They stopped outside another airlock. “The alien is inside,” Rochester said. “He’s been quite helpful, but he’s also quite ignorant. The sociologists think he truly has no idea of the depth of his own ignorance.”
Steve, who had met a great many people with the same problem, nodded. “What sort of precautions have you taken against escape?”
“The room is shielded, then held on a separate system from the rest of the colony,” Rochester said. “If the sociologists or anyone else wish to speak with him, they do so with guards monitoring everything that takes place inside the cell. He can’t take a piss without us knowing about it.”
“Good,” Steve said.
“He also seems to have developed something akin to Stockholm Syndrome,” Rochester added. “The sociologists think he expected to be killed as soon as he was captured, perhaps after interrogation. Instead, we’ve taken fairly good care of him. I’ve seen similar patterns among captured Iraqis and Afghanis.”
Steve nodded. A distant cousin of his, an MP, had been charged with guarding prisoners in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. The prisoners had almost collapsed in fear when they’d been told to dig latrines, even though they were desperately necessary. It had taken some time before the MPs had realised the prisoners thought they were being asked to dig their own graves. Once the prisoners had realised they weren’t going to be shot out of hand — their former leaders had told them the Americans would kill anyone they captured — they’d relaxed a great deal. Some of them had even gone on to lead successful careers in the new Iraq.
“Monitor me,” Steve said. “I’ll call when I want out.”
Inside, the alien’s chamber was hot and moist, as if he’d stepped right into a sauna. There was a faintly unpleasant smell, like rotting meat, in the air. The alien himself was squatting against one wall, one clawed hand tap-tapping at an Ipad and trying to play a game. It — he, Steve reminded himself — had requested access to the internet, or a terminal with a translator, but Steve hadn’t been willing to allow either. But the alien was learning to read English, even if he would never be able to speak it. They just weren’t designed to speak human tongues.
“Greetings,” the alien said, through the translator. The security officers had suggested taking it away when the alien wasn’t talking to anyone, but Kevin had argued against the suggestion and Steve had accepted his arguments. “Thank you for visiting me.”
“You’re welcome,” Steve said. He found it hard to understand what the alien must be feeling — there were no other aliens in the colony — but he couldn’t help feeling sorry for the creature, no matter what its superiors had intended to do. “How are you coping with living here?”
The alien produced a spluttering noise. “I am not being hurt or killed,” he said. “But not all of your people believe what I say.”
Steve had to smile. The sociologists Kevin had recruited were sensible people, men and women who had actually done field work rather than learning everything from politically-correct books. But, from some of their reports, even the most sensible of them had great difficulty in wrapping his head around what passed for culture among the Hordes. What sort of race could live like that, he’d asked, when there was so much potential in the galaxy?
But being poor often leads to a stubborn pride, Steve thought. Or perhaps to a helpless despair.
It seemed fitting, he suspected. The Horde knew, at a deep level, just how inferior they were to races that actually produced starships and weapons for themselves. They were dependent on those they considered their soft social inferiors, so dependent that a sudden withdrawal of support would leave the Hordesmen to fade away and die. But, at the same time, they did nothing to overcome their dependency. It would be a tacit admission that their lives were far from perfect.
“You’re the first non-human they’ve spoken to,” Steve said. The alien interface had noted that there were almost ten thousand intelligent races known to exist, a number far beyond Steve’s ability to grasp emotionally. Compared to the sheer number of aliens out there, humanity’s eight billion souls weren’t even a drop in the bucket. “We have no experience with anyone outside our own race.”
“You have been lucky,” the alien stated. “Open contact might well have destroyed you.”
Steve nodded. It still might, even if humanity avoided a military invasion or becoming a protectorate of a more advanced power. The sudden discovery that there were thousands of intelligent races in the galaxy, almost all of them far more powerful than humanity, would shock the entire planet. Some would see the presence of aliens as a challenge, Steve knew, others would quail away from the stars. What was left for humanity to achieve, they’d ask, if the aliens had done it all first?
“It might have done,” he agreed, finally. “Is there anything we can do to make your stay more comfortable?”
The alien spluttered again. “These quarters are perfect,” he said. “You do not have to improve them for me.”
“If you need anything, just ask,” Steve said. He glanced into the bathroom. The alien had requested a bathtub large enough for several humans to share, rather than one of the showers in the human barracks. From the reports, the sociologists were still arguing if the request constituted luxury or a simple necessity for alien life. “We are quite happy to provide.”
“In exchange for answering questions,” the alien said. “Why are so many of your people unwilling to believe that I am telling the truth?”
Steve hesitated, trying to put it into words. “There are some people, no matter how smart, who have a view of the universe that is focused on us,” he said. “Not just humanity, a subset of humanity. They have problems coming to terms with the fact there are groups of humans who refuse to behave as their models suggest, let alone non-human life forms such as yourself. And when theory comes up against reality, some of them even think that reality must be wrong.”
“Like one of our Horde Commanders,” the alien said.
“It certainly sounds that way,” Steve agreed. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“I wish to learn more about your people,” the alien said, as Steve turned back to the airlock. “Can you not provide me with information?”
Steve hesitated. Part of him wanted to restrict what the alien knew, part of him suspected that if they lost Heinlein Colony, they would have lost everything. But he didn’t want to provide the alien with any non-human technology. It might have an unexpected sting in the tail.
The answer struck him a moment later and he swore, inwardly. “I’ll have you provided with a device that will provide information,” he said. There were computers for the blind, computers that read information to their users. One of them would suffice for the alien. In hindsight, they should have thought of it earlier. “It should help answer your questions.”
He stepped back through the airlock, then waited until it closed behind him. “Have them dig up a computer for the blind,” he ordered. “But no internet access, nothing that can possibly provide a security risk.”
“Understood,” Rochester said, gravely. “Do you wish to see the Theory Lab now?”
Steve nodded. “Yes,” he said. He was looking forward to hearing what Keith Glass and his band of researchers had come up with to expand their operations. They’d already proposed several ideas for making more money on Earth. “It should be interesting.”