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.Excelsior	By : keithcompany Category: Titles in the Public Domain > Gulliver's Travels Views: 2164 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work fiction, based on Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift.

Chapter List
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Everyone backed off as the bulge extended into the passage. The rubbery material stretched over our heads. Elves aimed various electronics at it as weaponeers zeroed in as much death as they carried.
Finally the bulge popped. A dangerous looking length of metal poked out of the black. A tube about as wide as I stood poked 20 feet out, 30 feet above us. I tried to figure the implications. Was it similar to the control tubes Chuff had somehow set off, or was it a weapon?
“Hey!” Albalureindis’ voice interrupted, “can you guys see the tube, yet?” I checked my screen and her suit camera was an active choice. Her POV showed her leaning towards a black wall, shoving a metal bar into it with her hands.
“Um, yeah, Commander. It’s over here, way above us. Were you trying to pry the door open with it?”
“No, Captain. I figured if I could get it through the block, you guys could crawl through it.” She shifted her grip and pushed. On our side, the open end started to tip down towards us.
Pound for pound, the elves have the greatest strength of the three races. Their human-like musculature is very unusual for their size, their ability to manipulate mass in ratio to their size far exceeds human or giant ratios. In artificial gravity failures, elf crewman have been able to walk where humans could only crawl and giants were paralyzed.
On the other hand, for gross tonnage, the giants can lift each other. The techs’ scans indicated the rubbery covering of the ship’s walls had a density that made military grade armor look porous, and our physicist was merely working up a decent sweat.
As the opening got within reach we rushed up it. Weps covered the rear and shouted ‘Last In!’ as she entered. Reins immediately started pulling it back out.
At the exit, a cargo net waited to carry us all. We jumped in, reporting to Reins that we were all out of the tube. She let go and turned to run for the door. I dialed her private suit channel as we bounced around in the net. The beam from her helmet light lent a particularly ominous tone to the tunnel.
“So, you must have made good time. Donning the suit, cycling the airlock, transit to the ship, and to the blockage. Real good time. Oh, and picking out a hollow tube. How long did that take you?”
“Sir,” she reported between breaths, “I dressed out as soon as you departed and waited in the airlock in case you needed assistance. And the tube was already there. By the way, if we need to take on reaction mass from a comet before we return home, we’ll have to rig a new flow pipe.”
“But still, the leap across from Excelsior, that must have taken…oh, wait, did you use a rocket?” She rounded the last corner and legged it for the exit. Some sort of lighting started to illuminate the walls and we could hear a rumble from some engine or another machine.
“Actually sir, it wasn’t that far.” Excelsior’s giant-airlock was directly opposite the hatch of the alien vessel instead of standing off as ordered. Ruspahar was doing a precise job of matching velocities and headings.
Our rescuer leaped across the space and slammed into the lock. She cushioned us from the shock as well as she could, but the impact knocked most of us out.
------
The recording played out on the conference room screen. The alien vessel reached threshold and vanished. Ruspahar had followed it as long as possible, noting it’s heading on entry to hyperspace as precisely as possible. Like any good executive officer, he’d followed the orders I would have given, if I’d been conscious. The navigators were trying to identify a possible destination.
“Okay,” I told my department heads. “Make your best estimates, load absolutely everything into a Pulse and let the eggheads on Earth check our work.”
“Yes, sir. Do we tell HQ that we intend to follow?” Everyone showed mixed reactions to the suggestion. I shook my head.
“No, no need to put the duty officer on Heinlein Station in a tizzy. Tell them we’re about to go hyper, and resume heading for our assigned star system. Give an estimated date for our reentry to normal space, then everyone in and out of the chain of command can have that long to figure out what orders they want to give us. Dismissed.” Everyone screened off with more alacrity than usual, except for my two problem children. The XO and the Eng faced into their screens with stoic resolve. I looked back and forth between their faces.
“If this were a 3D drama, this would be the point where I dress you down for disobeying orders. Then I’d wink and give you medals for saving my life. Or there’d be a pregnant pause before I said thank you.
“This isn’t drama. You saved my crew by risking more of my crew. Including your dumb selves.” Ruspahar took a deep breath, and started talking.
“Sir,” he began, “we did ask the crew if anyone objected to a rescue before we made a move.”
“And how long has this ship been a democracy? How long have I ever really cared about the opinions of people I’ve already given orders to?” I think Reins was about to offer my executive some support, but a glare silenced her.
Then I dropped into a chair and put my feet on the conference table. “On the other hand, you were right.” I sighed. Russ relaxed, Reins looked confused. “You understood my priorities, you took initiative, and you saved my crew. I’ll forgive a whole lot for saving my crew. No medals for this little mutiny, but no courts martial, either. Now….” I looked sternly towards them again, “…in the future, so you’ll further understand my priorities, if I’m the only one in danger, do not risk your lives for me. I don’t want the crew exposed to danger for my sake. That includes the two of you!” I screened of and headed for my shower. I didn’t have to put them in for medals. HQ loved a good rescue and they’d take care of that for me. Probably throw in a parade. I paused at the mirror to wink at myself. We must keep up the proper forms.
