Chapter Text
I listened to the tactile readout one last time.
I’d already inspected and fixed it Iℓ times, but there was nothing wrong with the light-sensor. At first, I thought it was a star, but I remembered every scan from the IVℓℓ years I’ve spent collecting data here, and I’d never seen a star here before. For this last test, I’d used the light-sensor on other celestial bodies of the solar system, and then cross referenced the new data with the old, ‘correct’ data.
Nothing was broken.
Few things produced light on that scale of stars, and none of them gradually grew brighter and brighter at a steady rate.
Except for…the engine flares of a ship.
An alien ship.
I absently tapped a claw on the hull of the ship while I listened to the single raised rectangle on the light-sensor. When I first realized this might be light from a ship’s engines, I thought it might be another ship from Erid…but this is in entirely the wrong direction.
I tried to stay calm, but it seemed like there was no other explanation. The light emitted wasn’t exactly right, being only half the Astrophage-wavelength, but as the days passed it steadily approached the Astrophage wavelength, but that could be explained by a shift in the Astrophage-wavelength caused by the ship’s very high velocity relative to myself.
It definitely wasn’t an Eridian ship. As much as I wanted to hear another Eridian. There was only one light source, not multiple ships, so either the aliens were not much more advanced than Eridians, or this was a lone scout of some sort. Eridian scientists had speculated that it was possible to create machines that could think, and an advanced alien species may be able to create such a ship without any life on board. But if they were so advanced, then they should have travelled to the nearby stars long ago.
From this, I concluded that:
- These people were on a similar level of technology as Eridians, at least enough to make a space-faring vessel with life support.
- They know of Astrophage.
- They likely came to this star system because they also observed its output to be immune from the effects of Astrophage.
And based on the rate of increase in the brightness of the ship, there were about ℓ.VV years until it arrived in the system.
I wriggle and squirm in excitement as the alien ship’s engine flares finally cut off!
It’s me! I’m the guy! I’m the one who makes first contact with an intelligent alien species!
I’d gradually matched its velocity a several days ago, in a way that made us gradually approach one other so that neither of our engines endanger the other. The other ship is small, much smaller than my own, simpler too, just three cylinders side by side, tapering into a bigger cylinder which tapers into a cone. It seems to be made out of metal, though I don’t know what kind.
Why would they make a ship out of metal? Do they not have xenonite?
I tilt my carapace in doubt, it would be nice for these aliens to be more advanced than us, that would make solving the Astrophage problem a lot easier. But then again, if they were much more advanced, they could just fix the problem without leaving their solar system.
I’m not sure why they try to communicate yet, but maybe they haven’t been scanning the system for the Astrophage-arc yet. Having planned this in the years before the ship’s arrival, I positioned my ship between the end of the Astrophage-arc and aliens, hopefully they’ll notice me on their own.
I’m…pretty sure they won’t be hostile? If they’re in the same situation we’re in, then they don’t have much time, and they only sent one ship, so they can’t afford to be violent.
Right?
Maybe it’s not a great idea to communicate with aliens, but they might have technology that can help me save Erid. I know this might be a stupid and emotional decision…but it’s better than failing over and over…right? I sadly draw my limbs together for a few moments. How is Erid handling Astropahge? I’ve been alone for so long, I’ve nearly forgotten what an another Eridian sounds like…
Then the display flickers, the alien ship’s engines flared for half a second!
I scramble for the controls that drifted away while I wasn’t paying attention, the engine flare was too weak and short to be maneuvering, there’s nothing nearby for the ship to be maneuvering towards! That means they’re trying to communicate, there’s someone on the ship!
I flash my own engines on for what I hope is close enough to the same duration, and the alien ship responds! Three bursts, shorter than the first, then one that’s about two seconds long, then one more short one!
I copy it as well as I can, excitement making me a little clumsier than I normally would be.
I pay attention to the display. They seem to have stopped the attempts at communication, so I use two arms to operate one of my ships airlocks, containing a cylinder I prepared many days ago. Another two of my arms controls the hull-robot, grabbing the cylinder and carefully releasing it towards the alien ship at the same velocity at which it drifted backwards from the very first engine flare.
I’d designed the cylinder so that it would leak enough of my atmosphere by the time it reaches the alien ship, whatever trace amounts of ammonia left inside shouldn’t be a problem. Hopefully.
I don’t know how fast these aliens think, for all I know they think a lot more slowly than I do. A slow velocity like that should be enough for them to prepare to receive the cylinder. I don’t see a hull-robot like mine, but maybe it’s on the other side of the ship? There are what seem to be rails covering the surface of the ship, but my display panel isn’t high resolution enough for me to be certain.
