Immediately they both turned to their terminals and looked at the data Jane was throwing at them.
“It doesn’t take any close analysis,” said Val. “This one is hopping with technology. If it isn’t the descolada planet, I’m betting they know where it is.”
“What I’m worried about is, have they detected us and what are they going to do about it? If they’ve got the technology to put things in space, they might have the technology to shoot things out of space, too.”
“I’m watching for incoming objects,” said Jane.
“Let’s see,” said Val, “if any of these EM-waves are carrying anything that looks like language.”
“Datastreams,” said Jane. “I’m analyzing it for binary patterns. But you know that decoding computerized language requires three or four levels of decoding instead of the normal two and it isn’t easy.”
“I thought binary was simpler than spoken languages,” said Miro.
“It is, when it’s programs and numerical data,” said Jane. “But what if it’s digitized visuals? How long is a line if it’s a rasterized display? How much of a transmission is header material? How much is error-correction data? How much of it is a binary representation of a written representation of a spoken language? What if it’s further encrypted beyond that, to avoid interception? I have no idea what machine is producing the code and no idea what machine is receiving it. So using most of my capacity to work on the problem I’m having a very hard time except that this one –”
A diagram appeared on the front page of the display.
“– I think this one is a representation of a genetic molecule.”
“A genetic molecule?”
“Similar to the descolada,” said Jane. “That is, similar in the way it’s different from Earth and native Lusitanian genetic molecules. Do you think this is a plausible decoding of this?”
A mass of binary digits flashed into the air above their terminals. In a moment it resolved itself into hexadecimal notation. Then into a rasterized image that resembled static interference more than any kind of coherent picture.
“It doesn’t scan well this way. But as a set of vector instructions, I find that it consistently gives me results like this.”
And now picture after picture of genetic molecules appeared on the screen.
“Why would anyone be transmitting genetic information?” said Val.
“Maybe it’s a kind of language,” said Miro.
“Who could read a language like that?” asked Val.
“Maybe the kind of people who could create the descolada,” said Miro.
“You mean they talk by manipulating genes?” said Val.
“Maybe they smell genes,” said Miro. “Only they do it with incredible articulation. Subtlety and shade of meaning. Then when they started sending people up into space, they had to talk to them so they sent pictures and then from the pictures they reconstruct the message and, um, smell it.”
“That’s the most ass-backwards explanation I’ve ever heard,” said Val.
“Well,” said Miro, “like you said, you haven’t lived very long. There are a lot of ass-backwards explanations in the world, and I doubt I hit the jackpot with that one.”
“It’s probably an experiment they’re doing, sending data back and forth,” said Val. “Not all the communications make up diagrams do they, Jane?”
“Oh, no, I’m sorry if I gave that impression. This was just a small class of data streams that I was able to decode in a meaningful way. There’s this stuff that seems to me to be analog rather than digital, and if I make it into sound it’s like this.”
They heard the computers emit a series of staticky screeches and yips.
“Or if I translate it into bursts of light, it looks like this.”
Whereupon their terminals danced with light, pulsing and shifting colors seemingly randomly.
“Who knows what an alien language looks or sounds like?” said Jane.
“I can see this is going to be difficult,” said Miro.
“They do have some pretty good math skills,” said Jane. “The math stuff is easy to catch and I see some glimpses that imply they work at a high level.”
“Just an idle question, Jane. If you weren’t with us, how long would it have taken us to analyze the data and get the results you’ve gotten so far? If we were using just the ship’s computers?”