Damocles (11 page)

“Hang on,” Cho whispered, rising from his crouch and shuffling backward toward his tent. All Dideto eyes followed him and he returned a moment later with a small metal case.

Jefferson snickered. “Hers is bigger than yours.”

Prader laughed too. “He’s used to hearing that.”

Captain Wagner’s voice was all business. “I’m glad to see this momentous occasion in human history isn’t interfering with your need to be ass clowns. Let’s cut the chatter.”

A round of “yes sirs” came through, although Meg could hear Prader swallowing the words “ass clowns” and a laugh. Cho seemed to hear none of it, focusing on opening his testing case and pulling out a drag screen of his own. Once things were set up to his liking, he pulled on latex gloves.

“Are those supposed to make me feel confident?” Meg’s eyes had widened along with Loul’s but the scientists seemed to take the action in stride. One did lean in closer to watch as Cho slipped the stretchy material over his hands.

“Our hands must look strange to them,” he said, holding up a gloved palm for the woman on the left to see more clearly. “Their hands are so blunt compared to ours. I’d guess they didn’t evolve from an arboreal species. I’m running a scan of the known wildlife to see if I can narrow down what their ancestry might be.”

Meg recognized that breathy monotone he spoke in. She could almost hear the wheels spinning in his head as he took in
the reality of standing so close to these people. She leaned into him enough to brush his shoulder. “Not thinking about water now, are you?”

“Shut up.” He didn’t look at her but she could see the corner of his mouth resisting a smile. “Here we go.”

One of the scientists held out a wet blue cloth. Cho reached out and took it from her with one gloved hand while reaching into his kit with another. He drew out a small tool that looked like a combination clamp and flashlight. He held the cloth between the prongs of the tool and waited as light shone over the fabric. A ding sounded from his drag screen and Cho nodded as he read the scrolling data. He handed the cloth to Meg.

“Me? I have to touch it? Do I need gloves?”

“Gloves would sort of defeat the purpose. You touched him. They want to know what you’re made of. They can compare the samples off of his hands.”

She saw Loul tap his knuckles together, rocking a bit in his crouch as if encouraging her. She took a deep breath and rubbed the damp cloth over her hands. “Ooh, it’s cool. Feels kind of good. I wouldn’t mind swabbing down my neck with this.”

“It’s a neutral mineral-based fluid. Seems nonreactive. Probably a testing solution.”

“Probably?” Meg asked, holding the cloth out with two fingers.

Cho shrugged. “Of course it could be a unique solution that reacts with your skin chemistry to transform into liquid nitrogen and freeze your fingers off. How cold is it?”

Meg saw that smirk again. “Bioscience humor. Hilarious. Do you need this cloth or can I give it back to her?”

Cho snipped off a corner of the fabric and caught it in a plastic vial. Again the scientists didn’t react. The one on the right just held out a jar and Meg dropped the cloth inside. Cho held up the
lighted tool for the women to see. He placed his finger between the glowing prongs and held it there for several seconds. Then he held up the scanned finger for them to see. A few grumbled words exchanged and the scientist on the left held out her finger.

“Huh,” Meg said. “Maybe you don’t need a translator.”

She saw the smug arch of his brow as he shifted to reach the outstretched finger. “Science. The universal language. Shit.” The woman’s thick finger didn’t fit between the prongs and Cho hurried to find a different scanner. Meg laughed under her breath.

“Hers really is bigger than yours.”

Cho scanned the back of the Dideto scientist’s hand with a wand-like scanner. “I believe the words ‘ass clown’ have already been used today, if I’m not…” His words trailed off as the woman turned her hand over and extended her fingers. “Would you look at that?”

The woman held her open palm up for them to see. Fully extended, the fingers were shorter than any of the Earthers’ hands, and the same rough sand-colored skin on the back of the hands covered most of the palms. But where they expected to see the same folds and creases they knew in the bends of their own hands, the Dideto’s skin separated, revealing tender swaths of smooth pink skin. Across the palms, in the crooks of the knuckles, and tapering up into the pads of the fingertips, the pale-pink skin flexed and pulsed where the darker skin pulled away.

