It was nice to have an excuse to touch him, to allow herself to be close to him without worrying about what he might think. She liked the way it felt as they walked together, how they fit. She liked that he winced every once in a while so that they could maintain the farce. And she was scared enough about what had actually happened to him to make her reluctant to let go. The fingers of her left hand felt the muscles of his waist working as he walked. His arm over her shoulder was warm and heavy, even in this light gravity.
She was so distracted by these unusual sensations that it took her a while to realize that something was bothering her ears. It had started out as white noise, but they had to be approaching the source, because it grew louder. It sounded like high-pitched feedback, squeaking and squawking.
“What is that?” She grimaced. “It sounds like the feedback from an amplifier or—”
Nate stopped, abruptly. No, not just stopped, he jerked back, detaching them. She turned to look at his face. It had gone pale as milk.
“Nate? What is it? Are you in pain?” She could only think of the thing in his ear, praying to god it wasn’t burrowing into his brain or doing something equally gruesome.
“Nate, answer me!”
He shushed her. He was listening, and she realized it was the sound he was responding to. She listened, too. It occurred to her that the squeaking and squawking could only be alien speech. It was being broadcast from someplace nearby. That might have been interesting, if she weren’t so worried about Nate falling dead at her feet any second now.
“What do you hear?” he asked her, with emotion held deliberately at bay.
“Um… a high-pitched noise. Almost like radio feedback. I was thinking it might be alien speech.”
“Oh my god.” His forehead went smooth as his brow pulled back in amazement.
“What?”
But with a jolt, she knew what he was going to say. Knew. Her heart turned over, then began to race. She waited for him to tell her. He walked forward slowly, like a man in a dream. A smile started first in his dark eyes, then spread to his lips. He titled his head back and crowed.
“Nate?” she asked, smiling herself. “Nate? Is it—”
He grabbed her arms, pulling her close. “My god, Jill! I’m hearing English.”
The source of the voice was a metal sheet on a post stuck at the side of the street. It was blank until they approached; then the sheet turned transparent, revealing alien text on a screen.
Jill watched Nate with a mixture of excitement and disbelief. It was difficult to accept he was actually hearing anything other than what she was hearing—that god-awful racket. But if he was acting, it was a helluva performance. He stood at the post, an expression of happy confusion on his face, like someone trying to place a familiar tune.
“What’s it saying, Nate?”
“Um. ‘Remember your duty, citizens. Report to the fertility clinic today.’ ”
“What?”
“ ‘This is not an optional activity. Your identification will be recorded. Penalties will be enacted on any citizen… um… not recording sufficient time at the clinic, per Standard 10-39714—something something something…’ Then it starts over.”
Jill was skeptical. “Fertility clinic? Are you sure?”
“That’s what it says.”
“And you’re really hearing it in English?”
“Yes!” He gave her a goofy smile. “That thing in my ear—it’s a translator!”
She bit her lip, nodded. “Yeah, I got that much. What does it sound like though?”
He listened, as if sorting it out. “Like, uh, a very high, weird voice, except I’m actually hearing it form words in English. I mean, it’s funky, because it’s definitely not a human voice, but I can understand it.”
“And your ear doesn’t hurt?”
“No.” But he didn’t look thrilled to be reminded that he had a foreign body in his head. His brow cleared. “What amazing luck.”
He touched the metal sheet, and the alien characters shifted. Then his face closed up—she could see it, going from ecstatic to thoughtful to grim. Jill thought he was feeling the magnitude of what had just happened. She felt it, too.
“This changes everything, Nate.” Jill began to pace excitedly. “It’ll be easy to make contact with the aliens now. Damn. As for their technology—I wonder if we can find a computer that will talk to us? Can you imagine? If we can get it to read aloud, we could understand everything! And even barring that, after we make contact the aliens could—”
“Jill,” Nate said quietly. “That won’t be necessary.”
She stopped pacing. “Why not?”
“Because I’m seeing English as well.” His voice was numb.
“What?”
Nate reached out a tentative finger and pressed the screen. The screen changed again to a diagram. He laughed in a strangled voice and backed away from the monitor.
“Nate?”
He was laughing and crying at the same time, could hardly get the words out. “I p-pressed a button labeled… ‘directions’ and g-got a street grid. Our current position—” He doubled over with laughter, his face red. “Our current position is… marked: ‘You are here.’ Oh my god! ‘You are here’!”
“Nate, calm down.”
Jill didn’t—couldn’t—believe him. He had to be mistaken. And he was getting hysterical, and it was really scaring her.
She had the metal capsule she’d grabbed from Nate in her pocket and she’d known, from the moment when it had become clear what was going on, what she would do. Without a thought, she brought it out now and looked at it. His eyes widened.
“Jill, no!”
She didn’t even have to put the capsule in. As soon as her hand got close to her ear, the capsule slipped through her fingers and into her ear canal as if it were a living thing. It startled her, making her gasp. Her hands clenched at the very unpleasant sensation of the capsule traveling deeper, burrowing. It was all she could do not to scream. Then the movement stopped and she was left with a full, stuffed-up feeling in her ear that gradually began to fade.
Nate was watching her, wide-eyed. “Why did you do that? We have no idea if these things are safe or not, Jill. Goddamn it!”
She gave him a defiant glare and held up a hand. She strained to listen.
At first nothing changed; then she was hearing English. It was weird, like a switch being thrown, as if her brain always had been hearing English and she just hadn’t recognized it as such. Nate was right, the voice had a high tone, but the words were unmistakable. She felt a rush of joy and terror at it—how simple it was, how cleanly it worked. Now that was technology.
“Remember your duty, citizens. Report to the fertility clinic today.”
“It works!” She had a hard time keeping her legs under her. She grabbed his shoulder for support and stepped closer to the monitor. Nate pointed to the screen. At first she just saw the incomprehensible alien characters, but from one blink to the next she was seeing English. It was as abrupt and integral as the speech had been, and no matter how her eyes strained, she couldn’t see anything but English now. Unbelievable. Whatever that capsule was, it was altering the very sensory perceptions of her brain.
Nate pressed a button that was labeled: DIRECTIONS and a map came up. The fertility clinic was a few blocks away, marked in green. And there was a red dot labeled: YOU ARE HERE showing their current position.
“Do you see it?” Nate asked.
Jill nodded dumbly.
Nate barked a laugh. “Explain that, Jill. Explain that. This is like some sick freaking joke.”
“Nate—”
“Isn’t it? I mean, what—are we dead after all?”