by J G Clements
It was Jake. “Great. I’ve always wanted a radio made out of ice”. A pause. “We can’t go back. The mission with the Ambassadors is too important to let us turn back, and I don’t want to try to send a skiff that far.” He thought about it. “Jim, they aren’t the last Swarmers we’re likely to see. I think what I want is for you to prepare a staff and the equipment to capture dead Swarmers, melt them in their entirely, and take samples.” Silence came from the com, but it was remarkable how Jack’s demeanor came through. “Is that about the scope of the project? That will give us, you, enough data to verify this?” Jim nodded, oblivious to the fact that Jack couldn’t see him.
“Jake, if he’s right, what do you think we should give him?” There was humor in it, a private joke between the two Captains.
Jim was not intimidated by these two men, and had a sarcastic answer. “How about my very own Dreadnought-class ship?”
Jake didn’t need to consult Jack on his answer. “We had an explorer-class ship picked out for you, son. We both think you’d like it more than these battlewagons.” Reading Jim’s face. “We are serious. Jack and I had that figured out a couple days ago. If we gave you a large staff to command, your real skills would go to waste. Some of us are good at leading other people, but you have a skill that I believe is more unique.” Jim was momentarily speechless, but it was Jack over the intercom that had the next surprise.
“Tell him what the ownership requirements are, Jake.” Jim already understood the deal seemed to be a length of service and you owned the ship. That was worth a lot to him. He thought about how much he could salvage from his McKinsie ship, either for usefulness or for sentimental value. His reverie was interrupted by Jake.
“Explorer class ships have rather unusual ownership requirements in order to take title of them. Basically, the Crekie give it to you the moment you take command. Permanently.” Jake thought he had thrown a curve to Jim, believing he couldn’t see the logic of it. But Jim grasped it instantly and threw it back.
Speaking out loud, he seemed to be talking as much to himself as to the Captains. “Just by picking the right person, there can be no compromise on what he wants to explore, so why pretend there is?” Jake moved his opinion of Jim up another notch, and he was running out of ‘up’ notches. “If I am who you say I am, and I’m off in an explorer ship, I’m pretty likely to go and do whatever seems to make sense at the time. Putting a schedule on me or a timetable, or for that matter a rendezvous location would defeat the purpose of giving me the ship? It was no longer a question to either of the captains. It was a statement that stood alone, on its own two feet.
Jake stood up, and Jim followed suit. “Jim, there is a ton of stuff to be done and not enough sentient minds to do it. As soon as you feel trained enough, you only have to ask the Crekie for it. And they don’t offer many explorer class ships. They say there is a lack of pilots.” Grinning. “Now please get that project going on the Swarms. I really want to know if that is valid.” Sitting back down, his attention returned to his desk, Jim turned and left the cabin.
Unbeknownst to Jim, Jake left the microphone open. After a few seconds he said, “well?”
“The Crekie are right. He really bears watching. They’d be crazy to let him take an explorer ship and go. ”
“You read what he did out past Mars? Jettisoning himself with a rocket engine so he could get to the disabled craft sooner? Would you have done that? I wouldn’t have, not with the primitive crap they use in the McKinsie fleet. Anyway, do you want to dine together?
“Afraid not. I’m worried the Ambassadors will riot. And that’ll cause my entire crew to transfer to another ship. We’ll get together another time.”
About 22 hours later, they made their second jump.
Chapter 12. Ants and Beetles.
Ceres Report: It appears that Ceres might be mostly ice. That in itself is pretty good news since I can use the water to make chemical fuel and breathable oxygen. Maybe even get my algae tanks restarted. But I need to figure out if my ship is slowly going to melt itself into the planet. Depending on what the terrain here can handle, living here could be a real hoot.And though I missed the null gravity window, I’m outside a gravity well where my arms are plenty powerful enough.