Shortly after that, I stepped out of my shower to find an audience. Lissisi stood on my table, buck naked and arms spread wide.
“You saved him! Man in whole world it is that my heart for!” Oh, great.
“Lissisi, you’re drunk. Your accent always comes out when you’re drunk.” I grabbed my jumper and dressed. She made the same effort humans do to conquer inebriation by enunciation.
“Captain… I… want… to… thank… you… for… not… leaving… Chuffers… behind. He is… the father… of my children.”
“You don’t have any children.”
“Not YET! Men! Not within a one of you the slight of a poet is!” She swigged from a flask. I found myself looking her nude form over and wondering where she’d hid it.
“What do you want, Lissisi? Besides clothing.” I found a dry watch cloth and draped it over her. She fought her way clear and stamped to my side of the table.
“You saved life of my love. I am to thank you.” She sat down on the edge of the table and waved towards my fly. I kept both hands under her to catch her if needed. “I offer myself to you. Ancient Fuscanan tradition.”
“You’re not Fuscan, and I’d have done it for anyone. You don’t owe me anything.” By then, though, she was asleep. I moved her to the center of the table and bedded her on the towel. I was about to call the XO to arrange repatriation to her bunk when my door chimed. My little door, actually. Above the elf entrance to the catwalk along one side of my stateroom, the screen showed the face of Chuffump.
Lilliputian sexual mores changed faster than Paris fashions. I had absolutely no idea what the relationship between the two was. And there was no telling if discovering her here, now, like this, would be something they’d tell their grandchildren or would cause a riot in the elf complement. I folded half of the towel over my naked visitor and let my sober one enter. He shuffled along the walkway until he was across from me. He knelt and raised his hands in some sort of gesture.
“Captain, words fail me…”
“Chuff, you don’t have to…”
“Please, Captain. You made a conscious decision today. You wouldn’t abandon me, even at grave personal risk. I must thank you. The honor of my family demands that I… Do you hear something?” For such a tiny thing, Lissisi’s snores would frighten wolves. I’d never been near a sleeping elf before, and didn’t know they were capable of such clamor.
I briefly considered some sort of lie. But growing up watching sitcoms warned me that in that direction lay half an hour of mayhem. Rather than descend into farce, or spark rumors, I peeled the towel a little bit and let him see who it was.
“She came to thank me.”
“Oh, sorry sir, I didn’t realize you were… you had…” He made to leave us alone together.
“Oh, god, man! No! I mean, she’s cute, but she’s…you know we could never…I didn’t. She’s here for you.” That wasn’t quite what I meant to say. “Really. She said you were the love of her life, and she wanted to thank me, and then she passed out.”
“Love of her….?” He froze, not reacting while I picked him and his life of love up, put them both in my data tray, and carried them out. Chuffump stood staring at the sleeping woman.
“Check her breathing, will you?” He knelt close to her, stroking her face and shoulder where they poked out of the towel. A few steps took me to the lounge, two more steps to the elf end of it. I verified no one was lounging and deposited them near the door. As I picked her up from the tray, she woke…sort of.
“Captain? Ben? Your wildest dreams must make!”
“Yes, dear. We already did.” I kissed the top of her head as gently as I could. “You were wonderful.”
“Straight damn,” she muttered as I put her in Chuff’s arms. He smiled, nodded thanks to me, and disappeared down the hall. I stood there for a second, grinning, until I noticed someone else was there. At the other door to the lounge, Assakarr stepped into sight.
She looked to where the others had exited, then turned up to me. A big grin broke out on her face and she gave me a thumbs up. “About hagga cadaz time! Those two been in blind orbits for a year.”
“Any chance,” I sighed, “of keeping this a secret?” Her big smile warned me of the futility of that hope.
“Biggie captain save a man’s life AND give him a cast-off concubine? A secret, too? Fat for that chance.” And she was gone. I leaned my face as close to the passageway as I could get.
“I know where you sleep, Assakarr. Two mallet lengths to the right of the XO!”
I turned back to my stateroom with one thought floating on top of my mind. If they called me ‘biggie’ what the hell did they call the giants?
------
Her Lady Albalureindis asked for a private meeting with me the next day. She requested it be by screen, I assumed the better to look deeply in my eyes and tell me it was all her fault.
“Captain,” she started, “Commander Ruspahar has a promising career in the Space Corps. I’m just in temporarily, so it wouldn’t really be a loss for the service if I were held responsible. And, I was. Responsible, that is. I suggested a rescue and talked him into it. If anyone should be taken to task for it…”
“Relax, Duchess. Really. I’m the CO. That means I put his strengths in his evaluations, and,” I tapped my temple, “his errors in here.”
“You’re blackmailing him?” she accused, eyes going all squinty.
“No, it’s called grooming. I just figure it’s a learning experience for him. Ruspahar’s going to make a good CO some day. It’s part of my duty to the Corps to develop the officers of its future.”
“Oh. So… so what are you going to put in his eval for this?”
