Explorer

“This is dangerous,” Jase muttered, in Ragi. “This is very dangerous, is it not, nadi?”

“One can hardly assume anything, nadi-ji.” He remembered the senior captain’s requirement and changed to ship-speak. “Dangerous, yes, assuming that they’re assembling our images instead of trying to decode. At least I don’t think they can put them together wrong.”

Sabin shrugged. “Can’t be worse than sitting here mute. Transmit.”

It went.

All in high and low beeps.

Off/on, black/white on a field limited by a burst of black pixels. Next screen. Next image. One didn’t even know if the eyes weren’t compound, but if they communicated in light they had to have some sort of light-reception, which all his reading said added up to eyes of some sort.

Light-sensitive patches didn’t get a species to communicating starship to starship in light pulses. He hoped.

They waited.

And waited.

“These delays,” he murmured finally, “don’t seem robotic. There’s some sort of thought process that takes time. Living creatures take time. And they’re not transmitting otherwise, are they? I’m assuming they’re doing things on their own, no consultation outside.”

“Maybe. Maybe they’ll blow us to hell in the next second,” Sabin said. “Is the dowager still passing out hot tea?”

“She—” Bren began to say.

Then a series of beeps flooded back.

“Display!” Jase said.

One/forty-nine. One/forty-nine. One/forty-nine.

Then variance. A row with two separated black dots. Like theirs.

Next row. More image.

Third row. Image taking shape.

Techs glanced surreptitiously from their consoles, violating the inviolable rule.

“Eyes!” Sabin snapped. All motion stopped but the building of that image.

Two ships met in space.

“It’s not our image,” Bren said. The ships were further separated. “They’re not mirroring. They’re i

Next frame. Next and next and next, and on and on.

“Display in sequence,” Bren said. “Eight frames a second.”

Ships blinked into proximity.

“Two per second,” Bren said more modestly, and the screen gave back a sedate approach, two ships approaching one another.

The image came in three times.

“They’ve got the idea,” Jase muttered.

Then a pause.

Then another series of animations.

Not theirs. Again, not theirs.

Station in space. Ship approaching. Approaching. Slowed. Stopped.

Stayed stopped. Stayed stopped. Stayed stopped. Blinked. Blinked numerous times.

Emitted slow-moving black dot toward station.

Station emitted fast black dot.

Convergence. Debris tracks. More black dots coming fast.

Ship emitted fast dot.

Station emitted debris.

“Damn,” Bren said. “Damn!” He had no need to translate that. The images spoke for themselves. “What they sent out first wasn’t a shot.”

“We don’t know that,” Sabin said.

“They’ve drawn a distinction. What they sent wasn’t what station sent back. And they’re talking to us, Captain: they’re not lunatics. They’re trying to communicate what happened ten years ago, and they don’t know we’re not dangerous.”

“Good. Let them keep thinking we are dangerous.”

“Their send is repeating,” Jase said. “Shall we answer?”

Deeper and deeper into the maze. And one wrong step meant a whole wrong branch—one that might lead them all to destruction.

“Repeat our own first sequence.” Station evacuation. Departure. Station destruction. He held the pen and the notebook and tried to think what else mattered in the meeting. What else two ill-met species possibly had to say to one another that could reassure, after the disaster…

If they didn’t have fuel—if they couldn’t follow the program he laid down, simply because they’d have to stop for years and mine—what he proposed might be impossible. Might lead the alien to attack.

“We don’t have fuel enough to get to Gamma if we take the station population aboard,” Bren said. “Am I right in that?”

“We can’t,” Sabin said, with a sharp, estimating look at Jase. “If we go in, and they don’t have fuel for us—we have to mine, Mr. Cameron. With all that means. Once we take a significant number of people aboard, we’re a sitting target.”

“Rock and a hard place,” Bren muttered, and still didn’t know what to draw.

Transmission was coming in.

New one.

Black round shape. That developed downward into arms. Snowman shape. Short, thick legs. Alien ship beside it.

His heart beat fast.

“That’s them,” he murmured. “That’s them .”

“Wait on any answer,” Sabin said.

“We daren’t hesitate. They’ve asked. They’re not shooting. We need to answer them. Give them the man-image again. Refine our image. Make more frames. Make it more lifelike. Stall!”

“Station may hear this. Don’t mention atevi in your pictures.”

A lie. The first hour of dealing with a new species, an unknown civilization with unknown parameters, where the ability to show there were two species united here might be a potent argument toward negotiation, and he was supposed to start with a lie that wouldn’t ultimately blow up all communication they might establish once the aliens did find out.

Of course. The Guild was involved.

“Transmit the human silhouette,” he said with a sinking feeling at the pit of his stomach. “Then repeat the station evacuation sequence.”

“Do it,” Sabin said. Quick job. They did that.

“Amplify that to men, women, children. Refine it.”

“Yes, sir.” This time without looking to Sabin for confirmation. Several consoles worked, dividing up the task, hauling images out of archive, converting them to silhouettes, to basic animations.

Meanwhile the alien had been silent. One hoped someone over there on the other ship was applying constructive thought—and not that some sort of politics was debating. They couldn’t penetrate that veil to know which was true.

“Image ready,” C1 reported.

“Transmit,” Bren said, and at Sabin’s nod, that happened.

More silence.

Ominous silence. At least a pregnant silence. Something was going on over there. One envisoned a furious debate of creatures more or less people-like. Stocky. The images they had showed that. Dared one show a human face in their graphics? Or might it frighten them right out of the dialogue?

A new transmission began to come in, faster than before, a step by step sequence, a skewed design. More pixels.

Their techs compensated. The image of human ship and the alien ship refined itself, then refined itself again.

“They’re pushing a clearer image,” Bren said. “More detail. More data from us. Or to give more to us.”

“I’m not enthusiastic,” Sabin muttered. “More detail, more information.”

“Listen to him,” Jase said. “Senior captain, at a certain point this is psychology. A rhythm of cooperation. Don’t break it if he doesn’t advise breaking it.”

“We get as we give, captain. Silences mean something. They’re thinking, over there. It’s not a robot, I don’t think. Data density means something. They want more. They’ll give more to get it. It’s all communication.”

“Do it,” Sabin said, not happy.

Pixels had quadrupled. Animation ran the old image, the ship’s approach to the station. Showed—

Showed a figure getting into a small craft. Backed off. Showed the craft going toward the station. Showed a missile strike. The wreckage going every which way. A figure spi

“Hell!” Bren said. “Hell! They sent a ma

Sabin said not a thing. Neither did Jase.

Then: “Mr. Cameron,” Sabin said calmly, “I believe this sort of mess is your specialty.”

Counter that just-transmitted charge with contrition? Regret? The occupants of that ship weren’t guaranteed to feel anything remotely compatible. There was no telling what they felt about the situation.