Blind Man: Conclusion *** “The Stross will rendezvous with a vessel in planetary orbit. You, Mister Graham, will transfer to the waiting vessel and interact with the crew stationed there. This vessel is not of human origin, and as such, you will be the first member of the human race to initiate safe contact with the natives of Julia.” Peter sat with Jace in a meeting with Captain Alexander Krissanov and the Chief XO, Commander Lynette Hayes. For most of the mission, they were remote to Peter’s concerns: extensions, he thought, of Noriko, unwitting though their collaboration might have been. He knew, that even from their distance, they were aware of his every move on-ship, of his every training simulation, and private moment with Jace. He was sure that they had security recordings of the off-shift hours he’d spent with Jace, making sweat and keeping quiet in ways that made their bed-play particularly naughty; he blushed at the thought. And now, as if in punctuation to Captain Krissanov’s words, Peter felt his fingertips chill. He sat forward, spine erect, shoulders squared. “I won’t make contact on the planetary surface?” “The planetary surface presents the greatest threat,” Krissanov said. Commander Hayes sat forward. “Orbital contact provides a greater number of controls; the environment is limited, and the available palette of stimuli will be easier for you to manage and convey.” “But I received training for on-planet contingencies.” “Yes,” Hayes said. “This was necessary in that you’ll be dealing, face to face, with natives of the planet, and—as I’m sure you know—they are as aware of the planetary environment as you are with the environment of Euclid.” Jace shifted, sat forward, and—in Peter’s peripheral sight—skewered Commander Hayes with a level and unblinking gaze. “So,” he began. “We’ll be in a situation in which it’s absolutely necessary to take into account certain elements of…physical language…kinetic collocation, if you will?” Hayes nodded. “The natives of Julia…the Julians, as their nickname stands, rely on a complex, vocal language with certain physiological metaphors, as is common among many human languages. This isn’t your major focus, however.” “It isn’t?” from Jace. “The Julians,” Captain Krissanov said, as if uncomfortable with the name, “have built a vessel to our specifications, but their construction techniques are undoubtedly informed by their own sense of awareness…body awareness as you’d call it. We’ve determined that individuals with your physiological…attributes…are well-suited to Julian contact in such an environment, and it’s safer, we’ve determined, than full immersion in the planetary environment, where quite a number of factors are likely to contribute to the sensory assault that damaged the crews of our predecessor ships.” Peter hugged himself against a chill. “So, the threat of the natives isn’t simply a visual threat?” Krissanov shook his head. “On the planet, there is a threat that is potentially auditory, or perhaps even tactile or olfactory. On the Julian vessel, such environmental influences are minimized. You’ll initiate contact with only one member of the Julian species, though an operational crew of five exists on the vessel. “The Julians are aware of human physiological needs, and possess an understanding of both spoken and written Pan-Human Standard. Their own form of communication is verbal, though a purely vocal modality is not their only method of speech; they are capable of an optical language as well, and it is our understanding that this optical form of speech is a contributing factor to the psychological damage suffered by the crews of the Van Kleewyn and the Intrepid.” Jace shifted and leaned forward, planting his elbows on the shiny-gray surface of the meeting table. “From what you’re saying, humans have had contact with these beings since the Intrepid Event; and you’ve outlined a contact methodology that indicates more extensive contact with these creatures than circulates in unclassified-access. This makes me nervous.” Commander Hayes cocked one eyebrow. “And why is that?” “There is, undoubtedly, more that we haven’t been told…and I’m curious as to what bearing on the success of this mission such information might have in its current, undisclosed state.” “You know all that we do,” Captain Krissanov said. “What details we’ve omitted were done so simply for economy. “The synaptic dumps you’ve both received will continue to decompress, if they haven’t already, and so, by Contact, you’ll know all there is to know about the Julians and what we hope to achieve through your efforts.” Peter nodded. “But there’s one thing I want to know now,” he said. “Yes?” from Captain Krissanov. “Whether this information decompresses later or not, I’d like to know now why we’re referring to this species as Julians…surely they have their own name for themselves.” “They do,” Captain Krissanov said. “It is expressed visually, and there seems to be no vocal equivalent to the…term. The crews of both the Van Kleewyn and the Intrepid had full access to this name, and after an analysis of contact records from that time, we’ve determined that the very self-determined name of this species is the primary contributing factor to the radical psychological damage humans are known to suffer following contact with the natives, and even exposure to their planetary environment.” *** It was days since the meeting with Captain Krissanov and Commander Hayes, and now—blind—Peter felt the tight cling of the high-tech cat-suit seemingly grown to his specifications. His skin tingled