fluctuating magnetic fields.

  And then? Kimikizu felt she’d reached an impasse in her planning. She wasn’t familiar with the data modulation of the Mendraki, so she wouldn’t be able to distinguish simple storage lines from those carrying signals to the antenna. Perhaps there wouldn’t be that many cables to consider. However many there were, she would have to treat each one as if it led to the antenna.

  She already had an idea of how to send a signal, and it was comparatively simple. She would cut the cable with the steel-hard fingernails that could pierce a Goruk tank, and then touch the ends together in a pattern: short—short—long—short—long—short—short—long. Every Iks knew the call of the tufted jay that warned of enemies in the forest. Usually things didn’t turn out so well for the tufted jay because discerning predators had a particular taste for the bird, which was reputed to have especially delicious flesh. Hopefully she’d fare better than the tufted jay usually did. But it probably didn’t matter.

  It was time to take her chances and attempt to escape. Kimikizu mentally went through the individual steps. There was gravity in the cell, which meant the ship was either braking or accelerating, or else it was rotating on its axis to create a semblance of gravity. In the first scenario, she would find the control center, presumably located in the nosecone, if she were to climb upward. In the second scenario it was unclear where the stern and the bow would be, and in that case she’d have to rely on her luck. She decided that she’d have to make instantaneous decisions based on her intuition. She couldn’t make any other plans because she didn’t know how the ship was built.

  Kimikizu took the artificial joint, stood in front of the hatch, and pressed the two flat bars into the gap that she could see between the door and the wall. Then she activated the joint. Nothing happened at first, but then the hatch slid to the side in utter silence. Kimikizu waited for an alarm signal, but then remembered that the Mendraki couldn’t hear sounds. She squeezed through the hatch and withdrew the joint from the gap. The hatch closed again with a bang, which startled Kimikizu, but no one else could hear the sound.

&nb
sp; She looked around. She was in a dimly-lit passage that continued both to the left and to the right. There didn’t seem to be any difference, which led her to conclude that the ship’s rotation produced the gravity she felt. Her gut told her to move to the right. She took a step—and felt a painful tearing sensation in her left wing. Some of her feathers had been caught in the hatch, but forcing the door open again would take too much time. She gave a jerk and the feathers tore from her skin. If this was all she lost, she was still in good shape.

  Crouching down, she hurried past a couple of hatches. She was able to open one of them, and she peeked into the room beyond. It was empty and resembled her cell, apparently another storeroom. The corridor was flatter now, and the hatches she passed were mostly screwed shut. In any case, storerooms rarely had rear exits through which she would have been able to get closer to the outer hull, so she kept her eyes out for some kind of engine room.

  She had covered about 100 wingspans when she finally found what she was seeking. The room was full of technical devices. They were black and oily, with tubes running from one device to the next and then ending in the ceiling. After squeezing past two of them, her wings were streaked in black. There was no rear exit on the other side of the room, but she saw a grate in the ceiling, where she cut the wire mesh with her sharp fingernails. The resulting hole would be big enough for her.

  She ended up in a kind of ventilation duct. There were a few tubes, and some were very hot, which made the air stuffy. Kimikizu crawled through the passageway because her magnetic sense told her a thick electric cable was running into the duct farther ahead. The passageway narrowed, but she still managed to reach the cable. It was encased in a rubbery layer that she split open with her nail, removing a section. Then she was able to separate the individual strands. She knew she’d have to be careful. The cables were insulated, but she didn’t want to cut them with her fingernail in case they were carrying a current. That would be the death of her. At least it would be quick.

  Kimikizu squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated. She could see reddish vortices that were superimposed and changing in size. That was the problem—she couldn’t let the overlaps confuse her. She was looking for fields that changed independently, not because they were influenced by other fields in the area.