Chapter 19
..[ SYLVIA ]..
It was immediately after a grueling space battle drill near shuttle P02 on the net. The two numbers meant that: P, the shuttle was on the port side of the ship. And 02, it was the second one from the ship on that side.
Things had changed a lot ever since the fights. It had been surprising to see how much of a walkthrough the fights were for Jacy. And even though she had lost four bouts, Mondhe had proved herself a force to be reckoned with. And Sylvia knew they weren’t fighting to full potential. She was beyond proud of Mondhe.
She had thought herself free of motherhood duties when Kay had decided to join another ship; then Mondhe had come bulldozing in. She hadn’t been Mondhe’s target. No, that had been Mativo. But there were aspects of Mativo’s life that didn’t allow kids in. So, she was used as a fill in for those. And she was fine with it.
They had gotten close enough that she thought a bond had formed between them. She had never shared custody before, and it was… not interesting. She did all the work and Mativo got all the rewards. But there were Years ahead of them, maybe that would change.
But that was for the future. She paid attention to the approaching Class Two shuttle as it made its way to the lead shuttle for the drill. Soon enough, it moved on to the next shuttle on the net.
That was when the news reached them. A civilization had been discovered. And not just any civilization, but a Class Two civilization, very close to becoming a Class One. The main ship had discovered it, and all the shuttles up to number ten were being called back. And the rest were placed on yellow alert.
She was surprised to find that Mativo was not on the main ship. He was in the vicinity of shuttle S19 on an endurance training expedition for Mondhe. What kind of endurance training were they undergoing? Sylvia could only speculate. It would take them eighteen Days to make it back to the ship. That was if Mativo raced the shuttle at the acceptable top speed. He wouldn’t, so they had at least three Weeks to prepare the planet for his arrival. Which was good and bad at the same time.
Jacy was the one in command of the ship, and she was moving things along at a speed Mativo would. In fact, things were going so fast that Sylvia had only ten Minutes to prepare for the landing party. She was sure that if she didn’t have a personal aide, she would have forgotten a few essentials things for first contact. Especially as a linguist.
She spent the whole ride to the planet’s surface going through the contact protocols in her head. At the same time, her aide tried his best to bring her up to date with knowns of the system. She picked none of it. Other than there were two inhabited planets. She wasn’t even sure which one they were landing on.
The first thing she noticed when they disembarked was the ring of white militaristic vehicles surrounding the shuttles. They all appeared to have their weapons aimed away from the shuttle though. A good sign; unless the weapons in this planet worked backwards.
At the front of the shuttle, she finally saw the first native species of the planet. All humanoid, but they appeared to have evolved from another mammalian species. Not ape. They had a human face, with a short buzz of hair like the hybrids. She was willing to bet that, just like the hybrids, it was its natural length and not shaving. The hair was mostly dark brown, with the only variations being lighter shades of brown. The other distinguishing feature was the ears. They were pointed backwards, twice the length of humans ears. Their noses were flat against their faces, giving them a squashed in appearance. Finally, was their skin color; it was a slight tan color, same as their eyes. The six individuals in front them also appeared to be of the same height. She likened it to Kay’s, around one meter eighty.
They all had uniform clothes in the same color as the surrounding vehicles. From their shoes to their vests. The attire comprised of a vest, a pair of pants and shoes; as far as she could tell. No one did anything for a while until Jacy gave the signal. Sylvia moved in front of the group two steps and then stopped. She placed her hands at forty-five degrees from her body before Jacy disarmed her of pulse gun.
That caused a few clicks to be heard from the surrounding vehicles, and the six individuals in front of them to visibly tense up. But Jacy paid them little mind as she went on with the procedure. Aquila, who had been holding a basket since the beginning, held it out to Jacy and she placed the pulse gun inside. She then proceeded to disarm Sylvia of her swords and place them inside the basket.
