Starfarers (29 page)

Sundaram gestured at the screen. Although by now Nansen had often seen what it showed, and pored over similar images for hours, a tingle went along his spine.

A being stood unclad against a background of enigmatic apparatus. The first word aboard for it had been “centaur,” but that was like calling a man an ostrich because both were bipeds. It stood on four stout legs with four-toed, padded, spurred feet. The body was likewise robust, lacking a tail and any obvious genitalia. Its back rose in a shallow ridge. The torso in front did not rear very high above. Two long, sturdy-looking arms ended in hands around each of which four nailless fingers were symmetrically arranged; they seemed flexible, boneless, like an elephant’s trunk.

The head was big, round, high-browed, a lipless mouth in the blunt muzzle but no nose. Apparently the being breathed through two slits, somewhat resembling gills with their quivering protective covers, in the neck under the jaw. Above the
muzzle, two elliptical eyes—presumably eyes—were set close together, while two large circular ones flanked them on the sides of the head. The inner orbs were black, the outer green, and none had whites, nor pupils resembling the human. From the brow rose two short antennae crowned with clusters of cilia. Pointed earflaps stood a trifle higher than the head, hairless, thin, and yellowish; Mokoena had guessed that that was the color of blood, or blood’s equivalent.

Neck and shoulders were blanketed by a mane of small, leaflike growths, of the same hue, like a kind of ivy. They were constantly astir, as if winds blew changeably through them. Otherwise a velvety pelt decked the skin, dark brown on this individual; on others it had been seen to vary from black to pale green.

From direct observation the humans knew that they—adults, at any rate—ranged from about 130 to 140 centimeters long and stood about as tall: the height of a child some ten years old, though with more mass. They moved gracefully, sometimes quite fast.

“They shall have to take the initiative,” Sundaram said.

“Can we do nothing?” asked Nansen. “We did send the first keys to language.”

“That was the easy part.” Sundaram leaned back, bridged his fingers, and looked straight at his visitor. “On ancient Earth and in the Age of Discovery, explorers found people new to them, speaking languages unrelated to theirs. They could soon talk to each other. But you see, they shared the same world, the same body pattern and needs and instincts; they could point, they could pantomime, and be understood. Here we begin with separate origins and evolution of life itself, from billions of years ago.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that discussed, of course. But still—
bien
—”

“They have voices,” Sundaram said. Nansen nodded, recalling whistles and rumbles. “However,” the linguist went on, “I am beginning to think their language is only partly vocal, perhaps only in minor part. It gives me the impression
of being principally a body language, employing especially the countless possible configurations of those leafy, erectile manes. And what other elements does it have? How do they write it? The eyes suggest that they see the universe differently from us. What are their pictorial conventions? No, we will not quickly be able to speak in their manner. I doubt we ever will be.”

Nansen sighed. “I suppose we are just as weird to them.”

“Well, now, there the situation may not be quite so difficult. That is why I believe they will take the lead. Their ancestors went to hundreds or thousands of stars. They doubtless have a far larger database to work from than we do.”

“Do you mean they can retrieve parallels to us? I wonder. How many intelligent races, primitive or civilized or—whatever else—did they ever find?”

“That is one thing we have come here to learn.”

“Let’s begin, then!”

“Give us time. They appear to be willing, interested—”

“As well they might be.”

“We may see some action reasonably soon.” Sundaram spoke into Nansen’s sudden hopefulness: “But as for proper communication, you must give us time.”

“Us.” He includes the Yonderfolk. Already he feels a kinship across all foreignness.

The crew
were gathered. Nansen spoke straight to the point.

“It went better than we anticipated. Icons, animations—We’re invited to come down and settle in.”

Ruszek’s hand shot up. “First landing!” he roared.

“Again?” Kilbirnie said. She shrugged. “Aweel, if you must. There should be lots more, shouldn’t there, skipper?”

“We still have details to work out,” Nansen cautioned. “First and foremost, I suppose, the actual landing site.”

“They ought to have one in mind already, given their experience in the past,” Mokoena said. “Selim and I have established that the biology and biochemistry here are the
same as in the anomalous plants we collected at our previous stop.” This, too, though not unexpected, was a new announcement; knowledge had been leaping forward. “And the architecture—That
was
a colony of theirs. They
are
the Yonderfolk.”

