The Springs

by Ian Reeve

We called them springs because that was what they looked like. A spiral of material harder than human teeth with holes in from which protruded limbs and other organs that we presumed were sense organs of some kind.

We've known about them for fifty years, ever since our most distant survey ships first encountered them in deep space. We'd been expecting to encounter non-humans sooner or later and so had a set of protocols in place, but the alien ships ignored our friendship messages and just went on their way. Even when we encountered one of their ships orbiting a planet and parked beside it, they completely ignored us, mapping and studying the planet below as if we weren't there.

Seven years ago one of our survey ships came across one standing on the surface of a planet. They saw the occupants moving around on the surface and saw for the first time what they looked like. They were the ones who called them Springs, and although the scientists tried to give them a 'proper' name, the name stuck and that's what we've been calling them ever since.

The survey ship landed next to the Spring ship and again tried to communicate, and this time there was a breakthrough. The Springs sent radio messages, but they were gibberish. The human surveyers forwarded the messages back to Earth, but the finest computers in the Alliance were equally unable to make head or tail of them. The crew of the survey ship tried to send messages back to the Spring ship, but it seems that our messages were equally meaningless to them. Eventually the Springs went back aboard their ship and left, and the next time a human ship encountered a Spring ship they again ignored it. Maybe we're just too different, we started to think. Maybe any attempt to communicate with them is doomed to failure.

That's where I come in. Our mission was to set up a preliminary base on the planet Kepler 452b, to prepare the way for human colonisation. We'd pretty much finished building the base, and the first colony ships were on their way, when a Spring ship appeared and landed on another part of the planet. When we looked, we saw that they'd landed next to a regular series of hummocks that we'd assumed were a natural feature of the planet. We now realised that it was their version of a city, several kilometres across. The Springs must have been coming here for some time.

There were Springs moving around in it. With some alarm, we realised that we were both trying to colonise the same planet. The Spring colonists had ignored us up until then, but now that they knew they'd been found the Spring ship lifted off again and took up position directly above our colony. It's considerably bigger than our ships, and our long range scanners showed three more Spring ships on their way.

We feared the worst, that they were about to destroy us and our colony, but then a small landing craft left the Spring ship and set down on the planet a short distance away from the outermost building of the colony. A Spring emerged from the landing craft and stood there on the surface, as if waiting. Was he waiting for one of us to go meet him? Was this another attempt to communicate? We decided to send one person, in order not to appear threatening, and as the communications officer I drew the short straw.

And so there I was, standing on the surface about twenty metres from the car I came in, standing face to face with an alien that looked like nothing in Earth's history. From this close, I could see the rippled texture of its shell, like cave limestone laid down by thousands of years of running water, shot through with subtle shades of red and green and tiny points of brilliant blue as if it had been sprinkled with diamond. The holes in its shell followed a line up its spiralling curve. Some big enough that I could have pushed my fist in. Others so small that only the sunlight reflecting from their smooth, raised rims gave them away. At the top of its body, something made of metal with a short, stubby antenna was strapped to its shell. A communications device, I assumed.

There were several organs in their extended position. In addition to the four stout, rubbery legs on which it was standing, three smaller ones were pointing at me, each with a bulbous end. I had no doubt that they were sense organs of some kind. Possibly eyes, although they didn't seem to have pupils. Whatever strange method it was using to perceive its surroundings, though, I didn't doubt that it was studying me closely. Waiting to see what I would do. Would I attack, or try to communicate?

Come to that, how could I be sure that its intentions were peaceful? I was hoping it wanted to talk, but what if what it was really doing was luring me out into the open so I could be kidnapped, studied and dissected? Everything about it was alien and incomprehensible. Was I fooling myself by thinking I understood its motives for being there?

"Frank?" said Alan Pollard's voice in my ear. The expedition Commander. "The other three Spring ships are taking up position beside the first. They've all got their pointy ends pointing right at us. Bill thinks that's where their weapons are."

"He can't know that for sure," I replied. The experts back home had been studying all the data we had on their ships and had concluded that they were as incomprehensible as the Springs themselves.

"They're sure as hell pointing something at us," Alan replied, "and we've got nothing more powerful than signalling lasers to defend ourselves with. If they think we're trying to poach their colony world, you may be the only thing that can convince them otherwise."

"Evacuate the colony," I advised him. "Get everyone off the planet."

"That would take days," Alan told me, which I knew, of course. "We've got maybe an hour. It's all on you, Frank. Talk to them. Find a way to make them understand."

"Right," I said, taking a deep breath to steady my nerves. "Okay. They say mathematics is the universal language. Let's start with that."

The friendship messages we'd been sending them had been mathematical in nature, of course, but maybe seeing them written down would get through to them in a way that a stream of ones and zeros hadn't. I opened up my tablet computer and drew clusters of dots on it. One dot alone, then two together, then three, then five, seven, eleven. The prime numbers, all the way up to nineteen. Then I lay it down on the ground in front of the Spring, where it could 'see' it. One of its eye stalks, if that's what it was, pointed towards it and remained there for several moments, as if studying it. Then the stalk with its bulbous end turned towards me. The bulb widened out and the end flattened until it looked like a computer screen facing me. Then patterns of colour appeared on it.

"This must be how they talk," I said excitedly. "Are you getting this, Alan?" There was a camera on my shoulder, feeding the whole thing back to him.

"Bright and clear," he replied. "Can you make sense of it?"

