by Jack Vance
Fletcher grinned. “Let’s get to work.”
“Certainly,” said Damon. “But how?”
They inspected the dekabrach, and the black eye-area stared back through the wall of the tank. “We’ve got to work out a set of visual conventions,” said Fletcher. “The ten arms are its most sensitive organs, and presumably are controlled by the most highly organized section of its brain. So—we work out a set of signals based on the dek’s arm movements.”
“Does that give us enough scope?”
“I should think so. The arms are flexible tubes of muscle. They can assume at least five distinct positions: straight forward, diagonal forward, perpendicular, diagonal back, and straight back. Since the beast has ten arms, evidently there are ten to the fifth power combinations—a hundred thousand.”
“Certainly adequate.”
“It’s our job to work out syntax and vocabulary—a little difficult for an engineer and a biochemist, but we’ll have a go at it.”
Damon was becoming interested in the project. “It’s merely a matter of consistency and sound basic structure. If the dek’s got any comprehension whatever, we’ll put it across.”
“If we don’t,” said Fletcher, “we’re gone geese—and Chrystal winds up taking over the Bio-Minerals raft.”
They seated themselves at the laboratory table.
“We have to assume that the deks have no language,” said Fletcher.
Damon grumbled uncertainly, and ran his fingers through his hair in annoyed confusion. “Not proven. Frankly, I don’t think it’s even likely. We can argue back and forth about whether they could get along on communal empathy, and such like—but that’s a couple of light-years from answering the question whether they do.
“They could be using telepathy, as we said; they could also be emitting modulated X-rays, establishing long-and-short code-signals in some unknown-to-us subspace, hyperspace, or interspace—they could be doing almost anything we never heard of.
“As I see it, our best bet—and best hope—is that they do have some form of encoding system by which they communicate between themselves. Obviously, as you know, they have to have an internal coding-and-communication system; that’s what a neuromuscular structure, with feedback loops, is. Any complex organism has to have communication internally. The whole point of this requirement of language as a means of classifying alien life forms is to distinguish between true communities of individual thinking entities, and the communal insect type of apparent-intelligence.
“Now, if they’ve got an ant- or bee-like city over there, we’re sunk, and Chrystal wins. You can’t teach an ant to talk; the nest-group has intelligence, but the individual doesn’t.
“So we’ve got to assume they do have a language—or, to be more general, a formalized encoding system for intercommunication.
“We can also assume it uses a pathway not available to our organisms. That sound sensible to you?”
Fletcher nodded. “Call it a working hypothesis, anyway. We know we haven’t seen any indication the dek has tried to signal us.”
“Which suggests the creature is not intelligent.”
Fletcher ignored the comment. “If we knew more about their habits, emotions, attitudes, we’d have a better framework for this new language.”
“It seems placid enough.”
The dekabrach moved its arms back and forth idly. The visual-surface studied the two men.
“Well,” said Fletcher with a sigh, “first, a system of notation.” He brought forward a model of the dekabrach’s head, which Manners had constructed. The arms were of flexible conduit, and could be bent into various positions. “We number the arms 0 to 9 around the clock, starting with this one here at the top. The five positions—forward, diagonal forward, erect, diagonal back, and back—we call A, B, K, X, Y. K is normal position, and when an arm is at K, it won’t be noted.”
Damon nodded his agreement. “That’s sound enough.”
“The logical first step would seem to be numbers.”
Together they worked out a system of numeration, and constructed a chart:
Damon said, “It’s consistent—but possibly cumbersome; for instance, to indicate five thousand, seven hundred sixty-six, it’s necessary to make the signal…let’s see: 0B, 5Y, then 0X, 7Y, then 0Y, 6Y, then 6Y.”
“Don’t forget that these are signals, not vocalizations,” said Fletcher. “Even so, it’s no more cumbersome than ‘five thousand, seven hundred and sixty-six’.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Now—words.”
Damon leaned back in his chair. “We just can’t build a vocabulary and call it a language.”
