Apes and Angels Read online

  “You’ve been staring at the screen for almost an hour now,” she said. “What’s going on inside your head?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Come on, Brad, I can’t read your mind and your thoughts aren’t written on your forehead. Something’s troubling you, I can see that much. What is it? Is it me? Something I’ve done?”

  Startled, Brad blurted, “You? Of course not!”

  “Then what?”

  He pointed at the screen. “Them.”

  “Them? What about them?”

  Turning to face her, Brad said, “We’ve been working on their language for how long now? Three months? Four?”

  “More like five.”

  “I think we’ve squeezed as much information out of the data we have as we’re going to. There’s not much more we can do with it.”

  With a careful nod, Felicia said, “We’ve got two dozen word phrases.”

  “We think we have two dozen phrases.”

  “You’re not sure.”

  “Right,” he said. “But I know how we can test our conclusions.”

  Felicia’s expression turned from questioning to alarmed. “You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking. Or are you?”

  “We’ve got to make contact with them,” Brad said. “See if our transliterations of their sounds actually mean what we think they mean.”

  “Contact is forbidden! You know that!”

  Brad shook his head. “We’ve already made contact, Fil. When we dropped the probes into their ocean, that was contact. If they’re intelligent, they must realize that those probes came from somewhere.”

  “They’ve ignored the probes.”

  “After determining that they’re neither food nor a threat.”

  “You want to speak to them?”

  “I want to try.”

  “Kosoff won’t permit it.”

  “I know. I’ll have to do it without his permission.”

  “He’ll crucify you.”

  Brad smiled tightly at her. “Not if I make actual, meaningful contact with the octopods. Not if I present him with a fait accompli.”

  Felicia’s eyes were wide with fear. “Especially if you present him with a fait accompli,” she said.

  PASSIVE V. ACTIVE

  I’ve got to be very careful about this, Brad told himself. Like walking on eggshells. Or through a minefield.

  He and Felicia entered the cafeteria. Even though the hour was late, the place was more than half filled with talking, laughing, gesticulating men and women. The huge room clattered with dishware and eating implements.

  Chattering apes, Brad thought. That’s what we are. I wonder if there’s a race of intelligent reptiles somewhere among the stars. I bet they’d be a lot quieter.

  Felicia broke into his thoughts. “There he is, waving to us.”

  Brad saw the man, a short but solidly built black, wearing a bright red tunic over grayish slacks. As he and Felicia walked through the crowded tables, she reminded him, “Gregory Nyerere, philologist.”

  “Who’s the woman with him?” Brad asked.

  “I don’t know her name, but I’m pretty sure she’s a linguist, too.”

  “Hello, Filly,” Nyerere said as they got within speaking distance. He was smiling broadly, his dark face full of good cheer. But Brad noticed Felicia’s wince at the nickname.

  “Brad, this is Greg Nyerere,” she said. “Greg, Brad MacDaniels.”

  “The guy who brought back all that good data from Alpha,” said Nyerere, sticking out his hand. Brad took it in his: the man’s grip was firm, strong. He must work out a lot, Brad thought. But his voice was a high, sweet tenor. Brad found it strangely inconsistent with his burly physique.

  “Kids, meet Estela Waxman,” Nyerere introduced. The young woman was plain-looking, Brad thought, her nose a trifle too large for her roundish face. She was slightly taller than Nyerere, her figure on the chubby side, skin a golden toast color. Her green eyes sparkled pleasantly, though; her smile was warm.

  “Estela’s a nurse,” Nyerere said as they all sat down at the small table. “Sort of my personal medic, nowadays.”

  Felicia asked, “You need a personal nurse?”

  His smile growing even wider, Nyerere explained, “We met when I pulled my back in the gym. Now Estela hangs out with me, to make sure I behave myself.”

  “Within limits,” the woman said.

  The dinner hour was long past, but the cafeteria was still offering desserts and coffee or tea. Estela volunteered to get drinks and desserts for them all, and Felicia went with her to the dispensing machines lined up along the far wall.

