Universal Translator
by David Marshall
‘Hey, Fallen!’
I stopped in mid-stride, searching the view before me for an exit. The corridor stretched on, unbroken by gates for many body-lengths. There was no escape.
I turned to face him.
‘My name is Falling Darkness,’ I told Jonathon Morgan, though I knew I wasted my air. He is unable to understand that we who are Hralgan do not shorten or otherwise alter our names. ‘And I do not date outside my species.’
His prehensile face twisted as he bared his teeth. If I had not known of the human smile, I would have prepared to defend myself. But humans smile to indicate pleasure.
He smiled, but his face flamed a danger-red. The Translator concluded that Jonathon Morgan smiled to distract me from his fiery embarrassment.
‘How did you know I was going to ask you out?’ He directed his question to the floor. More bizarre Human behaviour, since he had not asked the floor to go out with him.
I waited in silence until he again looked at me. ‘It is the only question you ever ask me, and I have already answered it. Yet you ask again and again.’
‘Can’t blame a guy for trying,’ he muttered.
‘Yes, I can. What you ask is forbidden.’
‘Rising Moon does it.’ The Translator let me taste the bile in his voice.
Rising Moon was only too keen on studying comparative anatomy, but not in a manner sanctioned under the Edicts of Contact. Unfortunately, Jonathon Morgan did not desire Rising Moon. He only wanted what he could not have.
‘It is forbidden for her, too. Rising Moon is one who thrills to the sound of breaking rules.’
Curse him! Why can he not see through this fleshy shell that I wear? I should...
No. I should not. An Aspirant Researcher of the Hralgan should not give in to her wicked impulses. The Edicts define the ways that we are allowed to interact with other species.
We cannot answer any question that they do not ask. Edicts are Edicts, after all. And so I could not tell Jonathon Morgan why Hralgan appear so Human unless he asked me to explain.
Humans are such curious creatures! There was so much we could tell them, if only they would ask us the right questions. But Jonathon Morgan was a xenobiology student who wished to narrow his field of study to one particular aspect of my biology. And the only questions he ever asked were the forbidden ones.
Defying the Edicts of Contact would make me as bad as Rising Moon. But I am shamed to admit that I could think of no other way to convince Jonathon Morgan that I did not wish to study his anatomy.
His eyes widened in surprise as I reached out and took hold of his hand.
‘Come with me. There is something I want to show you.’
He smiled, and this time it was for pleasure.
At night the facility was deserted, as it was against the Edicts for us to disrupt the standard diurnal waking-cycle of the Humans. None saw us approach the Translator.
I pointed towards the multi-planar sphere that was the centre of the Hralgan Contact mission to the Human homeworld. ‘Do you know what this is?’
He answered as I had hoped he would. ‘It’s the Universal Translator.’ The smile was gone again, replaced by lines of uncertainty.
‘What does Universal mean?’
‘Well... everything.’ He waved his arm in a manner that was supposed to point to everything in the universe at the same moment.
‘Everything.’ I paused for a moment, hoping he would understand. Then I would not have to do this. But understanding failed to rise in his eyes.
‘When your people succeeded in your search for sentience amid the stars, you asked us for a Universal Translator. Did you truly understand what you were asking for?’
He moved his head back and forth in denial. ‘No. We thought we did. We wanted to talk to other sentient beings. We didn’t know that you could also use the Translator to translate yourselves across the light-years between us.’
‘And it never occurred to you to ask what else we had Translated?’ Before he could answer I leapt, and he was dragged into the sphere with me.
* * *
Upon our return, Jonathon Morgan realised that he still held my hand. He snatched his hand from mine as if I were poisonous.
I tried to tell myself that it was Translation Uncertainty that made him stumble so many times as he fled. That would quickly heal, as he grew used to his own form again. But Humans shake when they are cold or scared, too.
Jonathon Morgan was not cold. And I did not truly believe that Translation Uncertainty was the problem, either.
Neither did the Universal Translator.
Did Humans truly seek the Other, I wondered, or did they seek Other Humans amid the stars? Jonathon Morgan seemed truly surprised to discover that what I had always told him was truth: I am not of his species. I am only Human in Translation.
Jonathon Morgan never asked me for a date again. And that was a shame, because I finally understood why he had kept asking, hoping that my refusal would one day be Translated into acquiescence.
For an all-too-brief moment, I had seen him as he could have been. And in that moment I had lost my hearts to him.
He had the cutest tentacles I had ever seen on a male, covered in wickedly sharp mating-spikes. At the thought of his spikes piercing my flesh, my egg sac had swelled with helpless desire, and I had pulsed submission-to-mating colour-patterns across my siphon and gas-bladder, tentacles and dorsal sail-spines.
Translated, Jonathon Morgan had been the most beautiful Hralgan male I had ever seen.
Translated back to the Human homeworld, I still desire him as I did in that moment. But now he runs from my approach.
I will never understand Humans.
Copyright © 2006 by David Marshall
