The
cattle were having a chat in the field.
Long
days on threadbare pasture can have that effect on a herd. The suns overhead were
punishingly hot, the soft refreshment of rain was long overdue, and the field
was baked brick dry. As a result, the cattle seemed agitated and – although the
sounds they were making did not sound like true conversation – some rudimentary
information was being conveyed, the farmer was sure.
But
what kind of information could that be?
The
farmer, standing over by the fence, watched them and found himself wishing that
he could understand them.
o
o o o o
ORDER NUMBER: 00085748999011/ITD
ONE (1) INTERSPECIES TRANSLATION DEVICE - PAID
DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE TO DEVICE PRINTER? Y
>DEVICE PRINTING ERROR
>CHECK SUBSTRATE TRAY THEN RESUME PRINTING
>RESUME? Y
o
o o o o
To an unenhanced ear,
the cattle’s vocalisations were just random noises but deep machine learning -
and military grade decryption software - would surely allow the farmer to wring
meaning from their utterances.
The
next afternoon, with the suns still causing discontent in the field, the herd
gathered again.
A
pair of bull cattle were standing close enough to get a clear read.
The farmer toggled [RECORD/TRANSLATE].
o
o o o o
“[Food?] up. [?] This.”
“[?] About. [?]”
“[?] Is this our [?]
field? [?] [?] [?] Forever?”
“[seems]-[appears]-[could
be] that way.”
“[?] [?] [?] [?] Don’t
[?] deserve it. [?] [?] [?]”
“I’m [timid]
[?]”
“[?] Calm [?]”
“I’m [?] [?] [?].”
o
o o o o
The farmer was both
excited and disappointed.
They
were communicating, which explained the first emotion, but the translation
was far too sketchy for him to fully appreciate what they were saying, and that
produced the second.
He
went back to the farmhouse and checked the translator’s ReadMe. It was written
even less clearly than the herd’s translation, it seemed. He wasn’t good with
this technical stuff. But he’d spent enough on getting this far, so he
persevered.
Square
brackets around a query hook indicated uncertain translations, as he’d
suspected. Connected sets of square brackets showed possibilities unclear from
context, that had seemed pretty obvious.
The
problem was one of information: there was meaning being conveyed by the
cattle, but the ellipses were frustrating his attempts to uncover it.
He
checked the company’s storefront and found that there were multiple service packs
and linguistic tweaks that could be downloaded straight to the device for a small,
regular fee.
He looked out through the window at the
cattle in their stalls and wondered: is it really worth it?
So cattle could talk.
So what?
What did it really matter?
And even if he could understand their utterances,
surely he wouldn’t understand their references, the experiential
uniqueness of their differences – the set of perceptual and conceptual universals
that applied to their way of seeing the world – their alienness, for
want of a better word, would surely be too far a gap for his own, societally-constructed
set of references for him to traverse.
So let it lie, then.
But it was lonely here, out on this
frontier planet. Sure, his isolation was self-enforced, a way to escape from
some bad choices and even worse actions, but it didn’t make the solitude any
easier to bear. Just because he had escaped one bad situation, didn’t mean he
hadn’t replaced it with one equally awful.
He
was lonely.
So
very lonely.
And
hearing voices over interspace links was fine and all, but voices in real time,
in this place, were kind of exciting.
Even
if the voices were just those of the first herd he was tasked to watch over.
Surely
even the voices of cattle were better than the silence of his own failure.
He pressed [BUY].
o
o o o o
First things came first.
He ran the original sequence through the newly enhanced software to see if it
made any more sense to him. It couldn’t make any less sense.
His finger was trembling as he toggled [TRANSLATE].
o
o o o o
“Fed up with this.”
“Tell me [around?] it.”
“I mean, is this it? Is this our [life]-[existence]-[lot]
now? Standing [in]-[on] a [field]-[wasteland]-[plain]?
Forever?”
“[Cast]-[Aspect]-[Appearance] that
way.”
“I don’t [discern?] it. Why? I mean what did we do to deserve this? There’s a whole [world]-[planet]-[environment]-[ecosystem]-[bigger field] out there to [explore]-[exploit]-[graze]-[conquer]. And we’re stuck here?”
“I’m [timid?]
so.”
“You seem [deplorably]-[horribly]-[terrifyingly]
calm about this.”
“I’m working on a [plan]-[scheme]-[stratagem]-[poem].
Now shhh. Eat. Wait. I’ll talk to you soon.”
o
o o o o
The farmer sat in the
farmhouse, fretting.
