First Contact, Part II
We stand in silent awe for a moment. Sunshine is quietly weeping as the beeping continues. It seems to strain against the noise, a lonely soul crying out for someone, anyone, to respond. Dah di dah dit, dah dah di dah. dah di dah dit, dah dah dih dah. dah di dah dit, dah dah di dah. Dah di dit, dit.
Stormlight flicks his tail, tuning the radio to a random frequency. For a moment the static resolves into an alien voice before fading back into the noise.
“They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in. They’re eating the cats–”
«Is that language? It’s… beautiful,» Sunshine says between deep shuddering breaths. «I don’t know what those words mean, but I’m sure it’s profound.»
I walk up to Ringlight and thump him across his piebald back with my tail. «How are you holding up?»
He coughs. «What, Lodestar? If you’re going to ask me what I believe in now that we’ve found other sophonts–»
«Actually I wanted to see how you’re fairing after your near dissociation earlier. Stormlight popped back in sim and gave us the news before I could ask.»
«I’m alright.» He smells like he wants to say something else but swallows his words.
«You think you’ve been a burden,» I say. «And you’re not wrong. Iris had to drag you back from the brink of total dissociation four times.»
«Five times,» he corrects.
«Five times,» I continue. «But You’re our friend, and bearing each other’s burdens is what friends are for.»
Iris taps her claws on the ground to get our attention. «Alright, everyone. Before we can land we need to introduce ourselves to our new friends, and before we can do that, we need to figure out how to communicate with them.» She turns to Stormlight. «What have you gleamed from their radio comms?»
«Most of the signals are coming from the planet’s surface. Looking back through the receiver logs there were a pawful of faint sources scattered around the solar system, a few on their moon and the fourth planet, and some very faint transmissions from just outside the system. Everything beyond their planet’s low orbit seems to be an uncrewed drone. Most of the signals are digital, but there’s still plenty of analog traffic.»
Iris tugs at her ear. «And we know from the lack of biosignatures on any of the other planets that nothing has been terraformed.»
She turns to Steadfast Friend. «How about you, soldier?»
«Uh-uh, if you’re going to talk to me like I’m still in the military you gotta use my call sign.»
«But it’s disgusting.»
He narrows his eyes and pins his ears back. «I’m waiting, my dame.»
«P-puke Paws,» she nearly gags, «What do the visuals say?»
He chuckles and looks back at Ringlight. «I ever tell you how I got that name?»
«Yes yes yes.» Iris flicks her tail to shush him. «Please, just tell us what you’re getting from the vid feeds.»
Puke Paws pulls up a vid screen floating in mid-air. With each flick of his tail the screen flips between the video sensors dotted around the Dewfall’s exterior. «We’re just past their moon.» An airless crater-pocked sphere appears onscreen.
«That’s no moon,» Sunshine objects. «It’s way to big to be a moon of a planet this size.»
«Well lucky them, I guess,» he flicks his ears back. «Lots of real estate once they get around to terraforming it.»
«I can’t even imagine the tides,» says Sunshine.
Steadfast Friend flicks his tail again, and the image changes. «This is their largest artificial satellite.»
«It’s all solar panels,» says Sunshine. «Solar panels bolted to a bunch of tubes.»
«But they’re pressurized tubes,» says Steadfast Friend, «at least according to the sensors. That means they’ve got spacers. All in all I’d say they’re about where we were… 95 thousand years ago.»
Iris turns back to Stormlight. «How do you think we should make ourselves known?»
the farspeaker begins pacing excitedly. «Lucky for you I know the history of our order.» He makes another tail gesture to bring up the radio again, tuned to a rhythmic beeping signal similar to the first one we heard. «Before we broke through Yih’s atmosphere, when the research monks were first dipping their paws into unpowered flight, they quickly discovered that they needed a deeper understanding of the wind and weather.»
«What does this have to do with communicating with alien sophonts?» Sunshine asks, somewhat annoyed that Stormlight isn’t getting to the point. Iris gives her a stern look and motions for Stormlight to continue.
Stormlight resumes his history lesson, positively stinking with joy that his obscure interests are proving useful. «In order to understand what the weather will be in the future, you need to get the big picture. It’s not enough to know what the weather is around you, you need to know what’s going on upwind, downwind, all over. But learning that a squall is headed your way is only useful before the storm hits.
«The obvious solution in an era before satellites, that is, is to have every research monastery make a note of the weather conditions in their area at the same time and send the reports to a central location to be marked on a map. Well, at that time we couldn’t send a message faster than it could be carried, so the monks set to work on solving the problem of transmitting information beyond line of sight in real time.
«There were some marginal successes with signal towers, where people would stand on top of tall structures and relay tail signals to one another, but that still required line of sight, and even though it was faster than carrying a letter, it still took hours to send a message a meaningful distance.
«Plenty of attempts had been made to use an electric current to carry a message, and some of them even worked, but every one of them proved too complex to build and maintain. Multiple wires, fault-prone receiving equipment, stuff like that. That’s where Saint Redclaw came in, the founder of the farspeakers. What most people don’t know about him was he wasn’t even a monk. He was a groundskeeper working at a monastery who took an interest in some of their research.
