Lightspeed Magazine Issue 31

by Ted Chiang

I finished the last radical in the sentence, put down the chalk, and sat down in my desk chair. I leaned back and surveyed the giant Heptapod B sentence I’d written that covered the entire blackboard in my office. It included several complex clauses, and I had managed to integrate all of them rather nicely.

  Looking at a sentence like this one, I understood why the heptapods had evolved a semasiographic writing system like Heptapod B; it was better suited for a species with a simultaneous mode of consciousness. For them, speech was a bottleneck because it required that one word follow another sequentially. With writing, on the other hand, every mark on a page was visible simultaneously. Why constrain writing with a glottographic straitjacket, demanding that it be just as sequential as speech? It would never occur to them. Semasiographic writing naturally took advantage of the page’s two-dimensionality; instead of doling out morphemes one at a time, it offered an entire page full of them all at once.

  And now that Heptapod B had introduced me to a simultaneous mode of consciousness, I understood the rationale behind Heptapod A’s grammar: What my sequential mind had perceived as unnecessarily convoluted, I now recognized as an attempt to provide flexibility within the confines of sequential speech. I could use Heptapod A more easily as a result, though it was still a poor substitute for Heptapod B.

  There was a knock at the door and then Gary poked his head in. “Colonel Weber’ll be here any minute.”

  I grimaced. “Right.” Weber was coming to participate in a session with Flapper and Raspberry; I was to act as translator, a job I wasn’t trained for and that I detested.

  Gary stepped inside and closed the door. He pulled me out of my chair and kissed me.

  I smiled. “You trying to cheer me up before he gets here?”

  “No, I’m trying to cheer me up.”

  “You weren’t interested in talking to the heptapods at all, were you? You worked on this project just to get me into bed.”

  “Ah, you see right through me.”

  I looked into his eyes. “You better believe it,” I said.

  I remember when you’ll be a month old, and I’ll stumble out of bed to give you your 2:00 am feeding. Your nursery will have that “baby smell” of diaper rash cream and talcum powder, with a faint ammoniac whiff coming from the diaper pail in the corner. I’ll lean over your crib, lift your squalling form out, and sit in the rocking chair to nurse you.

  The word “infant” is derived from the Latin word for “unable to speak,” but you’ll be perfectly capable of saying one thing: “I suffer,” and you’ll do it tirelessly and without hesitation. I have to admire your utter commitment to that statement; when you cry, you’ll become outrage incarnate, every fiber of your body employed in expressing that emotion. It’s funny: When you’re tranquil, you will seem to radiate light, and if someone were to paint a portrait of you like that, I’d insist that they include the halo. But when you’re unhappy, you will become a klaxon, built for radiating sound; a portrait of you then could simply be a fire alarm bell.

  At that stage of your life, there’ll be no past or future for you; until I give you my breast, you’ll have no memory of contentment in the past, nor expectation of relief in the future. Once you begin nursing, everything will reverse, and all will be right with the world. NOW is the only moment you’ll perceive; you’ll live in the present tense. In many ways, it’s an enviable state.

  The heptapods are neither free nor bound as we understand those concepts; they don’t act according to their will, nor are they helpless automatons. What distinguishes the heptapods’ mode of awareness is not just that their actions coincide with history’s events; it is also that their motives coincide with history’s purposes. They act to create the future, to enact chronology.

  Freedom isn’t an illusion; it’s perfectly real in the context of sequential consciousness. Within the context of simultaneous consciousness, freedom is not meaningful, but neither is coercion; it’s simply a different context, no more or less valid than the other. It’s like that famous optical illusion, the drawing of either an elegant young woman, face turned away from the viewer, or a wart-nosed crone, chin tucked down on her chest. There’s no “correct” interpretation; both are equally valid. But you can’t see both at the same time.

