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Finding The Way

Sherwood Smith


Honk! Honk!

The damage alarm was louder than the pings and klonks of the meteorite shower our scout ship had accidentally encountered on our emergence from hyperspace.

"A puncture! We're losing energy!" Kikinee shrilled.

"Teer! Noot! Take evasive action," the Vmmm's voice hummed over the intercom. "I will fix the puncture."

Teer waved at me to take piloting as she worked at her computer. I did my best to guide our scout ship around the biggest meteorites. There was no time to set up a course. I punched us back into hyperdrive, and the screens smeared as our engines took us between dimensions.

With no idea where we were going, I yelled to our navigator, "Thisko, can't you---"

"Navigational computer is down," Thisko said, five of his eight tentacles working away.

"At least if we drop out of hyper into a planet," came Smelch's mournful hoot, "we won't have to spend five long hours in the Room for Reviewing Actions."

Kikinee waved at a cable that had shaken loose when the first big rock hit the ship, and chirped, "Quiet, Smelch, and give me a hand with that gravity-link."

Still muttering, Smelch shot one of its six hands across the cabin to the danging wires. The fingers quickly maneuvered the gravity-link back to where it ought to be, and we felt gravity ripple through the ship again.

Then Kikinee tossed the hand back across the cabin and, with a loud splorch!, it reattached to Smelch's arm.

We were all strapped into our pods, so we hadn't floated, but a couple of the things that had come loose--- like part of Kikinee's lunch--- stopped floating and dropped with a thud, Hank, and a squashy noise. Kikinee and Smelch scrambled to clean up. When things were stable again, I pulled us back into the realtime dimension, hoping we would emerge in the safety of space.

We were lucky.

"We're near a system," Thisko said after a pause, and sent the coordinates to my screen. "Noot, get us there. The third planet shows that the atmosphere is mainly oxygen and nitrogen---"

"Is the planet on the survey list?" came the Vmmm's voice. "Dangerous life-form warnings?"

"Class Five listing for this system," Teer said, checking Thisko's data.

I was still busy piloting us toward the mysterious planet, and trying to shed the enormous velocity built up during our jump between dimensions.

"Average sun, ten planets in all... looks like one broke up..." Teer went on.

The scout ship bucked again.

"No details now," I said. "We're still not stable! I'm taking us to the planet with the oxygen. At least we can breathe that."

Except for the Vmmm, of course--- but the Vmmm doesn't need to breathe. -A capsule of carbon dioxide once a lunar orbit, and the Vmmm is fine.

"Third planet in from the primary..." Teer said, scanning. "Noot! Slow us down! We're approaching way too fast! We'll bounce off the atmosphere and back into space!"

"I'm trying," I yelped, braking us hard. Energy was disappearing fast.

I used the atmosphere itself as a brake, looping tightly around the planet twice. When our speed was not going to cause us to burn up on entering the planet's atmosphere, I dropped us toward the planet, this time using the atmosphere to help brake us despite how hot it made the outside of the scout ship. We had very little energy left--- just enough to land us.

I cut in the thrusters at the last possible moment, and once we'd gone aerodynamic, it was time to look for a place to set down.

"Life-form readings," Kikinee chirped. "Lots. Especially in these areas with all the cubes."

"Must be domiciles." The Vmmm's voicebox vibrated warningly. "Avoid those."

"Keep us cloaked until the last moment," Thisko warned. "And keep us high enough to cool off the exterior of the craft!"

"I see a nice space there, past those tall things that look like giant vorch," I said, steering the craft down in a gentle circle. "Right next to the water."

"Trees," Teer said, peering into his viewer. "I have the language converter working. Those tall, rooted things are called trees."

"Shall we talk to them?" Vmmm said.

"I don't trust life-forms that don't move," Smelch added mournfully.

"According to the computer, the life-forms that have audible language have two legs---"

"Like those ones?" Thisko looked down through the viewscreen. "Look at them, running about on the green filaments."

"Grass," Teer said, working quickly. "And the lifeforms are the youth of the local sentient species."

"Like us!" I cried.

"Not like us, Noot," Teer said warningly. "They aren't cadet-scouts in the Interplanetary Trade School."

Thisko waved his tentacles. "This is true," he said. "Supposedly these life-forms have not traveled to other worlds--- that's what 'Class Five' means!"

No one spoke for a long time. We couldn't imagine what it would be like not to travel to other worlds--- not even to know about them.

"Tell us more about these life-forms," Kikinee chirped.

"Well, they come in two kinds," Teer started.

"A perplexing arrangement," Smelch commented sadly. Its world has only one kind of people--- after twenty years each citizen has an egg, and that's that for family.

"Boring," Thisko said, his tentacles vibrating. On his world, there are five kinds of people, and a young person might change two or three times before deciding whether to be a her, a him, a lon, a ril, or a zee. And when you want to start a family, you have to have all five together--- one of each kind. Family life on Thisko's world is very, very complicated.

"The types are called 'boys' and 'girls,'" Teer went on. Teer and I nodded--- we have the same on our world. The males stay home in the hive, and we females go out to work.

