Into the New Millennium: Trailblazing Tales From Analog Science Fiction and Fact, 2000 - 2010 (9 page)

Jerik, chirp-mapping steadily, couldn't actually tell if the thing did indeed have four feet, for it had stopped midway in its emergence from the ice. But in any case, it was huge—far larger than the thing Harshket had observed. It was clearly a thing of design, of purpose. And it was awash in electromagnetic fields.

Jerik heard K'chir come to his side.

Suddenly the thing emitted a hissing sound, and then Jerik heard the sounds of falling bubbles and the smell of them reached his nose: life-bubbles, and they smelled pure and sweet. The hissing grew stronger and the trickle sounded now like gushing torrent. Jerik chirp-mapped faster and observed the bubbles cascading down from a crack in the object and forming an air lake around the object's base. He gasped as he understood the significance. Then he heard K'chir gasp as well.

"Observe!" K'chir shouted to the people. "If life-bubbles come only from the Great God, this device cannot be a thing of evil. It cannot be a surrogate of the Antigod."

Jerik heard chirps of agreement.

"What is its purpose, I wonder," Jerik whispered.

"Maybe," said K'chir, softly, "maybe someone from another world wants to say hello. And if it does, I certainly . . . What's it doing now? It's opening up."

Jerik observed what seemed to be a thin slab of ice pivoting away. "There's some sort of a . . . a cave in its side."

As Jerik chirp-mapped, a roughly spherical device of some sort emerged from within the cave. It floated upward for a time then stopped. High levels of electromagnetic radiation came from small areas of the thing.

"What's going on?" said Jerik.

"I think it may be . . . observing us." K'chir scuttled up to the bigger object. "Amazing!"

"Be careful," Jerik said at a loud whisper. He chirp-mapped furiously and observed his friend wallowing in the lake of air, his leg and body fur absorbing the precious bubbles.

"This is wonderful!" K'chir called out.

Jerik detected that the people were in a frenzy of chirping, but no one said anything, not even Harshket. Jerik turned and pinged the people.
They're probably too stunned
.

Then he heard a collective gasp, staggered, of course, as each of the people observed at his own map speed. Jerik swiveled back toward the object and chirp-mapped. Then he too gasped. K'chir had leaped up from the lake and into the cave-like opening in the object.

Jerik sensed a sudden increase in the electromagnetic field around the object and he began chirp-mapping as fast as he could. He observed the slab pivoting very slowly back. "Get out, K'chir," he shouted. "Fast! The cave is closing."

"No!" K'chir shouted back. "This thing comes from another world. And I want to experience that world." He held up his two forward legs. "I will be back!"

When the slab had completely covered the cave, the thing began to rotate. A loud churning and grinding sound filled the water and the object gradually sank down into the ice. At the same time, the floating sphere rose slowly toward heaven, increasing in speed as it went.

Almost too shocked to chirp-map, Jerik listened as the sound from the ice gradually morphed to a distant rumble and then, all at once, changed to a far off whisper. Then, abruptly, the ice went silent. Jerik felt alone. His best friend was gone. Jerik ping-chirped the hole in the ice, a perfectly circular opening, clearly not something made by nature. He chirped deep into the opening.
Empty!
Just water where ice had once been. And no ping echo came back from the hole.
A void, nothingness!

"The Antigod has taken the heretic," came the High Priest's voice shouted from behind. "Praise God. And take you that as a lesson."

Jerik spun around. "No!" he shouted. That's a lie." He startled himself; he'd never openly contradicted an authority—especially not the High Priest. He turned back briefly and pinged the lake. "Those are life-bubbles. But they are
not
from any god."

"It is time for your beating," said Harshket, loudly and angrily.

"I will
not
be beaten," said Jerik with equal anger. He heard a chirp of support from someone he knew to be a student in the Third School. Then he heard a flurry of encouraging chirps from other Third Schoolers—and then from students in the Fourth. He felt a surge in the current as a mass of the people came toward him, chirping encouragement—just about all the school and many of the older people as well.

Then, as one, they turned on the High Priest and his cohorts.

Jerik heard Harshket's voice over the crowd. "Your beating is deferred." The priest and his allies then scuttled quickly away.

