From: kjc@aramis.rutgers.edu (Kelly J. Cooper) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [MG] First Contact Keywords: Prolific? I can't even begin ... Message-ID: Date: 7 May 93 00:51:55 GMT "The prime directive forbids interference in the internal affairs of other cultures. It is our most important law." -James Kirk "Momma never told me there'd be days like these. Strange days indeed ... most peculiar ..." -Beatles ------------------- "Welcome to our lighthouse." The scent of lilacs poured into the room from the garden beyond. The early-evening shade made the enclosed courtyard a rainbow of dark-purple and darker-green, when the gentle glow from the jeweled mosaic of the warding-spell caught fire and began to cast its own light over the interior. Jameson breathed gratefully of the garden. She missed flowers. 'Raelf, ar'Elya and Kardia passed under the archway and Jameson, following behind, first scraped the dirt from her walking boots on the grating before passing through. Automatically glancing to the right she swung off her over-jacket and began to hang it on the coat rack, only to hesitate a moment ... it was so hard to feel, well, safe. Settled. Not about to bounce through a gateway to distant places, different people, leaving anything behind that she didn't remember to tie to her body. There had been that wretched month without shoes on rocky shores, um, 600 years ago or so. She'd had to modify the bottoms of her feet to heavy nearly nerveless thick skin. And a very cold couple of days minus her jacket. She'd burned a huge number of calories maintaining core temperature. When had that been? She had taken to sleeping with her arm wrapped through the straps of her pack since the time her atmospheric had bounced her out of the burning hostel in Playa. Should she ... could she? ... leave something behind now? In real time, it looked like she paused for a moment while her shoulders clenched briefly then relaxed before she dropped her jacket on the coatrack, beside Kardia's pile of belongings. Two long strides caught her up with the others. The inside wasn't typical Generican architecture. There wasn't a lot of clutter, for one thing: no fancy carved furniture, sticking out from every available wall because the closet hadn't been invented; no intricate, patterned carpet imported from Rameshan, concealing a polished wood or stone-transformed-from-mud floor. There was a cobblestone-floored walkway surrounding a sunken, plush-carpeted area, which was stocked with overstuffed sofas and chairs, footrests, arranged to allow either privacy or access to the View. A black oak cabinet, hip-height, stood between two of the sofas, and a brazier style fire-pit, empty but with wood prepared, waited in the center. There was no obvious place for the smoke to go, and no stain on the walls or ceiling. Beyond the sunken area, a single plate of glass, or something very like it, showed an unobstructed view of the west: the Great Blue, the Harbor of Generica, the sea-wall extending out on the north side, the surf and turbulence of the scattered rocky shoals below, and a heap of clouds on the horizon, scudding south, promising an early summer sunset to set the skies on fire. Kardia's face, on seeing all this, showed a homesickness so intense that it was almost painful - the others politely avoided intruding. She, in turn, moved to the glass wall, and stood watching the ocean and sky for a while. Ar'Elya opened a small cabinet on wheels, black oak, one of only two pieces of purely wooden furniture in the place, and a pitcher, prepared and iced, and four heavy-bottomed near-spherical glasses, with only a fairly small opening at the top. She began to prepare some sort of decoction using the contents of the pitcher, and a few bright-colored pieces of fruit from a dish in the cabinet. Meanwhile, 'Raelf had gone sprinting up the ramp that spiraled around from the entry into the ceiling, then come back down a few moments later carrying a bundle under one arm. Kardia turned back towards the room at his reentrance, took one deep breath and quirked a smile at his haste. "Sorry - I know this is kind of lame, but I didn't have time to set this up before, had to leave before we got here." He began by taking the bundle apart, revealing a sort of tripod made of rune-carved staves studded with gems and filigree, connected in the center by a ring of brightly silver metal, and connected around top and bottom by a web of finely spun wire that tightened when the staves were spread, but followed a curve that wasn't there. A small bowl was placed in the center of the tripod, down by the metal ring, and an incense-cone placed in the bowl. "When we're ready to start the formalities, I'll open up a commlink to the Travellers' College so we can get a record of the agreements and set up some secondary contact plans." "Lovely," Jameson said vaguely, nodding and staring at the ocean. She accepted the drink offered her, looking curiously at it for a moment, then smiling and sipping delicately at the straw. The drink was a mixture of fruit juices, seltzer, and a very small amount of a mild and harmless euphoric, and was very refreshing. Kardia sank back into a sofa, sighing blissfully, enjoying the wash of sunlight through the window, and sipped. 