by Gabe Sluis
“She was tough, stubborn and beautiful. She never wanted to show any weakness or that she could be wrong. She could be so messy, but at the same time organized and clean. She liked to sing, but never when anyone could hear her. When she was happy, the look on her face made you want to grin and be happy right along with her. But when she was sad, the strongest urge to fix the problem swept over you. She was silly and playful at the worst times. She got me in trouble constantly, and she was my best friend. Everyone liked her and always wanted to be around her.”
“You were in love with her, huh?” Jane said.
“Back then, when I was just a child and jumped through the gate after her, I thought I was. But the more and more I have been chasing her, getting close or seeing echoes of her, I know it’s more. It’s more than that. She is the reason that I didn’t just stop one day on a nice world, on an island maybe. Or in some rainy forest. I could have just settled down and settle for less. Stopped fighting in wars and reading books. But, I just can’t keep thinking about that night, years and years ago. I almost barely remember her, and if she is out there, out there like I have been, who knows if she is even the same. She is just a dream to me anymore. But I still remember that look on her face as she fell back. No, I will keep on going. I could never bring myself to give up.”
The room was silent. Aros, sitting in the command chair, turned and faced right at Jane.
“Have you ever felt you were looking for more? Has my story struck a cord with you?”
“What are you saying?” she demanded.
“Tell me that some of that didn’t feel familiar. Like it had happened to you.” He paused. “Kya.”
“No, no, no!” She stood up and moved away from him. “What did you think? I was some reborn version of that girl? Is that why you kidnapped me and brought me all the way out here!?” She turned away from him.
“You have her face. The coloring is slightly off. I can’t remember her voice… Tell me that when I described her, I was not also describing you.”
“No! You are mad! I don’t even believe your story anyway. I can’t believe this! No, I am not your ‘Kya.’ My name is Jane Novalis and I was born in Moldavia. A human woman,” she said, turning back toward him. “What were you expecting? I would just go jump into some star with you and go back to your crazy planet? Did you think I was so stupid that I would just agree? I am from Tellus! That is my home!”
“No. Don’t you see? I’m done with all of this. I got us all the way out here. I have no constraints on my life. I don’t have to go back to Yazos. We don’t have to go home. We could go anywhere. Anywhere in all existence...” His face was desperate. The dark rings circling beneath his eyes were pronounced. His face spoke of the distance he had spanned. “I even know of a nice cluster of islands where it never gets too cold…”
Jane stormed off, dropping down the ladder from the main room to the crew sleeping area. The room went from hot to cold in a flash. The bridge was quiet and the crew station screens continued on working. After a moment of calm, Crescent ventured another question.
“You really thought Lt. Novalis was Kya?”
“I really did,” Aros said, deep in thought. “The moment I saw her, I just figured my journey had finally came to a close and here she was, right at the end. But I guess I was wrong. I guess I have wanted this too much and it blinded me.”
“If that’s why you brought her along, why did you really bring me? I’m not Akoda, am I?”
Aros tried to let out laugh, but under the circumstances, it felt totally fake. “No, No Cress. I know you are not Akoda. I really brought you along because I needed someone to fly this thing while I took care of other issues.”
“Oh. So what now?”
“I’m sure we are about to find it. Why don’t you get some rest, and I will keep watch.”
“Alright, Sir,” Crescent said. He got up and walked over to the gravity generator, turning it back to half. “I’m sorry you turned out to be wrong about her. I hope you find what you are looking for.”
***
The two below slept, and slept hard. One tried to sleep away all the stress and anger she felt, the other dreamed away with a head full of another world. Meanwhile, the gunship Aurora slipped through space, ever closer to the end of the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical.
Jane awoke, in a similar manner as she did the last time, in a dark room, feeling a strange weightlessness. The only light coming into the deck was from the hatch leading to the bridge. Only this time, something was different. It finally hit her as she sat up and slid off the cot. The ever-present hum from the engines was gone. She stood lightly on the floor of the bottom hold, unsure of what to do. She settled on waking Crescent, since she couldn’t bring herself to go up on the bridge alone.
“Huh, what?” Crescent said after a boot to the edge of his cot.
“You feel that? The engines are off.”
“The engines are what?” he said, still waking up.
“Off. I don’t feel the vibration from them anymore. I think we’ve stopped.”
“Oh. Oh yeah,” Crescent said with a waver in his voice. “Does that means he found it…”
“Come on let’s get up there.”
They climbed the ladder, Crescent first, and stood on the main deck. The lights were dim, and Aros was pulling on a thermal suit. Tech Specialist Crescent and Lt. Jane Novalis stood still, looking at Aros, not sure of what to say. The pair felt like trespassers on the bridge. Their short time on the small ship with this enigma of a man was doomed to come to this end, but it didn’t feel real. Aros sealed the front of the suit and faced them.
“We have arrived. Sensors picked it up not long after you went below. I just arrived and cut the engines, that must have been what woke you.”
