Wavebird, the Southern Seas

Sjívull Wylderrjorssían

Land! Land ahead!”

Sjívull woke with a start and rolled to his feet, springing upright only a moment before Drynllaf. Dawn was setting the ocean fog on fire, and in front of them was an impenetrable wall of mist. It would burn away at the height of the day, but as the air warmed in the morning and cooled in the evening, the sea steamed, and it took clever eyes to see anything between the shifting coils and billows.

Their lookout, Jorfydd, was unequaled. Sjívull couldn’t see anything at all through the mist, but he didn’t doubt Jorfydd’s word one bit.

“Heave to!” If they were close to shore, that maybe meant rocks, sandbanks, reefs, or an atoll. Only a foolhardy or desperate lord would sail blindly into that on the wind. The ship lurched as the crew obeyed, and Sjívull sprung nimbly to the prow, where Jorfydd was perched gazing out into the mists.

“How far?”

“Close, lord,” Jorfydd reported, with mild chagrin. “Snuck up on us, she did.”

“Well, you saw her before we hit her. That’s the important part,” Sjívull commented jovially, prompting Jorfydd to laugh. He turned back down the ship. “Furl the sails and unpack the oars!”

The oars were stowed below the deck, and retrieving them took long enough for the sun to come up a little higher and for Sjívull to finally see the land Jorfydd had spotted. It was close, indeed, maybe only a league away. He got an impression of heavy forests pushing right down to the waterline.

Drynllaf was standing at the stern with his hand on his sword, contemplating the weather, when Sjívull joined him.

“Good day to find land,” he commented after a second.

“You think the mist will hold?”

“A fog like this? It’s a dawn-to-dusker, gods have mercy. With the sail down, we might even lose our pursuers.”

“Keep it down!” Sjívull hushed him with a grin. “If Vyrthr hears you, he’ll lift the fog right this moment.”

Drynllaf harrumphed something that was almost a laugh. Vyrthr was the god of the seas, of weather…and of treachery. Every sailor knew why.

“Still. I’d wager a coastline like that has plenty of hiding places,” he mused, glancing back over his shoulder. “Rivers, coves, inlets…a hundred places Wavebird can lose our pursuers.”

“Or be cornered by them,” Sjívull reminded him. “We can’t remain at sea for long. We need drinking water, so we’ll have to head inland, upriver. And if they follow us…”

“I fancy our chances on dry land better than on the waves, young lord.”

Sjívull nodded. His father had always taught him to keep his thoughts to himself when he was conflicted—allegedly, it would make him seem intelligent and competent in the eyes of his crew and bjerkar…or at least stop him from seeming like an idiot.

“Alright. We follow the coast north and go up…the second river we find. Or the first, if the fog doesn’t look like it will hold.”

“Aye!”

Drynllaf nodded sharply and turned to carry out his lord’s orders. Sjívull was left looking astern to consider whether he’d made the right choice.

There was another side to his choice besides just trying to lose the pursuit. He’d made a careful note of the precise angle of that falling star, and his curiosity was alive with thoughts of what it might be. If it was where he thought it was…it might have landed close by. What kind of treasure fell from the stars?

There was only one way to find out.

August 9th, MY284

Launch 732 landing site

Amber Houston

Walker had been right. They weren’t ready. The last three days had just been a string of crises, frayed tempers, and Rangers—who were, after all, kids for the most part—who didn’t know how to cope with the sudden lack of adults in their lives.

To some, it was a paradise opportunity. The cat was away, and the mice wanted to play. To others, it was like being cut off from the very thing that had given their lives something stable to anchor themselves. Either way, keeping them on task and working toward their own survival was turning out to be much more difficult than Amber had thought it would be.

She was beginning to wonder if perhaps she was a bit of a freak. Or maybe it was just that she was so used to looking after herself and organizing her home life around a pair of loving but mutually incompatible scatterbrains. She’d never felt stifled by her parents, nor particularly grounded on them, either. Today was just…a new day. With new challenges.

Roy and Nikki, on the other hand, were struggling. They took the duty Walker had left them with seriously, and it was giving them some direction and drive, but the McKay family were close, and the abstract knowledge that they weren’t going to see their parents again for eight years had finally started to become a real, concrete thing. Neither of them was their usual cheery and energetic selves, now that they’d had time to get their heads around the idea.

Amber had been doing her best to keep the troop’s morale up, but there was only so much they could do. She’d picked up the pieces, helped friends reconcile after fights, done her best to knit them together, and help the troop turn to each other for family…

But now, Nikki had vanished.

Being a kinetic sort of person, she’d thrown herself into her work as a coping mechanism, quickly organizing some of the older Rangers into a work team to clear a space at the waterfall and start building their colony structures. The launch came with what were called “prefab modules,” sturdy plastic and aluminum pieces designed to lock together like a scaled-up construction toy into an outpost building.

That building would be the core of their township, assuming DANI consolidated the troops in the area to Site A. For now, though, it was meant to be somewhere safe to store stuff, stockpile resources, take lessons, prepare food…all the stuff the launch was currently doing for them. The idea was to free the launch up for other duties if need be, and give them a bigger and more comfortable place to sleep.

Nikki had taken on the role of foreman. She was good at it; while her brother handled the heavy lifting and guided the younger Rangers in their fetching, carrying, slotting, and bolting-together, Nikki had planned the outpost’s layout. She was responsible for site preparation, she made sure the right supplies were delivered from the launch to the outpost site at the right time, she made sure the work teams knew what they were supposed to be doing…

Under her guidance, the outpost was coming together quickly. The building had walls, and the small water-fed fusion generator had been brought up from the launch and installed, as had the water purifier necessary to distill and deionize water from a natural source into the pure stuff the generator could use. It was purring away and calmly building up a reserve, a step Nikki insisted was absolutely essential, but the lights were on, and there was a roof overhead.

