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Embracing the Alien
by Geoffrey A. Landis
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Science Fiction
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Fictionwise, Inc.
www.fictionwise.com
Copyright ©1992 Geoffrey A. Landis
First published in Analog Magazine of Science Fiction and Fact, November 1992
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* * *
I write this in the human language. The very fact that I write in their language tells how much I have fallen.
To write down the deeds of others, black laser-carved hieroglyphs on thin white rectangles, what timra is there in this? This is not our way. The way of the true people is to share directly, breathe in our pod-mate's air, share each other's soil, and let our experiences merge, without interpretation, without words.
But the great pod-fathers have instructed us to embrace difference, to root with strangers and let our seed grow rich. The universe is great and we are small; if we fear change we will be destroyed, the pod-fathers tells us; and so I have been sent out to cross the universe in the company of strange-smelling, strangely shaped predators. I have come to adopt their ways, to think their thoughts and act their actions.
But understand them, I do not.
* * * *
The ship of the humans travels at unimaginable speeds. Their curiosity is flickering, intense but transitory; they dart from place to place like pollinating insects, always pausing but never stopping to know any one place in fullness. I have seen marvels without end, some menacing, some harmless. They have no sense of pod, no sense of species-preservation beyond their selves. One day, I fear, they will in innocence awaken something greater than themselves that will destroy them without their ever knowing the danger. Before, I would have said that they could not conceive of such a threat. But I have seen it, have seen that they comprehended the threat, even embraced it. In truth, they seem to accept species destruction. They embrace the alien.
I thought I understood them. Now I fear I cannot.
* * * *
Torri is the name I have taken among the humans. The syllables are easy for them to pronounce, with no meaning in their language. In the true speech it is close in pronunciation to the word that means “alone."
The City of Anchorage is a ship of the humans’ curiosity, and my duty station is to be aboard observing them. City of Anchorage was at once both a large ship and many small ones. The powered core ferried with it the scientific stations, each one itself a small ship. It would drop these stations to gather their data at sites of interest on planetary surfaces or in orbit near astrophysical sites, then vanish back into the invisible topology of FTL space.
Six of the stations had been dropped. The station with which I was observer was next. It had the name Anchorage Station Seven, but the humans referred to it only as the Igloo. Our drop was to be an unusual area of space given their designation ‘Praesepe cluster.’ The humans’ gravity telescopes had shown mass there, but their optical telescopes showed nothing. They calculated that the cluster primary was a highly dense object, possibly a black hole. The humans, as always briefly curious about anything they thought unusual, wanted to drop our scientific station into the system to investigate further.
Through the large portal I saw only the emptiness of space, speckled by distant stars. The captain of the ship, Ringelman, was with the technician Varju in our station.
Varju was a member of a species that had no name for themselves until the humans named them the stripeys; the name refers to a violet-grey surface coloring invisible to my range of vision. It was the only other non-human on the ship. To me, Varju looked much like a human, with two legs slightly longer than the humans', two arms, and an infrared signature of about three-ten Celsius pulsing warm and cool with the syncopated rhythm of a triple-chambered heart. Its—his—race had been met by the humans some two centuries before the humans met us, and they had assimilated to the humans quickly and thoroughly, so completely that I thought of him as another human, only slightly different in shape and size from the others. Even the pronoun it chose to use—he—made him seem to emulate humans, though he was not of their seeding caste. His pod came from a star even further from pod-home than the human's star, and so his people and ours have never met, save on the human's ships. They are neither predator nor prey to us. Varju and I maintained a distant but cordial relationship.
“The primary of this system is indeed a black hole,” said Varju. Like the humans, his people also collect knowledge for the sake of knowledge, using the methodical curiosity they call science, and often enjoy showing off what they know. “I can detect no accretion disk surrounding the event horizon. This may be an indication of great age."
“Better not get too close,” said the pilot of our station. She was a human named Stakowski. She was always on duty, but when the station was docked to the ship core she had no primary duties, and she was as likely to be up on the science level as in her piloting egg. “These things have a bad rep for swallowing ships."
“Black holes are quite fascinating astrophysical objects,” said Varju. The tendrils behind his neck curled and uncurled slowly as he talked. “If one could approach the event horizon of a black hole, time would slow down. Inside the event horizon, according to theory, time and space reverse roles."
“All I know is,” said the pilot, “I don't want to be the one to try it."
“Can you get a telescope on it?” Captain Ringelman asked.
I could see it clearly, and was momentarily surprised that the humans couldn't. “It's right there,” I said.
“I don't see anything,” she said.
“It would be more visible if you could see it in the infrared spectrum,” I said, slightly apologetically, for the humans do not see very well beyond a very narrow spectrum, and dislike being reminded of it.
Varju turned to the view screen behind him and spoke to the computer. “Spectrum infrared center five microns compression three—” a faint blur became visible in the center of the computer screen as Varju continued without pausing “—magnification ten, contrast plus ten.” The faint blur enlarged to fill most of the screen, showing a black disk with a dark red corona around it, similar to the human's sun blocked by their large moon.
