Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two

by Short Story Anthology

  “You’re tired. Go back to your quarters and get some rest, then wash yourself and come back in the afternoon. It’s obvious you’ve been working too hard — I’ve misjudged your abilities. I’ll see if I can come up with a simpler assignment for you.”

  “But…”

  His eyes narrowed. “Go.”

  Miserably, she began to gather her papers.

  “Leave those here. I don’t want you wasting any more time on them.”

  Luulianni felt her scales rising with rage. She struggled to keep her voice level. “These are my papers.”

  “Everything on this station is the property of the Project. If you insist on compounding your theft of services with theft of property, you will make it very

  difficult for me to continue to shield you from the consequences of your actions. Now go!”

  They stared at each other for a moment, her two eyes trying and failing to meet his six. Finally she pulled herself to her full height and said “Very well. But this Letter of Commendation is my property. It was given to me by Jun Dal-Nieri herself.”

  “Take it and leave. But you must be prepared to account for your behavior. I want to see you here at twenty-nine this afternoon.”

  #

  Exhausted though she was, Luulianni was too angry to sleep, too angry to eat, too angry even to stop moving. She paced back and forth in Geeni’s workspace, knotting and unknotting her tentacles.

  “I wish we’d never invented radio!” she fumed. “I thought it was so wonderful the first time I heard voices from the air. If I’d known we were broadcasting our existence to the universe I would have personally smashed every transmitter! Maybe I could have stopped it before anyone noticed.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. By the time that first broadcast was over, the beginning of it was already halfway across Consortium space.”

  “And three years later we were thrust into a universe of rocket ships, idiot screens, and six-eyed bureaucrats who wouldn’t recognize an idea if it fell on them! We never had a chance to get to our own feet before the Consortium came and scooped us up like bad little children! And now they’re going to blow themselves up, and us with them!” She stopped pacing as she realized what she’d said. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Geeni…”

  “Don’t be. I’m worried too.”

  Luulianni stared at the Letter of Commendation still crushed in her lower tentacles. She began to tremble with sorrow and exhaustion. “I was the lead translator for Contact. I helped make it all happen. I was so proud when I was invited to join the Eight Degrees Project! And now look at me.” She curled into a defensive ball, her words barely audible. “I’m a Second-Level Linguist, my supervisor hates me, and I’m probably going to lose my job. And keep my people from joining the Consortium. If there is still a Consortium to join.”

  Geeni reached out a hand and stroked her trembling scales. “It’ll be all right,” he said. But he said it in Turundi Modal, and the inflection of the verb indicated he didn’t really believe it.

  #

  Twenty-nine in the afternoon, and Luulianni stood with bowed head at the foot of Nektopk’s desk. Hanging to the left and right of Nektopk were two other Ptopku, even older and darker and surlier than he. “I have asked Kutotop and Epotkup here to observe these proceedings and verify their fairness.”

  Luulianni’s tentacles contracted with dread at the words. “You were specifically instructed on more than one occasion to stop expending Project resources on work unrelated to your specific assignment. Do you confirm that this is true?”

  “Yes,” she muttered.

  “Please speak up,” said the one on the left — Kutotop — addressing her as an equal.

  Luulianni swallowed, then repeated more firmly: “Yes, but…”

  “You also,” Nektopk interrupted, “came to my office in a state of disarray, and presented to me a series of improperly formatted and unauthorized works on the topic of Language Eight.”

  “‘Improperly formatted’?” Her toes curled in indignation.

  “Do you confirm that this is true?”

  “I did present to you my work on Language Eight.”

  “And do you deny that Language Eight is entirely outside your specific assignment?”

  “I am a trained linguist! I was asked to join the Project because of my unique skills!”

  “That is irrelevant to the current discussion. Does your assignment include Language Eight?”

  “No!”

  “Very well. Therefore, since you admit you have repeatedly disobeyed specific job-related instructions, I have no choice but to discipline you.”

  “I…”

  “You are hereby demoted to Third-Level Linguist, effective immediately. Your personal screen access to Project information will be revoked, and your workspace access will be limited to data immediately relevant to your work on Language Three.” Luulianni opened her mouth to protest, but Nektopk held up a toe to silence her. “Furthermore, you are placed on probationary status, and any further disobedience may result in dismissal from the Project. Do you understand the effect this would have upon your species’ evaluation for membership in the Consortium?”

  “Yes.” She managed to squeeze the word out between teeth held firmly together. It was the only way to keep them from chattering visibly in anger.

  “Finally, you are specifically instructed not to do any further work of any kind on Language Eight, nor are you to discuss your previous unauthorized work with anyone. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “You may return to your quarters. You will receive a new and less taxing assignment tomorrow morning.”

  Luulianni turned and walked out without saying a word. She didn’t trust herself to say anything that wouldn’t get her in even more trouble.

