Donald Moffitt - Second Genesis

“Sit on him if you have to,” Bram told the three women. “Jao, let’s get your computer signboard set up.”

They worked at it for fifteen hours, taking turns going back to the parked walkers to replenish their air supplies and to fetch various items that Heln or Jao had brought along in hopes that they would help.

Nobody ate a lot during that time—just a few hasty handfuls of travelfood that had been included with their rations—and nobody slept at all, despite the fact that all of them had been awake for more than twenty-four hours.

They got nowhere.

Every once in a while one of the stick-beings would dart over and pause for a look at the computer display or at an earnestly semaphoring human being. At least they seemed to be looking. But they always trotted on past without showing any reaction.

Once an exasperated Jao had stepped squarely into the path of an ambulating beastie and attempted to herd it with blocking movements of his wide torso toward the little communications arena. An observer could not have said that the intercepted individual exactly tried to evade Jao. Simply, it was somehow past him without appearing to have noticed his presence.

It was a pity, because Jao had knocked himself out to prepare his visual displays. There was a beautiful sequence in simplified diagrams and actual images that showed the human itinerary from the Whirlpool Galaxy to the Milky Way to the vicinity of the enclosed star that was presumed to be Delta Pavonis. Another sequence ingeniously arranged as a query showed the presumed progress of the tomato-eyed strangers from a presumed Sol.

Jao never got anywhere near to unveiling his masterpieces—a sophisticated scenario that showed the ancient origin of humankind on a planet of Sol, showed bright schematic images of DNA, and showed the diskworld itself with stylized radio waves spreading from it toward the Virgo cluster of galaxies. It went on to show the Whirlpool in the Canis Venatici cloud, halfway to Virgo, being bathed in the radio waves, the reemergence of the colorful DNA schema, then the recreation of human beings and their return to the planet that had given birth to their genes.

“They don’t take visual information!” Jao said in disgust. “And them with eyes as big as my head!”

“It’s not visual information, it’s abstractions,” Bram said. “Let’s show them something closer to home.”

They displayed images relating human figures to Yggdrasil, with much pointing at the green blob that could be seen over the horizon. They showed the fuzzy images of the stick-ship and finally life-size holos of the jelly-eyed creatures themselves, played back from Heln’s camera.

But when Jao projected one of the fearsome holos in the path of one of the trotting creatures, it passed through it without pausing. “It didn’t see the image as real,” Ame said. “Not polarized for their eyes.”

“But sometimes they do seem to pause for a second and show body reactions, particularly with the moving images,” Shira said, sounding frustrated. “And certainly when we get too close to their precious equipment.”

“The same way your feet find stepping-stones when you cross a stream,” Heln said. “Doesn’t mean you’re really aware of the stones.”

Heln, tree-born, had never seen a stream and certainly never had crossed one on stepping-stones, but Bram appreciated the aptness of the simile.

“Going to try just one more thing,” Jao grunted.

He generated an animated image of a Cuddly, and the next time a stick-creature intersected their little communications arena, he sent it scampering toward the being.

The alien being stopped dead in its tracks and stood stock still for all of two or three seconds. For a moment Bram thought it was going to rear up and change direction, as it did when a human got in its way. The nightmare face seemed to expand as the central cleft widened, and Bram thought he saw a flicker of movement within the cavity.

Then, apparently, the creature dismissed the holographic Cuddly and darted off on its interrupted errand.

“We almost had it that time!” Jao exclaimed. “Did you see that?”

“But why?” Shira asked. “It couldn’t have seen the holo as real.”

“Something in its neural circuitry reacted,” Heln said. “Something about the image almost tripped a switch.”

“But what?” Bram wondered. “The Cuddly’s size? Its movement? Its resemblance to something it is primed to react to?”

“Maybe all of that,” Heln said. “But it shows that the switch is there, ready to be tripped. And maybe after we get back and have time to study our film and data, we’ll be able to figure out how to get them to notice us .”

They kept at it until their margin of reserve air was almost gone. And then they had trouble prying Jorv away. “They’re insects, all right,” he babbled happily. “Or at least in the insect line of descent. It’s all there in the jointing of the legs—the two short basal joints, femur and tibia meeting at the knees, then the three short joints and former claws of the tarsus. I’d give my eyeteeth to see them out of their space suits.”

Bram had Jao drive Jorv back; he didn’t trust the pudgy zoologist not to return to the alien campsite. Before they entered their separate vehicles, Bram exchanged a few words with Jao.

“Did you notice there were no Cuddlies hanging around? That’s odd … there must be a few burrows in the area, and they’re such curious little beasts.”

“Huh? They’re probably just being cautious till they figure these insect-people out.”

“Heln says that maybe we’ll be able to figure out how to trip that switch in their brains after we learn why they reacted to a Cuddly image.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Maybe we won’t want to.”

It was hard for Bram to keep the curious from sneaking out to the insect-people’s base camp. “Not until we know more,” he insisted. “The specialists are working on it. We don’t want to take the chance of stirring them up till we have some chance of communicating with them.”

In the meantime, Yggdrasil was drifting inexorably farther away. Smeth called several times a day to display fits of ill temper.

“We were supposed to leave this system within two Tendays from now. Jun Davd’s got our course worked out for that window, and my black gang’s warming up the fusion drive. We’re halfway through our checklist. We’ve already got a starter ball of deuterium slush in the throat of the scoop, and it’s evaporating with every second that goes by.” His words became a wail. “And where’s Ame? She was supposed to be back here days ago! The twins are acting up, and I don’t have time to handle them by myself.”

“I’m sorry,” Bram said. “I couldn’t get Ame to leave now if I tried.”

“Well, it’s not every day you run into a new intelligent life form,” Smeth said grudgingly.

“I can’t get anyone else to leave, either,” Bram told him. “We may have to change our plans. We can’t leave this system without knowing more about what’s waiting for us at Sol. We may not own it anymore—not if these are the new inheritors.”

“If we don’t pack up and go soon, Yggdrasil will have to make another circuit. It would use up our whole starter ball. We could be delayed another year.”

Bram broke it to him gently. “I think that’s what it may take. We’re going to have to put it to a vote.”

“Don’t say that! Jun Davd spends all his time looking at the pictures and data you sent up. I’ve been trying to get some revised escape orbits out of him, but his computer’s all tied up with an analysis of the radio traffic that—that colony sent.”