He’d put the herd back in their stalls with
anxious caution, seeing in their slack features a new craftiness that he would
never have seen without the intervention of the translator. They had been
silent as they filed into their barn, but he knew that was not their natural
state. Were they staying silent because they feared he could understand them? That
was a terrifying thought. Too terrifying. He locked them down for the night,
his mind reeling under the weight of his new discoveries.
There was a lot he needed to think about,
and none of it was pleasant. Most of it was summed up by the idea that one of
his cattle had a [plan]-[scheme]-[stratagem]-[poem].
Three
of those potential translations seemed like bad news.
Very
bad news indeed.
It
was disconcerting to think that one of his livestock might be formulating some
kind of plan against him.
A
plan for what?
Insurrection?
Escape?
Murder?
A poem would be better, he thought. Quite a
lot better.
Maybe
a sonnet.
He needed to know.
There was only one way to find out.
o o o o o
The same two,
speaking conspiratorially by the fence.
The farmer made sure they could not see him,
using a device-printed parabolic microphone array.
o
o o o o
“We are [hidden]-[unobserved], aren’t we?”
“I [think]-[believe]-[hope]
so.”
“Good. I can’t go on
like this. We can’t go on like this. I don’t think it will [end]-[come
out]-[terminate] well for us.”
“You [think]-[intuit]-[suspect]
that the [man]-[other]-[creature] means us ill?”
“Some of us go in the [barn]-[structure]-[church]
and don’t come out. What do you [think]-[intuit]-[suspect]?”
“[?][?][?][?]”
“[?]
“So what do we do?”
“Spread the word. Talk
to the others. We [object]-[show disapproval]-[fight]-[rebel]. And we do it
soon.”
o
o o o o
The farmer unlocked
the crate and took out the thermic prod. He hadn’t needed it out of its crate since
the herd arrived by delivery craft a few weeks before. The herd had been
agitated and dangerous, anxious from the long journey, and they had needed the
prod’s not-so-tender urgings to get them to behave. Once they were compliant,
with any recidivism punished with the prod on a low setting, they had stopped
being any trouble.
What trouble could they actually be?
They were cattle.
Domesticated.
Stupid.
He hadn’t been a farmer for long, but he
knew that much.
He suddenly found himself regretting his
decision to even become a farmer. Before he touched down on this planet
he’d never thought about where his meat came from and had been shocked to find
the creatures he was tending to not only had faces, but they made rudimentary
sounds too. Discovering that those sounds constituted a language
actually made him feel physically ill. Discovering that they were planning to rebel,
well that terrified him.
The ad he’d answered had been for someone
to raise a herd on a frontier planet, no questions asked. He had needed a no
questions asked kind of opportunity, so he’d applied, more in hope than
expectation. They’d employed him immediately. He’d boarded a shuttle and got
thrown out here. He honestly didn’t even know the name of the planet. He knew
nothing about livestock and was given basic instructions. Keep the herd fed,
watered, sheltered at night, maintain the security devices – which amounted to
mending stun fences, and checking the logs of drone turrets – and try to keep
himself from going slowly insane.
When members of the herd reached a certain
weight – measured by pressure plates in their stalls – they were taken to the
processing centre. He used electric ropes to get them through its door and then
the process was fully automated, but he knew what ‘processing’ meant, and it
did weigh upon him sometimes, but then he’d remember the credits he was earning
with so few opportunities to spend them that a year or so in the future he
could see himself going back home, holding his head up high.
But this?
This was insane.
He checked the company manuals and databases
but could find no protocol for dealing with suddenly scheming livestock.
Perhaps it wasn’t necessary. Perhaps there was nothing to worry about. Perhaps
cattle made plans all the time but were unable to act upon them. Because they
were cumbersome. Because they lacked intellect. Because … well, because they
were cattle.
He checked more databases to try to
identify the particular breed of cattle he had in the field. Maybe the reason
they put them out here on this planet was because they were dangerous, and the
reason they employed someone like him was because he was expendable.
He certainly hadn’t heard from the company
since he’d got here, so was this some kind of experimental farm? The shuttle
had arrived, and he’d taken the livestock off, and there had been no signing
for the consignment. Plausible deniability? Or just lax business procedure? Thinking
about it, there had been no one on board the shuttle, it had been automated,
and he was still waiting for it to leave.
Leave?
Was that the answer?
Commandeer the shuttle and get the thrack
off planet?
It was tempting …
No.
What kind of business model was that? Leave
someone alone on a planet tending a hazardous flock, on the off-chance that it comes
out all right?
That was stupid.
He was being paranoid.
Seeing conspiracies like seeing shapes in
the clouds.
It was madness.
Madness.
But when he slept, the prod slept with him.
o
o o o o
“We set?”
