Ryeman Smith had been neglecting his post in favor of pursuing his personal library of classic science fiction. This was the good stuff, the old stuff: story after story chronicling the details of first contact with alien species: this was the stuff that a culture needed to be called culture. Meanwhile, the monitors, read-outs and gages which most of his duties on the small, one-man habitat out beyond Neptune's orbit centered around had been for the past three days behaving rather erratically.

It would be difficult for a reasonable mind to fault Ryeman for his delinquency. In the last year and a half, he had seen no other human, nor did he expect to see one for about as long. Three years had been the maximum term when he signed on: it had since been reduced to two, for psychological reasons. The pay was not good, but it accumulated; and Ryeman quickly found that he could goof off as much as he wanted, as long as his monthly reports were transmitted on time.

This error on Ryeman's part was compounded when, on realizing a ship was inbound, he spend most of his time cleaning his living quarters rather than running the tedious security checks the regulations mandated. Consequently, Ryeman was rather at a loss for what to do when the unidentified ship disabled his habitat's power supply, grappled to its side, and cut a hole in its hull.

He was further at a loss when a white and black creature resembling a crawdad entered through the hole and motioned at him to climb in with something that looked very much like a weapon.

"Incredible!" Ryeman thought. "Really fantastic. This looks like first contact with an alien, hostile, possibly carnivorous race unless this is really some guy in a bug costume as a kind of joke." As he walked by, he peered at the creature, trying to find a zipper. It opened two sets of mandibles and hissed at him. "Nope," he thought, "definitely not a bug costume." He marveled at his luck.

They put him in a holding cell and he assumed they would rifle through his things on the habitat. On the one hand, he was glad now that he had cleaned up, since he'd hate to give the bugs a negative first impression of his species; on the other hand, it seemed now like such a wasted effort. He wondered if he could name them the "Smith Entities" after himself. After all, he had discovered them.

Presently, two Smith Entities entered the room. One of them touched a metallic stud affixed to its shell and a table of sorts unfolded from the wall. Across the table from him, they appeared to eye him.

"Tell us the physical location of your leader," one of them said in perfect English, "and we will negotiate for your release."

Smith replied, "The creature you are speaking to is part of a vast collective consciousness. Because it lacks any individual psychology or will, it is inappropriate to ask for its leader."

(Incredible, the one on the left said to its leader. Our scientists have long suspected such a creature must exist.)

To Ryeman, who was none the wiser, it said: "What is your name?"

Ryeman paused, torn between Yahweh's "I am who am," and Popeye's "I am what I am." Eventually, he said, "I have no name as you intend the term. If you want to address or indicate me, you may use 'The Collective.'"

Ryeman unwittingly interrupted another private exchange between the two aliens by volunteering, "Your technology is primitive compared to mine. If you bring me one of your navigational charts, I will show you the systems you are to avoid."

(It simply wants to look at our navigational charts, the leader objected. If it were actually what it claims to be, it would have enslaved many species, more than we have. I believe it is bluffing.)

"And yet," the speaker rejoined, "the technology of the pathetic vessel we found you on was abysmally aboriginal. How do you account for that?"

Ryeman shrugged. "It has become my custom to use local technology in occupied territory. It has happened that the more intelligent slave races thought to resist me with captured weaponry."

"What did you do?" the speaker asked, intrigued.

Ryeman shrugged again. "The results were unfortunate."

(Don't get carried away, the leader warned him. I'm sure it's lying; I can feel it in my shell.)

"I hope you don't mind taking some intelligence tests?" the Smith Entity on the left asked.

"I would be intrigued," Ryeman replied.

(How much can it figure out about us from our intelligence tests? The leader asked anxiously. If it's lying we have nothing to worry about, the speaker replied I order you to answer me! Probably very little; may I now follow the procedure?)

The speaker laid a series of peculiar triangular tiles, of different sizes and angles, down on the table. Then it stood a picture of a shape in a stand and said, "Arrange these tiles so they form this shape."

Ryeman looked at the tiles and the shape for an uninterested moment. Then he looked at the crawdad countenance across from him. It was so impossible to tell what it was thinking. "And how would you solve this puzzle?" he asked.

It demonstrated. "You see?"

"And is this the only solution you know of?" Ryeman asked.

This threw the speaker and leader both into a state of panic. The speaker knew this was the solution because it was the one indicated on the back of the test card. It recovered quickly, however. "You are welcome to complete it another way, if you like."

"What's the next puzzle?" Ryeman asked.

Irritated at itself, the speaker laid down the next card. Ryeman immediately began putting the tiles into place, wasting no moves at all. He stopped, having used perhaps half the tiles. "I think this is a better shape, don't you?"

