The first image was discreet clusters of shining balls. One, two three, five, seven. Interesting. Communication through numbers? Maybe. A good idea. How could the New People know how much she knew about them? Numbers were concrete, hard to mistake, and easy to understand. She chuckled to herself. Oh, clever, New People!
The second image was another sphere. Inside it glowed a star, with its surrounding planets. Despite the strangeness of it being represented in red and white, she recognized it instantly. Of course. The New People had eyes. They would see as the People did and create images they could recognize. This was the New People’s star system, with their world picked out in a red-and-white swirl, orbiting just beyond New Home.
It was as clear as the air around her, as alive as a wind from the highlands. The New People did want to communicate. They really were reaching out. She could not refuse them.
“Mustn’t be rude, after all.” She told her headset to send her voice on to the base and find Ambassador D’seun.
Silence descended while D’seun was located. T’sha looked at the camera’s image again and at the New Person raising their hand. Did they name themselves? What was this one called? Was it male or female? Some other gender T’sha had no name for? Was it the one she had spent so much time staring at? What did it think when it looked at her? She wanted to know everything immediately. The necessity of waiting made her itch.
“Ambassador T’sha, where are you?” came D’seun’s voice. If his voice was anything to go by, he was puffed up with anger again.
She gave him her coordinates, and from the resounding silence, she knew he recognized them. She said nothing. She waited for him to ask.
“What are you doing there?”
“I was led here. The New People are trying to communicate.”
Silence again. T’sha chose to interpret it as stunned disbelief.
“This is significant,” said D’seun dryly.
“Yes it is. I need you and yours to gather together everything you’ve got on how the New People communicate so we can find a way to answer them.”
“What…we…” he stammered.
T’sha swelled, although there was no one there to see. “We can delay this no longer, D’seun. I know you have been observing the New People closely for a long time now. I’ve seen your specialized constructors.” She looked down at the waiting transports and their viewing station. “The New People have tried to speak with us and are waiting for us to make some kind of reply. I will not disappoint them. You can help, or you can force me to tell the Law Meet about exactly who here has overstepped their commission.”
Stillness and silence. The wind buffeted T’sha, urging her to motion.
“How did they try to communicate?” he asked, finally. His voice was small and tight, as his body was right now, T’sha was sure.
“Visually. They have created a display with images.” The detail was very fine for all its lack of color. She could see the New People had five fingers on each hand, that they had crests of fine, long tendrils on their heads, that the elbows of their forearms bent in two, maybe three places, depending on how you counted.
“Effective. We’re not certain they hear as we do, but they can see the same wavelengths we do.” She heard the rustle of movement. “They have a written language. We have been working on deciphering it and have made great progress, we think.”
“Good,” she said firmly. “Then you can come and interpret.”
“T’sha, we must report this to the Law Meet.”
“As soon as we have something to report we will. We must address them now. They are waiting for us.”
Yet another silence. “You are pleased with this, aren’t you?”
T’sha hesitated, clutching the camera a little too tightly. It squeaked, and she eased her grip at once. “It is what I wanted, yes. I am not pleased with how I’ve gotten it. You must come here now, D’seun.”
She heard him whistle, low and disapproving, but in the end he said, “Very well. We will be there soon. Good luck, Ambassador T’sha.”
“Good luck, Ambassador D’seun.” The connection died, and she was left alone with the New People waiting below her.
Vee sat in the copilot’s chair on board Scarab Three, which looked exactly the same as Scarab Five. Helen Failia sat in the pilot’s chair as if it were the most natural place in the world for her to be. Adrian Makepeace and a woman named Sheila Whist had brought them down, but they were both in the back now, running diagnostics and suit checks and generally keeping themselves out of the way.
Through the main window, Vee watched the sheltered holotank with its trio of images—her own picture, taken from her image gallery, a set of prime numbers, and a miniature of the solar system with Earth highlighted. She’d been frustrated by the lack of color, but lasers were, by definition, monochromatic, and if they were going to make the one-week deadline, they had to work with what was available.