Double Contact

CHAPTER 19

As Prilicla had expected, the robot crew member’s actions showed great agitation on the part of its organic controller when the captain met him outside the hull and tried to enter the ship. He had to point several times at the lengths of piping the other was carrying and demonstrate, both by slicing one of the lengths of piping into pieces with the tiny flame of the cutter and then by turning on the cylinder taps briefly and releasing a small quantity of their contents into space to show that they contained only gas, before the captain was allowed to come on board. By the time they were in the damaged control section it was clear from the emotional radiation of both survivors that the DBDG was feared as much as it was trusted, and that the emotional balance could swing either way.

“Friend Fletcher,” he said, “do not make any sudden movements that might be mistaken for a threat. In fact, until they become accustomed to your presence it would be better if you did nothing except pass tools and parts to me, and generally give the impression that I am your superior until I indicate—”

“As you are fond of reminding me, Doctor,” it said dryly, “on the disaster site you have the rank.”

The words were sarcastic but the emotional radiation that accompanied them was free of rancor. Prilicla went on. “. until

I indicate to the survivors by acting out the requirement several times that I need your physical assistance. We’re lucky that their emotional radiation will tell me whether or not they understand what I’m trying to do.”

It wasn’t very long before he ran into trouble. One of the piping conduits had been twisted out of true so that the joints and lock-nuts were jammed. They were too tight, or at least too tight for Prilicla to move.

Several times he went through the motions of trying to loosen it, then he pointed at the captain’s larger and stronger hands, withdrew, and indicated that the other should take over. The robot edged closer, its damaged metal surfaces somehow reflecting the fear and concern that its masters were feeling.

“You take over, friend Fletcher,” he said. “But move slowly, they’re still terrified of you.”

The captain had to move slowly because it required several minutes of maximum effort, and the cooling element in its suit was just barely keeping the perspiration from fogging its visor, before the sticking lock-nut was loosened, removed, and fitted with a joint that would take the replacement piping. It chose a length that was already fitted with a T-junction and valve, and it took much less time for it to cut the pipe to size and make the join. Prilicla passed in the length of hose from the two air tanks, which was attached to the junction. Several times the captain indicated the color-coding on the old and new piping and the tanks. The robot had moved into the inspection compartment and was crowding the captain but not hampering its hands.

“I’m detecting great anxiety,” said Prilicla; then, reassuringly, “but there is also a feeling of comprehension. I think they understand what we’re trying to do for them. I’m turning on the air now.”

The earlier analyses had shown that the survivor’s atmosphere was similar to that used by the majority of the warmblooded, oxygen-breathing species. No attempt had been made to include the trace quantities of other gases so that the mixture going in was in the usual proportion of oxygen to nitrogen. For several minutes there was no emotional reaction either from the distressed survivor or the other who was in contact with it; then, suddenly, a slow trembling shook Prilicla’s whole body.

“What’s wrong?” said the captain.

“Nothing,” he replied. “The breathing distress of the second survivor is being treated although it is still suffering, possibly from hunger, thirst, or injuries, and both of them are now radiating intense, positive feelings of relief and gratitude which are giving me emotional pleasure. They are still afraid of you, but their hatred and distrust are diminishing. Well done, friend Fletcher.”

“Well done yourself,” said the captain, radiating embarrassment at the compliment. “Now that we’ve helped it to breathe, let’s see if we can give it something to drink and eat as well. There is staining around the broken end of one of these pipes that looks like it might be dried-out liquid food. If your analyzer confirms that, we could—”

“No, friend Fletcher,” he broke in, “there might not be time for that. Psychologically the second survivor’s condition has improved but I feel the presence of increasingly severe debilitation associated with physical trauma. From now on we have to know exactly what we’re doing, or be told exactly what to do, and do it fast. You brought spare air tanks, more than was needed for the recent first-aid operation. If we empty them, would there be enough atmospheric pressure to enable us to breathe and allow the transmission of sound?”

He felt the other’s initial puzzlement dissolve into comprehension as it said, “So you’re going to try talking to them and asking for directions. If we knew anything about their communications setup, especially how they convert radio into audio frequency, we could simply talk on our own radios. As it is, we aren’t sure yet whether or not they have ears.”

It shook its head and went on. “The answer to your question is, I don’t know. This section was close to the area of hull damage and might leak like a sieve. We could try.”

Prilicla said, “Yes, but not here. We’ll move back to the undamaged section with the first survivor. All of the access panels in that compartment are a tight fit, probably an airtight fit, as is the entrance door and the one into the area containing the survivor. This is probably a crew safety measure and part of the ship design philosophy. To increase the effect I’ll spray on some of my plastic sealant. It won’t stop the doors from being opened later, but it will ensure minimum leakage. While I’m doing that, you will want to make arrangements with Rhabwar.”