“Tonight.”
“The [others]-[remainder]
are clear on the [plan]-[scheme]-[stratagem]-[poem]?”
“Clear and ready.”
“What is that … [thing]-[object]-[creature]-[abomination]
anyway? Does it [take]-[draw]-[abstract] pleasure from our suffering?”
“I don’t know. But I
want to be the one to [end]-[finish]-[destroy]-[kill] it.”
“I thought you’d never
ask.”
o
o o o o
So this was real. This
was as real as it got. Turned out the expense on the translator and its tweaks was
pretty close to being the best credits he ever spent.
If he hadn’t bought it …
If he hadn’t bought it, he’d never have
known what was coming.
He’d never have been able to prepare.
This … this was war.
Livestock, it seemed, were a whole lot
smarter than anyone had ever given them credit for.
He kept trying to find the exact breed of
cattle he was dealing with, but nothing came even close. So, he’d been right,
he was sure, that the company was trialling a new breed, one that they knew was
dangerous. Otherwise, why employ him. When something seemed too good to
be true, then maybe it was.
Well, he wasn’t going to let livestock
get the better of him. It was meat, nothing more. Mobile meat. He wasn’t going
to let meat get the better of him. If only he knew more about the breed …
He stopped.
Maybe there was a way to find out
more about them.
Maybe there was documentation on the
herd, and it had been left for him in the shuttle. And he’d been too inexperienced
to check for it.
It was a slim chance, but a chance.
It was better than knowing nothing.
o
o o o o
The field was quiet,
but he felt that the eyes of the herd were upon him as he made the trip over
the hill towards to the landing site. He was carrying the translator, but none
of them were conversing, so it was useless, dead weight for his trip to the
shuttle. Great choice of equipment.
Powder
dirt puffed up as he moved, but he ignored it. Keep your eyes on the prize,
he thought, somewhat hysterically.
The shuttle was different to the one he’d
been shipped here in, but then it would be. This was a cattle transporter,
obviously. It had been designed for conveying a whole herd, and thus it didn’t
follow the same aesthetic principles. Still, looking at it now – when he wasn’t
concerned with his task of rounding up the cattle that had flowed out of it
when it landed – he thought it looked a bit … well, disturbing.
Something about it.
Something that made his hackles rise.
He approached the craft, wondering what it
was that was making him uneasy.
He supposed, if he was honest, that it didn’t
seem to follow the usual rules of design at all, that it looked to have
been the product of …
There was a sound behind him, and he turned
to see the herd moving in on him.
Those slack, emotionless faces surveying
him as they moved in towards him. How had they breached the fences? Dodged the
security measures? Known to follow him?
He brandished … the translator?
Great choice of weapon.
Why hadn’t he brought the prod?
Suddenly the herd started to run. He
believed it was called ‘charging’.
For all his technological and evolutionary
advantages, he was powerless against the sheer weight of their numbers. They made
up the ground so quickly, and then they were smashing into him, lashing at him
with their feet and heads, and he went down underneath them.
Unbelievable pain from so many sources.
Three of his legs were smashed, his front
arms crushed, and he’d lost at least four of his eyes.
The herd trod him beneath their feet.
Then they were passed.
He was wounded, horribly wounded, but
alive.
Then the bull that had expressed a desire
to [end]-[finish]-[destroy]-[kill] him loomed over him, and he tried to get up,
succeeded only in switching the translator ‘on’.
“We came in peace.” It said, looking down at him with its pair of
eyes. “We meant you no [harm]-[injury]-[insult].”
The farmer felt confusion wash over him, the
horrible bipedal bull seemed genuinely hurt.
“Looks like we’ll have to do this the
[ancient]-[old fashioned] way. So die, you piece of alien [refuse]-[detritus]-[discard}-[excrement}.”
The bull stamped down on the farmer’s face.
o
o o o o
The farmer fell into
a medicinal coma, awakening briefly only when the roar of the spacecraft taking
off broke through the fog.
Then oblivion returned.
o
o o o o
The crew of the USS Chimera
returned to Earth with little idea of the reason behind their detention on the planet they had designated Alpha Sigma Nu. The creature that held them captive
had been unlike any they had encountered on their voyage, and their escape
quickly became legend in celestine circles.
The report that they passed another craft
entering the planet’s orbit on their way out suggested that their escape had
not only been dramatic, but also timely.
Memorial services were conducted for the
astronauts taken for torture, and no return voyages to Alpha Sigma Nu were
authorised until further investigations could be carried out.
o
o o o o
Three weeks late, the
actual cattle transporter touched down on Klaah.
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