The Chromosomal Code, page 13
At the other end of the armor plate were two more vaguely tentacular things that flared at the end; they were not fully visible, and Starkman had no idea what purpose they might serve. They were more nearly gray than the rest.
It had no hair or fur or feathers or scales, and the plates looked more like sandstone than like shell or bone.
Overall, the creature was perhaps a meter in height, a meter and a half long, and seventy or eighty centimeters wide.
Starkman stared at it for a long moment, taking it in. It was not slimy, nor especially repulsive or horrible; it was merely strange beyond anything in his experience. It looked absurdly out of place in the almost-empty room. The peculiar computer console was clearly designed for its use; the buttons of the keyboard were arranged ideally for its clustered tentacles to tap at, and the holographic sphere was at the right height for its four eyes.
It whistled and chirped at him through the orifice on the top of its “head.” He called, without turning, “Have you got that voder set up?”
The thing would look more at home underwater, he decided; perhaps it was from a high-pressure environment. He no longer had any doubt that it had come from another planet.
As if answering his thought, it picked up a hose he hadn't noticed, using one tentacle to place the nozzle in its upper orifice, which irised down to hold it firmly. The tentacle released the hose, then flicked at a valve.
That, Starkman realized, must be its breathing apparatus. It used no elaborate suit or helmet, so he guessed that Earth's air was not poisonous to it, but simply inadequate somehow.
“The voder's ready,” called the pilot from the other room.
“Good,” Starkman answered. He backed out of the room, hoping that nothing he had done had offended the alien.
He was completely convinced now that it was a genuine alien. There was nothing else it could be. That meant, he realized, that there might really be a Galactic Empire, just as he had been told, and that its motives might be just as benevolent as he had been told. They could equally well be sinister, or so inhuman as to defy comprehension.
The Imperial zombies probably were androids, then, he told himself.
His whole cynical theory of a human conspiracy crumbled away and vanished, leaving him at a loss in knowing what to do.
He paused in the little hallway. “Should I close the door?” he asked.
“Suit yourself, or ask him,” the other man replied.
“You ask him,” Starkman said.
He heard the other's voice briefly. After a pause, something flickered in the holographic sphere, at an angle and speed that made it impossible for him to see what it was. The alien tapped keys in response, its tentacles moving in a peculiar accelerating rhythm; a moment later the flat voice of a machine spoke from the living room, saying, “I am not concerned.”
With a final hesitant glance, Starkman left the door open and returned to the living room.
The other man was standing by the computer holding a small metal object. “I've got it hooked up for voice input and output both, on this end, but on his end it's still keyboard and printout; he needs to breathe. I heard him talking to you, but he can't do that for more than a few seconds at a time.”
“That's fine,” Starkman said. “I understand.” He glanced back through the open doors at the alien. It waved a tentacle, and typed something.
There was a pause. A second or two later the computer said, “I greet you politely.”
“Why is it so slow?” Starkman asked.
“It takes time for the computer to translate,” the other explained. “The Watcher doesn't know any English; he's reading and writing his own language, which I can't make any sense of any more than he can speak English. The computer has to translate both ways, a sentence at a time, and it's not very fast. I've got my own machine here hooked into an interface that someone in the fleet rigged up, and that's hooked into the Watcher's machine, which does the actual translating. With all those steps you can't expect a lot of speed, particularly with the voder.”
“Oh,” Starkman said. The explanation seemed reasonable. “Hello,” he called, looking at the alien and waving.
The pilot handed him the little metal object. “Talk into this,” he said.
Starkman looked at the thing, but could not identify it. There were several small controls on one end and a grille in one side. “Hello,” he said into the grille.
A second later something flickered in the holographic sphere.
Tentacles tapped, and Starkman waited for the reply, “I regret politely the inconvenience of this system.”
“Oh, that's all right. Uh. . .what are you?”
“I am not assured of your want,” came the reply after a pause. “My personal name is not translatable. My species name is not translatable. My human compatriot calls me Watcher One. Watcher One is a faulty translation of a title I qualify to use.”
Starkman found himself watching the alien, hoping for a readable expression, but of course there was none; the thing had nothing that he could think of as a mouth, and its eyes were unlidded and unchanging in appearance. It did flex its various appendages, but Starkman could make nothing of that. Three eyes were usually directed at the computer read-out in the sphere, while the fourth watched him through the hallway.
Realizing that watching it only served to confuse him, Starkman stepped back out of sight, and after a moment's hesitation settled onto a couch. “Excuse me,” he muttered.
“You require no pardon,” the alien replied. “Politeness must be transformed between species not previously in contact.”
There was a brief pause, but before Starkman could say anything, the computer's voice spoke again.
“You are concerned with many questions. You wish to comprehend events. I will attempt to explain events. When you have questions you will ask them without regret. Will you communicate through this system?”
“I think so. I mean, that sounds all right.”
He glanced at the pilot while waiting for the response; the man was leaning casually against a wall, ignoring the conversation.
“The machine that translates is not perfect. I ask politely that you attempt to communicate clearly.”
Stamping down the urge to reply with “Sure” or “Got it,” Starkman said, “I will.”
