The Deep End

Teeka travels to an ocean planet to build a relationship with the inhabitants. She struggles to maintain her confidence as she learns more about them.

Blue water stretched out endlessly towards the horizon merging into blue sky. The sight had transfixed Teeka from the moment she stepped off the shuttle. This made it real. The thicker air, lighter gravity, nothing brought home the alienness of the place like this. This was a different world and she was standing on it.

The water mounded up into a line like a dune in sand then rushed towards where Teeka was standing, becoming steeper and taller as it approached and then crashed into the rough rubble bounding the island. She could feel a trembling in the ground as small droplets of water rained down around her. Another long mound was already growing as it came towards the shore. Behind it another and another. The slow regular booming had not paused since she had started watching.

An old half remembered physics lesson came to her. She and the other students had made small ripples in pans of water to illustrate how light waves diffracted and reflected, this was the same, now enlarged to gigantic proportions.

Teeka was beginning to feel afraid. Her confidence had lasted throughout the trip here. The long months in hyperspace had been filled with training and study. She had learned to pronounce the strange language the inhabitants of this water world spoke. It wasn’t until she boarded the shuttle for the final descent here that she began to feel doubt rising inside her, like water slowly covering her mouth and nose.

Teeka squeezed her eyes shut and breathed deeply through her nostrils to try and calm herself. It was an old technique she had perfected in school before every exam when she had begun to feel certain she would fail. In her mind she ran through her training and studies and the confidence her instructors had shown in her.

It didn’t work. The smell of the place distracted her and made it impossible to forget where she was. The air was thick with the scent of water and extra oxygen, tangy with the minerals dissolved in the water and complex organic compounds from the teeming life in the water and on the rocks. Underneath all the other odors she could smell hydrocarbons and other chemicals of primitive industry.

“It captures the attention doesn’t it?”

Teeka opened her eyes with a start. She had been so distracted she hadn’t noticed Meranga approach. The facility manager was tall for a Highlander. Even leaning over the railing beside her Teeka had to look up meet her eyes. Yellow eyes set in white fur with irregular gray spots. The markings of a clan Teeka wasn’t familiar with.

“Yes. It does. . . .” She trailed off, unable to put the scene into words. “It’s incredible.” Teeka couldn’t help feeling that it was an inadequate response for what was in front of them.

Meranga seemed to accept that and looked back out to the horizon.

“They look at it as well.” she gestured toward some boxy looking structures on the half of the island the inhabitants of this world controlled. “They have seen it all their lives and they can still find wonder in it. I find that reassuring sometimes.” Her ears twisted uncertainly then she continued more softly, her voice barely audible above the wind and water. “These chirt, they can give one pause.”

Teeka had first heard the term when she arrived at the orbital support unit on the way here. Somehow calling the aliens furless struck her as unflattering. Meranga seemed to sense her uncertainty at the word. “I do not insult them. They have no fur, apart from their heads. Their words are difficult to pronounce and there are many of them. Most of the words they use to refer to others of their kind are insults. Chirt is safer.”

Meranga moved a little closer and adopted a confidential air. “Do you know their word for us?”

Teeka suddenly realized that she didn’t. Such a simple thing and she had somehow overlooked it.

“They call us tabeeze.” The word seemed to amuse Meranga some. “It has something to do with a species they keep as pets I think. They seem careful not to use the term where they they think we can hear.” She swiveled her ears theatrically. “They underestimate our sensitivity.” She chuckled a little at the exploit.

“Meranga, no one seems to want to talk about them.” Teeka nodded toward the other end of the island. She struggled for a moment to express how conversations slid around detailed discussion of the alien’s nature. “I ask, but no one really answers. It is like when a precocious child asks her mother what happens when mother and auntie visit the harem and why she can’t come along.”

Meranga laughed louder. “Well put. Brill chose well with you, I think.” She didn’t seem about to elaborate. Her gaze drifted toward the aliens’ buildings and then out to the horizon. “I could try to tell you about them but it would simply waste time. They must be experienced and you will do that shortly. Brill asked me to bring you. Their liaison is on her way here now.”

