Omega

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 first couple of years because everybody who wanted a lightbender just checked one out and went down to the surface. They were forever ru

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 di

“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 di

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 begi

“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 helpful 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.