  Similarly, knowledge of the future was incompatible with free will. What made it possible for me to exercise freedom of choice also made it impossible for me to know the future. Conversely, now that I know the future, I would never act contrary to that future, including telling others what I know; those who know the future don’t talk about it. Those who’ve read the Book of Ages never admit to it.

  I turned on the VCR and slotted a cassette of a session from the Ft. Worth looking glass. A diplomatic negotiator was having a discussion with the heptapods there, with Burghart acting as translator.

  The negotiator was describing humans’ moral beliefs, trying to lay some groundwork for the concept of altruism. I knew the heptapods were familiar with the conversation’s eventual outcome, but they still participated enthusiastically.

  If I could have described this to someone who didn’t already know, she might ask, if the heptapods already knew everything that they would ever say or hear, what was the point of their using language at all? A reasonable question. But language wasn’t only for communication: It was also a form of action. According to speech act theory, statements like “You’re under arrest,” “I christen this vessel,” or “I promise” were all performative: A speaker could perform the action only by uttering the words. For such acts, knowing what would be said didn’t change anything. Everyone at a wedding anticipated the words “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” but until the minister actually said them, the ceremony didn’t count. With performative language, saying equaled doing.

  For the heptapods, all language was performative. Instead of using language to inform, they used language to actualize. Sure, heptapods already knew what would be said in any conversation; but in order for their knowledge to be true, the conversation would have to take place.

  “First Goldilocks tried the papa bear’s bowl of porridge, but it was full of Brussels sprouts, which she hated.”

  You’ll laugh. “No, that’s wrong!” We’ll be sitting side by side on the sofa, the skinny, overpriced hardcover spread open on our laps.

  I’ll keep reading. “Then Goldilocks tried the mama bear’s bowl of porridge, but it was full of spinach, which she also hated.”

  You’ll put your hand on the page of the book to stop me. “You have to read it the right way!”

  “I’m reading just what it says here,” I’ll say, all innocence.

  “No, you’re not. That’s not how the story goes.”

  “Well, if you already know how the story goes, why do you need me to read it to you?”

  “Cause I wanna hear it!”

  The air conditioning in Weber’s office almost compensated for having to talk to the man.

  “They’re willing to engage in a type of exchange,” I explained, “but it’s not trade. We simply give them something, and they give us something in return. Neither party tells the other what they’re giving beforehand.”

  Colonel Weber’s brow furrowed just slightly. “You mean they’re willing to exchange gifts?”

  I knew what I had to say. “We shouldn’t think of it as ‘gift-giving.’ We don’t know if this transaction has the same associations for the heptapods that gift-giving has for us.”

  “Can we—” he searched for the right wording “—drop hints about the kind of gift we want?”

  “They don’t do that themselves for this type of transaction. I asked them if we could make a request, and they said we could, but it won’t make them tell us what they’re giving.” I suddenly remembered that a morphological relative of “performative” was “performance,” which could describe the sensation of conversing when you knew what would be said: It was like performing in a play.

  “But would it make them more likely to give us wha
t we asked for?” Colonel Weber asked. He was perfectly oblivious of the script, yet his responses matched his assigned lines exactly.

  “No way of knowing,” I said. “I doubt it, given that it’s not a custom they engage in.”

  “If we give our gift first, will the value of our gift influence the value of theirs?” He was improvising, while I had carefully rehearsed for this one and only show.

  “No,” I said. “As far as we can tell, the value of the exchanged items is irrelevant.”

  “If only my relatives felt that way,” murmured Gary wryly.

  I watched Colonel Weber turn to Gary. “Have you discovered anything new in the physics discussions?” he asked, right on cue.

  “If you mean, any information new to mankind, no,” said Gary. “The heptapods haven’t varied from the routine. If we demonstrate something to them, they’ll show us their formulation of it, but they won’t volunteer anything and they won’t answer our questions about what they know.”

  An utterance that was spontaneous and communicative in the context of human discourse became a ritual recitation when viewed by the light of Heptapod B.

