by Gary Tarulli
“Kyle,” she began, her eyes misting.
I hated myself at that moment. For draining the life out of a moment.
“Kelly, what do you see in me?” I implored, desperate to apologize.
Recovering with a broken smile, she replied, “Do you want a list? It’s rather long. I can omit the physical stuff.”
“Will that shorten the list much?”
“Oh yes, considerably.” She was teasing me now.
“Not completely?”
“No.”
“Give me the abridged version.”
She thought a moment and said, “I already did. Almost. A few moments ago.”
I guess she had. Like Orb: Three little letters.
Internalizing
“YOU NEVER TOLD me the details of your nightmare,” Kelly said, sitting at my workstation. “You do remember having one?”
After spending the night together, we were preparing for day five on Orb. More accurately, she was. I was languishing on the bed, admiring her form as she passed a fine-toothed comb through the lustrous strands of her long black hair.
“Remember? I wish I didn’t. I was completely and utterly bald and Thompson—that is Thompson with a thick head of hair—was joking about it. They call them night terrors for good reason.”
“You poor dear,” Kelly responded, continuing her combing, waiting patiently to see if I was willing to get up off the bed or, better yet, entertain her with a straight answer. Either would do.
I recalled the dream in all too vivid detail but hadn’t intended to inflict those details on Kelly, or anyone else for that matter. Dreams tend to lose a lot in the retelling. At best they can be mildly amusing; at worse, induce coma. For that reason I keep them to myself—unless there’s some underlying reason not to do so. Kelly seemed eager to hear mine, so I decided to make an exception. When I finished the telling, I asked, “Ever have a similar nightmare?”
“Happily, no. But then again, I probably don’t dwell on isolation and dying quite as much.”
“You’re a few years younger,” I said. “Give yourself time.”
She came over and sat next to me on the bed. Since she hadn’t slipped into a coma, I decided to press my luck in the dream department.
“Want to hear one more?”
“Sure.”
I recounted the first time I dreamed about my little melting island of ice. “Well, Sigmund, do I need to lie back for my analysis?”
“You’ll get a lot more than analysis if you do,” she answered.
“Don’t pull any punches, Doc,” I said. “I think I can take it. I can accept being as messed up as everyone else.”
Looking pensive, she took several strands of her glossy hair and placed them over my upper lip, giving me an instant Fu Manchu mustache.
“I have some of it,” she said, critically reflecting on my new look. “A part of you wants to be alone, but not lonely.”
“A seeming contradiction. I like it.”
“I thought you might. But there is something more, something I can’t put my finger on.”
I clasped a pencil thickness of her hair and put it to her lip. We sat evaluating each other.
“You look good with a moustache,” she said.
“You too. Will I need therapy?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. This goes deep. Very deep indeed. I have an hour session open this evening at twenty-two hundred.”
“I can definitely make that,” I said.
At the breakfast meeting, with dozens of Orbs floating offshore as a backdrop, Thompson called us to task, starting with me.
“Kyle,” he said, with a derisive inflection and a look boring a hole clear through me, “communications major, right?”
“Last time I checked my resume,” I said warily.
“I fail to believe,” Thompson went on, ratcheting up the sarcasm, “that you haven’t come up with some insight, some plan of action to … what’s your favorite word? Oh, yeah, communicate with the Orb.”
Thompson never abandoned his biting sense of humor, but if you were foolish enough to ignore the serious message behind the verbal barbs, he’d just as soon sink you with a broadside.
I chose to stay afloat.
“We’ve moved on from debating what they are?” I asked.
“I’ll throw that back on you,” he responded. “Haven’t we seen enough? Aren’t the Orbs behaving, or if you prefer a less humanizing word, existing, in a sentient manner?”
“Difficult to argue otherwise.” Then, contributing my own dose of sarcasm: “That’s a long way from sitting down to afternoon tea with them.”
“Very well then, tell us the obstacles we’re facing; maybe they’ll provide insight on how to proceed. Go ahead, play the pessimist. You’re good at it.”
“Thanks,” I returned. “A talent of mine acquired through a lifetime of experience.”
Where to begin? I looked around the table, studying the varying expressions on the faces staring intently at me. Maybe that was exactly where to start.
“Pessimism, right? OK, then. From Communications 101: It’ll take two to communicate, Humans and Orb. Let’s explore the human half of the equation, starting with a brief chat about the weather. Distill your impression of yesterday’s down to three words or less. How about you, Diana?”
“A bit rainy,” she said. Only she said it while slowly counting to three on her fingers. Her way to poke fun at me. This wasn’t going to be smooth sailing.
“And you, Bruce?”
“Changeable, but sunny.”
“Typical.” I said, “Can you and Diana ever agree on anything?”
But the discrepancy in their responses was exactly what I expected to hear.
“Let’s try something even less subjective,” I said.
On the table in front of me I noticed an empty, off-colored, drink container. I pointed it out.
“Paul, what color is the container?”
“Silver.”
“Kelly?”
“I thought of it as more of a blue.”
“Another disagreement,” I said. “What the hell is wrong with you people?”