“Is it a scar?” Meg asked.

“I don’t think so.” Cho spoke softly, his voice filled with awe. “I think it’s, I don’t know, maybe how they feel.” He peeled off his latex glove and held his palm out toward the women. In unison they dipped their chins, leaning forward for a closer look at Cho’s unbroken skin. “I should really use the scanner first, check for…surface…tissue…” Meg held her breath as his words faded and his hand moved forward until his longer, narrower hand
touched the broad pink-and-brown palm before him. She knew the moment they touched. She could hear it in Cho’s breathing and in the dropping pitch of the woman’s throat.

They held their pose for several shallow breaths and Meg could see the effort it took Cho to withdraw his hand. Even just as a bystander, she felt that same everything-falling-away sensation she’d felt when she’d looked into Loul’s eyes up close. They were scientists, explorers, billions of miles from home on a controversial one-way mission to rewrite human history. They had mind-melting amounts of data to gather and process, tests to perform, and analyses to make, but all of that seemed to fall away when they could see and hear and smell the presence of these wondrous creatures in front of them.

Cho took a deep breath and focused on scanning the woman’s hand. Meg had seen him use these before. The wand was a simple bio-identifier used for everything from security to wildlife tagging. She knew he had a much more complex scanner he wanted to use, but even with the rapport they all seemed to feel, the full-body scanner would probably require a little explanation, and that would require some language. She doubted even a scientist would willingly step into a glowing square of light that popped up out of nowhere.

As Cho set his data programming in motion, the scientists picked through the jars in their cart. They spoke in low, guttural tones to each other, and their motions suggested they worked together often. Meg had to laugh. Even with the marked differences between the Dideto and the Earthers, something in their expressions reminded her of the serious distracted scowl Cho wore whenever he lost himself in his work.

She glanced at Loul, assuming he’d been as enrapt in the encounter as she’d been, but he sat deep in his crouch, his eyes
closed and his head settled down low into his neck in a strange turtle-like way. No humming sounded from his throat.

“Loul?” She moved to him quickly. He sat too still, no muscles fidgeting at all. “Loul?” She reached out to touch him, fear souring her mouth when he still didn’t move. Before she could reach him, the scientist closer to him barked out a sharp sound, making her stop. The scientist pulled her knuckles apart. No.

“But Loul?” Meg pointed, knowing they couldn’t understand her. “Is he okay?”

The women grunted to each other in rapid exchange, and while Meg felt confident she could move faster than either of them, she sensed they would do what they could to keep her from reaching Loul. Cho put his hand on her arm to pull her back.

“Cho, what’s happening? What’s wrong with Loul? He’s not moving.”

“Well, they don’t seem very worried about it so that’s in our favor.” His voice didn’t match the optimism of his words. “Can you…how do ask them a question?”

Meg settled back into a neutral stance and could see the women relax. She pointed to Loul and mimicked his position as best she could, closing her eyes for just a moment before looking back to them and holding out her hands in surrender. The women shared a few more grumbling words. The one on the right, closest to Loul, pointed to the still man and then scrunched her head down between her shoulders in the same strange way as Loul’s. She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them, tapping her knuckles together. Yes.

She repeated the sequence—scrunch, close, open, yes—and looked at Meg and Cho, waiting for them to understand. Cho shifted beside her. “Is he…asleep?”

Meg made a sound of disbelief. “Here? In two minutes in the middle of a field? In a catcher’s crouch with all this noise and these people? With us here?”

Before Cho could answer, Loul’s eyes popped open and he blinked several times. When he saw Meg so close, he smiled. Then he yawned.

“Huh.” She and Cho spoke in unison as Loul shook off his strange stillness. His eyes widened as he smiled at Meg and said something to the scientists. Everything in his body language suggested that nothing out of the ordinary had taken place. Judging from the punchy gestures the scientists were peppering their words with, they had a different story to tell. The scientist in the middle kept jabbing a stubby finger in Meg’s direction.

