*Cyrus T. Lodge? Very well, Royce, I will do my best.*
The crucial element of the garden conferences, however, was that they took place in accelerated time. To Hunter’s jubilation, he soon discovered that he and Cyrus could have a leisurely ten-minute conference under the sycamore tree while only eight or nine seconds passed in the conference room back in the real world. At a time compression rate of sixty or seventy to one, Hunter could, therefore, in the space of a second or two, get a tremendous amount of information and advice from Atlas in his guise of a down-home Yankee lawyer.
By the last day of the trials, Hunter knew that he and Atlas together could have beaten the world’s dozen best chess players and bridge teams, playing all matches simultaneously. For a few euphoric moments the feeling of godlike invincibility was overwhelming, then he brought himself sharply back to reality with the reminder that those games would have been against mere humans beings. How would he and Cyrus stack up in the real game—against beings who were almost certainly his intellectual superior?
The following morning at eight o’clock the Trajendi landed.
“You’re by yourself?”
“Yes,” replied Hunter with a tiny inward smile as his go-buggy halted before the door of the Trajendi’s ungainly spacecraft sitting in the middle of the Nevada desert. He was sure that he had surprised them: they must have expected to be met by the assembled leaders of Earth in all their awesome panoply. To be greeted almost casually by a lone man in a sport shirt and slacks sitting in a ground-effect machine…
Would they see it as a calculated insult? Sheer provincial ignorance? Intelligent caution? Or as the arrogance that comes from knowing that one’s own species is supremely powerful, with no reason at all for undue ceremony to be given to a single spaceship with a three-member crew?
However the Trajendi interpreted it, it would give them something unexpected to think about.
And, of far more importance, it would also give—was already giving—Atlas several million bits of information to work with as he began the colossal task of creating physiological and psychological profiles of the Trajendi. But with a distant part of his mind, Hunter morosely wondered how Atlas would be able to do anything at all.
For the Trajendi, when confronted in real life, were far more alien and more inscrutable than Major Lubchek had been able to convey.
“There are other humans in the buildings behind you,” objected the voice from the spacecraft’s door, where a single Trajendi stood in deep black shadows. “I can see them clearly.”
“Yes,” agreed Hunter.
“Then why are you alone?”
*That is an almost exact reproduction of the voice of Major Stefan Lubchek,* commented Atlas.
*Yes, I thought I recognized it.*
“There is no need for more than one of us,” said Hunter.
The colors in the bowl-like protrusion on top of the being that confronted Hunter flickered and swirled. “We were not informed by Major Stefan Lubchek that your species is either telepathic or of a hive mentality.”
“We are most definitely not. I myself am Royce Hunter, a single, autonomous individual with considerable free will who has been delegated full plenipotentiary powers by the leaders of Earth to negotiate with you. There is therefore no need for more than one of us.”
“Very well,” said the Trajendi voice after a moment’s silence. “Come into our craft.”
“We have prepared a conference room. We would prefer that we hold our meetings there.”
“Impossible. As you can see, we are incapable of speaking with you in a direct fashion.”
That, of course, was true, and everyone on Earth had known it ever since the account of Major Lubchek’s First Contact had become public knowledge.
For the Trajendi didn’t speak aloud, and had no apparent vocal or auditory systems. As far as Major Lubchek could tell, they communicated between themselves by directing rapidly pulsing colored beams at each other’s light tower. That was what Lubchek had called the hump in the center of the Trajendi’s wedge-shaped back and that was the name that had stuck. The Trajendi had talked to Lubchek by shooting colored beams at a small round protrusion on the wall of their spacecraft; it in turn had generated garbled sounds that within a few minutes of the initial encounter had clarified to become recognizable human speech.
Which seemed to indicate that even if the Trajendi themselves were speechless, they had ample experience in dealing with species that weren’t.
Hunter studied the alien being in front of him while its light tower flickered, apparently in conversation with its companions in the ship behind it.
This particular Trajendi wore a loose yellow garment that covered its entire body except for the light tower on its back. Its tripedal body was clearly wedge-shaped, with legs the size and thickness of a man’s arm on each of the three corners of the wedge. The creature moved smoothly and gracefully, each leg apparently having a universal joint about where a human’s knee would be. The legs ended in eight-digited hands that apparently had the equivalent of two opposable thumbs. It was difficult to tell with any certainty, for all three of the alien’s hands were encased in smooth orange gloves.
The Trajendi’s body was a little over three feet long. Two feet wide at its broadest point, it then tapered to the width of its forward leg, which seemed more of a seamless extension of the Trajendi’s body than a mere appendage. Except for the protruding light tower, the body was a uniform foot and a half thick.
*It is possible that it has an exoskeleton,* observed Atlas, *like that of a crab or lobster, but given the fluidity of its movements, that is highly unlikely. Assuming an interior skeleton and a bodily composition roughly equivalent to our own, I estimate its weight at 135 to 155 pounds.*
*How do you think it sees?*
*Our instruments detect no sensory organs beyond the light tower on its back. Its visual organs must be in there—if in actuality it has any at all.*
*Three hundred and sixty degree vision? Wouldn’t that overload its brain capacity? The whole body would have to be nothing but brain.*
*Possibly it is. They may be like electric eels, capable of generating their own electrical current, thereby enabling the light beams to function. Or the beams may now be artificially augmented by devices concealed beneath their clothing or in the ship. And in any case, there is nothing to indicate that, even within the reference of their light towers they are not “seeing” in narrow bands no wider or more complicated than our own sight. Perhaps the primary purpose of the light towers is to absorb radiant energy, much as your own mouth is used for both speaking and for ingesting food. For the moment, we simply need more data.*
*Very well.*
Hunter returned his attention to the Trajendi. “I will enter your ship and we will discuss the site of our future conversations at greater length.”
“Yes, but you are seated in what appears to be a vehicle. For security reasons, that will have to be left outside.”
“Much of my original body has been severely injured in an accident.
I am unable to fully function on a physical level without this perfectly ordinary mechanical and electronic construct to assist me.”
“We are sorry to hear of your impairment. Nevertheless, we must insist that the security of our ship is paramount.”