  #

  She filed a protest, but the grievance committee was headed by Nektopk’s friend Epotkup. She contacted her homeworld, but the government of a provisional species had no clout within the Project. She sent a message to Jun Dal-Nieri, but received a noncommittal reply encouraging her to keep her spirits up. Finally she resigned herself to her situation and tried to make the best of it.

  She did as she was told for eight days. Eight days of boring, repetitive, interminable work that she wouldn’t even have asked her students to do when she was teaching. But on the eighth day she got a private message from Geeni: “Don’t tell anyone else, but I saw something while I was doing maintenance on the main data store. The Senior Redactor for Language Four has made some kind of breakthrough on Language Eight! They’re going to call a big conference to discuss the breakthrough and its implications.”

  Luulianni sat rigidly at her screen as she read the message, trembling, scales rising all along her back.

  The Senior Redactor for Language Four was Doun Epotkup, who had been present at Luulianni’s demotion.

  The sound of her chair clattering to the floor was cut off by the door closing behind her.

  #

  “You’ve got to take your suspicions to your supervisor,” Geeni said.

  “My supervisor is the one who stole my idea in the first place! He’s just using Epotkup as a shield.”

  “What makes you so sure he stole your idea? We don’t know what the breakthrough is. It could be completely unrelated.”

  “Epotkup has never done any work on Language Eight before.”

  “Talk to the head of the Section, then.”

  “All the Section heads are Ptopku. Who are they going to believe? Two Senior Redactors, or a recently demoted Third-Level Linguist from a provisional species? And I’ve already exhausted all my protest options.”

  “There must be someone who will listen…”

  Just then Geeni’s screen sounded an incoming video call. Luulianni ducked out of the camera’s view.

  “This is Station Security,” said the Ptopku voice from the screen. “Ordinator Rount, do you know a Third-Level Linguist by the name of Luulianni?”

  “Yes, I do.”<
br />
  “Linguist Luulianni is wanted by Security on a matter of gravest importance. Do you know her current location?”

  “No.” Luulianni was glad that Consortium Trade Language did not indicate a statement’s degree of sincerity. If they had been speaking Turundi Modal, Geeni would surely have given himself away through the habitual honesty of his grammar.

  “If you see her, or if she contacts you, please call Security immediately. Do not attempt to talk to her or restrain her yourself. She is extremely dangerous.”

  “Thank you, Officer.” Geeni terminated the call.

  Luulianni’s scales prickled with rage. “It’s a lie,” she said in Turundi Modal, with the highest sincerity.

  Geeni stared at her for a time, the one eye facing her unblinking as always. “I believe you. But what can you do now?”

  “I can prove myself. But I need your help.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “You know your way around this station better than anyone I know. There must be a place I can burrow in for a few days. I need screen access, a little food, and plenty of paper. That’s all I ask.”

  Geeni’s eyes never closed, and with eyes on every side he could not look away, but Luulianni had learned to tell when he was concentrating his attention in a different direction. She waited in anxious silence while he drew away within himself. Then, at last, he returned his gaze to her.

  “I can help you. But you aren’t going to like it.”

  #

  The stars were very small and very bright and very far below. Luulianni shivered violently from cold and fear, tentacle-tips clutching the tough transparent plastic of the bag that enclosed her. Her own breath was the loudest thing in the universe.

  Geeni swung himself from handhold to handhold on the station’s outer surface, the two of them turning over and over together as he went. She tried not to remember that only the firm grip of his hands kept the two of them from falling away from the rotating station, dropping just as fast as they would in real gravity — but with no bottom.

  She reminded herself again that this was part of Geeni’s job and that he was good at it. He said he even liked it.

  She couldn’t imagine liking it.

  The only thing more terrifying than too much sky above was too much sky below.

  Finally Geeni stopped, pulled open a hatch, and thrust her inside. As he’d instructed her, she waited for the light on the hatch to turn blue before unzipping the bag. She felt a pain in her ears, but she swallowed several times and it went away. The air in the tiny space was even colder than the air in the bag, if that were possible, and stank of oil and metal.

  She looked through the tiny window in the hatch beneath her feet. Geeni waved a hand, and his voice came from the short-range radio in her pack. “How are you doing?”

  “C-c-cold!”

  “It’ll warm up soon. Check the systems like I told you.”

  The compartment was a maintenance access point that could also be used as an emergency refuge in case of space suit failure. There was plenty of air and water, and a box of multi-species survival food. And most important, when she attached Geeni’s small portable screen to the data port, she had full access.

  “Everything checks out. And it is getting a little warmer.”

  “Remember, keep the window covered and use the screen for reading only. If you write anything they’ll know you’re here.”

  “Got it. And Geeni?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.” She said it in the most sincere Turundi Modal.

  “Good luck,” he replied in the same language and mode.

  The floor creaked alarmingly as Geeni swung away. Once he was gone there was a pinging and tapping as various metal and plastic parts warmed up, occasional rushing sounds from some of the pipes that ran through the compartment, and the continuous wheeze of the airmaker. The air grew warmer, but not very, and it still stung Luulianni’s nose with the reek of rubber and electricity.

