Alien Contact (46 page)

All the probes saw, though, was a group—thirty-three of us—sitting tightly together on the floor of our lounge, eyes closed, heads bobbing slightly, here and there drool from a mouth, the twitch of a limb, perhaps an occasional tuneless hum. What the viewing public must have thought of its savior! Their fate in the hands of—what?

When they changed me there was no question of choice. Seven hundred days old, you don’t even realize that the world isn’t part of you, much less that it doesn’t care. Understanding that only discreet parts of it care is something that comes much later, if at all. It’s a sophisticated distinction, this sorting out, a concept constantly threatened by the fact that even the caring parts probably don’t care about you. But in time we all learn that everything around us, everything that happens, is organized into packets of information and those packets can be assembled by consciousness into something that has order and meaning. A fiction, perhaps, and it’s a question whether the boundaries that keep everything apart are internal or external. An academic question, of no real consequence.

Unless those boundaries disappear.

When they changed me—and the others, all thirty-three of us—several of those boundaries vanished and had to be replaced by something else, a different method of perception and ordering. At seven hundred days old I didn’t “understand” this—none of us did—all we could do was react. There is a murk at the bottom of my memory that intrudes from time to time into my dreams, but which I assiduously avoid contemplating most of the time. I tell myself that this swamp is the residue of my reaction. I tell myself that. On the rare occasions when I conjure enough courage to be determinedly self-analytical I think—I believe—that it is the residue of thirty-three reactions. Then I wonder how we all sorted ourselves out of the mix. Then I wonder if we ever did. Then I stop thinking about it.

Our ship met with a convoy halfway from Pan Pollux to Denebola. You never really see ships at dock, each one is berthed separately in the body of the station. Once in a while another ship leaves dock at the same time you do and you get to see one of them against the stars. I sometimes think these vessels are the most beautiful objects humans ever built. Elegant, powerful, freighted with every aspect of our natures—hope, pride, ambition, curiosity, wonder, and fear. When the convoy gathered around us we stared at the two dozen ships.

“Whales.”

“No, methane floaters.”

“A school of armor.”

I listened to the ripple of comparisons, trying to decide which one fit best. None really did. Whales in space? Too many lines, dark masses, geometries. Methane floaters drifted with the currents of their atmospheres, virtually helpless to control direction. These moved with power, purpose, a logical order to the way they arranged themselves around us, protecting us.

“Admiral Kovesh’s task force,” Merril announced. “They’ll be our escort to Denebola.”

“Will there be seti task forces there, too?” I asked.

Merril frowned slightly, clasped his hands behind his back the way he did when something made him uneasy. “I expect so.”

I looked back at the Armada ships, excited at the prospect of comparing human and alien.

There was a reporter from the Ares-Epsilon NewsNet that kept up with us from Sol to Nine Rivers. He must have interviewed every one of us by then, some twice. On our last interview I decided to go for shock, to see how he’d react.

“The development of telepaths is a radical step in human evolution,” he said. “According to scientists, we’ve been capable of such a step for a long time but we’ve refrained. Why do you think it took a First Contact situation to push us into it?”

“Fear.”

“Fear? In what way?”

“They couldn’t talk to the seti, so the Armada started planning for war. It’s that simple. Say something we understand or we’ll shoot. The Pan Humana wanted to believe the human race was beyond ancient formulas for defending the cave, but it’s been centuries since words failed to convey meaning, so the old ways had been forgotten.”

His eyes brightened. This was better than the prepared statements we’d been delivering all along.

“Then the seti showed up and the race panicked. Not one word made sense. You’re right, we’ve been capable of producing telepaths—actually, the term is telelog, there’s a difference—for a long time. But people are afraid of the idea. That’s the only real area of privacy, your thoughts. But when the Chairman, the Forum, and the Armada realized that the most insurmountable problem confronting them with the setis was language, they seized the opportunity. It was a question of weighing competitive fears. Of course, fear of the alien won out.”

“Yes, but in a very fundamental way, you’re alien, too.”

“But at least we
look
human.”

I don’t think his report ever made it onto the newsnets. He didn’t continue on with us after Nine Rivers.

Denebola is a white, white sun, forty-three light-years from Earth. It shepherds a small herd of Jovians and two hard planets, none of which is hospitable to human life without considerable manipulation. As far as I have learned, no plans have been made to terraform.

I always wondered why Denebola. Well, it
is
right out there at the limit of our expansion. There are a few colonies further out, but in the pragmatic way such things are judged by the Forum they don’t count because they’re too tenuous. But
we
didn’t pick Denebola.
They
did. The setis.

Stars have many names and now that we’ve met our neighbors I’m sure the number will increase again. Denebola has three that I consider ironically appropriate. Denebola itself is from the Arabic
Al Dhanab Al Asad,
the Lion’s Tail. But there’s another Arab name for it,
Al Sarfah,
the Changer. I like that better, it seems more relevant to my own situation, to our situation. The place of changes, changes wrought by the place itself.

The third name? Chinese,
Wu Ti Tso,
Seat of the Five Emperors.

Admiral Kovesh came over to meet us after the convoy arrived at the orbital platform. She was a tall, straight-backed woman with deep creases in her face and very pale eyes. I thought she looked perfect for her command.

“As soon as our counterparts signal us,” she explained, “then you’ll all be taken down by shuttle. The Forum negotiators are already here.”

“Can we see the other ships?” I asked.

Kovesh frowned. “What—?”

“The seti ships.”

“Oh. Of course. As soon as I’ve briefed you on procedures.”

“We’ve already been briefed.”

Kovesh looked at Merril, who seemed nervous.

“Before we left Earth,” he said, “we were all given a thorough profile of what to expect. They know their mission, Admiral.”

“I don’t care what they were told on Earth. We’re thirteen parsecs out and this conference is under my aegis.”

Merril gave us an apologetic look. “I see. Well, perhaps you could let them take it directly?”

“How do you mean?”

Merril blinked. “They’re telelogs, Admiral. It would be quicker, surer—”

“Not on your life.”

“I assure you it’s painless, Admiral—”

“I’m assured. The answer is no. Now, if you don’t mind…”

I felt sorry for Merril. He meant well, but I was glad the Admiral refused. Merril had an exaggerated notion of what we did. People are really a muddle.

The Change was mechanistic. We aren’t psychics in the traditional sense. That’s why we’re called telelogs rather than telepaths. At infancy we were implanted with a biopole factory, a device called the logos. The logos transfers a colony of biopole, which seats itself in the recipient brain, and starts setting up a temporary pattern analyzer. Very quickly—I’m talking nanoseconds—the colony establishes a pattern, sets up a transmission, and within moments the contents of the mind are broadcast to the primary logos.

But the contents!

To be honest, it is
much
easier for someone to simply
tell
me, verbally, than for me to try to make sense of all this
clutter!

We grew up living in each other’s minds, we know how we operate, but the rest of humanity? It’s a miracle there’s any order at all.

Still, Admiral Kovesh’s reaction disturbed me.