“He is not certain whether or not they can survive that long. Apparently it will far exceed the longest time ever known for this sort of arrangement. I had to go to some length to get the time and distance involved in terms he could understand. He has no concept of our measures of those. It seems, though, that his ship is not markedly faster than I am. With the time it will take us to get him to Mars, and the time his return from there to his homeworld will take, they will have to remain as they are for more than ten Earth years.” Plus whatever time it would take for our people to repair his ship and decide to let him go. There would be arguments over that. Some of our folks would want to keep him around to study, whatever that might do to him.
I looked at the alien. I didn’t have to be able to read his expressions or body language to feel something of his anguish. His desperation. I don’t know that I would have had the heart to try what he was going to have to attempt.
“Ask him,” I said. “Ask him if he will try.” I don’t know why, but it was suddenly extremely important to me that the alien not give up, that the desperation that had led him to such extreme means of keeping his mate alive would sustain him. I listened intently to what Ebbie said, and to what he replied, even though I couldn’t begin to make sense of the alien sounds.
“He will try,” Ebbie reported. “He says that he has no alternative.”
Now, all of us have to wait, the entire human race. We got our Centauran to Mars alive. His ship was repaired and we saw him off on his way home. He’s not even halfway there yet.
He is still alive, and apparently his mate’s head remains… vital, I guess is the word. That was the last information we had from him. We’re in contact, spottily now that he’s so far out. It takes messages eighteen months in each direction, and that figure is constantly increasing.
We have also sent messages toward his homeworld—hundreds of thousands of words. Some of that is in human languages, mostly English. The rest is in his language. We can’t even start looking for a reply for more than six years. We’re still trapped by the speed of light. But people do a lot of talking about that reply, wondering what it might contain.
Angie, Clay, and I did the best we could for the alien. So, despite some opposition, did everyone else who came in contact with him or his ship. The Oort Miners Guild made enough noise to make certain that things were done right. Maybe our first contact with an alien species was unplanned, unexpected, but maybe it went all the better for that.