with sensory input: suit-enhanced compensation for the loss of his sight; his blood was thick with noontropic substances, noragenerics, and other pharmacological enhancements administered in the ship’s medical bay; it was Doctor Dominguez who’d deactivated his ocular processors. Jace had command of his optical triggers, and wouldn’t reactivate until he was back on board the Stross. “All systems are go.” That was the StrossAI, speaking in feminine aspect. There were times he’d heard the AI speaking in masculine tones, and at other times in a sexless, genderless manner. “I have initiated phase two of the pre-launch sequence.” There was little for Peter to do, now. He sat, strapped into the flight couch, curious about his surroundings. He could feel the contours if the small shuttle around him, could smell the cool air, and hear the sounds of automation. If he stopped and thought about it, he could extrapolate the whole interior of the vessel, right down to the smallest details, and to occupy himself and to keep himself calm, he thought of the shuttle and of the crew that made it ready in the long hours he’d spent with Jace and eventually in the dress-out locker room. In less than an hour, he’d stand face-to-face with an alien. Over there. Out there. —Where humans went mad if they saw too much of who they’d been sent to talk to. He closed his eyes, more from reflex than anything else. The darkness surrounding him remained unchanged. *** Departure had been smooth, as expected. The Stross crew was good: the best the Service had, if they were out here, and so it came as no surprise that Peter felt very little of his transit from the docking bay into cold/open interplanetary vacuum. The only evidence of his forward momentum came as a faint, vibrating hum, and the odd harmonics of sleeting waves of radiation impacting the shuttle’s EM shields. Only a blind man could hear such harmonics, Jace said, and to Peter, the sound was loud, distinct, and complex. He described the sound to Jace, endowing it with poetic resonance…for use later, he thought, in less-dire circumstances. Dire? Wrong word, but he’d never dealt with aliens before, and so the word for its ill-fit, was strangely appropriate. “Beginning docking maneuvers now,” the AI announced. And Peter felt a shift in the below-deck vibrations. The shuttle rolled and he felt that; attitude thrusters tweaked his forward course, and he felt that too…a thump…thump-thump that jostled the delicate fixtures of his inner ear. He felt a fluttering wave of nausea, a chill in his fingers, and breathing through an exercise to calm himself, he thought of Jace: back there, on the Stross experiencing this with him: digitally, of course, but with him nonetheless. Another thump, and a resonating, gong-sound ran through the shuttle’s hull. “Docking complete,” the ship’s AI said. “You may proceed to the airlock.” *** The place stank of cheese and ashes and something like ozone. The air—Peter noticed—was humid and warm: abnormal for a ship-board environment, but well within human tolerances. These creatures, the Julians, were human in their environmental needs, though their air was richer in something like methane. He could smell it: something like volcanic out-gassing. The smell, he realized, made him uncomfortable, and he wondered—with a sudden chill—if it had something to do with what had happened to the Van Kleewyn and the Intrepid. The smell—for its effect on him—made him recall a dead and bloody turtle, ripped from its shell. There was gravity, some fraction below one standard gee; Peter walked with an unexpected bounce, despite the metallic solidity of the deck underfoot. Something touched his hand: a warm and complicated thing like tentacles, like ropes, like fingers—too many of them—on a hand larger than Peter’s own. A hissing sigh touched his ears and slid down his spine like the sound of fear itself, like something predatory and serpentine. An electronic whine accompanied the sound, and then in artificial, genderless tones: Welcome aboard, Peter Graham…we are pleased to make your acquaintance. Please forgive the artificial nature of our voice, but this is a necessity, given the…peculiarities of the human nervous system. “Your journey from your vessel. It was eventless?” Greetings and small-talk from an alien, in Pan-Human Standard, no less! Peter smiled at the thought. “I am honored to come aboard,” he said. “And yes…the journey from my vessel was…without incident.” “This is pleasantly sufficient.” “I look forward to bridging what gaps exist between our two species,” Peter said. ”This is why you are here, Peter Graham. I will guide you to the meeting place.” He could have walked on his own, could have navigated the corridor by sound and by suit-induced signals flashed through his auditory nerves, but he accepted guidance from his unnamed alien host. He’d allowed the creature to guide his right hand into palm-flat placement on what Peter assumed was a shoulder. He felt naked flesh, he assumed: cold and strangely amphibious in texture. He knew this was wrong. Amphibian was a stop-gap concept, skittish and imprecise here. But the creature felt frog-like to the touch: smooth and a bit cool, but with the presence of muscle and bone beneath Peter’s hand. The Julians, he thought, don’t wear clothing. Or if they do, their clothing feels like moist skin. He touched—because it helped Jace: where Peter’s blindness gave him a stronger sense of tactile sensuality, Jace’s own psychological inclinations heightened his sense of touch as well. The aliens—if they were