“Commander?”
Louis turned around to face Dr. Weiss.
“Ask Dr. Weiss,” Dr. Somerset transmitted from the surface. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go to work. Somerset out.”
Louis just shrugged. “You have something for me, Weiss?” he asked.
“Indeed,” she replied. “I could not help but overhear you ask Dr. Somerset about the appearance of the. . . was isch das Wort? – Indigenous on the surface. . . and, erm, well, I can in fact show you at once, if you’d like.”
“Can you? Please do.” He made a motion to leapfrog from the ceiling.
“Jawohl – but first, Commander – ” she held her hand out, stopping him from approaching her terminal – “I should tell you this: this image came in some time ago from the probe. What you will see in it, you would not believe. I couldn’t believe it either – and to say nothing about Somerset making first contact.”
“I’ve seen enough crazy things back when I served aboard the Athabaskan,” he assured – “this? This should be a cakewalk.”
She rolled her eyes – and started loading the photograph. It took a few seconds to load its full resolution, but what it offered was unmistakable and exact in its testimony.
Indeed, Louis couldn’t believe it – just as she feared, and just as Dr. Somerset had apparently feared as well. There was Somerset, in his suit waving at the probe, while next to him, with his arm draped across its nape, was what looked like a violet unicorn.
Louis would’ve bought just about anything vaguely shaped like a humanoid being as the Indigenous. His mind went back to when he’d watched Star Trek on the family television – how the Vulcans, the Klingons, and the Romulans all looked human, walked human, though acted with the strange quirks that, while alien, still made them human. But this? It was like something out of a fantasy novel. It couldn’t be real. No, it couldn’t possibly be real.
And yet it was – and Dr. Weiss certainly had no experience manipulating photographs, nor did she have a reason. Would he have believed it if it were a mass of cells in a pile? What if it was part of a hiveminded race? Perhaps this one was – would explain the horn in front of its head – and nobody had figured it out yet. But of all the things he could have said, it ended up being just one thing.
“Les chevaux?” he muttered – then he turned to face Weiss, gestured the monitor, and blurted out “C’est quoi cette folie?” He expected confusion, perhaps the start of an argument.
But Dr. Weiss just laughed. “That’s what I said!”
·–··
As Adam crossed the bridge into town, his mind still focused on the mechanics of their telekinesis, teleportation, and anything else they might do with it. Can they do anything else with it? he wondered. I’ve yet to see it happen – but then, if I could wield it myself, what more use would I need?
But a sudden transmission interrupted his reverie. “Somerset, this is Commander Darcy.” Oh, calling me again, I see. Whaddaya want this time? “Dr. Weiss just showed me the photograph from the probe, taken a few solar cycles ago. Am I correct to believe that the Indigenous are equine in their nature? Over.”
Oh, now you’re just hearing about it? Seriously Weiss, Konstantinov – y’all dropped the ball there. But then, so did I, in a way. Bah! “This is Somerset,” he replied. “Affirmative Zulu-Alfa, most of the Indigenous are – ” he was about to use ‘xenohippologic,’ but figured that none of the three awake aboard would know what it meant – “equine. That was something I noticed as soon as I landed. I neglected to tell you since I wasn’t sure if you would believe me when I spoke of their appearances. Over.”
“Somerset, s’il te plaît. . . .” Louis paused for a few moments before he found the words – but even then, Adam was wondering why he heard a hint of hesitation in his voice, as though even he doubted his own words. “It doesn’t matter what they look like, so long as you found which ones were in fact the sentients. As long as you can find a way to communicate with them, that’s all that matters.” Fair point, I guess. “I’ll leave you to your job, then. That’s one mystery solved – I’ll be transmitting this photo back to Earth. Zulu-Alfa out.”
Adam chuckled to himself – he wondered how the world might react to the whole scene. Several facts could be drawn from it – his appearance in his suit, the fact that he was the first man to walk on Rhysling – on the first planet outside the Solar System – and the first man to make contact with an extraterrestrial species. But more importantly, the appearance of the extraterrestrials themselves. For all the wild and unbounded imagination of Man, it could conceive them to be something familiar to Earth, their cradle.
How would his family react to the scene? How would his friends? How would Akira? He couldn’t focus on these thoughts and the road ahead, and ended up hitting something right in the torso. At least, he thought it was the torso – he looked down and saw that he ran into Antir. “Hello,” she greeted – in English, not Ukhǃerr. “Edem is? well.”
There she is – and she’s still speaking English! “Yes, I am well,” he replied. “Thank you.” He turned to go around her on his way to work, but she tagged along instead, apparently having nothing better to do with her time. He didn’t say anything, instead opting for her to speak – in either Ukhǃerr or English.