As far as Amber was concerned, it was basically ready to move in. The twins had asked for one more day to square away the wiring and install the plumbing. And seeing as everybody was more-or-less happy with sleeping in the tents around the launch, there had been no reason for them not to have it…

…Except that now, the work was on hold until Nikki came back, which worried Amber. It wasn’t like Nikki to go missing, though to be fair to her, she hadn’t just vanished and left the teams in the lurch. She’d told them to take a lunch break and promised to find them when it was time to start working again.

That had been just before midday, ‘round about the time the sun got hottest. It was a sensible time to pause, and the whole troop had adopted the habit of a midday nap in the shade to weather the worst of the heat. But it was getting later in the afternoon now, and it had been cool enough for work to resume for nearly an hour.

So Amber left Roy in charge of keeping the others busy and struck out in pursuit. She didn’t need to be an expert tracker—Nikki’s U-Tool was still online, and therefore all Amber had to do was ask her own U-Tool to find Nikki’s.

Unfortunately for Amber, the destination seemed to be a spot at the top of the cliff above Site A, upstream of the waterfall. And looking at it, she doubted Nikki had climbed the wet rocks. No doubt she could have, but it wouldn’t have been safe, and Nikki wasn’t one to take stupid risks.

Which meant there had to be another way up.

It took ten minutes to find what was little more than a gap between a tree and a rock that turned into an angled crack in the cliff she could scramble up on all fours. It certainly couldn’t be dignified with the word ‘trail,’ but it was a way up.

After that, finding Nikki was easy. A tree had fallen at some point and naturally bridged the stream. Nikki was sitting halfway across it, staring down into the water.

…Or not. As Amber got closer, she realized Nikki in fact had her U-Tool in her hands and was watching a video clip. After a few seconds she rewound and watched the clip again. And again.

She jumped violently when she heard Amber’s booted footsteps, and nearly dropped the tool in the water. She relaxed when she looked up and saw who it was and dredged up a pathetic imitation of a smile.

“You found me.”

“Yeah…” Amber climbed up on the long next to her and sat down. “Nice spot.”

“It won’t stay private for long…” Nikki sighed, then checked her chronometer and pulled a face. “I lost track of time.”

“I think we can afford a break. You said it’d take all week to finish the outpost, but it looks nearly done already,” Amber reassured her.

“Nah. Getting the walls up is one thing. The wiring, plumbing, and all that stuff is another, and there’s only two people who know how to do that stuff.”

“And let me guess, both of them have the surname McKay.”

“That’s about right…” Nikki fidgeted with her U-Tool, turning it over nervously in her hands. “You had a message from home yet?”

Amber nodded. “Two. One from Mum, one from Dad. They’re finally breaking up. I guess the moment I was ejected from their lives, they lost the only thing holding them together.”

“About time, huh?” Nikki tried to chuckle, but her heart obviously wasn’t in it. “I’m sorry.”

Amber shrugged. “Don’t be. I’m glad for them. I just wish they’d done it sooner. We’d all have been happier, I think.”

Nikki shook her head sadly and sat in silence for a while, before turning the U-Tool over one last time and presenting the screen to Amber.

“We got this from Mum and Dad.”

“What does it say?”

“I don’t know.”

Amber frowned at her. “You don’t know?”

“I’ve been sitting here watching the first…I dunno, ten or twenty seconds of the video over and over again. I…couldn’t bring myself to watch more than that…”

Silence reigned for a few seconds until, there being nothing a McKay liked more than a hug, Amber shuffled a little closer and gave Nikki a squeeze.

It worked. A little too well. She promptly found herself on the receiving end of a real rib-crusher and a miserable squeak.

Nikki always had been bad at just letting go and venting. When she did, it was a like a dam bursting, and just as wet. She spent quite a long time sobbing into Amber’s shoulder. Eventually, she felt better enough to at least try to be Tough Nikki again. “I’m sorry…I’m sorry. I should be stronger than this, I…”

“Shh…” Amber managed to work an arm loose enough to rub Nikki’s back. “No. No you shouldn’t. You’re allowed to hurt, Nick.”

The nickname got a hiccuping laugh through it all, and a nod. Eventually Nikki let go and sat upright to dry her eyes.

“I don’t know how you do it,” she said.

“Do what?”

“You’re so…calm about all this. Like it’s just…just a thing that happened. You act like this isn’t the worst couple weeks of your life, like it’s just…Wednesday.”

Amber broke a dead stick off the log next to her and fidgeted with it. “Well…I mean, yeah. It is just a thing that happened. We can’t change it, can we?” Nikki shook her head, and Amber nodded as she continued. “So…it’s in the past. I don’t want to pretend it’s not painful and scary, but I want to focus on what we can do.”

She dropped the stick in the water and watched it swirl and twist in the current between her feet and over the edge. “I wish I could have been up there to help Mum and Dad figure things out. And I’m going to miss your mum and dad like crazy—”

Nikki nodded fervently, prompting Amber to give her another squeeze.

“—But here we are,” she finished.

“I guess.” Nikki considered her U-Tool for a while, then put it in her pocket. “I’ll…watch it later. Right now, I think I just need to keep my head down and work.”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you for coming to find me.”

“As if I wouldn’t.”

That earned her a touched smile, and Amber shuffled up to the end of the log and dropped onto the dry bank.

“I’m glad I did, though,” she added. “This is a nice spot!”

“Yeah.” Nikki’s boots splashed in the stream as she jumped down and approached the very edge of the falls. “Maybe we should try and preserve it. Make it a…I dunno. A park or something.”

