Into the Black: Odyssey One (9 page)

“I’ll watch for a while at least, Doctors.” the Captain said as he waved them on.

Weston imagined for a moment that he saw the suits shrug, before turning away from him and entering the small airlock that separated the main medical lab from the isolation room. He sidestepped slightly to position himself squarely in the center of the transparency and looked in at their visitor.

She swung her whole body around as the airlock’s status lights changed and the slight difference in pressure cause a low hiss to sound throughout the room. He saw her eyes open wide when the two ominous figures shuffled into the room, advancing on her slowly with their hands openly visible.

Weston’s hand flicked out and slapped the switch that activated the room’s internal microphones so he could listen to the three of them.

Chapter 6

Doctor Palin spoke first, his voice somehow coming clear and undistorted from the confines of the hazard suit he wore.

“Hello, my dear. We are here to speak with you for a short while.”

Weston marvelled at the change in his voice, Palin’s normally condescending attitude was no longer in evidence in his voice, in fact the small man’s words rang out clearly with confidence and a strong tone of compassion as he addressed the obviously frightened young woman before him.

“My name is Edward. Edward.” Palin calmly pointed to him, repeating both his words and actions several times. He was sweating in the biohazard suit and mentally kicked himself for not adding the optional thermostat package, when he selected the garment.

Over the induction set attached to his jaw, Palin heard the Captains voice, “Doctor, please remember to activate the computer’s translation algorithms, so we can all benefit from this.”

Mentally kicking himself again, Palin acknowledged and tapped a quick command into the PDA strapped to his wrist.

“Computer translation systems are now activated, please identify subject.”

“Computer, apply translation algorithms to the patient now occupying the medical isolation ward.”

“Confirmed. Translation systems online. Begin when ready.”

Palin looked back at the young woman, her eyes now roaming the room looking for the source of the computers voice.

“It’s all right, my dear, please remain calm.” Palin almost laughed, telling her to remain calm when he was practically shaking.

Dr. Palin repeated his previous actions, pointing to himself and speaking his name, with no results. Finally he pointed to the Doctor, actually thumping him once on the chest, “Rame.”

“Hey!” Dr. Rame tried to object, but Palin was already repeating the entire procedure, pointing first to himself and then again thumping Rame in the chest, carefully stating their names in turn.

Rame would have objected more strenuously, but he was watching the young lady’s eyes and saw a flicker of recognition there, and a slight relaxation of her shoulders. If his getting thumped in the chest would take some of the fear out of the situation for her, he was willing to endure it.

The woman has stepped closer to Palin, tentatively reaching out her own arm and brushing his chest, “Edward?”

Her features were uncertain but she smiled when the silvered blob bobbed up and down slightly, she then reached out and thumped Doctor Rame on the chest and repeated his name.

“Hey! Why do I always get thumped?”

Both Dr. Palin and the young woman ignored the doctor’s plaintive outburst, as she began to speak rather quickly, to the rather ominous form that was Dr. Palin.

From the outside looking in, Weston had to suppress the occasional chuckle, as he watched Doctor Rame slowly becoming invisible to the other two in the room, even though the suits Weston could see the slight exasperation evident in Rame’s stance and the rapt attention that simply flowed from Dr. Palin.

For several minutes he just sat there listening to her speak, allowing the flow of words to wash against him, as his mind began processing the information and looking for correlations to the languages he knew. After about twenty minutes of listening, Dr. Palin spoke.

“Jan mest Dukto Edward Palin.”

The young lady stopped her flow of words and stared at the silvered mask covering Palin’s face with astonishment, “Jan mest Ithan Milla Chans.”

Palin leaned back in his chair and an audible sigh was heard, “lovely to meet you, Milla.”

“Captain, our lovely guest here is Milla Chans, she also has some title but I am not certain what it means yet. It’s actually quite fascinating; her language seems to be evolved from the same core that makes up the so-called romance languages on Earth. French, Italian, and Spanish, although it does appear to be somewhat more complex.”

