Reel
She stuffed the toasted green in her mouth and made for the mess hall door. The burnt layer was sweet and smoky, in contrast to the meal’s usual savory, starchy flavor. It stuck to her teeth in a pleasant way, and she worked at it with her tongue as she jogged through the corridors, feet slapping on the floor panels. She managed to get most of it loose from her molars before she reached the holo room.
Palming open the door, she slipped inside. A dozen Torellans crowded the dark room, huddled around the holo-table in the center of the room. She recognized the chief of pilots, Beno, by the sash he wore over one shoulder and the burn scar that marred the left side of his face. Wizened old Regio, chief of propulsion systems sat hunched next to the even older Fava, who was chief of logistics. The scales beneath Fava’s chin sagged low, loose with age. Most sat on stools, but a few stood for a better view, milling around the table. Captain Arcturus stood at the head of the table, leaning on it with both hands, frowning as he listened to the current presenter. The chief of computer systems, a middle-aged female named Franka, was talking, and gave no sign that she’d so much as noticed Reel coming in. She plowed right on with what she was saying as Reel worked her way around towards the Captain.
“In short, we suspect that the “humans” have access to some degree of computer technology.” Reel did not recognize the word “humans” at first. Then she realized that Franka must have been referring to the people on the planet. Reel mouthed the word, testing it on her tongue. It didn’t sound like the Italian she’d been listening to for so long. One of the other major languages, maybe?
Franka went on. “The sophistication of the encryption that we see in their military communications would require the use of computer systems. Additionally, the widespread nature of the conflict would be impossible to manage without the help of computers. It’s my assessment that they should be more than capable…” She stopped, grimacing and reaching for the back of her head. “Let me rephrase that. It’s my assessment that their computer technology is behind the Efreet’s own, but not significantly.”
She wasn’t the only one having trouble, Reel saw. Several others were reaching back to touch their skulls, or rubbing at temples with pained expressions. Argo sat to Captain Arcturus’ left with an ice pack pressed against his head. It didn’t surprise her; this rebellion was exactly what the implants were intended to prevent them from doing. They were so sensitive about it, that even that thought sent up a warning buzz in her own skull.
Captain Arcturus nodded slowly, his eyes unfocused. The map of the third planet that the probes had developed rotated over the holo-table before him. The light projection showed a globe shaded in hues of green and blue and white, turning on its polar axis. Arcturus might have been looking at it, but his eyes were far away. He blinked, his gaze sharpening as Franka finished speaking, turning his head to look at her. “Thank you, Franka. Tell me, are any of these polities more advanced in that realm than the others?”
She hesitated. “Maybe. I can’t tell you that with any certainty though. The broadcasts mention computers occasionally, but those references are scarce and vague. We’ll know better when we have someone on the ground.”
On the ground! The thought sent a thrill through Reel. Listening to their radio broadcasts was intoxicating enough, being down there would be even better. How exciting would that be, to take one of Old Bugs two landers down, to step out and see this race with her own eyes? To speak to them, and ask them questions? For that matter, even stepping on a planet would be novel; she’d never been down to one before.
Argo grimaced, removing the ice pack to rub at his head. “There’s been a lot of that sentiment going around today.” He griped. “‘We’ll see when we’re down there.’ ‘We’ll need to land to be sure.’ I don’t like it.”
Arcturus reached out and touched the globe. It stilled under his fingers, he turned it backwards, his face pensive. “There’s no help for that. We’ll figure out everything we can from up here before we send a team down, but we can only glean so much from the broadcasts.” He glanced around the room. “Speaking of unknowns…Vorona?”
Reel blinked. She hadn’t seen her mother seated in a back corner, away from the table. Vorona stepped forward, the light of the holo-table bathing her features in shades of green and blue.
“With your permission, Captain.” He stepped back, gesturing for her to proceed, and she took his place. With one hand she grabbed the projection of the world and swiped it to one side, clearing the air. With the other, she tapped at the console board in front of her, and brought up a picture of a hideous monster. There were gasps from some of those gathered around the table, and Reel felt a spike of alarm. What in the black was that thing?
