“In that order?” Charban asked.
“Yes. Get me answers, General. The Dancers pointed us toward Unity Alternate. Some of them left in a rush. Now this much larger group of their ships has appeared without warning, apparently using jump drives in ways we can’t. We need to know what game they are playing and whether they consider us teammates in that game or part of the playing equipment.”
“Admiral,” Charban said, “we’ve been trying to figure those things out since we first met the Dancers.”
“Get that green-haired girl,” Desjani suggested. “You know, the one who spots things no one else does. Maybe she can help some more with figuring out the Dancers.”
“Lieutenant Jamenson?” Geary asked. “That’s not a bad idea. General, we need to leave Varandal within a few days on an urgent mission. I can’t leave Varandal with forty alien ships here. There’s a very urgent need for answers.”
“I will try,” Charban said.
—
IT took some work to pry Lieutenant Jamenson loose from Captain Smythe this time. Smythe, dealing with the mountain of work required to get the fleet out of Varandal in a few days’ time, did not want to give up his most valuable staff officer. Geary, not wanting to alienate a subordinate as capable as Smythe, was reluctant to simply order the action. “You do realize, Captain, that if I don’t have Lieutenant Jamenson’s help in understanding why the Dancers are here, the fleet may not be able to leave as intended, and all of the work you are doing would be wasted?”
Smythe gave in.
As soon as he heard she was aboard, Geary went to the special compartment set aside for communicating with the Dancers. The fleet’s system security personnel had been horrified when it was discovered that Dancer software could modify itself to work with human hardware, leading to an ironclad dictate that the Dancer software had to be kept on gear physically separated from other equipment.
Lieutenant Jamenson was there, seated at the long table holding the special comm gear, as were General Charban and Tanya Desjani. “How does it look?” Geary asked. “Ever since they arrived in this star system, the Dancers have been heading toward Dauntless at point two light. They’re almost on top of us now.”
“Fortunately,” Desjani added, “they haven’t shown any signs of strengthening shields or powering up weapons. Having a bunch of alien ships charging on an intercept for my ship does worry me, though.”
“What have they told us?” Geary demanded.
Charban sighed heavily enough to have put out the candles on a birthday cake. “There is no indication of hostile intent. As usual, they sound friendly. The Dancers sent us a long message that translated as ‘hello, it’s nice to be here, how are you?’ I asked them why they were here. The brief response said ‘we are on a mission.’ What mission? An ‘important mission.’ Admiral, why don’t you shoot me and put me out of my misery?”
Desjani was shaking her head. “Why would they go to the trouble to come here, then not talk to us in any meaningful way?”
A long silence followed her question.
Lieutenant Jamenson had been gazing at the comm gear and now asked General Charban about it. “This shows us the translations of what the Dancers have said? In human words? Can I use this to hear the original messages they send?”
“The original messages?” Charban asked. “You mean, in Dancer language? Yes, you can do that. We used to listen to them as well as the translations, but we stopped because it didn’t seem to help at all. Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not important. But it occurred to me that I had never heard a raw Dancer message. Since it’s something I haven’t tried, and everything we have tried hasn’t helped . . .”
“That makes at least as much sense as anything else about the Dancers,” Charban said. “I will warn you that some of the sounds the Dancers make probably could not be rendered by humans. Here. See this command that says ‘origin’? That means the same as original. And this command will direct the sound to you. That brings up a window with volume controls and that sort of thing.”
“Thank you, General.”
As Jamenson leaned close to the equipment, listening intently, Charban looked back at Geary. “I asked how the Dancers had gotten here. The reply was ‘we traveled.’ How did you travel? ‘By ship.’”
“They have to be messing with us,” Desjani said. “They’re on those ships laughing as they think about us trying to understand those messages.”
“What does it sound like when a Dancer laughs?” Geary wondered, thinking of those wolf-spider faces. “Did you ask them about Unity Alternate?”
“I asked them about the many stars,” Charban said. “They said, ‘are you watching?’ I said yes. They said ‘good.’”
The resulting extended silence was broken by Jamenson. “They sound different,” she said, not like someone who has discovered something but as if she had no idea what she had found.
“What sounds different?” Charban asked her.
“The Dancer messages.” Jamenson turned a puzzled look on the other three. “When I listen to the first message they send us each time, when they start a conversation, it’s sort of long, and it sounds . . . it sounds sort of musical.”
“The sounds used in the Dancer language—” Charban began.
“No, General. Excuse me. It’s not that. Those opening messages have a sort of bounce to them, a feeling of . . .” Jamenson struggled for the right word. “Of someone saying a song.”
“Or a poem?” Desjani asked.
“Maybe, Captain. But then after we answer, they answer, and their messages are, um, flat.”
“Flat?” Geary asked.
“Yes, sir. Oh, listen for yourselves. You’ll see.”
Charban, not bothering to hide his skepticism, leaned over and tapped a command. “Go ahead and play them. We’ll all hear now.”
Geary concentrated as the first Dancer message played back, the sounds strange to human throats echoing softly in the room. “You’re right, Lieutenant. There is a sort of bounce to it. Like a . . .”
