Alien Tongues (4 page)

"Don't call him a Paddy," Alice said crossly.

"It's quite alright, really," Séamus said quickly.  "Actually, I like the term, so long as it isn't followed by 'go home'."

"See, Séamus is a gent!" Dave exclaimed.

"Yes he is, lucky for you," Alice replied.  "I'm sorry to further disappoint you, Dave, but Séamus here and I were about to leave.  We both have work at the Labs in the morning, you see."  She rose.  "I need to visit the loo.  Séamus, I hope you don't mind me leaving you with Dave for two minutes?"

"Not in the slightest.  Take your time."  He turned to see Dave still grinning at him.  It was an unchanging grin and was beginning to feel quite unfriendly.

As Alice drew out of earshot, Dave glanced after her. "Know something, Séamus?  She used to be my girl, did Alice.  We were very, very close.  Very passionate, you know."

Séamus raised his eyebrows politely. "Quite some time ago, was it?"

"Hmm.  She was younger, skinnier.  Pretty hot, actually.  All lean, you know.  Boy, those hips could move."

"Good dancer, you mean?"

Dave's grin became intense and he chuckled, still staring at Séamus.  Then he put his hands in front of him as if grasping something just over a foot wide, then moved them backwards and forwards slightly.  The symbolism was unmistakable.

"Dave, I really don't mind you calling me a Paddy," Séamus told him.  "In fact, I will take no offense if you call me a Mick.  But I ask you not to talk about Alice that way.  It's really not nice."

Dave's grin and stare did not even waver for a couple of moments.  He then exaggerated a look of surprise as if an idea had just struck him, and looked quickly around him.  "I'm sorry, Séamus.  Did I make a mistake?  Am I in an Irish pub?"

"No Dave, just a pub.  That stands for public house.  It's where our conversation should meet certain public standards."

"Oh, ah." Dave adopted a stage Irish accent.  "This is an Irish lesson in manners, so it is. So it is,
begorra
."

"Dave, there is no reason to get so offensive.  First you're rude about Alice, now me.  What are you trying to do here?"

"What am I trying to do here," Dave repeated slowly.  "Maybe I am trying in my own clumsy way to give you advice, Séamus.  Me, I'm quite an easy-going lad.  I see those Labs down there in the valley and I tell myself, they offer some decent employment to local folk.  That's a good thing.  But there are others around here who see something different, Me Old Paddy.  They see strange, secret experiments going on.  And they see Big Government planting its nose right in the middle of our community.  And they see people like you arrive.  You aren't a scientist, are you, Séamus? You have some other agenda.  There are some people around here who get awfully suspicious about things like that."

"Well," Alice announced from behind him, "Let them have the balls to tell us their suspicions to our faces.  It's always 'some people around', isn't it, Dave? Perhaps you'd like to name a few of them, for illustration?"

Dave shrugged and rose from the table.  "Just trying to give you Labs folks a piece of advice.  Seems you get very offended by it.  Now I'll wish you a very good night and leave you alone to enjoy your evening together.  Good to have met you, Séamus Lad."  He waved a goodbye and walked back to his friends. They were looking at Dave, grinning.

"Let's go," Alice said, pulling on her coat.  They went out to her car and drove out of the pub car-park in silence, then she said, "I'm sorry about that, Séamus. I really never expected it.  Not exactly a warm welcome to you."

"I'm very glad you took me there.  It exposed a leak – Dave said he knew I wasn't a scientist."

"Well, it could have been just a guess.  The vacancies for scientists are advertised and have all been filled some time ago.  Now you suddenly show up – too young to be some visiting professor.  There again, someone may have leaked your name locally, and they did a search on you to discover you're an obscure, Irish romantic poetry scholar."

Séamus gave a short laugh. "Yes, I can see how threatening that would be to them.  Some fiendish experiment where all Yorkshiremen wake up one morning speaking Gaelic.  Exactly how serious was this reference to Big Government?"

"Despite being from here, I really don't know." Alice swung the car round a tight bend.  "Folk here are very independent and of course believe in running their own affairs – nothing wrong with that.  When London set up the Labs after the terrorist bombings, there were mumblings that it was just some ploy to have more central government people snooping around here."

"Anybody important here have something they need to hide?"

"Ha, that's the big question, isn't it?  Growing up here, there were always rumors of illegal activity in some quarters, but maybe that's true everywhere?  There are a few characters around here who are a bit scary, and I have no doubt Dave has connections with them."  There was a lengthy silence. "But sorry again about Dave.  He was a big mistake of mine."