Teeka felt near panic. “No! That’s not scheduled for days.”

Meranga didn’t seem concerned “It was rescheduled. They do that frequently.” She turned and indicated that Teeka should follow.

Before Meranga ushered her into the meeting room she turned and bent close to Teeka. “You are almost as nervous as I was the first time I visited the harem.” She moved closer and lowered her voice almost to the point of inaudibility. “Sister had to remind me which part of the male to grab.” She seemed completely serious. “No lie, truly it was so. I soon had matters well in claw, of course. As I am confident, so will you.” With that she ushered Teeka into the meeting room.

A lone Selk was seated at the table with her back to them, her attention completely focused on her computer screen. Meranga had to speak twice before Brill turned and rose. “Our new specialist is here, Brill.”

The top of Teeka’s head only came to Brill’s shoulders. The senior contact specialist’s lean Lowlander build made her seem even taller. Her fur was an even light gray, almost silver, a rare pelt pattern from a prestigious family in an even more prestigious clan. Her clear green eyes looked down at Teeka in a way that seemed to go right to her core.

Brill gripped Teeka’s forearms in greeting with a firm confident feel she tried to return. Her extended claws lightly pricked her in friendly informality. “Welcome, Teeka. I’m glad you are finally here. We have been waiting for you.”

“You wrote my textbook at school!” Teeka instantly regretted blurting that out.

“Yes, I suppose I did.” Brill seemed wryly amused at the observation. “I am already planning the revisions, so don’t worry about what you’ve forgotten. We learn as we run here.”

“Yes, I’m looking forward to it.” Somehow Teeka made it sound is if she meant it.

“Good. I can look after her now, Meranga, thank you. Has there been any change in the schedule?”

“No, their aircraft should be on it’s way now. Good to meet you Teeka, I will see you after the meeting.” Meranga gave Teeka a last look as if wishing her good luck as she left.

“Here, have a seat. Our hosts have provided us with some basic furniture. A bit awkward for our frames but serviceable enough.” Teeka shifted as she tried to find a comfortable position in the seat. After an initial skepticism she decided it would support her. Brill awakened the computer screen at Teeka’s position and quickly pointed out some local changes made to the standard system. She didn’t appear to have any concerns about the approaching meeting. “I apologize for the suddenness of this Teeka, but it is really for the best.”

“Brill, I don’t feel prepared for this.”

Brill’s green eyes met Teeka’s, measuring her. “I understand. It’s good that you are open with me. You should always voice your concerns.” She paused a moment. Teeka felt sure that Brill would see how inadequate she was, how unprepared and unsuited to the mission. “It’s also important that you trust me. I am not being reckless in bringing you into this meeting. I would not do this if I didn’t feel it was worthwhile.”

“It’s just that I don’t know any of the details, or what is going to be discussed. Perhaps I could observe and review other meetings. Maybe the next one.”

Brill said nothing and leveled a calm penetrating gaze at Teeka. “What if I make a mistake?” Teeka tried to keep the helplessness she felt out of her voice. She felt terribly completely exposed under Brill’s eyes.

Brill’s expression softened a little. “Allow an old academic to lecture if you will.” Her tone became formal. “They are not aquatic, in fact they likely evolved in a desert environment, but they love to play in the water. Reasonable enough, their planet is mostly water. They even build artificial pools for recreation. These pools are commonly built with a sloped floor.” She traced a downward slanting line with one claw. “One end will be so deep that one cannot stand with one’s head above water. There is a story, I can’t say for certain how true it is, but they repeat it often enough to make no difference, of a method used to teach their young to swim. The parent will throw her child into the deeper end of the pool. The child cannot reach the bottom with her feet and so is forced to master the art of swimming in order to avoid drowning. The child is said to either sink or swim.”

