The entire scientific staff seemed to learn of the decision within a microsecond. An attempt to contact an alien species. The first time it’s ever been tried. History in the making.
Suddenly Brad was an important person. The beanpole had convinced Kosoff to make the attempt. Skyhook had battled the linguistics department chairman and won.
That evening Felicia asked, “What do you want to do about dinner?”
Staring intently at the sitting room’s wall screen, covered with lists of protocol requirements, Brad answered absently, “Whatever.”
“I think it’s best to eat here,” Felicia said.
“Yeah.”
“You’ve become an overnight sensation, you know.”
“Uh-huh.”
Felicia smiled patiently and headed for the kitchen, knowing that Brad was totally immersed in the coming attempt to contact the octopods. She thought that she should be just as excited as he was, but instead she felt nothing but apprehension. No, she realized: what she felt was dread.
* * *
Brad sat tense as a drawn bowstring in front of the set of display screens. The command post for the contact attempt had been set up in one of the ship’s smaller conference rooms, just off the communications center. One wall screen had been digitally divided into half a dozen displays.
Each display showed different views of the same group of twenty-two octopods swimming leisurely in Alpha’s planet-wide sea, with half a dozen of the expedition’s probes cruising on either flank of their formation.
It’s their world, Brad said to himself. They’ve lived in this sea for god knows how many millennia. And now we’ve invaded their world. He realized that, in a sense, Kosoff and the mission protocol rules had been right. We’re going to change their world forever.
Elizabeth Chang looked cool and unruffled as she took her chair at Brad’s right. But Brad noticed that she was rubbing her right hand along her thigh. Nervous? Why not. The head of the communications team, a large roundish Hispanic with a thick drooping moustache, sat at Brad’s left. He seemed more concerned with the countdown clock ticking away at the left of the screens than anything else.
“Remember,” he said to Brad in a low, rumbling voice, “there’s a three-minute lag in two-way communications between here and there. Any action you want to take will require one point six minutes to reach the probes.”
Nodding, Brad muttered, “Yo comprendo.”
“Santa Maria,” muttered the comm chief.
Only half a dozen other people had been allowed into the command post. Still the little room felt crowded, hot, stuffy. Kosoff sat in the next row, behind Brad and Chang. Captain Desai sat next to him. Littlejohn had been placed behind Kosoff. Brad had insisted that Felicia be allowed in; they had placed her in the back row.
“Five seconds,” the comm chief muttered. “Four … three…”
Brad could feel his pulse throbbing in his ears.
“… two … one…”
“Hello,” the central screen’s synthesized voice said. In the upper right corner of the set of displays, a burst of chittering sound screeched in the octopods’ language. The screen showed a spiked curve.
Nothing changed.
“Give it three minutes to get their response back here,” said the comm chief.
Brad sat there, staring at the central screen, counting his thundering pulse beats. The command post was absolutely quiet. No one stirred. Brad felt perspiration beading his upper lip.
Suddenly the screens erupted in chatter. “Hello!” the central screen announced, translating the octopods’ clicks and squeaks into standard English. “Hello…” Undecipherable twitters and chirps. “Deep … [more chatter] no food…”
“They’re talking!”
More beeps and squeals. The octopods clustered around each of the probes, twittering and waving their tentacles vigorously.
Chang said excitedly, “I think they’re asking the probes to hunt with them!”
Brad pressed the key that sent the “hello” signal again.
“Is all this chatter being recorded?” someone asked. It sounded like Kosoff, but Brad was too fascinated with the views on the screens to turn and check.
“Automatically,” said the communications chief.
“We’ve done it!” Littlejohn’s voice, triumphant. “We’ve made contact with an intelligent alien species!”
A hand clasped Brad’s shoulder. Turning, he saw it was Kosoff. “Congratulations, son. You’ve made history today.”
Before Brad could reply, Kosoff turned to the comm chief. “I’ve got to report this back to Earth. Please set up an FTL link for me.”
And the octopods chattered on, seemingly just as excited as the humans.