“How long do you think until we can communicate with her?”

Palin paused a moment, “Between my skills and the ship’s computer I think a few days and we’ll be conversing quite well. That is as long as you don’t intend to start interrogating her about technical matters.”

“I don’t, for now I just want to hear her story,” Weston paused a moment, “and find out where she’s from, so we can bring her home.”

“Not long then, Captain, not long at all.”

Weston acknowledged the report and turn away from the scene in the isolation ward, his head spinning from what he had just observed. Palin had decoded the first levels of a new language in minutes, and planned to be finished within a few days. His file hadn’t been exaggerating his skills in the slightest.

Good. The sooner this is concluded the sooner we can find out what happened out there. And whether or not it may be a threat to us, as well.
Captain Eric Weston strode from the medical labs and headed back to his bridge.

*****

Dr. Rame had backed off when it became apparent that his patient wasn’t going to enter a blind panic and had finally decided that his presence wasn’t needed. As the air lock cycled around him, he reflected on what he had just seen. Apparently Dr. Palin wasn’t the oaf, he had taken him for. He treated the young woman with calm compassion and had managed to relax her enough to begin working with her, to translate her language. Palin’s linguistic skills were nothing short of phenomenal, which bothered him because he had never heard Palin mentioned as being impressive in anyway. In his lab, Rame slipped behind his desk and activated his terminal, calling up the personnel files.

Back inside the isolation room, Dr. Palin himself was immersed in the language problem facing him, absorbing the words, phrases and inflections that Milla was uttering. The language seemed more elegant to him with every word he deciphered, but Palin knew he was missing something. There was something about the decidedly one-sided conversation that was troubling him more and more as it went on. The words were coming quickly but try as he might; he couldn’t grasp many of the meanings, as they simply seemed to slip past, as his mind tried to snap down on them. Even so the discourse slowly became a two-sided exchange as Palin’s instinctive comprehension of the alien language was slowly complimented by the computers growing data file.

“Docteur Palin, what is this… shippe?” Milla’s accent certainly bore out his comparing her language to the Terran ‘romance’ equivalents.

“This is the NAC Odyssey, a long range exploration vessel.” Palin suddenly wished the Captain had remained in contact to tell him how much he could tell their ‘guest’.

“Odisee? I do not understand that word?”

“The word odyssey means ‘voyage of destiny’ or something similar it seemed to fit the purpose of the ship.”

Milla’s laugh rang clearly through the room, “It was certainly a ‘voyage of destiny’, from my perspectif.”

Palin smiled beneath the silvered visor, from her point of view it certainly was a fitting name. His smile dropped off instantly, as his mind ran through what she had just said and, he suddenly realized, how she said it.
It’s the inflections!
Mentally kicking himself, as was his habit when working, he surged up from the table and rushed across the small room to the small terminal, built into the wall.

“Computer, adjust translation matrix to include Asian inflection coding, as well as the European romance languages,” Palin fingers were leaping across the small keypad as he modified small details of the translation program.

“Confirmed. Translation algorithms have been adjusted. Estimated time to adapt current data to new codes: five minutes, twenty-seven seconds.”

Palin turned back to Milla, somewhat surprised to find her almost cowering back from his sudden moves.

“It’s all right my dear, just stay calm.” His calm voice floated out of the suit, soothing Milla’s fear, and bringing her back to the discussion.

Dr. Palin spent the next 5 minutes calming Milla down, getting her back into the same frame of mind, she had before his outburst. When the computer chirped the completion of its task, Palin keyed it into the induction set resting on his jaw.

“Do you understand me properly now?”

Milla’s face lit up with recognition, which was quickly followed by extreme puzzlement. “Yes! I do… but… how?”

“It was quite simple actually, my dear. Your language uses changes in the timber of the voice, to distinguish different meanings in the same basic word. Once I told the computer to add that to its decoding process, it simply went back through everything we said in the past several hours and recompiled its program.” Palin’s voice communicated the slightly superior smile, even though the mirrored visor.