Jane moved over to her sensor station to take a look. “Wow. We are really close. You almost bumped us into this thing,” She threw a quick glance at Aros. His eyes were on her and she went right back to the screen. “This is odd. Just like you said, no heat, very little light, no gravity. This thing is like no star we have ever encountered. And… What? There is an envelope of gas surrounding the star. Oxygen and nitrogen. We could breath it…”
“It's cold out there, but at least I will not have to put on a pressure suit.”
“You really mean to do this?” Jane said. “You are really going to put all your faith in a ball of light you think might take you somewhere?”
“Yes. This facade is the central point for this universe. It is the path to other levels in existence. It will take you where you want to go. Remember that. You too must have faith in me and believe me when I say, this is your only way home.”
“We are supposed to fly the ship into that thing and hope it takes us home?” Crescent said.
“I don’t think you could fly the ship through it. Jump through, like me. Think about where you want to go, and hold it in your hearts. I’m sorry if it seams like I’m just abandoning you. But I’m really not. This facade is your only chance at getting back.”
“You have killed us!” Jane cried. “This is all a bunch of nonsense. You brain is full of rotten holes and thinks this is going to save you. But it's not! This is suicide! Just because it behaves like no other star we have seen, doesn’t make it not a star! We can try to make it back, find more Scalies and ask them to catapult us back home. What you are suggesting is madness!”
Aros’s face was a full smile. “I would expect nothing less from you, Jane. But you are going to have to trust me on this. Goodbye my friends. Thank you for being with me on the last leg of my journey.”
Aros hit a command on his chair, and the top hatch, only ever opened for docking, slid open. Bright white light poured into the bridge, mixing with the dim amber light in the ship.
“You may want to hold on,” Aros said. He walked directly under the hatch and picked up the gravity generator. With it switched off, every item not held down began to rise and float in the air.
Jane and Crescent clu
ng to seats, shivering, looking up at Aros as he gently launched himself upwards out of the ship. Crescent swung himself over and grabbed the floating generator, and slowly added gravity to the ship. Both he and Jane went over to the place below the hatch and stood in the brilliant light as they watched Aros drift upwards into the star.
The light engulfed him, and he was gone.
Part VII- Epilogue
Major Kanalet entered the secured door to the Linguistics Lab with a wave of his closed scroll. He walked into a huge room, desks and workstations scattered about. The door closed behind him and he went further into the empty room. Standing in the middle of an open area, he looked at the touch-write screens lining this portion of the room and looked at all the strange scribbling and diagrams on the walls. Wasting little time, he bellowed a hello.
Walking out from a back area of the Lab, a young civilian in a science uniform came out questioningly.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “You cant be in here. This is a top secret department.”
Kanalet fanned his scroll, showing the concerned youngster his official letter from Grand Marshal Midord.
The scientist studied the document and relaxed.
“Oh, wow. Cool. Never seen one of those before. Well then, welcome to the linguistics cave.”
“Where is everyone? I thought you guys were working around the clock.”
“Oh, we are, we are. The whole science building has been here for five days straight. Judging by what we got, they must have just as much interesting information to process as we do. Though, I’m not asking. ‘Keep things compartmentalized,’ and all that.” The young man droned on. “I am Mathew Rucker. Pleased to meet you.”
“Major Kanalet.”
“What can I do for you, Sir.”
“Where is everyone?” Kanalet repeated.
“Oh, yes. Well, we have made a huge breakthrough, and everyone went out to dinner to celebrate.”
“Then, why are you here?”
“Oh, someone has to stay at the office. I volunteered,” Rucker said.
“You volunteered, huh?” Kanalet was not convinced. “Anyway, you have seen my authorization. I am here to get a report on your departments progress on the translation effort.”
“Well, you are in luck, Sir. The reason everyone is out is that we have a full translation of the Scalie language. The wealth of the conversation that was recorded for us was amazing. Did you know that before last week, we had only twenty ‘words’ to work with. This new data has been the Rosetta Stone of our time. And the implications of the conversation… I’m sure you know more than I do! And again, we were told to just translate and not ask.”
“That is probably the best thing.”
“Yes, well, anyway, I heard our report would be included in some final inquisition report. Our next task is to complete a translation matrix. It is going to be a long project, hopefully not under an absurd time constraint…”
“That’s fine. But, I’m not here about that. I am on special assignment for the Grand Marshal, exclusively. He is not going to wait for the official report. I am here to get the down and dirty to include in a narrower investigation.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, if you want to come back tomorrow, I’m sure my department head, Doctor Jeorgson, can give you a full briefing.”
“No. I am here now. I have other places to visit and reports to write. You seem like a smart guy. Brief me and show me the translations.”
“Alright.” Rucker said, scrambling to pull up data on a main touch-write screen. “How in depth do you want?”
“Everything of relevance. I will filter what the Grand Marshal won’t need. Just give me your analysis. I haven’t even seen the transcripts yet, so I will want to see those, and a copy to take.”
Mathew Rucker nodded along with everything the Space Service officer said.
“Ok, then. So this was a huge puzzle. We attacked this ten-minute conversation with every linguistic tool and approach we have been building as humans studying language over the past five hundred or so years. And let me tell you, this was like nothing we had seen before.