The Crekie and the other advanced sentient races knew about the human home world for over two hundred years. During that time, each race knew they would have to meet with the humans, at least enough to coordinate activities and explain themselves. While the Crekie seem to always be ahead of everyone, the other races had each designated a few of their own to study the humans, to be ready to become Ambassadors to Earth.
Of the races, the Ants and Beetles were perhaps the closest to each other, and the least repulsive to humans. They evolved with similar atmospheres high in nitrogen and argon but low in oxygen. Earth atmosphere was too rich and made them woozy, but that was easily solved by filtering most of the oxygen out when they breathed. The other similarities were they both had exoskeletons. The Beetle was more or less like an armadillo: a tough flexible hide. Bipedal, with two upper arms that were more whiplike than anything else. It gave them good dexterity and surprising strength. The Ant’s exoskeleton was hard, almost crustacean. Jointed, it used four appendages to walk, and two for dexterity. However, it wasn’t uncommon to see them use their middle pair at times to hold things while the upper pair was working.
The Ant was binocular though the eyes were far apart, giving the impression they could see behind them. The shape of their head was a slightly bent oval, with the trace of a joint running from their forehead up and over the top of the skull. The eyes was covered with the same material as their body shell, only differentiated with no pigment. Humans sort of convinced themselves that an Ant had lenses instead of eyes, which helped enormously with the fact that they didn’t blink.
The Beetles were something else again. A horizontal crevice or gash halfway down the melon that passed for a head, there were clearly some sort of eyes in there. But deeply inset, they were almost an integral part of the brain. There were no long nerves like the humans had to slow the information flow between ‘seeing’ and ‘understanding’. They paid a price for their tough hides, not being able to turn their heads as much as either a human or an ant. On the other hand, they could probably stop a 9mm slug at close range. If you were to watch one use a knife, you’d realize that they were unlikely to ever cut themselves.
Both of them wore clothing but for different reasons. The Beetles didn’t need any, being so armored, but wore something like a tunic. Brightly colored with lots of pockets, you really had to be able to see a little further into the ultra-violet to appreciate it. However, once they had access to human denim, they had clothing made from that, and because of its rarity, it was very valuable to his race. That fact was used to make some serious money.
The Ants wore clothing because of temperature, not modesty. Neither race had any external genitalia: You could only guess at sex by behavior. But the Ants didn’t do well with cold temperatures, and Earth to them was cold. A sort of trousers but with four legs, and extra padding where the joints would be. The better designs also offered bracing along the joints, something like a knee brace that a human would wear to protect himself. The sleeves of their shirts were always a different color than the body of the shirt, and this was true of their spacesuits as well. There was some custom about their sleeves, something that indicated their caste, or perhaps honors they had received.
Both the races were fine with visible light, though the Beetle used some of the ultra-violet as well. Neither world had had the advantage of Earth’s magnetic core, and had learned to deal with UV radiation in their own way.
Humans, once they got used to them, had no problems dealing with either of the races. The thinking is that because of the animal diversity on Earth, humans are used to seeing odd things and can deal with it.
Both species used sound to communicate, but found that the low air pressure of Earth made their voices higher pitched
than they would prefer. But the lower gravity and lower air pressure were a pleasure to move around in. Kor, the Ant, said that he felt like he could almost fly.
Like all sentient species, there was a wide range of abilities, interests, and motivations. It was easy for humans to see all Ants as identical, as much as it was for Ants and Beetles to believe that all humans would respond the same way in the same situations. But all sentient species occupied a range of these things.
The Ants and Beetles that were to spend most of their lives with Crekie, Humans, and Squids, were volunteers. The Ants were enticed by the promise of their families being looked after, the Beetles seemed to just want the chance to mingle with other races, true extroverts. The Crekie offered them the chance to get to know the humans they recruited, and even help with their convalescence. This got the humans used to seeing Ants and Beetles as ‘people’, and it let them practice their English.
