Charles Sheffield - The Spheres of Heaven

The translator hummed and said, It live. It wake.

Were they deaf, or just plain stupid? “Did you hear me? My name is Friday Indigo, and I am the owner and captain of the space-going yacht, Mood Indigo . I come to you in friendship.”

“ Fridayindigo. Fridayindigo. It live. S-s-speak. Us—” a pause and a fart-like groan from the translator “— us Malacostracans. ”

What was it with the “malacostracans” bit? That was the third time the machine had said the same nonsense word.

Maybe the key to getting something sensible was to talk more, and to make the Indigoans talk back. “Hello. My name is Friday Indigo, and I have come here from another star system. I am the captain of a starship, the Mood Indigo . I am the representative of all humans, and of all other intelligent species who are members of the Stellar Group. I am a new arrival to your world, and I would like to compare your civilization with ours.”

While Friday spoke he was taking a first hard look at his surroundings. Perhaps “civilization” was the wrong word. By any standards, the place he had been brought to was a dump.

He was lying on the sloping table with his head slightly lower than his feet, at the upper end of a chamber that was also sloping. Maybe twenty meters long and half that across, it was lit by cylindrical wall lamps of a sickly yellow-green. It was, in fact, not so much a room as a pool or tank. The creatures nearest to Friday stood in water only a few inches deep, but down at the far end he saw four more of them, all half-submerged and sloshing around. With its hundred-percent humidity, deadly chill, dank walls and ceiling of muddy gray, this wasn’t a place where anyone in his right mind would stay for more than a minute.

Friday lifted his head, realizing as he did so that part of his discomfort came from the fact that he was still in his suit with his cheek resting on the hard edge of the open helmet. He worked his jaw from side to side and said, “Is the translator getting anything I’ve said across to you? It’s doing a lousy job sending stuff this way — all I’ve received so far is about five words. Can you hear me? Do you understand me?”

The translator was certainly doing something . As Friday spoke, it produced a simultaneous string of stuttering clicks and squawks. Two of the Indigoans splashed their way closer to the table and leaned over it with waving eyestalks. Their interest seemed to be not in Friday, but in the translator unit at his waist.

“Hell-o!” He lifted his right arm and waved feebly. “You down there. I’m up here — that’s just a machine that you’re staring at. Can you hear me? Can you understand me?”

One of the creatures slowly turned to face him. The topmost of the three fringed slits began to move.

“ It speak. This the it speak? ”

“If you mean, am I the one who’s talking to you and being translated by the machine there, then yes. I am the it who’s speaking.”

“ It breath air. It live air. ”

“That’s quite right. I live in air, and I breathe air. I am” — was it worth the effort? Well, try it one more time — “I am Friday Indigo. I am a human, and so far as I know this is the first contact between your people and mine. This is a very significant meeting. Is there any chance that we could go someplace else if we’re going to keep talking? This underwater dungeon gives me the willies.”

“ We you same. Live air, live water. Hu-mans you. Malacostracans we. ”

“Oh. I get it. Malacostracans. It’s your name — what you call yourselves. It’s the strangest name I ever heard, I must say, but I’ll blame that on the translation unit.” Friday tapped his chest with one gloved hand. “I’m Friday Indigo. I’m going to call you Indigoans , for our records. The name of our whole species is humans . My own personal name is Friday Indigo. What’s yours?”

Apparently that was too much, either for the Malacostracan or the translator. Friday heard only a sullen hum.

“All right, let’s leave it for later.” He sat up and swung his legs over onto the floor. That produced violent pins and needles from his hips to his toes. He had to sit quiet for a while, cursing horribly and wondering if that too was being translated. He felt for his backpack of supplies, and was relieved to find it there and untouched. If he didn’t feel better in a minute he’d take a painkiller. No point in suffering any more.

“ We you go .” The Malacostracan waved a vicious-looking pincer in Friday’s face. “ We you see one big one we .”

“I think I get that. You’re just gofers of some kind, so now I’m awake you’ll take me to your leader, right? Fine with me. That’s the way it should be, because I’m the leader for the humans and I don’t want to talk to underlings. Uh-oh. Wait a minute. If you’re going out that way, I may need to close my suit.”

The creature had turned away and was scuttling down the incline toward deeper water. When it realized that Friday was not following it paused. The eyestalks reared up over the carapace to stare back at him as he closed the visor of his helmet.

The translation unit said, “ Take shell off, put shell on? Not we. ”

“You’re dealing with humans now, my friend. There’s lots of things that we can do and others can’t.”

That was the way to do it, give the aliens an idea of human superiority right at the beginning. But the Indigoan merely waited until Friday was finished, then led the way into deeper water. When it came to a point where the bottom of its carapace was level with the surface, the creature ducked forward and submerged. That confirmed Friday’s idea that the Indigoans were equally at home on land or in the sea. But where had they evolved? The bubble men hadn’t mentioned them.

There would be plenty of time for answers to questions like that. First, the translation unit must finish its learning process.

Friday followed the Indigoan into a narrow tunnel with a semicircular arched ceiling. It was a tight squeeze, but by crouching slightly he could keep his head in the two-foot gap between the surface of the water and the low roof. The lights were all in the main chamber, and he plowed on through increasing gloom. The tunnel was so narrow that there was no possibility of mistaking the way.

He heard a sound ahead, a faint moaning cry that grew steadily louder. The unit at his waist made no attempt at translation. At the same time the water level went down. He walked a rising incline that led up into deeper darkness. Friday raised his arm above his head, and found that he could no longer touch the ceiling. Also — he spread his arms wide — he could not reach the sides of the corridor. The wailing had become louder and more unearthly. A strong, gusty wind pushed against his chest.

Confused and unable to see, he paused with water up to his knees. After a few seconds, a light appeared ahead of him. The creature that led the way was holding an oblong lantern high in one of its fore-pincers, while the stalked eyes stared back to make sure that Friday was still there.

“It’s all right.” He waved at it. “I’m with you. You can keep going.”

“ We go. You follow. ”

Friday wondered if the translation unit couldn’t work while the Indigoan was under water. A moment later he had other things on his mind. He had a sudden suspicion that they were not inside a room any more, but moving out onto exposed land surface. That wailing sound was from the same wind that pushed at his suited figure. As they came completely out of the water he could feel it swirling about his body. It was the tail end of the storm, raking the night surface of Limbo. From somewhere behind he heard another sound, the distant roar of surf on the shoreline.