  “You watch,” Nyerere said to Brad as the two women headed for the dispensers. “By the time they get back here they’ll know every detail of each other’s lives. They’ll do a complete data dump in less than five minutes.”

  Brad could only manage to say, “Really?”

  “Really. Our computer geeks ought to learn how women exchange information.”

  Nyerere was grinning, but Brad thought he was serious.

  “So, you’re the bird that Kosoff banished to Alpha,” Nyerere said.

  With a nod, Brad said, “That’s me.”

  “How’d you put up with it? All alone for three months. I would’ve gone ’round the bend.”

  Feeling embarrassed, Brad replied, “I talked with Felicia every day. And trying to record the octopods’ chatter kept me pretty busy.”

  Looking unconvinced, Nyerere murmured, “Still, all alone out there.”

  Eager to change the subject, Brad said, “I hear you’re working on the octopods’ language.”

  “Yeah. Dr. Chang’s assigned three of us to try to decipher the data you brought back. Interesting stuff.”

  “How’s it coming along?”

  Nyerere’s grin dissolved slowly. “The computers are grinding through the data, finding correlations.” He made a high-pitched squeak. “That means ‘tasty.’” Another squeal. “That means ‘Follow me.’ That sort of thing.”

  “Then they have a language.”

  “Looks that way. Unless we’re totally fooling ourselves.”

  Felicia and Estela returned with two trays laden with pastries, coffee, and tea. Brad stopped his probing and the conversation moved to more personal subjects. Soon they were gossiping about who was sleeping with whom.

  And Felicia blurted, “Brad’s asked me to marry him.”

  “Really?” Estela’s face blossomed into a brilliant smile.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” Nyerere warned her.

  “Who’d want to marry you?” she taunted. “You’re already in love with yourself.”

  They chatted on about marriage and romance until Felicia abruptly said, “Greg, you know what would be a very generous thing for you to do?”

  “I’m not getting married.”

  Estela jabbed an elbow into his ribs. “Who’d have you? I’d have to be crazy.”

  Laughing, he asked Felicia, “So what would be a very generous thing for me to do?”

  “Let Brad see what you’ve accomplished. Let him see how much of the octopods’ language you’ve deciphered.”

  “It’s just scraps and fragments,” Nyerere said. “The only phrases we can understand represent physical actions. If they have deeper thoughts, we can’t translate them because there’s no action connected to them.”

  “But you have the brain scans,” Brad pointed out.

  Nyerere made a sour face. “So we see parts of their brains lighting up. So what? That doesn’t tell us what it means to them.”

  “Suppose we gave them a stimulus. Then we could see how they react to it.”

  “A stimulus?”

  “Like saying hello.”

  Nyerere’s brows climbed almost to his scalp. “That’s a no-no! We’re not supposed to make contact.”

  Brad said, “But we’ve already made contact. We’ve plopped the probes into the ocean alongside them.”

  Brows knitting now, Nyer
ere countered, “That’s a passive contact. Speaking to them would be an active contact. Strictly verboten.”

  Brad said, “Just one word. Just to see how they react. What harm would it do?”

  Nyerere stared at him. “You’re supposed to be an anthropologist. Didn’t they teach you about contacting primitive tribes? How contact ruins their culture?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No ‘buts,’ mister. Kosoff would make us walk the plank if we tried anything like that.”

  “Kosoff,” Brad growled.

  “He’s in charge.”

  Felicia spoke up. “Then why don’t you go over his head?”

  “Ask the World Council? Back on Earth?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Ask Emcee.”

  EMCEE

  “Emcee?” Brad and Nyerere asked in unison.

  Hunching forward at the table, Felicia replied, “The master computer has all the mission’s objectives and operating directives stored in its memory, doesn’t it?”

  “Plus a lot more,” said Nyerere. “It’s even got the data that the Predecessors’ probes gathered about the whole Mithra system, ages ago.”

