“Is there any support for your theory, friend Fletcher?” asked Prilicla, feeling that he already knew the answer. “Are there any spider vessels within visual range of this hypothetical signal?”
“I’m afraid so, Doctor,” the captain replied. “Our radar isn’t too accurate because their aircraft and ships are made from organic rather than metallic, reflective material. But it showed a fleet of six vessels, five of which changed course towards us within half an hour of the glider rising above their horizon. The other vessel headed in the opposite direction towards another fleet that is still too distant for us to resolve the number of units. My guess is that the sixth ship will launch a high-flying glider at first light tomorrow to relay the signal.
“Very soon all of the spiders on the surrounding ocean or on the land adjoining it will know we’re here,” it added, “and a lot of them will come to do something about it.”
“But what will they do, friend Fletcher?” said Prilicla, the sudden intensity of his own anxiety overwhelming that of the captain. “We have not committed any hostile acts towards them, we did nothing wrong, and when they attacked us we did everything possible to avoid hurting them. If they would only stop and think about what we did and, more importantly, from our obvious position of strength what we did not do, this problem could be solved by—”
“We did nothing wrong that we know of,” the other interrupted. “But don’t forget that they’re a new species. They me view our inaction as a sign of weakness or inability to hurt then or maybe they just hate us for being here.”
“If we could find a way of talking to them,” said Prilicla. “ we could just tell them that we don’t want to be here, either, they might help.”
Fletcher shook its head. “Pathologist Murchison exchange a few words, nouns, personal names, or whatever with what she called her spider captain, but not enough for the translation computer to do anything with them. And even if we were able to talk to them, that doesn’t mean they would believe us.
“I can’t help thinking about the bad old xenophobic days on Earth,” it went on, “and how we would have reacted toward an apparent invasion from the stars. We would certainly not ha\> tried to talk, or even to think about talking. We would have gathered our forces, as these people seem to be doing, and have at the horrible alien invaders with everything we had.”
Prilicla thought for a moment, then said, “The Trolanni began by hating us, especially you druul-like DBDGs, but the got over their phobia after you projected the shortened Federation history lesson into space outside their searchsuit. Tonight why not do the same? The spider ships are sure to have watch keepers on duty during the night to rouse their crews if anything happens. Make something happen, friend Fletcher.”
The captain shook its head, in indecision rather than negation. It said, “The Trolanni had star travel and the advanced technology to support it and were half expecting to meet other star-traveling species. The spiders don’t and weren’t. They would not understand. We’d probably scare them even more, give then more cause to fear and hate us and, well, we could end up seriously damaging the future philosophical development of their whole culture. Unless you can get an emotional reading from them to the contrary, first-contact protocol forbids us doing anything like that.”
“They are too distant,” said Prilicla regretfully, “and there are too many of them emoting at once for that kind of reading. All I can feel from here is a flood of hatred and aversion. If we could entice one or even a few of them closer, their subtler feelings could be analyzed. They will continue to stay away from us until the next attack. During an attack they will not be emoting subtle feelings.
“The ideal solution would be to find a way to make them talk to us,” he ended, “and not fight.”
“Yes,” said the captain, and broke contact.
He joined the rest of the medical team as they were moving the patients’ litters onto the beach for their daily supportive medication of fresh air and sunshine. A few minutes he spent hovering above and exchanging a few words with them in turn, beginning with the Terragar DBDG amputees before moving to the Trolanni CHLIs to join the quiet conversation they were holding. Keet was well recovered and fully capable of moving around without a litter and meeting the others, but the knowledge that the druul-like healer and patients would not hurt either of them had not yet penetrated to the deeper, emotional levels of its mind, so that it preferred to stay on its litter behind the screens knowing that the other patients could not leave theirs. Jasam was no longer in danger, but it would not help its condition if it was forced into premature visual contact with the other DBDGs. In any case, talking to the patients was not his primary reason for coming outside.