«He tinkered with batteries and switches and wires in his free time. Sometimes he’d present his handywork to the monks, who would dismiss them as crude toys made by the idle paws of a simpleton. But the hearthkeeper knew better. She understood that the simplest solution is usually the best one, and encouraged Redclaw to continue. Eventually, he hit upon a setup that not only worked, but was practical and cheap to implement. A battery to induce a potential in a wire, a switch to make or break the circuit, and a sounder that clicked when a current was present, simple and easy.»
Sunshine interjects again. «If it was so easy to just use one wire and a switch than why didn’t the monks try that first?»
«I’m glad you asked. All you can do with one wire is turn a signal on and off. Either a current is present or it isn’t. The monks couldn’t figure out how to turn that into information.» He taps the ground with a paw and a small lamp appears attached to a switch. He places his forepaw on the switch, turning the light on. «It’s all in the rhythm,» he says as he starts tapping the switch in time with the radio signal. dah di dah dit, dah dah di dah. «Redclaw figured out that you could encode meaning in the cadence of the ons and offs of the switch.
«To the monks’ credit, they took him more seriously after he presented his method of encoding meaning. They wasted no time erecting telegraph lines.» He reverently touches his belly to the ground. «The body of the noosphere was born.»
«And you think that’s what that signal is?» I ask.
He tilts his muzzle up. «Yup. And listen to this.» He increases the volume of the radio. «Like I said, the signal is either on or off. I can pick up on two length distinctions: short,» he gives the switch a quick tap, and the light flashes briefly, «and long.» He presses the switch again, lingering for about half a heartbeat before releasing it again. «Just assign meanings to different patterns of shorts and longs, and you’ve got yourself a signaling system.» He continues tapping his paw in time with the radio.
«But there’s more,» he continues. «While you were in sim I spent hours listening to these signals. Notice how perfectly timed these segments are, with no variation or hesitation? They’re probably artificially generated. But,» he flicks his tail a few times before landing on another signal. «Hear the difference?» At first it sounds the same as the last one, but I start to notice subtle imperfections in timing. «Much more sloppy, clearly produced by a person and not a machine.»
Iris’s ears perk up. «So you think you can contact one of the sophonts operating this… thing… manually?»
«Yes, my dame,» he says, his scent growing more serious. «By now you’ve probably noticed that each of these exchanges begins with a set preamble.» He tunes to another signal, which repeats the now familiar cadence. Dah di dah dit, dah dah di dah. Dah di dah dit, dah dah di dah. Dah di dit, dit–
«So I figure I can spit that back at them.»
Iris smells incredulous. «I’m not sure that’s going to work.»
«We’re already in orbit,» says Stormlight. «I guarantee they’ll find us sooner rather than later and come to their own conclusions about who we are. We need to show our belly first,» He rears up and pats himself on the abdomen as though greeting a stranger.
«Fine,» Iris sighs. «I don’t have a better idea. I’ll send the good news back to Focus as soon as you’ve made a successful exchange.»
Without hesitation, Stormlight flicks his tail. The lamp vanishes but the switch remains, now connected by a cable to the shimmering white sphere representing the ship’s radio.
«Alright,» he takes a few deep breaths. His initial enthusiasm falters and I can smell him trying to work up the courage to begin. «paw goes down, carrier turns on, paw goes up, carrier turns off.» He starts tapping the switch, repeating the now familiar sequence Dah di dah dit, dah dah di dah. After each salvo of dits and dahs, he pauses to listen for a response.
After a few moments of alternating between sending and listening, a response emerges from the noise.
“QRZ? QRZ? DE K5BOBTX”
An odor of pure panic fills the space around Stormlight. He’s jumped in the murky water and gotten bit for it. He just repeats the same sequence again.
“UR CALL?”
«Just keep him talking, and I’ll locate the source of the signal,» says Puke Paws.
Stormlight repeats the refrain again, and the sophont responds with more impenetrable beeping.
“U NEW HAM? IF UR USING CW TRANSLATOR, NAME BOB BOB QTH ERICSON, TX ERICSON, TX RIG HR KX3. CONGRATS ON GETTING UR LICENSE BUT PLS LEARN HOW TO MAKE CW QSO. GOD BLESS 73 DE K5BOBTX SK”
The sophont ends the exchange with two rapid beeps. Utterly defeated, Stormlight halfheartedly taps the switch with his paw, echoing the same two beeps back.
«What was that? You didn’t understand a bit of that, did you?» Sunshine barks.
«I’d like to see you do better, big ears,» he growls back.
I place myself between the two of them. «Calm down. Are you two going to be bickering in front of our new friends?»
Iris interrupts. «I’ve sent the proclamation of good news back home. Lightray should be reading it about now.» She walks over to Sunshine.
«Gentle healer, we thy patients put our very lives in thy care as we are yeaned like new kits.» Iris licks her paw a few times and pats Sunshine between the ears, letting blue-white milk dribble down her face. «Oh, before you go,» Iris looks at Stormlight. «May you not depart in anger.»
The two dip their heads apologetically. «Be safe,» says Stormlight. «We’re counting on you to get us safely out of suspension after we land.»
Sunshine looks down at her forepaws. «I’m going to miss my fur.»
«May the Light illuminate your way, Sunshine.» Iris motions for her to get going, and Sunshine’s avatar blinks out of existence.