'Raelf fiddled some more with the tripod contraption, and with a gravelly whisper, <> the incense began to smoke, quickly creating a perfect sphere of pale grey smoke almost five feet across, resting exactly on the tops of the tripod-legs. When the sphere completed, it began to change colors very slowly, shading first into yellow. <> - the sphere flickered, and filled with an image: Traveller, the Gold Elf who ran the WorldGate service. "'Raelf. What can I do for you?" "Please set up a direct-connect for me. Traveller's College on ssCh'Sch'CH'kan, initialization code -First Contact- please." The Elf blinked, then moved off to the side, the image not tracking him completely. After a moment, the Gate began to whirl blackly in the background, then the image vanished as a different face appeared, an insectile torso, the creature retreated enough to be seen clearly. It was something like a praying mantis, but its eyes sparkled with ever-changing views of starfields. <> (Jameson watched from her vantage by the window, Kardia from the sofa. The conversations were happening in an impossible language made up on one side from the sounds of water, wind, earthquake, and on the other, the hiss of stellar radiation and the background noise of excited hydrogen. Somehow, listening without judgement, the meanings of the words came through.) <> <> <> The mantid clicked its jaws in satisfaction. <> <> The mantid's antennae quivered with shock and its eyes whirled. <> The mantid did something with two of its fore-hands and a chime sounded. <> <> ar'Elya smiled, while 'Raelf quietly explained this fact to Jameson. Looking up, Jameson set her drink down and nodded mutely at 'Raelf. She stood and moved to the sphere. The mantid observed her closely, but she could recognize little of its body language. She looked over her shoulder at 'Raelf. "Can Traveller hear me? And, can we set up a separate viewer, or split screen this one? I don't want to put your contact on hold." "No problem," 'Raelf said, and spoke in the same strange speech: <> In the usual three-and-a-half dimensions of human perception, the tripod was replaced by two tripods each half the size of the first. One still held the image of the mantid, flickering in fields of frost and ivory as the waves of change rippled slowly through the Contact room in the Traveller's College; the other held the image of the Gold Elf Traveller, who nodded to Jameson. "I hear you." She said softly, "Traveller? Jameson W. Walker. Please send a speak request direct-link to the coordinates I give you, Galactic Standard 2." "Hold please, Jameson Walker. 'Raelf, please provide conversion for Galactic Standard 2, coordinate system is not known to my daemons." "You don't have a UT? Bogus! Comin' your way, dude." 'Raelf flickered briefly, appearing in the screen with Traveller, and handed him a lens that glowed with a whirl of milky light, then waved at them through the commlink and vanished. Jameson shook her head and continued, "Designation: Walker, specific: Jameson W., delineation: First Contact, particular: Meta, delineation: upload, particular: maps. Mark." She let out a breath and took another one before singing the long string of coordinates, her voice rising and falling, punctuating the first number of each set. When her song died away, there was silence, then a distant <>. Then, more clearly, "Accepted transmission. First contact proceedings in progress. Greetings Walker." Kardia was surprised to hear a language common to shippers being spoken. Gradually a figure took shape in the sphere, lines and shadows gradually resolving themselves to the compact upper torso and head of what looked like a traditional dwarf, but with a fuller and shorter beard. His eyes and beard were both dark brown. He raised his left hand, three fingers and two thumbs spread, in greeting. Jameson returned the gesture and smiled. "Greetings Cail. I'm glad it's you. I am requesting Elder Grimin to oversee the contact and The Mi-Hay grol-Re as First Witness." Cail inclined his head slightly. "Elder Grimin is on his way. The grol-Re was contacted as soon as your transmission was cleared. She should arrive at the same time as the elder." He paused briefly, "A Meta, Jameson? We thought they might exist, but we never expected..." he trailed off. "Are you