  Weber scowled. “All right then, we’ll see how the State Department feels about this. Maybe we can arrange some kind of gift-giving ceremony.”

  Like physical events, with their causal and teleological interpretations, every linguistic event had two possible interpretations: as a transmission of information and as the realization of a plan.

  “I think that’s a good idea, Colonel,” I said.

  It was an ambiguity invisible to most. A private joke; don’t ask me to explain it.

  Even though I’m proficient with Heptapod B, I know I don’t experience reality the way a heptapod does. My mind was cast in the mold of human, sequential languages, and no amount of immersion in an alien language can completely reshape it. My worldview is an amalgam of human and heptapod.

  Before I learned how to think in Heptapod B, my memories grew like a column of cigarette ash, laid down by the infinitesimal sliver of combustion that was my consciousness, marking the sequential present. After I learned Heptapod B, new memories fell into place like gigantic blocks, each one measuring years in duration, and though they didn’t arrive in order or land contiguously, they soon composed a period of five decades. It is the period during which I know Heptapod B well enough to think in it, starting during my interviews with Flapper and Raspberry and ending with my death.

  Usually, Heptapod B affects just my memory: My consciousness crawls along as it did before, a glowing sliver crawling forward in time, the difference being that the ash of memory lies ahead as well as behind: There is no real combustion. But occasionally I have glimpses when Heptapod B truly reigns, and I experience past and future all at once; my consciousness becomes a half-century-long ember burning outside time. I perceive—during those glimpses—that entire epoch as a simultaneity. It’s a period encompassing the rest of my life, and the entirety of yours.

  I wrote out the semagrams for “process create-endpoint inclusive-we,” meaning “let’s start.” Raspberry replied in the affirmative, and the slide shows began. The second display screen that the heptapods had provided began presenting a series of images, composed of semagrams and equations, while one of our video screens did the same.

  This was the second “gift exchange” I had been present for, the eighth one overall, and I knew it would be the last. The looking-glass tent was crowded with people; Burghart from Ft. Worth was here, as were Gary and a nuclear physicist, assorted biologists, anthropologists, military brass, and diplomats. Thankfully they had set up an air conditioner to cool the place off. We would review the tapes of the images later to figure out just what the heptapods’ “gift” was. Our own “gift” was a presentation on the Lascaux cave paintings.

  We all crowded around the heptapods’ second screen, trying to glean some idea of the images’ content as they went by. “Preliminary assessments?” asked Colonel Weber.

  “It’s not a return,” said Burghart. In a previous exchange, the heptapods had given us information about ourselves that we had previously told them. This had infuriated the State Department, but we had no reason to think of it as an insult: It probably indicated that trade value really didn’t play a role in these exchanges. It didn’t exclude the possibility that the heptapods might yet offer us a space drive, or cold fusion, or some other wish-fulfilling miracle.

  “That looks like inorganic chemistry,” said the nuclear physicist, pointing at an equation before the image was replaced.

  Gary nodded. “It could be materials technology,” he said.

  “Maybe we’re finally getting somewhere,” said Colonel Weber.

  “I wanna see more animal pictures,” I whispered, quietly so that only Gary could hear me, and pouted like a child. He smiled and poked me. Truthfully, I wished the heptapods had given another xenobiology lecture, as they had on two previous exchanges; judging from those, humans were more similar to the heptapods than any other species they’d ever encountered. Or another lecture on heptapod history; those had been filled with apparent non sequiturs, but were interesting nonetheless. I didn’t want the heptapods to give us new technology, because I didn’t want to see what our governments might do with it.

  I watched Raspberry while the information was being exchanged, looking for any anomalous behavior. It stood barely moving as usual; I saw no indications of what would happen shortly.

  After a minute, the heptapod’s screen went blank, and a minute after that, ours did too. Gary and most of the other scientists clustered around a tiny video screen that was replaying the heptapods’ presentation. I could hear them talk about the need to call in a solid-state physicist.