“Maybe,” Amber agreed. She moved to Nikki’s side and took in the view. Through a gap in the trees she could just about make out the river, though the air was hazy and heavy with mist.

“Of course, we still need to name this outpost,” Nikki reminded her, but Amber was only half-listening. She was certain she’d seen…something. Some movement on the river where there shouldn’t be.

“I…guess…What is that?”

“What’s what?”

Amber grabbed her U-Tool, opened its camera function, and aimed it into the mists. It took a few seconds for the camera to focus and find the range as it searched.

A second later she gasped and nearly dropped it. Nikki gave her a worried look.

“Amber? What?”

Amber’s hands were shaking as she deactivated the tool and pocketed it again.

“There are sails coming up the river,” she said.

Amida Torres

The cosmos must have a twisted sense of humor. That, ridiculously, had been Amida’s first thought when she learned that yes, first contact was happening, yes, it would be with mere children, and no, there was no way they were going to avoid it.

Considering the stakes, the Council was taking it well. Relatively speaking.

“Just whose hare-brained idea was it to send the Rangermasters off on a damned errand and leave our children alone to face first contact?”

“You’ve clearly never met some of these kids,” Antony Mayweather replied. His calm optimism surprised Amida, especially considering the reaction he’d had to the evacuation. According to DANI, he and the Councilor had been having long philosophical discussions in private, and he believed he had more than regained Mayweather’s trust. “Honestly, some of them are just as qualified for this as you or I would be.”

“And what if it goes wrong? What if the natives are violent?”

“None of us like that thought,” Amida assured Councilor Mullins, “but to answer your question, members of the Council and I have already reviewed the decisions that led us to this moment, and we’re satisfied there has been no error in judgment and no foolish risk-taking. We’ve simply run into a perfect storm of improbable events.”

Hayes stood up to support her. “The short version is, good communications will be essential to the Rangers’ safety and survival. There are plenty of unknowns down there, and in an emergency, every single launch needs to be able to call for help. It would have been negligent to delay establishing the network, and setting it up requires one competent individual to strike out into uncharted, alien wilderness, survive for several days without resupply or assistance, and then climb a hill or mountain to set up their array, entirely alone.”

A wry sort of micro-smile made his beard shift. “I’m sure Councilor Mullins would agree with me that sending a child on such an expedition would be irresponsible. They’re safer at camp under the care of their senior troopmates.”

“Even with known alien life in the area?” Mullins insisted.

“The area, in this case, is triple the size of Dandelion’s biodeck,” Jackson said. “We’ve been extremely unfortunate.”

“Or extremely fortunate,” DANI interjected.

His avatar was immediately the focus of attention.

“How do you figure that, DANI?” Amida asked him.

“There are more than two thousand launches scattered across the continental landmass. Of those, two hundred are home to high-achieving troops warranting special attention. Launch seven-three-two is one such. The children of that troop were some of the most talented and capable individuals on this ship.”

“That has to be more than random chance.” Mayweather frowned.

DANI’s avatar nodded. “As you know, I am required to calculate all knowable options, however unlikely. While the prospect of first contact with undetected sapient natives may have been improbable, it was nevertheless knowable and calculable. It was, therefore, taken into consideration—among hundreds of other factors—when deciding the landing pattern for the launches. These precise young people are in that place and about to make first contact in part because my probability tables indicated their landing site would be the most probable location, and they would be the most suitable ones to take on the duty, should it become necessary.”

“How very prescient,” Mullins noted drily.

“Prescience is my primary duty, Councilor.”

“DANI, did you know Newhome is inhabited?”

“No.” DANI rarely gave such a blunt and to-the-point reply. “Nor did I suspect. I am simply compelled to maximize the probability of mission success.”

“In any case, we aren’t here to second-guess decisions that can’t be changed,” Amida said, deciding the time had come to move the conversation forward. “We’re here to be briefed so we can begin to provide sensible support and advice. You said the troop involved is seven-thirty-two, DANI?”

“Indeed, Captain.”

“That’s my husband’s troop.”

“And my daughter’s,” Mayweather said. “If Walker isn’t there, which names are going down in history?”

“Amber Houston and her friends the McKay twins, most probably.”

Amida frowned. “McKay? Didn’t a boy with that name come up in a briefing not too long ago?”

“Roy McKay is one of the two athletes at the heart of the Olympic dispute, Captain,” Mayweather reminded her.

“Wait, that’s him?” Torres shook her head in mild disbelief. “Of all the crazy luck! And he has a twin sister?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Oh, Authors.” Amida laughed. “What is she like?”

DANI’s avatar had a fond smile. “She could best be described as ‘intense.’ She showed a great aptitude for reconnaissance and marksmanship during her militia training and was on the shortlist for future recruitment into Special Security.”

“Well, that is fortunate,” Mullins commented. “So who’s this other girl?”

“Their closest friend, and an exceptionally talented mind. Eidetic memory, genius rational faculties and emotional intelligence, and a sufficiently resilient temperament to handle the twins’ rather…robust personalities.”

“Well, my husband did mentor the special cases,” Amida mused, and smiled along with the proud look on Mayweather’s face.

“I know all three of them,” Mayweather said. “I’m surprised you don’t, Captain.”

“Walker and I always made it a rule not to discuss work at home,” Amida confessed. “I don’t poke my nose in except to listen to the Story every year.”

“Let’s start with the basics. What are these aliens like?” Mullins asked.

“If the crew of the ship we have been tracking are representative, they would appear to be about thirty percent taller than a human adult, on average, but approximately the same mass,” DANI said. “Given that they have a tail, this makes them quite slender. From their perspective, a human would be short, robust, and bulky.”

“Is that because of Newhome’s lower gravity relative to Earth?”