“What are we seeing?” the pilot asked.
Varju answered with a distant, distracted air. “You're looking at the heating of interstellar gas as it falls into the black hole."
A wavering, reddish-blue shape started to glow at the edge of the disk. Varju frowned, a facial movement that he had apparently learned from the humans, although without flexible skin over his face the gesture appeared like a war-sign to me. “Something is happening on the event horizon."
“What is it?” asked the captain.
Varju seemed puzzled and slightly awed. His neck tendrils stood out straight. “I don't know."
I looked out the porthole and saw ... something. I shut my infra-eyes, then my chromatic eyes, but could not decypher what I saw. I could feel it, too, like a slowly-changing electrostatic field. “My sense organs are picking something up. An energy of some kind."
“Good,” said the Captain. She smiled. “You'll have something to investigate. Prepare to drop the station."
* * * *
The captain sent me down to find Jared Brown, her first mate (th
ough as far as I could see he was not mated to the captain) and the commander of our station. His name was once mentioned as having an amusing overtone, since the name was opposite to the coloration of his skin. This is a human subtlety almost invisible against the infrared glow of their body temperature, but it was explained that a lightness of skin pigment was quite unusual.
He was off-shift, but it was not yet his sleep schedule.
The core of the human ship is larger than it has need to be, with whole rooms devoted to specialized socializing activities. I found him in the commons room sipping at a mixture of ethanol and water. This is a chemical combination poisonous for us, but necessary for metabolic function in some (but not all) humans. He sat at a table with a personal viewer, musing over some sort of two-dimensional images. Another, a woman, had entered just before me. I knew her; she and Brown had been doing a courtship dance for several days. The captain had not specified urgency, so I took this as an opportunity to observe humans, my primary mission.
She rested her head on her hands and looked silently across at him. After a moment he looked up at her. I couldn't interpret his expression.
Apparently she could. “You look ... sad?” she said. “Wistful?"
“Just a bit nostalgic, I guess.” He sighed.
“You want to talk?"
Brown silently slid the viewer around so she could see the photographs. “Memories from college."
“A friend?"
“Someone I knew."
“Ah.” Her tone was carefully neutral. “Why are you thinking about her now?
“Black hole,” he said. “Being so close to one now brought her to mind. She was on the Beagle when it entered the Cygnus X-1 system."
“Ah,” she said. The Cygnus X-1 disaster was well known by space-farers; even I knew of it. She didn't have to say anything more.
“She died as she wanted to live, doing the work she loved,” he said. He shook his head and smiled. “Pretty lucky, eh? How many of us get a chance like that? I'm told that her preliminary report on Cygnus X-1 is still a classic in the field.” He paused. “She had a real talent for physics. She could have...” Brown paused again, searching for words. “I don't know. She had such talent, such great potential. But never got a real chance to see where it would lead."
He shook his head and picked up his drink. “Maybe that's good. Maybe it's better to die young, never be disappointed. I was offered a slot on the Beagle. If things had been otherwise, I might have been there too."
“Do you think you could have made a difference?"
“Saved the expedition? Of course not. I could have died with her."
They were both silent for a moment, and I considered that an appropriate time to announce my presence.
Brown looked up. “I'm sorry. Were you looking for me?"
“We're ready to drop as soon as you are. The captain wants you up-deck."
He stood up. “Hell. Okay, okay. Tell her I'm on my way."
* * * *
There were just the four of us in the station as we prepared for the drop: Brown, now commander of the station, Varju and I, and Stakowski in her piloting egg. Our weight fell away as the City of Anchorage slowed rotation, and then suddenly the all-pervasive low note of the station changed timbre. We had separated from the ship-core. Our pilot steadied the station, and in the viewscreen we watched the ship-core spin-up. Brown checked the function, Varju and I checked Brown, and Stakowski, presumably, ran her own checks. We were in orbit, and functioning perfectly. Brown took the radio. “Looking good here, guys. See you in two weeks. Don't be late, okay?"
“We'll be there,” came the reply. “Have a good session."
And suddenly the City of Anchorage sparkled and vanished.
We were alone.
I watched the black hole in the viewport. I had no duties requiring immediate action, and I watched it, fascinated, while Brown and Varju set the observational instruments in order. It seemed to oscillate slowly in shape, from oblate to prolate and back, and each orbit the knot of swirling energy at the edge of the event horizon seemed to be brighter than ever. And it continued to brighten.
Not brighter, I suddenly realized. Closer. Approaching the orbiting station. Perhaps it was the triggering of the faster than light engines. Could a gas cloud attack a ship? I didn't know. Could the others see it? I didn't know that either.
The constant, low throbbing of our engines suddenly stopped, and the warble of various alarms sounded through the station. Varju and Brown swam over to their consoles. “What was that?” Brown asked.