Nobody asked why that world lay forsaken. They had raised the question wearisomely often. Nevertheless, for a moment it spooked around them.

Cleland pushed it aside. “Uh, this may be silly,” he ventured, “but have you found out the name of this planet, Ajit?”

Sundaram smiled. “Silly but natural,” he replied. “No, of course not. Perhaps we never will. It may have many names in many distinct languages. Whatever they are, I doubt we can ever pronounce any, if pronunciation is even appropriate—and if the Yonderfolk bestow names.”

Zeyd half rose from his seat, sank back, and declared, “We want one to use among ourselves.”

Yu nodded. “We have talked about this also.”

“We should decide. You know what I propose. Tahir.”

“That seems fitting,” Nansen said, “and out in these parts we don’t have to go through registration procedures. Shall we agree on Tahir?”

Assent murmured around the half-circle.

“Well,” Nansen said gladly, “we can start planning and preparing for descent, and thinking what to do down there.”

“Five years,” Brent growled.

Eyes went toward him. “What?” demanded Dayan.

He glowered back. “You know. The contract, the ship’s articles. We are not obliged to stay more than five Earth years after we’ve reached our goal. Which we have.”

“We may be at the start of the real, the greater search,” Sundaram said.

“Five years,” Brent insisted. He looked around from face to face. “Then we can go home if we choose. Wouldn’t you like to be back where you can dare have children, before you’re too old?”

Year one.

The site was a broad opening in an expanse of woodlands on the eastern seaboard of a northern continent. A stream flowed through, clear and pure although the human palate sensed a slight pungency. A stand of trees screened an area that had been paved overnight to provide a field for spacecraft and aircraft. When violent weather was on its way, as happened not uncommonly, a flexible sheet extruded from one end, arched over to form a transparent dome, and grew rigid. It opened for you wherever you approached, closing again behind. After the storm was past, it softened and withdrew. Otherwise the Tahirians had prepared nothing, and raised no objections to whatever their guests did.

On clear days the land lay darklingly rich beneath a deep blue sky. Growth was nowhere green, but ruddy-brown, chocolate, black, maroon, damask, countless shades, lightened by petals white or colorful. The effect was not gloomy; there was so much life, leaves rippling and soughing in sunlight, odors as of strange spices. A mossy turf seemed to play the basic role of grass. Trees, shrubs, canes, brachiated more or less like Earth’s; to that extent had two, evolutions happened to run parallel. Wildlife abounded, from tiny things that could incorrectly be called worms or insects, on through swimmers, runners, and wings multitudinous in heaven. Cries, whistles, bellows, trills sounded through the glades.

Tahir rotated once in nineteen and a quarter hours, with an axial inclination of thirty-one degrees. Though the irradiation was lower, the atmosphere, slightly denser than Earth’s,
joined with albedo to maintain a planetary mean temperature three degrees higher. However, climates varied tremendously from region to region, weather still more, through a year seven-tenths terrestrial length. This was in considerable part due to an orbit as eccentric as Mars’s—northern summers longer and colder, northern winters shorter and warmer, than southern. All factors considered, the place granted the humans might well be the best possible for them.

A gravity 9 percent above terrestrial added about five to eight kilos to a person’s weight, depending on mass. It was evenly distributed, and the crew soon hardened to it; as well as resetting their circadian rhythms—with pharmaceutical help. The work of settlement kept them busily and, most times, cheerily occupied. Ruszek and Kilbirnie ferried down load after load of equipment, supplies, and prefabricated parts. Robots helped, but hands found plenty to do. A storage shed rose; a building for a power plant and other facilities; a third for meeting, cooking, dining, recreation, celebration. At last individual cabins replaced the two temporary shelters that had separately housed men and women.

Although the Tahirians did not seem to have closed the region off, none of the nuisances appeared who would have come swarming on Earth, journalists, curiosity seekers, salespeople, cranks, politicians. Three or four visitors were frequently present, arriving and departing in small, silent aerial vehicles of teardrop shape and iridescent hues. They observed and recorded, with exotic apparatus, except for those who worked with Sundaram. They let the humans stare and record in turn. Otherwise they kept to themselves.