Yes, it is a lesson
. Jerik greeted his friends from the Third, and then all his new friends. Finally, feeling both light-headed and light-weight, he excused himself and glided toward the Rippled Wall—to the cleft where he and K'chir had made their assault on heaven. At the base of that cleft would be his and K'chir's life-bubbles. He would absorb them, his and K'chir's alike. Jerik extended his mandible in the realization that he'd already absorbed some of K'chir's independence and maybe some of his courage as well. He pinged upward to the rising sphere, now almost at the chirp-echo limit, and thought of his friend. Jerik vowed that he'd devote himself to the struggle for change—to assure that when K'chir did return, he'd find a different and a better world.

"Damn it!" Mission specialist Paul Hopcroft let his fist fall at 0.145 Earth gravity onto his control panel. "The observation sphere. It's sinking fast. We've lost control."

"Is it still transmitting video?" Colin called from the "pool." Surface team leader Colin Shepherd darted toward Paul's display.

"The signal's fine." Paul peered at the transmission, watching as the group of craboid creatures grew distant on the screen. "Damned robot! I'll take a manned vehicle every time."

"If it weren't for the unmanned Jovian I," said Alex, the other specialist, "we wouldn't have any idea what we were doing."

Paul gave a grunt of a laugh. "You mean, we
know
what we're doing?"

Colin, looking over Paul's shoulder, stared silently at the video monitor. Alex also came to look, drawn away from his own monitor by the much more interesting view on Paul's.

The three wore EVA suits, but with their helmets off. A transparent dome provided them with air, pressure, and warmth—and light.

The great orb of Jupiter looming large in the ink-black sky filled the dome with reds and yellows and bathed the Ganymede ice field in an orange glow. A half kilometer away, the lander, their bus home, gleamed against the ice.

The research dome, some twenty meters across, functioned also as an ice-fishing tent. At its center was a two-meter-diameter hole in the ice, the work of the borer module. Near the hole, looking like a kids' aboveground swimming pool, stood the Ganymede Sub-surface Environment Chamber. A transparent cover sealed it so that the pressure and temperature beneath the ice might be replicated and preserved.

"Looks to me like organized, structured behavior," said Colin, staring at the group of craboids in the display.

"Ant colonies show that too," said Alex.

"This looks to be a much higher order," said Colin, softly. "I'd call it intelligence. In fact, I'd be tempted to call it sentience."

"Sentience?" said Alex. "Come on."

"I tend to agree," said Paul. "And their rich set of vocalizations could very well be speech."

Colin blew out a breath. "Who'd have thought the first alien intelligence we'd find would be in our own solar system?"

From the corner of his eye, Paul saw motion in Alex's display monitor. Paul turned to look—as did Alex and Colin.

"Ha!" exclaimed Colin. "The critter took the bait."

Alex shook his head, vigorously. "No. I didn't even get the chance to
release
the bait." He dashed back to his control panel and gazed at the monitor.

"I saw it," said Paul. "The craboid just jumped into the chamber."

"Hm," said Colin. "Adventurous creature, isn't he?" He turned to Alex. "Let's get him up and into the pool—that is, if we can still control the ice-borer."

Alex worked a control. "Borer's fine. I'll speed it up. We should have our six-footed friend on the surface in about twenty minutes."

"Careful not to damage the borer," said Colin. "I want to be sure we can return the creature to its home."

"Not pickle it and bring it back with us?" said Alex.

"I'm assuming it is an intelligent being," said Colin with a small trace of anger.

A half hour later, the three had transferred the specimen container holding the craboid from the borer to the pool. They stood watching the creature through the pool's transparent cover. The craboid scuttled, upside-down, on the inner surface of the cover.

"Natural enough," said Paul. "Its overall density is a bit lower than that of water."

"It does look weird, though," said Alex.

Paul stared at the meter-long and about-as-wide creature with its six furry legs and fearsome head with unidentifiable organs. "It looks a lot more imposing up close, doesn't it?"

"The cameras and probes are all on, I assume," said Colin.

"Of course." Alex went to his console. "And all functioning."

"I wonder," said Paul, staring at the creature with its agile limbs, articulated nearly to the point of being tentacles, "can a sentient species exist without artifacts or opposable thumbs—or any thumbs for that matter?"

