Girl on the Moon (18 page)

She was making her way back toward her lander. Daniels and Eyechart, next door, were due outside in another twenty minutes.

As she approached the landers, she saw an astronaut standing outside them, looking her way. Old-time, Apollo-era space suit. Someone in a backup suit? Luan?

She called to him over the radio. No response. Luan must still be tuned to the Chinese proprietary frequency.

“Brownsville, can we do something to get Luan on our frequency? It really would have helped this morning.”

“Copy that, Conn.” Sandy Kearns was CapCom, now. “They have given Luan the OK to use our frequency.”

“Roger that. Hello!” She waved an arm at Luan. No response.

“Conn, say again.
Hello?
”

“I was talking to Luan.” She was ten feet from him, now.

“Uh, Conn, are you at the Chinese lander?”

What kind of question was that?

“No, I’m—”

“Wait. Who is that?”

“Who? It’s Luan. Unless, wait—” The suit had an American flag patch on the left arm.

“Conn,
who is that?”
There was a higher-than-professional pitch to Sandy Kearns’s voice. She was agitated. Scared?

“Brownsville, you tell me. Daniels, is that you?”

Nothing in response.

Then Kearns said, in an even voice, “Conn, none of the others are outside yet.”

Confusion washed over Conn. So it was Cai Fang—he survived the plunge into Hadley Rille and climbed out of the canyon. Right? Had he been wearing that space suit? He must have. It was him—that was why he couldn’t hear her.

“Brownsville, this has to be Cai Fang. Right? Sandy?”

“Conn—stand by—Conn, Scott Daniels advises they are suiting up and coming out ASAP. Conn, we believe that’s...um, who you’re there to meet with.”

Conn’s jaw dropped. Gooseflesh riddled her. She staggered backward a few steps.

The astronaut moved forward, arm out, as though to catch her if she fell. Conn recoiled, tripped over her own feet and came down on her tailbone.

The astronaut had what looked like a radio around his—its?—neck. White, like the rest of the suit. Conn deduced it was supposed to be a radio because it said OFF, MAIN, [SOMETHING], TALK.

It also said E. ALDRIN.

Partially hidden by the radio was the Apollo 11 patch she had not seen earlier. This alien had dressed like Buzz Aldrin for their first contact with humans. Well, humanity’s first contact with them. That humanity knew of.

She rose, careful to make no further sudden moves. She regarded the alien. She couldn’t see a face through the space suit’s visor, only her own reflection. She wondered how they were supposed to say anything to each other if they weren’t on the same frequency. She wondered how they were supposed to say anything to each another in any case, unless the alien spoke English.

Time to establish relationships.

She extended her right arm.

The alien knew what to do. It extended its right arm. The two shook hands.

The motion-sensitive camera mounted on the outside of the lander beamed it all back to Earth at the speed of light.

She wondered what was next—

The alien wasn’t letting go.

In fact, the alien was pulling her closer.

She panicked.

The alien brought one finger on its left hand up to its faceplate. As though to say,
shhhhh
. Then it made the OK sign.

Conn fought her instinct to pull away. And run away. She would trust this alien because it would get Peo what she wanted. And because by now there were probably five billion people watching, and she was damned if they would see her run and hide.

The alien drew her in, then moved to the side and behind her. He let go of her hand, but laid his glove on her upper arm. His left hand found her left hip.
Don’t run don’t run don’t run don’t run
, Conn chanted to herself. It was so hard. She didn’t even fear for her safety, in her intense desire just to be away from this utterly alien being. Who was dressed like Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin.

Conn felt a tingle and saw the air in front of her undulate, like heat rising off asphalt. Never mind that there was no air. The alien turned her, careful to keep physical contact. This was going to be too much. It was one thing to have this
thing
pressed up against her back, another if it wanted a face-to-face hug.

With its right hand this time, the alien made the
shhhh
and OK gestures again. Conn scrunched her eyes shut hard, and tried to fight the gorge rising in her.

The alien began to remove one of her spacesuit gloves. OK, now relationship building had to take a back seat to survival. She tried to pull away, but the alien wouldn’t let her. It did the OK symbol again and kept taking off the glove.