“They are adapted to their environment, certainly,” DANI said.

“Would the lower gravity pose a risk to the children?”

“No.” DANI shook his head sharply. “We accounted for that when choosing Newhome as our destination, and during crew selection, as well. There was also early gene-line therapy in the first generation to fix certain traits more strongly; it’s all documented in the library. Besides, we have experience in low-gravity development thanks to the Martian and Lunar colonies, never mind the Belt habitats and the Jovians.”

“So our kids are going to be shorter than the locals, but weigh about the same,” Hayes mused, “meaning they’re likely a heckuva lot stronger.”

“Yes. Over deep time, the gene-line trait-fixing would dilute without any intervention, and subsequent human generations would slowly adapt to the lower gravity. This generation and many to come, however, are likely to remain stocky. As they are now, they will have an enormous mechanical advantage over the natives. Even an average Ranger is likely to be significantly stronger than they are.”

“That’s likely to be a good thing, then,” Hayes said optimistically. “If they’re anything like humans were at the same stage in our history—”

“If,” Mullins interjected.

“—Having a physical advantage over them could be diplomatically useful. I don’t care how alien they are, if they can build a ship and cross the ocean, they can weigh risk versus reward, and they’d have to see there’s a lot of risk involved in picking a fight with people who’re strong enough to break them like twigs.”

“If that’s your reasoning, maybe that stage in our history is still alive and well.”

“We are what we are, Councilor. Maybe we civilize it a bit with sport and competition, but those instincts are still there. Besides, we’re worried about the possibility of violence, aren’t we? If not, then why are we fretting about this? I don’t want our kids to have to break any aliens, but I’d much rather they could rather than find out the natives are…I don’t know. Talking grizzly bears or something.”

Jackson nodded. “I think we can trust our kids to want peace and coexistence. But you know the old saying: ‘If you want peace, prepare for war.’”

“Well, that’s the McKay twins and Miss Houston in a nutshell,” Mayweather said. “As I said, I know them…and I trust them. DANI did well, putting them there.”

“Thank you, Councilor,” DANI said.

“In any case, it’s out of our hands,” Amida said. “Light delay being what it is, by the time a warning or advice reaches them, it will have happened. I don’t think there’s anything to be gained from discussing the moment of first contact itself. What we need to discuss is a proposal DANI has brought forward about the kind of material support we can send, and our timetable for doing so. DANI?”

DANI’s avatar nodded and stepped forward. “In a few days, we will have our first and, for all practical purposes, only opportunity to deliver further colonists to Newhome,” he informed the council. “The only reason we were able to deliver the evacuating Rangers to Newhome on an emergency schedule was because the ship was already on an approach vector. With that orbit ruined, the launches either must accelerate harder than the human body can endure or, if they do not, the trip will take far too long. Next week, however, we will have a brief window where both variables fall—barely—inside acceptable bounds.”

“DANI’s proposal is to send a security detail from the militia,” Amida explained.

“Given the circumstances, I don’t think any of us object to that,” Hayes agreed.

“I think I might,” Jackson said. “What about doctors? The Rangers may have first-aid training, and the Rangermasters might know some field medicine, but there isn’t a single trained surgeon on that planet.”

“When I say ‘within acceptable bounds,’ Councilor, I mean that a young, fit, and appropriately prepared individual will be capable of enduring the sustained acceleration, which will be significantly worse than what the Rangers themselves endured. The list of surgeons on the ship who could safely make the trip is effectively nil. Only outerdeck engineers and a minority of our militia volunteers qualify, and I simply cannot afford to lose any more engineers. Not when several of my most promising apprentices were among the evacuees.”

Amida gave the room a serious look. “Right. Do we have any further pressing matters? I realize there is much we would like to say and do, but our time is limited. After all, the engineers must get to work, and volunteers for the trip must be found.”

Mayweather stood up. “DANI’s proven several times over the last couple of weeks that he knows what he’s doing,” he said. “I move in favor of his proposal.”

“Seconded,” Hayes agreed.

“Any motion of dissent?” Amida asked. A few glances around the room suggested there wasn’t one. “In that case, Councilors, please cast your votes.”

In the end it wasn’t a unanimous ‘aye,’ but a clear majority nonetheless. The council session closed with a resolution, which as far as Amida was concerned made it a good day’s work. She retired to her offices. “How long until first contact?” she asked once the door was closed.

“Imminent.” DANI didn’t bother with an avatar this time. “I have completed the translation assistant. If you would like to contribute some words of encouragement before I transmit, I would appreciate it.”

“Sure.” Amida sat down and thought for a second. What would she want to hear if the responsibility was falling on her shoulders?

Simple confidence, she decided. Something to make her feel like she had everyone cheering her on. She smiled as the words came to her, leaned forward…

And recorded her message.

Amber Houston

The launches had been stocked with half a dozen rifles. Walker had taken one. Now, Roy and Nikki had grabbed two more and were handling them with altogether too much skill for Amber’s liking.

Of course, they’d both done militia training. Everyone did militia training. Amber would have taken it in six months herself if the evacuation hadn’t happened. But she’d never seen her friends hold weapons before, and their calm precision as they checked the rifles was, to Amber, more worrying than reassuring.

Nikki caught her expression and gave a little smile. “Just a precaution, Amber.”

“I still don’t like that your first reaction to first contact with an alien race is to gear up…” Amber grumbled.

“Tough. We don’t know who these people are or how they’ll behave,” Roy declared. “They might see us and shoot first.”

“Or they might not respect us unless we’re armed,” Nikki added.

“Still…” Amber fretted.

“Amber,” Roy grumbled in frustration. “We ain’t gonna just gun ‘em down. I can’t say the same about them, though. Better to have and not need.”

“…You’re right.”

