"The first is formula for diminishing forward velocity to zero, or 'halt,'" he said, holding up a skinny palm. "These next four I do not know. Some familiarity, but not enough. The first three are in command tense, but with certainty I cannot tell you their meanings."
"So there has been some linguistic shift," Keff said, nodding to Carialle's Lady Fair image on the wall. "It moves a lot faster than genetic or geographic alterations. Your ancestors might have used a more complex, extended phrase to mean whatever these do."
The globe-frog nodded, and tilted his head again to listen to the tape. "This is X=N, 'identify.' Three unknowns. This is the formula for no forward motion, 'not-proceed,' a command. More unknowns." Keff watched the small aliens hopefully as the tape ran out.
"Well, that's enough to go on," Carialle said. "It's very much what I comprehended from the visual portion of the signal. 'Stop, tell us who you are before you proceed.' Precisely what you'd expect from one of our own security beacons."
"Expressed entirely in mathematical concepts," Keff said. "Very interesting. TE, will you sing me the numerical sequence, and all the variables for IT?"
"With pleasure," the amphibioid said, still bobbing lightly on the air, "but what to do now about message heard?"
"Well, then, we reply as best we can," Keff said. "TE, do you want to do the honors?" He made way before the communications console, and courteously bowed the globe-frog into his own chair. "It's your home."
"I do not know what to do," the small alien said, looking up at Keff uncertainly. "What does one say to one's cousins after a thousand years?"
"Take one step at a time," Keff said. "Tell them who you are, where you're coming from, and ask permission to land. Mention us as your friends and allies. We don't want to have to explain anything more complicated than that at these long-distance rates. I'll stand behind you so they can see me. We'll answer their other questions when we arrive."
Following Keff's instructions, Tall Eyebrow made a brief translation. Carialle could see on close magnification that the small green male's hands were trembling, but his signing was perfectly clear and precise as he identified himself. The long part, the explanation of his people's long absence from Cridi, he alluded to with some quick symbols and a few chirps, mentioning Keff and Carialle as their rescuers and allies. At the end, he asked for instructions.
"Good, TE, good," Keff said soothingly, patting the globe-frog on the shoulder as soon as the camera went off. Tall Eyebrow's shoulders collapsed inward with relief. His two companions crowded in to comfort him.
"It is difficult," he signed.
"Good job. It's going to be a big day for you," Carialle said, signing through her globe-frog image. "That was just fine."
"And now, what?" Tall Eyebrow asked, stepping out into the air from Keff's chair, which was a meter too high for him.
"And now, we wait," Keff said, reclaiming his seat and throwing himself back with his hands behind his head. "Remember, they said, 'halt and not-proceed.' In the meantime you can sing me the symbols for each number, sign, and modifier."
They didn't have long to wait. Within a few hours, Carialle picked up a new transmission from the beacon. A harried-looking frog, not the silver-torqued one, appeared with a new message, which consisted of a single, short trill, and the screen went blank.
"What was that?" Carialle asked, replaying the transmission. "Welcome? Go away?"
Tall Eyebrow's hands flew. "It means 'proceed to the second planet from the sun, listen on this frequency for beacon, and follow in great-circle, equatorial orbit for landing procedure.' It would seem procedure does not change."
"That little ding-a-lingle meant all that?" Keff laughed.
"No stranger than the 'beep-a, beep-a'," Carialle imitated the communication-line busy signal, "which means, 'the party to whom you wished to speak is engaged on the line. Please disconnect and try again later.'"
"True," Keff said, his eyebrows raised in amusement.
"It is an abbreviation," TE acknowledged. "Such a sign is phonetically recorded in our archives. I am surprised to hear that it really does sound like it is written."
"It's a pity you didn't continue the use of your verbal language on Ozran," Carialle said. "Humans are geared toward spoken dialects. The mages might have realized sooner that you were sentient."
"Things might have gone faster with us, too," Keff agreed. "My IT program is geared more toward aural reception and translation."
"Yet inside our globes," Tall Eyebrow said gravely, "no one could have heard us cry out."
The second planet from the sun, behind a scorched clay rock and an insignificant asteroid belt where an unstable planet used to be, was large and beautiful and wet. As she swept into orbit above the equator, Carialle read her spectroanalysis monitors and discovered high relative humidity, due to a respectably thick and variable cloud cover in a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere.
"I'll have mold galore, and possibly rust in my drawers when I lift off."
"Don't worry, lady," Keff said, cheerfully. "If TE's cousins have the magic technology, they can keep you as dry as you want."
"Oh, I want, I want," Carialle said. "That's one application of the technology I would look forward to using."
Within minutes, Carialle had picked up the signal from the landing beacon on the largest landmass in the planetary-northern hemisphere. She oriented herself to it, following a great circular route that would pass directly over it.
Beneath them, peeping through the cloud cover, half a dozen small continents floated on the surface of a vast, blue-green ocean. Small, blue ice caps appeared, then fell off to either side of the globe as Carialle descended. As the clouds parted, they could see how very green the low-lying lands were. Small Spot and Long Hand looked positively awed. They had never imagined the existence of so much water. Hazel-brown islands dotted the seas like freckles. Carialle opened megachip memory to record every detail and gave full visuals to those in the control room.
There was some minor particulate matter in the atmosphere, probably a sign of industrial activity, and creating a beautiful sunset half a world behind them. She caught the occasional sunspark as tiny airborne craft speeding below her reflected the yellow star's light. The whole scene reminded her of any one of hundreds of the Central Worlds, but everything was in such small scale compared to those in a human settlement. Her sensors told her that the flyers were only a meter square by less than two meters in length.
"How could we not have known they were here?" she wondered aloud.
Keff, never moving his eyes from the screen, shook his head slowly from side to side and clicked his tongue in agreement.
"This is the race, all right," Keff said, happily.
The partners' dream had always been to discover a sentient race equal to humanity in technological advancement and social development. There was no doubt about the well-established civilization below them, and their guests were living proof of the culture's prowess in space exploration.
The globe-frogs became agitated as the ship neared the stratosphere. Carialle picked up signals that were almost certainly what was arousing their senses.
"Take a look at the readings for the enormous power source down there," she told Keff. "Much larger than the Core of Ozran. The frequency hash is even greater. I'm reading controller codes in tiny bandwidths that I doubt could sustain what's necessary for one of the older amulets. Your machines will undoubtedly need tuning," she told Tall Eyebrow.
"It is true," he said, placing his long fingers on his belt buckle. "I can feel the great power source, but I cannot focus in on it to draw from it. My amulet frequency is already in use here."
"Well, you can stay on my engines for the time being," Carialle said. "Our hosts should give you a guest frequency when we land."