“No, it’s definitely gray,” Diana volunteered. “But don’t mind me.”
“I won’t. Tell me this: Did the way each of you perceive the container, or the weather, actually differ?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “Doubtful. Only the words you each chose to interpret your perceptions differed. And there’s my point. Language, our principal form of communication, can be an inexact tool, even when we all speak the same one.”
“Mais nous ne fait pas,” Paul said.
“Very funny.” Now I had him working on me. “You said?’”
“But we do not.”
“OK, OK. Scusi, signore Paolo,” I said. “Two can play that game. Noi esseri umani non tutti parlano la stessa lingua. We humans don’t all speak the same language. A gifted person may boast of fluency in five. Too bad: There are five thousand more. That’s a lot of different ways to say silver. Or a lot of ways not to say silver, if you get my meaning.”
“I speak Swahili,” Diana boasted.
“Good for you,” I said,
“Kweli, nasema kiswahili.”
“Diana…” Thompson cautioned.
“Well, he didn’t believe me.”
“When…” I said, trying to retain the initiative, “…when we manage to get our language in sync, we often don’t understand even our most basic and innate differences: Those of race, age, and sexual preference. Oh yeah, excuse me, Diana, careless of me, I omitted gender. You reminded us of that one when you set foot on this planet.”
“Can’t wait to see how that plays on Earth,” she responded.
“I guess that will depend on the particular culture in which it is received, won’t it?”
“Or the particular religion.”
“Now there’s a point to consider. Religion. And ideologies. There are thousands of them. And as many wars in their name. Put the blame where yo
u like—there’s enough to go around—but often it comes down to miscommunication: Ideas degraded to disinformation, half-truths, and outright lies; the dumbing-down of information to flashing holo images or brief sound bites. Even honest disagreements, those where the truth of a matter has yet to be established, are plagued by our inability to pass along ideas without alteration, without subconsciously attaching our own bias. Opposing ideas divide into warring camps: Science versus Nature; Science versus Religion; Science versus the Arts.”
“Didn’t you and Larry get into that last one?” Diana asked.
“You know we did,” I responded. “And we never did reach an understanding. I’m not exactly sure why. It transcends language. Differences in temperament? In intellect? Even when we act with the best of intentions, when we try to pass information faithfully from one person to another, something is inevitably lost.”
Reaching across the table, I picked up the empty silver, gray, blue—take your pick—juice container and studied Melhaus, who, despite presently being the subject of our attention, never looked up.
“Should I complete the thought?” I asked Thompson, who had been carefully watching both of us. A resigned motion indicating assent indicated he had a damned good idea of what I was about to say.
“Humanity’s failing is evident right here in our own midst, for as smart as we are supposed to be, there is a growing divide between Melhaus and the rest of us which none of us seems able to bridge. Failing so miserably at transcending the barriers we have erected between ourselves, what are our chances with the Orb?”
There was a moment’s pause before the silence was broken. By Paul.
“Larry’s harder.”
“Say again?” I said, louder, not quite sure Melhaus was getting it.
“Harder,” Paul repeated, practically shouting across the table, “Larry’s harder to communicate with than the Orb.”
The brilliant physicist remained reclusive, choosing to make entries on his AID, electing to stay in his own cyberworld. His failure to acknowledge Paul was especially disturbing. Paul was the one person who had yet to argue with him. He was the one person who tried the hardest to see the world through Melhaus’s eyes.
“Even when we scale the walls between us,” I said resignedly, “we really don’t fully understand each other. How can we when we understand ourselves even less?”
If he heard, Melhaus was unmoved, and for the first time I began to believe, not wanting to, we would utterly fail in our attempt to reach him. Apparently, Paul felt the same way.
“Might as well go on,” he said, dismayed.
Looking to Thompson, I received unspoken confirmation. He appeared deep in thought.
“Might as well,” I repeated. I considered what to say, then began anew. “I have a few questions for you, Diana.”
“Why do I feel you already have the answers?” she said, feigning a scowl. “But go right ahead anyway.”
“How many species of mammals are there?”
“About four thousand and declining. Unfortunately there’s an uneven balance between newly discovered species and the ones humans are extincting.”
“And what is the genetic confluence between humans and other mammals?”
“In the ninety plus percent range.”
“So on our own planet, with most of our own genetic code in common, and having the luxury of a ten-thousand year head start, we’ve established only the most cursory communication with a mere handful of fellow mammals?”
“Somebody,” Kelly said, “is a real slow learner.”
“Good one,” Diana said, laughing, then, still addressing Kelly, “You more than anyone understands just how much Kyle appreciates a responsive audience.”
“You two behave yourselves,” Thompson put in. Then to me: “Ignore them. If you can.”
“What is the genetic similarity between humans and yeast?” I continued.
“Twenty odd percent, I believe.”
“And humans and the Orb?”
“Zero. But of course you knew that. The plankton are not gene-based organisms and neither, apparently, are the Orb.”
I turned my attention back to Thompson.
“And we want to communicate with the Orb in, what? In the next three or four days?”