"No," I told him. The ever changing patterns looked random and meaningless. If there was a pattern there, I couldn't see it. "It means they have eyesight, though," I added. "Is there anything there beyond the visual range of colours? Ultra-violet, infra-red? Maybe the colours are polarised or something." The camera would be able to see those things, even if my eyes couldn't.

"No," Alan replied. "Seems they use the same frequencies of colour we do."

That was a relief. I had worried that the images on the tablet screen might have been invisible to it, and that maybe I should have been drawing images in the dusty ground instead. Now at least I wouldn't have to do that.

I erased all the prime numbers after eleven, and beside them I drew a twelve, a thirteen and a fourteen, all in clusters of dots. Then I put the tablet back down on the ground. "Which is the next prime number?" I asked, pointing at the screen. "Come on, point to one of them. Point to the thirteen. Show me you understand prime numbers."

Another eye stalk emerged from a hole in its spiral shell and gazed at the screen for a few moments. Then it turned towards me, widening and flattening to become another display surface. More patterns of colour appeared on it, as meaningless as the first. "Is that making any sense to you?" I asked Alan.

"Nothing," the Commander replied. "Could it be deliberate nonsense? To keep us wasting time trying to decipher it while they prepare to attack?"

"Maybe that's what they think we're doing," I replied. "I'm going to try something else."

On the tablet screen I drew a pythagorean triangle with squares against its three sides divided into nine, sixteen and twenty five smaller squares. "Now come on," I said as I showed it to the Spring. "You must understand that. If you have any knowledge of mathematics at all."

Again, though, it showed no reaction, and the patterns on its two display surfaces continued to look like nonsense to me. "Dammit," I swore, starting to grow frustrated. "How can it not recognise that?"

"Maybe it has no understanding of mathematics," said Alan in my ear.

"How can it have no understanding of mathematics? Even the simplest creatures can count. Even bumblebees can count."

"Bumblebees share a common evolutionary heritage with us, if you go back far enough," the Commander reminded me. "That thing comes from a completely different evolutionary lineage. Maybe there's something else, some other way of understanding the universe, that's as obvious to them as maths is to us."

"Like what?" I demanded, almost shouting the question.

"Maybe they're just too different," said Alan. He was sounding tired now. Resigned, as if he knew that he was about to die and had decided to just accept the fact. "Maybe no communication will ever be possible because they're just too different. Frank, the ships are almost in position. If they're going to open fire..."

I looked back at the settlement, almost expecting to see it disappearing in a fireball behind me. No, there's still time, I told myself. I will make myself understood. Somehow, I'll get through to the bloody creature!

I decided to try another tack and drew some stick figures on the tablet. A stick figure human and a stick figure Spring, which was just an upward-turning coil. I showed them to the Spring and wasn't surprised when it showed no reaction. I drew more humans and more Springs, all mixed in amongst each other. Humans and Springs, living together in peace and harmony. Surely it had to understand that! The creature's only reaction was to produce more eyes, if that's what they were, which became more display surfaces, all showing different and still meaningless patterns of colour. Its flesh, where it was protruding from holes in the shell, began to turn a vivid purple. I wondered if that signified that if was becoming as frustrated as I was. "I don't understand!" I shouted at it. "What are you trying to tell me?"

I couldn't remain still any longer. Leaving the tablet on the ground I got up and stalked away, trying to burn off the adrenalin that was making my heart race and my limbs tremble. There had to be some way of getting through to the thing. There had to be some common ground we could find. The things built spaceships and cities. It had to understand basic engineering principles. Perhaps if I tried geometry...

I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn't see the small boulder until I tripped over it and fell to my knees, hurting them on the hard bedrock. I cried out and swore as I scrambled back to my feet. Pain shot through my knee, and I had to limp my way back to where the Spring was still standing, staring at me with all its eyes. Patterns of colour were rippling across every patch of exposed skin, and its eyes were trembling slightly on the ends of their long stalks.

Was it laughing at me? It should have been impossible to read emotion on something so alien, but it was impossible to avoid the impression that it was doing the alien equivalent of rolling on the floor laughing. "Oh you think that was funny?" I cried, and I knelt to scoop up some of the sandy dust that covered the ground. I threw it at the creature, and its eyes retreated momentarily into their holes in its shell.

Then they emerged again, along with thicker tentacles ending in clusters of rubbery fingers. They reached down to scoop up sand from the ground, and then it leapt forward to throw it in my face. I threw up my arms to shield my eyes, then peeked out to see it scooping up another handful. Again it threw it at me while ripples of colour ran across every part of its exposed skin. More laughter, if my first guess had been correct. The feet it was standing on each had a pair of long, sharp claws. It could surely have hurt me if that was what it wanted. The truth dawned on me in a burst of joy and delight. It was playing!

I scooped up more dirt and threw it at the creature, and it threw more back at me while Alan's voice clamoured in my ear, demanding to know what I was doing. Then the tone of his voice changed, though. "Frank, the Spring ships are leaving. They're just going away!"

I sat down on a boulder, my head spinning dizzily as I tried to take in what had just happened. We'd done it. We'd found something we both had in common. For all their alien nature, the Springs had a sense of humour, just like us. They liked to play and have fun. It wasn't much, but it was a start. Something we could build on. The Springs had apparently decided that they were willing to share the planet with us. They thought we were creatures they could live with.

There was still a lot of work to do, of course. We still had to find a way to communicate, but as I went back to where I'd left my tablet I did so with a sense of hope that I hadn't had before.