to reveal anything meaningful—would do so through Peter’s hands as well as through his ears and his nostrils. The meeting room, when they came to it, felt large and sounded—to Peter’s augmented hearing—round. “You may sit here,” the alien said. Peter felt his way onto an incredibly soft surface, something like a flight-couch for its shape and the way it cushioned him and conformed to the lines of his body. The creature, he heard, moved away from him and settled into a similar seat. “What should I call you?” Peter asked. “You may call me Speaker.” “You have no personal designation you’d wish to share?” “It is difficult, Peter. My personal designation requires visual reference; it exists outside of the verbal continuum.” Peter nodded. “We are aware,” Speaker said, “of the specifics of your mission here. I am to facilitate the exchange. Please, Peter, tell me how to most efficiently accomplish this.” He’d devised a plan with Jace, in the long hours spent in the contact lab, and in meetings with other members of the crew. “This…place is equipped with backchannel sensors, I assume?” “Yes, Peter. Our technological level is on par with what exists within the human realm. The purpose differs, however.” “Is it possible that I might experience backchannel feed?” “Yes. But there is a danger in this.” “Visual feed?” “Yes.” “Can you filter it out?” “Yes.” Peter drew a deep breath. “My clothing is equipped with various interface devices. If you have compatible technologies, I would like to link with this…vessel and experience the full range of sensory data available. Is this possible?” He knew the answer already, but something in the alien’s manner demanded this ritual of asking. “How long should contact last?” “Not long,” Peter said. “A few minutes will provide the information I need in order to complete my work.” “Very well, Peter. We can begin when you are ready.” *** Immersion, Peter realized—now back on board the Stross had lasted for nearly fifteen minutes. In that time, he swam through an ocean of noises and tactile extrapolations derived from air pressure differentials and temperature gradients. It was the raw material of poetry, and it felt familiar in the calm manner in which his afferential nerves accepted the input. There were voices: alien voices; and he marveled at the sound of the Julian language. It was, he realized, only a fraction of what the creatures were saying to each other, but it was enough for him to grasp the intrinsic feel of their existence, their perceptions. They spoke, he realized, like small things, avian things, in chortles and chirps of stunning complexity; no human, he thought, could mimic that sound. In the quiet moments after sensory immersion, he shared more conversation with Speaker. “We are aware of our effect on Humans. This is difficult to understand.” Peter nodded. “It is an environmental issue,” he said. “Your species represents a violation of our instinctive awareness of reality; visual stimuli—I’m assuming—differ radically from what the baseline human brain is capable of processing, and in an attempt to…assimilate these stimuli, something goes wrong: our Earth-derived reality base is shattered.” Silence. And then, almost shyly. “Is such a phenomenon likely to occur within your native environment as well?” He’d thought of Shin, and the image of a slaughtered turtle, dead and bleeding on a strange beach. He shuddered. “Yes,” he said. “The effects are not as drastic, but such stimulus conflicts do occur within…native human environments.” “You are such fragile beings,” Speaker commented. And now, in the darkness of the cabin he shared with Jace, he snuggled in their common bed, happy in the feel of Jace’s skin, warmth, and distinctive, mammalian scent. “Fifteen minutes of sensory input,” Jace said. “From what I’ve been able to get through, that’ll be decades of continual work for actual contact specialists. Tactile extrapolations alone reveal an environment far more complex than anything back in the Communities. I don’t even wanna touch the olfactory data you managed to get; I don’t even understand a quarter of it.” Jace had, Peter realized, fallen in love with the very concept of the Julians. “I wish we could see them…I wish we could see their world as well.” With his sight restored, Peter took comfort in the darkness, and the sound of Jace’s voice. “Maybe,” Peter said. “One day we will.” He smiled and snuggled back into Jace’s spooning embrace. “And the darkness, too. I was nervous. Afraid. But the darkness there was rich, even without swimming in backchannel feed. I’ve never felt anything like that before. I’d like to feel it again.” *** EUCLID “I trust you found your hero’s welcome sufficiently vulgar,” Noriko said, from behind her oblate, black desk. It had been weeks since the Stross returned to Euclid, weeks since debriefing and a flurry of press conferences, meetings with Service Brass, and the intrusive attention of the interplanetary press. There’d been endless interviews, endless photo-grabs, and Peter—familiar enough with so public a life—found himself confused and disoriented. “Blame the Julians for that,” Jace had said, laughing. “You’re the first human to talk, face to face with one of them and return home without going psychotic.” Peter nodded. “We live in a crass society, but it’s the only one we have.” Noriko smiled, softly. Since his return, there was a change in the space between them; their boundaries—he learned—shifted, softened. He didn’t like her and—he knew—she didn’t like him, but there was a softness to their enmity now…something