“First, this was a conversation. Thus, we named each participant 'A' and 'B'. 'A' started the conversation and so he got the first letter. Simple as that. We first analyzed the voices as a whole. This was very interesting. Phonetically, these two speakers were generally speaking the same language, but with very different vocal equipment. Biased on the differences, we are assuming that 'A' has vocal equipment very similar to human, and 'B' is not. There is a wide, wide difference between the two speakers vocal equipment, but 'A' seems to generally be able to produce the same sounds as 'B', albeit lacking some of the necessary articulators. To us, this would sound like totally intelligible Latin coming from a machine. A good imitation, but not human speech.
“Next, we looked at what we assumed was the native speaker and analyzed the phonetic quality. 'B' must have a large oral cavity with minimal use of bilabial processes as the language under analysis has a very small accounting of bilabial sounds. There is obviously a large and flexible lingual area, as many tongue sounds are found.
“The language as a whole is very interesting. We broke it down, collecting and grouping every single distinct sound and mapping the range of point and manner of articulation. Where as we humans have our familiar phonetic inventory, the mapping of speaker B’s language had some familiar, and some very different from our own. There was extensive use of trithongs…”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Kanalet broke in, tapping away furiously at his scroll. “Forgive my ignorance, but what is a trithong?”
“Oh! Not at all. So, a monothong is a single vowel, like the ‘a’ in ‘cat.’ A diphthong is when there are two vowels back to back like the ‘ay’ in ‘hay.’ And a trithong would be…”
“Three vowels in a row,” Kanalet cut in.
“Exactly. Or glides, but you get it. Anyway, trithongs were prevalent. So were various nasal versions of consonants. Like I said, few bilabial, many palatal and alveolar sounds. There were clicks and ejectives, which are not as exotic in human languages as one may think…”
“Oh, of course not,” Kanalet said.
“We even charted two injectives, which were very odd. Overall the language was very tonal. Lots of word distinctions were conveyed by tones. The language almost sounds like a song in that way. The really odd bits were the croaks, whistles and retroflex tongue chirps. Such a treasure trove of sounds. I found myself listening to loops of it for hours…”
Kanalet tried to hurry the scientist along. He obviously loved his job, but Kanalet had more tangent goals to achieve. “So you were able to take all that and figure out what they were saying?” he probed.
“Yes, and that is where we employed much computer help. How to best describe it… Have you ever done a crypto-quip, Sir?”
“I’m not sure that I have.”
“Well, if you take a little quote or quip, just a sentence. Like, ‘can’t teach an old dog new tricks.’ Simple enough. Then, each letter of the alphabet in the quip is assigned a random letter, with no correspondence or pattern in the choice of letter. All you have is your knowledge of the language and the fact that all the D’s will be Z’s and so forth.”
“Okay. I think I’m following you.”
“So imagine this language like a crypto-quip. It obviously means something that we can translate into our own language, but how we find what that may mean, takes millions of attempts to make sure all the assumptions and patterns work out. But rather than just matching one letter to another, we are dealing with levels of semantics, proper nouns that are untranslatable, syntax, tone, clause structure, establishing a typological morphology, and so much more... Have you ever heard of Hankamers Theorem?”
“Can’t say I ever took a linguistics class in school,” Kanalet answered.
“Haha, yes, well. It theorizes that translation is impossible! So no matter how hard we try, we can get close; we can get very close to the meaning,
but never get a perfect translation. And that is what happened here. The computer could only get to eighty three percent continuity. But we’re okay with that. Here is the transcripts of the conversation,” Rucker said pulling up the document on Kanalet’s scroll and the touch-write.
Kanalet began to read with utter fascination. He had been working on his report for the Grand Marshal now for about a week and had been captivated by the mystery he had been uncovering. He was desperate to hear what Drogen had to say to the Scalies to make them spare the Prime Meridian. And hopefully this would give him a clue as to where he took the stolen gunship and the level of involvement of the other two. He read the transcripts slowly, analyzing it best he could.
--Begin Transmission--
A: Powerful [Chi.ka∫.dʕa]{Proper noun} (name for B’s race?) , I am a human [Mediator](outside judge). I wish to speak with the leader of war (action).
--Pause--
B: That authority rests in me. How does a Mediator make his presence with
this race, so far from his own world? Speak, so that we may trust your role.
A: I was in existence at [ɻoae.tiü.¤](Proper noun) when the decision to free the offenders was made. My kind watched the [riots] and persuaded the elder to perform a [⊙ɳii.ɤωæÇ] (Ungratefulness?) (ritual?).
B: You must have existed long to see these things. We will accept your (claim?).
Why do you now come to us?
A: I am with these humans to correct their foolishness and rid you of their presence.
B. True? Why do they enter our (territory?) set for war? We are to defend
ourselves.
A: I exist in the small(er) ship, but am in command of the larg(er). They will take no
action (war) to any [Chi.ka∫.dʕa] that exist here. These humans come from their world through a made rip in space. They seek answers for an attack on their world.
B: This was not under this authority. We know of their field, and travel there without their knowledge. Yet, this was not under our authority that the tear