It stood upright on two long, spindly legs. A pair of low slung, heavy arms dangled on either side of its torso from wide shoulders that spoke of tremendous strength. Intense, piercing eyes stared out of deep-set hollows in its face. Matted fur, like what she’d seen on Efreet in pictures of them, covered everything but its face, which was otherwise unnaturally smooth. Rows of sharp teeth filled its mouth.
“This,” Vorona said, turning the model with her hand. “Is my best guess at what the creatures on the planet below look like. I asked Yerry,” She gave the chief of navigation a smile and got a grin in return. “To have the computer flag conversations that included a lot of references to body parts. That turned up several broadcasts on “human” anatomy. They proved most edifying.”
She pinched the figure with two fingers and pulled, expanding the image to focus on the head. Bright red lips rimmed the teeth, beneath a jutting nose. “It would appear that humans are predators of some sort, and their general physique is similar to the Efreet’s.” She panned the image around to provide everyone with a good view. “They have two eyes like ourselves, which it seems can come in a variety of colors.” In this image, they were solid blue, framed by small hairs that protruded above and below the lids. Above the eyes, a ragged mop of fur grew over protruding, fleshy structures on either side of the creature’s head.
“It seems that the distribution of fur is different between the males and females; for example, males may be marked by the presence of facial fur.” She tapped on the figure’s face, and the image flickered, filling the face with hair from eyeballs to chin. This had the effect of obscuring the teeth, which made the creature much less fearsome. “This fur can come in a variety of colors as well.” She swiped, and the color of the fur cycled from black, to brown, and then to red. “It’s unclear what that variation might indicate.”
She pinched the image again, this time drawing it out to show the whole creature again. “They have two arms and two legs stemming from a central trunk. Feet and hands each have five digits, where we have four and the Efreet six.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Regio spoke up in a quavery voice. “It sounds like they’ll look very much like the Efreet.” He had been one of the few not to react to Vorona’s picture, probably owing to the fact that he could barely even see it. He blinked milky eyes and turned his head from side to side. “Is that about right?”
Vorona shrugged. “They share a lot of features. Front facing eyes, fur, sharp teeth. But this is only a guess; I’m making this method up as I go along.”
“We all are,” Argo growled.
“Thank you, Vorona.” Arcturus stepped forward again, retaking his place at the head of the table. He spent another moment looking over the human before swiping it out of sight and bringing the globe back up. “Someone ping Reel again for me, she should have been here by now.”
Reel stepped forward into the light cast by the holo-table. “Here, sir.”
“Ah, good. Reel, we’ve had the reports on most of the major powers in this conflict save for yours. Give us the short version—I’ll have the full version from you later.”
Blast it. She’d been hoping to avoid writing the thing at all. “Yes sir.” He moved back and waved her forward, and she stepped up to the globe. As Vorona had done with the figure of the human, she pinched the globe to expand it. Turning it with one hand, she brought the continent that the humans called “Europe” into focus.
“The Italian homelands are here.” She traced the long peninsula with a claw, highlighting it. “But they currently control territory across Europe and into the Southern continent, Africa. Here, here, and here.” She dotted out the areas that had the most Italian radio signals.
“They are allied with the Germans, Japanese, Romanians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Slovakians, and a half a dozen other, smaller states. They have active military operations primarily in the south of Europe and the north of the African continents.” She traced the general area with a claw, hoping she had it more or less right.
Argo broke in. “Are they a worthwhile candidate for us to approach?”
She hesitated a moment. “I don’t think so. They’ve lost a number of recent conflicts, and some of the radio chatter we’ve picked up indicates that they’ve had serious equipment problems. I don’t want anything in my head that’s likely to break down.” The joke drew a smatter of polite laughter. “One of the other large polities is probably a better choice.”
