The next two weeks were a blur in Brad’s mind. Felicia was warm and willing and seemed completely content to share her life with him. She maintained her own quarters, but spent most of her nights at Brad’s place. For his part, Brad requisitioned a housekeeping robot to make sure his quarters were as sparkling clean as possible.
Littlejohn assigned Brad to interviewing individuals in the various scientific teams.
“I want to build a picture of how the demands of their scientific investigations are reshaping their social structure,” the Aborigine told Brad.
“Their social structure is based on their university experience,” Brad replied. “Committee hierarchies, competition to make new discoveries, that sort of thing.”
“Yes,” Littlejohn agreed, unconsciously swiveling his desk chair back and forth. “But they’re beginning to face new situations, new problems.”
Brad knew that the planetology team was striving to understand the mechanics of the Mithra system, and the cause of the disturbance that had thrown Gamma and Beta into such eccentric, elongated, unstable orbits.
The biologists, on the other hand, were happily analyzing samples of soil and living organisms—vegetable and animal—brought up from Gamma’s surface by the teams they were sending down to the planet.
The teams landed furtively at spots far from any of the aliens’ villages: high in the rugged hills, deep in the thick forests. They came down at night, spent a few hours collecting specimens, then quickly returned to Odysseus. So far they had been successful in collecting their samples without being seen by the humanoids.
So far, Brad thought.
Sitting in front of Littlejohn’s desk, Brad thought his department head looked almost like a child in his big padded swivel chair. The furniture’s too big for him, Brad realized. I wonder if that makes him uncomfortable? Makes him feel like a pygmy?
Littlejohn seemed perfectly at ease, though. He was saying to Brad, “Sooner or later we’re going to make contact with the aliens. It’s inevitable. That’s when things will get really interesting.”
Brad nodded his agreement. But he didn’t tell his department head that he was spending his evenings listening to the twitterings of planet Alpha’s octopods, trying to make some sense of their language.
He kept his quest to himself—and Felicia.
* * *
“There!” Brad said. “See? It’s the same sound. Every time they come close to one of the probes they make the same sound.”
Felicia was sitting next to him on the sofa in Brad’s snug little sitting room. The wall display showed a hazy view of a trio of octopods swimming alongside one of the teardrop-shaped probes he had sent into their ocean. Along the bottom of the display ran a crawling, spiky curve—an analysis of the sounds the octopods were making.
“It’s the same sound,” Felicia agreed, pointing at the jittering curve.
Looking down at the tablet on his lap, Brad called to the screen, “Show scene forty-seven.”
The screen immediately cut to an image of two octopods swimming side by side, intertwining their tentacles with each other as they uttered a burst of chatter. The curves snaking across the bottom of the screen looked like the ones they had seen in the earlier imagery.
“Compare data curves,” Brad commanded.
The image of the octopods winked out and two sets of curves filled the screen.
“They look almost identical,” Felicia said.
“Overlay the curves,” Brad called out.
“They are identical!”
“To within a few percent,” said Brad.
“Could it be their phrase for greeting?” Felicia wondered.
With a nod, Brad replied, “That’s their word for ‘hello.’”
“You think?”
“Makes sense.”
“So that gives us another word,” she said.
“We’ve got ‘hello,’ ‘food,’ ‘warm,’ and ‘cold,’” said Brad. “On our own. If we had access to the linguists’ analyzer we could go much faster.”
“Why don’t you ask them about it?” Felicia suggested.
Brad hesitated. “Might cause trouble. They might resent our sticking our noses into their turf.”
Felicia arched a brow at him. “You’d have to be subtle about it. Ask them how they’re getting along, what progress they’re making. That sort of thing.”
“Get them to talk about themselves.”
“That’s right.” Sitting up straighter and running a hand through her hair, she added, “I’ll bet I could get one of them to tell me what they’ve accomplished.”
Brad slid an arm across her shoulders. “No you don’t, Delilah. You stay with me.”
She grinned at him. “I could pump one of the women in their group. Women talk a lot more easily than men.”
Brad shook his head. “No deal.”
“Don’t be stubborn, Brad.”
“I’m not stubborn. I’m just protecting you.”
“Me? Or yourself?” But she was smiling as she challenged him.
He got up from the sofa and extended his hand to her. “We can discuss this later.”
“In bed,” Felicia said, rising to his side.
Brad clasped her hand and wordlessly they headed for the bedroom.
* * *
“Brad! Wake up!”
Felicia’s voice cut into his dream. He was standing out on the floor of Tithonium Chasma again as the landslide pounded the base into rubble. Standing there, helpless, stupid, safe, while his family died.
“Wake up!”
He opened his gummy eyes. Felicia was bending over him, shaking him. Even in the shadows of the darkened bedroom he could see that her eyes were wide, her face fearful.
Blinking, shuddering, he sputtered, “Wha … they’re dead. Killed.”
“You were moaning in your sleep again,” Felicia said. “You sounded awful. In pain.”
He pulled himself up to a sitting position and rubbed his eyes. “The dream again.”
“The same one?”
“Pretty much.” He wrapped an arm across her bare back and pulled her to him. She felt warm, safe. “Sorry I woke you.”
“Are you all right?” Felicia asked.
Brad pulled in a deep, shuddering breath. “Yeah. I’m all right.” Then he swallowed hard. “But they’re all dead.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Felicia said soothingly. “There wasn’t anything you could do.”
“I should have been with them. I should have gone back into our quarters and tried to help them.”
“Then you would have been killed, too.”
“Maybe. But I should have tried.”
Felicia laid her head on his bare shoulder. “No,” she purred. “You’re alive and you should be glad of it. I am.”
Brad said nothing. He kissed her lightly, then lay back on the bed silently. But he thought, I let them die. I should have been with them. I should have done something. I should have died with them.