"Which one is which?" Kikinee whistled, bobbing near the viewscreen. "They all look exactly alike to me."

"It doesn't matter." Smelch sighed. "We don't dare stay long enough to interact with them. We'll be in bogs of trouble as it is."

The Vmmm hummed briskly. "Smelch is right. Let's get what we need and lift again before we really start breaking the Fourteen Laws of Interference."

Before anyone could speak, the ship, which had been zooming along fairly quietly, gave a bleep, and a zoop, and thunk! We landed on the grass not far from the water.

"Our ship's energy is zapped," I said.

"Then we're zapped," Smelch moaned.

No one answered.

Because the cloaking device was still working, the young life-forms had not seen us, and for a short time we watched them running about, kicking at a round shape. I was wondering what to do now.

"They really are all exactly alike," Teer said. "Look! They all have two legs, two arms, two eyes---"

"One nose," Kikinee offered. "That's at least a bit of variety."

"Only if others of them had four noses, or six, or, three," Smelch said, rubbing two of its noses. Growin gextra noses is common on its world. They are all enthusiastic about smell-o-vision there.

"They aren't completely alike," Kikinee whistled. "The faces and hands and the filaments atop their heads---"

"Hair," Teer said, looking into the computer.

"Well, the hair seems to be brown and black and yellow and there's a red one. But their fur looks like various shades of brown. Kind of boring, to be mostly the same color. Not a green or a blue in sight."

"Or even a handsome purple--- like us," Teer said, pointing at herself and me.

"That's not fur," Vmmm said. "That's a kind of flimsy carapace--- not solid like yours."

"It's not a carapace," Kikinee put in. "It's a little like feathers---"

"It's skin," Teer corrected, looking into the computer. "And the cloth is called 'clothing'... no, it's called 'bathing suits.' "

Everyone spoke at once. "What's that?"

"Decorative protection," Teer reported, tapping at the computer pads.

"Weird," Kikinee hooted.

"Embarrassing," Thisko pronounced. "I would not like to have to wear strangely-colored plant fibers over my pelt. What if you can't get your tentacles free when you need them?"

"These beings don't have tentacles," Smelch said sadly.

"Poor things," Thisko said, but softly. Rule One of the Nine Rules of Polite Interaction is not to brag about your race's attributes--- and Rule Two is not to comment about another being's lack.

"Only one nose," Smelch grumbled, breaking Rule Two again.

No one said anything--- we were all too shaken up by our close call.

"We must plan." The Vmmm's voice hummed like a hive of stickle-insects, a sure sign zir was upset. It's not safe to get the Vmmm upset.

Everyone was quiet for a moment.

I said, "Our first need is energy."

Thisko said, "Scanning for sources... ah. Next to the water. This light brown stuff is full of it. We'll have to filter---"

"That's sand," Teer said.

On our world, we have lots of sand, but it's not brown, it's purple--- like us. Thisko's world is all ice, and they live in towers.

"What if it's valuable?" Kikinee chirped. "We ought not just to take it. Then we are breaking the First Rule of Equitable Trade!"

"But we haven't anything to offer in return," Teer said. "We're on a scouting assignment, after all, not a trade assignment."

Silence again.

We turned to the Vmmm.

"We will have to speak with the life-forms," the Vmmm hummed, louder than before.

That hum made us scramble into action.

Thisko decloaked the ship. Teer programmed the computer to translate the local language. Kikinee let down the ramp. We all breathed the air--- which smelled of salt and herbs--- then Smelch sneezed, and three of its noses flew off, one of them landing outside on the grass.

"Eeeeuw ! What's that?" one of the life-forms yelled, pointing at Smelch. The computer translated the language into our headsets.

"Looks like a ball of guts with body parts stuck all over," another said.

"That's Smelch," I said carefully, and the computer's translator took my words and broadcast them in the local language. "It needs to retrieve one of its noses."

"Wow! One of the giant purple lobsters talks English!"

"Extra noses? That's disgusting---" a fourth life-form started, but a tall one, with dark skin and hair, waved a hand and the others stopped talking.

"Not where it comes from, I bet. We might be the disgusting ones."

The other life-forms looked at us quietly. We looked back.

"AyYesha is right," a little one chirped in a voice kind of like Kikinee's. "Me, I think they look kinda cool. All of 'em! Are you guys, like, in a movie or something?"

"Movie," Teer said, tapping her belt computer. "Oh! It's an entertainment form."

"Like smell-o-vision," Smelch said, sounding happy for once.

"We need an energy source," I said. "Silicon."

"Sand is full of it," the life-form called AyYesha said.

"We know," Kikinee chirped, fluffing his feathers. "We wish to effect a trade."

"What do you got?" a small life-form asked.

"Just a sec," AyYesha said, stepping forward. "We should introduce ourselves. I'm AyYesha, and here's my little sister NaTasha. She's Laurie, and those boys are Adam, Mick, and Kenji."

AyYesha was a girl, then. Teer said, "We are Teer and Noot. Here's Kikinee, and Thisko, and Smelch. Inside is the Vmmm."