Milla smiled softly at the pride she heard echo through his voice, this man was not one to be humble about his accomplishments. Still she supposed he had a right, translating a new language in just under eight hours was a remarkable accomplishment - even with computer assistance. Although she was still worried about these people, she wasn’t nearly as frightened as she had been a short while ago. They weren’t the
Drasin
, that had been obvious the moment Palin and his associate Rame entered the room. In spite of their concealing clothes, it was apparent to her that they were as human as she was. For a brief moment, she wondered what colony they were from but she immediately put it out of her mind, since no one in the colonies would feel the need to conceal themselves from her.

One of the others,
That thought pleased her, and frightened her, if it was one of the others, her people would have help at last.
But which? None are reported within a century of having dimensional technology, and they could not have gotten this far out without it
.

“My dear? Are you all right?” Milla was shaken from her thoughts, by the visage of Dr. Palin’s suit looming over her, managing to express concern even through the thick material, somehow.

“I’m fine docteur, just considering my…er… situation.”

“Ahh, well that’s understandable, my dear. I have a report to make to the Captain. I’ll return as soon as I can. In the meantime, do try and get some rest.”

Milla watched the doctor as he stepped into the bulky airlock, “I’ll do that Docteur Palin”

An airlock, incredible. I must be in a medical facility, but why an airlock of all things? Energy fields have replaced airlocks for centuries on all the colonies.
Milla stood up and examined the room again, paying close attention to the terminal that Palin had casually uncovered when he wanted to alter his language program.
An ancient airlock, but computer systems far and above anything I’ve ever seen. How do they manage a voice interface?

“Computer, where am I?”

“You are in the medical isolation ward of the NAC Starship, Odyssey.”

Well at least it responds to me as well.
Milla lightly cleared her throat, “What is the system of origin for this ship?”

“You have not been cleared for navigational data.”

“Where was the Odyssey built?”

“You have not been cleared for historical data.”

“What information have I been cleared for?”

“You have been cleared for limited access to the on-board com-channels, limited access to the on board catering system, and limited access to the ship’s entertainment library.”

That’s an interesting array of selections,
“Computer, may I please have a glass of water?”

“One moment.”

She waiting for a short while, uncertain as to what to expect, then a small recessed slot opened up in the wall underneath the huge mirror and a tall glass of water was nestled inside.
Well that settles any doubt I may have had about the true nature of that mirror.

“Computer, what is available to me in the entertainment section?”

“You have been cleared to access the following music selections.”

Milla watched the titles flicker past on the small screen, wishing fervently to be able to read the language they were written in, unfortunately the translation program only seemed to operate on a vocal level. Finally selecting one at random she walked back over to the room’s bed and laid down while the music washed over her.

*****

On the bridge, Captain Weston was examining the data they had been gathering on the remnants of the shattered fleet that floated around them, when Dr. Palin strode onto the bridge.

Weston lifted a hand to him, causing the Doctor to frown and back off as he watched the Captain sign off on a report and turn to Commander Roberts, “how long to the Heliopause?”

“Thirteen minutes,” Roberts replied, “We’re already picking up several times the data density on the ‘wake’ scans, and Winger thinks that she’s right about that planetary system she recommended. Of course, she thought that before we got the extra data.”

Weston smiled thinly, “Of course she did. All right, we’ll transition as soon as she’s done with her scans… Have the helm calculate our exit from transitional space carefully; I don’t want to arrive too closely in system. At least three hours out, all right?”

“Aye Captain. Three hours minimum,” Roberts nodded, moving off.

“All right, Doctor,” Weston turned back to Palin, “What is it?”

The academic smiled thinly at his Captain, his expression not quite insubordinate as he responded. “I’m pleased to say I’ve deciphered enough of their language to allow the computer to translate any conversation you might wish to have. That is assuming you don’t want to ask her about technical details.”