Jack Campbell - Invincible

“How big is that thing?” Desjani finally asked in a choked voice. “Lieutenant Yuon?”

“We… we can’t tell, Captain,” Yuon stuttered. “There’s nothing to scale it against.”

Geary forced himself to look closely at the image. If a very large spider had somehow mated with a wolf, the result might have been something like that. At least six appendages that might work equally well as arms or legs, a skin that appeared shiny and hard yet also sprouted patches of hair or fur, a head adorned with six eyes spread across the center, a flap above the eyes that might be for breathing, and beneath the eyes, a multijawed bear trap of a mouth. Two flaps on either side of the head made up of very thin skin rippled with veins might represent ears.

It was as if someone had searched for all of the most horrible-looking elements of living creatures and combined them into one.

“At least it doesn’t have tentacles,” Charban said.

Geary’s gaze slid away from the hideous appearance to focus on the clothing the creature wore. Brilliantly colored bands of cloth that shone like silk were woven about the body in an intricate pattern, the colors never clashing as they wound about each other. Odd, yet beautiful in its own way.

The creature was speaking, a high-pitched, wavering sound, as it spread out four limbs to their full extent on either side of its body. Impressive claws tipping the ends of the limbs also spread out, the creature holding the pose as it kept talking, the sounds occasionally interspersed with clacking as jaws struck together.

“Ancestors preserve us,” Desjani whispered, then swallowed and spoke in a nearly normal voice. “Is it threatening us?”

“I have no idea,” Geary said.

“Something that looks like that made ships and formations that look like that .”

“Yeah.” He looked down, breathing deeply to regain his composure. “Forward this to the civilian experts and see what they think it is doing.”

Rione finally spoke up, her voice the closest to normal of all those on the bridge. “It is talking to us. Whatever they are, they initiated contact. The enigmas have only spoken to us after a long period of hiding, and even then, very reluctantly. The bear-cows have never exchanged any communication with us.”

“Maybe it’s just asking us how we taste,” Desjani muttered, then laughed. “I wonder how you say ‘tastes like chicken’ in their language?”

Geary found himself laughing, too, the dark humor a welcome release from the shock of seeing the creature.

“Captain?” The communications watch had managed to control his own half-hysterical laughter at Desjani’s joke. “There’s something attached to this communication. A program of some kind.”

Desjani gave Geary a bitter glance. “A Trojan horse or a virus or what?” she asked the watch-stander.

“It doesn’t seem to be any of those things, Captain. It’s not concealed in any way. The attachment is very obvious. Either these, um… whatevers are incredibly unsophisticated about computer security issues, or they wanted to be sure we spotted that program.”

“Run it by security,” Desjani ordered. “I want our code people to analyze it and give me their assessment before we do anything with it. Wait a minute. That message could have been picked up by every ship in the fleet.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Without taking his eyes off the alien message, Geary hit his comm controls. “All units are to refrain from recording, running, or otherwise activating the software attached to the alien message. It will only be tested and activated under controlled conditions and as authorized by me.”

In the comm window before Geary, the creature had ended its speech. Its four upper limbs folded back against its body, crossing over in front of it, then two rose again just enough to frame its head before the message ended.

“Now what?” Desjani asked.

“I don’t know,” Geary said. “Maybe it’s easier to decide what to do when they don’t talk to us.”

“We’ve got the bear-cows on our tails. We can’t just hang around waiting to figure out what these… spider-wolves want or need or whatever.”

“You should send a reply,” Rione said.

“A reply?” Geary questioned. “To what? I don’t know what that thing just said.” The idea of sending a message in the blind had made sense a couple of hours ago. But now, after viewing the spider-wolves’ message, the gap between him and the creatures in those beautiful ships seemed vaster than the distances between stars. “They won’t know what my gestures mean, they won’t understand my words, and I may look as ugly to them as they do to me.”

“Nonetheless, you should reply,” Rione insisted. “Let them know we want to talk. Perhaps they know something about humans. They are neighbors of a sort to the enigmas.”

Geary gave Rione a cross look. “I smiled at the bear-cows, and by showing my incisors seemed to them to be preparing to eat them.”

“That is only a guess, Admiral,” she reminded him. “A good guess, I admit. But I heard you earlier speaking of engineering issues, which apply also to living creatures. An attack posture is different from a defense posture, isn’t it? Doesn’t it have to be?”

Charban answered her. “It depends. There are a number of combat methods in which an individual balances, ready to attack or defend as necessary. However, those are fairly sophisticated as such things go.” He paused, his expression thoughtful. “In human terms, we would indicate aggression by leaning forward, arms close to the body, ready to strike. Defense might look the same. But projecting peaceful intent is done by humans by standing erect, arms spread out, hands open. That posture does not suit either attack or defense.”

“The way the, uh, spider-wolf stood,” Geary agreed. “Arms out, claws open.”

“Ready to grab us,” Desjani said. “How do they do fine motor manipulation with claws, anyway?”

“Another good question.” Geary scowled, knowing that Rione was right but wondering if he could talk openly and calmly when he now knew what his audience looked like. “Can we send a reply in the same format in which we received that one?”

“Of course Dauntless can do that,” Desjani replied, looking offended by the suggestion that her ship might not be able to do something.

“We can use the same conversion program, Admiral,” the comm watch explained. “Only instead of converting their stuff to our format, we’ll do it backwards and convert our format to theirs.”

He nodded but sat silently, trying to get himself in the right state of mind to speak to those things without showing revulsion.

Charban spoke, his voice meditative. “You can partly judge someone by what they do, by what they create, and by what they surround themselves with. We did that with the bear-cows, looking at what they had done with their world and deciding from that they must be ruthless. Here we can’t see the home world of these new creatures, but we can see what they created. We can see how they like to do things. That offers us some grounds for empathy.”

“Empathy.” Geary heard his skepticism clearly in this single word.

“Yes. Just as you could see aspects of humans in what we create and how we do things.” Charban waved around. “We made this fleet. A mighty instrument of war. That tells you something about us, but it doesn’t stop with the obvious. Not everything in this fleet reflects pure science or physics or engineering. Many things reflect how we want things to be done because that is how we like them. Not because they’re most efficient but because we like doing things that way. It matters to us, though we might not be able to say why.”