“And you’d better learn how to use one of these too,” Nikki added.

“What about the rest of us?” Tony Stokes asked. He was the next oldest Ranger in the troop after Amber, and the kind of quiet boy who mostly kept his mouth shut, but he’d grabbed a rifle, too, as had his friends Doug and Steve. Amber wasn’t sure where they’d learned to use them, but the three boys clearly weren’t unfamiliar with the weapons. “What are we doing while you’re away?”

“Don’t worry,” Amber said gently. “You guys just stay with the launch, and if anybody comes your way, you get inside and lock the hatch. We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen, though.”

“I doubt these ship people wanna fight, either,” Nikki added.

“Right.” Tony looked around and nodded. “We can do that.”

“Attaboy!” Roy boomed. He gave Tony an encouraging grin, and then jerked his head toward the river. “We’d better get moving. Be back before you know it!”

The twins strode off at a march, and Amber trotted after them.

“Okay…” Roy began as soon as they were out of earshot, “…do you have any idea how to talk to aliens, Amber?”

“Uh…kinda?” Amber ransacked her memory, trying to think of every movie she’d ever seen, or book, or anything about first contact. Plenty of people had written about it. She’d never imagined the responsibility would fall to her.

She glanced at her watch. They’d sent a message to DANI explaining the situation, but thanks to the speed of light, his reply was still going to be some time away at the very earliest. For now, she was on her own.

“Okay…” she mused. “Anybody who can build a boat has to understand some of the same basic concepts as humans do. Tool use, language, working together in a team…that implies a social structure. That implies there’ll be one in charge. So long as we can talk peacefully with the leader…and if they’re ocean-going voyagers, they’ll be used to the idea of running into people who don’t speak their language.”

“I think you skipped a bit in the middle there, Am,” Nikki said.

“Just thinking aloud. Okay. So body language could be totally different. Some species on Earth, you shouldn’t look in their eyes because they’ll take it as a challenge. But in some human cultures, not looking somebody in the eye was rude…”

“Amber…”

“And if they’re in wooden boats, they may not know what a rifle is, but they’re probably smart enough to figure out it’s a weapon from context, I guess, so that’s probably not…”

“Amber…”

“So I guess just…do whatever comes naturally?” Amber suggested at last.

Roy grinned indulgently. “I love you, but man do you overthink things!”

“There’s no such thing,” Amber said primly.

“Sure there is! You have to actually do something eventually. What was it Walker said? Uh, ‘paralyzed for choice’ or something?”

“‘Paralyzed by indecision.’ And that’s why I get my thinking out of the way beforehand…you could stand to think things through now and then.”

“I mean, that’s prob’ly fair. But, okay. So let’s walk and think!” Roy picked up the pace. “So, how should we do this? I mean, you’re the one who would probably be best doing the talking.”

“Honestly? I think the first step is just going to be letting them see us, they’ll let us see them, size each other up.”

“Right. I should make it obvious we’re not to be screwed with, then.”

“But without seeming like you actually want a fight.”

“Okay. I can do that. Nikki standing back with a rifle, me up close next to you.”

“Mmm…yes. Anyway, after that…I guess a gesture of trust or welcome is in order. Did you bring anything to eat?”

“Of course he did,” Nikki predicted with a grin.

Roy sheepishly echoed her smile and pulled out a hamburger and rice meal pack from his cargo pocket.

“Give me the dessert.”

“Aww, come on Amber! It’s the cinnamon roll!”

“I have a recovery bar!” Nikki offered. She pulled one from her pocket and waggled it at Amber.

“…What’s in it?”

“Protein, fat, carbs, made so you can absorb ‘em right away. And there’s medicine, a whole bunch of salts and minerals, and, uh, a pretty serious stimulant, too. They’re made for outerdeck engineers to help us recover after high-G work.”

“What do they taste like?”

“Ehh…chocolate-ish?”

“Better not, then,” Amber decided. “Also, if it’s got medication in it, I don’t want to risk poisoning them.”

“What, you think that might not be the best first impression?” Nikki grinned, then gave Roy a shrug. “Sorry, lil’ bro. You can have the bar, though.”

Roy sighed heavily. “Fiiine, you can have my cinnamon roll…gimme.”

Nikki tossed the energy bar his way. He snagged it out of the air, pocketed it, then tore open the meal pack and fished out the cinnamon roll for Amber.

“Okay, so we have a sweetbread…” Amber counted on her fingers.

“Our rifles,” Roy shrugged the weapon in his arms.

“Yeah…clean water, and our U-tools. Better set that to transmit to DANI; he can figure out their language way quicker than I can.” An idea struck. “Oh, and you should tuck your shirt in, too.”

Roy nodded, though he didn’t look enthusiastic about the idea. “Dress for success? Fair enough.” He tucked his shirt into his shorts and fastened it up. Amber grinned; there was a reason Roy always wore his shirts unbuttoned: he was much too big for them. Even the biggest off-the-rack clothing he could find was more than skin-tight, and Ranger shirts fit close to the body anyway, for safety.

Today he was wearing the biggest set of standard-issue Ranger clothing they had to avoid wearing out his tailored set, which meant he couldn’t get the top four buttons fastened. Amber looked him up and down and nodded; it produced the desired effect.

Roy grinned outrageously. “Why Amber, are you showing me off?”

“Well, yeah, you’re huge! Let’s use that! They may not know what a rifle is, but I bet they’ll understand you hulking out of your clothes!”

“Guys,” Nikki warned, and nodded forward. “We’re not far from the river now.”

The mood changed and became deadly serious. Roy stepped close to Amber’s side, and Nikki angled off toward the tree line to find an appropriate vantage.

Her voice crackled in Amber’s ear a second later. “Comms check.”