"Alice, you don't have to say anything…"

"Yes, I feel I should.  We'll be working together a lot these coming months, Séamus.  I don't want you suspicious of me.  I was a very geeky young girl at school here.  I don't think too bad looking, but I had these huge glasses, was always way ahead of the boys in maths and sciences, and very naive and socially inept.  I dated Dave because I thought it would make me more accepted by the local "in crowd."  At first I found him so cool.  But finally I realized what an arse he was.  We never really broke up, but when I went off to Cambridge he got another girl, which was fine by me.  He divorced recently, despite two young kids.  He's asked me out a few times and of course I've refused.  He hasn't been a pest before tonight."

Not in your earshot, anyway, Séamus thought.  "Are these local grumblings just a coincidence with our current project, or do you see any connection?  I mean, something about the project that has sparked a special level of distrust?"

"Maybe." Alice suddenly slowed for a pair of green eyes illuminated by her headlights, then four deer legs dashed out of sight.  Séamus wondered if he would have spotted them in time. "You see, my specialty is cryptography.  My work has been used a lot by the police to break into the calls and messages of criminal gangs.  It's been featured in a number of news articles.  So my taking the job here at the Labs may have made some paranoid local criminals imagine I'm going after them."

Alice dropped him at the facility.  Apart from the guard on the gate, there was a single security officer in the otherwise-empty buildings at that time.  Séamus used his electronic device to go through two doorways which admitted him to the corridor leading to his room.  He made himself a pot of tea, selected some cookies from the cupboard, then slumped in an armchair with a novel he had been intending to read by a new Irish writer.  As he would sometimes explain it to friends, just then he needed to get in touch with his Gaelic side.  He wasn't sure why, but he understood the need well enough.  Maybe he was constantly afraid of it slipping away.

At eleven o'clock the next morning Séamus entered Professor Wilkie's office at the facility.  It had a desk to one side, but the center of the room was dominated by four large leather settees, worn and comfortable looking, surrounding a Persian carpet on which stood an elaborately inlaid, marble coffee table.  Views on two sides of the room were of surrounding fields, and the sun streamed in through its high windows.  Wilkie was pouring coffee from a Middle-Eastern-looking pot into two small cups for Alice and himself.  He was wearing a pale green suit with a yellow bow-tie.  Alice, back in her lab coat, smiled when she saw him but Wilkie said without looking up, "Sugar or not? It's Turkish."

"Then yes please, sugar."  Séamus took the third settee as the cup was put in front of him.  It would be ready to drink in about three minutes.

"I'm so pleased you two got to meet yesterday.  I always believe in forming an impression without the burden of a biography.  Séamus, I can now tell you that Alice here is my favorite maths doctor.  She's a brilliant young woman who doesn't let her outstanding mathematical mind obscure her scientific sensibilities, particularly in my area.  Without her, I doubt this project would have ever got off the ground."

"A gross exaggeration," Alice said, smiling.

"My Dear, not even a mild overstatement.  By the way, Séamus, I have debriefed Alice on you.  Of course I don't know you except for your Agency records and test results, but they are thorough enough for me."  He offered a plate of powdered, dark jellies.  "
Lokum
, anyone?  No?"  He ate one himself.  "Alice told me about the leak you discovered last night," he continued.  "I'm very sorry about that, but we have perhaps twenty local folks working here and there's always someone whose loyalties to some bigwig exceed their honesty when they signed their confidentiality agreement.  Fortunately, none of these locals knows the details of the project itself, including how the lab is constructed and who our volunteers are.  I will make doubly sure that situation continues."

He stretched, relaxed and smiled at each of his young companions. Over the following twenty minutes he gave Séamus a briefing about what to expect that day.  He then said, "OK, two of the girls have already arrived and the two others will be here later this afternoon.  The first one you're going to meet is Japanese.  We're going to call her Jenny.  The second girl is Chinese, and we're calling her Chrissy.  This afternoon you'll meet a Thai girl, who we'll call Tina, then finally a Filipina who we'll call – guess what? – Phyllis.  Crude, I know, but it helps my terrible memory."  The Professor swigged back his coffee.  "Are we ready for Jenny?" His companions nodded. "Séamus, would you fetch her from Room J?"

Séamus went back upstairs and walked past his room to the one marked "J" on the door.  He used his electronic device to cause the deadbolt to slide back, then knocked.  A girl's voice invited him to come in.  He opened the door to see an Asian girl sitting upright on the bed, a magazine in her hands.

"Hi, I'm Séamus.  I've been told to call you Jenny.  We'd like you to come down."