“Oh, there’s a block I mark. ‘Willing to do stupid fucking things for a shipmate or the mission.’ It’s standard eval boilerplate.” Her expression turned thoughtful.   I decided I’d better start filling out a training event report any time she screened me.
“Do you really think the Corps will make him a CO someday?”
“I realize there aren’t any non-humans in command of hyperspace capable ships. But the progress of civilization is always in the direction of liberalism. There are bumps and backsliding, but ultimately blacks, women, children and telemarketers have been recognized as having the same rights and deserving the same privileges as everyone else.
“Hell, the press on the first evidence of intelligent aliens, with his name prominently placed in the rescue description, will speed that along.”
“So…you don’t think he’ll get in trouble?” She seemed really concerned that my voiced threats from earlier were going to affect her shipmate’s career. I assured her the opposite was true, and predicted that next Pulse we received would bear me out.
------
A few days later, I was advancing my queen when Doc entered my stateroom. He watched me staring at the board for a while, then sat in the seat opposite me.
“Practicing?” he asked, taking two white pawns up to fiddle with.
“No, I’m playing an actual game. Big stakes.” Doc looked in vain for a screen or other indication of how my opponent was sending their moves.
“You playing ghosts for money, Skipper?” I pointed to the board where he finally noticed the black queen walking up to take mine. He looked closer to see that the entire black side was elves in chess costumes. He looked aghast at the pieces he’d been juggling around, but the white pieces, mine, were all soft plastic. No harm done.
“What are you doing? Um, sir?”
“If they win two out of three games against me, then one of the elves gets to name the next planet we find with life on it.” I took the queen with a knight, and gently placed her to the side. She let fly with a Bronx cheer as I did.
“Oh.” He was scanning the pieces to find his two elf medics. He recognized one of them when she, as queen’s bishop, moved up to take my knight. “How will they determine which elf?”
“Moot point,” I said. “Rook takes medic. Checkmate. Again.” They took it in stride, gave me a good-natured cheer, and started taking off the costumes. Doc and I helped pack the set and they filed out. After the door closed behind them Doc sat running a finger along the chess case.
“Where’d you get this, Ben?”
“Gift from a Lilliputian admiral at the dedication of the hull. The elves challenge me every system for naming rights. Or, I have another set of black pieces if I’m playing anyone…taller. Want a game?”
“My chess game resembles my skill at fishing. Throw stuff out there until someone tells me I’m out. No, thanks. Darts are more my speed. Got the exam results.”
“And?”
“Nothing on the suits, no indication anything got through the suits, no indication there ever was anything to go through the suits…you’re all clean.” Negative results could go around by email, or be discussed during the department head meeting. I waited. “I understand a lot of people were …emotional…over the efforts on the other ship.”
“Yeah. And?” He hesitated. His hesitation didn’t scare me, Doc always made sure he meant to say what he finally said.
“I’ve…I’ve seen a lot of things in the service. Some of them really tragic. Especially….especially when someone doesn’t know their own strength. People can get hurt real bad. And if they’re not used to the other’s size…”
“Oh, that. Nothing happened. Nothing was going to happen.” He looked at me skeptically. “Really. Yes, I saw her naked, yes, she’s cute, but all I did was pick her up and put her to bed. Well, I had some help with that…”
“I should say SO!” He was even more skeptical. What the hell? “You put her to bed?! You picked her UP!?! How the hell did you do that? We packing a crane on board I don’t know about?” It was my turn to look at him odd.
“A drunken elf made a pass at me and another elf took her home. What are you talking about?” Then I realized the only crew member that’d need a crane to tuck in. “Are you suggesting that I and Reins….?” He held up his hands, palms towards me.
“All I know is that she got rather…upset at the thought of you being in danger. Not the crew. When she called Conn, she said ‘We’ve got to save him.’ Not them. And you should have seen the look in her eye when you weren’t conscious after the rescue. She laid everyone out on her console, but kept checking you for signs of life.
“I’m just saying…well, I know your personal standards on fraternization. Just, just be careful, Ben. And I’m not talking about heart breaking, here, as much as shoulder dislocation.”
“What, you don’t think she could just respect me as a person or an officer?”
“You didn’t see her. That wasn’t institutional loyalty. Just…be careful. And do lots of stretching exercises.” He got up to leave, then turned back. “Now, who exactly was it you saw naked?”
----------
We came out of hyper well away from the target system. Sure enough, the next Pulse arrived shortly thereafter. Only one thing in the Pulse got my attention right away. It was under a ‘CO Only’ seal. I printed it, read it, and carried it out off the bridge.
I browbeat Masaryk for some alcohol. He’d been operating a still between the thrusters. I ignored it, as usual, as long as no harm ensued. I had still been trying to decide if naked software engineers trying to seduce me qualified as harm. Now I didn’t care. I sat in the lounge and proceeded to construct a very nasty chemically enhanced sulk.
Absolutely no one appeared in the lounge for the six hours I was there. I took it as evidence that the gist of the message was understood by the crew. It didn’t improve my mood. Not much could have. After the ‘shine was gone I simply sat there, staring at the crumpled flimsy.
