Delta Pavonis (22 page)

"The hell with this!" Dierdre protested. "I don't want to be just a bubbling vat of body chemicals, yearning to swap DNA with another one!"

"Like it or not, it's how we are."

Dierdre thought about it for a while. "Now that would be a first."

TWELVE

"Do you ever get the idea, Doc," Dierdre asked, "that this little piece of the galaxy we've explored has turned out a lot like those old movie and television entertainments we used to study in media history?"

They were waiting for M'ats to make another appearance. Sieglinde was going over the bio data to pass the time. "How's that?"

"Well, in a lot of those old shows the aliens looked human, maybe just made up a little, and often as not they spoke English. Everybody responsible said how stupid that was and pretty soon you didn't see that any more, when cheap holo effects could make really believable aliens. Now we're out here and what have we found? Humans."

"M'ats hinted that there are many other species. I want to hear more about that. And now we've had a look at this planet we can be pretty sure that human life didn't just spring up spontaneously wherever conditions were favorable. M'ats has the answers and I want them."

"I'm still not sure about all this. A little unauthorized exploring is one thing, maybe a bit of surreptitious experimenting on the side, no big deal. But what we seem to be doing now is opening unofficial negotiations between humanity and an alien race. It's an order of magnitude bigger. People might get the wrong idea."

"Remember what I told you about the role of conspiracy? Besides, neither we nor M'ats are empowered to speak or negotiate for our respective species. As long as that's understood, I don't see that any harm is being done. When the
Arumwoi
finally decide to make official contact, there'll be a lot of caution, lots of time tied up in ceremonial, things like that. This way, we'll be learning something in the meantime."

Dierdre stood behind Sieglinde, bent to look in the screen. "Does the bio readout make any sense?"

"It's puzzling, and it'll stay that way until I can consult some specialists on this. As near as I can tell, he reads out as nearly human, but not quite. Too close to be coincidence, but not close enough to indicate common origin."

"That makes no sense at all. How can they be that close without common origin?"

"It looks like we're going to have to rewrite the books on evolution again. We've been handed evolutionary anomalies by the bucketful since humanity reached the nearby systems. We may be back to square one where evolution is concerned."

"I can't buy that. The rest of evolution seems to work out. It's only human evolution that seems to have gone crazy."

"Well, that was the only kind people really raised hell about. The religious types could mostly get along with the idea of animal evolution, especially when geological evidence was irrefutable. It was when Darwin postulated a common origin for man and animals that the uproar started. If, as seems to be the evidence now, humanity is not part of Earth's evolution, we may be arguing with the same people all over again."

Dierdre sat and scanned her fingernails, which she had just trimmed and then, on an impulse, lacquered. "Still, what we're looking at here is a long way from some sort of divine origin, creation by a supreme being in his own image. I never could figure out what that last part meant, anyway."

"Don't be so certain. We've already noted that our aliens have what amount to godlike powers. If not up to Old Testament creator-of-the-cosmos standards, at least they're of Greek pantheon level. By the way, I like your necklace,"

"Thank you. What's keeping him?" She started to brush nervously at her hair but stopped herself, not wanting to disturb her antique shell combs.

"He was pretty vague about when he'd get back. I'm not sure how to read this." She frowned, studying the screen before her. "There must be some way to interpret his olfactory perceptions."

"Why is that important?"

"He might not like that perfume you're wearing. Even among us, not everyone likes the same scents."

"I hadn't thought of that. Should I go wash it off?"

"Dee, have you utterly abandoned your sense of humor? I was teasing you."

"It wouldn't be the only sense I've lost. Look at me." Sieglinde had already looked. Besides perfume, jewelry and hair elaboration, she had dressed in a party suit and applied cosmetic, none too expertly. "I feel like a fool. To them, we're probably ugly. Ugly and primitive. I might as well have put a bone through my nose."

"Just consider it an anthropological experiment, if it helps to salve your pride. You know, if the rest are like him, we may be in for some real trouble. How are our men going to take it if all their women get itchy for aliens?"