“It suggests a very controlled society,” Dayan remarked.

“Or a very alien one,” Cleland said.

Abruptly that changed. While speech was not yet possible, sign language had steadily improved. It took the form of animated cartoons displayed on a portable screen. The figures were simplified and conventionalized to the point of grotesquerie, but usually comprehensible. One day a Tahirian ran off a sequence that made Kilbirnie shout, “Harroo!” and dance across the sward.

The newcomers were invited to go on tours.

“They’ve decided we know enough by now and are harmless,” Nansen guessed.

“Not necessarily harmless,” Brent said.

“Who made the decision, and how?” wondered Yu.

Evidently the
Tahirians gave priority to scientific and technological rapport. Was that because those were the least difficult subjects? They tried to explain what kinds of establishment they offered to show, on trips of a few days’ duration. Nansen divided his people accordingly. It made more sense than going in one herd. Nor did he want the camp left empty. For the initial jaunts, he assigned just two parties. The rest would stay behind until another time. He took the worst jealousy off that by including himself. When the aircraft took off, swiftly vanishing, Kilbirnie saw him bite his lip. She swallowed her own disappointment and slipped over to stand beside him.

Mokoena and
Zeyd entered into magic.

They landed at a cluster of structures, low shapes of complex, pleasing geometry around a filigree tower. Their guide showed them to a chamber with soft pads on the floor and an adjoining bath and sanitor copied from the humans’. Obviously this would be their lodging. They stowed the food, bedrolls, changes of clothing, and personal kits they had brought along and turned eagerly back to the guide. The little being led them straightway to a descent and down a spiral ramp, down and down.

“Does he feel how our curiosity burns?” Zeyd asked.

“I think curiosity must be universal to intelligence,” Mokoena replied, “though it may not always express itself in the same ways.”

The laboratory(?) in which they ended was long and wide, a hemiellipsoid out of which poured illumination. Several benches(?) were vaguely familiar, though no drawers were
visible; did they extrude on command? The paraphernalia on top and standing elsewhere was unrecognizable.

Three more Tahirians waited. All had been in the camp from time to time. They gave their guests a few minutes to look around. Thereupon one stepped forward. His(?) leaf-mane waved. He uttered a few piping notes. Arms and tentacular fingers wove through a series of gestures. A sweet smell drifted into air that otherwise hung warm and quiet.

“A polite greeting?” Mokoena hazarded.

Zeyd bowed.
“Salaam,”
he responded. His companion raised a palm.

The being trotted off. They followed. He stopped between tall cabinet-shaped devices on three sides of a square. An associate operated controls. A screen of some kind slid out to make the fourth side.

A three-dimensional image of the scientist appeared in it. “Holographic projection,” Zeyd muttered. “
Limatza
—why?”

Skin vanished from the image. The watchers beheld muscles, unlike theirs but serving the same purposes. After a minute this was gone and they saw deeper layers, vessels through which ran fluid, pale streaks of a solid material. …

“Tomographic fluoroscopy,” Zeyd said unevenly. “Why don’t they just show us anatomical models?”

“I expect they wish to use it on us, and are demonstrating it’s safe,” Mokoena opined.

“
Allah akbar!
That skeleton—modular trusses—”

Mokoena gasped. She had dissected small animals that Ruszek and Brent shot. This, though, was a different line of evolution, even a different phylum, if “phylum” meant anything here.

“See, see,” she breathed. The view moved inward. “That big organ, does it do the work of our heart and lungs? It could be how they inhale and exhale, in spite of the rigid body—”

“Ionic and osmotic pumps?”

“Oh, Selim, revelation!” She caught his hand and clung.

“Well, they have bowels,” he said, as if prosaic words
could fend off bewilderment. “What those other things are—”

The view went back outward, step by step. The humans focused their attention on the head. A brain was identifiable, however peculiar its form. Instead of teeth, convoluted bone ridges extended from the flesh of the jaws, presumably regenerating continuously. The fernlike shapes of four tonguelets, two above and two below, suggested they were chemosensors, perhaps among other functions. Indeed, Tahirians generally kept their mouths partly open.