There was another pause. Finally, the alien said, “I am called Watcher One because I am the most highly responsible member on your planet of an organization called 'the Watch.' A moderate number of members of the Watch are among the members of the expeditionary force. You have the potential to fear that I am a member of the government. The Watch opposes purposes that the government pursues. Do you understand?”
“I think so. The Watch is a sort of opposition party in the fleet.”
“That is not clearly correct. Loyal members of the government are not cognizant of the existence of the Watch. The Watch takes actions that serve to delay government actions. Members of the Watch appear to be loyal members of the government while they take actions that interfere with purposes the government pursues. Do you understand more clearly?”
“Do you mean you're an underground? You're subversives?”
“I believe that you comprehend correctly.”
Starkman glanced at the pilot; he nodded.
“You're the head of the underground on Earth?”
“Yes.”
“Are you allied with the other Underground, the group that I was with earlier?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The members of the Underground act violently. Members of the Watch do not act violently.”
“I'm not sure I understand.”
“The members of the Underground pursue their purpose inefficiently and with no concern for harm to sentient beings that may result from their actions. Members of the Watch do not perform actions that may result in harm to sentient beings. Harm to sentient beings is forbidden.”
“That sort of limits your effectiveness, doesn't it?”
“We are more concerned with acting correctly than with acting efficiently.”
“That's very noble, I suppose.”
There was a longer pause than usual before the alien replied, “Ask questions.”
Starkman glanced at the pilot, who did nothing, then looked quickly around the room. He saw nothing that gave him any great ideas.
“Are you aliens planning to colonize Earth?” he asked at last.
“No. The Watch does not approve of colonization. The government on your planet has other purposes and has no interest in colonization.”
“All right, you Watchers are too moral to do us any harm. What about the government? Are they planning to use people for slaves, or cattle?”
“No. Machines are more efficient servitors than humans. Intelligent life is not used for food or other direct physical utilization.”
“Then what do they want here?”
“A complex explanation is required. I will attempt to accomplish the required explanation. A single purpose has caused all actions here. The purpose has caused the alteration of your planet's climate, and the usurpation of your planet's government, and the pursuit of yourself. Will you listen patiently?”
“Go ahead.”
“The representatives of the Governor told you that they are representatives of the government of the Galactic Empire. They are not. They are citizens of the Galactic Empire. That is true. The Galactic Empire exists. The name is not correct. The Empire controls a small portion of the galaxy in the region approximately in correspondence with the constellation of Sagittarius, and areas farther in toward the galactic core that are not visible from your planet. The government of the Empire is an oligarchy. I am not assured the translation is clearly correct. A small group of individual beings controls the government. The beings are not selected by any rational process. The expeditionary force on your planet is controlled by a member of a group of beings who wish to supplant the beings who control the government. The beings of the group have no official standing in the government. They have attempted to obtain control of the Empire by force. The beings in control of the Empire have opposed them by force. The result is a continuous conflict.” There was a brief pause. “Do you understand?”
“I think so,” Starkman said. “You mean that Earth has been taken over by a rebel faction of the Empire, rebels who are waging a civil war against the established government.”
“Your statement is not clearly translatable in complete form. I believe you understand correctly. I will proceed.”
Starkman nodded and said, “Go ahead,” before he realized that the alien had not stopped speaking.
“Do you understand the nature of interstellar travel?” it asked.
“What do you mean? I don't know how a star drive works, if that's what you mean.”
“I ask the question in another method. Do you understand the distances between stars?”
“I'm still not sure what you mean; I know that the stars are light-years apart and that it would take years and years to travel from one to the next without some kind of faster-than-light drive.”
“You understand. Velocity is constrained.”
“Velocity is constrained? I don't understand.”
“It is not possible to travel at velocity greater than the unconstrained velocity of electromagnetic radiation.”
“I know it isn't ordinarily possible, but you must have traveled faster than light to get to Earth.” A sudden thought burst into his head, and even before he heard the answer he knew what it would be.
“No. It is not possible to travel at velocity greater than the velocity of electromagnetic radiation.”
That was a depressing piece of news; Starkman had assumed that the aliens possessed some way of circumventing the laws of Einsteinian physics, and that mankind might reach the stars with it. It appeared that he was wrong; no species as short-lived and fragile as humanity would do much star-hopping at sub-light speeds. He said nothing, and after a few seconds the alien continued.
“Beings who do not naturally die control the Empire. The extent of the Empire makes necessary government composed of undying beings. Do you understand?”
That made sense. There was no reason to assume that in all the galaxy every intelligent species faced death from old age. Starkman answered, “Yes.”
The concept was food for thought. It was indeed obvious that a galactic empire could not be run by people who needed half a lifetime to get anywhere. He asked, before the alien's next sentence came through the translator, “Are there many such species? Are you one?”
“The majority of intelligent species have limited lifespans. The Empire is controlled by the very small minority. I am undying.”
“Oh. How old are you?”
“The question is trivial. The question is irrelevant. I cannot answer. I have not maintained a record. The measurement of time is not universally consistent.”
“All right, I'm sorry I asked; go on with what you were saying.”
