Beyond the Ice Limit

36

GIDEON CROWDED WITH several others into the small, messy lab. It was like an electronic cave. An acrid smell of solder and burnt electronics hung in the stuffy air. Prothero was sitting at a rack of computer and audio components, cables dangling everywhere, wearing a dirty Hawaiian shirt, half unbuttoned. His concave, white chest, covered with a scattering of wiry black hairs, was hideous.

Standing to one side was Prothero’s assistant, the tall, thin, elegant woman named Rosemarie Wong. She looked exactly like Prothero’s antithesis. Gideon wondered how she could stand working with him.

“Sorry there’s no place to sit,” said Prothero, gesturing at two chairs, both stacked high with stuff. “I keep telling you I need a bigger lab. This one sucks.”

Glinn ignored the comment. “Dr. Prothero, tell us what you’ve found.”

Prothero began hammering away on a keyboard. “In a word: we did it. We translated the message from the Baobab. Hey, Wong? Play the tape.”

She keyed up a tape and moments later the song of a blue whale came through, followed by the sound that had been generated by the Baobab. Prothero talked at length about the nature of blue whale language.

Gideon felt himself getting increasingly vexed. “So what does it mean?” he finally interrupted.

“I want to warn you: the message is kind of strange.” Prothero rolled his eyes dramatically. “The thing said—” He hesitated—“Kill me. Kill me.”

“How sure are you of this hypothesis?” asked Glinn.

“I’m pretty damn sure. If you’d let me explain…” And explain Prothero did, again at length, playing the tape one more time, and then playing other recorded blue whale sounds, elucidating in self-congratulatory tones how they’d broken down the sounds, deduced the meanings, verified their findings.

Gideon, despite his skepticism, found himself impressed—but not convinced. When Prothero was finished, he asked: “So why would the creature be begging us to kill it? Especially after destroying one of our DSVs?”

Prothero shrugged. “That’s for you guys to figure out.”

“How do you know it’s not just mimicking blue whale sounds it heard?”

“Blue whale speech travels a hundred miles or more in water. So this thing’s been hearing all sorts of blue whale vocalizations. Why would it repeat just this one? No, my friend, it’s communicating with us.”

The “my friend” part especially grated on Gideon. “If this is communication, it makes no sense.”

“Maybe it’s confused,” said Prothero, shrugging. “Maybe it’s like the guy who goes to France and makes an ass of himself trying to speak the language.” He brayed loudly.

“We’re dealing with an alien life-form,” said Glinn. “Possibly an alien intelligence. It doesn’t surprise me we wouldn’t understand its first attempt to communicate.”

Gideon shook his head, then glanced at Wong. She was keeping her cards close. “What do you think, Rosemarie?”

Wong gave a little cough. “I think Gideon may be right. It may just be playing back sounds, like a parrot.”

Gideon felt gratified. His opinion of Wong and her intelligence rose still further.

“Well, if science were a democracy, I guess I’d be wrong then,” said Prothero, adding: “But it ain’t—and I’m right.” And he laughed again, raucously.

At that moment the warrant officer, Mr. Lund, appeared at the door. “Dr. Glinn?”

“I was not to be disturbed.”

“We’ve got an emergency. The Baobab—it’s starting to become active.”