“I wish I knew more linguistic theory,” said Fletcher. “Naturally, we won’t go into any abstractions.”
“Our basic English structure might be a good idea,” Damon mused, “with English parts of speech. That is, nouns are things, adjectives are attributes of things, verbs are the displacements which things undergo, or the absence of displacement.”
Fletcher reflected. “We could simplify even further, to nouns, verbs and verbal modifiers.”
“Is that feasible? How, for instance, would you say ‘the large raft’?”
“We’d use a verb meaning ‘to grow big’. ‘Raft expanded’. Something like that.”
“Humph,” grumbled Damon. “You don’t envisage a very expressive language.”
“I don’t see why it shouldn’t be. Presumably the deks will modify whatever we give them to suit their own needs. If we get across just a basic set of ideas, they’ll take it from there. Or by that time someone’ll be out here who knows what he’s doing.”
“O.K.,” said Damon, “get on with your Basic Dekabrach.”
“First, let’s list the ideas a dek would find useful and familiar.”
“I’ll take the nouns,” said Damon. “You take the verbs; you can also have your modifiers.” He wrote, ‘No. 1: water.’
After considerable discussion and modification, a sparse list of basic nouns and verbs was agreed upon, and assigned signals.
The simulated dekabrach head was arranged before the tank, with a series of lights on a board nearby to represent numbers.
“With a coding machine we could simply type out our message,” said Damon. “The machine would dictate the impulses to the arms of the model.”
Fletcher agreed. “Fine, if we had the equipment and several weeks to tinker around with it. Too bad we don’t. Now—let’s start. The numbers first. You work the lights, I’ll move the arms. Just one to nine for now.”
Several hours passed. The dekabrach floated quietly, the black eye-spot observing.
Feeding time approached. Damon displayed the black-green fungus balls; Fletcher arranged the signal for ‘food’ on the arms of the model. A few morsels were dropped into the tank.
The dekabrach quietly sucked them into its oral tube.
Damon went through the pantomime of offering food to the model. Fletcher moved the arms to the signal ‘food’. Damon ostentatiously placed the fungus ball in the model’s oral tube, then faced the tank, and offered food to the dekabrach.
The dekabrach watched impassively.
Two weeks passed. Fletcher went up to Raight’s old room to talk to Chrystal, whom he found reading a book from the micro-film library.
Chrystal extinguished the image of the book, swung his legs over the side of the bed, sat up.
Fletcher said, “In a very few days the inspector is due.”
“So?”
“It’s occurred to me that you might have made an honest mistake. At least I can see the possibility.”
“Thanks,” said Chrystal, “for nothing.”
“I don’t want to victimize you on what may be an honest mistake.”
“Thanks again—but what do you want?”
“If you’ll cooperate with me in having dekabrachs recognized as an intelligent life form, I won’t press charges against you.”
Chrystal raised his
eyebrows. “That’s big of you. And I’m supposed to keep my complaints to myself?”
“If the deks are intelligent, you don’t have any complaints.”
Chrystal looked keenly at Fletcher. “You don’t sound too happy. The dek won’t talk, eh?” Chrystal laughed at his joke.
Fletcher restrained his annoyance. “We’re working on him.”
“But you’re beginning to suspect he’s not so intelligent as you thought.”
Fletcher turned to go. “This one only knows fourteen signals so far. But it’s learning two or three a day.”
“Hey!” called Chrystal. “Wait a minute!”
Fletcher stopped at the door. “What for?”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That’s your privilege.”
“Let me see this dek make signals.”
Fletcher shook his head. “You’re better off in here.”
Chrystal glared. “Isn’t that a rather unreasonable attitude?”
“I hope not.” He looked around the room. “Anything you’re lacking?”
“No.” Chrystal turned the switch, and his book flashed once more on the ceiling.
Fletcher left the room; the door closed behind him; the bolts shot home. Chrystal sat up alertly, jumped to his feet with a peculiar lightness, went to the door, listened.