  “We could ask it when and how it’s permissible to contact the octopods.”

  Brad felt a glow of enthusiasm brightening inside him. “And then we could show Kosoff that we’re following Emcee’s guidelines.”

  Estela asked, “Do you think Professor Kosoff would agree to that?”

  “He’d have to,” Felicia said. “If it’s in the mission’s operating directives.”

  Nyerere shook his head. “You’re going bass-ackwards.”

  “Huh?”

  “You don’t ask Kosoff’s permission. He’d never give it to you. He’d find some reason to say no.”

  Brad’s little flame of enthusiasm flickered. “Yeah, I bet he would.”

  “That’s why you don’t ask him.”

  Felicia gaped at him. “You mean we contact the aliens without telling him first?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  “But that’s—”

  Brad interrupted. “I get it! We contact the octopods first and tell Kosoff afterward.”

  Smiling like a canary-fed cat, Nyerere said, “And when he blows his stack you show him that you were following Emcee’s directions.”

  “He’d have to accept that,” Felicia said. But then she added, “Wouldn’t he?”

  Brad grinned at her. “He would. Nothing he could do about it. The damage would have already been done. He’d have to accept that fact and go on from there.”

  But inwardly Brad got a vision of being pushed out an air lock by an infuriated Professor Adrian Kosoff.

  * * *

  The four of them trooped from the cafeteria to Brad’s quarters. While Felicia pulled an assortment of bottles and glasses from the kitchen, Brad and Nyerere commandeered the sofa while Brad called up Emcee’s image.

  The wall display on the other side of the room lit up to show Emcee’s computer-generated face: innocent, smiling blandly.

  “How can I help you?” Emcee asked.

  Brad said, “What are the protocols for making first contact with an alien race?”

  Emcee’s face grew thoughtful. “That’s a very tricky matter, Brad.”

  “I know. We’d like to understand the protocol as thoroughly as possible.”

  “The first criterion,” said Emcee, “is the possibility of harm to the aliens.”

  And on and on, far into the night and the next morning.

  RULES OF CONDUCT

  The digital clock readout in the bottom right corner of the wall screen said 02:24. Estela was snoring lightly, stretched out on the recliner. Felicia sat between Brad and Nyerere on the sofa. Brad thought she was staring hard enough at the display to bore a hole through Emcee’s bland, maddeningly smiling image.

  Nyerere yawned and stretched. “Face it, man: there’s no way around Kosoff.”

  “There’s got to be.”

  “So where is it? We’ve been going through the operational procedures for more’n three hours now. Every road leads to Kosoff. You can’t try to make contact with an alien species unless you get permission from Kosoff and the executive committee.” Looking up at the wall screen, Nyerere asked, “Isn’t that right, Emcee?”

  “That is correct,” said the master computer’s avatar.

  Felicia pushed herself up from the sofa. “I’m wiped out. I’m going to sleep.” She headed wearily toward the bedroom.

  Brad tried to tell himself he was wide awake, but his eyes felt heavy, gritty.

  Nyerere got up and went to the sleeping Estela. Touching her arm lightly, he said softly, “C’mon, kiddo. Time to go home.”

  Estela stirred, blinked at him. “I dozed off,” she muttered.

  Nyerere helped her to her feet, then turned to Brad. “It’s been an interesting evening.” With a cheerless grin he added, “And night. And morning.”

  Brad walked them to the door. “Thanks, Greg.”

  “Wish we could’ve found something,” Nyerere said. “Would’ve been fun to twist Kosoff’s tail a little.”

  “Yeah. Fun.”

  “G’night.”

  “Night.”

  Brad slid the door shut, then started for the bedroom, hoping he was too tired to dream.

  Felicia was already in bed, her clothes strewn across the floor. Brad undressed and slid in beside her, then—instead of calling out to the light control and waking her—he twisted around and touched the switch on the wall that turned off the lights.

  He stared up into the darkness, trying to relax. No dreams, he told himself. Just let me sleep without dreams. And he wondered who he was talking to.