“You will understand that undying beings are not concerned with efficiency. Undying beings are not limited in time. The beings in control of the Empire and the beings who oppose them and wish to obtain control are all undying beings. Therefore they have prolonged the conflict without limit. The conflict has continued for a very large amount of time.”
“How big a war is this? I mean, if these guys have been shooting at each other for a few hundred years, they must have done a lot of damage.”
“They have done a large amount of damage. You have spoken truly. The conflict is not constant. Times occur when no conflict takes place.”
“It's sort of off-and-on?”
“Yes. You understand. Communicating through a translating device is cumbersome, is it not?”
“Yes, it is. Go on; what has this galactic civil war got to do with me?”
“A long time in the past, an event occurred. Researchers who were controlled by the beings who oppose the beings who currently – “
Starkman cut the alien off. “Call the two groups the Empire and the Rebels.”
The pilot smiled as he leaned against the wall; he recognized the cinematic reference.
“Yes. The researchers were controlled by the Rebels. I politely acknowledge the alternative terms to be more convenient. The researchers were in a ship. Ships are more difficult to locate and destroy than structures on planetary surfaces.”
“I can see that.”
“A researcher made a new thing. The thing was an unlikely happenstance. It was not planned. Beings have attempted to repeat the event for a very long time. They have not repeated the event.”
“Someone hit on a fluke, a chance discovery; right. So what?”
“The researcher had made a thing that explodes stars. It creates supernovae. Do you understand?”
“I think so; this guy found a way to make stars blow themselves up.”
“You understand. No being had done this thing before. No being has done this thing in the long time since. Supernovae can be a very great weapon. The Rebels can destroy the government and control the Empire with supernovae.”
“I understand that, but if this happened a long time ago, why haven't the Rebels won their war?”
“The information is not in the possession of the Rebels. An Imperial warship located the researchers' ship and pursued it and destroyed it.”
“Well, if it was destroyed, then what's the point of this whole story?” Starkman was becoming exasperated with the awkwardness of the alien's speech.
“D'you want me to take over?” the pilot asked. “I know most of it, and anything that's not clear you can ask the Watcher.”
“Well. . .” Starkman considered. It was fascinating, in a way, to listen to the alien, but it was also slow and clumsy using the translator, and the result was not always very clear. “Yes, I think that'd probably be for the best.” He passed the microphone pack to the other man's outstretched hand.
“Hello, Watcher? This is your Watchman. I will tell him more. The translating machine is not convenient. Is it acceptable?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He put the device down on the computer cabinet, leaned back against the wall again, and began, “The reason that the story about the research ship is important is because there were survivors. Most were lost for good, and presumably died long ago; nobody seems to know how many actually got away. Maybe there were only a few to begin with. At any rate, only one is of any importance, so far as we know. A genetic engineer, who had been on the research ship primarily to produce test subjects for the other scientists, got away in a small ship. He wasn't much of a pilot, and the ship itself wasn't very intelligent, being just a lifeboat, so he wasn't able to do much real navigation. He certainly had no chance of getting back to anywhere civilized, by his standards; the ship wasn't self-supporting, and his supplies were very limited. He did find a planet that was habitable for his species in a neighboring system, and he put down on it – except that, as I said, he wasn't much of a pilot, and he crashed. To be specific, he crashed on Earth, probably in what's now the Sahara Desert – or rather, what was the Sahara Desert, and is now the Sahara Development Area.”
“He did? When? Even in the Sahara, I would think an alien spaceship would be found eventually.”
The other signed. “You didn't understand what the Watcher meant when he said that this happened a very long time ago. I'm not sure of the exact time myself, but it was at least forty thousand years ago.”
“Oh.” Starkman felt appropriately squelched; he had been thinking in terms of four or five centuries.
“After the crash,” the Watchman went on, “the alien's ship was hopeless; his computer was dead, for all intents and purposes, and the ship was no longer airtight, so there was no way he would ever get it into space again. His transmitter had survived, however. I'm not sure just what kind of transmitter it was, I'm afraid the Watcher isn't a scientist or an engineer, and we have our own communication problems, so if he knows, he hasn't been able to explain it to me. One thing I do know is that it wasn't using tachyons or anything else in that category; the message went out at the speed of light, no faster, which meant that it was strictly a monologue, not a conversation. Those transmissions were made in Rebel code – I'd been calling them the Opposition, but 'Rebel' is a better name. They were eventually picked up and recorded, several thousand years later; we're a long way from the Galactic Empire out here, and at that time the Rebels were mostly working their schemes out somewhere on the far side – or at any rate not the nearest side. They don't care much about time, as the Watcher said. Neither did the castaway, really; he was pretty much immortal himself. He knew that it would be at least centuries and probably more before anyone heard him, but he still had hopes of being rescued by whoever heard him. Because of that, he said that although he had with him all the data on the method of triggering supernovas, he wasn't going to transmit it; he wanted his comrades to come and get him off our little mudball, and he didn't think they would if he didn't give them a damn good reason. The Watcher tells me he was probably right; the Rebels aren't too big on such things as loyalty and compassion.”
