A Failure to Communicate
The Never Ending Quest - Episode 20715
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I'd never seen an Ib before -- few humans have -- so I took a moment to
look it over. (I wasn't sure "it" was quite the right way to think of it,
but, from what I hear, Ibornites are hermaphrodites -- both male and female
at the same time -- and neither "he" nor "she" seemed quite right. Anyway,
it looked like an "it.") I could pretty much only see its head, of
course. Big, faceted bug-eyes took up most of its face. Below those were
a trio of little flexible tubes sticking out of its face in a sort of
upside-down triangle arrangement. These wriggled and squrimed in a rather
disconcerting way. The bulbous head was completely bald, a shiny
blue-green sort of color that reflected the light -- reddish emergency
light, from what I could tell -- in all kinds of interesting ways. It
might be a pretty critter... from the back. It was just sitting there looking at me, so I figured it was time to say something. I cleared my throat and put on my Professional Voice. "This is Captain Fred Donair of the independent trader Princess Astra. Do you require assistance?" It made some whistling, clicking noises. "Um," I said. "I'm afraid I don't speak Bug. I mean, uh, Iborite. Or whatever that was. Could I have that in GalEng, please?" It made some more incomprehensible noises. "You don't speak GalEng?" It stared at me blankly. Well, actually, I don't think it was capable of any expression other than blankness, but whatever. I scratched my head. Everybody speaks Galactic English. OK, a lot of aliens speak it badly, but if you want to get around in this galaxy, you've got to at least be able to say, "How much for passage to Alpha Centauri?" and "Where is the restroom?" and, particularly relevant in this situation, "Help!" Then again, like I said, you don't often see Ibs out and about in the galaxy, so maybe this one never had any need to learn. But in that case, what the hell was it doing out here? "All right, listen," I said. "I'm gonna come in and dock. OK? And we'll try and figure something out, communication-wise." It chittered at me. "Right. See you soon." I flipped off the com switch and started to prep for docking.
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ragan
10/12/2002 1:47:47 PM
25102018 episodes viewed since 9/30/2002 1:22:06 PM.