Omega к-4

by Джек Макдевитт

  “Right,” she said, and let it drop.

  ARCHIVE

  “Senator, we’ve all seen the pictures of the cloud at Moonlight. Is there anything at all we can do for the Goompahs?”

  “Janet, we are moving heaven and earth to help. Unfortunately, we haven’t yet learned how to turn these things aside. The first shipload of supplies will be leaving day after tomorrow. We’re doing everything we can.”

  — Senator Cass Barker,

  Press Conference, April 4

  chapter 15

  On board the al-Jahani, in hyperflight.

  Wednesday, April 23.

  THERE WERE TOO many people on the mission. Collingdale had heard that the entire scientific community had wanted to go, despite the distance to Lookout. And Hutch had accommodated as many as she possibly could. That was a mistake. They were going to have to work as a team, and he had the unenviable task of trying to organize, mollify, control, and entertain a task force that included some of the biggest egos on the planet. There were historians and xenologists and mathematicians and specialists in other lines of inquiry of which he’d never heard. Every one of whom thought of him/herself as a leading light in his or her field. And they were going to be locked up together until late November.

  Frank Bergen was a good example of the problem. Frank expected everyone to take notes whenever he spoke. Melinda Park looked stunned if anyone took issue with any of her opinions, even those outside her area of expertise. Walfred Glassner (“Wally” behind his back) thought everyone else in the world was a moron. Peggy Malachy never let anyone else finish a sentence. The others, save Judy Sternberg’s linguists, were no better. Before it was over he was convinced there’d be a murder.

  They comprised the Upper Strata, the scientific heavyweights.

  Bergen was, in his view, the only one of them who really mattered. After everybody else had debarked onto the Jenkins, he would make the flight with Kellie Collier to try to distract the omega. Bergen, who was short, dumpy, arrogant, was sure the plan would succeed if only because anything he touched always succeeded. They had at their disposal visual projections, and if those didn’t do the job, they had the kite. One way or the other, he assured anybody who would listen, they’d get rid of the thing. He sounded as if he thought the cloud wouldn’t dare defy him.

  In fact, it seemed to Collingdale that the only other ones crucial to the mission were the linguists. They were all kids, all graduate students or postdocs, save for their boss, Judy Sternberg.

  They were already at work with the data forwarded by the Jenkins, trying to decipher and familiarize themselves with basic Goompah. He’d have preferred to double their number and get rid of the giants-in-their-field. But he understood about politics. And Hutch had maintained that it was impossible to find, in a few days’ time, an adequate supply of people, no more than five and a half feet tall, with the kind of specialized skill they needed, who were willing to leave home for two years. She had done the best she could and he’d have to make do.

  They were indeed of minimal stature. Not one of the twelve, male or female, rose above his collarbone.

  It had been an ugly scene, those last few days before departure. He’d never seen Hutch lose her temper before, but it was obvious she was under pressure. You have to understand the reality, he’d told her, and she’d fired back that politics was the reality.

  Nonetheless, they were doing as well as could be expected. The Upper Strata had settled in and seemed to have achieved an amicable standoff with each other. And the linguists were hard at work on the daily flow of recordings. They were both enthusiastic and talented, and he expected that, by the time they arrived on-station, he’d have people able to speak with the natives.

  He’d been trying to master the language himself but had already fallen far behind the young guns. His lack of proficiency surprised him. He spoke German and Russian fluently and, despite his fifty-six years, had thought he’d be able to pace the help. Within the first two weeks he’d seen it wasn’t going to happen. But maybe it was just as well. Staying ahead of the old man provided an incentive for them.

  The incoming data consisted of audiovisual recordings. The pictures weren’t very good. Sometimes the conversations took place entirely out of view of the imager. On other occasions, the Goompahs walked out of visual range while they talked. Even when the subjects stayed still, the angles were usually less than ideal. At this early stage, in order to have a reasonable chance to understand, the linguists needed to be able to see what was happening. But they were getting enough to match actions with talk and, still more important, with gestures.

  Most of the Upper Strata were looking forward to putting on lightbenders and walking unseen among the population. They would try to do what they’d done on Nok, penetrate the libraries, eavesdrop on conversations, observe political and religious activities. But Nok was a long time ago. They’d all been young then. And Collingdale had already noticed a reluctance among them to learn the language. He knew what would happen: They’d put it off, finding one pretext or another to avoid the effort. And when they got to Lookout they’d be asking to borrow one of the linguists, somebody to go down and interpret.

  It was clear that whatever was to be accomplished on this mission would be done by Judy’s team.

  When he’d heard the conditions under which he would be making the flight, he’d almost changed his mind about going. But he had asked Hutch for the assignment, and he didn’t feel he could back away. Moreover, he hoped that Bergen was right, that the cloud would be turned aside, and that they would beat the thing. He desperately wanted to be there if it happened.

  THEY WERE MAKING some progress in figuring out the syntax, and they had already begun to compile a vocabulary. They had words for hello and good-bye, near and far, ground and sky, come and go. They could sometimes differentiate among the tenses. They knew how to ask for a bolt of cloth, or to request directions for Mandigol. (Nobody had any clue where that was.)