“That I will,” said the captain. It withdrew from the tiny inspection chamber, closed the access hatch tightly, and began talking rapidly into its suit radio as it followed him to the other control section. By the time it had finished talking, Prilicla had the compartment sealed and compressed air was hissing visibly and then audibly from the fully opened tank valves.

“We don’t seem to be losing any air,” said the captain after a few minutes, “and the pressure is high enough to carry sound, or even to open our helmets, supposing we were mad enough to do that.”

“I believe we are mad enough, friend Fletcher,” said Prilicla. “Folding back our helmets will be a further sign that we trust them and wish to be friends, as well as removing the small additional voice distortion caused by our external speakers. I hope our robot friend can hear and speak as well as see. Is Rhabwar ready?”

“Projector and translation computer standing by,” the captain replied, unsealing its helmet. “You speak first, Doctor. A privilege of rank.”

With the words there was a complex, background feeling of excitement, expectation, and minor relief characteristic of a personally embarrassing situation to be avoided should the attempt fail. Prilicla’s own feeling was that it wouldn’t.

He bent a forelimb almost double and pointed at himself. Slowly and distinctly he said, “Prilicla, Prilicla, Prilicla. I am Prilicla.” Then he pointed behind towards the inner door, and waited. When there was no response he indicated the captain and nodded for it to try. The rapid, musical clicking of untranslated Cinrusskin speech was difficult for other species to follow.

“Fletcher, Fletcher, Fletcher,” said the captain, indicating itself before pointing in the same direction as Prilicla.

The robot made a short, sharp sound like the squeaking of a rusty hinge.

“Was that a word, dammit,” said the captain in an angry undertone, “or a malfunctioning robot?”

“A word, maybe more than one,” Prilicla replied. “It heard us, and I felt a flash of understanding and urgency. Maybe its words are rapid, compressed, as in Nallajim. Let’s try again, and speak very slowly. Maybe it will do the same.

“Pril-ic-la,” he said slowly three times, repeating the earlier motions. The captain said and did the same.

“Keet,” said the robot. A moment later it added, “Pil-ik-la, Flet-cha.”

Prilicla gestured towards the sealed door in front of them and said, “Keet,” then pointed back at the compartment they had just left.

“Jas-am,” came the reply.

“We’re talking!” For a moment the captain’s relief and pleasure at the breakthrough swamped most of the survivor’s emotional radiation, but not the urgency.

“Not yet,” Prilicla said. “We’re exchanging personal-name sounds, but it’s only a start.”

“Rhabwar here,” the voice of Haslam sounding in their earpieces said. “I’m afraid the Doctor is right, Captain. The computer needs more for an accurate translation: verbs, accompanying actions, explanations, and a bigger vocabulary to link the words together.”

“Friend Haslam,” he said, “Show the pictures of planets and native species again, please, but just those for Earth and Cinruss. Then patch in one of the survivor life-forms and a world with no geographical features.”

Prilicla watched the tiny repeater screen in his suit as this was done. He said, “Fletcher is from Earth, Prilicla is from Cinruss, Keet is from…” and waited.

Without hesitation the voice from the robot said, “Flet-cha, Ert; Pil-ik-la, Cin-russ; Keet, Tro-lan.”

“We’re getting there, Doctor,” Haslam said excitedly; then, in a tone almost of apology it went on. “Names and places of origin help, but they aren’t enough for the computer to begin structuring the language. We still need verbs and related actions.”

Unlike its outsize parent in Sector General, Rhabwar’s translation computer did not carry a record of all of the intelligence-bearing clicks, moans, hisses, and chirps that were used as speech by the members of the Galactic Federation, a vast store of data which enabled it to compare the input of the new languages that were discovered from time to time and produce a translation. But the ambulance ship had proved on several previous occasions that it could do the same job, with a little on-site help.

“Friend Fletcher,” he said, pointing at the material in the other’s transparent satchel, “I need a short piece of fine cable that can be pulled apart easily, and a short length of piping. Do you have one that is thin-walled and breaks without shattering into pieces?”

He felt the captain’s puzzlement dissolve in a flood of comprehension. It produced the cable, wrapped it around his hand and pulled it apart, then he produced — not a pipe, but a length of thin sleeving — and snapped it in two before handing the four pieces to him. It said, “Yes and no, Doctor. This breaks without splintering, but it needs an Earth-human’s muscles to do it.”

Prilicla indicated a section of undamaged piping through one of the transparent access hatches, then pointed back the way they had come towards the other survivor’s position. Holding a piece of the broken pipe in each hand, he broughtthem slowly together at the faces of the original fracture and did the same with the severed wiring. He repeated the movements several time before speaking.

“Wire, pipes,” he said, pointing at the captain and himself. “We join wires and pipes. We fix wires and pipes. We repair" — he made a wide gesture that included the ship all around them— “everything.”