grudgingly kind now. It was this new, grudging softness that drew him to request this meeting. In her office. On her turf. “So,” Noriko asked, relaxed in her stiff-backed seat. “What’s the real reason behind this meeting?” “A question,” Peter said. “Just one?” “Just one.” Noriko nodded. “I’ll answer it if I can.” Peter nodded. “I know the official reason behind your choice for Jace and myself for this mission, and from what I gather, it was the right choice. But that’s not the real reason is it? There was something else.” For a long moment, there was silence: an incomplete lack of sound. There was noise: air through the ventilation system, small sounds in the offices beyond Noriko’s closed door, but there was a pure and contemplative absence of speech, of human sound within the boundaries of her professional space. And then, as the moment died, she inhaled: softly and with a faint shudder that only Peter might detect, as a blind man would. “When we were younger, I resented what you had with Shin. I didn’t understand it. You were…gaikoku-jin, in the old and racist sense of that word. “My brother…he was special in his blindness, and my family recognized that, but we live in an age where allowing someone to remain blind is considered…inhumane. I was a child, but my family raised me in a particular way, and so I valued his blindness. As it was taken from him, I resented that. “When you became his boyfriend, I resented that as well…I saw you as a part of what had been taken away from him. I saw you as a paltry consolation prize. It wasn’t you that I hated, Peter, and I couldn’t tell you—or anyone—that. It was this society, this place where blind is less…a handicap. You might have become boyfriends if you’d remained blind, but it would have been different…more…honest. I could have accepted that, but I couldn’t accept that he could see you…that you’d both been reshaped by modern medical sophistication and—in a functional sense—turned into different people. “I wanted something else for Shin, and maybe for myself too…and I think that has something to do with joining the Service. Shin took a different route and lives far from my reach. “Had he taken your path in life and in blindness, he would have been the one to feel alien life as you did, for fifteen minutes. Shin would have had the hero’s welcome that belongs to you. I won’t lie and say that I don’t still want that for him, but I’d also be lying if I said that you deserve it any less. “And that, Peter, is a big part of why I hunted you down and hoped that you’d jump on a spaceship bound for the hind end of the galaxy. It’s also why I hope you and Jace decide to stay on as Service consultants, and re-join the Stross team.” Silence. Peter shifted in his seat, overwhelmed by the wash of emotions jostling through the brain-space between his ears. There was sadness and there was relief in the mix; there was something else as well, but he could scarcely name it. “When Shin and I were seventeen, he wanted me to recognize something…it was important to him. As it turns out, it was an ugly thing.” “The turtle,” Noriko said. “Killed by poachers.” Peter nodded. “He showed it to me too. He said it was something I needed to see, because that was the essence of seeing. I think he resented gaining sight, and wanted us to understand that. But you? I never understood why he showed you.” Peter shrugged. “It helped. When I was…out there with Speaker, I thought of that turtle. I won’t say that Shin knew something that the rest of us didn’t…not in a supernatural sense, at least…but that ugly thing: it was a blind-man’s gesture. That dead turtle is what we must learn to deal with. The Julians are that dead turtle now; something that violates our baseline-human assumptions of what life is, of what beauty is…of what experience is. “Jace and I need time to think, to sort through this, but I think that it’s important for both of us to go back out there. I want to, and I’m sure Jace does as well. He’s quite taken with the Julians. He finds them…beautiful, but Jace is strange like that…he thinks Denebolan carrion flukes are cute, and you should have heard him on the Stross…he was like a happy drunk in love with the whole world.” Noriko smiled. Peter—to his surprise—smiled as well. “So,” Noriko said relaxing in her seat. “Contact me in a few weeks; let me know what you and Jace decide. I’ve already placed you on provisional availability, and I’m sure that Captain Krissanov is a bit anxious to have you back on board. You and Jace were a comfort to him, I think; proof that he and his crew aren’t staring into the eyes of madness after all.” Peter nodded. “We’ll contact you soon.” And as quietly as that, the meeting ended. He was glad for the absence of ritualized parting gestures, or more revelations bordering on the maudlin. It was enough, he thought, to simply leave Service headquarters, to return home, and to challenge Jace to stick to his promise, and make love like a madman. It was enough—a marker, he thought—for this small span of time before going back and speaking, again, to Speaker. THE END I am quite sure that there is more to this tale: it's a subject that fascinates me, especially since it concerns matters of communications and interspecies contact. Like the protagonists in this tale, I'm a bit interested in learning more of the so-called "Julians" and so at some point, I'm very, very likely to revisit this universe. As always, thank you for reading and commenting, and I hope you've enjoyed this little foray into a corner of the galaxy way the heck over there.