He recalls reading of such things, like Blunthead 40 Hotvent’s famous attempt to decipher ancient carvings by including cracks and growths to produce the desired meaning. Now Blunthead is remembered only for his foolishness rather than his genuine accomplishments.
For just a moment Broadtail is tempted to call it all off; find some excuse to cancel the trip and salvage his reputation. But that passes. He is sure the creatures are intelligent, and if he is wrong, who better than the Bitterwater Company to test his conclusions?
“I am aware of how fantastic my statements are,” he tells the group. “Therefore I beg all of you to be as rigorous as you can in testing what I say and examining all the evidence I present. I prefer to be proved wrong than to live in error.”
There are murmurs of approval from the others. Broadtail decides that it is better to be thought an honest fool than a liar or a crazy adult.
Ten
Rob was in his hammock catching up on sleep when his computer started beeping urgently. The hydrophone was picking up a large group of moving sound sources approaching the Coquille.
“Alicia?”
“Down here,” she said from the little worktable. Always trying to fit in a little work, even though she was wearing down to a stick figure. “I see it, too. It doesn’t look like Sholen. Do you think it is our Ilmataran friend?”
“I hope so. Looks like he’s brought along at least a dozen others. This could be trouble. I’ll suit up and—”
“And what? Let me sit in here and listen to everything by drone? Don’t be absurd.”
The two of them suited up. The slimy, clammy feel of the thick neoprene made Rob shudder. It had been—how long?—since the suits had been properly cleaned, or even completely dry. It was like putting on a secondhand condom.
They emerged from beneath the shelter to find eleven Ilmatarans scuttling about the camp, poking the anechoic coating on the Coquille, tasting the outflow from the portable generator, feeling Alicia’s catch nets and chattering among themselves in a concert of creaks, clicks, and crackling sounds.
An individual approached them. It looked like the one they’d spoken with before, but Rob wasn’t sure. He stood still as it came close enough to touch him, then clicked out 38. That was the identifier the other had used. Rob looked through the little lexicon Dickie had put together and tapped once—“Ilmataran,” or at least that’s what he thought he was saying.
The alien turned and spoke to its companions. A couple of them came clattering forward and began running their feelers and feeding tendrils over Rob and Alicia’s suits. They chattered among themselves a bit, then the first one addressed Rob again: “49-91-16,” which worked out to “Ilmataran extend-pincers touch (human?).”
“I think it is asking if they can touch us,” said Alicia.
“It’s a little late to ask permission. Do you have any problem with letting them run their feelers over you?”
“Only if it will not make you jealous.”
“Okay, I guess.” Rob tapped one of his hanging tools with his screwdriver. A moment later all the Ilmatarans surged forward. Rob stepped back nervously, wondering if maybe he’d agreed to get dissected or something worse this time.
About half of the group began touching him all over, chattering together all the time. They felt the material of his suit, probed the neck joint where the helmet attached, and gently moved his arms and legs to see how the joints worked. One became interested in his backpack, and Rob could feel it gently tugging on his air hoses and feeling the bubbles emerging from the hydrogen vent. Alicia had her own little circle of admirers.
“I think we should ask them what to call body parts,” said Alicia. “It would be wonderful to learn what they know about their own physiology.”
So for an hour Alicia and Rob sat within a clump of Ilmatarans, touching body parts and recording the tap-codes for each. They spent a couple of hours with the Ilmatarans before the natives began nodding off. It was kind of comical. Rob would be demonstrating his fingers or the sampling tongs to one of them, and suddenly the Ilmataran would go silent and curl up into an armored ball for about half an hour.
The first one who’d found them hung on the longest, but when he finally needed a nap, Rob and Alicia were alone for a while.
“Maybe we should go inside,” he suggested.
“Not yet. I don’t know how long they will sleep like this. I should hate to waste time getting undressed and suited up again.”
“So, what do you think? Are we communicating?”
“A little bit. I think Graves is right—their eidophones are imitations of sonar echoes. Unfortunately, what they consider important elements of an echo are not what our sonar devices use for imaging. The computer can recognize some of their words but not interpret them.”
“So for now we’re stuck with tapping.”
“Yes. The first one—the one with the wide flukes—he is a good teacher.”
“You can tell them apart?”
“You cannot?”
“Not really. There’s the one with all the crap growing on him, and the really big one. The rest all kind of blur together.”
“The one with the encrustations also seems to be a high-status individual. I don’t know if you noticed, but the others initiate conversations with him almost twice as often as they do with each other.”
“How the hell did you have time to notice that?”
“I dug up some chimp-behavior software and modified it to track interactions. I think I can create a social model with some more observations.”
“Jesus. You never stop collecting data, do you?”
“What else is there to do? I cannot make love to you every hour of the day, and eventually we must surrender and let the Sholen take us away. This may be the only chance ever for anyone to study the Ilmatarans directly.”
The two of them were quiet for a time, watching the sleeping Ilmatarans.
“You really think we’re going to have to give up?”
“Robert, we have ninety-two food bars left. Unless you wish to starve to death, that means we cannot stay longer than six weeks.”
“I’m pretty sure I can get the food machine running again.”
“That will provide calories, but we will need protein and vitamins. The APOS units will not work forever, either. We will eventually run out of argon. And we forgot to bring extra pressure drugs, so once our little medical pack is empty we will have to worry about neuropathy. And—”
“Okay! I know, I know. If you know we’re going to have to give up, why are we out here?”
“I already told you. We can gather data. For six weeks.”
When Broadtail wakes again most of the others are already busy. Three of the company are over with the creatures, showing off tools and examining some of their items. Longpincer and two others are gathered a little apart, conversing quietly. When Longpincer hears Broadtail moving about he calls him over.
“Speak with us, Broadtail!”
“Gladly! What are you discussing?”
“These creatures of yours.”
“Do you think they are truly intelligent, now that you cantouch and hear them?”
“Even if they are not, they are certainly strange enough to be an important discovery. I congratulate you.”
The praise stimulates Broadtail like a bag of stingers.
“There is a question we are all ignoring,” says Sharpfrill. “There is a flaw in your account of these creatures. If they truly come from beyond the ice, how do they pass through the ice into the ocean?”