She didn’t explode.

Was the undulating “air” some kind of field protecting her from the vacuum? She would not panic. Five billion people were watching. Peo was watching.

She took a breath and pulled off her right glove herself. She held it in her left hand. Her right hand didn’t blow up into a bubble or shrivel or hurt, at all.

Still keeping her close—and if the
whatever
field was keeping her pressurized, she didn’t want to stray too far—the alien clasped her hand again.

This time was different.

She felt a vibrating sensation. She assumed it was local to her hand, but then she realized it was in her head. Electrical impulses going off in her brain. She hoped to God she wouldn’t have a seizure. She hoped to God this thing didn’t give her brain damage.

Brownsville wasn’t saying a word. Sporadically, Scott Daniels would come on the radio and promise they were hurrying and would be outside soon.

Involuntarily, she shook her head. The vibration felt so weird.

Then it was over, her hand released. The alien pointed at her glove, and mimed for her to put it on. Usually, she put her right-hand glove on first and the left with a gloved hand, so now she fumbled a bit. But she did it, and it sealed.

Finally, Brownsville: “Conn, Luan is coming out, too.”

“Thank you, Sandy,” she said. And heard a startled Sandy Kearns yelp before the connection was broken.

September 2, 2034 (UTC)

“Brownsville? What’s the matter?”

The alien said, its guttural voice all rumbles and clicks, “You are speaking our language. You are not speaking English.” Conn shuddered: it was speaking not through the radio, but directly into her head.

She gaped at it. “What—I can’t speak English anymore?”

“You can speak English. Your brain is confused. Your brain expects one language.” Conn spoke passable French, two years in high school and one elective in college, and she started to say so. Then thought better of it. “Your brain is speaking our language. You can speak English,” it said again.

She concentrated, then radioed, “Brownsville, I was just taught a new language. I think I used it by mistake and scared you all. I’m fine.”

“Copy that, Conn,” Sandy Kearns said miserably.

Conn concentrated again, segregating one language from the other. In...alien, she said, “My name is Constance Ashley Garrow. What is your name?”

“Our language has a word which means
constance
,” the alien said. “We do not have a word which means Ashley. Nor Garrow. May I please call you Constance?”

She wasn’t going to argue about Conn and Connie with an alien. “Yes. Thank you for asking.”

“Thank you for asking,” the alien repeated. “You are welcome for asking. My name is Persisting. English has a word which means
persisting
.”

“Yes, it does. May I please call you Persisting?”

“Yes. Thank you for asking.”

“You are welcome.”

Daniels and Eyechart were finally hoofing it down their lander’s ladder. In the distance, Conn saw Luan hurrying toward them.

“Persisting, there are four—no. Persisting, there are three more people like me coming. They may be scared. I was scared. They will cooperate with you. They will not harm you.”

“Thank you for saying.”

“Brownsville, I’ve been communicating off radio with our visitor, whose name in English would be Persisting.”

“Say again—Persisting?”

“Persisting, yes. As in: continuing to try to do something in the face of obstacles, Persisting. Daniels and the others are on their way. Persisting was kind enough to upload his language directly into my brain.”

“Holy sh—uh, copy that, Conn.”

Eyechart and Daniels arrived. Conn brought them up to speed. Eyechart had a whole speech, it seemed, and he started to recite it in Russian to Buzz Aldrin. Conn interrupted him. “If you let him upload his language first, you can use it, and he’ll understand what you’re saying,” she said. Eyechart looked angry, but offered his hand to the alien.

“What have you found out?” Daniels asked. “Wait. Can he hear us?”

“I don’t know. I assume so. He speaks telepathically.”

“That’s a security problem,” Daniels said.

“We don’t have anything to hide.”

“You don’t.”

Great. “I really think it’s just communication. Let’s ask,” Conn said.

“We don’t have to—”

“Excuse me. Persisting?” The alien was uploading his language into Eyechart’s brain. Conn considered how to ask the question so it would be best understood, yet not seem contentious. “Can you understand us if we don’t say anything?”

“If I understand the question, the answer to the question is no.”