  But the space was blessedly, refreshingly, small. And she had brought as much paper as she could fit in her pack.

  She set to work.

  #

  Luulianni threw her pen at her paper in disgust. It bounced off, leaving a small mark, and rattled out of reach behind a pipe in the corner. She sighed, then growled and crushed the paper into a wad with all four tentacles.

  Maybe Nektopk had been right in the first place. The vast majority of the blocks of Language Eight refused to resolve themselves into any understandable pattern. And the more she stared at the shapes she had found, the more she started to wonder whether she had been fooling herself all along. This circle, for instance, was a patchy, ragged thing, full of gaps. She knew some species saw pictures they called “constellations” in the night sky, imposing meaning on the random patterns of the stars. Had she done the same with the digits of Language Eight?

  Experimentally, she tried writing out only every other cell, skipping the cells with the apparent gaps. If there were a real pattern, surely removing half the data would destroy it. Alternatively, removing the gaps would make clear that the circle she’d thought she’d seen was only a mirage.

  It didn’t do either of those things. With the gaps removed, the circle was much crisper and clearer, although now it was an oval. And furthermore… she kept transcribing. Leaving out every other cell, the remaining data in the block formed a series of lines.

  Now she was curious about the data she’d left out. She went back and transcribed only the missing cells, and was amazed to find they also formed a clear set of lines. And not only that, but… she tore the paper in half and placed the second picture above the first.

  The two sets of lines connected up very tidily.

  She sat and stared at the resulting single picture. The oval was accompanied by lines that might be interpreted as indicating motion in a left-hand curve. It was simplistic, but quite clear. There was no possibility of wishful thinking — this picture was definitely and unambiguously present in the data.

  It was probably the most meaningful thing anyone had ever found in the Message. Even though she had no idea what it meant.

  #

  Some time later she had covered almost every surface of the compartment with paper. There were ovals and circles and squares, lines and curves and dots. It was a spare, concise graphical system. She was strongly tempted to interpret the pictures literally, but she knew that a picture of a square falling might indicate the sound of the word for “falling” rather than the concept “falling.” Or perhaps just the first phoneme of that word. And there were many pictures whose meaning was not at first apparent.

  Just then the floor creaked, and her heart nearly stopped. But it was only Geeni.

  “The Turundi Third Fleet is on its way to the Ptopku homeworld,” he said.

  “Oh, Geeni, that’s terrible!”

  “There’s worse news. They’re also planning to englobe other major Ptopku planets and facilities… including this station.”

  “But we’re unarmed!”

  “The Ptopku are sending ships of their own to defend us.”

  “Just what we need… we’ll be right in the middle of a war zone!”

  “There’s still some hope for a peaceful settlement.”

  “What are they going to do with you, and the other Turundi on the station?”

  “They’re leaving us alone as a show of Consortium solidarity… and because there are too many of us in important technical positions. They’re also proceeding with the conference on Language Eight, to demonstrate their sincerity about the Message not being decoded yet. Which reminds me… Epotkup has released his findings. He says Language Eight is a syllabic language encoded with eight-digit cells. That’s different from what you found, isn’t it?”

  “Yes…”

  “That means he didn’t steal your idea at all.”

  “But it’s wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s plausible. But the pictures are
really there. Look!” She pressed some papers against the window so Geeni could see them, and explained what she had found.

  Geeni was amazed, especially when he realized she had done all this work with pen and paper. He said he would write a code to translate all the blocks of Language Eight into pictures she could see on the screen. “I’ll leave the pictures in my personal data storage area. You’ll be able to see them, because you’re using my access permissions, but nobody else will.”

  She thanked him profusely, but she barely even noticed the sounds the floor made as he swung away.

  Epotkup must have seen her work on Language Eight. Why else would he suddenly announce a breakthrough in a language he’d never shown any interest in before? But if he had seen her work, why were his findings so very far off the track?

  It was as though he were trying to lead other researchers astray.

  But why would a Senior Redactor do such a thing?

  #

  Her brooding was interrupted by a message from Geeni indicating that the first batch of pictures was available for her use, and soon the problems of Epotkup and the impending war were the furthest things from her mind.

  Having the pictures on the screen was an enormous help. It rapidly became clear that the first subsection of each language had many more pictures, and simpler pictures, than the second subsection. And though most of the pictures were unique within a language, many of them repeated in some or all of the other languages.

  When she finally realized what she was seeing she laughed out loud. Then she slapped her tentacles across her mouth, afraid she might give away her hiding place. Then, as the implications of what she had seen began to sink in, she sat down hard and began to tremble.

  The pictures were meant to be interpreted literally.

  The first section of each language was a primer: each picture was followed by a word or words with the same meaning. Read in order, the pictures built up a graphical vocabulary that, together with the increasing sophistication of the words, led up to the second section: a formal dictionary of the language, with more pictures to help the reader along. And, since there were so many pictures in common between the seven languages, each language could be used to bridge gaps in understanding that might occur in the others.