Thompson, a crease in his brow, stared at his hands, folded in front of him. My arguments had failed to shake his resolve.
“For argument’s sake,” he said, “I’ll take the other side of your communication equation and apply an optimistic view based on the premise the Orb are more adept than humans at communicating. There is some reason to believe this can be true. First consider our history, how Earth’s physical features—mountain ranges, oceans, deserts—isolated us into groups; how that isolation was the overarching reason for the cultural diversity and the racial and language barriers you alluded to. Now consider the Orb. How they occupy one vast ocean with absolutely no geological barriers and therefore never developed our too often divisive differences in race, culture, and language.”
“May I interject?” Diana requested. When she saw Thompson’s skeptical expression, she added, “I’ll be on point. This time anyway.”
Thompson nodded.
“There’s another factor to consider,” she said. “With apologies to Darwin, evolution, at least as we comprehend it, is not at work on this planet. The Orb are likely to have existed in roughly their present form for untold ages, perhaps tens of millions of years. They’ve enjoyed an incredibly stable environment. Can you imagine how exquisitely well they have adapted given an existence that is potentially a hundred times longer than ours as a species? It’s mind-boggling.”
“Meaning,” Thompson said, finishing the thought, “whatever form of communication they have, it must be pretty damn good.”
“Yeah, I got that,” I said. “I’ve no reason to disagree, but I was asked to play the pessimist, right?”
“Try not to overdo it,” Thompson said.
“One more thought.”
I grabbed the empty juice container and held it up.
“How would the Orb perceive this container? We humans have a few different ways; the Orb may have one, they may have one hundred. Do they see, feel, hear, or smell? We ask what color. Do they see color? We ask what shape. Do they consider the container as an object distinct from the table it is resting on? We ask. Do they have a concept of asking?”
“What all this leads to,” Paul said, “is that we should consider ourselves the weak link. That we need to transcend our own limitations in order to determine how and what the Orb are experiencing of the world around them.”
“I agree with Kyle,” Diana said, surprising me. “Expecting the Orb to somehow tell, and then for us to understand, what they think or feel, is nearly impossible.”
“Excuse me,” Thompson responded, “For a minute I mistook you for Doctor Diana Gilmore, the world-renowned biologist. Am I mistaken, or did I set my expectations too high?”
“Probably too low,” Diana shot back.
“You have no ideas on how the Orb might communicate?”
“Ideas? Too many, from the unlikely to the possible. Touch: like when two giraffes show affection by pressing their necks together; chemical: the exquisitely small quantity of sex pheromones detected by an oriental silkworm moth; sight: the dance of a honeybee directing the hive to nectar; electro-reception: the platypus detecting its prey’s muscular contractions; vibration: the sound waves used by whales to communicate through a thousand kilometers of ocean. Want me to think outside the norm? Magnetic fields, changes in temperature or molecular density … well you get the idea.”
“I’m pretty sure she’s Doctor Gilmore,” Kelly commented.
Diana was pretty impressive, I thought.
“I’m not asking any of you to solve this problem,” Thompson said evenly. “You forget, I’m the one who cautioned we’ll be leaving here with many questions unanswered. What I do expect is for you to come up with a plan, individually or collectiv
ely, on how to proceed.”
“What?” I asked, “We can’t just tread water?”
I was trying to be humorous but the remark caused Thompson to wince. He said nothing. I thought back to the remark he made two days ago; that we’d be fooling ourselves if we believed we weren’t subject to the same pressures affecting Melhaus.
Having heard enough, Thompson was about to conclude the morning meeting when he seemed to decide an issue weighing on his mind.
“Larry,” he said, standing.
No response.
“Doctor Melhaus,” he repeated, louder and firmer. “I’m addressing you.”
Melhaus glanced up.
“I’d like you and Doctor Takara to meet me in my cabin.”
“Can it wait?”
“Now.”
Ten minutes later, following her meeting with Thompson and Melhaus, and appearing agitated, Kelly found me in my cabin.
“From the start, the conversation did not go well,” she said. “It ended worse.”
“What can I do to help?” I asked, motioning her to sit down on the bed next to Angie.
“I’m OK. It’s just the adrenalin working its magic.”
I sat down beside her.
“I’m afraid,” she said, “there’s nothing that can be done.”
“Sounds bad. You want to talk about it?”
“Bruce made it all part of the ship’s record, telling Larry that they already had two off-the-record conversations to no avail, and his, meaning Larry’s, recent behavior dictated it be done that way.”
“What precipitated the meeting?”
“Late yesterday I advised Larry to start a short regimen of a drug called Kalmbex. I described the chemical, and provided several reasons why he would do well taking it. He vehemently refused. I then asked him how well he was sleeping. He was evasive. I strongly suggested he resume his sleep medication. He became argumentative, verbally abusive, and abruptly left. He left me no choice. I had to tell Bruce.”
“The meeting caught you by surprise?”
“Not exactly. Bruce advised me it was going to take place, not when. I can’t fault him for that. Larry’s nonresponsiveness this morning must have triggered the timing.”