Fletcher’s footfalls diminished down the corridor. Chrystal returned to the bed in two strides, reached under the pillow, brought out a length of electric cord, detached from a desk lamp. He had adapted two pencils as electrodes, notching through the wood to the lead, binding a wire around the graphite core so exposed. For resistance in the circuit he included a lamp bulb.
He went to the window. He could see the deck all the way down to the eastern edge of the raft, as well as behind the office to the storage bins at the back of the process house.
The deck was empty. The only movement was a white wisp of steam rising from the circulation flue, and the hurrying pink and scarlet clouds behind.
Chrystal went to work, whistling soundlessly between intently pursed lips. He plugged the cord into the baseboard strip, held the two pencils to the window, struck an arc, burnt at the groove which now ran nearly halfway around the window—the only means by which he could cut through the tempered beryl—silica glass.
It was slow work and very delicate. The arc was weak and fractious, fumes grated in Chrystal’s throat. He persevered, blinking through watery eyes, twisting his head this way and that, until five-thirty, half an hour before his evening meal, when he put the equipment away. He dared not work after dark, for fear the flicker of light would arouse suspicion.
The days passed. Each morning Geideon and Atreus brought their respective flushes of scarlet and pale green to the dull sky; each evening they vanished in sad dark sunsets behind the western ocean.
A makeshift antenna had been jury-rigged from the top of the laboratory to a pole over the living quarters. Early one afternoon Manners blew the general alarm in short jubilant blasts to announce a signal from the LG-19, putting into Sabria on its regular six-months call. Tomorrow evening lighters would swing down from orbit, bringing the sector inspector, supplies, and new crews for both Bio-Minerals and Pelagic Recoveries.
Bottles were broken out in the mess hall; there was loud talk, brave plans, laughter.
Exactly on schedule the lighters—four of them—burst through the clouds. Two settled into the ocean beside Bio-Minerals, two more dropped down to the Pelagic Recoveries raft.
Lines were carried out by the launch, the lighters were warped against the dock.
First aboard the raft was Inspector Bevington, a brisk little man, immaculate in his dark-blue and white uniform. He represented the government, interpreted its multiplicity of rules, laws and ordinances; he was empowered to adjudicate minor offences, take custody of criminals, investigate violations of galactic law, check living conditions and safety practices, collect imposts, bonds and duties, and, in general, personify the government in all of its faces and phases.
The job might well have invited graft and petty tyranny, were not the inspectors themselves subject to minute inspection.
Bevington was considered the most conscientious and the most humorless man in the service. If he was not particularly liked, he was at least respected.
Fletcher met him at the edge of the raft. Bevington glanced at him sharply, wondering why Fletcher was grinning so broadly. Fletcher was thinking that now would be a dramatic moment for one of the dekabrach’s monitors to reach up out of the sea and clutch Bevington’s ankle. But there was no disturbance; Bevington leaped to the raft without interference.
He shook hands with Fletcher, seeking up and down the dock. “Where’s Mr. Raight?”
Fletcher was taken aback; he had become accustomed to Raight’s absence. “Why—he’s dead.”
It was Bevington’s turn to be startled. “Dead?”
“Come along to the office,” said Fletcher, “and I’ll tell you about it. This last has been a wild month.” He looked up to the window of Raight’s old room where he expected to see Chrystal looking down. But the window was empty. Fletcher halted. Empty indeed! The window was vacant even of glass! He started down the deck.
“Here!” cried Bevington. “Where are you going?”
Fletcher paused long enough to call over his shoulder, “You’d better come with me!” then ran to the door leading into the mess hall. Bevington came after him, frowning in annoyance and surprise.
Fletcher looked into the mess hall, hesitated, came back out on deck, looked up at the vacant window. Where was Chrystal? As he had not come along the deck at the front of the raft, he must have headed for the process house.
“This way,” said Fletcher.