  There was some confusion about plurals, and they were mystified by pronouns. But Judy was there, reassuring them that time and patience would bring the solutions. Her plan called for the establishment of a working vocabulary of at least one hundred nouns and verbs by the end of their first month on board, and a basic grasp of syntax by the end of the second. They’d achieved the first goal, but the second was proving elusive. At the end of the second month, no English would be permitted in the workroom. At the end of the third month, they would speak Goompah exclusively, everywhere on the ship, except when communicating with home.

  Several objected to that provision. How were they to talk with their fellow passengers? To Collingdale’s immense satisfaction, Judy replied that was the problem of the passengers. It would do Bergen and the others good, she said, to begin hearing the native language. They’re supposed to be learning it anyhow.

  The Upper Strata, when it heard the idea, dismissed it out of hand. Utterly unreasonable. They had more important things to do. Not that it mattered. But Collingdale didn’t want more division and in the end he was forced to intervene and insist, in the interests of peace, that Judy back down. The surrender was disguised as a compromise: English, or other non-Goompah languages, would be spoken by the linguists outside work hours when members of the Upper Strata or the captain were present, or at anytime during any emergency.

  Collingdale did his best to appease Judy by including in the declaration that he henceforth considered himself a member of the language team, and would be bound by their rules, except when his duties made it impractical.

  THE ONLY OTHER functioning culture that had been found during the decades of interstellar travel was on Nok. It was the right name for the world. The inhabitants were in the middle of an industrial age, but they’d been up and down so many times they’d exhausted most of their natural resources. They were always at war, and they showed no talent whatever for compromise or tolerance.

  The research teams had experienced massive problems there during the f
irst couple of years because everybody who wanted a lightbender just checked one out and went down to the surface. They were forever running landers up and down with consequent waste of fuel. They had people fighting over e-suits, trying to monopolize the language specialists, and arguing constantly about the no-contact policy. A substantial number maintained it was immoral for the Academy to stand by while the idiots made war on one another, and huge numbers of noncombatants were killed. It happened all the time, the wars never really ended until everybody was exhausted, and as soon as they got their breath back they started up again.

  The level of animosity among the researchers rose until it became apparent that the human teams weren’t able to rise much above the level of the Noks. It was as if the Protocol should have been working the other way, shielding humans from the less advanced culture.

  There was no evidence of conflict at Lookout, but once again they were facing the intervention issue. Except this time they were prepared to confront the natives, if it seemed prudent.

  Not everyone on board was in agreement with that policy. Jason Holder, who described himself as the world’s only exosociologist, had wasted no time taking Collingdale aside to warn him that contact would cause extensive harm in the long run, that if the Goompahs could get past the Event on their own, they’d be far better off if we kept out of it. “Sticking our noses in,” he’d said, “all but guarantees they’ll be crippled.”

  When Collingdale asked how that could be, he’d trotted out the usual explanation about the clash of civilizations, and how the weaker one always, always, went down. “The effects might not be immediately noticeable,” he’d said, “but once they understand there’s a more advanced culture out there, they lose heart. They give up, roll over, and wait for us to tell them the Truth, provide dinner, and show them how to cure the common cold.”

  “But we won’t let them become dependent,” Collingdale had said. “We won’t be there after the Event.”

  “It’ll be too late. They’ll know we exist. And that will be enough.”

  Maybe he was right. Who really knew? But the natives weren’t human, so maybe they’d react differently. And maybe Holder didn’t know what he was talking about. It wouldn’t be the first time an authority had gotten things wrong.

  JUDY STERNBERG WAS a little on the bossy side, and she ran her operation like a fiefdom. She laid out each day’s assignments in detail, added projects if time permitted, and expected results. She might have run into some resentment except that she didn’t spare herself.

  Her specialty was, she explained, the interrelationship between language and culture. “Tell me,” she was fond of saying, “how people say mother and I’ll tell you how their politics run.”

  Like Hutch, she was a diminutive woman, barely reaching Collingdale’s shoulders. But she radiated energy.

  They’d been out more than five weeks when she asked whether he had a moment to stop by Goompah Country, which was the section of the ship dedicated to the linguists, housing their workrooms and their individual quarters. “Got something to show you,” she said.

  They strolled down to B Deck, started along the corridor, and suddenly a door opened and a Goompah waddled out and said hello. Said it in the native tongue. “Challa, Professor Collingdale.”

  Collingdale felt his jaw drop. The creature was realistic.

  “Meet Shelley,” Judy said, trying to restrain a smile.

  Shelley was even shorter than her supervisor. In costume she was wide, green, preposterous. Her saucer eyes locked on him. She adjusted her rawhide blouse, tugged at a yellow neckerchief, and held out a six-fingered hand.

  “Challa, Shelley,” he said.

  She curtsied and pirouetted for his inspection. “What do you think?” she asked in English. The voice had an Australian lilt.

  “We haven’t done much with the clothing yet,” said Judy, “because we’re not really sure about texture. We’ll need better data. Preferably samples. But by the time we get there, we’ll have our own team of Goompahs.”