I felt the ship get underway with in-system engines. We were continuing with the survey, then. HQ must have different plans to follow up the First Semi-Contact.
I was sure that the log would read that I’d opened the orders from HQ and issued the necessary commands. Too bad ‘using his station as XO to cover his CO’s self-indulging ass’ wasn’t a standard block on the evals. Maybe I’d make one. When I cared.
Eventually I was going to have to officially inform the crew of part of the contents. The rest just burned my butt. I was carefully forming a reply for the Admiralty when the lounge wall moved. It swung up and out and a pair of eyes gazed at me from the central shaft.
“Reins! Welcome to the lounge! You should come up here more often. Pull up a seat.”
“Actually, sir, I’m standing precariously on two supports, over a drop of three of my own personal body lengths to the hull. Remember that fear of heights, sir?”
“Oh. Yeah. Whaddaya want?”
“You, sir. Would you please come down to my office?” I stared at her for a long time. I watched her eyes dart around the room and up the shaft, but never, ever down. She was more than a little scared, but she wasn’t backing off.
“Why you?” She wasn’t surprised by my question.
“I drew the short straw, sir.” She poked a finger into the lounge. I didn’t see anything on it. “Well, the XO tells me I drew the short straw. Can’t see it, myself.” The finger kept getting closer. I still couldn’t see the damned straw, and then I realized she was picking up my seat. The whole modular construction of table and the benches around it popped off the floor in her grip. I held tight to the table as she drew it, and me, into the shaft and tucked the whole thing into a jumper pocket.
Scrambling around the benches, I got a head out from under her pocket flap in time to see her finish replacing the lounge wall and start climbing down. I don’t know how long climbing up took her, but down had to be slower. She wouldn’t look and had to wave her feet around in empty air to find a foothold. I couldn’t help navigate; I couldn’t see anything below us around her bosom. I ended up slinking back down in the pocket and regretting that I’d finished the rotgut.
After a few…interesting drops, she set the table and me down on her desk. I lay back on the bench and looked back at her.
“You missed the department meeting, sir.”
“I have every confidence in the skills of my crew. Especially the radiomen.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I doubt I’m the only one who knows what’s on my latest communik…commnooni… cummohni… letter from the Admiralty.” She reached over to a cabinet and pulled out a small box. Well, small like the size of a boxcar.
“I have a confession, Captain.” The box contained a flask, from which she poured an amber fluid into a drinking cup. She dipped a tiny vessel into it and served it to me as a pitcher. “I got two bottles for my commissioning. The whisky is from our king’s private stock. He said I’d find a use for it.” She held her cup over my head and waited. I poured some of the pitcher into my drinking mug and hoisted it in her direction in a silent toast. She nodded and we both drank.
Oh, that was smooth stuff. It had a kick like a Brobdingragian jackrabbit, but it snuck up on you like a Lilliputian ninja. She had me nicely paralyzed before I knew what was happening.
“So, sir, what’s on the flimsy?”
“Don’t you know?”
“There are rumors,” she admitted, “but nothing confirmed. I’d rather hear from you.”
“Okay. Three days before they sent this Pulse, another metal-heavy asteroid was being moved into lunar orbit for industry. Tugs everywhere. Online, backup, emergency backup, man overboard chasers, and crumb catchers. One of them turned out to be full of Valley of Elah Homesteaders. They used the confusion to get close to The Sundering of the Silent Spaces by Science and Spirit. Then they turned on a collision course.
“There’s a giant welder. Arghafurdler. Crew knows him. He worked on this ship. You shook hands with him on the station. Kind of a weird guy. Spends the end of each shift drifting in space for a bit. Sold his soul for a chance to get into orbit, he always said. Anyway, he was just finished working on The Sundering when the tug passed close. Didn’t look right or something. They picked up transmissions of him asking the crew their intention, and a rather obscene response.
“He used his suit jets to close with the tug, grabbed hold. He couldn’t stop it, but he did kick the rockets until they were jammed out of alignment. It started to spin and eventually impacted with a satellite. No one is sure why the shit-ton of explosives never went off. Seven dead fanatics. Arghafurler’s suit lost containment.” I paused to take another drink. The pause stretched. She seemed to be comfortable with it, not hurrying me.
She even reached over and stroked me gently across the back. I was torn between wanting to thank her and needing to vomit on her cuff. Finally I finished the story.
“The ship was named ‘Paul’s Pride.’ My father was….was among the dead crew.” Another long silence stretched between us.
Finally she asked: “So, who do you mourn?”
“Well, of course I mourn the bravery exhibited by a fellow member of the Space Corps. And it would be against the interests of the service to feel anything but scorn for someone who was trying to commit…” I faded into silence.
“No one would begrudge you the grieving of your father.”
“He was a terrorist, conspiring to murder untold numbers of technicians working on the ship.”