sure?" Jameson nodded. Cail looked incredulous, but left the topic for another, "You are nearly at the fifty mark, Walker. Preparations were being discussed for retcon." She smiled slightly at Cail and said nothing. Almost as the silence became awkward, an old Onari male stepped into the room. Cail bowed and backed away from the console. Elder Grimin approached and grew larger in the sphere. His beard and eyes were a very pale shade of brown, mostly blond. "Jameson. This will be a great honor. Verification?" Jameson bowed slightly, then performed a complicated greeting gesture. "I am sure of it, Elder. We have contacted a Meta. They thought you... us, a myth." Grimin nodded then smiled slowly. "We have thought the same of them for a long time." He paused, "We worried about you, Elder Jameson." "Please, Elder Grimin, I am not a member of Council." Jameson protested, looking almost frightened. "Walker..." He was interrupted. "JAMESON!" The Walker's head snapped upward and she caught sight of The grol-Re, face wreathed in smiles, approaching the console from behind Elder Grimin. "Re! It is good to see you." Jameson's own smile grew at the sight of the energetic leader of her adopted clan. The female Onari in question sketched a formal greeting to the elder and took her place beside him. Her hair was pure white, and her eyes held only the slightest tint of blond. "Jameson. It has been too long." The grol-Re's tone now was quieter and both she and the Elder looked at her expectantly. If Jameson had been raised by parents, she would have found the spectacle highly ironic. "Elder. grol-Re. I ... became lost." Jameson's jaw tightened slightly. The Elder began to express concern, but The grol-Re held up a hand. "Do you need recall?" Her tone was even, betraying no judgement. Jameson took one breath, then two. "No." She looked into the eyes first of the Elder, then The grol-Re and smiled genuinely. "I became found. It has simply been a difficult journey. Are the preparations complete?" Cail, partially off-screen, did something with both his hands. "I think we can begin." Both venerables nodded. Jameson held her hands out, palms upward. "I, Jameson, as a Walker of the Mi-Hay clan, do claim First Contact rights with the Travellers, Meta-race," at this The grol-Re looked almost shocked, "and fellow mappers. I waive Expert Rights in favor of Cail, my <>," Cail's eyes widened, "First Contact rites are about to be performed and recorded by both races. At the completion, there will be an exchange of data. I am uploading to both you and the Travellers. Once the formalities are completed, I entrust you to continue the Contract proceedings for the service of all Beings. An even exchange of information has been negotiated and will be ratified. Ever walking." The grol-Re and Elder Grimin both murmured, "Accepted. Ever walking." Cail was still staring at Jameson with a slightly glazed expression. He snapped back to attention and said fervently, "Accepted. Ever walking." Elder Grimin opened his hands, "Greetings to the Travellers. We are honored. Jameson, you have our <>." The voice of the mantid came through, translated to a pleasant neutral humanoid speech in the same shippers' common-tongue: "World Gate Nexus-prime-prime1, contact coordinates have been logged, we are initiating second-order linkage, to complete and link after first contact has been registered. Syncronicity established." Jameson stepped away from the globe and turned to the 'kan. She bowed slightly to 'Raelf, her eyes never leaving his. She repeated this gesture to ar'Elya. She winked at Kardia then composed herself and spoke in a ringing tenor ... "My name is Jameson W. Walker. Jameson is who I am; Walker is what I am. I am a Walker for the Onari, The People of the Maps, We Who Search for the Shape of the Universe, They Who Seek the New. I am an Emissary. I am also known as <> among the Mi-Hay, the tribe of my Teacher. Our coordinates are distant and our databases vast. I formally greet you 'Raelf and you ar'Elya of the Travellers and extend the grasping-unit of cooperation and mutual benefit." 'Raelf and ar'Elya bowed in return, holding gaze, and ar'Elya spoke. "I am ar'Elya, thirty-ninth of sept `en' of Hunter clan 'lyand, Traveller of the roads beyond, also called Reflecting Stone. I act as Emissary for the College of Travellers of the not-Food of the Place Which Falls Apart Our coordinates are unique and our databases growing, and I formally greet you, Jameson W. Walker, child of Mother, and extend the grasping-unit of cooperation and mutual benefit in return." 