Completely disarmed, she stepped five steps ahead bringing her closer to the natives. She didn’t look back, but she knew the process would continue until sixteen of them were disarmed. The remaining four would stay with the weapons and guard the shuttle. There was still four more inside the shuttle manning the essentials; the pilot, two at weapons and one at the shuttle loading office. Of the sixteen, only Sylvia was a non-bioaugment. And they also had nanobots in them. But the natives didn’t need to know that.
Surprisingly enough, Mativo had been the source of the procedure. There had been a lot of debates on what they should do when they were received in a somewhat peaceful manner. When asked, Mativo had detailed the procedure and added that they could do anything else they wanted. But only after the procedure. They weren’t even allowed to talk.
The natives repeated a poor imitation of what they had done. Basic understanding, she hoped. They weren’t armed though. At least not that they knew of. After they got closer too, within ten meters, Sylvia began,
“Hello, we are Asumbĩ.” And she inwardly cringed at that word. She had learnt the meaning of the word during their break at Ũsumbĩ IV, and it sounded too pretentious to her now. “Thank you for meeting us.”
The whole point of talking was to establish that they were capable of verbal communication. They would wait until the others talked too before they moved on to the most challenging task; trying to understand each other.
The natives responded almost immediately. It was like hearing a foreign language for the first time. They didn’t appear to have any exaggerated tendencies. Too high pitched, rough, or clipping. No such thing. Just plain old talking to a foreigner.
She proceeded to gestures. They had established the most basic of gestures that even an untrained child could get it right more often than not. It had undergone a lot of testing on humans, then hybrids, then on the hundreds of talking species they had discovered already. It had taken a while before it could be considered ready for use on other species.
The first thing was establishing yes and no. She usually didn’t like the method that had been settled on but she turned to Jacy. She turned back to them to make sure they were paying attention. She turned to Jacy again and pointed to herself, lightly slapped her cheek and then pointed at Jacy. She waited a second before she nodded then shook her head. After two seconds, Jacy nodded and Sylvia slapped her cheek. Only lightly. She turned to the natives and saw what she assumed was the beginnings of understanding on some of them. She turned to Jacy and repeated the process for no.
When done with that, most of them seemed to have understood what she was trying to explain. Or they thought it was a form of greeting. She pointed at herself and then gestured talking before they could begin trying to copy her, and pointed at them and gestured hearing. Then she shook her head. Then she repeated with them talking and her hearing and shook her head. At that, some of them even smiled showing canines elongated more than she would have expected.
She took a pen-sized object from her belt and pressed it into her neck then repeated the process of talking and nodded. She then pointed to them, pressed the pen into her neck again and repeated the process of talking and nodded. She then waited. After a few seconds, they began talking amongst themselves.
“I never realized it would take this long,” Jacy said next her, bringing into her attention just how silent they had been.
“Yeah. But if they agree to be injected with the nanobots, in an hour, we will be having basic communication,” she told her.
“Let’s just hope they don’t think it’s instantaneous. That could turn sour if they think the nanobots do other things.” Jacy still kept a relax composure, unlike the rest of the group. Sylvia could tell they were a bit nervous. Maybe they needed to carry out first contact drills too.
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After what felt like five Minutes, the natives turned back to them and one of them shook their head. They then proceeded to perform a set of complex gestures that Sylvia loosely translated to not now. Then they nodded. Maybe later then, she thought. But it was still a blow.
Taking a look around, Sylvia noticed that they were in a square field with sides approximately five hundred meters. Maybe less. Most of it had a floor made of something that looked like it could be tarmac. They were somewhere in the middle. Surrounded on nearly all sides by what appeared to be entrances to buildings made of a grey material. There were two openings to the square on the opposite corners. Both wide enough to fit four of the military vehicles with ease. She belated herself for not paying attention to the surroundings on their way down. They could be in a containment facility; but the décor seemed too nice for detaining people.