When the cylinder is about a sixth of the way there, I notice movement by the base of the ship’s cone.
I pivot my carapace at the disturbance and see…something?
It seems to be quite a bit larger than myself, roughly in the shape of two limbs on the end of a cylinder and another two on the sides of the other end, with a round sphere on the end with the shorter limbs.
I fidget in excitement, is this the robot that they’re using? But then why would it need to come out of the ship? Maybe they just had it in storage just so it wouldn’t fall off…? The robot moves around smoothly, much more smoothly than my own hull robot. It’s not even solidly attached to the rails but seems to clip tethers to the railings one by one so that there’s always at least 1 attached at all times. It’s moving fairly deftly but safely along the rails, not at all like it’s a mechanism…wait…
Do these crazy aliens go outside into the vacuum of space?!
I listen to the display panel in disbelief, why would anyone go outside into space? You can’t hear anything like that, unless…maybe the ship has microphones all over the hull, and they broadcast a radio signal to the suit? Yeah, that’s probably it.
Still crazy though.
I decide to tilt my radar dish and hear if I can pick up any radio signals coming from the ship.
Nothing.
Huh.
“…maybe it transmits the information through the tethers”, I thought doubtfully.
Deciding to think about it later, I wait for the alien to make their way to the center of the ship where I aimed the cylinder at. By the time they reach center the cylinder is about halfway there.
We both wait for the cylinder to reach the alien, and they catch it without a problem.
They seem to hurry on the way back to the airlock, still using both tethers, but they’re a bit clumsier with haste. I guess they’re as excited as I am, that’s a comforting thought.
They’ll probably take some time to figure out my gift, so I get to work on my next project…
Just as I finish making the model of the alien ship (I’d already made the model of my ship and the tunnel in advance), my display began to update. I scamper back to get a closer look, even though I could already hear it just fine.
The alien ship is…rotating...and then the ship breaks into two pieces!
I panic for a second, wondering if I'm watching an alien species die in front of me.
But then I notice the two parts of the ship are moving in a controlled manner, definitely connected by cables. I'm not sure what it's for, artificial gravity?
In case it's another communication thing, I decide to start spinning my own ship at the same rate just in case, at the same rate. The rotation of the ship causes a significant centrifugal force, a bit more pulling any free-floating stuff to the bottom of the ship.
With their ship connected by cabling, the length of their ship is comparable to mine, and the force of gravity is almost half of Erid's surface gravity. It would be more intense if I were at the very ends of my ship, so they're probably experiencing half of Erid's gravity or so.
Interesting, I wonder what they need gravity for? Is it just comfort? Maybe they have some technology that needs gravity to properly function.
After some time, the alien ship stops rotating, and I copy that too.
A few minutes later and I see the airlock open up again, and the robot-alien sends my cylinder floating back towards me, much faster than when I sent it. I guess they’re saying that they can handle faster exchanges?
The robot-alien makes it’s way back to the airlock. Weird, if it were a robot then it should be fine staying outside, right? I shudder, sure hoping I didn’t meet a crazy alien species that clambered around in space for no reason.
The cylinder arrives shortly afterwards, I catch it with the hull-robot and place it into the airlock.
I excitedly grab the cylinder and it’s cold! I grumble out a few notes of disappointment, I suppose it would be too much to ask for the aliens to have a similar environment as Eridians.
Well, whatever, what’s important is that something in the cylinder, something new! There’s a wire attaching this star to another star, and from that star there’s another (what I assume to be) Astrophage-arc made from a different material.
Yes, Yes, Yes!
I throw my arms up in celebration, lightly knocking the cylinder into a nearby wall.
I hear the new Astrophage-arc fall off and plop against the side of the container.
Um.
Whoops?
The star that the aliens modified was nearly the same distance from this star as Erid, at least on the Astronomical scale. Interesting coincidence. The thinner wire that didn’t fall off earlier eventually separated from the model and clinked against the side of the container, while Astrophage-arc melted into a blob.
Good news is that I didn’t really break it, bad news is that they probably live in an environment much colder than mine. The important part is that the wire is attached to a star designated by Eridians as ‘Star Number IIℓ’. I guess that makes them IIℓians? Doesn’t sound right, but I don’t know how else to refer to them.
Regardless, I put a new cylinder into the airlock, this one containing the models of my ship, the model of the alien ship, and the tunnel connecting the two.
After some time spent finishing the tunnel, I sent the cylinder floating towards the alien ship once again, this time aiming for the airlock, and at the speed they responded with.
This time their robot(?) exits the airlock quickly and catches the cylinder, then waggles a limb around at me.
Looks like I just learned my first bit of IIℓian communication.
