Dark Running (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 4) by S J MacDonald

Author:S J MacDonald
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2015-09-22T18:30:00+00:00

* * *

The next signal came in just a few hours later. This time, though, the matrix let them down. The message was only three words, but that in itself made it more difficult to translate as there was so little context. The matrix could only give ‘probable’ translation for two of the words, and at that, with so many possible variations that it couldn’t generate any kind of definitive translation. Even reducing possibilities to translations which made sense left them with thirty seven possible readings ranging from ‘You (untranslatable) gift’ to ‘Death (untranslatable) you’.

‘So – are they offering us a gift, asking for a gift or threatening to kill us?’ Alex asked, looking around at the team.

‘I can’t get a handle on this…’ Jermane was almost frantic, working screens which were trying every which way to decode the untranslated word. ‘The nearest we’ve got, phonetically, ranges from ‘wujickshul’ to ‘yajuckshil’ but it’s not showing up with commonality to any known language…’

‘I’ve got nada,’ Davie admitted, looking up from his own bank of screens with a quick head-shake.

‘Me too,’ Shion gave the skipper an apologetic look, having run through her own linguistic knowledge and found nothing that would make sense of the unknown word. ‘Sorry.’

‘Breathe, people,’ Alex said, as the atmosphere on the command deck had become noticeably tense. ‘This was bound to happen. It’s normal. Amazing that we’ve got this far without hitting a stonewall. So, we signal ‘nal competz’ and hope that they get that.’

The Samartians evidently did, as they re-signalled about half an hour later, using a kind of stick-figure diagram to clarify their meaning.

In the diagram, a ship came to a world with blue stick figures on it. The ship had red stick figures. When the ship landed on the world and the red stick figures stepped out, the blue stick figures started to turn red, and to fall over. Within a few frames, they were all dead.

‘Ah!’ Many voices on the ship exclaimed, at that, with sudden understanding.

‘They’re asking if we’re infected,’ Simon got in quickly. ‘Specifically, if we’re carrying the plague, the Red Death. Be very very careful how you answer that!’ he reminded the skipper. ‘If you just say yes, they’ll almost certainly destroy us.’

He didn’t need to tell Alex that, but the skipper gave him a nod of acknowledgement anyway.

‘Give ‘we present no threat to you’ our best shot,’ he asked, and after a brief huddle between Shion, Davie and Jermane agreeing their best effort at translating that, they loaded it onto a comms probe for transmission and launched it past the other ships.

The Samartians, though, re-transmitted their question. They did so without emphasis, leaving Alex to decide whether they simply hadn’t understood the assurance, or weren’t prepared to accept it.

‘Okay – let’s send the primary medical databurst,’ he said.

This had already been prepared by Simon and Rangi Tekawa, in accordance with Alex’s request for the absolute minimum of information needed for the Samartians to work out what risk the ship might pose to them in terms of pathogens.

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