Sticks and Stones

Chapter Two

Chapter TwoEnsign Mariko Nakamura had had this nightmare before.

She was on the surface of an alien world with her captain and crewmates. They all turned to her for help, for understanding. Lives depended on her making sense of an alien language that she had never heard before, which should not have been a big deal, because alien linguistics was her specialty…

…but she found herself drowning in a sea of gibberish.

A tide of babble washed over her, a wave of seemingly disconnected sounds from a mob of creatures. Billions of phonemes, the smallest units of language, crashed together, mixing with millions of clicks and lip-smacks that could themselves be part of a language or just random biological noise.

The tide swelled and swirled and Mariko felt herself going under. Again and again, she grabbed at the current but could never make sense of it.

The display on the multiterpreter that she carried--a device capable of translating alien languages into understandable onscreen text--blinked with indecipherable nonsense.

She had had this nightmare before. The only problem was, this time, she was wide awake.

The fact that she had experienced this moment, or one very much like it, so many times before in her dreams, made her panic build more swiftly than it might otherwise have done. The fact that it tapped so directly into her innermost fears lent the scene a power and malevolence that were larger than life.

Her heart raced. She looked around at the crowd of beings who surrounded her, sleek-furred and slender like otters, and a chill shot down her spine.

Then, she felt Captain Swift touch her arm.

"Mariko?" he said softly, his voice laden with concern.

She took a deep breath and gathered herself up. Enough of this.

She was not having a nightmare. She was on the surface of the planet Vox with Captain Swift, Commander J'Tull, and Commander Turner. It was up to her to warn the inhabitants about the approaching invasion fleet.

It was time to start acting like a professional.

Nodding to Captain Swift, she took another deep breath and turned to the crowd.

"Quiet!" she shouted, as loud as she could, her voice rising over the tumult.

She got her message across. Suddenly, the chaos of noise and chatter subsided. The gleaming black pearl eyes of the dozens of Vox in the city square all slid around to focus on her.

Mariko cleared her throat and took a step forward, fixing her attention on a single brown-furred being. She had to look up to meet the alien's gaze; like all Vox, he (she guessed it was a male because it was bulkier and had a deeper voice than others in the crowd) towered a full head higher than the tallest member of the Exogenesis away team…which came out to a head and a half taller than Mariko.

"Hi," said Mariko, mustering a smile.

The brown-furred Vox rattled off a stream of incomprehensible syllables, at the same time gesturing at a furious pace and click-smacking up a storm.

For a moment, Mariko listened and watched the Vox's four-clawed hands flutter and weave. Then, she closed her eyes, blocking out the movement and letting the flurry of sounds rush through her.

Pared down from dozens of voices to one, reduced further from sound and motion to sound alone, the communication seemed less overwhelmingly chaotic. As she absorbed it, Mariko realized that it could be simplified even further.

Opening her eyes, she interrupted the Vox by raising both hands, palms flattened toward him. "Only this," she said slowly, pointing to her lips.

Then, pronouncing each letter with slowness and clarity, she recited the English alphabet. She hoped that the Vox would get the idea: she wanted to hear pulmonic sounds only, those created with an air stream from the lungs…sounds like the vowels and consonants of the alphabet. All the clicking and smacking was getting in the way.

When she was done, she raised her hands toward the Vox, palms up, indicating that it was his turn.

Message received. This time, the Vox's speech was slower and free of clicks and smacks. Finally, Mariko could pick out distinct syllables arranged in patterns.

She had isolated a spoken language, one using pulmonic vowels and consonants, not hand signs or clicks or smacks…and therefore easiest for the multiterpreter to process.

Not that the hand signs, clicks and smacks weren't part of a language themselves. Mariko was sure that they were, which had been the problem. The pulmonic syllables formed one language. The clicks and smacks comprised a second language. A third language consisted of hand signs.

The Vox had three different languages, and they used them all at once. They carried on three conversations at the same time, or one conversation with three levels.

No wonder Mariko and the translator device had been stumped. Neither was wired to process so much simultaneous, multilingual input.

As the Vox spoke, Mariko's translator took in everything, identifying repeated patterns and relationships between sounds…comparing them to language models in its database…constructing a rudimentary vocabulary and a framework of syntax on which to hang it.

Before long, the chicken scratch on the translator's display became readable output – lines of text representing the alien's words, printed phonetically, laid out alongside an English translation of those words.

At about the same time that the translator kicked in, Mariko started to put it together herself. Her heart beat fast, this time with the familiar thrill of making sense of what had once seemed an indecipherable puzzle.

Listening and studying the translator display for a few moments more, she collected her thoughts. Touching keys on the device, she accessed the newly created vocabulary database for the Vox tongue, clarifying the choice of words that she would use.

Then, she interrupted the brown-furred creature (who seemed willing and able to carry on an endless monologue) and rattled off a sentence.

The Vox reared back, the whiskers on his stubby snout twitching. He gestured excitedly, then caught himself and clasped his hands together to stop the movement. Again speaking slowly, without the static of clicks and smacks, he released a few clear words; then he waved, beckoning for Mariko and the others to follow him. The assembled crowd parted just enough to make way.

Mariko turned to Captain Swift and the others and repeated the Vox's gesture, waving for them to follow. "Come on," she said. "I think we're finally getting somewhere."

"What did you say to him?" said Captain Swift.

"'Take us to your leader,'" Mariko said with a little smile.