“A spoken-word musical instrument?” Desjani said, intrigued.
“And then,” Jamenson said, “here’s their response to our reply.”
The same sort of sounds could be heard, but this time even though they sounded the same, they felt different. “Flat,” Geary said. “I see what you mean, Lieutenant. But what does that mean?”
Charban was frowning in thought. “If they sang to us to start a conversation . . . there are animals that do that, right?”
“Birds,” Desjani said. “Insects, some mammals, those things on that planet in Kostel Star System. They sing to identify each other, to pass information, for mating—”
“I sincerely hope that’s not why the Dancers would be singing to us,” Charban said.
“Could they be songs?” Jamenson asked. “Songs without music?” She played one of the opening messages again.
Geary listened as the strange tones of Dancer speech once more filled the conference room, the pitch of the words merging, blending, and soaring. “It must mean something. Something that the Dancers’ own translation software isn’t picking up.”
“Why wouldn’t the Dancer software reflect it if it was important?” Desjani asked. “Because it seemed obvious to them?” she answered herself.
“Maybe,” Charban said, his expression shifting rapidly. “We do that all the time, assuming that something very basic doesn’t have to be explained because it is so basic that we believe everyone will just know about it. Are they . . . ? Could the Dancers be wanting us to sing back to them?”
“Like birds,” Jamenson said. “As the Captain said. One gives a call, and the other responds, so they know who each other is, and then they sing back and forth. But if you don’t respond with a song or a whistle, they don’t respond the same way.”
“That is not a bird,” Desjani said, pointing to the image of a Dancer.
“But what if that’s the problem, Captain? What if we’re looking at them and thinking ‘spider,’ and ‘wolf,’ and ‘yuck,’ because that’s what they look like to us? And we’re still subconsciously basing our assumptions about how they act and talk by how they look to us? But why should they have patterns of behavior that match the images we’re seeing? They’re alien.”
Charban was shaking his head in obvious dismay. “No matter how hard I tried, I kept seeing those images. You are absolutely right, Lieutenant. If the Dancers had looked catlike, I would have assumed they thought and acted and communicated like cats. And if instead they thought like horses, it would have messed everything up.”
“They want us to sing to them?” Desjani asked skeptically. “But there’s no music.”
“We can try,” Lieutenant Jamenson said. “I mean, not really a song maybe, but cast a message with rhythm and scales and—”
“Patterns,” Charban said. “That’s what songs do. They establish patterns of sound, patterns of words. Music. That’s described in terms of mathematics and proportions between scales.”
“Poems do patterns as well, right?” Jamenson added. “Some poems, anyway.”
“And we know how important patterns are to the Dancers! Of course their methods of communication would reflect that! Maybe it’s a sort of verbal handshake! ‘Hi, I’m intelligent and want to talk about intelligent things!’ ‘Hi, I am also intelligent and want to talk about intelligent things, too!’ We have to try this. Do you have any singers in your fleet, Admiral?” Charban asked.
Geary looked at Desjani, who made the universal human gesture of ignorance. “There must be some,” she said. “None of my officers, judging from their efforts during our occasional karaoke nights.”
“I didn’t know you had karaoke nights on Dauntless,” Geary said.
“If you heard my lieutenants and ensigns trying to sing, you’d know why it’s been a while since we held one,” Desjani said. “You can send out a message to all of the ships in the fleet, and I can have my crew checked to see if any claim singing talent—”
“I’d prefer not to spend a long time searching for singers before we can test this idea,” Geary said.
“Please don’t look at me,” Jamenson said. “If you put enough whiskey down me, I sometimes try to sing, but it’s the sort of sounds that would make any self-respecting alien within a hundred light-years run for home. How about poets? Maybe poems would work. Lieutenant Iger does haiku.”
Everyone looked at her.
“Lieutenant Iger does haiku?” Geary finally asked. Somehow, the image of the serious, straightforward intelligence officer didn’t fit such a thing.
“Yes, sir. That’s a kind of poem. They’re good,” Jamenson added. “Lieutenant Iger’s haiku, I mean. He really has a poetic soul. I think.”
“Lieutenant Iger?” Desjani asked in disbelieving tones.
“Yes, Captain.”
“Fine.” Desjani sighed. “Admiral, I recommend we get our intelligence officer up here to see if he can craft lovely poems for the singing spider wolves.”
Summoned on the double, Lieutenant Iger showed up at the conference room slightly out of breath. His eyes first fell upon Lieutenant Jamenson and her bright green hair, producing a reflexive smile that vanished as soon as Iger realized who else was present. Turning his usual sober and studious expression on Geary, Iger saluted. “You sent for me, sir?”
“That’s right,” Geary said, pointing to General Charban. “We need you to sit down with the general and write a poem for the Dancers.”
Iger blinked before managing to respond. “Sir?”
“Sit down with General Charban and write a poem to the Dancers,” Geary repeated. “What are the types of poems that you’re skilled at? Haiku? One of those.”
“For the Dancers?” Iger flushed slightly. “Admiral, my . . . hobby . . . is just a pastime. I’m not any good at it.”
