Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show by Edmund R. Schubert Page A
Authors: Edmund R. Schubert
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reptilian centaur.
The soldiers sang to the crowd, and the crowd quieted down, parting in the middle to allow the half-dozen soldiers through.
Their leader trotted forward through the buffer zone the crowd had left around us and stopped about two meters away. His wide, expressionless eyes looked at each of the three of us in turn. Then he edged sideways until he was standing in front of me. Slowly he drew his sword.
I bravely stood my ground to show the aliens that humans were not intimidated. Or else I was frightened into immobility. Either way, the result was the same.
The leader bent one of his forelegs and sort of knelt on one knee. He placed his sword on the ground, looked at me, and said, “Alla Beeth.”
The crowd took up the chant once more.
Murerwa laughed again. “Looks like you’ve been chosen as the first ambassador to Aurora.”
The failure to include a linguistics expert on this mission is not as unreasonable as critics of UNSA are claiming. The evidence showed a high likelihood of a planet with an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, but before the Starfarer arrived there was not a scintilla of evidence for a sentient, civilized life-form in this system. Earth has had an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere for perhaps 1.5 billion years. The chances that an alien ship visiting Earth during that time would have found humans are only a third of 1 percent. The chances it would find us civilized are less than half a thousandth of a percent.
Iqrit Khadil was the first to bring up religion. During a lull in mess-hall conversation as the crew ate dinner the night of first contact, he said, “I do not think it can be merely coincidence that one of the two words we have heard these aliens speak is ‘Allah.’”
“You can’t be serious!” Rachel said.
“Why not? These primitives obviously seemed to think Jensen was a god, or a messenger sent by a god. And though they seem to communicate among themselves by singing, they knew to speak words to us. And one of those words was ‘Allah.’”
Rachel’s knuckles tightened around her fork. “All right, O wise one, then what does ‘Beeth’ mean?”
Khadil shrugged. “Maybe it means messenger. ‘Allah Beeth,’ messenger of Allah.”
I almost said that if I was anyone’s messenger, I was the Washington Post ’s, but several people began talking at once.
Rachel pounded the table with her fist until everyone turned to look at her. “First of all, we don’t know how the words are divided, or even that it’s more than one word, or even that it’s a word at all. Maybe the first word is ‘Al’, but they’re really just mispronouncing ‘El’, and so they’re actually referring to the God of the Jews, not the God of Islam.” She raised her voice over the beginnings of objections. “But coincidence is the most likely explanation. If we are going to speculate based on the idea that they spoke to us because they have seen humans before—which I find hard to believe—then there are other reasonable explanations. For example, they were trying to say the first two letters of the alphabet. Everyone here is familiar with the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha, beta. In Hebrew, they are aleph, bet .” She turned to Khadil. “What are they in Arabic?”
“Alif, ba.” He nodded. “I spoke too soon. I was just excited to hear what sounded like ‘Allah.’ But it is most likely a coincidence.”
During the rest of dinner I thought about what Khadil and Rachel had said. Coincidence. The possible meaning of the words didn’t really matter to me. But if the Aurorans communicated through song, why did they have words to use with us? And why only two words?
I tried to avoid wondering why their leader had chosen me to bow to, but I wasn’t very successful.
Imagine if eating an octopus in a certain way would allow you to grow tentacles on your body. Or if by eating a horse, you could replace your two human legs with four horse legs. According to Singh and
The soldiers sang to the crowd, and the crowd quieted down, parting in the middle to allow the half-dozen soldiers through.
Their leader trotted forward through the buffer zone the crowd had left around us and stopped about two meters away. His wide, expressionless eyes looked at each of the three of us in turn. Then he edged sideways until he was standing in front of me. Slowly he drew his sword.
I bravely stood my ground to show the aliens that humans were not intimidated. Or else I was frightened into immobility. Either way, the result was the same.
The leader bent one of his forelegs and sort of knelt on one knee. He placed his sword on the ground, looked at me, and said, “Alla Beeth.”
The crowd took up the chant once more.
Murerwa laughed again. “Looks like you’ve been chosen as the first ambassador to Aurora.”
The failure to include a linguistics expert on this mission is not as unreasonable as critics of UNSA are claiming. The evidence showed a high likelihood of a planet with an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, but before the Starfarer arrived there was not a scintilla of evidence for a sentient, civilized life-form in this system. Earth has had an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere for perhaps 1.5 billion years. The chances that an alien ship visiting Earth during that time would have found humans are only a third of 1 percent. The chances it would find us civilized are less than half a thousandth of a percent.
Iqrit Khadil was the first to bring up religion. During a lull in mess-hall conversation as the crew ate dinner the night of first contact, he said, “I do not think it can be merely coincidence that one of the two words we have heard these aliens speak is ‘Allah.’”
“You can’t be serious!” Rachel said.
“Why not? These primitives obviously seemed to think Jensen was a god, or a messenger sent by a god. And though they seem to communicate among themselves by singing, they knew to speak words to us. And one of those words was ‘Allah.’”
Rachel’s knuckles tightened around her fork. “All right, O wise one, then what does ‘Beeth’ mean?”
Khadil shrugged. “Maybe it means messenger. ‘Allah Beeth,’ messenger of Allah.”
I almost said that if I was anyone’s messenger, I was the Washington Post ’s, but several people began talking at once.
Rachel pounded the table with her fist until everyone turned to look at her. “First of all, we don’t know how the words are divided, or even that it’s more than one word, or even that it’s a word at all. Maybe the first word is ‘Al’, but they’re really just mispronouncing ‘El’, and so they’re actually referring to the God of the Jews, not the God of Islam.” She raised her voice over the beginnings of objections. “But coincidence is the most likely explanation. If we are going to speculate based on the idea that they spoke to us because they have seen humans before—which I find hard to believe—then there are other reasonable explanations. For example, they were trying to say the first two letters of the alphabet. Everyone here is familiar with the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha, beta. In Hebrew, they are aleph, bet .” She turned to Khadil. “What are they in Arabic?”
“Alif, ba.” He nodded. “I spoke too soon. I was just excited to hear what sounded like ‘Allah.’ But it is most likely a coincidence.”
During the rest of dinner I thought about what Khadil and Rachel had said. Coincidence. The possible meaning of the words didn’t really matter to me. But if the Aurorans communicated through song, why did they have words to use with us? And why only two words?
I tried to avoid wondering why their leader had chosen me to bow to, but I wasn’t very successful.
Imagine if eating an octopus in a certain way would allow you to grow tentacles on your body. Or if by eating a horse, you could replace your two human legs with four horse legs. According to Singh and
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