“Do you understand what our phrase
read minds
means?”

“
Read minds
...describes something that cannot be done. Do I know what you are thinking when you say nothing? Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“No.” Then Persisting repeated
no
with a word for which there was no corresponding word in English, but Conn understood the thrust: it was like someone in English saying “God, no,” or “goodness, no.” And more than that: Conn understood that in Persisting’s culture, you had a mother to nurture you, a father to feed and protect you, and a third participant in the process who tended to your spiritual needs. Not a priest, but someone in a familial relationship with you. Conn wanted to call it a
brother
or
sister
, there being, she realized, no word in the alien language for siblings—and three different words for what presumably were three different genders, anyhow. When she wrote her mission report, she would transcribe his response as “brother, no.”

“Thank you, Persisting.”

“You are welcome.”

“OK?” she asked Daniels.

“This decision needs to be made above my pay grade. Houston, switch channels, please. Conn, have our new friend do Luan next.”

Eyechart was giving his speech again, in the alien language, as best he could. He was struggling. Conn herself got a headache trying to speak the new language. Mother Russia is a great homeland, Eyechart was saying, the Russian people are exceptional, good friends to their friends, yada yada.

He—and Conn—were talking, even though they couldn’t be heard the normal way. She didn’t feel like she could just think words to Persisting. They needed to be vocalized. She could “hear” Eyechart. And this was important: Conn could hear Persisting responding to Eyechart. So it wasn’t a one-brain-to-one-brain communication only.

Conn needed to find out how that communication was done; if there was tech involved that humans could reproduce. It would make Peo bazillions. Oh, and uploading languages. And presumably other knowledge as well. A week ago, Conn might have confessed under duress that she didn’t always totally understand what she could accomplish for Peo up here on the moon. But she was starting to get a really good idea.

Luan had seen enough to understand he would be safe, and so he underwent the upload as well. He greeted Persisting when it was over with a “sad feeling,” his friend and colleague who was among the best China had to offer having been killed. Persisting said he was sorry and that he was glad Luan was alive. For the stilted cadence, the simple sentence structure, and the absolute foreignness
of Persisting, he knew a great deal about humankind, including things as difficult as how to give condolences. Conn supposed it could be that in Persisting’s culture, you did things the same way, but she somehow doubted it. While she was establishing a good relationship with the alien and any others that showed up, she would keep half a wary eye on their new friend.

Likewise, she needed to watch Daniels: she hadn’t forgotten his “you don’t” response to her remark about having nothing to hide. Daniels got his upload, and his prepared greeting afterward was much more humankind-centered than Eyechart’s. Conn felt conspicuous for not having had a greeting ready, but her assembled colleagues were truly representatives of many millions in their nations and cultures. She wasn’t. And anyhow, she would take
My name is ______, what’s yours?
as a greeting over any of the others if she were the one being welcomed.

She was anxious to know what came next. She had so many questions. She was scheduled outside for five more hours, and she had six hours’ worth of air in her tanks, so she could ask a lot of questions. But she decided it would be best now to let Persisting have his say: he had patiently listened to everybody else’s greetings.

Persisting began, “I am pleased to accept your friendship. Please accept my friendship. Thank you for allowing me to teach you my language. I anticipate the opportunity to learn yours.” His greeting was totally prepared in advance, too, Conn realized—
Thank you for allowing me to teach you my language
was by far the most complicated sentence he had yet spoken.

“Excuse me, Persisting?” she said. He didn’t reply. She belatedly realized he hadn’t replied before when she had said
Excuse me
earlier, either, so he was likely expecting her to continue. “I wish to repeat what you say. To people on Earth. In English?”

“[Brother], yes. I am pleased to know—all Earth men and women would hear,” the alien said. “We will not teach language. No other human will learn. Only you four.”

No pressure,
Conn thought. “Thank you, Persisting. Two talking is rude. I ask first.” She felt fluent in the alien language, but it was difficult to organize what she wanted to say properly. Into her radio, she said, “Brownsville, I’ll just keep the channel open and tell you what he’s saying.” She looked around at her colleagues. “Can you make sure it gets immediately translated into Chinese and Russian?”