But she didn’t – she stayed by his side instead, never letting him out of her sight, even as he entered the town proper. One look down at her face told him that it was because she was worried about him. Either she didn’t know what “Yes, Adam is well” meant in Ukhǃerr, or she did, but didn’t believe it, and decided better safe than sorry.
“Where? Edem home is.” she said. Apparently a question, he just noticed that all the interrogative intonation was placed on “where,” leaving the rest of the phrase unaffected.
“Adam home is. . . not here,” he cautiously replied. “Adam home is in sky.” He pointed skyward to emphasize his point. “Is in stars. Is very far away.”
“Yes, Edem home is in stars,” she replied. “But where? in stars.” Apparently she wanted a more specific answer.
Fair call on that one. “There is. . . hole in stars,” he replied. “What is ‘hole’?” Let’s see if she knows that word.
But Antir merely pointed at a bird passing through the sky. “Hole?” she asked.
“No. Bird.” Better demonstrate it for her. He knelt down by the side of the road and started digging into the dirt. He didn’t go too far, but then it wasn’t needed to demonstrate his point. “Hole,” he announced, pointing at the small hole he just dug.
“Hole,” she repeated, looking down at what he did. Then she looked back to his face – “Hole in sky? How?”
He shrugged. “I do not know.” But it’s at least a start. Let’s go from there. He formed a loop with his thumb and index finger. “Hole here.” He made a fist on one side of the loop. “Antir home here.” He moved the fist to the other side of the loop. “Adam home here.” Come to think of it, didn’t we discuss this before? he thought. Did she just forget, or does she think I was blowing smoke up her –
“How?” she asked still. “Stars is perfect. Stars has no flaw. Yara Ariman let stars has no flaw.” A local deity? Adam wondered. . . . no, hold on, I think I know who she’s talking about. One of the two tall unicorn-pegasus hybrids in the capitol’s palace. They weren’t deities – at least, he didn’t think so – but they did have administrative functions in her nation’s government. He didn’t catch the white one’s name, even though it was the first to respond to Antir, but it didn’t sound like Yara Ariman. That meant that name applied to the blue one.
As he thought about it some more, he realized just how appropriate it was. Yara Ariman represented the night – the moon and the stars that hang overhead in the night sky. Is she its custodian? Do these two rotate in and out with the sunrise and the sunset? The white one’s appearance does look similar to the Rhyslinger sun – maybe that really is the motif.
Antir interrupted his thinking with some tugging on his arm – in her hoof this time, not her telekinesis, as she normally would use. “Edem go now,” she told him.
Adam stood back up. “Yes, Adam go now.” He started back down the road, on his way to the repair shop. Something tells me I’m going to be late again, he realized. I hope she doesn’t fire me. . . .
··–·
Either he wasn’t late at all, nobody noticed him, or the clerk didn’t care at all. He noted the single job marked on the board: he was apparently supposed to be. . . picking up litter?
The purpose depicted was unmistakable: a humanoid figure was holding a pole with a narrow, pointed end, using it to puncture loose refuse on the ground, then depositing them into a bin. Worse, there was no magnet on the metal map – or rather, there were four, being used to hold a square of red film over the area where he was supposed to work.
Then he noticed the clerk turn the corner to see him. “Nǃapata,” he greeted with a wave of his hand, making sure to place the stress on the last syllable.
“Nǃapata,” it returned, with a similar gesture. [sɑˈsɑ noɣu sulɑkiˈsũ l̩bɑˈʙu] It pointed its hoof towards the board, assuming he hadn’t seen it yet.
He simply couldn’t imagine whoëver assigned these jobs to him would be that demeaning, but when it paired its words with a smile – a warm one, not at all sadistic – he started to rethink the intent behind it. He took another look at the map, at the area that the film marked. It was in the eastern part of town – and yes, it did enclose the barbershop where he worked the day before. Is that more populated? Less?
In any case, he came to realize that the clerk simply wanted him to get to know the town better. And apparently, the best way to do that, for a man of his cultural skills, was to pick up trash.
He took another look at the board itself, and saw a detail that was omitted from his initial observation: for every full bag of trash that he collected, he earned a coin. Which cladding? He had to ask.
He rapped on the clerk’s desk – then when it looked up, he pointed at the coin on the board, raising an eyebrow.
The clerk had to pause to ponder what he had meant by these mute gestures. Eventually it peeked under the desk, and retrieved a coin – silver. One silver coin per bag, he realized – six bags per gold coin. I just wonder how quickly these things fill up.
With that mystery solved, yet another opened, he sighed and shrugged, resigning himself to a rather demeaning fate, and turned to head to the door. As he did so, he noticed two things waiting for him there: a small wheeled bin, lined with a black film bag, and a trash picker – wooden, with one end ending with a rubber ball, and the other with a thin metal rod. He grabbed the rod, and started pushing the bin in front of him as he set off out the door.