Through its robot crew member’s sensors, the first survivor already knew that they repaired things, although it had not known the word for what they had been doing. He waited, straining to detect the first feelings of comprehension that would tell him that it understood the other, more important message that he was trying to send. And when the crew robot spoke again, he knew that it did.

“Pil-ik-la, Flet-cha,” it said. “Fix Jasam.”

The captain gave a loud, barking laugh of sheer relief, which it cut short abruptly in case it might have been mistaken for a threatening sound by the survivor. On Rhabwar, Haslam sounded equally pleased.

“That’s it!” said the lieutenant. “We have a translation. Just talk to it naturally and mime only if you think it might not understand a new action. The conversation will be a bit stilted until you build up a vocabulary, but the computer is happy. I’m relaying the translation through your headsets. Nice work. Any other instructions?”

Prilicla’s body was shaking with a slow, even tremor of pleasure and relief that was tempered slightly by the remembered emotional radiation from the second survivor, Jasam, which indicated that clinically it was in very bad shape.

“Stand by, friend Haslam,” he said. “I need you to project more pictures. Edit the previous run to show only the recovery of space-wreck casualties, then add something on their transfer to and treatment on Rhabwar. Be brief regarding the treatment, too much detail on surgical procedures might give the impression that we go in for physical torture. Concentrate on the before-and-after aspects, the badly injured casualties, and then showing them cured. Run them as soon as you can.”

Turning towards the inner door and the robot hovering in front of it, he brought the two pieces of pipe together slowly and said, “I fix slowly,” and repeated the action and words several times; then he moved them quickly into contact and said, “I fix quickly.” Then he pointed back the way they had come and added, “I fix Jasam quickly,” emphasizing the last word.

He felt understanding and agreement coloring the ever-present deep concern, and said, “Keet, the word for that is 'yes.''

He pointed in the direction of Jasam and used the broken pipe to indicate, he hoped, that they were both broken. Then he raised a hand to his eyes before pointing first at an undamaged section of piping and then at the inner door of Keet’s compartment.

“To fix the broken Jasam,” he mimed as he said the words, “I must see the unbroken Keet.”

Again there was understanding, but with it there was a sudden return of the earlier fear and hatred.

“Keep that accursed druul away from us!” it said, so loudly that it must have been its equivalent of a shout. “I don’t trust it! We are both weakened and helpless and it will eat us. We thought that interstellar space, at least, would be clear of such vermin!”

Prilicla tried to ignore the captain’s scandalized emotional radiation, and said reassuringly, “Don’t be afraid, Fletcher won’t touch you. Fletcher fixes machines. Prilicla fixes people.”

The captain’s low-voiced comment was lost in the sound of the inner door hissing open.

It revealed a small compartment whose interior was an almost-solid mass of support brackets, piping, and cable runs leading into a flattened oval dish at its center. The upper half of the receptacle had a sealed, transparent cover that gave a clear view of the co-captain of the ship. Physically Keet was classification CHLI and closely resembled its robot crew member in size and shape except that instead of the silvery metal skin there was the veined brownish-pink of organic tissue. A continuous control-and-sensor-input panel laterally encircled the inner surface of the body container, and the operating keys were within easy reach of the creature’s short digits. Its food, water-supply, and waste-extraction systems had been surgically implanted into the relevant organs.

Prilicla’s body shook briefly with a feeling composed of pity, revulsion, and the claustrophobic fear known only to free-flying beings like himself when he realized that the ship’s organic crew had been confined to their control and life-support pods with no freedom to move, not even around their own ship.

They had been installed with the rest of the ship’s equipment.

From his medical satchel he took his scanner, reversed it so that Keet could see the viewplate, and demonstrated its function by touching it against parts of his own body, before moving it close to the other’s pod.

“This will not hurt you,” he said. “It will enable me to see inside your body so that I can understand and fix anything that is wrong.”

“Will you be able to fix Jasam, too?”

Its speech was going and coming through his translator now, clearly and with the possibility for misunderstanding being reduced with every word. The prime rule during a first-contact situation was to find out as much a possible about the other life-form so as to further reduce that risk, and to tell the truth at all times.

But it was also sound medical practice to encourage a patient to talk about itself, or any other pleasant subject in which it was interested, so as to take its mind off a frightening or possibly embarrassing examination.

“I will try to fix Jasam,” he said. “But to do that, I must first discover everything I can about you and your people. For the best results I would like to have full knowledge, even though there is no way of knowing which pieces of information will be helpful during the repairs, so just tell me about your partner, your lives, your customs, the food you eat, and the things you like to do. In the event of an unsuccessful repair, which is a faint possibility, who and where are your next of kin? You are a completely new and scientifically advanced life-form and everything you say will be interesting and useful.

“Tell me about yourself, and your world.”