“I don’t think they’re happy with you,” Cho said, following the guttural exchange.

“Well, I’m sorry if I think that turning to stone in the middle of first contact is a little unusual.” She watched Loul as he shifted in his crouch, inching closer to her.

“Meg.” He pressed his knuckles together, barking out her name loud enough to make her wince. “Loul.” He tapped his own chest and made the yes gesture two more times, alternating hand bumps with quick dips into the odd still position that had so unsettled her. Each time he reopened his eyes he made the yes gesture again, repeating a low popping sound. The third time he started the series, Meg activated the recording program
and opened a text screen. Loul hesitated, watching her fingers scrabble over the lighted screen, and then resumed the sequence.

Cho watched her arrange the data on her screen. “Did you just get something?”

“Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“Let’s see if this is right.” She tapped the screen before her, activating the audio command function. Looking up at the Dideto before her, she spoke in clear, clipped tones. “Loul is okay.” After a pause, her speaker patch emitted the recorded sounds of Loul’s voice. She could hear the gaps where the computer had pieced together the sounds but it created the desired effect. Loul and the scientists’ eyes widened enough that Meg could see white around their gray irises, and all three mouths fell open. The women remained frozen, but Loul dropped forward on his fists, his mouth opened in a wide grin as he leaned in close. As he spoke, she heard her own voice in her translation com pieced together by the program.

“Yes. Okay is Loul. Yes.”

She didn’t realize she was leaning forward too, their faces less than a foot from each other. She grinned at his grin. “How about that?” she whispered to herself and then quieted, listening for the familiar ping of the program organizing the next set of sounds he made.

“Meg is yes okay is yes.”

Cho frowned at the screen. “What does that mean? Did you just say that?”

“Shh.” She didn’t want to interrupt the audio capture to explain the process to Cho. In time, the program would change the translation voice to a gender-neutral generated voice, but for now she had it programmed to translate into her own voice, making it easier for her to add vocabulary as she came across
it. In the coms, she knew it must sound strange to the rest of the crew, like she was babbling to herself, but she couldn’t worry about that now. Instead, she dipped forward slightly, urging Loul to repeat himself.

“Meg is yes okay is yes.”

She grinned again as comprehension dawned. “Oh there you are, oh you beautiful, beautiful thing.” A few swipes on the screen and Cho saw the text boxes double. Her speaker patch emitted more guttural sounds as she spoke into the translation com. “Yes. Meg is okay.”

Cho watched as she and Loul bumped hands again, she giggling, he rumbling low in his throat. “Do I even want to ask what just happened?”

Meg laughed louder. “Funny you say that. I just found the interrogative structure.”

Cho snorted. “Is that like porn for language nerds?”

“As a matter of fact it is.” Meg arranged the text boxes on the screen, moving her hands so that Loul could watch. It would be a while before he’d be able to operate a screen of his own, but she could tell he was putting together the function of the program. All the Earthers would have a similar screen to Meg’s, each customized to their particular programs and all with access to the full databank. Meg arranged the screens intuitively, organizing text-vocal patterns in what she felt was an organic pattern.

The layout wasn’t dissimilar to the old Ouija board she and her sister, Maddie, used to play with when they were kids.
Yes
and
no
held prominent spots at the top corners of the screen. Now that the program had recognized
okay
as similar to
yes
, she grouped the sounds nearby. It had worked for the translations of the last isolated tribe she’d been called in to work with. It had worked with the seemingly impenetrable pidgin language of the outer Werthery Colonies. Affirmatives and negatives could
usually be grouped together:
yes
/
okay
/
good
versus
no
/
not
okay
/
bad
. To be able to signify the interrogative, whether by tone, word, or symbol, meant actual conversation could take place. It would be rudimentary at first. Hold something up. Interrogative.
Yes
or
no, good
or
bad
. From there, the general question base could grow quickly.
Who
/
what, where, how
, and the hardest of them all,
when
.