Of course his first piece of trash would be found right outside the agency itself. He stabbed what looked like some sort of silver-foil wrapper, then emptied it into the bin. It hardly made a dent in the job – but then, he was just getting started.
At least he knew the way to the east side of town.
–·
C’mon, really? Adam stopped to pluck some more garbage – a wax-paper cup – literally right next to a public trash bin. It was right there! Literally just try!
But it was one more to add to his own bin, at least. Not only that, but the bag was getting completely full. Good time as any to tie it off and start on the next one. He set the picker down, leaning it against a tree on the side of the street, and started tying off the bag. This way, through here – pull tight! It was sealed closed. One silver coin in his pocket when he got back.
But how would he prove it? No way would they count the number of bags – besides, that’d be easy to fake: just toss the lot and reap a profit. Nor did he have a reliable supervisor with him, who would attest the exact number of bags he used. No, he’d have to keep it with him for the time being.
The bin did have a few places onto which to tie the bag, so Adam took advantage of that. He made a simple slipknot, one that he could unfasten quickly, but held its strength while he kept working. Satisfied by the handiwork, he grabbed another bag from a small cardboard box, shook it to spread it out, then carefully lined the bin with it. Ready to go! He picked up the picker again and kept walking, looking side to side for anything that he could miss.
He suddenly stopped. Hey, what if. . . ? He backed up and looked at the public bin again. Sure enough, this one was getting full as well. Do they use the same size bags? Their containers were of similar dimensions. That would make sense.
Then he got an idea. An awful idea. Dr. Adam Somerset got a wonderful, awful idea.
He lifted the public bin’s lid off and set it aside. Then he lifted the bag out, tied it off, and affixed it to his own bin. He shook out another bag, lined the public bin with it again, and placed the lid back on. That was another coin in his pocket, plus he did the regular sanitation workers a favor at the same time.
But that was a trick he could pull off maybe once. If he did that too many times, the agency clerk would know the jig was up and refuse to pay him anything for the day. But oh well, the deed was done, and there was no point ruminating over the consequences.
He set off down the road once again, keeping an eye on his surroundings. They were pristine so far, apart from that rather messy incident he saw. Then again, he saw similar things back on Earth – Tacoma, Santa Barbara, even Cambridge couldn’t be considered clean or tidy.
Aha! He found a loose square of paper blowing in the wind. Once it settled by his feet, he stabbed it and disposed of it. Lucky me.
Then his nose started to itch. Adam’s anxiety started rising – he knew he couldn’t scratch it easily, not in this awkward position. Thankfully, the Soviet engineers had implemented a quick and dirty solution: a small square piece of sandpaper inside the helmet’s lower rim. Adam bowed his head, and scratched his nose against it. Ah, much better.
He rounded the next corner and kept going up this street. Up ahead, he noted a rather large park within the town. A park means lots of equines, he thought. Means lots of trash. Could fill up another bag or two just roaming around there.
He went into the park, crossing under an iron sign, Ukhǃerr letters wrought into the grating in words he could not understand – well, apart from the obvious. Alright, trash, trash, trash. . . this park’s entrance looks clean at least. Wait. Stab, stab, stab, he collected up a few bits of paper, dropping them into his bin.
As he walked about the park, his mind was back on Earth. He remembered a time, back in middle school, when he had to pick up trash around the school. And that meant across the entire campus – the parking lots, both staff and public, the playgrounds, even the football field in the back. By coïncidence, that was the last time he had plagiarized an assignment. . . .
He shook his head. Where did the days go? He sighed, and kept trudging along, looking around for any similar messes like the one he found earlier.
He looked to his left – and spotted a proper sanitation worker, with a teal hat and coveralls, changing out the bags for a public bin. Just as he was a few minutes ago.
Adam was conflicted. Should I be doing the same? Clearly the town had specific workers for the purpose, and the chalkboard back at the agency specifically said to pick up trash, not change out bags. And he had already cheated at one point. . . .
What to do, what to do? Adam knew that he had to be an honest worker. He came this far to earning the trust of the Indigenous, and he most certainly did not want to screw things up – not when he had no idea how much further he had to go. But at the same time, the Indigenous were slow to trust outsiders, especially of the sort who came from the sky and nowhere from Rhysling at all.
He wasn’t worried about losing today’s pay – their trust was worth more than his weight in gold.
And yet, it was tempting. Maybe he’s a temp worker too, he thought. Then: No, don’t be ridiculous, he’s likely on a salary. And then, he noticed that the equine he saw earlier was struggling with another public bin.
He raised an eyebrow. Is it stuck? He grabbed his own bin and started heading closer, just to see what it was.
The poor thing was grunting and tugging every which way, but no matter what it seemed like the two pieces were welded together. Here, let me try, he wanted to say – but remained silent, as he grabbed the lid and tried it himself.
Huh, ‘welded’ is the right word after all.