"The what?" Adam asked.

"The Vmmm," I said. "Every ship has one."

"May we look inside?" AyYesha asked.

"Please do," Thisko said, glad that things were starting out like a proper trade ought to.

The boys and girls swarmed inside the ship, curious about everything, some using their arm-digits to touch things. AyYesha moved very slowly, examining everything with close attention.

"Wow, look at that computer," Kenji exclaimed. "I could use one of those!"

"It smells so good in here," NaTasha said to me.

"That's the Vmmm," I told her. "They get CO2 once a month, and the rest of the time they spurt out pure oxygen. Unless they get angry."

"You mean they fart good air?" Mick asked, making a hooting noise. "Where's this guy hiding?"

"The Vmmm is fixing the energy compartment," I said. "And zir is not hiding--- they just don't come out into the light. It hurts them unless they wear a coating of light blocking alloy. But zir is listening. The Vmmm always listen."

AyYesha turned from studying our piloting console. "You mean they are telepathic?"

We looked at one another. "The Vmmm seem to hear one another no matter where they are," Thisko said, waving two tentacles. "But I don't know if they hear us when we don't speak."

"So, what shall we trade you for your sand?" Teer asked. "We must get it loaded and converted."

"Your flight tech," AyYesha said quickly.

"This computer," Kenji said almost as fast.

Thisko and Teer said to the rest of us in our Universal Trade Language, "Remember Class Five!"

We weren't even supposed to be talking to these beings, much less trading for technology they didn't have.

"Don't tell me," Adam said. "You got these rules, right?"

"How did you know?" I asked. "Have you heard of the Interplanetary Trade School?"

The two biggest, AyYesha and Adam, looked at each other.

Behind, I heard the Vmnnm humming.

Kikinee whistled his I-hear-trouble whistle.

"No," AyYesha said at last. "We haven't. We didn't even know that other life exists--- some of our scientists don't believe it."

"And won't, even if we try to tell them," Adam added. "Who believes kids? They'll just turn us over to a counselor."

"Or tell us to stop eating so much junk food," Kenji added in a sour voice.

"Junk? Food?" Smelch's mournful voice interrupted. "Do you consume recyclables? Sounds very efficient."

"Nope," NaTasha said, giggling. "Food that tastes good but doesn't make you grow or anything. Parents hate it--- except for the kinds they like to eat."

"Ah, like nid-nuts," Teer said, and I nodded.

"But if we show them some cool kind of new technology, like how this ship works," Mick said, waving his arms, "then they'd have to believe us! And we can get to space sooner!"

"Who says the government won't just sit on it?" Adam said.

"Publish on the Internet," Kenji said, turning to face him. "Then everyone can make a spaceship."

"And what then? Take our wars into space? Gangs staking claim on the moon?" AyYesha said. "Look, guys, we got enough problems on our planet. I think we're going to have to solve them before we get into space, or we'll just have bigger problems and drag all these others into them." She waved at us.

"So what do we trade?" Adam asked, crossing his arms in front of him. "Teer said they have to trade."

"The sand is free for everyone," AyYesha said. "And we got to meet them. We 'trade' something that doesn't belong to us anyway, that belongs to the whole world, for the knowledge that they are here. And maybe, someday, we can give that knowledge to the world. I'd say that's fair."

Adam looked down at his feet. Then he looked up. "Fair," he said.

Behind us, the Vmmm's hum had stopped.

"Here, let's all help them load sand," Laurie said.

We all worked together, scooping sand into our energy converter. It stripped out the silicon and spat out the sand again, which landed back on the shore, slightly a lighter in color but otherwise unharmed.

As we worked, Mick gave a quick glance inside our ship, then said to me in a soft voice, "What happens if that Vmmm thing gets mad?"

"Zir emits sulfur instead of oxygen."

"Sulfur farts?" Mick said, making his eyes round and his mouth squeeze up like a molting plip-bug. "Whew! Let's keep this guy happy, definitely."

Behind us, Thisko gave a muffled laugh.

"Done," Teer called, reading her belt computer. "The energy compartment is sealed, and we have plenty of energy."

"We had better go," Kikinee said.

"Cloaking on," Thisko added..

Now only our ramp was visible. The rest of the ship was a blur, reflecting the surroundings. We retreated up the ramp, leaving the boys and girls standing on the sand, watching.

"Good-bye," Adam said.

The little ones all waved. AyYesha now had her arms folded. Her black eyes did not blink as she watched.

"Farewell," I called, and closed the ramp.

Thisko's tentacles worked at the navigation console, and Teer and I sat at the piloting controls. As our ship quietly lifted to a height at which it was safe to fire the thrusters without burning anything below, we all watched the beings dwindling in size until they were invisible against the sand. Then I cut in the thrusters, and we zoomed upward over the great blue expanse of water.

As we rose, the Vmmm's voice came: "A job well done."

Then a sweet infusion of oxygen came wafting through the ship. As we raced into the darkness of space, the stars clear and sharp, the Vmmm added, "AyYesha. We must remember that name. I believe we will see her again."


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