“He was also the man that taught you to stand by what you believe, to evaluate things as right or wrong, and to be prepared to give your life when you feel it’s necessary.” She lowered her chin to the table surface near me. “We are what we are either because of or in spite of our parents. We hope because of their strengths, and despite their weaknesses, but that’s beyond our control.” She kept trying to turn her head to face me directly, but the angle was wrong. So she slid the entire booth over to where she wanted it.
“Everyone that died made a choice. Arghafurdler may have been the only one that made a choice you agree with, but they all chose to be there. You can respect your father for making a stand for his beliefs, even if you completely reject those beliefs. And you can miss the man that made you, raised you to be the officer you are, even if you couldn’t stand to be in the room with him.”
I don’t think she could see the tears in my eyes. I also don’t think it mattered a damn. She just sat and eye-droppered my glass until I was over my rage, guilt, self-pity and whatever else. Well, not over as much as on top of. Eventually I remembered my responsibilities.
“Okay, we’ll have a memorial service for Arghafurdler. The crew’ll want to pay their respects, they all knew him. I’d like to have it down here, again. So everyone can be in the same space.” She nodded agreeably.
“And your father?” she asked.
“Dad’s my problem. I won’t ask anyone in the Corps to pray for his afterlife disposition.” I started to get up to leave, but couldn’t move too well. She wasn’t about to help me leave, either. “What? You think I should say we’re sorry for the dead giant, then ask them to be sorry for the guy that killed him?”
“Funerals are for the living. If you grieve, the crew will grieve with you.” I snorted disbelief at that, in this particular case. The Homesteaders’ opinion of giant and elf were well known to the Corps, and offensive to officers of all three races. “If you don’t mind my asking, the Corps doesn’t always send death notifications so baldly, do they?”
“Ah. That. Well, they figured it would be important to me to find out before the rest of the crew did. And they closed the message with a warning that crewmen might react poorly to the news. They say I should take precautions against crew unrest.”
“Oh.” She sat up straight. ‘They think that?”
“It’s the Admiralty. Or at least one human admiral of it. ‘Think’ isn’t exactly the word I’d use. I was busy forming my reply when you yanked me out of the lounge.”
“How do you reply to something like that?”
“Oh, something would come to me. I figured to start with their ancestry, work through sexual proclivities, a taste for human waste as an unguent, an emollient, suppository, pessary, eye shadow…   I was caught by surprise on Whazzat. Now I have time to prepare properly. Then again, I’m kinda hamstrung, here. I’m the son of a prominent martyr for the Homesteaders. The Admiralty may have a point.”
“WHAT? The hell they do.   How could you buy that crap?! Look.” She tapped the bench forcefully to underscore her point. The entire module bounced. “Do you know that there’s a waiting list to be on your crew?”
“Yes, every new ship has one.”
“No.” Another tap. “Not the ship’s waiting list. Yours. You know there are three kinds of captains in the service?”
“Oh? The elves say there are two kinds. Captains who treat the elves like toys and those who treat them like pets that can do interesting tricks. Who says there’re three kinds?”
“The elves. They’re pets, toys… or people. You’re the only CO that treats them like people. You lead your crew to do the same thing. You’re human crew will follow you to hell. The rest of us will storm hell for you.
“Your refusal to leave Chuffump behind is a bigger headline in Lilliput than the discovery of intelligent alien life. Your selection of an elf as XO was already the stuff of legend among them.
“You recall that Lt Cdr on Launch day? Lissisi told me how entranced he was by the fact she was on your shoulder.” I nodded at the memory. “After all the years of interlacing our societies, most people still expect to see Lilliputians behind glass, and Brobdingragians across moats. You treat us all not better or worse than you treat Cheryl or Katya, Doc or Foster.
“They will never see you as an extension of your father’s bigotry. You will remain a shining example for integration, trust, and truly inspired profanity for generations to come, at all scales.
“Trust me, sir, you have nothing to fear about crew unrest. Until we get back to Earth and within punching distance of a few admirals, maybe.” A weight I’d barely acknowledged was lifted off my shoulders. I’d hoped I could count on my crew. Maybe not to the point of being idolized by them, but I could live with that better than expecting a mutiny. I let the mug drop to the floor as I finally relaxed. I slid down the bench to the floor of the module.
“Sir?” I looked up to find Reins’ face replacing the sky above me. “Are you finally drunk enough to tell me the real name of Whazzat?”
“Yep.” I closed my eyes to pretend that I’d passed out before telling her. Thought it’d be a great joke. When I opened them again, it was a day later and three decks up.
“Welcome to sickbay!” Doc shouted, just to see me wince as my head throbbed. “I warned you about getting hurt.”
“You warned me about physical acts, not alchohol.” He was less than sympathetic as he checked my reflexes, pupils, pain response.
“Years ago, people took drugs, for recreation, that were designed to knock an elephant on its ass. Many of them were surprised when they died. You partook of chemicals designed to knock someone who can juggle elephants on HIS ass. You’d think it was intuitively obvious that you don’t drink giant whiskey.”
“I had already dead-faced most of my logic circuits by the time she made the offer.” The hand light hurt my eyes even more than I’d expected, even through my shut eyelids before he pried them open with a thumb.
