The spider passenger was arguing…?
Surprised but not yet knowing if he should be pleased, he turned up the output volume of his own translator unit and, borrowing a phrase from his Earth-human mind partner that seemed appropriate in the circumstances, said, “Will everyone please shut the hell up?” When the arguments tapered off into silence, he added, “Except you, friend Murchison. The spider passenger’s words are being translated. We can talk to and understand each other now, and make peace before anyone else is hurt. This should be the best possible news, but instead it feels as if a war is starting. Explain.”
The pathologist inhaled and exhaled slowly as it strove to regain its customary emotional equilibrium before speaking; then it said, “As you know, I’d already learned a few words of their language when I was captured, and with the help of the captain’s first-contact material and a lot of sign language, we were able to make ourselves understood to the point where the translation computer could take over and finish the job. We can now talk to each other, and that includes talking with the other patients and staff, but we aren’t communicating. It won’t believe a damn thing I or anyone else says to it.” Murchison spread her arms out horizontally to full extension with the palms of its hands facing each other. “There’s a credibility gap this wide.”
“I understand,” said Prilicla. He began walking towards the disbelieving spider, slowly in case his appearance might frighten it, to stop beside its litter. It was capable of ambulation but was being firmly restrained by webbing for its own as well as for the other patients’ protection. Then spreading his wings he took off to maintain a stable hover close to the ceiling where he was sure of getting everyone’s attention.
“What the hell are you,” said the spider, its chittering speech serving as a background to the accurately translated words, “some kind of performing bloody pet?”
He ignored Naydrad’s agitated fur and the choking sounds Murchison was making and replied, “No, I am the entity in charge of the people here.” Because the members of his medical team already knew what was required, it was to the Trolanni and Earth-human patients that he went on. “Everyone, please be quiet and, so far as you are able, stop emoting for the next few minutes. I must be free of extraneous emotional interference if I am to obtain an accurate reading of this patient’s feelings and the reasons for the hostility the spiders show towards us…”
“I’m not a spider,” the patient broke in, “I am Irisik, a Crextic, and a free and intelligent member of the floating clan Sitikis, who will shortly join the other clans in wiping you off the face of our world. And if you don’t know the reason for our hostility, then in spite of the strange and wondrous magic you have used against us, you are very stupid.”
“Not stupid, just ignorant,” said Prilicla, trying to maintain his stable hover in spite of the gale of strong emotion blowing up at him; “but ignorance is a temporary condition that can be relieved by the acquisition of knowledge. You have feelings of fear, anger, intense hatred, and loathing towards us. If you will tell me why you feel this way, I will tell you why there is no reason for the Sitikis to have these feelings. A simple exchange of knowledge about ourselves will solve the problem.”
“Your problem, not ours,” said Irisik, looking towards the injured glider pilot. “You will satisfy your curiosity regarding your victims as well as your hunger. In the end we will be eaten with the rest of your catch.”
“I’ve told it over and over again that we don’t eat people. ” Murchison began angrily, then stopped as Prilicla made the Cinrusskin gesture for silence.
“Please,” he said. “I want to hear this patient speaking to me and no one else. Irisik, what makes you think that we eat people?”
Irisik inclined its head, the only part of its body free of the litter restraints, towards Murchison. “This other stupid one,” it said, “has beentelling me many things, including the lie that it wants us to go on living. That, a sane, adult, reasoning person cannot and will not believe. Don’t waste time telling me new and even more fantastic lies. You know the answer to your question, so don’t pretend that either one of us is stupid.”
Prilicla was silent for a moment. Considering the other’s emotional state, and in particular its behavior and verbal coherency in a situation that was unique in its experience and which it fully believed would have only a lethal outcome, he found Irisik’s behavior admirable. But not the feelings of solid self-certainty and disbelief that surrounded the creature’s mind like a stone wall.
Murchison, he knew, would already have given it a simplified version of the work of the Federation, the Monitor Corps, the hospital, and the special ambulance ship nearby and the duties its crew performed, clearly without success. He thought of explaining that he himself felt only sympathy for its fears which would in a short time be proved groundless. But he felt sure, and his feelings were rarely wrong, that the wall of certainty surrounding the other’s beliefs and disbeliefs was impervious to anything he could do or say.
Perhaps the wall could only be demolished from within.
“To the contrary,” he continued, “pretend that I and everyone else here is stupid. You are an intelligent, logical being who has good reasons for feeling and believing as you do, so share these reasons with us. Whether you believe what I am telling you now or not, we do not intend to do anything to anyone here, apart from feeding them, for the rest of the day. So if you were to talk about yourself, your world and your people and why you believe the things you do, the day or days will pass for us in an interesting manner. If what you tell us is particularly interesting, it may be that so much time will pass that…”
“Shades of Scheherazade,” said Murchison quietly.
No doubt it was an obscure reference from something in the pathologist’s Earth-human past, but this was not the time to go off on historical tangents. He went on. “. that your friends will be able to find a way of rescuing you. There is a saying among our people, Irisik, that while there is life there is hope.”
“We have a similar saying,” the other said.
“Then talk to us, Irisik,” said Prilicla. “Tell us the things you think we already know, and with them the many things that you know we don’t know. Is there anything we can do to make you feel more comfortable, apart from letting you go free, before you begin?”
“No,” said Irisik. “But how do you know I won’t tell you lies, or exaggerate the truth?”
“We won’t,” Prilicla replied, settling to the ground beside the other’s litter. “As strangers we might not be able to tell the difference, but the lies or exaggerated truth will be equally interesting to us. Please go on, and begin with the reason why you think we will eat you.”
Irisik was radiating fear, anger, and impatience, but it spent a few moments getting these feelings under control before it spoke.
“You will eat us,” it began, “because your actions from the start made it clear that that is why you are here. Piracy and food-gathering raids are well known to us, unfortunately, but they are by other sea clans who are too uncivilized, or too lazy, to fish or practice the arts of plant and animal husbandry and find it easier, like you, to steal rather than to cultivate. We don’t know where you came from except that it was somewhere in the sky, but from the first time you were observed by the Crextic who walk the clouds, your intentions were clear. As a precaution they maintained a height too great for them to view your activities in detail, or to see you take our growing food into your great white ship. In fact, many of us could not believe that you could be so shortsighted, stupid, and criminal as to take immature livestock that would rob us not only of the animals, but of the many generations of food beasts that would have followed, but we were shown to be wrong…”