tripped harder. They had come to talk to me. Perhaps, due to my transmission in their language, they believed I could understand them. Suddenly, my mouth was very dry.
The Macro was one of the new ships, the type I had come to think of as a cruiser. One thing was certain: it was not an invasion ship. It floated out there, in the same void I did, only a few thousand miles away. I knew it had to have its weapons trained upon my tiny vessel. The feeling was unnerving. A heartless machine eyed me, deciding whether or not my destruction was warranted.
Crow contacted me again when the situation appeared stable. “Riggs, can you stay bloody well out of this?”
“No sir, I don’t think I can. The ship has halted right in front of me. It obviously wants to talk to me.”
“Because you went and transmitted to it without authorization!”
“Yes sir. If you come up with anything intelligent to say, relay it to the Alamo.”
Crow disconnected with an expletive.
I sat there for another hour, thinking about it. The ship transmitted a short message in periodic pulses to me. I had the Alamo break it down into binary and I typed it into a file on my tabletop computer. I stared at it. The pattern was definitely binary. They probably didn’t use the same number of digits we did, and certainly our symbols would mean nothing to them. Even if I could translate their message into human phonetic letters, how would I know what the words meant? Assuming they were words at all?
“Alamo, have you picked out anything intelligible from the mass of stuff they are sending? Give me estimates that are even ten percent or more likely to be accurate. You don’t have to be certain.”
“It is a short, repetitive transmission. High probability that it is a command form statement.”
“Could it be the command is to surrender?” I asked.
“Unknown meaning. No frame of reference provided.”
“Can we respond yes or no, at least?”
Hesitation. “We can attempt a positive or negative response. There exists a chance of error, however.”
I thought about it. By now, I was sweating. I wanted one of the beers in the fridge, but I got out a highly caffeinated drink instead. I needed to think. I studied the binary transmission for a long time.
“Enemy energy emissions are changing,” said the Alamo after the third hour.
“Are their weapons systems charging?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Transmit both the signals for yes and no. Right now.”
The ship was quiet for several seconds. I had just told them yes-no. I hoped that would be interpreted as a maybe. Hopefully, that would buy us more time to figure out how to talk to them.
“Enemy energy emissions dampening.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Alamo, you’ve had hours of processing time now. You know the enemy are probably transmitting a demand for our surrender. You know how to say yes and no in their language. Can you translate their message? Give it to me, I don’t care if there are errors. Give me your best guesses.”
“Transmission has high probability of error.”
“Just do it.”
“Message translation: Immediate defensive reduction suggested. No further loss required.”
I blinked, typed it in, looked at the binary. Where had the Nanos gotten that one? I began to suspect they knew more than they were letting on. The message was confused, but they must have had something to work from.
“What language did you use as a basis for translation?” I asked aloud.
“Ancient transmissions from lost civilizations. The language used was the closest match, but error is highly probable.”
I rolled my eyes at the ship’s fear of errors and probabilities. It was better than nothing. Much better. “Alamo, when you transmit my messages to the Macros, I want you to transmit in the exact language of the lost civilization. Do not attempt to upgrade the transmission to match their current version. You will use the old language.”
“Ready.”
I hesitated. I wasn’t sure my hunch was right. How could I be? But I hoped that the Macro language was a newer version of an old language that the Alamo knew. If I transmitted in the old version, there was a reasonable chance they could understand it. If there was some degree of backward-compatibility, the kind of thing we often built into our human computer systems, they should be able to understand the old language. There were a lot of ifs in this series of suppositions, but it was the best I had.
What could it hurt to test my theories? At the very least it might keep this cruiser from blasting me for another few minutes.
“Message to transmit as follows: Do you understand this transmission? Please answer yes three times in this language if you do.”
“There is no translation of the please concept.”
I wasn’t surprised. “Okay then, omit that word from the transmission.”
The response came back in seconds. “Yes, yes, yes,” said the Alamo. I smiled. I had cracked the code.
What was my next move? Should I keep talking, or hand it all over to Crow and whoever was pulling his strings these days?
I sucked in air and froze, staring at the screens. This situation was getting bigger by the moment. Crow would want in on this. So would the people on the planet below me. They would all want in on it, right on up to the president and a dozen other presidents. But there wasn’t time for all that. This wasn’t a committee negotiation effort. The enemy was unbeatable and impatient. I believed they had been about to fire on me for taking too long just minutes ago. To be fair, the governments of Earth had every right to be involved in this discussion. But they weren’t up here sitting face-to-face with a Macro ship that was itching to blow them apart.
“Incoming message,” said the ship.
I sighed. Crow again, no doubt. “Let’s hear it.”
A bunch of beeping and squealing bounced off the walls. It was the Macros. “Alamo, is that the old Macro language? The same as the one you sent to them?”
“Frequency variations make it non-identical. Signal terminators match. Concepts are intelligibly structured.”
“Then translate it, assuming it is in the old language.”
“Incoming Message: Identify yourself.”
I smiled. I’d done it. Despite the worst interface in the world, I’d gotten this Nano ship to do what I wanted, again. “Contact Crow. Relay this conversation feed to him. Then tell the Macros this: I am Colonel Kyle Riggs of Star Force.”
“Incoming Message: You are the leader of the indigenous resistance forces.”
“Was that a question or a statement, Alamo?”
“A statement.”
“How did you figure it out, Kyle?” asked Crow, breaking in. He sounded incredulous.
“Never mind that. I’ve got them talking. What the hell do we do now?”
“What do they want?”
“I’ll ask them. But shouldn’t we get Earth into this?” I asked.
“No. It’s my policy that if something is above the surface of the planet, it’s Star Force business.”
“And I thought I had serious balls.”
“You do Kyle, you really do.”
“Do you want to talk to them directly?” I asked.
He paused. “No, you keep talking to them. You are very smooth with computers, mate. They like you. Get them to go away peacefully if you can… but don’t give away Australia.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Incoming Message: You are the leader of indigenous resistance forces.”
“Tell them yes. Yes, I’m speaking for this world,” I said.
As I spoke those words, they sounded extremely crazy to me. How had it come down to this? How had I gotten myself into this position?