“Right. Masaryk’s still, and the old ‘I did something stupid because I was already a moron’ defense. Wonderful thing for a commanding officer to have in his record.” He turned to one of his nurses. “Jane, screen the rest of the crew and tell them that we still have a commanding officer. And tell Captain Raspahar he has to move back to his old stateroom.”
“Very funny,” I rasped. If this was a phenomenally loyal crew, god help those with unrest.
“Hey, you seem to have solved one problem,” he continued, smiling like a loon. He ran a scanner over my torso, making ‘tch-tch’ noises every third reading. “Herself seems to no longer be infatuated with you. She tossed you into the stretcher like something she needed to wash off her hands. How’d you do that?”
“Oh. She asked a question and I haven’t answered it. Twice.”
“Ah.” he answered, as if he completely understood. “So you pissed off someone that can step on you and say it was an accident. Brilliant.” Plans to firebomb Sickbay as a form of disciplinary review faded as a distinct double beep sounded on the all-call. We’d located a planet with life.
-----
Doc had gone briskly professional at the beep and administered a restorative without my even asking. I was bright, alert, and awake as I got to the conference room. I felt kinda fragile for a while, but I was able to grasp details of Oooslili’s quick recap of the survey so far. I hadn’t missed much. Two planets found, one with a hint of chlorophyll, or something very similar to it. That meant life.
We were screaming around the sun to close with the planet. Every sensor suite was trying to tickle details out of it. We were paying so much attention to the planet it was almost an accident that Sensors picked up the object in orbit.
Another alien vessel, a twin to the last one, but this one was moving into a controlled orbit around the planet. It wasn’t empty.
Excelsior was about 6 hours away from the planet. I gave orders to continue on with our acceleration and our scanning for two hours. Then begin decelerating and shift all scans to the alien vessel, as if we’d just noticed her. Full disclosure of our equipment capabilities could wait until diplomatic relations were agreed to.
Four hours later, the aliens started speaking to us. A tightly focused beam sent a stream of digital information to us. Even if we couldn’t translate the data just yet, a certain amount of information was conveyed by the medium. They knew where we were and were tracking our approach.
We returned their transmission, just to show that we were receiving it.   We also transmitted our canned ‘First Contact’ database that Space Corps had come up with. Comms went into high gear to translate their broadcast, but there were no immediate breakthroughs in conversation like the vids always show.
There was some excitement when the aliens inserted a change to our broadcast. Instead of straight repeating our message, they inserted a 4-second break. Chuff was the first to figure it out.
“They break at the exact point where our message ends, sir, and they stop reflecting it for 4 seconds before sending it back. I don’t know if they’re translating it, but they have figured out the point where our message repeats itself.”
“Good. Have we?” Now that they thought to look for it, the elves were able to talk the computers into finding the discrete point where a single message stopped. We stopped our rebroadcast right at the point of repeat, and both ships went silent.
I slowed us down and stopped a respectful distance out from what could be seen as ‘their’ planet. The elves continued work on the message while rest of the crew started brainstorming to try to guess what the broadcast might mean.
The computers were amazingly powerful compared to anything electronic of even two years’ ago. But they still needed a framework to try to fit the data into to make any sense of it. We went about trying to imagine such a frame.
Reins’ suggestion, made a week ago, that the aliens might have dolphin-like characteristic sparked the big idea. One of her enginemen worked with two computing elves on the idea that the transmission was based on sonar images rather than straight picture or sound messages.
Their work started to produce results, so more computing power was given to the task. Soon we were able to see a holographic interpretation of the sonar image they were sending us.
It was Reins.
Specifically, it was a recording of everything our Engineer did from boarding the alien vessel we’d found, to her exit. Nothing seemed to indicate they were even aware of human exploration of the ship, much less the elves. If that were so, I’m sure they were very curious about what she was doing with the pipe and why she suddenly lost interest in it.
It was the work of another hour for our more holo-oriented software people to figure out how to transmit our own messages in alien sonar.
We sent a quick pic of Reins’, in her spacesuit, giving a friendly wave from her workstation.
Shortly thereafter, they sent a message, showing our ship and theirs descending to the planet below us and coming down together in a very large harbor on a northern continent. Then, in the image, Reins got out and walked/ran to near the other ship where an alien got out.
Our first view of the Rissak, or the image of the Rissak pilot, have been the most transmitted images in the media in known history, of course. Right then, on the bridge screen, it looked to me like a cross between a giant squid and christmas tree: conical, many-fluked, cillia here and there, with three tentacles. The image showed it to be about 2/3rds the size of the Duchess, moving much more naturally through the waters of the harbor than her image.
That made sense, of course, the aliens knew what they looked like moving through water.
“Okay.” I started issuing orders. “Send the Pulse. Pack everything in it, including the brainstorming sessions. Report our intention to meet with the aliens, on their terms as much as possible. We’ll pulse on our safe landing, and whenever appropriate thereafter.
“Frame a reply. Show the Excelsior landing on the beach of the harbor they selected. XO, pick a good landing spot, submit very precise coordinates for them.