Four of the natives turned and started towards one of the building openings, the remaining two gestured something that looked like follow and she began following the four. Jacy already by her side. She must have started before me. Two of the vehicles moved out of the way as they approached. It was then that she noticed they had three circular wheels on each side. Either the planet favored six wheels or that was just the design of the vehicle. She would know, if she ever saw other vehicles.
The stairs leading up to the entrance of the building were made of a different material. Grey as the walls, and it resembled concrete. There were designs on the walls, but they were ushered in through the glass doors before she fully looked at them.
Inside, the building was sparsely populated by more natives. They wore clothes of grey, green and blues. Most were similar to the ones leading them, but she also saw other individuals different from them. At first, she assumed them to be the females, but on closer inspection, it was more likely they were another species all together.
They were shorter, noticeably shorter than the others. By her estimate, they were around one meter fifty. Same hair length but black. Shorter ears, but that could be because their tips were rounded rather than ending to a point. The few she saw didn’t have tan colored eyes at all. She had seen green and blue already. Their faces were slightly forgiving with a prominent knob nose. They mostly had reds and a few blues in clothing. And they kept staring down every time she tried to maintain eye contact.
They were led into a room that could be called a conference room. A rectangle table sat at the center with six four-legged chairs on each side. So, four was used. And six must be the number of dignitaries they receive. The natives sat at one side of the table and Jacy took a seat at the other. Sylvia and four others followed her while the rest stood behind them. The natives had been joined by a mix of greys and greens to outnumber them two to one.
On the table, there were bottles of a clear liquid made of a grey plastic-like material. Jacy opened one of them and took a sip.
“Cold. And a little sweet,” she said as took a few more sips before returning the bottle on the table.
Sylvia took her bottle and studied it. At the top, there was what appeared to be a cap. She studied the cap for a few seconds. Then tried to open it but it wouldn’t budge. She gave up and returned it to the table. It wouldn’t do to look like a monkey.
The natives began talking then, and gesturing. And Sylvia tried responding to them. For thirty minutes, they kept at it. A lot of things had been brought into the room by the shorter natives. Most made sense; like books, writing materials, very odd looking utensils, some maybe even weapons, household appliances she couldn’t even understand what they didn’t.
After offering the nanobots after another round of disappointing talking and gesturing, one of the natives stood up and stretched one of their hands to her. She hesitated a second before offering the translator to them. They studied the pen for a few seconds before closing their eyes and pressing it to the necks. After a few seconds, they opened their eyes and stared at the pen. Then back at Sylvia. She gestured pressing the back of the pen, after pressing it to the neck. They repeated the process again, this time with the pressing. There was a slight wince, but they took it stoically.
They talked and then looked at Sylvia questioningly; she shook her head. Then they gestured for her to talk, she knew it wouldn’t work but she said, “It doesn’t work that way.”
They got this confused look and stared at the pen again. Then there was a slight show of displeasure. The natives began getting agitated, like Jacy had predicted. They needed a few more minutes before the nanobots would start doing their job. Their best course of action was to stay calm.
And then it clicked.
The first things they said were barely understandable, but different enough that the other natives noticed. They stared at each other and then at Sylvia and her group. The one with the nanobots spoke again,
“What is going on?” The voice was surprising neutral, lacking any feminine or masculine intonations.
There was a sigh of relief among them. But the natives were still confused. Now came the final part; making their new translator aware of their role.
“Hey, listen to me,” she said. They wouldn’t understand but at least it caught their attention. She gestured at the other natives talking, then at the new translator listening. And followed that with the translator talking and them listening.
“I listen them, I speak you,” the translator said. They had picked up that faster than she would have expected. Then they turned to the other natives with a smile and pointing, “I listen you, I speak them.”
The natives didn’t understand the translator at all, but that was a problem easily rectified. Jacy struck the table hard getting their attention. She pointed at the translator and then at what they assumed were pen and paper and gestured writing. Then she pointed at the natives. It took a few tries before the translator understood that they were supposed to write down what they wanted to tell to the other natives. After that, it would be the slow process of expressing their interests and learning each other’s language.