“Loud and clear.”

“Same,” Roy agreed.

“Okay. Now you see me…” Nikki slipped behind a tree, there was the faintest rustle of branches and leaves, and she was gone.

“…And now we don’t,” Roy finished. “Y’know, in the militia, Sergeant Brown always said Nikki would make a hell of a recon sniper.”

Amber had to ask. “And you?”

“…I smell the river.”

Amber felt like she’d accidentally hit a sore spot there, though she had no idea what it could possibly be. But that was something to discuss with him some other time, maybe. Right now…

…Well, right now, unless she was mistaken, they were about to become the first humans ever to speak with intelligent alien life. That was too…big a thought to properly focus on. It kept slipping out of her head, like a wet bar of soap. But unless one of the other troops had made contact as well…

Future history books would have chapters about this moment. So, no pressure.

“I see the ship.”

It had come a way up the river since she’d spotted it through her U-Tool scope. Broad, sturdy oars down each side were making good progress against the current.

They were still quite a distance downstream from the outlet that led up to the outpost site, on a patch where the grasslands at the forest’s edge reached as far as the water. A herd of grazing native animals Arianna insisted were called “Skipdeer” because of the way they bounded across open terrain like a skipping child finally caught wind of the approaching humans and did what they were named for, hitting a surprising turn of speed as they fled…but not far. They stopped once they judged they were safe, only a few dozen meters away, and put their noses back down in the grass with a wary eye out for predators.

There was a lookout on the ship’s prow. He gestured wildly, and Amber heard his shout drift faintly to them on the wind. A second later, two others joined him.

They were tall. Very tall. Beyond that, Amber couldn’t really see many details.

She keyed her communicator. “Nikki? Are you in position?”

“Waitin’ on you.”

Amber breathed deeply to steady herself. “Alright…” She glanced up at Roy. “Time to make history, I guess.”

“Right behind you.”

They stepped up to the water’s edge and waved.

Sjívull Wylderrjorssían

“Hmph. We’ve found the land of the tailless dwarves.” Drynllaf was a gruff sort anyway, but when dealing with the completely new and strange, he got fivefold worse.

Still. As unimpressed as he sounded, “tailless dwarves” was a pretty good description. The two figures on the shore were as short as children, but Sjívull could plainly see they were both stockier and stronger than any bjerkar. The broader one was carrying something Sjívull couldn’t figure out at all, but his wits told him it must be a weapon.

“Well, they’re welcoming us,” he said.

“Aye. But if they’re smart, there’s a good bowman in the woods over there.” Drynllaf nodded toward the trees. “More than one, I’d wager.”

“Just as we’d do in their position, I’m sure.”

“Aye.”

“So. Friendly but not stupid, you think.”

Drynllaf nodded. “Damned strange, though. Look, their legs are all wrong.”

Sjívull had to admit the old man was right. He’d never seen legs bend that way before, or feet pressed flat to the floor with no spring in them. The pair on the shore looked absolutely rooted to the ground, solid and unyielding.

“Could they be…Otherfolk?” he asked. Legend was full of the tales of the Otherfolk. Strange looking, at times mischievous, and sometimes helpful, with strong magic and inscrutable motives. Sjívull had never met a man who claimed to have known one, but the stories couldn’t all be lies.

“If so, it might be our best option is to turn about and go back downriver,” Drynllaf muttered, but Sjívull knew him well enough by now to see he wasn’t serious. Besides, they needed to stop soon, before the river grew too narrow to turn Wavebird around. He’d hoped to spot a stream of clean water, but if these people lived here, Otherfolk or not, they probably had something to drink.

And then there was the strange falling star from the sky to consider. He’d followed its course carefully when he first saw it, and by his reckoning, it must have come down somewhere nearby…

“We’ll go ashore and meet them,” he decided.

The crew heaved on their oars in response to Drynllaf’s bellowed orders, forcing Wavebird sideways through the water until her hull crunched against the mud and sand of the riverbank. Three men vaulted overboard, sprang onto the land, and hauled on ropes. More men joined them and hammered long stakes into the ground, which they helped lash the ropes to. They were quick and skilled.

The senior of them, Skjer, checked that all was well, then waved to Sjívull.

“Ship secure, lord!”

Sjívull nodded, glanced at Drynllaf, then grinned and hopped over the side himself. His toes met the ground for the first time in too many days, and he stooped to rub his hand through the grass. They’d come a long way and crossed an ocean that nobody had ever crossed and returned to tell about. That thought made him look up at the strangers as Drynllaf landed heavily beside him.

“Nobody’s ever come back from these lands, have they?” he asked.

“Not that I know of, young lord,” Drynllaf agreed. He rested his hand lightly on his sword, and Sjívull saw the larger stranger fidget with the long item in his arms. It was unquestionably a weapon now.

But that was all that happened. Two warriors making each other aware that they were armed and skilled. Otherwise, the two strangers stood and waited.

“Stay here, gentlemen,” he ordered. The crew hung back as Sjívull hopped forward a few paces with Drynllaf at his side. The shorter of the two strangers pulled a strange face, lips thinning and pulling wide to curl upward at the corners.

She was a woman, Sjívull realized. And very obviously being guarded by the large man at her side. As he drew closer, he tried not to stare at their strange faces. The nose was completely the wrong shape, the ears were small and round and stuck on the side of the head, and while his and Drynllaf’s moved constantly, theirs didn’t so much as twitch.

But their faces were mobile, agile, and expressive. There seemed to be a thousand little ways in which the set of the lips, the widening or narrowing of the eyes, or the set of the two thin little strips of dark fur on their brows could change.

They stopped far enough apart that neither of them could have thrown a spear.

“So…what now?” he asked Drynllaf. The bjerkar didn’t seem to have an answer.