The speaker did not reply, trying to figure out what the hell was happening.

"No? Never mind." He removed them. "I will no longer be occupied by such trivial matters," Ryeman declared. "I have no more need for slave labor at this time. You may go, after I show you the planetary systems you are not permitted to approach or observe. If you are incapable of removing references to your own systems, you may retrieve the map from the slave habitat."

"It will take some time for us to secure the map for you," the speaker told him after a moment's conference with the leader.

"In the great circle of time, everything is round," Ryeman intoned.

"What about squares?" the speaker asked, perplexed.

"In the great circle of time, squares are of course triangular but I was speaking metaphorically." He went on, "You are a strange species, to understand the great circle of time so early in its development. It will be interesting to see what you are like in a few million generations."

Meanwhile, they had lead him through a dissolving wall into another room. A window, or else a viewscreen so realistic it appeared to be a window, dominated one wall. "What is this?" the speaker asked.

Below, Ryeman could see a young woman with a crew cut: presumably a marine. "It's a human," he said. "The species is similar to my own, but lacks, however, any telepathic ability. The language we are speaking is for the purpose of my communicating with members of this species, and of course for them communicating with each other."

"And it knows of your existence?"

"Of course, but I doubt you'll get it to admit that. It knows the consequences for its race if I am betrayed to any alien species."

(I have to admit, the leader put in, it does sound like a conqueror. We'll see what it does with the navigational charts.)

A peculiar device appeared in the room while Ryeman contemplated the nude woman below. "The map," the crawdad said.

Ryeman turned back to the room. "Find the sun nearest the place you found me." The crawdad moved to a certain starfield, explaining the controls. Ryeman marked the sun and zoomed out. He moved around the map. Presently, he said, "This is the best you could do?"

"What do you mean?" he speaker asked.

"This map is very inaccurate," the Earthman replied.

"Where?"

"You'll find out soon enough, if you ever try to go certain places. I will mark the stars closest to where you shouldn't go. You can avoid those general areas."

"That is acceptable," the speaker found itself saying.

Ryeman zoomed far in toward the galaxy's center and marked a few systems here, a few there, scattered as he felt like it. "Impossible!" the alien declared behind him. "Even if you could travel that fast, you could never go so far for want of fuel, without stops on the way."

Ryeman was silent for a moment, and finally said, "I'm sure your race will someday discover the secret of folding space." After that, they were silent. Ryeman marked off a few more stars, crossing one out and remarking, "This doesn't exist anymore." Finally, he stood. "I'm done. Now, if you gentlemen have no further questions"

"Collective." It was the leader who spoke for the first time.

"Yes?"

"As you have explained it to us, you are only one cell in a vast interstellar organism."

Uh-oh, Ryeman thought. "Essentially correct, yes."

"Then you have no objection if we kill this cell." The crawdad suddenly produced a gun and aimed it at his gut.

"Let's not jump to conclusions," Ryeman said edgily. Needing time to think, he demanded aggressively, "Do you realize what you're suggesting?" The Smith Entities were bigger, and looked stronger, than a man; he doubted he could take even one of them out.

"No," it replied; "explain it to me."

An idea, half-formed, came into Ryeman's mind, but it wasn't yet ready. He turned to the other and demanded, even more angrily, "And I suppose you will claim that you do not understand either?"

"I confess, that is exactly what I claim."

"I'm sure that, like most creatures, you have a sense of pain. For example, if I were to cut that--" he pointed at the leaders antenna-- "off, you might feel some discomfort. And I'm sure your species would not thank you if I returned to them, on an individual basis, the experience you have inflicted on me."

The thing regarded him for a long moment. "You may have a point," it replied, and put the gun away.

"The human is my property, of course and will be returned with -- this unit." Then, to cover his near slip-up, he added, "Unless you would trade a member of your species." He eyed the speaker speculatively.

"What would you do with this individual, should we trade?" the speaker asked.

"That is no concern of yours, since his experiences will never reach the rest of your species."

They quickly bundled him off with the marine in her small military vessel. The larger ship undocked and sped silently into space. "They appear to have repaired the damage," said the marine, who was wearing Ryeman Smith's coat. "I wonder why they let us go."

"Who can say?" Ryeman replied.

"I didn't tell them anything. Did you tell them anything?" She looked at him with that beady eye he had long ago learned from his mother and local librarian meant: it is useless to lie.

He said, "I told them everything."

She sighed. She shook her head.

"They promised not to bother us anymore," he offered.

"Men are so weak," she replied. "They'll believe anything."

It was a long ride home.

the end

© 2004