“Sure, it’s easy. The hielterober can take us there. They won’t see us, of course, although I’m working on that. I’m planning a new avatar, just for them.”
“Can I have one too? I’d love to have an argument with a tiger. But will it be possible? I’ve wanted to have arguments with humans, but they’re too far away. It would be difficult for them to remember the last move when it was a third of a century ago. The poor things don’t live very long.”
The Dilillies had been picking up Earth television signals for several centuries. They had discovered its entertainment possibilities with Adolph Hitler opening the 1936 Olympic Games and had never looked back. Whenever some Dilillies felt depression gathering, they’d look at one of the old war newsreels and laugh themselves out of it. Far funnier than Chaplin, and even sillier than Star Trek reruns.
“It should be possible, the tigers’ spaceships are fairly close. They’ll be here in a few weeks. It would be prudent to find out more about what they intend to do when they get here.”
“Bring on the hielterober; this I’ve got to see!”
Coco started the hielterober. It was something between a virtual reality body-suit and a huge wardrobe full of invisible fur-coats. After some cursing as he found the current location of the spaceships, Coco and then John Wayne stood, somewhat changed in size, on the bridge of the kzin warship Far-Ranging Prowler. The captain, his weapons officer and the alien technology officer were in conference before a very pretty view of space in general and Altair in particular. Coco felt intense pleasure as he looked at the oval outline of his sun. From Glot it could be almost any color, purple to crimson by way of bright pink, but from space it was brilliant white. And that green star next to it, that was Glot. A thing of beauty. He pointed this out to John Wayne, who was studying the kzinti with fascination. John Wayne was more of a people person.
“They don’t have much to say to each other, do they?” John Wayne whispered. “And it’s so slow.”
“Bandwidth limitations in the communication channels. Poor things. Very like human beings, I suspect, but with fur and bigger teeth. They only talk three languages at a time. But each language is handled by a different part of their nervous system and so what they wind up telling each other is anybody’s guess. Most of the time, the captain is telling everyone to be afraid of him. It’s not very interesting. And the others are telling him they are afraid of him, but it doesn’t seem to stop him. Perhaps he’s worried they might change their minds.”
“I’m glad you’ve got the translations fixed,” John Wayne commented. “There’s more going in on the making-growling-noises-at-each-other channel. I missed it at first, but the big one with the orange stripes is asking the medium-sized one with the spots whether they are close enough to detect any radio or television signals. They will be ever so disappointed! Can we go back and make some for them to detect? We could pass on the human World War II newsreels. They look as if they could do with a good laugh. Or we could send them my last poem.”
“I don’t know if they quite deserve that. The tiger people will arrive at Glot long before the end of the first canto, John Wayne. Still, if that’s their preferred form of communication, yes, let’s try it. And we should welcome them and show them something of our culture, although I foresee problems. I think my new avatar should be ready by now, and we can use that on the television.”
“I can use one of my old avatars, I expect. Might have to scale it up a bit so it looks like something they would recognize though. Some fur, and teeth perhaps. I rather fancy my Jabba the Hutt, the pink one, what do you think?”
“Why not? But teeth might be a problem for the captain. I mean, you have to be horribly insecure to tell everyone to be afraid of you all the time. Something friendly like a moustache might be better.”
“Good thinking. Suppose I start with fur and take it off later, to show that we aren’t the least bit threatening. That might calm him down a bit.”
“We have a signal from the planet, sir.” Technology Officer saluted respectfully, claws-across-the-face. “It seems to be a 3-D video and we are translating it now. And a sound channel as well.”
“Call the telepath and get him here immediately! Oh, and the strategist, it will be something for him to think about.” The captain snorted with contempt. He was not kindly disposed to thinking as an activity, considering it some kind of perversion, and he also despised telepaths, as did all right-thinking kzinti. “Bring the image up there, where we can all see it!” he decreed.
The big screen cycled through blue, green, yellow and purple, formed two images overlayed and then separated into a stereo image. It was somewhat surprising that it made any sense at all; some intelligent species had only three-color sensitivity, and their artificial images were incomprehensible.
“Strategist, what are we seeing?”
“Clearly two aliens, sir, and very different in appearance, to be sure. Perhaps different species, possibly merely different sexes. Since the signals originate from the middle continent, and since there are four distinct large land masses, it is conceivable that different species have attained intelligence on different continents. Their technology levels would seem to be at least what ours were some centuries ago. Since they are beaming the signal we may infer that they have detected our presence, which suggests somewhat more advanced technology.”
Before them with what might or might not be a toothless smile, a bright pink face with a huge slit mouth looked out of the screen at them. It had grey fur and wore a straw hat on its head which, although the kzinti didn’t know it, was decorated with bananas, apples and a lobster. It wasn’t, of course, a real lobster, but it was quite convincing. Next to the pink animal with the big mouth was a skeletal creature with a big green head wearing a morning suit complete with grey top hat. It had two arms with clawless hands on the end encased in grey gloves. The captain found it difficult to tell what parts were artificial and which parts were of its integument. It had its hands clasped on a black cane with a gold knob on the end. It looked into the eyes of the captain and spoke.
“Welcome to Altair One.” It spoke in the Heroes’ Tongue. It spoke as well as the captain. In fact it spoke in the captain’s voice.
The captain’s response was not fully articulate, being something between a howl and a roar, but a definite note of interrogation could be detected in it. Coco wondered if he had been misheard.
“Yes, welcome. We are very pleased to greet you and we anticipate with pleasure your arrival from the stars. We are sure you have lots of interesting things to tell us,” the big fat pink one spoke. It also spoke the Heroes’ Tongue and also sounded exactly like the captain.
Captain looked at them. They appeared to be waiting for a response.
“Is it possible that they can hear us, Strategist?”
“Since they speak the Heroes’ Tongue, they have plainly heard Kzin before, and since they speak in your voice, my captain, then they must have somehow heard you previously. It would be prudent, therefore, to assume that they can hear us.”
“Kill the link!” ordered Captain. “And Technology Officer, ensure that no transmissions from this ship are permitted.” It was elementary that the enemy aliens should not hear their Council of War. None of the kzinti were aware that this made no difference to Coco and John Wayne.
“Ha,” growled the captain in the mocking tense. “They may not be so pleased to see us when we arrive. I don’t know what they taste like, but they look as if they could be made into competent slaves.” A new, populated planet! That would mean wealth for him, and a Name! A pity there were not really enough marines aboard to leave a garrison, but that could wait until their return. However, he wondered at the big mouth on the fat one. He had not seen teeth, but there was something unsettling about the implied swallowing power.