The stranger did, however. She cleared her throat—at least that was familiar—took a small step forward, and raised her hand to perform a gesture of some kind. Sjívull didn’t recognize it, but at least her hands were the right shape. A thumb, four fingers currently spread in a rune-shape, two to each side, with the thumb held out away from them. Her voice was high and melodic.

It was a greeting. It had to be. So Sjívull did the only thing that made sense—he stepped forward, imitated the gesture with some difficulty, and did his best to repeat the words she’d used.

Amber Houston

Roy groaned. “Really?” he whispered.

Amber could feel herself about to burst into flames from embarrassment. “I couldn’t think of anything else!” she hissed back. To her delight, however, the shorter, better-dressed alien in the nicer clothing stepped forward a pace and spread his fingers wide to reciprocate her Vulcan salute.

He even did a passable, though mangled, imitation of the words.

“Lee…leevlahng. Anprasper.”

Amber heard Nikki snort through her earpiece. “Well, holy shit! I guess if it’s dumb but it works, it ain’t dumb…”

Roy somehow managed to keep a straight face. He must have retreated into whatever corner of his mind gave him his infinite reserves of stoicism.

“Language…” Amber muttered for Nikki’s benefit, took another step forward, and gestured to the ground in between them. The alien captain stepped forward, too, and together they left their bodyguards behind to meet in the middle.

As he—she assumed he was a he—got closer, Amber found herself looking up, and then up some more. The aliens were tall, incredibly tall and skinny. Amber had always seen herself as a beanpole, but next to the native sailor she felt like a McKay. Most of his height was legs, oddly curved so that he seemed to teeter around on his toe-tips, counterbalanced by a long, strong tail. He was covered head to toe in a short coat of sandy fur, except for a thick ruff around his throat that crept up over the top of his head and between his pointed ears.

The overall effect was a bit like somebody had combined a kangaroo and a lion, though he had sharp, calculating eyes and a face expressive enough to be human. He wore a thick woollen tunic dyed a rich wine red, cinched at the waist by an elegantly embossed and bejewelled leather belt, and accessorized by his finger rings and ear piercings. His hand strayed to his throat as they met, and he fidgeted with a small medallion as he considered her with an expression of fascination that mirrored Amber’s own.

What to do next?

Oh. Yeah. The food. A meal pack cinnamon roll wasn’t exactly the finest cuisine, but it was sweet and tasty, and hopefully a good gift. The alien accepted it politely when she handed it over, then sniffed at it. He glanced over his shoulder at his bodyguard, who gave a very human shrug and gestured as if to say go ahead.

The expression on the alien’s face when he nibbled a corner of it was pure comedy. His eyes went wide, his ears flew back, and he took a much larger second bite as if he couldn’t believe what he was tasting.

This was probably the first time he’d ever had processed sugar, Amber realized. She smiled, taking care to keep her mouth closed and her teeth hidden just in case that could be seen as threatening or rude, and knelt on the ground.

After a moment, the alien handed the roll to his bodyguard, spoke a few words in their language, then folded his legs underneath him to sit in a kind of weird cross-legged posture a human would have found hideously uncomfortable.

He put a hand to his chest and spoke a word. It ended with a weird hissing sound that Amber knew she was going to have the worst time pronouncing, and sounded a bit like “Syee-vutl.”

It was followed by a slightly easier word. “Wool-der-your-shahn.”

Okay. See-vul Woolder-your-shan. That was easy enough. She raised a hand to her own chest like he had and shared her name. “Amber. Houston.”

“Ember.” He rolled the r, but that just made it sound…charmingly soft, actually.

“Close enough for me, See-vutl,” she replied with a nod. He made a kind of hiccupping noise that was…maybe a laugh? His ears were up, and his tail curled into a question mark shape behind him, so hopefully that meant he was amused.

“See-yee-vu-[hiss],” he repeated.

Amber sighed and tried her best at the hissing sound. What came out was more of a quack, but it made him hiccup even harder, especially when she spread her arms and shrugged. Thank goodness they had that gesture in common.

She turned and gestured behind her. “Roy. McKay.”

See-vul looked up at Roy, who balled up his fist and smacked his chest very loudly. “Rroyee.” Again he rolled the r. Whether that was accent or just how their tongues worked, Amber couldn’t tell. “Hmm. Drin-[hiss]-av Gwel-in-see-are.”

He gestured at the large one with the sword, and Amber tried not to grimace. If that hissing sound was everywhere in their language, she was going to have a real tongue-twisting time of it. Either way, Drin-tlav tilted his whole body in what was maybe a shallow bow at her, but otherwise continued to watch Roy.

Okay. So they had “hmm” in common. And bowing. And shrugging. So far so good, they’d been getting to know each other for a few minutes, and there didn’t seem to be any imminent murder…

But she was out of ideas again. Playing for time, she plucked her water bottle from her belt and took a swig, then offered some to See-vul. He accepted it with what seemed like grace and thanks, took a modest swig of his own, then made an approving noise and waggled it at her, miming drinking some more. She waved a hand, trying to convey “please, be my guest,” and he drank half the rest before returning it.

Drin-lav spoke up and offered what sounded like advice, to which See-vul jerked his head—Amber got the impression that was maybe their version of a nod—and replied with what sounded like a command. The men behind Drin-lav moved to obey, whatever it was.

See-vul cocked his head and stared at Amber for a few seconds, then seemed to reach a decision. He pointed at the sky, balled a fist, and brought it swooping down while making a shoooom! sound effect with his mouth. Finally, he pointed at Amber and made an interrogative noise.

Amber did her best to imitate their head-jerk nod. “Yes.”