The memory came to her unbidden. She and Tuva had been playing outside in late winter. The spring thaw had come unusually early that year. Their mother had strictly forbidden the two girls to go anywhere near the pond. Teeka had taken it as a challenge and rather than return home with the fading light she had run to the edge of the ice, then slowly moved further and further out from shore, ignoring her older sister’s orders to return. For some reason, possibly simply to upset Tuva, she had begun jumping up and down on the ice.

After one particularly high jump Teeka had broken right through the ice and sank into the water. The memory of the panic she had felt as the cold water closed over her was as sharp today as it had been then. She had thrashed about, unable to see or breath, desperately trying to find some way out.

Brill continued, and Teeka pushed the memory aside. “It is easy to appreciate the power of the technique. They call this ‘starting in the deep end’. I’m starting you in the deep end, Teeka. You have excellent scores from training, now you need to learn to put that training to proper use in a real encounter.”

“I understand. I will do my best.” Teeka tried to believe that her best would be sufficient.

“Of course you will.” Brill placed a hand on Teeka’s shoulder in reassurance. “You are nervous, anyone not a fool would be. You will get through it.” Brill turned to her computer screen. “I have my own preparation ritual, I invite you to share in it.” Teeka signaled her assent and as Brill gestured at her computer the screen faded to black and music began playing. Teeka could recognize it as alien, it had the same unmistakable low, flat quality of all of their music.

“Our access to their information network is still quite limited, they control much of what we can see. This is some of what the machines have been able to find for us. Remember, their hearing range is rather narrower than ours, and biased towards lower frequencies. It sounds much different to them. I have learned to distinguish a subtle beauty in it.”

The screen brightened with the image of a large building, also alien. It seemed familiar to Teeka, possibly something famous that had been included in her briefing materials. This image was different and seemed to highlight the strange grace of the structure. The image faded into another, this time from the interior of some structure. Great columns of stone rose upwards and then flowed smoothly into an arched ceiling. Glowing panels of riotous color filled the spaces between the columns. There were a few chirt visible, based on their size the structure must have been immense. Teeka had never seen anything like it before.

“This was built with muscle power alone, no computers, only the most primitive math and simple metal tools. One of many, some more impressive even than this. Purely ceremonial, it has no practical use at all.”

Teeka watched silently as the images came and went. Buildings, art, sculpture flowed past, all the product of the small, furless beings of this world. Some were obviously ancient while others were much newer, all possessed of a strange grace. She paused the display and turned to Brill. “It’s all so beautiful. I have wanted to see things like this all my life Brill. The materials in training were nothing like this. I want to see this in person.”

“Yes, I do too. Possibly with luck someday we may persuade them to allow us. It took us several years for them to allow us to set foot on their world.”

“Why? I never understood the slow progress here.”

Brill said nothing and simply resumed the display. The image changed again, this time to video. An aircraft, flying low over dense vegetation. The point of view suggested that the scene was captured from another aircraft close by. Despite the primitive construction Teeka could see a beauty in the vehicle’s design. Objects began falling from the aircraft towards the green below. The camera tracked them as they fell and quickly vanished. A hazy white sphere rapidly expanded from the point where the first of the objects might have reached the ground. The whiteness faded as it expanded and was replaced by an expanding mass of fire. A second white fuzzy ball appeared in front of the first and then another and another. A line of expanding fading balls of fire marched across the vegetation.

After a moment she realized they were explosions.

Teeka was about to question Brill about what they were seeing when the scene shifted. Now the view was from ground level. A group of aliens were in the foreground running towards the camera. Several of the group were much smaller than the others. She wondered if they were children. The background was tall plants that might have been similar to the ones seen from above earlier. The music was replaced by the voices of the aliens. It was impossible to make out any words and she suspected that it was a different language than she had trained for. Teeka couldn’t be sure, but the tone seemed to indicate distress. An aircraft flashed across the horizon, very low and very fast. Then a large mass of fire blossomed beneath where the aircraft had been. The aliens in the foreground reacted in obvious fear to the noise and fire.