Regio frowned, the graying scales of his face a mass of wrinkles. “Have we even figured out why they’re fighting? I can’t get over the fact that they’re…you know, killing their own.”
Reel shook her head, and then remembered that he couldn’t see her. “Not yet. When we do pick up something about the start of the conflict, the story changes based on who’s telling it.”
“Does it even matter?” Argo pressed. “Once we get what we need, we can be gone from here. I don’t want to stick around for a war that’s consuming a whole planet.”
That brought a mutter of assent from around the room. Fava went so far as to wonder aloud, her voice carrying across the swell. “Have we bet on a race of lunatics?”
“Peace.” Captain Arcturus commanded. His deep voice cut through the surge of voices and quelled the muttering, every eye turning to him. “Argo is correct; the why doesn’t matter. All we need to concern ourselves with is making the best choice possible.”
“But who to approach?” Beno interjected. “Captain, we don’t have any good way to figure out which of these groups is most likely to be open to making a deal.”
“Surely the Russians are the group to approach.” Regio answered him. “They have more land than anyone else. You don’t get to be that big without good technology and a good system for managing it.”
“Don’t be stupid.” Argo snapped. “The Russians have been losing fights. We need to pick a winner!”
They bristled at each other, scales spiking up, before Arcturus put a stop to it. “Enough.” He snapped. “Who’s going to win might be important, but finding a polity that is able to do what we need…That’s the critical point.” He looked around the room. “Does anyone have any clever ideas for figuring out which of these groups is the most advanced?”
There was silence for a moment, as the chiefs glanced at each other.
“A more technologically advanced group would be more likely to win battles, right?” suggested Franka. “Perhaps we can listen for news of more frequent victories.”
“The scope of their cities.” Opined Fava. “You need good technology to have big cities.”
“The codes.” Reel blurted. The chiefs turned to look at her, and she flushed. Their expressions ranged from polite indifference to annoyance.
“Engineer Reel,” Argo said in chill tones. “I think we have what we need from you on the Italy report. You are dismissed to go about your duties…”
“Hold on.” Franka broke in, tilting her head to the side, looking at Reel with genuine curiosity. “What about the codes?” Argo glowered at the interruption, but settled back in his seat with a snort.
Reel scrambled to organize her thoughts. “The computer took longer to break some of the codes they were using than others, right?” Most of the military communications were gibberish until the computer had a chance to change them into actual language. Sometimes, that was a long process.
“Yes. And…?”
“So if it takes longer to crack a military code, then that code must be more complex, more sophisticated,” she went on, growing excited. “And you said earlier that the sophistication of the codes indicated that they had to be using computers, right?”
Franka’s eyes went wide. “And the most advanced codes might indicate the most advanced computers. Ow!” She slapped a hand to the back of her head, wincing. Reel felt it too, her implant had spiked into activity when Franka had spelled out the logic.
Around the room, everyone fell quiet as they cleared their minds to let the spike pass. As it faded, Franka met Reel’s gaze again, the light of the projector dancing in her eyes.
“That is an excellent idea. The computer keeps logs of how much processor power each job requires. We can average it for each military, and the highest one will be our likely target.”
Nods and mutters of approval made their way around the table. The captain lifted his head and offered Reel a tired smile, a bit of life returning to his eyes. “Nicely done. Franka, get that started. Beno, get me a list of everyone with training on the landers. We will need to send someone down to make this work. I’ve done them, but I’d rather drop off a portable communicator than go down there myself.
Beno frowned. “That’s a long set of simulations, if I remember right. It takes months to be fully qualified, and it’s not required training. Has anyone besides you ever taken them?”
“Take a look through the records and see.” Arcturus said with a sigh. “If no one else has taken them, we’ll pick out some likely candidates and start their training immediately.”
Reel wanted to laugh. It bubbled inside her as she stepped back into the light of the projection. She forced it down, but couldn’t keep the wide grin from spreading across her face. “I’ve done those simulations,” she said, lifting a hand. “Send me!”