“Weps, ready the combat shuttle. Load it for bear, have it ready for launch, but don’t open the outer doors. Preparation without provocation, today.
“Comms, work out some sonar images for some standard communications, like ‘don’t land there’ and ‘back off’ and ‘give us back our engineer or we’ll blast you to smithereens.
“Eng. Got any problems shaking hands with a squid?”
“No, sir. Looking forward to it, sir.”
“Good. Anyone wanna guess why they don’t seem to see the rest of us?”
“Doesn’t make sense, sir,” Sooseff piped up. “Dolphins have very sensitive sonar capabilities and they can detect a Lilliputian in water from a great distance. You’d expect the aliens’ onboard monitoring and communications to be up to the same sensitivity they themselves have.”
“Not necessarily,” Doc disagreed. “Your eyesight isn’t equal to a hawk’s, or a cat’s, or an octopus’. Various animals have better sensory capabilities than people, some think that weakness cause us to evolve as generalists. Or, our evolution as generalists promoted our tool use vice evolving better seeing, hearing, smell, etc.
“Maybe their sonar isn’t as good as a dolphins because they’re tool users. Or, they’re tool users because their sonar isn’t so good.”
“Could be,” I acknowledged. “So, do we convey our small scale presence right away, or keep it a secret?”
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We decided that since they asked for Albalureindis, they’d get Albalureindis. Everyone else would be monitoring the circuits to assist her, to gather or provide information, or they’d be in hot standby to fly out and support her more directly.
Weps was halfway into her ‘your place is on the Conn’ speech when I agreed with her. She seemed surprised. It’s not that I didn’t want to be involved in a First Contact, I just had more tools at my disposal from within the ship. I could support my Eng from the Conn far better than from her shoulder.
The aliens had found this planet first, so I avoided any form of encroachment. They might have a colony here. We made a minimum-time descent, passive sensors gathering as much planetary information as possible, active sensors pointed towards the landing zone only.
Excelsior made landfall on a nice little beach near the harbor’s edge. A huge granite (or something similar) outcrop provided support right next to the water. The outcrop extended under the water to a point about up to Reins’ armpits before it dropped sharply down to the deeps.
We could have landed in the harbor, the ship design supported it, but I wanted to make clear we were primarily land-walkers. Also a distinct demarcation of ‘your area, my area’ might minimize mistakes of intent or accidents of shoulder rubbing.
Remote probes were scanning the peninsula around and under us for about two hours before the other vessel approached. Gravity was about 60% of Earth normal. The land vegetation we could see suggested that yet again, we’d found a planet on the giant scale. Trees soared 150 feet in the air, pteranodon-looking things nested in the middle branches. Nothing like a land animal appeared, but we kept alert. The water had some schools of orca-sized fish-things flitting about, nothing that seemed able to challenge the aliens.
The air had the right chemicals to support life, but we had only begun the flora/fauna/xenoa exams. Suits were the order of the day until we fully evaluated the biosphere.
The other ship splashed down in the middle of the harbor and motored over next to us. They had a bow wave we could have surfed on, so we always knew where they were. Alcazaar suggested that the ship design would have been more efficient completely submerged, so I assumed they were trying to be polite. It boded well, I thought.
Reins donned her suit and cycled out the lock. She paused at the outer door.
“Captain, should I name the planet?”
“Well, either we make a new friend here today, or we start a war. Let’s find out which, we’ll name it then.” She nodded and continued out to the beach. She waded to knee deep and waited.
One alien swam out of the ship and over to near her. I was reminded of a million pulp-magazine illustrations of aliens: dark black, rounded details, kinda familiar like a squid, disturbingly alien with the tri-lateral design. It swam like a torpedo to the shallows, then humped itself clumsily to a vertical position.
Reins waved just like her image had in our message. One tentacle waved back in a fair imitation. From within its folds it drew out a small box (small on the screen, bigger than a diesel engine in real life). A row of six lights started to blink. A cheer came up from the elves.
“It’s counting, sir,” Chuffump reported. “Introducing us to mathematical concepts, probably base six. Our computer’ll eat this stuff up, it’ll probably lead to some sort of language exchange.” Reins detached a portable camera and positioned it on a rock outcrop. She pointed to the box and the outcrop.
The alien extended a tentacle to place the box where the camera could record the lights. An elf rigged a four-light readout on the front of the camera to convey our copmuters response to their information. I imagined our two ships’ computers having a conversation about us. Probably a condescending one.
While the data storage units calibrated each other, Reins tried to get friendly with the squid on the beach. She’d point and name things, it would point. Then it would squiggle lines in the air, she’d pay close attention, no one understood.
When the fish arrived, we found there was at least some communication going on.
If a threat had appeared on the land side, I’m sure we’d have shot it, or tried to drive it away. When our sonar probe found a large school of really, really big fish coming into the harbor, we looked to the aliens who were in the water for a response.
The ship didn’t seem to take notice of them, nor did the one on the beach when some of the heads started popping up out of the water.