Brill lightly laid her hand on Teeka’s. “This was the handiwork of our hosts, one of their smaller wars. It happened several years ago, about the time I began school. Just keep watching, I can explain in detail later.”

The scene was now in shades of gray without color again from an aircraft looking down over some kind of rough, jagged landscape. The shadow of the aircraft danced over the piled rock. Teeka noticed scattered flat surfaces extending up through the rubble. Sometimes two of the surfaces would meet at right angles. Long, mostly clear areas separated the piles. She suddenly realized what she was seeing. This was or had been a city with remains of walls surrounded by broken stone and rubble, now smashed as if it had been struck repeatedly by a huge hammer. Brill again offered an explanation “A city destroyed by aircraft in another war. The attack created enormous fires, the inhabitants who sought refuge in underground shelters were cooked alive.”

The images changed again, more ruined buildings, newer looking with steel members exposed as if they were the bones of some broken animal. Burned and crushed vehicles lay strewn around. Sometimes aliens were present, some appeared to be trying to salvage something from the ruin or more often simply standing with a look of utter loss that was evident despite the strangeness of their faces.

Brill glanced over at Teeka. “This is not the aftermath of some natural disaster. This was done deliberately by them to one another.” She had somehow known that, but hearing it stated felt like a physical blow to her.

Teeka’s unease grew as the images of alien horror continued on. The strange beauty of the music made it somehow even more disturbing.

At last Brill stopped the display and turned to Teeka. She gestured at the frozen image on the screen. A machine of some sort was pushing a pile of stick like shapes into a pit filled with more sticks. Bodies she realized, the twisted sticks were the naked bodies of aliens, being piled into a mass grave.

“This was part of a mass extermination during their most recent large war. One tribe attempted to completely eliminate several other tribes.” She paused to let Teeka absorb the statement. “About ten million or so dead. The numbers vary. The entire war killed maybe fifty million.”

Teeka repeated the number. “Fifty million.” That was number to count stars or units of power consumed by a factory, not persons killed. “Quillo City has barely even a million people in it. Fifty cities the size of Quillo, all dead.”

“Yes. It takes some time to appreciate it. This was only their most recent, large war. There were and are many others. Some are ongoing even still. Much smaller of course. Only tens or hundreds of thousands dead, not millions. And there are fewer of them as well.” Brill tried to sound matter of fact about it, but her horror came through. Teeka somehow found some small comfort in that. Even with her experience Brill could still be horrified by this.

Teeka made a small helpless gesture. “Why?”

“Why do they do it? They do not know. They ask themselves that again and again, promise to do better, pledge never again and then go on to do the same thing.” Brill blanked the screen and continued. “Why do I make myself look at this? To remind myself. These people can create beauty and horror beyond our imaging with equal skill. Our liaison, you will meet her shortly, is skilled and honorable. I’m proud to consider her a friend and I trust her. It would be easy to think she is all they are. I need and you need to always remember the true range of their nature, to remember what comes easily to them. To always think about the possible consequences if we do the wrong thing here, or fail to do something required.”

Teeka began to feel a sense of betrayal. “This wasn’t in the training, I was never told about any of this.”

Brill cut her off. “Yes, it is. All their history we know is in the training materials. You were told about about it. Told, just not shown. That makes it different, doesn’t it? That is why we are careful about showing this. You understand the way things are. If everyone saw this, if this is what people’s understanding of these chirt were, what do you imagine would happen? It wouldn’t be anything good.”

The memory of water covering her mouth and nose washed over Teeka. She was keenly aware of how closely the senior contact specialist was watching her. Testing her. Teeka forced herself to slow her breathing, make herself calmer. She had trained for five long, hard years to do this. You wanted the strange and exotic, to meet people utterly unlike yourself? Here they are. You wanted a challenge and responsibility? Here it is, face it.

Brill’s expression took on an air of cautious approval. She leaned back a little as if expecting something.