  The dream, when it came, was different. Brad was out on the floor of Tithonium Chasma, same as always, but this time the canyon wall wasn’t collapsing. This time there were huge octopus-like creatures swimming through the thin Martian air, just as if they were in their ocean.

  How can they swim through the air? Brad wondered.

  The octopods glided on by him, their tentacles waving gently, their eyes turning to focus on Brad as they passed.

  And Brad realized he wasn’t wearing a pressure suit. He was standing outdoors on Mars in nothing more than a tunic and slacks.

  No one else was there. Only Brad and the train of octopods gliding past.

  “Aren’t you going to say hello?” one of the creatures asked. Its voice was low and melodious. It reminded Brad of his mother’s voice.

  “Hello,” he said uncertainly.

  “It’s good to talk to you, at last,” said the octopod. “We’ve been waiting for you to say something, you know.”

  “I’ve wanted to talk to you,” Brad responded.

  “No!” thundered a heavy voice, filled with anger. “I won’t permit it!”

  And the sheer rock wall of the canyon began to shake, to reverberate as the voice howled with wordless fury. The octopods disappeared as boulders tumbled from the top of the chasm wall, falling slowly, inexorably onto the flimsy buildings of the human base on the canyon floor.

  Brad stood riveted, watching in horror as the rocks smashed into the buildings. The canyon floor was strewn with dead bodies.

  The voice roared, “Look what you’ve done! You’ve killed them! You’ve killed them all!”

  And Brad was sitting up in bed, soaked with cold sweat. Felicia called out for the lights, then turned to him, her face drawn, troubled. She wrapped her arms around Brad.

  “The dream again?”

  It took three tries before he could answer. “Yes … no, not exactly the same.”

  “It’s all right, dear. It’s only a dream. You’re safe. I’m here with you.”

  “Yes. I know.” But he was trembling like a leaf in a windstorm.

  And he realized that one of the bodies he’d seen on the canyon floor was Felicia’s, her face bloody, her body broken. And, beside her, his own.

  KOSOFF AND CHANG
/>   Inwardly, Brad marveled at how calm he felt. Maybe just a little nervous, but considering the firepower arrayed against him in Professor Kosoff’s office, he faced them with unwavering determination.

  I’m right and they’re wrong, he told himself. I’m right and they’re wrong.

  Yes, a voice in his head answered. That’s what they’ll carve on your tombstone.

  Sitting behind his desk, Kosoff looked nettled, irritated. Dr. Chang sat at Brad’s right, in front of the desk, cool and expressionless, the perfect inscrutable oriental.

  The chair on Brad’s left was empty. Dr. Littlejohn had promised to join this meeting, but he hadn’t shown up yet.

  Kosoff broke the tense silence. “I don’t have all day to wait for Littlejohn. You asked for this meeting, MacDaniels. What’s it all about?”

  Has Littlejohn bailed out on me? Brad wondered.

  “Dr. Chang and I have better things to do than to wait for your department chief,” Kosoff growled. “Either fish or cut bait.”

  Brad blinked at the ancient catchphrase. But he knew he either had to start talking or Kosoff would end the meeting before it began.

  “It’s about the octopods on planet Alpha,” he started.

  “I assumed as much,” said Kosoff.

  “I want to test the data we’ve amassed about their language.”

  “If it is a language,” Chang cautioned.

  “That’s what we’ve got to find out,” Brad said.

  Kosoff fixed Brad with a stern gaze. “And just how do you propose—”

  The office door slid open and Littlejohn stepped in, looking somewhere between harassed and apologetic.

  “I’m sorry to be late,” he said, hurrying to the empty chair beside Brad. “One of my people got into an altercation with one of the crew members.”

  “An altercation?” Kosoff asked.

  Chang asked, “You mean a fight?”

  Pulling a tissue from his pocket and mopping his forehead, Littlejohn answered, “Not a fight. No physical violence. But their voices were loud enough to hear for a kilometer or two, in every direction.”