At first sight, the way-nasties, as my crew named them, made me try to figure out if Lovecraft could ever have seen a coelacanth. The were chthonic in size, shape and temperament: lobe-finned fish with eight stumpy legs, about 2/3rds mouth with irregular fangs, and about 4/3ds ugly. They were about half again as long as Albalureindis was tall.
We found out later that Rissak did have a colony on this planet, on one of the southern continents. And they were familiar with the southern breed of way-nasties. The southern breed were solitary, and always shied off when anything the size of a Rissak approached. The ship crew and the beach ambassador were aware of the pack, but saw no reason for concern. We took our cue from them for far too long.
The biggest, ugliest way-nasty crawled up on the rock ledge where the meeting was going on. Reins watched with interest, her companion ignored it. Until it tried to eat him.
Eight stubby fin-feet churned the water as it charged. It sank those black fangs into one of his tentacles and bit it clean off. It surged forward again and bit deeper into a major fluke. Our contact sagged immediately. Twenty other fish in the pack surged through the surf.
I did and still do take full responsibility for my crew’s actions. And according to the log, I gave explicit instructions for the shuttle to launch and engage targets, with authority to use deadly force in the protection of our comrade and our contact. In point of fact, Weps blasted the outer door off and they were clear of the hull before I got as far as saying “GO!”
I didn’t take any credit for Albalureindis’ actions. When the first way-nasty attacked, she charged it. She’d been walking very carefully in the lighter gravity up til then. Now, she fairly flew up over the damned thing and kicked its head down into its tail. She scooped up the squid and belted for Excelsior.   Her dash took every advantage of giant strength, adrenalin and almost half gravity and left a rooster tail of dirt behind her.
The shuttle passed her at shoulder height. Once the pair were in the clear, Cheryl started launching missiles, eight tubes at a time. Elf pilots screened them in on remote, targets assigned by Weps, aimpoints selected by weaponeers.   Point blank launching, one shot, one kill, eight times, then eight times again. Then they were beyond the pack and turning around over the harbor.
The weaponeers still on board had been pointing weapons every direction except the squid, on my order. I didn’t want any accidents. Now they were scrambling to acquire targets. I declared open season on big ugly fish things.
Reins reached the airlock and made the most critical decision of her life. We’d only ever imagined one giant being on board, and designed a one-giant airlock. Even in refit, only one would have gone through it at a time. There was no room for both of them to enter the ship.
She didn’t hesitate to toss the squid in and take off. Ruspahar operated the door controls to seal him in. We weren’t going to be able to drag his mass inside to give her room. She knew that and headed inland.
The way-nasties were down to four, the ones that’d been on the edges of the pack when the shuttle passed. They scuttled off on Reins’ tail, moving pretty fast for slithering horrors. Her track to the trees led them across Sung’s line of sight. He took the lead one out with the fore-cannon with two shots. Missiles from the ship’s launchers took out the other three and the fight was over.
It’s long been a Space Corps standard: months of outrageous boredom seasoned by minutes of sheer freaking terror. That’s when it got really scary. The Rissak ship lifted from the water.
It reminded me of a shark again. Now it was an angry shark. It loomed over Excelsior. Nothing like interstellar diplomacy right after an adrenalin rush.
“Ruspahar, get the hatch open so they can see their shipmate. Doc! Any think we can do for our passenger? Cheryl, keep the shuttle well clear of the vessels. Chuffump! Bring our Engineer back to work.”
When the squid waved feebly out of the hatch to his ship, it backed off. Doc was concerned about trying to attend a patient that didn’t know he existed and I couldn’t argue with him. He did suggested spraying water into the space. It perked the thing up a bit.
As Reins staggered back to the lock, I was telling her to get the squid back to his, for lack of a better word, people. She aye-ayed, leaned against the hull for a second, breathing heavily. She waved to the ship, the same wave she’d done a dozen times today. The ship backed off a little more and lowered to just over the ground. The Eng turned and waved into the hatch before lifting the squid out to take him back.
He waved back, then reached forward. He laid the tentacle on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. They stood there for a second, looking eye to…to funny little grayish spot under the hood-thing that turned out to be something to do with their reproductive system.
They fixed it for the statues, the ones on Earth and Riss, and the really big one there on the beach of ‘Kickass.’ They made sure she’s looking at PhssssSockock’s primary sonar lobe, nice and proper. Right then, right there, it was the first real, emotional contact between our species. The xenolinguists showed up a month later, and it took most of a year to actually get a language programmed. But to Excelsior and her crew, that was all anti-climax.
The Rissak Pod nicely overlaps the Alliance, nowadays. Their sea colonies look to complement our land ones. What we can understand of their bio-technology exceeds our wildest dreams. As for the Rissak, they seem to find it comforting to imagine the feisty big and little Earthers between them and the various threats in the galaxy. Kind of like three sizes of Doberman. The Rissak are not pacifists or cowards, but they just can’t quite match us for sheer bloodymindedness.
Of course, in all four species, on all twenty seven planets, no one’s yet found a use for damn Whazzat.
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