“This changes everything,” said Elizabeth Chang.
She was standing in Kosoff’s sitting room, with Brad, Felicia, and a dozen others—including the burly comm chief—quaffing champagne from Kosoff’s private supply.
A victory party. A celebration.
Kosoff’s quarters were larger than the normal accommodations for less prestigious personnel. The sitting room was absolutely spacious, and Brad presumed there was more than just a bedroom down the hallway that led to the kitchen/dining area.
As Littlejohn had predicted, Kosoff himself was receiving most of the congratulations from Captain Desai and the members of the scientific staff who were present.
Brad didn’t care. He had been proven right. The octopods were chattering away with the probes in Alpha’s ocean. Contact, even if most of their chatter was incomprehensible.
Kosoff himself stood in one corner of the warmly carpeted room, champagne flute in hand, a broad smile on his bearded pirate’s face. Chang was beside him, Desai on his other side. Most of the people were focused on him.
Brad and Felicia stood across the room, by the wall screen that showed the octopods swimming alongside the probes, still chattering. The aliens looked almost playful to Brad, swimming around the probes, touching them lightly with their tentacles, chirping away at them.
He tried to imagine what was going through their minds. Here they’ve had these foreign objects plowing through the ocean alongside them for months, silent, totally passive. Then all at once they say hello.
The octopods shower them with greetings. Questions too, most likely. And the probes answer with the few words they know. To the octopods, the probes must seem like retarded children or mental defectives. Hardly the most flattering way to make contact.
“Where do we go from here?” Brad asked Felicia.
She was beaming. “Don’t be such a worrywart, Brad. Enjoy your success. You can get back to work tomorrow.”
He nodded, but said, “And do what?”
As if he heard Brad, Kosoff said, loudly enough for his deep voice to carry across the crowded room, “Now we have to throw every resource we have into translating the octopods’ language. We have an alien species to understand, to learn about, to join with.”
Chang nodded reluctantly. “But we don’t have the resources—”
Kosoff cut her off. “Elizabeth, I want you to turn your entire staff to studying the octopods’ language. We’ve got to follow up this breakthrough!”
“But the bipeds on Gamma,” she objected, almost whining.
Kosoff blinked at her. “We’ll continue studying them, of course. It should be easier to make meaningful contact with them, certainly.”
“I don’t have the manpower to do both at the same time.”
“Then we’ll have to draft more people to do the work. Raid the other departments.”
“Really?”
“Really,” said Kosoff. Glancing around the room, his eyes lit on Brad. His smile turning slightly crafty, Kosoff called, “Brad! Come over here, will you?”
Brad put his glass of lime juice down on the coffee table, then took Felicia’s hand and walked through the crowd.
Kosoff reached up to put a hand on Brad’s shoulder. “How would you like to study the bipeds on Gamma?”
Feeling wary, Brad temporized, “I’m an anthropologist, sir.”
“That might be just what we need.” Beckoning to Littlejohn, standing in the crowd, Kosoff said, “James, why don’t we put the entire anthropology team to studying the bipeds? They’re rather humanoid, after all.”
Looking somewhere between surprised and suspicious, Littlejohn made his way through the crowd toward Kosoff. The room went absolutely silent. Brad could feel icicles suddenly dangling from the ceiling.
“Well?” Kosoff asked the Aborigine. “Wouldn’t your team like to focus their attention on the Gamma bipeds?”
Littlejohn pursed his lips thoughtfully, then said, “We’d have to suspend our existing studies. I don’t have the manpower for both.”
With a laugh, Kosoff answered, “I don’t think anyone of the scientific staff would mind if you suspended your studies of them. Most of us don’t really like being your guinea pigs.”
Littlejohn forced a smile. “Perhaps we should discuss this tomorrow.”
“You’re entirely right. Forgive me. I forgot that this is supposed to be a party, not a planning session.”
Brad could feel the tension in the room ease a notch.
On an impulse he turned to Desai. “Captain, Felicia and I want to get married. Could you perform the ceremony for us?”
Desai blinked his dark, long-lashed eyes, glanced questioningly at Kosoff, then turned back to Brad. “I have never performed a marriage ceremony. It is very rare, you know.”
“But you could do it, couldn’t you?” Brad pushed. “It’s within your authority as captain of this ship, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“We want to be married,” Brad repeated.
Focusing on Felicia, Desai asked, “You too?”
“Me too,” she replied softly.
Kosoff broke into a big grin and said, “I’ll give away the bride.”
Felicia and Brad burst into laughter.
And Kosoff’s face burned deep red.