Some things were hard to absorb, though. Neither race could understand why Earth had so many languages. They also thought that humans were too peaceful, too easily oppressed by small groups that offered the larger groups little in return. From their viewpoint, Humans were meek and easily cowed. Fortunately, their time with the recruited humans convinced them that was not entirely true, and that Earth did produce true warriors.
There were several Ant-Beetle teams put together for human relations, and one team, Kor, an Ant, and a Beetle with an unpronounceable name, did particularly well with humans. In fact, as the Beetle realized his name was not pronounceable in English, he took an English name for himself, Augustine. Kor pointed out that most male human names are one syllable, so Augustine called himself Ag.
One really odd side effect of all this inter-species fraternity was movies. As the original recruited Humans had become well, they spent some time watching movies from their home planets. The Crekie could get anything they wanted and at some point just decided to get everything: Every TV show, movie, song, etc that Earth had produced. So Kor and Ag got to watch movies with Earthmen, practice their English, and most importantly, see how humans worked. It took time for the two of them to realize that action movies were truly fiction, with heroes a little larger than life. But once Kor and Ag understood that, they’d watch the movies by themselves.
One particular recruited pilot like watching comedies, especially slapstick ones. People falling off ladders, getting buckets of paint on themselves, being poked in the eye, anything physical. The first time Kor watched one, he was horrified thinking he was witnessing some sort of cruelty. Once he understood it was just visual gags and no one was being hurt, he caught on. Ag had it figured out right away, and fell in love with human comedy. After watching dozens of the movies, Kor had an interesting question to the Human pilots who now gathered to watch with them.
“Why are there no females taking part in these movies? I see them in the movies, but they never fall down or get poked in the eye?”
Before a pilot could answer, Ag supplied the answer. “The humans value women too much to put them through this. What if a woman carrying an egg got hurt? That would spoil this movie, right?” He looked at the Humans who were now trying to come up with their own answer.
“That’s pretty much correct. Also, women don’t appreciate some of the humor that men appreciate, so they don’t participate as much.” This seemed to satisfy both aliens, but they both missed the looks that passed between the humans.
So Kor and Ag became experts on the human race, learned their language, and in general became the best representatives to Earth. Though both extremely intelligent, well within the top 5% of their races, they were a true mix of alien, and human.
Toward that end, they were both onboard a ship crewed by Ants that was lingering at the jump point when the Oddjob and Sisk arrived. None of the Ants had ever seen a human and some have never ever seen a Beetle. The Squids had taken advice from the Crekie and designed a special ship for this purpose. The ship was Ant-normal, offering an environment to suit them, but there had been large glass partitions installed. For instance, the Bridge had a viewing room suitable for humans. Floor to ceiling glass panels divided the over-sized Bridge. Fully two-thirds of the space were for Ants who operated the ship, but the remaining third had some consoles, and viewing seats for humans. The effect was intended to make it appear that both sides shared the space instead of one room being a cage and the other an observation deck.
Ants on the Bridge were instructed to wave occasionally to any humans present as a way of acknowledging their presence. A couple of them took to waving both arms at once, but only Kor and Ag understood the humor in that. Ag however, did get at least one human to wave back with both arms, and that was that.
The Crekie wanted the same design for a mess hall, but after consideration of Ants, Beetles, and Human dining habits, decided against it. Instead, there was a lounge built with the floor-to-ceiling panels where only liquid refreshments were allowed. Keypad terminals were placed on the tables and races on both sides could type messages to each other. The messages went through the AI, and it was hoped that there would be no problems due to translation errors. To be clear, all the Ants were made to realize that anything that was said to them that was rude, was to be ignored. To help accommodate the Ambassadors, there were a couple Kor and Ag keypads on the human side, just to let them see that different species typed differently. If any Ambassador would play with the odd keyboards, it would help make the Ants seem more…human.