"My God! You know, I've been going over those old books and cinemas and holos; from
War Of the Worlds
on, Earthmen-alien wars were a theme. Usually, the issues were conquest, territorial ambition, silly things like that. I don't think sexual jealousy was ever a factor." She began to nibble a fingernail, winced at the taste of fresh lacquer. "That may not be the worst of it. What if their women are as gorgeous as he is?"

"Civil war between the sexes. Of all the things we never expected to run into out here. Oh, well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. One catastrophe at a time."

"You're the big genius around here," Dierdre said, wanting badly to change the subject. "You've had a whole day to study our new evidence. Come up with any conclusions yet?"

"Even I need more evidence than this." She leaned back in her chair, propping her feet on a console. It was an incredibly relaxed pose for Sieglinde, so Dierdre knew that she had something important on her mind. "If it's speculations you want, though, I have a few. I think the common origin is still there. For us, for the other humans we've found, and for the
Arumwoi
. Right now we have a few chicken-and-egg questions to settle, but the answers are there. Countless times we've come up against phenomena that seemed to have no rational explanation, and each time it's turned out to be that some vital evidence was missing. Once the evidence was supplied, everything else fell into rational place.

"I don't believe in magic, nor in divine intervention in natural affairs. What's missing here is information. When I get it, everything will make sense, rationally and scientifically. The
Arumwoi
are tremendously advanced, but they need ships to travel through space. They don't create matter out of nothing, and at least one of them is operating without the others' knowledge, if we're to believe him. They're powerful, but they aren't gods."

She stabbed a finger at the screen with its abbreviated biological readout. "I have a feeling that a lot of the answer is in there, and it's not my field of expertise. I'm not going to be able to call anybody else in until we reach an understanding with M'ats, though." She snorted frustration.

"Some people wouldn't be so scrupulous,'' Dierdre said. "The prospect of immortal fame is tempting, as I well know."

Sieglinde shrugged, an Earthie gesture retained from the Mars of her youth. "I'm already famous. Probably the most famous human being of my generation. Besides, that was never important to me. I spent most of my first three decades trying to stay obscure. And when I give my word, I mean it. I'll keep faith with M'ats as long as he does the same with me."

Despite their preparation and long wait, they still jumped slightly when the alien in question made his appearance.

"Good day, M'ats," Sieglinde said. "It is M'ats, isn't it? For all I know you all look exactly alike."

"It is M'ats," he confirmed. "And we do not all look alike. In fact, we seem to differ rather more than you of Earth origin."

Dierdre noticed something different from the day before. The small pauses before his responses were diminished if not absent entirely.

"You've taken something to speed up your response time!" she said. Then it occurred to her that it might be a rather impolite observation.

He smiled. Either he had been practicing, or the expression was the same for both species. "There are treatments. To me you seem slowed down, which is a relief. The difference in timing could prove mutually irritating, over a prolonged time."

"We wouldn't want that," Sieglinde said. "Your grasp of our grammar has improved since yesterday as well."

"We have techniques of information absorption as well. The last—that is, yesterday, I had not prepared properly. It was most unusual for me, for any of us, to take such, I should say precipitate action."

"Are you a society of conformists, then? Rule-followers?" Dierdre asked.

"Not as you might think. We are quite individual in our interests, in much private and interpersonal behavior. In some ways, you would consider nearly all of us rather—eccentric. But certain behaviors regarding the social pattern—how shall I put it? Let us say that our language no longer has an equivalent for 'foolhardy.' I may have to reintroduce it to describe what I have done."

"You have only a single language?" Sieglinde asked.

"For our entire race and culture, yes. Many for smaller groups. Some practices and fields of study are so arcane that their practitioners require a separate language as well."

"We've become that way ourselves," Sieglinde said. "Just what is it you have done?"

"I have stepped outside the bounds of the social consensus in contacting you on my own. The action is not really what you would call criminal; we no longer have that concept. But it is 'other-than-expected,' which is a great pejorative among us."

