Гарри Гаррисон - The Jupiter Plague

“What thing are you…?” the barrel asked.

The conversation between the two differing life forms had begun.

Words and the simple mechanics of communication were easy enough for the Jovians to master, their memories appeared to be eidetic and no word was ever forgotten once explained. But referents were another thing. Nouns that could be pointed out, chair, glass, knife , were simple enough to convey, as well as easily demonstrable verbs, such as walk, run and write . When abstractions were reached communication of meaning became difficult and there were entire areas of misunderstanding.

“You come from where…?” the Jovian asked, and when informed that they were from Earth, the third planet from the sun in this solar system, they asked, “What is earths? What is planets? What is suns…?”

Buried here, at the bottom of hundreds of miles of near-liquid atmosphere covered by solid layers of clouds, they had never seen the stars nor had they any inkling of knowledge that worlds other than their own existed. Yet they seemed to understand when it was explained to them, though they had very little interest and let the matter drop quickly and went on to something else. This was a pattern they seemed to follow — if they could be said to be following any pattern at all. They would pick a subject up, ask questions, then quickly abandon it. They (or it, the men in the ship never knew if they were talking to one or more Jovians) seemed to lack the simplest knowledge of the mechanical sciences, though they apparently absorbed explanations easily enough. There was only one ^thing that held their attention, that they kept coming back to: they never seemed satisfied with the answers.

“What thing are you…?”

It was the captain who first understood something about them.

“The biological sciences,” he said, “chemistry when it is biochemistry, neurophysics and all the rest. And electricity… of course! Bioelectricity.”

“Sir…?” Commander Rand asked.

“Those Jovians out there. Try to imagine the world they live in, from their point of view. They have no machines or artifacts that we have seen, yet they have intelligence and they have installed a device to communicate with us — even though they didn’t recognize our own communicator. They must work with living matter alone and seem to have an incredible degree of control over it; look at the speed with which they constructed the barrel and installed it here.”

“That’s true, sir, and it explains a lot — but what about the magnetic field that is holding us down? They must have machines of some kind to generate that.”

“Must they? Bioelectricity is well known on Earth, look at the electric eel. But let’s ask them and find out. I think we have finally established a level of communication good enough to try that important question.”

“There is a magnetic field at the base of this ship,” he said, “do you know that?”

“Coming from electricity fields of force abide, yes…” The barrel spoke clearly and precisely as ever, the single eye turning toward the captain, who stood at the far side of the engine room.

“Our ship cannot leave while that field exists, do you know that?”

“Yes…”

“Will you remove the field so that we may leave?”

“The fields of force will no longer rest… after the talking…”

It was a clear enough answer, except for the fact that they had a great deal of difficulty finding out exactly what the talking was. It obviously meant much more than conversation — but how much more? By indirection and suggestion the captain finally discovered that what they wanted to know about was human biology and that they wanted to examine living human cells.

“By talking they seem to mean knowing about . Gives some insight into how they think — though it doesn’t help much.”

He sent for a hypodermic needle and before the unblinking alien eye drew out some of his own blood. “Here…” the toneless voice said, and an opening gaped in the top of the barrel just below the eye. When Captain Bramley walked closer he could smell the sharp burn of ammonia: he emptied the hypodermic into the dark opening, which instantly rolled shut.

“There is talking we must do…” the voice spoke as the captain stepped away. “Talking to do of you…”

“I’ll show you X-rays of human beings, there are also textbooks.”

“There is talking to do with the eye…” The alien eye trembled a bit on top of its stalk as the captain stepped forward again.

“Don’t get too close, sir,” Rand called out. “We still can’t be sure what they mean by the word talking.”

“This time it appears to mean looking.” The captain stopped. “After you have ‘talked’ to me with your eye will you release the ship?”

“The field of force will no longer rest after the talking…”

“I don’t like it, captain!”

“Neither do I, but it sounds clear enough — or rather as clear as they ever get. Someone is going to have to be examined by the creature or we’ll never leave. And I can’t ask anyone else to volunteer for this.”

The captain stepped forward again and the eye stretched forward as its stalk thinned and elongated. It hung quivering for a second before the captain’s face before plunging forward into his chest and slashing down the length of his body, laying him open in one hideous wound that killed him instantly.

The Jovian stared out of the screen at the three earthmen, immobile and stolid. Yasumura gasped and unconsciously stepped backward a half step.

“What in Satan’s name is that?” the general asked.

“Look for yourself,” Sam said, pointing to the frost-covered wall. “Heavy supports, thick walls, a very cold pressure container big enough to half fill this compartment…”

“A Jovian!” Yasumura shouted. “They brought one back alive, and an ugly one at that. I didn’t know there was any kind of life on Jupiter…?”

“Obviously there is,” Sam said. “But don’t you have it reversed — about who did the bringing back? All the cables in the ship lead here —and this thing is still alive while every member of the expedition is dead…”

“Can it talk?” the general asked.

“Do the wire correct…” the Jovian’s high-pitched and toneless voice sounded from the speaker. “The talking is impaired…”

“You’re talking fine,” Burke said. “Now you can tell us what you are doing here and how—” He broke off in midphrase and turned to Sam. “This is no accident! Do you think this creature has anything to do with the plague?”

“I think it is responsible for Rand’s disease. I had something like this in mind when I asked you to come here. But would you have come if I suggested we would find that ?”

“No, I would have thought you had cracked.”

“So I couldn’t explain to you. But you see — it had to be something like this. Everything about Rand’s disease seems so planned , the timed mutations, the varying hosts, the incurability. If you look at it that way the disease stops being alien and instead is—”

“Artificial!”

“Right. And I think this creature here has had something to do with it. That’s what I mean to find out now.”

“Do the wire correct… the talking is impaired…” the Jovian said.

“The wire will be fixed after you have answered a few questions!” Sam realized that he was shouting; he lowered his voice. “Are you responsible for Rand’s disease, for the sickness here in the city?”

“This is a meaningless…”

“A communication problem,” Yasumura said. “This Jovian has learned English, undoubtedly from the men who manned this ship, but it has to relate the words to things in its own environment, which makes it impossible to get a one to one identity. Be very simple and clear when you ask a question, Sam — try and establish basics and build up from there.”