So Kor and Ag remained on the Human side of the panels. They stationed themselves in the landing bay, awaiting the arrival of the Diplomats from Earth. The thinking was, arriving Diplomats would see no humans running the ship. Likewise, there would be no human translators…the Ambassadors themselves would have to speak directly to Kor and Ag. Neither of them would have planned things this way, but the Crekie assured them this would be best.
They watched the first skiff arrive, landing a bit crookedly. Piloted by Jim-88 himself but under the watchful eye of Tom. A couple human crewmen from the Skiff had to do the tie-down work themselves since no Ant crew were present. All the humans that had originally been recruited by the Crekie Kor and Ag, and waved when they saw them, then became more serious as the Ambassadors disembarked. Both Jim and Tom left their skiff to lend a hand to the Human crew in case some hysteria would break out.
Sue rode along with the Ambassadors, but did a double take when she looked at who the humans were waving at. There, about fifty yards away were two aliens and her heart caught in her throat. She must have stared, but after a few seconds, the one that she knew was an Ant, waved at her and dipped its head toward her. The Beetle turned to look at the Ant, then turned back to face her and remained immobile.
Both skiff pilots and the human crew stayed outside the skiff, standing more or less at attention. The Ambassadors came out, in all cases leading their assistants, and at Sue’s encouragement, formed an orderly group along with the crew. The skiff could only hold twenty Ambassadors and twenty assistants, so introductions would be done in batches. When they were more or less settled, standing in small groups, the two aliens came forward, remaining about twenty feet away. The human crew was tense, just in case an Ambassador panicked or something. Sue hadn’t exhaled in a long time, and waited. This was the first experience of true Human-Alien contact.
Kor, in the best voice he could manage welcomed them to his ship, the Tether. He would normally have spread his arms in a show of openness, but in this case, thought better of it. The Ambassadors were fixated on Kor, and the human crew were fixated on any untoward movements from the Ambassadors. If the Ambassadors had been startled at the site of Kor, they were totally mesmerized by his voice. After all, he was speaking English. He said “Welcome”, then a strange word that no one understood. Correcting himself, he said “People of Earth”. The strange word he used was Ant slang for Humans…basically ‘bags of water with sticks’.
No one remembered what Kor said, just pleasantries about welcoming them. Word sa
lad, it was just to let the Ambassadors get used to him. As the humans started blinking and breathing again they moved around to get a better view. Sue knew they were over the worst of it. Kor introduced Ag, who also thanked them for coming, then enquired into the chances of a particular baseball team winning the World Series this season. And it worked, perfectly. Kor and Ag were now just funny-looking humans.
Sue approached Kor, and giving a salute waited for him to return it. He made her wait, cause he was whispering to her, trying not to move his lips. “How’d we do?”
“Like Gangbusters.” Kor had no idea what that meant, but her manner seemed relaxed so he accepted it. Salutes done, there was one more part of the show to see. Sue put out her hand, and Kor took it in his claw. Yes, a flexible claw but a claw never the less. Twenty Ambassadors watched this, and Sue made an impression on them more than Kor did. Turning, she motioned the humans over to meet the two alien Ambassadors, and an impromptu receiving line was formed.
Most Ambassadors know enough to make eye contact when you meet someone. But when you are reaching to shake a claw, and then a flexible but tough tentacle, no one completely passed the test.
If was at that moment that every klaxon, both Ant and Human, went off.
Chapter 13. Swarm.
Ceres Report: I’m satisfied my ship won’t sink.
It took me longer than I care to admit to fashion a shovel. But once I was able to dig down, I got a pretty good idea that I was on solid ground. Or for what passes for solid ground out here. It seems to have a large ice component, but it isn't that dense: I can easily insert the shovel and get a good purchase. To some degree it reminds me cutting frozen cake.
I took a closed container of it back to the ship and watched it melt. Quite a bit of water came out of it. I almost opened it to examine the other components then thought better of it. If there are any reactive metals in it, it could catch fire.