“Sudden overload on the power system,” the pilot replied. She was at a computer console, connected to some diagnostic routine on the ship's electrical systems. “Propulsion systems shut down automatically. I'm reading no detectable damage to the engines. They just won't put out power."
“What caused it?"
The pilot shook her head. “I don't know. I just don't know. The life support systems are still operational. We're down, but we're not dead.” She unbuckled from her jump-seat, pushed off from the deck with a spiraling upward leap, grabbed onto a go-bar and pulled herself headfirst into her piloting egg.
“Varju,” said Brown. “What's going on?"
Varju was frantic on his station, flicking the screen from one camera to another faster than I could even recognize the image. He shook his head; another gesture learned from the humans. “No information."
“Any signs of life?"
“Negative,” said Varju. “Unless the energy field itself is alive.” He paused, then continued, slowly. “A life form that evolved around a black hole would be very different from anything we know. They would have very different perceptions of space and time."
“Is there anything on the radio?"
“No."
“Let's try transmitting.” He waited while I brought the high-gain antenna on line. “Ready? Okay. This is Jared Brown of the Earth starstation Igloo
“Is anybody there?"
“Nothing.” It amused me that he seemed to expect that this thing, a thousand light-years away from his home planet, would be able to speak and understand English
“Varju? Anything?"
“High graviton flux in the energy field, showing unusual ordered flux patterns. Cohesive binding of a low entropy state ... sir, this energy field may display signs of intelligent life."
“Try another frequency. Try several frequencies.” Brown waited while the Varju patched the system.
“Is anybody there? We're in trouble. Is anybody there?"
A voice suddenly spoke. The intonation was unusual, but it was easy enough to understand. It was in the human speech, English.
“Human Brown. It is ... strange ... good to see you once again."
I abruptly recognized the voice. The overtones were different, but the rhythm was identical to the first mate's own voice.
“Identify yourself. How do you know me?"
Working furiously, Varju put something on the screen, perhaps the visual track from the radio signal. On screen it showed as a complex network of colored light surrounded by a glowing aura that wavered frantically.
“Names are of little significance to me,” the voice said. “Call me ... the one who stands outside. Or, perhaps, the one who loves life."
“You have damaged us,” said Brown.
“I do not think you realize exactly how much danger you are in."
“We are well aware of the dangers of black holes, thank you. We have no intention of approaching too close."
“That is the danger.” Surprisingly, the voice laughed. “No, Mate Brown. I am only finishing what you started long ago. Call it ... giving you an opportunity."
Pilot Stakowski was in her piloting egg, but with the hatch open to the science bay. She was watching her consoles. “We may be in trouble here,” she called out. “The event horizon of the black hole is oscillating, and the oscillations have been building in amplitude. That shouldn't be happening. The varying gravitational field i
s turning our orbit chaotic.” She tapped her keyboard and scanned the screen hastily. “Our orbital eccentricity is increasing. Hard to predict. If the resonance builds up..."
“That is impossible,” said Varju. “No possible force could generate gravity waves powerful enough to shift the orbit of a ten-million kilogram station. The energy required would be enormous."
Softly, as if to itself, Varju continued, “of course, if a life form evolved around a black hole, it might control enormous energy."
Brown reached for the radio, but it was already too late. I could feel the passing gravity waves now, millions of tiny fingers slowly stretching and then compressing my limbs, my internal organs.
The station made a sound like a generator revving down, and alarms began to sound as stress bult up on the station's structural shell.
“It's too late,” said Stakowski. Her voice was calm and professional. “On this orbit our periapsis grazes the event horizon, and I can't get the engines running. The station won't make it; we'll be pulled to spaghetti. This is it—"
The disk of blackness elongated; the boundary of blackness distorted, writhed. There was no sense of motion, and too little time for fear. I had a feeling of being stretched and compressed at the same time, and then there was a sudden sharp snapping crackle as the plasma cloud discharged against the station. The tendrils behind Varju's neck stiffened. The blur ahead of us enlarged, and then suddenly the station was elsewhere.
Swirls of ionized dust motes sparkled around the station, then faded. In the viewport was a blue planet with white clouds and unrecognizable continents in brown and green against blue oceans. Far away behind it, a comet was visible against the stars.
“What the hell?” said Brown.
“Impossible,” Stakowski muttered. She reset all the circuit breakers, and the lights and control panels came back to life. “Impossible ... unless ... no, that's unconceivable.” Stakowski and Varju argued for a moment, in rushed sentences too low and clipped for me to follow. Then she turned to us and spoke again. “The only way I can figure it,” she said, “is the gravity waves. It seems impossible, but a gravity wave could have exactly cancelled the tidal distortion of the gravity field as we skimmed the surface of the event horizon and prevented us from being torn apart. It's possible in theory, but...” She paused. “Well, anyway, it is possible in theory."
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