“Lieutenant Jamenson says you are.”
Iger jerked with surprise and glanced at Jamenson. “She did? I mean . . . yes, sir. I’ll try, sir. A poem for the Dancers?”
“General Charban and Lieutenant Jamenson will explain,” Geary said, waving Iger in their direction.
He and Desjani stood watching as Lieutenants Iger and Jamenson huddled with Charban. “Who would have guessed that Iger had an, um, poetic soul?” Desjani murmured to Geary.
“I have a feeling that Lieutenant Jamenson may have awakened that particular part of Lieutenant Iger’s soul,” Geary commented dryly.
“Well, yeah, that’s what women do. We take rough objects and polish them up a bit. What if this doesn’t work, Admiral?”
“Then we’re no worse off than we were before.”
Lieutenant Iger was sitting, looking distressed and running one hand through his hair, while Lieutenant Jamenson spoke to him in a low voice, her expression encouraging. General Charban had leaned back and was pretending not to be aware of what the lieutenants were doing.
Finally, Iger stood up. “Admiral, I think this will do to convey the message General Charban wants to send. Ummm . . .
“Dark is this winter,
“Come now our friends from far stars,
“What do they seek here?”
Lieutenant Jamenson beamed at Iger with what seemed to Geary to be possessive pride, General Charban nodded approvingly, and even Tanya Desjani smiled. “Why the reference to winter?” Geary asked.
“It’s traditional in haiku, sir,” Iger explained. “There’s often a seasonal reference, and I thought—”
“That’s fine. I just wondered. Send it,” Geary said.
Charban poked the haiku into the transmitter, then everyone waited. “If they want to respond,” Charban said, “they’ll usually answer very quickly, and by now those Dancer ships are only a couple of light-minutes from this ship, so there shouldn’t be any major comm delays caused by distance.”
An alert tone sounded. Charban slapped the control, reading intently. He smiled, then sighed, then lowered his head to the table as if immensely tired.
“What’s wrong?” Geary demanded.
“Do you have any idea how much sleep and how much hair I have lost trying to figure out how to communicate better with the Dancers?” Charban said, his voice partly muffled against the table’s surface. He sat up, sighed again, then read. “Here’s the reply from the Dancers—
“Now we speak clearly,
“As one to one, side by side,
“To mend the pattern.”
Charban shook his head, looking dejected. “I feel like such an idiot.”
“No one else thought of it until now,” Geary said. “Lieutenant Jamenson, I’m going to get you promoted if it kills me.”
“Here’s the next message,” Jamenson said, looking abashed, as another tone sounded.
Charban read it out loud at once this time.
“Cold minds must be stopped,
“This mistake is an old one,
“We fight beside you.”
“The meaning of that is very clear,” Iger said, sounding surprised.
“They’re here to help us fight the dark ships,” Geary said. “I can’t believe that all this time they were waiting for us to sing back at them.”
“It must be how they regard serious talk,” Charban said. “As long as we avoided using any sort of rhythmic patterns in our speech, we must have sounded to them as if we didn’t want to talk about anything important. We kept giving them baby speech, and they kept responding in kind.”
“Find out what they regard as fighting beside us,” Geary ordered. “Make the questions as poetical as you want, but I need to know if that means they’re taking orders from me, or if they’re planning on operating independently on the same batt
lefield. They need to know that we’re leaving in a few days for Unity Alternate. Also, see if you can find out whether they did jump here from somewhere in Dancer-controlled space.”
“I have a list a kilometer long of things we need to get answers to from the Dancers,” Charban said. “But I will give priority to those. What do you think of ‘this mistake is an old one’?”
“We’re not the first species to try to outsource responsibility for killing,” Desjani said. “Apparently that can produce results bad enough that the Dancers want to help us stop humanity’s efforts in that direction.”
“Did someone among the Dancers do it?” Geary wondered. “Put AIs in complete control of weapons?”
“They are natural engineers,” Charban noted. “And you know engineers. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could build this? Let’s try! The awesomeness of building it fills their imaginations, and as a result, the question of whether or not building it would be a good idea doesn’t always get asked.”
“In that respect, they may be very much like us,” Geary agreed. “Lieutenant Iger, you are to work directly with General Charban and Lieutenant Jamenson to facilitate communications with the Dancers. That task takes priority over any other assignment.”
“Yes, sir.” Iger did not appear to be too put out at the prospect of working closely with Jamenson for an indefinite period. “My chiefs can run my intelligence section for a while and will let me know if they discover anything.”
Geary and Desjani left the other three, walking through the passageways of the battle cruiser, Desjani looking around in a way that conveyed concern. “They’re going to target Dauntless again,” she said to Geary.
“There’s no doubt of that. Our goal is to hit their base while most or all of the dark ships are away,” Geary reminded her. “We knock out their support structure, and, in time, they’ll run low enough on fuel cells and expendable munitions for us to be able to take them down.”
“And if a lot of the dark ships are there when we arrive?” Desjani asked. “Forty Dancer ships are welcome reinforcements, but they’re not enough to even the odds.”