"Hard to generalize from only a single case," said Colin. "Until now, perhaps."

They gazed at the craboid in silence for a few seconds more. Then Colin said, "I'm going in."

Paul jerked around. "What? In the pool?"

"Our friend shows a spirit of adventure," said Colin. "Can I do any less?"

Alex came back to poolside. "I'm not sure that's a particularly terrific idea."

Colin shrugged. He retrieved his helmet and had Alex and Paul help him with it. Then, after check out, Colin leaped to the pool cover, an easy task in Ganymede's low gravity. He went to the access hatch.

"You're sure you want to do this?" said Paul over the radio link.

Colin gave a hint of a laugh. "I'd rather not think about it at the moment." He opened the hatch, slid into the water, and closed the hatch above him. In his EVA suit, he, like the craboid, was lighter than water. Colin lay horizontal, his stomach pressed to the inner surface of the pool cover.

"They're looking at each other," Alex whispered.

"Not exactly," said Paul. "The creature doesn't seem to have eyes. Wouldn't need them under the ice."

Paul watched as Colin slithered close to the creature. Then, slowly, very slowly, Colin held out his hand.

"Shaking hands," Alex whispered. "You think?"

Paul gasped softly as the creature extended a front leg, then touched Colin's hand.

"I'm willing to bet," Alex whispered, "that this image will be on a postage stamp next year."

Paul, mesmerized, could not pull his eyes away or even answer.

After a few seconds, Colin said a ritual greeting, loudly, so it might be heard through his helmet. The creature made some sounds as well: clickings and chirpings. Then, after another brief pause, Colin and the creature withdrew their appendages. Colin crawled backwards to the hatch.

Alex shook his head. "We're going to have one hell of a story to tell when we get back."

Paul, his eyes on the craboid, said softly, "And so will he."

Michael F. Flynn

What happened before.

If you stand on the mountain peak of any great age and gaze toward the past, you may spy in the purpled west the jagged range of another great age. And make no mistake: those distant peaks mark as great an age as any, and there were giants on the earth, men whose names ought never be forgotten:

Peter Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux; Blanche of Castile and Good King Louis; Hildegarde of Bingen, "the Sybil of the Rhine." Robert of Chester, Adelard of Bath, Peter of Cluny. They are all "of" somewhere, but they go everywhere. Abelard has returned to teaching and at his aged feet sit Arnold of Brescia and John of Salisbury. Young Eleanor of Aquitaine is the Queen of France and patroness of the troubadours. Oh, those were names to conjure with!

Something is happening. Something is in the very air. Adelard of Bath has inhaled the Elements of Euclid in Arabic and exhaled them in Latin. Robert of Chester has translated the
Al jabr of al-Khwarizmi
—and Peter of Cluny desires he do the
Qur'an
while he's at it. And what about this Aristotle person?

In the center of the maelstrom: Toledo, glorious Toledo. They are all there, or they come there—eager, bustling, busy—to Archbishop Raymundo and his translation school. Gundisalvo is there. Robert of Chester has come, and Hermann of Carinthia. John of Seville and Plato of Tivoli. The names alone tell the tale: Spaniard, Englishman, German, Frenchman, Italian, all of Europe has gone mad for reading. They rub shoulders with al-Battani and ibn Sina, with Jacob ben Mahir and Moses ibn Tibbon. There has been nothing like it in all the world since the storied House of Wisdom in old Baghdad, before what once there flowered died.

These are no stolid peasants, gawping at wonders collected by their betters. They've been schooled for generations by the encyclopediasts of decaying Rome, by Macrobius and Pliny, by the Old Logic of Boethius. They know their Plato, and those tantalizing fragments of Aristotle that had drifted West before the old imperium fell. Thin soup, maybe,
but they have a taste for soup!

Gerard of Cremona has dipped his pen, and when
he
is done, Europe will be drunk with Pierian spring-water. He has come to Toledo in search of Ptolemy's
Almagest
, and there, as his students would one day write of him, "
seeing the abundance of books in Arabic on every subject, and regretting the poverty of the Latins in these things, he learned the Arabic language, in order to translate. To the end of his life, he continued to transmit to the Latin world, as if to his own beloved heir, whatever books he thought finest, in many subjects, as accurately and as plainly as he could
."