“Just a minute!” protested Bevington. “I want to know just what and where—”
But Fletcher was on his way down the eastern side of the raft toward the process house, where the lighter crew was already looking over the cases of precious metal to be transshipped. They glanced up when Fletcher and Bevington came running up.
“Did anybody just come past?” asked Fletcher. “A big blond fellow?”
“He went in there.” The lightermen pointed toward the process house.
Fletcher whirled, ran through the doorway. Beside the leaching columns he found Hans Heinz, looking ruffled and angry.
“Chrystal come through here?” Fletcher panted.
“Did he come through here! Like a hurricane. He gave me a push in the face.”
“Where did he go?”
Heinz pointed. “Out on the front deck.”
Fletcher and Bevington ran off, Bevington demanding petulantly, “Exactly what’s going on here?”
“I’ll explain in a minute,” yelled Fletcher. He ran out on deck, looked toward the barges and launch.
No Ted Chrystal.
He could only have gone in one direction: back toward the living quarters, having led Fletcher and Bevington in a complete circle.
A sudden thought hit Fletcher. “The helicopter!”
But the helicopter stood undisturbed, with its guy-lines taut. Murphy came toward them, looking perplexedly over his shoulder.
“Seen Chrystal?” asked Fletcher.
Murphy pointed. “He just went up them steps.”
“The laboratory!” cried Fletcher in sudden agony. Heart in his mouth he pounded up the steps, Murphy and Bevington at his heels. If only Damon were in the laboratory, not down on deck or in the mess hall.
The lab was empty—except for the tank with the dekabrach.
The water was cloudy, bluish. The dekabrach was thrashing from end to end of the tank, the ten arms kinked and knotted.
Fletcher jumped on a table, vaulted directly into the tank. He wrapped his arms around the writhing body, lifted. The supple shape squirmed out of his grasp. Fletcher grabbed again, heaved in desperation, raised it out of the tank.
“Grab hold,” he hissed to Murphy between clenched teeth. “Lay it on the t
able.”
Damon came rushing in. “What’s going on?”
“Poison,” said Fletcher. “Give Murphy a hand.”
Damon and Murphy managed to lay the dekabrach on the table. Fletcher barked, “Stand back, flood coming!” He slid the clamps from the side of the tank, the flexible plastic collapsed; a thousand gallons of water gushed across the floor.
Fletcher’s skin was beginning to burn. “Acid! Damon, get a bucket, wash off the dek. Keep him wet.”
The circulatory system was still pumping brine into the tank. Fletcher tore off his trousers, which held the acid against his skin, gave himself a quick rinse, turned the brine-pipe around the tank, flushing off the acid.
The dekabrach lay limp, its propulsion vanes twitching. Fletcher felt sick and dull. “Try sodium carbonate,” he told Damon. “Maybe we can neutralize some of the acid.” On sudden thought he turned to Murphy, “Go get Chrystal. Don’t let him get away.”
This was the moment that Chrystal chose to stroll into the laboratory. He looked around the room in mild surprise, hopped up on a chair to avoid the water.
“What’s going on in here?”
Fletcher said grimly, “You’ll find out.” To Murphy: “Don’t let him get away.”
“Murderer!” cried Damon in a voice that broke with strain and grief.
Chrystal raised his eyebrows in shock. “Murderer?”
Bevington looked back and forth between Fletcher, Chrystal and Damon. “Murderer? What’s all this?”
“Just what the law specifies,” said Fletcher. “Knowingly and willfully destroying one of an intelligent species. Murder.”
The tank was rinsed; he clamped up the sides. The fresh brine began to rise up the sides.
“Now,” said Fletcher. “Hoist the dek back in.”
Damon shook his head hopelessly. “He’s done for. He’s not moving.”
“We’ll put him back in anyway,” said Fletcher.
“I’d like to put Chrystal in there with him,” Damon said with passionate bitterness.
“Come now,” Bevington reproved him, “let’s have no more talk like that. I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t like anything of what I hear.”