Dierdre faced him, wondering what lay behind his beautiful, impassive facade. "Do you think the reward of what you've done will prove worth the price?"

"Oh, yes. It already has."

"It has?" Dierdre was mystified. He had done nothing so far except show up and cause them a lot of puzzlement.

"What did you wish to accomplish by coming here?" Sieglinde asked.

He looked at Dierdre. "To meet you. And I have."

It was, to say the least, stunning news. She decided he must still be having difficulties with the language.

"You mean, to contact us, don't you? You wanted to be the first to make contact with Earth humans?"

"No, it was to meet you personally."

This was a little more than she had expected. "Boss, I think I'd better sit down."

"Go ahead, dear. M'ats, of all the motivations I might have ascribed to you, this is about the least likely. Not that Dierdre isn't attractive, in her fashion, but, isn't this rather a . . . a . . . grand gesture?" To Dierdre, the shock was almost worth seeing Sieglinde at a loss for words.

"Not really. You will need to learn more about us, and you shall. I am sure that I am not the only one to have this urge, I am just less disciplined than most. I was the first to see her. I was monitoring the detection system when the signal arrived. I was in suspension, along with most of the crew, and it woke me. It has been so long since our detectors found anything, and this! After the failure of so many others."

That last remark was going to take some explaining, too, Dierdre thought. She was still dazed by his proclamation of—what? She couldn't be sure what it meant. Although she was pretty sure that it couldn't be as good as it sounded.

"M'ats," she asked, "just what did you see when the system woke you?"

"I saw you at the transporter controls, having just made the transition and not yet aware of what had happened. Later, when I replayed the whole sequence, I saw you from the moment you entered the chamber. Our cultures are not so different that I could not see how frightened you were when you first touched the controls. Yet you did it anyway! Later, I watched as the others did the same. By that time, the more remote sensors had been activated and we made a record of what happened outside the cave as well."

"And what conclusions did you draw?" Sieglinde asked.

"First let me describe. I woke the controllers and specialists and we made immediate course change. It took little time for your language to be translated; our instruments and specialists have thousands of years of such experience at such tasks. We heard the arguments and the justifications, and the fact that you were determined to proceed with your exploration despite the risk and in defiance of authority."

"Did you understand," Sieglinde asked, "that this was a very young, undisciplined and irresponsible group?"

He smiled again. "We quickly discovered that, compared to us, you are all very young, undisciplined and irresponsible."

Oddly, it was Dierdre who first voiced the big question. "And is that bad?"

"Not to me. We must persuade the others as well."

He left quickly, leaving Sieglinde bemused and Dierdre all but stunned. "Boss, tell me this didn't happen. Is that alien really hinting that he's in love with me?"

"Difficult to say. I haven't studied many aliens. He might be tricking us, I suppose, able to read our minds and tell us what he knows we want to hear."

"If that's the case, wouldn't you be the one to flatter, rather than me? I'm a nobody while you're the great wonder of the age. If they've studied our transmissions and delved into our memory banks, they must know that."

"Love is strange. Besides, if they had recording devices outside, you're the one he's seen romping around naked in that pool."

"You're right. Maybe I wasted all this artificial allure." She looked down at her body and sighed. "At least I was in good shape then, plenty of exercise and sunlight. Doc, let's be serious; I am not the sort to launch a thousand ships, or even tempt one putatively human alien into a terrible transgression. What's happening?" She was on the verge of tears, shaking from suppressed fear, confusion and a complex of emotions she could only feel and not name.

Sieglinde stepped up behind her and placed her hands on Dierdre's shoulders. The strong, competent fingers were soothing, bringing a measure of sanity to an increasingly insane situation. "I wish I could tell you, Dee. I need someone to tell me. But I'm glad I'm not going through this alone, even if it's hard on you."

Dierdre got hold of herself and felt, for some reason, much better. She looked over her shoulder at Sieglinde, covering one of the thin, wiry hands with her own. "Why's that, Doc? I thought you were the most self-reliant human being in existence.''