The next time there’s movement I’m finishing up the connecting end of the tunnel from my ship to their ship. I watch as they clamber towards the cylinders (what I assume to be the fuel tanks), and…start to hammer at it?
What is this idiot doing? Is he poking a hole in his own ship? Why?
The alien seems to chisel the last bit of the hull a bit too hard and sends it flying off into space, before leaping for it. They catch the piece of hull before pulling themselves back by the tethers, then toss the piece towards my ship.
I guess they wanted to give me a sample of their hull, how considerate of them. I send the hull-robot to catch the bit of hull, and use my newly-learned gesture, waving one of the arms at the alien.
They wave back!
I wave again.
They seem to realize that this could go on forever (I may be making unfounded theories) and head back to the airlock. Fair enough.
Wait a minute, they knew I waved at them, so they must be able to sense me, I guess there really is some sort of communication between the alien-robot-whatever and the ship, so maybe they aren’t crazy and just have an advanced control system?
Shaking the thought away, I return to working on the tunnel. No point in thinking about stuff that’ll soon be confirmed anyway.
Their ship is made of aluminum (element number 13). It’s sturdy enough, and fairly lightweight, so it’s not a bad material to use, but most importantly my xenonite glue will work on it with no problems.
Some time later I finally finish the tunnel, using my measurements of the alien airlock to make sure the tunnel can fit over theirs. I don’t wanna look dumb in front of the aliens.
I double check everything, making sure my end of the tunnel is properly attached to my ship and the glue is ready. I give my ship a small acceleration, just to make sure they aren’t threatened by my approach.
Our ships slowly approach one another, and I use the hull-robot’s glue handles to attach to the ship and close the last bit of distance. I brace myself against the airlock so I can listen clearly to the vibrations while also filling my side with my atmosphere. The noise gives me a great listen at the ship’s internal structure, which is complicated, but of course it is, any interstellar vessel has to be –
I freeze.
I can only hear one alien in the entire ship. He’s inside the suit that was performing all the tasks outside the ship, probably in case of a hull breach or something.
The fact that they’re crazy enough to go outside into space doesn’t come to mind anymore now that I realize they’re alone.
Did the same thing happen to them? Are we both…sole survivors of our missions?
The IIℓian enters their airlock, and I hear the sound of gasses rushing into the tunnel.
After a few seconds they seem to relax and take off the suit. I get a much better listen at their body when they come into contact with the sides of the tunnel while they remove the suit, it seems to swing open on a hatch from the back and the occupant can simply step outside. Good design, I note with approval, as insane as it is to make something for that purpose in the first place.
The alien is…soft. Their outer flesh doesn’t clink against the xenonite, and I can hear the internal structures inside of them that are much harder. A few species on Erid had internal skeletons, and external skeletons, but these aliens only seem to have internal skeletons. The atmospheric pressure back home meant that most lifeforms had to be very soft or very hard. Could this mean that they lived in a low-pressure environment?
There’s thing that's…something on the top of their head, it reminds me of an Eridian’s radiator organ, but I have no idea if it serves the same purpose. For some reason the alien seems to shift the suit that lies in the airlock, I’m not sure why.
The alien approaches the hexagon wall separating us and I wave at them, but they don’t wave back. Weird. In fact, they don’t seem to notice me at all, though I have no idea how to read alien body language. I decide to say hello and knock a few times. They hesitate but knock on the wall the same number of times as I do, if a bit faster. Good, that means they can hear sound. They seem to be uncomfortable, twitching often and knocking faster than I did. I briefly wonder if the wall is too hot for them, I should fix that.
The IIℓian then holds up a claw – though it’s not quite a claw, but I’ll call it a claw, that’s less creepy – and points back at his ship. They kick off the hex wall and gather some materials from the inside his ship.
When they come back moments later, they seem to use tape – interesting that we both have tape, but not unlikely – though what they use tape on I’m not sure. Some kind of device whose function I can’t determine.
The alien then points something that looks like my light-sensor at the wall, probably trying to analyze it. Suddenly the alien’s central-top-limb-thing seems to point at one of the hexes, and they move towards it.
I touch the hex, wondering why they found that one unusual. We tap back and forth a few times so I know I have their attention, then hold up the models of the space-suit and alien ship, moving the suit back into the ship’s airlock.
The alien seems to understand my message, and makes a fist, but with one claw pointing upwards. Strange, that claw is different from the others, it seems to have a wider range of motion.
I copy the gesture as best as I can, and the alien heads back to their ship, closing the airlock behind them.
Translations:
ℓ.VV years is 0.25 in Eridian, which is also in base 6. In base 10 that's 1.3242 Eridian years.
As mentioned in the notes below, Eridian Years = Earth Days / 42.33, Rocky detects Grace about 20 days away from his arrival.