Teeka recognized the look. Brill wanted her to notice something in what she had said and ask about it. She needed to demonstrate that she could think clearly about this despite her feelings.

“You mentioned consequences, I don’t understand Brill. What could be worse than this? They have been doing this to one another long before we found them, what difference do we make?”

Brill paused for a moment before answering in a quiet voice. “They have fusion weapons, Teeka. Thousands of them. As well as rocket and aircraft systems to deliver them anywhere on this planet.” She noted Teeka’s incomprehension at the term. “A fusion weapon is like a reactor without any containment or control system. It is designed to release its energy all at once, in a minuscule fraction of a second.”

Teeka had never taken to physics and engineering. She could master the numbers and equations well enough in exams, but she had never developed a feel for it. Her understanding of a reactor was simply something that made energy and that the engineering crew kept running. She had never considered that the machines could be harmful, certainly not on the scale that Brill seemed to be implying.

“Imagine scooping a handful of matter from a star’s core.” Brill mimed the action with her hand as she explained patiently to Teeka. “Then hurling it into the center of a city.” She slapped her hand down onto the table, fingers spread wide with claws fully extended. The table rattled with the impact. “Imagine doing it many times. Imagine doing it thousands of times.”

The images of the ruined cities flashed in Teeka’s memory. A horrible thought flashed through her mind. “Did they learn from us? We have never built anything like that. How could we do something like that?”

“No, Teeka. They did not learn from us. They have had this capacity nearly as long as I have been alive. Long before we found them. But you are close. Keep thinking.”

She clung to the small relief Brill’s answer gave her. Then she understood it. She spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully and making sure she had the idea laid out plainly in her mind. “Yes, I understand. They are afraid of that, learning something from us, something dangerous.”

Brill’s tone was encouraging. “Keep going, think about their social organization. You almost have it.”

The final pieces of the idea blossomed in Teeka’s mind. “They are organized into very large competing tribes with millions of individuals. They want their tribe to gain an advantage over others, and fear another tribe may gain an advantage over their own.”

“Exactly. Excellent, Teeka. This is why I asked for you here. ” Teeka was slightly embarrassed by Brill’s obvious pride in her. Brill took on a serious tone. “We have to talk to each tribe separately and get approval from the other tribes before doing so. We can’t talk to any of them without permission first. It was three years before they let us even step onto their world and another year before they allowed a permanent presence here.” She laid her hand on Teeka’s. “This is very much the deep end, we either sink or we swim, Staussy sank. That is why are replacing her. I hope that you will swim.”

As Teeka had sunk into the cold water of that little ice covered pond long ago, she had begun to kick her feet and move her arms, pushing the water down and herself upward. She had used all her strength, knowing that she would die if she didn’t. Finally she had broken through the surface of the water and filled her lungs with air. She had known then at that moment that she would survive. She would do so again. “I will.” Teeka was surprised at the confidence in her voice.

“Yes, I think you will.” The computers chimed softly. “Our liaison is here. I will greet her, then introduce you. She can speak a little of our language and understand more. We will speak in theirs. Are you ready?”

“Yes.” Teeka was surprised to find that she meant it. She stood next to Brill and composed herself. The door opened and the alien representative was ushered inside. Teeka watched the small female chirt as she and Brill greeted one another. Long coarse fur covered the top of her head, making the rest of her odd, flat face seem even more naked.

Brill and the alien turned toward her. “This is my new colleague, Teeka, newly arrived from here from our training school. The best of her class or very nearly so, I think.”

The small alien looked up at Teeka from eyes with round pupils. Her red prehensile lips parted and Teeka had to remind herself that these people exposed their teeth to signal friendship. The alien extended her right hand and Teeka grasped it, taking care to be gentle. It was tool users hand with flat dull claws on the tips. Teeka was surprised at the strength of the alien’s grip as she was greeted by her.

“Hello Teeka, I’m very glad to meet you. My name is Joanna Roarke. On behalf of the United States of America I would like to welcome you to Earth.”