'Raelf looked sideways at ar'Elya, and muttered. "You had to do the full high translation, didn't you." He winced, and began. "I am 'Raelf, twenty-fifth of the true line of Hunter clan 'Raelf, heir to the spear of the hunter and the place of returning, also called Curious Wanderer. I act as Emissary for the College of Travellers, for the race known as the 'kan, in the Place called ss'SCHcsh'kan, the Place Which Comes Undone. As Emissary I offer you in free exchange our coordinates and our databases, and formally greet you, Jameson W. Walker, and extend the grasping-unit of cooperation and mutual benefit." He smiled weakly and gave an I'll-get-you-later look to ar'Elya, who simply blinked slowly and returned him a gaze of pure innocence. They stepped forward simultaneously, touching hands together, then broke the grip and returned to their places. Jameson smiled and knelt to open her pack. "Now, toybox time." She pulled out her deck and untangled the goggles, hanging them around her neck but not plugging them in. The case was black and made of something that wasn't only plastic, nor only stone, nor only glass. It was embossed with a myriad of tiny bumps of script in hundreds of different tongues. Stepping back to the globe, she set the deck down on floor beside the brazier. Kneeling beside it, she passed her hand across the top and what looked like a lens revealed itself in the center of the top. Jameson cocked her head to one side and her eyes dropped to half-lid. A soft glow resolved itself above the deck. Gradually it focused to reveal a star map with the familiar skies of Nexus above it. It rotated slowly to display stars farther along the hemisphere of the eastern continent. With a soft sigh, Jameson allowed it to resolve itself into a completely different configuration. The display began flipping erratically through a sequence of maps and focusing on a particular galaxy, then a system and finally a particular planet, seeming to rush toward them only to stop abruptly and hover, whirling slowly. It was dirty brown in color. "My home," she whispered softly. Then the maps began to flip again, none of the images remaining long enough to make an impression on the retina. Finally, it stopped on another image. "Onari." She opened her eyes slightly to look at 'Raelf and ar'Elya. "In some cultures, the most dangerous thing you can do is show someone the way to your home." She smiled strangely and continued, "The Gateways between Worlds are marked according to what they do and the level of stability they maintain. The maps are linked by star coordinates, thus creating the not-quite-seamless whole. We use the folds of space almost exclusively. The Onari have little ability for inter-dimensional nor magical." She looked back at the deck. The image blurred and resolved again, in many colors, a detailed elevation map of the eastern edge of the Great Heath and parts of the Mysty Mountain range. It shifted gradually East and the tiny figures of a man, a giant, dragon and some numbers appeared beside one of the shorter mountains to show scale. More abruptly this time, the view shifted once again to a detailed scheme of the interlocking network of paths, roads, and byways that criss-crossed the swatch of land between the mountains and Generica. "Roads. You asked for these, I believe? I have the entirety of area mapped all the way to within a few hundred miles of the East coast of the continent. They're yours, part of the exchange, under one condition. Do not give or sell any maps with this much detail, except by your discretion. We believe rather strongly in allowing locals to despoil or maintain the mystery of their own worlds as they see fit, without our help." She smiled and moved her right hand. The display disappeared and she took a deep breath and leaned her head to the left, then the right to stretch her neck muscles. "Transfer conditions logged and accepted," ar'Elya replied smoothly. "Our own conditions are that you not provide our maps and travel routes to persons who are unable to comprehend the hazards of following them. All hazard information is logged and tagged." Jameson nodded. Meanwhile 'Raelf was whispering to his deck. It sprang to life, projecting its own sphere of illusion in the air. "Here we go. I've mapped the local coords-set to my astrolabe so the correspondence will be meaningful to you. At first, anyway." The starmap appeared, lines and annotations still present in it. After a few moments, the star-marks began to grow, expanding as spheres, with the center of each sphere marked by a symbol which somehow communicated its meaning to the observers: Corah, the heat of battle; Rendai, love's proper focus; Jardah-planet, ruler of the rulers. The spheres began to overlap, and the view backed away, showing a complex twisting foam whose overlaps began to make up a twisting image somewhat like DNA and somewhat like the insides of a Mandelbrot function. A line appeared, leading from a small nexus point marked with a beacon to another marked