“She is. Hello, Cora,” I said as always, the translator honked and growled as always, and I received the usual response. Cora’s walrusoid head gradually turned toward me, and the wrinkled eyelids quivered for a moment but remained at half-mast. “I’ve brought a friend, the Trader Deal-of-ten-lifetimes.”
Deal clicked and the translator did some honking and growling, then said in English, “I am pleased to greet you.”
The massive head slowed aimed itself toward the Tsf. Cora eyes opened fully, then blinked in slow motion. Surprise and excitement set my heart racing. The tip of a blue tongue appeared between her two lower tusks, licked across six inches of black, rubbery lip, and then withdrew.
As I gawked at her unprecedented responsiveness, Deal placed a few finger-cilia on my arm. “What is wrong with her?” she asked, clicking more quietly than I’d thought she could, and the translation came out as a whisper.
To my disappointment, Cora’s eyelids drifted halfway down and she resumed her standard torpor. “Let’s talk outside,” I suggested.
Deal led the way to the hallway and after I’d closed the door asked, “What is wrong with her mind?”
“Wish I knew.” I puffed out my cheeks and let the air out in a rush, a way of expressing frustration that always bugs my wife. “Deal, you’ve gotten more out of Cora in a minute than I have in the last six months. Maybe it’s me, but everything about her case is… off somehow, even the way she arrived. I assume you know about that?”
“I do not, and evidently what little information I did receive is incorrect. Soon-to-be-wealthy, a Trader in another division who is still a novice at dealing with extrinsic species, made the arrangements. I understand that your notoriety had been attracting deranged humans to this location and Soon-to-be-wealthy’s solution involved a barter in which you were to be loaned a Vapabondi security specialist in exchange for your aid in treating a mentally ill Vapabond. What did you find unsettling about her arrival?”
The idea that Tad was any kind of specialist gave me an instant hit of what we shrinks call “cognitive dissonance.” “You Traders brought me all the other ET patients I’ve had. Not Cora. She and Tad just showed up one day in a van driven by federal agents. It seems Tad had flown a shuttle down from whatever spaceship had brought them to Earth and landed it in a field fifty miles from the clinic.”
Deal wriggled four limbs like pythons doing tricks, a Tsf gesture I hadn’t seen enough times to make a stab at interpreting. “Vapabondi are clever but cautious beings, Doctor. They insist on autonomy in all things, so they would inevitably wish to affect the delivery. I cannot explain why the shuttle landed so far away, but I am no authority on Vapabondi behavior. Did the unexpected arrival create a problem for you?”
“I wouldn’t say unexpected. Your people told me the pair was coming, just not when. They even gave me a micro-briefing about Vapabondi.” Thank God. “But they knew nothing about Cora’s condition. My problem was that she showed up with no documentation, patient history, or previous diagnosis—not so much as a Post-It—and the only thing I could get out of Tad concerning Cora was that Tad herself would be her nurse because only a fellow Vapabond could be qualified. In terms of evaluation, let alone therapy, I’ve been flying blind… without a paddle.”
“Your metaphor mystifies me, but surely this Tad has oriented you by now?”
I snorted. “Anything but. One theory I have is that Tad was ordered to tell me nothing so that I could assess Cora without preconceptions.” I had another theory less based on the intrinsic benevolence of all beings, namely that Tad was a jerk.
“Shall we return to your patient?”
We did, but this time Cora just lay there like a very large lump. Deal and I took turns talking at her, both of us failing to elicit any reaction. As always, I sensed that she heard but couldn’t or wouldn’t respond. Seeing that we were on a roll of non-accomplishment, I suggested we return to the room with the robot and continue wasting our time in a fresh venue. Deal agreed.
The machine, to no one’s surprise, stood exactly where we’d left it.
“We have time now,” I said. “Getting back to my question, where did this thing come from?”
The Trader aimed a few optical cilia at me, but kept most of them facing the subject of my question. “No doubt you recall the unfortunate Hoouk you correctly diagnosed on the Parent Ship.”
I managed to mate a chuckle with a snort. “Even if I habitually forgot my patients, I’d make an exception for the only one from another galaxy.”
“That is why I said ‘no doubt.’ After you returned to Earth, this individual recovered fully and was soon able, with our aid, to converse with its fellows.”
My eyebrows decided to levitate. “They must have one hell of a communication system.”
Several of Deal’s limbs rippled.
“Now what,” I asked, “is so funny?”
She twitched, just once but all over, and more eye-cilia swung around toward me. “Your perceptiveness alarms me, Doctor, although by now I should have learned to expect it. How did you become so expert on Tsf body language?”
“I’m no expert. But I’ve been around you Traders enough to pick up a hint or two. The source of your amusement?”
“I will tell you, if you will remember that I mean no offense.”
“Okay. Consider my skin properly thickened.”
“At last, an intelligible metaphor!” It made sense to her, Pastor, because Tsf can thicken and harden the outer cells in their limbs into swordlike weapons.
Then she let me in on the joke. “I was—” The translation device paused for an instant. “—tickled by something I’ve often observed. The manner in which a species survives long enough to become technological usually limits that technology.”
“For instance?”
“Humans. Despite your many physical limitations, humans possess adequate grasping powers combined with a shape that allows fair leverage. Therefore, your earliest foreparents depended on hurling objects both to hunt and to defend themselves against predators. Aids such as bows and guns flow from the basic idea of throwing, which has become so embedded in human perspective that in English, ‘weapons’ and ‘limbs’ are synonyms.”
“I think you mean arms.”
“I see no distinction.”
“Right. What does this have to do with long-distance communication?”
“All your devices for this purpose are tools for throwing such things as microwaves, light, or radio waves. The Hoouk are more advanced than we Tsf in transportation, but we use identical communication tools. Distance is irrelevant when nothing has to travel.”
I studied Deal for a long moment. “That’s interesting. How do you communicate without moving anything?”
Deal raised a limb and waved it chidingly; I wasn’t the only one who’d learned something about alien body languages. “This information could be the basis of a future trade. It would be irresponsible of me to supply it gratis. Perhaps we should now turn all curiosity toward disassembling and reassembling the robot. We must be certain that no mistake has been made.”
My curiosity wasn’t in the mood to turn, but I saw no point in arguing. “I’m game.”
“You might be distressed by how your last statement was translated, but I take it you are willing so we will proceed. Observe the process with critical eyes, if you will, for the smallest blunder could result in cumulative error.”
I pored over the assembly sheet while Deal followed the instructions in reverse but so slowly that I could follow the procedure and sign off on each step. From the start, though, I had a nagging feeling we’d missed something obvious. If so, we both missed it all the way to the end, where nothing but machine parts and us littered the floor.