Learning the World

Horrocks guessed he mirrored her embarrassment. They gazed at each other for a minute. Having known Genome since childhood no longer struck Horrocks as a difficulty. In a sense he had not known her at all. Her directness was refreshing, her sharing of his age and background attractive. He told her so.

She waved her inhaler under his nose. “It’s a strong anti-inhibitor,” she said. “And you’ve been sidestreaming it for half an hour.”

“You have me at an advantage,” he said.

“So I have,” she said, and took it.

12 — View from a Height

“Tapes!” Nollam shouted. “Tapes!”

As Darvin and Kwarive rushed in to join the growing huddle around the telekinematographic receiver, two of Nollam’s fellow-technicians scrambled and fumbled to load and thread what looked like two kinematograph reels, one full and one empty, with no projector between them.

Darvin peered over Orro’s shoulder, conscious of Kwarive’s chin and hand-claws digging into his.

“We should have had them ready to roll,” he heard Orro grumble. He paid no attention. The screen demanded it all. The press was still growing. Behind and around him people were clambering up racks and leaning forward.

The moving picture was a grainier black-and-white than a kinematographic film, yet less jerky, more fluid and realistic. It showed the map Kwarive had drawn, and peering over it their own staring faces from a minute earlier, then them turning and ru

The image changed again, to a figure like a human being without wings, and with small eyes, ears, and nose. The face appeared hairless, with a tuft on the crown of the head. Its mouth was moving, it seemed in synchrony with the sound that boomed from the loudspeakers of the apparatus: EEE UUUUMMMM III-IHHH EEESSS EEEEE… It went on like that, a sound like surf in a cave. It was hard to hear, for a moment, as everybody in the room gasped or cried out, Kwarive loudest of all. Darvin shook with astonishment. Thus far he had not so much as imagined the aliens, and the vague swirl of images in his head that he’d associated with them had been of things far more alien than this.

The alien turned and pointed. What had seemed baggy, wrinkled skin on his arms and chest slipped and moved, revealing itself to be a body covering, like a cloak but fitted and shaped. The picture became for a moment incomprehensible, a patchwork of varied shapes interspersed with bright surfaces and overlaid with fuzzy white blobs. It rotated about a vivid white line drawn from the top of the screen to near the middle, and gave way to a much darker area dotted with clumps of bright spots. This was repeated several times, alternating light and dark.

“It’s the inside of a cylinder,” said Kwarive.

The view snapped into perspective. A cylinder: of course.

Orro jumped. “It’s the inside of the ship!”

“That’s ridiculous!” said one scientist. “Where are the occupants? Where is the machinery?”

“Too small to see!” shouted Orro above the hubbub. “The white puffs are clouds. The bright patches are lakes. We’re looking at a landscape rolled like a map.”

At that point everyone fell silent. The similarity of the scene to a view, from a greater height than any of them had flown, of an entire country curving upward and wrapped around overhead was irresistible.

“The thing is vast,” breathed Markhan, pushing forward from the back of the crowd.

“We knew that already,” said Darvin. “For it to be visible by telescope at its distance,”

The alien voice continued. The viewpoint zoomed downward. As it sank they all saw what seemed to be a gliding man, which as it passed closer turned out to be a small flying machine with a propeller at the front. Orro turned and gri

The voice stopped and the picture changed again, to a scrolling display of line diagrams and row upon row of symbols. After some minutes of this the crowd began to relax and break up. Some who had rushed in drifted away, or hastened to their neglected duties. Some of the scientists went into immediate huddled conferences. Others remained transfixed by the incomprehensible sigils on the screen. The telekinematograph technicians paid more attention to the apparatus than to the display.

Markhan called one of them over. “More tapes!”

“Sorry, chief, we only have a couple more reels, and they’re right here.”

“How long does a tape last?”

“About half an hour.”

“Put out a call for more. Airship them in. Meanwhile, scrounge around for any used tapes. I don’t care what’s on them. Have them ready to tape over.”

The technician left, muttering under his breath.

“Might be a waste of time,” said Nollam. “Begging your pardon, chief, but even if we could read that, which we can’t, it’s flying up the screen too fast.”

“Couldn’t we run the tapes slowly?” asked Kwarive. A couple of the technicians laughed. Nollam gave them a sharp look and nodded to Kwarive.

“We couldn’t do it now,” he said, “but maybe with a bit of tinkering… I’ll think about it.”

“If necessary,” said Orro, “we could film the screen and then analyse the film frame by frame.”

“Not much use if we can’t read the script,” said Darvin.

“Forget the script,” said Markhan. “These diagrams we glimpse here and there might tell us much.”

Kwarive scratched Darvin’s back and moved away from behind him. She walked over and stood beside the receiver.

“What,” she asked Nollam, “was the first clear picture that came up?”

“Ah!” he said. “That map thing you drew.”

Kwarive smacked one hand onto the other. “As I thought,” she said. “What we’re seeing here is a reply. Somebody recognised the map as a communication, and sent it back as an acknowledgment, then responded with its own message: first the wingless alien, then a view of the interior of the ship, then all this data.”

“But that map wasn’t your first stab at communicating,” said Markhan.

“No,” said Kwarive, “but it was the first one they recognised. They recognised the map because it corresponded to something they’d already seen — the coastline of Seloh’s Reach, from space.”

“You’re right,” said Orro. He stalked forward and joined her. “And I’ll tell you something else: this is not a communication with us.”

“I don’t follow,” said Markhan.

“If it were,” said Orro, “I should expect, perhaps, some simple pictograms. A series of numbers, like that idea we had about stacks of stones. A diagram of the solar system, a drawing of the ship, a sketch of the aliens’ anatomy. Instead, we get what may be a greeting in the aliens’ own language, followed by screeds of text, also in their own language. It’s as if it’s addressed to somebody on Ground, all right, but somebody who understands.”

“Maybe it’s meant for the electric shittles,” said Darvin, in a tone lighter than he felt.

Orro shook his head. “No. If it were, it would be on the same etheric wavelength as the previous transmissions. This is on the same wavelength as our own telekinematography, and is evidently intended—”

“No,” said Nollam. “Same wavelength and frequency. Started coming through clear, that’s all.”

“That makes my point just as strongly. It’s not directed at the shittles. It’s directed at us, or rather, at someone or something else for which they mistake us.” Darvin felt the fur on his back prickle. “You’re saying that someone or something else is among us?”

“No,” said Orro. “Merely that the aliens think there is.”

“Perhaps,” said Kwarive, “they think others of their species, but not of their… expedition, are here?”