Midnight.
Antonio was watching the eye blinks. They were lateral, they happened once about every six minutes, and they took seventeen seconds to complete. Close and open. And they always occurred simultaneously.
“It’s one creature,” Hutch said.
Antonio nodded. “Yes.”
“With a head several kilometers across?”
“I doubt it. This thing doesn’t have a head. Not in the way we understand the term. But it’s connected somehow.”
She blinked the navigation lights. The luminous patch reappeared. Went off. Came on again.
Hutch repeated the pattern, and got a quick series of flashes in return. “I think you’re right,” Antonio said. “It wants to talk.” She seemed unusually subdued. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“What do you do after you’ve said hello?”
“With this thing? I have no idea.”
She turned on the starboard green light. Blinked it three times. Then she ran the strobe, a series of red flashes, for a total of five seconds. Blinked starboard green three more times. Flashed the steady red light to port, and blinked the green nine times.
The patch appeared and faded.
She did it again. Same series.
“What are you doing?” asked Antonio.
“Hold on.”
The patch reappeared. Blinked three. Then, higher in the cloud, they saw a burst of white light. The patch blinked three more times. Then a steady red glow. And finally the patch again, blinking to nine.
“So,” said Antonio, “it more or less copies what you did. It didn’t quite get the colors right, but what’s the point?”
“I’m not sure yet.” She tried another series: Blink green twice, run the strobe, two more blinks, port side red, then four blinks.
She leaned forward, and Antonio got the sense her fingers were crossed.
The cloud was quiet. Then the luminous patch came back and went off, the white burst reappeared momentarily, the patch appeared again and faded.
Antonio sighed. “I still don’t see what it’s supposed to mean.”
The red glow showed up again. Lasted a few seconds.
Hutch leaned forward.
The patch came on again and went off. Once.
Yes! She raised a fist over her head.
“What happened?” asked Antonio.
“Two times two equal four,” she said. “It replied one times one equals one.”
Antonio asked her to run the series again, and he saw. The white burst became a multiplier. The steady red light was an equals sign. “I’m impressed,” he said.
She sent two times three, followed by the green light, a short and a long.
The cloud responded with a steady red light and six blinks. The green signal established itself as a question mark. It was only a short distance from there to I understand. And its reverse.
“So where do we go from here?”
She tried two times two and flashed five. The creature returned a single yellow light. A quick flash. On and off. Three plus one equals five got another yellow flash. So she had no.
She used the strobe. Kept it on for maybe ten seconds. I understand. She did two times two and gave the correct answer.
The creature did its yellow light again, longer this time. Yes.
Gradually, during the day, she built a primitive vocabulary. Plus and minus, up and down, forward and backward. She got inside and outside by sending out the lander, under Phyl’s control, and bringing it back in. Inside. Outside. Or maybe it was launch and recover. Well, let it go for now.
The creature varied its signals by intensity and length of illumination and by a range of hues to equate to Hutch’s terms.
To establish you and me/us, she dispatched the lander again, aimed its lights at the Preston, and sent her signal, three quick whites. Us. Then she directed the lander to spotlight the creature, and sent four. You.
It responded with a yellow-white light, and sent four. Then a puff of gas and dust blew out of the cloud wall, in the general direction of the ship. The yellow-white light blinked three times.
Okay. So we weren’t doing pronouns. It was names. The Preston was three; the creature in the cloud, four.
“Not bad, though,” said Antonio.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t gotten near the questions she wanted to ask. How long have you been here? Are you alone? Do you need help? Where are you from? Why are you sending bombs into the outer galaxy?
A bit too complicated for the language so far.
“I have an idea for alone,” Antonio said.
She tried it. Five. Pause. One. Then the signal she wanted to mean alone. Then seven pause one. And the alone signal again. And a third round. Using four with one and alone. Then one equals and the alone signal again.
When the creature responded nine and one, followed by one equals alone, she sent: You alone question mark.
The patch brightened. Yes.
Antonio gave her a broad smile. “Brilliant,” he said.
“You’re talking about yourself.”
“I know.” The smile got even wider. “We ought to give that thing a name.”
“I thought we had.”
“What?”
“Frank,” she said.
“There’s only one of the damned things?” asked Jon.
“That’s what it says.”
“Is it responsible for the omega clouds?”
“We haven’t been able to ask that question yet.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know how to spell omega.”
He had no patience with her sense of humor and let her see it.
“Look, Jon,” she said, “the thing’s about as easy to communicate with as you are.”
“All right,” he said. “Do the best you can.”
“You’re getting as bossy as Matt.”
Matt’s voice broke in: “I heard that.”
“Hi, Matthew.” She had known, of course, he’d be listening. “Just kidding.”
“So you’re talking to the critter now,” Matt said.
“More or less. So far it’s been a limited conversation.”
“All right. I agree with Jon. Find out whatever you can. It would be nice to know what’s going on. What the reason is for the omegas.”
“I’ll ask it when I can think of a way to do it.”
“Okay. Meantime, you’re too close to the damned thing. I wish you’d back off.”
In another age, Dr. Science had bitten his upper lip when he was about to reveal why, say, no matter how strong you were and how well you could fly, you couldn’t support a falling plane in midair. He bit his lip now, while his eyes acquired a distant look.
“What?” she asked.
“It might be stuck here.”
“Stuck? How could it be stuck? I mean, if it can fire off omegas, it should be able to clear out itself.”