He sat back and considered her for a few seconds longer. She could feel him itching with questions and having no way to ask them, and could totally sympathize. And again, she was out of ideas.

Sjívull Wylderrjorssían

Sjívull was out of ideas. He liked this strange creature; he’d decided that quickly. And the sweetbread she’d given him was the sweetest thing he’d ever eaten. But how could he even begin to ask her all the things he wanted to know? She’d definitely said yes to the question of whether she was associated with the fireball in the sky, but that could mean anything! Had they caused it? Summoned it? Ridden in it like a boat?

Okay, that last one was ridiculous, but there was no way of asking!

At least she was having the same problem. There was nothing for it but to…go over the basics, he guessed. “Yes” and “no,” and the words for “name” and “rock” and “ship,” and work up from there, slowly and painfully.

It was an age-old problem seafarers had long talked about, but Wylderrjor had never thought to educate his son in how to handle it. Sjívull couldn’t blame his father; the old man had no way of knowing this would happen—in fact he was pretty sure Wylderrjor had never had this problem himself. But it would have been nice to know how to handle a situation like this.

Actually, Sjívull realized, he was probably lying to himself. No doubt he’d have found such lessons boring and taken the first excuse to escape from Fforthri the scribe’s clutches to go do something more interesting, like sword practice with Drynllaf. Maybe he even had, and didn’t remember.

He stole another glance at the big stranger, Roí. He’d never seen a man with shoulders so broad or muscles like that in his life, which had been spent surrounded by soldiers and bjerkars. Roí was at least twice as wide as Drynllaf and made him look as fine and fragile as a little girl, despite that Drynllaf was much taller.

Then again…Ember was a stocky, strong thing, too. Only the fact that she had Roí for company made her look small; by any other standard, she was the most…imposing woman he’d ever met. If he looked down at her bare legs, he could see the way the muscles creased, and her bones looked as thick as a mokug’s.

He’d always imagined Otherfolk would be slim and delicate. These people had a solidity to them that was very much of this world.

There was a…noise. It was totally unlike anything Sjívull had ever heard before, a short, pure note and a ringing sound that didn’t match any chime he’d ever heard. It came from Ember’s pocket.

She gave him a…Sjívull wasn’t sure what kind of look it was. She did that strange mouth-tightening thing again, which seemed to be a friendly kind of gesture, but…

She stood up and raised a finger while backing off. The impression Sjívull got was do you mind waiting? Sorry! as she retreated several steps to Roí’s side, pulled something from her pocket, and turned away to inspect it in private. Sjívull glanced over his shoulder at Drynllaf, who shrugged.

“If we’re staying here, maybe we should make camp,” he suggested.

“Carefully. My opponent might be skittish.”

“Hmm…” Sjívull took the advice with a nod. “Yes. Carefully. But get started.”

“Aye, young lord.”

Sjívull returned his attention to Ember and Roí, who were both studying the little thing Ember had taken from her pocket. He nearly fell over backwards when it spoke.

Amber Houston

DANI’s message was, naturally, full of advice.

Hopefully this message will reach you before you make contact, but considering the light delay, that seems unlikely. The best advice I can give at this juncture would be to be friendly and reasonable, but not a pushover. Share some small food-based treats and clean water—

Roy slapped Amber on the shoulder and managed to be both boisterous and quiet at the same time. “See! Way better’n a dumb ‘ol meathead like me.”

He either knew exactly what to say, or he got lucky. Either way, Amber felt buoyed by it. DANI’s message, of course, ignored him.

—trade names and establish a rapport. Don’t be afraid to give them some room if things get awkward. I took the liberty of compiling an intelligent software tool for you. It should be downloading into Launch 732 alongside this message. I have done my best, but please do not hesitate to send bug reports or feature requests. Hopefully it should expedite the language process.”

There was a brief pause, and then a different voice spoke:

Miss Houston, this is Captain Torres. I’m aware this is probably a daunting moment, but both DANI and my husband speak highly of you, which is as much a vote of confidence as I’ll ever need. I’m sure you’ll do us proud, and I promise that as much support as we can provide from up here is behind you every step of the way. Good luck.

The message ended with a beep.

“Short and to the point, I guess…” Amber muttered. “Wonder what this tool is DANI sent down?”

She found a text message with an attachment in her inbox, and opened it experimentally. She was rewarded with the words “Limited Intelligent Translation Assistant beta v.0.1.1” and below those the slightly smaller words “Connecting to local compute cluster...”

Finally, DANI’s signature—a smiling face with an intricate musical chime.

“Okay…” Roy muttered. “DANI and his acronyms, huh?”

Amber shrugged at him and then, feeling more than a little foolish, spoke to her U-Tool. “Uh…hello LITA?”

LITA’s voice was female but flat, artificial and uninflected. “Hello Amber. I Am Ready To Begin Assembling An Alien Glossary.”

“Right, ‘cuz that’s not gonna freak them out.” Roy eyed Drin-Lav warily.

“Uh…can you do listen mode only for now?” Amber asked.

“Command Accepted. Muting Audio Output. Please Refer To Graphical Interface For Prompts And Suggestions.”

On the screen, LITA showed suggestions about what it would be most interested in learning, along with prompts to indicate if Amber thought the point had been successfully communicated.

“Okay…” Amber breathed. “I guess I just have to explain a U-Tool to them now.”

“Piece of cake,” Nikki volunteered over the comms.

“Hmm.” Amber studied the screen for a second. LITA was asking her to go over most basic things, right down to pointing at a rock and saying “Rock.” But it was a place to start. She took a deep breath, turned around, and returned to See-Vul.

He eyed the U-Tool with interested incomprehension as she put it down in front of her and said something. Amber saw LITA record the phrase as [untranslated].

Oh well. Time to begin.