The girl was small with a slight build, a pretty face, and brown hair that had an orangey hue.  She nodded and followed him to the office.  The professor stood as she entered, grasped her uncertain hand, and asked her what she would like to drink.  She took a glass of water.

"I'm James Wilkie, the professor in charge of this project.  The young lady is Dr Alice Turner, a mathematics guru whose work is vital to the project's success, as I will explain.  The young man is Séamus FitzGerald.  His job is to look after you and the other girls, and to make sure you comply with the rules of the experiment.  I can assure you, based upon our knowledge of Séamus, that you are very safe in his hands.  However, if you have some concern about a man playing that role instead of a woman, please feel free to express it."

The girl shook her head firmly.  "It's better with a man."

"Good.  Now, if you don't mind, could I ask you to give a brief introduction to yourself?  You can mention anything you want.  I just want Séamus and Alice to hear you speak a while."

She frowned, then said.  "OK, I'm Jenny, age 23.  I've lived all my life in Western Japan.  I picked up all my languages by watching movies and TV shows.  My parents are divorced.  My father's an alcoholic and my mother is a gambling addict.  For a number of years they've depended upon my money, which is why I took this job.  I've stolen a lot of stuff from expensive stores, which was all sold to pay for my parents' medical bills – they've been huge.  I was only caught once for something quite small – I got away with an awful lot.  Sorry, am I being too explicit?  Your people back home know all this, so I assume it's in my file.  I like to be very open and up-front.  If I'm going to work with you for months, I want you to know who I am.  People say I look like a little angel, but that couldn't be further from the truth."  She paused. "Did I say enough?"

The professor nodded.  "Thank you, Jenny.  That was perfect."  He turned to Alice and Séamus. 

"Your British accent is flawless," Alice remarked.

"Yes," the Professor answered for her. "Would you believe, she learned it only through movies and TV shows.  Jenny, would you like to repeat a summary of what you just said, but with an American accent?"

She did so with perfection, at least to British ears.

"She can do Australian and Canadian accents well, but not perfectly.  A South African or New Zealander could probably tell she wasn't from their countries, but it's a lot better than most Hollywood actors could do.  Yet she'd never met an English-speaker until she was interviewed by our people in Tokyo. She can also speak Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, French, Russian and Spanish.  She can get by in a pinch with another five languages, and knows sizeable chunks of another dozen or so."

Jenny gave a forced smile to Séamus and Alice. 'I'm a freak."

Wilkie shook his head. 'No, Jenny, you are the envy of all educated people the world over.  Many prominent folk would give up a year or more of their lives to have your gift so that they could communicate directly with people all around the world.  And this gift of yours, though possessed by less than one in a million adults in Asia and less than one in ten million elsewhere, is perfectly natural.  All young children possess it, and then start losing it gradually from the age of five or six.  By their teenage, most people cannot pick up native accents, and by twenty have a tough time with native grammar.  By thirty, all the grammar is tough, and by forty many of the words won't stick.   But for those with your gift, Jenny, language facility seems to get better, not worse, until you are in your mid-twenties.  You're approaching your peak ability around now."

From the expression on her face, this all appeared to be news to Jenny.  "And what about my arithmetic, Sir?  Is that a similar thing?"

"It's related, yes.  The way we understand it, you kind of "see languages whole."  There's this deeply layered, fixed structure in your brain ready to soak up any language.  You hear pieces of the language and the fixed structure sorts it all out, quickly figuring out the rules.  It appears your brain has worked out how to use this structure to solve arithmetic puzzles too."  He turned to Séamus.  "Things like multiplying two five-digit numbers together, taking the square root of a seven-digit number, dividing a three-digit number into a nine-digit number, etcetera."

There was a brief silence, then Jenny asked, "So how are you going to use me?"  As she spoke, she looked at Séamus, even though the question seemed directed at Wilkie.  Séamus found her look curious and questioning, but not aggressive.

The Professor smiled. "You, and three other girls with similar gifts to you, will invent a new language.  And it will be a very unusual language.  It won't be spoken, because it will be made up entirely of numbers.  If this language really works in the way that I hope, it will be of immeasurable importance to humanity."

Jenny looked uncertain.  "You're going to show us how to invent a language?  All I've done is copy languages so far."

Wilkie turned to Alice. "My Dear, how would you answer that one?"

Alice hesitated, then said, "Jenny, I had real difficulty learning even a second language.  Also, though maths is my profession, almost everything I do involves symbols, not numbers. So I can't imagine what it's like to have your gifts.  But the Professor's studies of people like you, and even people with fewer gifts but stuck in situations where they share no language with the people around them, has led him to believe that you will be able to generate such a language almost instinctively.  In other words, it will happen without you really trying. 