  “Well,” he said, “it looks good to me, but I’m not a native.”

  She smiled. “Have faith. When we go down, nobody will be able to tell us from the locals.”

  Shelley took off her mask, and Collingdale found himself looking at an amused young blonde. Her figure in no way resembled Goompah anatomy. And he was embarrassed to realize he was inspecting her.

  “I suspect you’re right,” he told Judy.

  HE SENT A twenty-minute transmission to Mary, describing what they were doing, and telling her how much he’d have enjoyed having dinner with her tonight on the al-Jahani. “It’s very romantic,” he said, smiling into the imager. “Candlelight in the dining room, a gypsy violinist, and the best food in the neighborhood. And you never know whom you’re going to meet.”

  None of it made much sense, except that she would understand the essential message, that he missed her, that he hoped she’d wait for him. That he regretted what had happened, but that it was a responsibility he really couldn’t have passed off.

  He had been getting messages from her every couple of days. They were shorter than he’d have preferred, but she said she didn’t want to take advantage of Hutch’s kindness in providing the service and run up the bill on the Academy. It was enough to satisfy him.

  This was the only time in his life that he’d ever actually believed himself to be in love. Until Mary, he’d thought of the grand passion as something adolescents came down with, not unlike a virus. He had his own memories of June Cedric, Maggie Solver, and a few others. He remembered thinking about each of them that he had to possess her, would never forget her, could not live without her. But none of it had ever survived the season. He’d concluded that was how it was: A lovely and charming stranger takes your emotions for a ride, and the next thing you know you’re committed to a relationship and wondering how it happened. He’d even suspected it might turn out that way with Mary. But each day that passed, every message that came in from her, only confirmed what now seemed true. If he lost her, he would lose everything.

  WHILE HE WAS composing the transmission to Mary, Bill had signaled him there was a message from Hutch.

  “Dave,” she said, “you know about the hedgehogs.” She was seated behind her desk, wearing a navy blouse, open at the neck, and a silver chain. “It’s beginning to look as if all the clouds have one. Jenkins tells us there’s one at Lookout. The cloud has fallen away from it since it angled off to go after the Goompahs.” The imager zoomed in on her until her face filled the screen. Her eyes were intense. “It gives us a second arrow. When Frank uses the projectors, instead of just giving it a cube to chase, let’s also try showing it a hedgehog. If one doesn’t work, maybe the other will.

  “Hope everything’s okay.”

  HE WAS APPALLED to discover that some of his colleagues were actually looking forward to the coming disaster. Charlie Harding, a statistician, talked openly about watching a primitive culture respond to an attack that would certainly seem to them “celestial.”

  “The interesting aspect,” he said, “will come afterward. We’ll be able to watch how they try to rationalize it, explain it to themselves.”

  “If it were a human culture,” commented Elizabeth Madden, who had spent a lifetime writing books about tribal life in Micronesia, “they would look for something they’d done wrong, to incur divine displeasure.”

  And so it went.

  It would be unfair to suggest they were all that way. There were some who applauded the effort to get the natives out of the cities, get them somewhere beyond the center of destruction. But anyone who’d seen the images from Moonlight and 4418 Delta (where the first omega had hit) knew that a direct strike by the cloud might render irrelevant all efforts to move the population.

  Most nights, before retiring, he sent angry transmissions off to Hutch, damning the clouds and their makers.

  She seemed curiously unresponsive. Yes, it was a disaster in the making. Yes, it would be helpf
ul if we could do something. Yes, getting them out of the cities might not be enough. She knew all that, lived with it every day. But she never mentioned giving the Academy a kick in the rear to try to jump-start something.

  THEY HAD GOOD pictures of several of the isthmus cities, identified by latitude. Their names were not considered a critical order of business by the linguists, but since they would probably not survive the Event, it seemed appropriate to get past the numbers. Collingdale wondered which of them would turn out to be Mandigol.

  The cities were attractive. They were spacious and symmetrical, the streets laid out in a pattern that suggested a degree of planning mixed in with the usual chaotic growth that traditionally started at a commercial area and spread out haphazardly in all directions. Unfortunately, the patterns of the Goompah cities were exactly what would draw the cloud.

  Markover’s people had commented on a general style of design that had approximated classical Greek. They were right. Whatever one might say about the clownishness of these creatures, they knew how to lay out a city, and how to build.

  The center of activity in the cities was usually near the waterfront area. But he saw parks and wide avenues and clusters of impressive structures everywhere. Bridges crossed streams and gulleys and even, in a couple of places, broad rivers. Roads and walkways were laid out with geometric precision.

  Buildings that must have been private homes spread into the countryside, thinning out until forest took over. He spent hours studying the images coming from the Jenkins. The place wasn’t Moonlight, but it was worth saving.

  LIBRARY ENTRY

  The notion that a primitive race, or species, is best served by our keeping away from it, is an absurdity. Do we refrain from assisting remote tribes in South America or Africa or central Asia when they are in need? Do we argue that they are best left to starve on their own when we have wheat and vegetables to spare? To die by the tens of thousands from a plague when we have the cure ready to hand?