with a gate. Then from the gate, a whirling line went off and around, as the structure twisted and folded upon itself, a red line that managed to completely avoid contacting any of the spheres. It curved, or the structure curved, to contact another nexus, this one at a frayed end of the structure, which grew more and more detailed, as the line grew closer: it was another solidity where the spheres came together, but instead of forming a line, they flickered in and out of connection, as the one sphere whose overlap held them together, fluctuated back and forth in the imaginary space holding the spheres. The line terminated at a nexus marked with a carillion. "The hard way home," 'Raelf said, scratching his arms. "I'm allergic to that route - it's a wormhole, y'see. I'd go via this other path." The deck reset to Generica, then flickered a green line from the beacon-nexus and out along the curves of the spheres, skipping in and out from the solid parts along what turned out to be a relatively straight line, ending up at the carillion-nexus. "There are faster routes," ar'Elya indicated, pointing as one flickered before them, a yellow line crossing through four spheres. "But more boring and much more hazard involved," 'Raelf replied. "Right." She smiled. "Right." He considered kissing her neck, and decided it would look bad on the First Contact log. <> came a satisfied hiss of static from the sphere displaying the image of the mantid. The sound changed again to the pleasant intonations of the translation. "The coordinates for the Onari are now in our databases. Honor to the Travellers who bring knowledge to our convocation. Elders of Onari, we greet you in the name of the College of Travellers and in the name of the 'kan. Our probe spins across the layers of reality to your emmisary halls. Sing to us, we ask, of the place where our probe may meet with a communications mechanism of your own." The grol-Re spoke then. "Emissary of the Travellers, har'ekChik, we return greetings for the Onari. Please send your probe to our communications locus at heliopause, coordinates to follow." She sang, a clear wavering tenor, the location of a communications relay that sat in space above their sun. "Onari, prepare for secondary contact." In the second sphere, where the Onari were shown, the one called Cail began speaking through another communications linkage. "Relay station four, prepare for incoming visitor." "Acknowledged." On 'Raelf's deck display, a glowing pulse began at the nexus marked with a carillion, and shot out across the emptiness where there were no spheres, arching back to an unmarked nexus of a half-thousand of the lines where spheres intersected. Light bloomed there, and it rapidly expanded, with blinding flashes, hundreds of tiny symbolic annotations, finally freezing to show a small glyphic representation of a walking man, inscribing on a map. "Relay station four reporting radiation anomalies. Cail, there's a wormhole appearing four marks heliotropic of our position." "Observe, station four." "There's something coming through the wormhole. It's a crystalline object, resembling a moth. The wings are changing shape - the thing is holding position in front of our third backup antenna bank. Cail, it's sending data packets in a shift-standard notation. Our translation units are handling it. Patching through - it's issuing a communication request for your offices. Please explain." "First contact has been made, relay station four, we're preparing to exchange maps. I have to go now, the communication request has just come through here. Jameson, are you still connected? We have contact, do you wish to make further communication at this time?" "Not today, Cail. I'll contact you soon." The sphere which held the Onari communications went black, and with a sidewise twist, it vanished, returning the original to its larger state. The two 'kan turned to Jameson, and 'Raelf spoke. "So, we can set up some kind of translation on our end, maybe exchange a few basic symbols. You OK with that?" Jameson smiled. "Of course. Do you want to keep your phone off the hook while we do that?" She pointed to the communication spell sitting atop the tripod, still watching them in Record mode. 'Raelf grinned, and waved at the black sphere. The mantis returned, inclining one antenna. <> he asked, and the mantis replied, <> <> He moved to close the connection, but the mantis held up one claw in negation. <<'Raelf - congratulations, old friend, on thy new clan.>> <> He touched the sphere, and it popped, the smoke vanishing. --- Hutch (Combinatorial posts are such fun) hutch@ibeam.intel.com Liralen Li | "What you feel can make it real aka Phyllis Rostykus | real as anything you've seen..." li@Data-IO.com | - Peter Gabriel, _So_ Kelly J. Cooper kjc@cs.rutgers.edu