"But the bigger challenge is restricting you to using numbers only.  It's never been tried before.  We've designed a room where we think you'll have the best tools to do it, but to be honest none of us are sure it can actually be done.  And we don't know how to instruct you on it, except tell you to go with your own instincts.  You and the other girls are the real experts, not us."

The girl nodded thoughtfully.  "My mother told me she'd received your first payment, thank you," she said to all of them. "I understand the guaranteed payments, and the bonus if this project succeeds.  So I suppose that success is developing this number language so it can work like any other language.  And it might take us a few months, or more than a year?"

"We've no idea," Wilkie said.  "If it's looking hopeless after twelve months, for certain we'll abandon it.  But even as you're struggling to get the language working, there's a good chance we'll be getting something useful out of you – isn't there, Alice?"

Alice smiled. "Now at last we are in my area of competence.  My computer programs will be analyzing all your efforts.  We're hoping we can work out clues to how your brain processes language.  If we see enough useful patterns, we may even be able to leap ahead of you and complete the job.  On the other hand, it's possible you may have reached a working language and we just need you to keep going on for quite a while, simply because we need to shake out more patterns. But by that time, you'll have earned your bonus.  Any extra time we require you to stay on, we'll be paying you more on top of that."

Jenny giggled a little. "In that case, you can have me as long as you need me. At this rate, I'll have my parents off my back
and
be set for life."

The conversation continued another half-hour, then Séamus showed Jenny back to her room.  As she stepped inside, she asked, "Can you and I go for a walk a bit later?  I would like to see more of the countryside here."  Surprised, Séamus said he was sure there would be no problem with that, and would fetch her as soon as he was free.

He then walked further down the hall to a door marked with a C, unlocked it and knocked.  He was invited in to see a tall, Chinese girl standing at the window.  Her build was athletic, with broad shoulders and narrow hips.  Her black hair was long but tied back.  She had a strong face, quite angular compared with Jenny, and her skin was much whiter – in fact, whiter than his own skin which he found surprising.  He repeated the introduction he had given Jenny and led Chrissy downstairs. 

"I'm 24 and I've never been outside China before," she said in response to Wilkie's invitation to introduce herself.  "In fact I have rarely been far from Beijing.  I learned many Chinese dialects from talking to people who came to Beijing from other parts of China.   I would sit in restaurants and parks and be fascinated by the way they talked, so I'd start by listening to them and trying to guess what they were saying.  Later I would introduce myself and try talking with them.  They'd usually be happy that someone would take an interest in their dialect, and often I would teach them Beijing words they weren't familiar with.  I learned other languages from movies and TV shows, or finding foreigners to talk to.  Then Mum got very sick and Dad introduced me to a man who gave me a job, chatting to men in a club who came from around China and other countries.  It was very good money for what I did, and it rescued the family.  It really improved my language skills."

She seemed to hesitate.  The Professor interjected, "Please be as explicit as you wish about the work.  It really helps us to understand what you've gone through up until now, and how best to help you.  Remember, no one is judging you here.  And we will all share success or failure in this enterprise."

Chrissy nodded, reassured.  "Some of the men belonged to gangs.  They said I could make a lot more money doing jobs for them.  It was all illegal – shaking down foreigners, providing a diversion while they looted warehouses – stuff like that.  I did quite a lot of bad stuff – we had huge hospital bills. I got caught once and did a couple of months in jail.  Now Dad's sick too, and he also owes money from his failed business.  This job you've given me is a gift from Heaven."

She listened to the description of the project intently.  "If you say this could work," she commented when Wilkie paused, "I promise you I will give it my very best efforts.  You know I didn't get the chance of a college education, so it's amazing to me that I can be helping this way."

"I should tell you about the restrictions on your movements, and ask you if they create any concerns for you," Wilkie told her.  "A critical feature of the process is that your only contact with the other girls is in the lab.  And even there, you will never share any spoken words.  This is likely to make you feel very isolated, since the only people you will be talking to for the duration of the experiment are the three of us – and in fact I won't be here most of the time so it's really just Séamus and Alice.  We have to impose this condition so rigorously that, for most of the time you are not in the lab, you will be locked in your room.  Alice and Séamus – especially Séamus – can take you for walks and occasional drives to stop you from going crazy.  You have an endless number of TV and movie channels and open internet access, with the exception that any connection with the other girls is blocked.  We will be monitoring everything, and that includes cams in your living room.  More than twenty minutes in the bathroom and we will check on you.  All this is as much for your own safety as anything else, as the strain may get very great.  How does all that sound to you?"