“Humans? I don’t understand,” Eugene said to the image of Jeffery, floating in his dark bedroom.
“We don’t yet either, Professor, but the fact remains that Solonis B is chock-full of human settlements.”
Eugene got up out of bed, causing his wife to stir.
“Grizzly Bear, what’s going on?”
“Go back to sleep, darling. Grizzly Bear has some work to do. I’ll be back before the sheets cool.”
Eugene transferred the call into his study, after pinching a snifter of single-malt whiskey.
Jeffery’s face coalesced in the air. “Grizzly Bear?”
Eugene regarded him coolly. “It would be better for your career if that didn’t find itself floating around the office.”
“Your secret is safe with me, Grizzly Bear.”
“You were saying, Jeffery?”
“Right. Aerial drones have confirmed five human settlements on the surface, so far.”
“So far?”
“Yeah. Orbital scans hint at another”—Jeffery glanced at his pad—“eleven possible sites. We’re sending drones to confirm which are abandoned and which are still active. And those are just the permanent settlements. Who knows about nomadic tribes.”
Eugene tried to rub the lingering sleep out of his eyes. “The question is, how in the world did they get there? We’ve lost dozens of ships without a trace over the decades. Maybe they’re descended from an expedition that went missing?”
“I already thought of that, but Felix says no. He, Harris, and Captain Ridgeway are still surveying the first settlement. The people speak the dead language of an Amazonian tribe that was supposed to have gone extinct centuries ago. There’s been some drift in the syntax, and there’s a smattering of Spanish in the mix, but it’s verified.”
“How in the world did they figure that out?”
“They used the advanced QERs to send audio samples back here. Our linguists compared it against the Endangered Language Archive and got a hit almost immediately.”
“So, not descendants of marooned spacers, then.”
“No, sir. Not unless an Amazonian tribe had a space program we missed.”
Eugene put the snifter to his nose and drew in the complex aroma of oak mingled with vanilla. “That leaves only one possibility. They were abducted.”
“It would appear so.”
“Wonderful.” Eugene lifted the glass and let the contents burn down his throat. “As if the damned fence wasn’t provocative enough. The advisory board is going to have a meltdown. We’ll be lucky if the president isn’t signing a declaration of war by week’s end.”
“On who, though? We haven’t even met any new races, much less figured out who’s responsible.”
“Panicked reactionaries aren’t going to let a minor detail like that stop them. I can hardly wait to see what that idiot Hackman has to say. You can be sure phrases like ‘mass alien abductions’ and ‘human breeding programs’ will feature prominently in tomorrow’s news cycle.”
Jeffery’s face became solemn. “You know, Professor, the QER messages still bottleneck through here. I could always … massage Mr. Buttercup’s reports, before G. Libby Hackman or any other self-styled ‘journalist’ get to see them.”
Eugene’s face was marble. “I wish you hadn’t said that.”
“I’m sorry. It was just a suggestion.”
“No, it’s all right. I wish you hadn’t said it because I’ve been thinking along the same lines. It was easy to ignore the idea when it sat alone in a corner, but now it has company.”
Eugene spun his glass around and watched the swirling remnants of his drink as he considered his decision.
“No,” he said with conviction. “No. We will not play the part of censors and propagandists. Hackman is a monster of our own creation, after all. He wouldn’t have been involved at all if we hadn’t tried to be so clever about controlling the narrative.”
Jeffery’s face sank.
“Oh, Jeffery, that’s not an admonishment of you. I approved the plan, after all. We were overconfident and got burned by one of the people we were trying to manipulate. It’s a mistake we should learn from, not double down on. Mr. Buttercup’s dispatches will remain unaltered. We still get to read them first, which gives us the time to adjust our messaging to anticipate and counter whatever meme the press decides to push. Are we agreed?”
“Completely, sir.”
“Good. Now, how the hell are we going to spin this to the board?”
* * *
Felix sat cross-legged on the dirt floor of a thatch hut, nibbling on a plate of some indigenous animal the locals referred to as kuluk, their word for “chicken.” This was notable only because kuluk, unlike everything else, didn’t taste even remotely like chicken.
Felix pored over notes in his data pad from the previous two days. He didn’t have a single credit of anthropology education, and his experience studying other cultures was limited to Irish pubs and a semipro soccer game he attended once. But Ridgeway’s survey team was shorthanded, and he’d stepped into the role with enthusiasm. Whether he knew it consciously or not, his drive to perfect new technology was merely a means to an end. Felix was slowly realizing he was an explorer at heart.
The survey team had set up base camp in the village of the Pirikura, at the behest of their chief. Felix still had trouble with his name, which seemed to be comprised of eighteen randomly arranged vowels with a popping sound somewhere near the middle. While he had issues with their language, no one could fault their hospitality. Their reasoning skills, on the other hand, were another matter entirely.
The Pirikura had a very tenuous understanding of gravity. They believed that when someone fell, the ground took the opportunity to run up and smack them like a drunken soccer hooligan.
This led to the odd conclusion that when falling, the best defense was a good offense. So from childhood, the Pirikura were taught to roll around and meet the charging ground with a mighty swing of the fist, just to let it know they didn’t intend to take any guff just because it was bigger than they were.
This of course led to arguments among the men about who could intimidate the ground the most and therefore safely fall the farthest. So was born the annual Ground Pounder’s Competition and Aged Berry Juice Festival.
Their unique theory of gravity had one advantageous side effect. When the Pirikura asked where the strangers had come from, the closest translation Allison could come up with for orbital reentry was, “We fell from the sky.” That’s quite a long way to fall, and probably explained the extreme deference the Pirikura were showing to their guests. It would probably last until someone asked how the visitors got up into the sky in the first place.
Felix was busy filing the myriad of holos he’d taken of the tribe and their mode of dress, or lack thereof. He was so engrossed in organizing that he didn’t hear the hushed footsteps creeping up behind him. Nor did he see the crouched forms encircle him. Only when prodded with a spear did he finally notice, and only then on the third poke.
After a moment of careful reflection, Felix realized that no matter how anachronistic, the ring of spears was still lethal to a man in a T-shirt, so he threw his hands in the air. His data pad hit the dirt with a thud. They didn’t look like any of the Pirikura Felix had studied. They were taller, for one, and their skin was adorned in black spots like a jaguar’s coat.
But the most prominent thing about the aggressors was their ears. Well, not their ears exactly, more the shriveled ears on cords hanging around their necks.
“Ah, hi?” Felix awaited a response.
He received it in the form of a rock to the back of the head.