Lucky and Tiny were disentangling. They curled and chirruped, rolled sideways, trilled and broke apart.
Now Fletcher opened the passage to Tiny's cell and the smaller worm slid obediently into it. She remarked, "As I've said before, we have not tamed the worms. The creatures appear to cooperate, yes; but we rather think that they're learning the routine of our operations more than anything else. Even a kitten can learn to identify a refrigerator as the source of milk."
Fletcher checked that the passage was clear, then closed the panel behind Tiny. Lucky was now alone in the chamber. It twitched its hands impatiently-the same gesture that Tiny had used the first time I'd been here. The big worm slid up to the panel that concealed the rabbit puzzle and waited.
"You want to notice what Lucky's doing now," said Fletcher. "Every time we change the puzzle, we also put it behind a different panel. Lucky already knows exactly where this one is going to appear."
Lucky looked up at the glass then and issued a rapid, highpitched trill. There were chuckles in the auditorium. "That's as clear a hurry-up as I've ever heard," someone remarked. Lucky repeated its cry, then returned its attention eagerly to the panel.
"What you're seeing now," said Fletcher, "is a very clear indication that the worm has learned not only to anticipate, but to actually enjoy these tests."
She opened the panel for Lucky then. The puzzle had been reset, this time with a spotted black-and-white rabbit. The rabbit was trembling in the cage.
Lucky burbled in delight and moved immediately to the panel. It unfolded its arms from its upper back, reached forward over its eyes, and began to work the knobs and switches of the puzzle with a swift deliberation. There was no uncertainty in the animal's movements.
Almost immediately, the puzzle chimed and the glass case popped open. There were gasps in the auditorium. Fletcher looked satisfied. So did Lucky. The worm grabbed the rabbit and popped it into its mouth. Again, the wet slobbery crunching.
Fletcher opened the passage to Lucky's cell, waited to see that Lucky was returning to its cage, closed the panel, and then closed the curtains of the theater. She paused for just the briefest moment, as if studying her notes, then looked out over her audience. The scientists looked excited. The soldiers looked grim. I could understand both reactions.
"There you have it," Fletcher said. "A very clear demonstration that the worms do communicate." She added, "I want to stress the importance of what you've seen here. Without this demonstration, a very good case could be made that a large part of the behavior of these creatures is instinctive and ritualized. We now have proof that they're capable of a lot more. How much more, we're still investigating.
"We do know that the communication between the two specimens-the transmission of information about the puzzle-occurs in the communion state. When the worms have visual and auditory access to each other, but are prevented by physical barriers from achieving communion, the transmission of information does not occur. It only occurs in the presence of communion.
"But. . ." and she paused to consider her next remarks carefully, "we still don't know what the mechanism of transmission is. We have extensively analyzed the chirps and trills of the creaturesand there is not enough patterning or modulation in the cries to indicate even a rudimentary language. At most, the chirruping calls are emotional indicators. We have identified a few calls to which we have assigned values corresponding to curiosity, interest, delight, impatience, anger, rage, anguish and despair; but we have not found any calls, patterns of calls, phonemes or patterns of phonemes, that are ever repeated with any correspondence to events in the physical universe.
"We have tested for chemical communication. The gastropedes have a very sophisticated set of pheromones which vary with their moods-but again, there is no pattern, and the bandwidth of the channel is too narrow to carry the necessary transmission. You don't send stereovision images by Morse code.
"We have measured the radio emissions of the worms, and the gastropedes are low-level transmitters. While the bandwidth of this particular channel is wide enough, all that we have been able to detect so far is static and noise. It may be that worms in the wild are capable of radio transmission, but these specimens are unconscious to it. We've tried broadcasting signals to them, but the only effect we've been able to produce is a nervous rigidity. It looks like-but we're not yet willing to say it is-a kind of insane terror."
She looked up at someone in the back of the room. "No-hold your questions for a minute. This may answer some of them. We wondered ourselves why the worms would have this potential if they don't use it. Our best guess is that it's a byproduct of the way the creature's nervous system is structured, and that it's too recent an evolutionary event for the species to have turned it into either an advantage or disadvantage. Just because the Chtorrans have a half-billion-year evolutionary head start on us doesn't mean that their evolution has stopped. In fact, we are very likely seeing their ecology in a state of severe chaos as it tries to adapt to this world. "But I've strayed from the subject-the mechanism for communication. We've noticed that the worms begin every communion by touching their antennae at some point. We're not sure what this means either, but we've monitored the electrical pulses at the creatures' antennae and found some patterning-but again, it's not a communication pattern. It's too rhythmic and there's not enough variation. It looks a lot like an alpha wave.
"But we do know that communication is occurring during communion. We've attached sensors to both animals and discovered that all of their body cycles synchronize during the act. When that moment of synchronicity occurs, the creatures demonstrate a rigid and frozen posture. Our best present hypothesis is that the mechanism of gastropede communication is multi-channel. The trilling cries might indicate the context of the information to be transmitted. The radio noise might contain some modulation we've missed. The physical gestures may mean something, as might the creatures' pheromones. We really don't know."
A hand from one of the scientists went up. "If you could identify the channel of communication, would it be possible to jam it in some way?"
Fletcher shrugged. "Maybe. It depends on the channel. We've identified the problem here. We're still a long way from the answer. "
"Can you give us a time frame?" asked one of the general's aides.
"No, I can't," Dr. Fletcher replied.
The general, with a thick Southern accent, spoke up then. "We wuh told, Doctuh Fletchuh, that you had infuhmation to present heah today that could be of vital military importance. Was that it? The wuhms talk to each othuh?"
"Yes, General, that was the point of the demonstration." She met his gaze with equanimity. "Was there something else?"
"Ah'm sorry, ma'am, Ah guess Ah would have preferred somethin' of real military importance. Like a weapon."
That was a mistake. Fletcher's eyes flashed angrily. "General," she said, looking directly at him, "I know you're here for answers. I wish I'had them to give to you. But right now, the very best this section can do is give you intelligence about the enemy; there's still too much we don't know about the worms; we still have a long way to go before we can start suggesting ecological countermeasures."
She raised her voice to include the rest of the room. "Listen, the purpose of these demonstrations is to give all of you a better idea of what you're up against." And then she focused on the general again. "I don't claim to be knowledgeable in military procedures. I'm a scientist. But I asked you to be here because I think this could be important for you to know that our enemy is capable of a very sophisticated level of information transmission. It may be possible for the worms to spread the word about our procedures almost as fast as we disseminate our information about theirs."