But first, they had to reassure the translator hadn’t lost their ability to speak in their native language. Sylvia handed them a small rectangle cube, and after holding it for a few seconds, they were back to speaking their native language. Sylvia took the pen and held against the cube for a minute before holding it out for the translator. They didn’t even hesitate.
And so, the talks began.
..[ MATIVO ]..
Before I landed on the third planet from the star in the stellar system, I had read some of the things the others had discovered about the planets and the species inhabiting them.
The stellar system had six planets in total and that two of them, the second and the third from the star, were in the habitable zone. The second planet had a civilization of avian humanoids with the other species not intelligent enough to be considered civilized. The third planet was very different. It had lots of different intelligent mammalian species. But only two dominated. The others only numbered in the thousands; most probably they were slowly going extinct. The two dominant species were distinctly different from each other. One was dominant while the other appeared subservient. In reality, there had been a period of slaving that only ended around hundred Years before our arrival. The smaller species had been slaves to the much larger one. It was possible that all the other species had been slaves too.
The end of slavery coincided with the first contact between the two planets. And the former slaves were finally able to get equal treatment as their former masters.
The two planets had a collaboration of sorts going on. They had dignitaries representing different governments from one planet in the other and vice versa. They also had a deal for an exchange of ideas in terms space exploration. Each planet had colonies on their own moon, though the second planet had two moons, the second one was too small for a colony. They also had colonies on two of the fourth planets moons, and a shared a colony on a third moon of the same planet.
On the surface, the third planet looked just as much as Ũsumbĩ IV did. Forests, rivers, lakes, a few smattering arid areas, and no desert. The native fauna and flora could be mistaken for that of Earth though. And the towns and cities I had seen on my way down gave a very Earth-vibe. Fields of cultivated land stretched for hectares in some areas. Others had small ones. All the people appeared to be located in cities. There were no small towns or villages. And the crew had searched, thoroughly.
I was currently walking down a street in one of the cities. Jacy had told me it was the operating capital of the planet with a weird sounding name that I couldn’t be bothered to remember. Their roads were made of tarmac, or something close enough. The buildings along the streets were all made of concrete and steel, and glass. There was no old looking building anywhere in sight. It was like the city had been recently build from scratch.
“We could have easily flown in to the capitol,” Jacy said as we took a corner and came into another long street filled with the natives moving to their destinations.
They wore clothes as varied as those not part of the Grade Three crew wore; though after the relaxation of the uniform rule had allowed those to be varied too. Not by much though; Department, Grade and Rank still needed to be clearly expressed.
The natives wore pants, shorts, shirts, t-shirts sometimes even head gears. I didn’t know what they were called, but they were not caps, fedoras or marvins. Their lack of height differentiation made it kind of weird when I looked at them. Some people were this tall, and the others that tall. And that was it.
Most of the shorter natives had long lustrous black hair, but I had learnt that all working in the high offices had shaved their hair to match that of the dominant species. We had yet to figure out if it was a rule or out of choice.
“And miss seeing all this people in their natural splendor?” Sylvia asked her.
“Haven’t you being here for more than three Weeks now?” I asked her, surprised she was still that much interested in seeing them.
“It’s all being official business. They don’t allow me time to go exploring, and Jacy wanted to get in and get out.”
“We can’t stay here for long.”
“But we have to stay until the next ship comes along,” Sylvia reminded her. “And that is over two Months from now.”
“I still think we should leave the one shuttle and have the others get back on the net,” Jacy grumbled as we made our way through the throng. Though our guides had cleared up the path a little.
I had been invited to a banquet thrown by the third planet. I had asked if there would be members of the second planet, and the answer had been no. I had been disappointed. I was hoping to meet them at the same time and get it done with. I still agreed to come, and started mentally preparing for the second planet’s invite.
We slowly edged along the streets, aiming for the capitol building in the distance.