His next reflex was to stick his fingers in – albeit his heavily-gloved ones – to try to see if there was something making the two pieces stick together. Not this corner, not this one. . . aha! The far edge made it really hard to pull his hand away – and when he did finally tear it away with an audible grunt, he saw a black tar-like substance stuck onto his fingertips.
Cue the equine worker planting its face into its front hoof.
The hell is this, horseshoe glue? Regardless, he’d found the problem. Now, it was just a matter of getting that resolved. First, the pony motioned Adam to clean off his glove – not something easy to do. He had to make do with the grass on the ground, which somehow did the trick.
That settled, now was the matter of getting the lid of the blasted thing. Adam decided to take advantage of where the tar-like stuff was placed – he grabbed the front, and started hinging it along. After a bit of back-and-forth motion, the lid finally snapped off – still with the sticky substance on it, but at least it hadn’t broken off. So that’s something, at least.
The equine insisted on dealing with the lid, which freed up Adam to empty out the bin itself. He lifted out the bag and tied it up, as he normally would. Conflicted about what to do with it next, for the time being he left it next to the bin. Grab a new bag, shake it into shape, line the bin, done within the minute.
This gave Adam time to watch the other equine deal with the other mess. Its strategy was simple: just chip and scrape the damned thing away. It had some sort of blunt blade in its mouth, and was running it back and forth along the inside edge of the lid. As awkward as the human found the placement of the tool, he had to admit, despite his own expectations, it was getting the job done. It didn’t even take him five minutes to clean away the lid, even though it must have been terribly hard work.
Once the lid was back on, Adam grabbed the full bag. Making sure he still had the equine’s attention, he pointed at it, then to his own bin, then to the equine, then raised an eyebrow – in that order. Hopefully it would interpret that as what he should do with it: keep it or give it to the worker.
It responded, just as silently, with a simple point at the bag, then to Adam’s bin – and followed up with a smile and a wink. Hmm – maybe it knows what I’m doing, and is now returning the favor. Tit for tat. Thanks!
Adam tied the bag to his bin, and started patrolling the park again. However, in due time he would find that all the rest of the bins had been cleaned out and changed – perhaps that troublesome one was saved for last, precisely for that reason. Oh well, Adam thought, there’s still the rest of the east side of town.
He wasted no more time here, and left the park shortly after.
··
[ˈɑj]
Adam barely had enough time to look up before something hit his helmet. It wasn’t hard enough to crack the glass, but he then noticed some orange fluid start to run down the glass bubble, which still left his brow furrowed in frustration. A group of adolescent (by his guess) equines started laughing, then took off down the road before he could shout something back.
Adam rolled his eyes – bunch of delinquents. But what was that they threw at me, anyway? Adam looked on the ground, and found they had thrown him a container of what looked like juice. I hope it’s not terribly caustic. The suit’s exterior was able to withstand most acidic attacks, but one could never be too sure.
It was a close call at least.
Adam stabbed the container, the lid, and the straw with which it came – though that one took a few tries – and emptied the picker into the bin. This one’s getting full, isn’t it? Good time as any to tie it off and start fresh. He stabbed the ground with the picker and began that old routine.
As he worked, his mind went to his own adolescence. Thankfully he wasn’t an unruly rascal – not like the ones he had just encountered – but he was still prone to trouble. His cousin had introduced him to The Lord of the Rings, which spawned a profound fascination with language once he saw a few glimmers of Quenya and Sindarin. Quite often, he was tardy or outright truant to several classes – he would be found in the libraries in those days, trying to read about more of the world of Middle-Earth. It got to the point where his history teacher once declared, at the top of his lungs in front of his peers, that he would amount to nothing, and that he would be forgotten entirely.
Those words shook him, but only just. Out of spite, he kept to his self-imposed studies. Soon he would branch away from those languages, and in his junior year he took a closer look at other, real-life languages. At first he limited himself to the Germanic ones, then he took up French and Russian simultaneously – he didn’t know how to speak either very well, but can easily explain how they worked ‘under the hood.’ By the time he graduated from UCSB, he had become a fully-fledged linguist, whose doctoral thesis concerned the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and its effects on the speakers of Australian Aboriginal languages.
After teaching linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he would sign up for Zodiac-Altair on a dare from his students, in exchange for their perfect scores. They gave him what they promised, so he had to put his money where his mouth was – which did end up making him the first human to set foot on an extrasolar body.
Amount to nothing, my ass – see you in Hell, Mr. Jones!
With a little more force than he probably meant, he opened up the next bag – which split open from a burst of anger. Crap. . . . He set the bag aside, grabbed a new one, and opened that up more calmly. He lined the bin with it, finally wiped the juice off of his suit with the torn bag, then stuffed that inside. Relax, Adam – you should be calm. Sure, it’s demeaning work, but at least you get to do it on another planet.