  Colonel Weber turned. “You two,” he said, pointing to me and then to Burghart, “schedule the time and location for the next exchange.” Then he followed the others to the playback screen.

  “Coming right up,” I said. To Burghart, I asked, “Would you care to do the honors, or shall I?”

  I knew Burghart had gained a proficiency in Heptapod B similar to mine. “It’s your looking glass,” he said. “You drive.”

  I sat down again at the transmitting computer. “Bet you never figured you’d wind up working as an Army translator back when you were a grad student.”

  “That’s for goddamn sure,” he said. “Even now I can hardly believe it.” Everything we said to each other felt like the carefully bland exchanges of spies who meet in public, but never break cover.

  I wrote out the semagrams for “locus exchange-transaction converse inclusive-we” with the projective aspect modulation.

  Raspberry wrote its reply. That was my cue to frown, and for Burghart to ask, “What does it mean by that?” His delivery was perfect.

  I wrote a request for clarification; Raspberry’s reply was the same as before. Then I watched it glide out of the room. The curtain was about to fall on this act of our performance.

  Colonel Weber stepped forward. “What’s going on? Where did it go?”

  “It said that the heptapods are leaving now,” I said. “Not just itself; all of them.”

  “Call it back here now. Ask it what it means.”

  “Um, I don’t think Raspberry’s wearing a pager,” I said.

  The image of the room in the looking glass disappeared so abruptly that it took a moment for my eyes to register what I was seeing instead: it was the other side of the looking-glass tent. The looking glass had become completely transparent. The conversation around the playback screen fell silent.

  “What the hell is going on here?” said Colonel Weber.

  Gary walked up to the looking glass, and then around it to the other side. He touched the rear surface with one hand; I could see the pale ovals where his fingertips made contact with the looking glass. “I think,” he said, “we just saw a demonstration of transmutation at a distance.”

  I heard the sounds of heavy footfalls on dry grass. A soldier came in through the tent door, s
hort of breath from sprinting, holding an oversize walkie-talkie. “Colonel, message from—”

  Weber grabbed the walkie-talkie from him.

  I remember what it’ll be like watching you when you are a day old. Your father will have gone for a quick visit to the hospital cafeteria, and you’ll be lying in your bassinet, and I’ll be leaning over you.

  So soon after the delivery, I will still be feeling like a wrung-out towel. You will seem incongruously tiny, given how enormous I felt during the pregnancy; I could swear there was room for someone much larger and more robust than you in there. Your hands and feet will be long and thin, not chubby yet. Your face will still be all red and pinched, puffy eyelids squeezed shut, the gnome-like phase that precedes the cherubic.

  I’ll run a finger over your belly, marveling at the uncanny softness of your skin, wondering if silk would abrade your body like burlap. Then you’ll writhe, twisting your body while poking out your legs one at a time, and I’ll recognize the gesture as one I had felt you do inside me, many times. So that’s what it looks like.

  I’ll feel elated at this evidence of a unique mother-child bond, this certitude that you’re the one I carried. Even if I had never laid eyes on you before, I’d be able to pick you out from a sea of babies: Not that one. No, not her either. Wait, that one over there.

  Yes, that’s her. She’s mine.

  That final “gift exchange” was the last we ever saw of the heptapods. All at once, all over the world, their looking glasses became transparent and their ships left orbit. Subsequent analysis of the looking glasses revealed them to be nothing more than sheets of fused silica, completely inert. The information from the final exchange session described a new class of superconducting materials, but it later proved to duplicate the results of research just completed in Japan: Nothing that humans didn’t already know.

  We never did learn why the heptapods left, any more than we learned what brought them here, or why they acted the way they did. My own new awareness didn’t provide that type of knowledge; the heptapods’ behavior was presumably explicable from a sequential point of view, but we never found that explanation.