Outward Borne by R. J. Weinkam Read Free Book Online Page A

result of
local telecommunications between the inhabitants of some
planet.
    Kel Unfel announced that
Extraterrestrial Intelligence Branch’s NorHan NorBa had discovered
an unusual radio frequency signal from the vicinity of the star
XK-47. It was the Institutes’ belief, almost certainly, that the
signal was generated artificially by an advanced civilization.
NorHan NorBa, the discoverer of alien life, became famous. NorHan
did not react well to her sudden and time consuming fame. She felt
increasingly lonely while traveling and making presentations. She
was adrift without her family and familiar habits. NorHan wished
that she had not paid any attention to that silly
signal.
    ObLa went on to discover, not at
all quickly, that technologically advanced civilizations were thin
in the heavens. Lapses of several decades occurred between new
leads, which turned out to have a natural origin, and centuries
passed before a truly purposeful extraterrestrial signal was
intercepted. Finally, a clear, information-rich radio transmission
was received from a star about twenty-one light years distant from
ObLa, practically a neighbor.
    This civilization, which the
ObLaDas came to call the Primaforms, was an experienced
interstellar communicator. They broadcast a continuous a stream of
data designed to establish a language. Transmissions consisted of
beeps; beeps corresponded to numbers, mathematical operators,
mathematic and geometric equations, and formulas describing
physical and chemical principles that were common throughout the
universe. The Primaforms restated all these numbers and symbols in
written form to establish a vocabulary and grammar, which they
eventually used to express more conceptual ideas and provide
information about themselves. The Primaforms repeated this
searching message on a 10-year cycle. Unfortunately for ObLa, they
were over seven years into the message when it was first
discovered.
    Contact with the Primaforms caused
a sensation on ObLa that was as great as MaxNi's discovery of the
universe and NorHan’s first contact with an alien planet. This time
it was not a shock, but an anticipated, even longed for connection
with a fellow society. The ObLaDas never harbored paranoid ideas of
alien space invaders – always-hostile species that were bent on
destroying life-as-we-know-it for no apparent reason. Rather, they
felt themselves alone in the galaxy and longed to be part of a
welcoming community. ObLaDas were forever uncomfortable being alone
and would never venture out by themselves when there was someone to
go with. Their long-held frustration and the endless speculation on
their inability to make contact with another civilization was
immediately replaced by a passion to learn every nuance of the
Primaform’s message.
    The Primaforms conducted their
communications as an extended monologue. They operated on the
theory that if two people exchanged their autobiographies, they
would come to know a lot about each other without ever conducting a
conversation. The fact that ObLa had missed years of preliminary
information that established the common language, meant that the
message was a great puzzle, some kind of code to be broken and
sorted out. The interest level was so great that the full text of
every message was made available to the population and the ObLaDas
used their collective minds to translating the code. Clubs were
formed; some even recruited experts who could help in the job.
Although they didn't succeed in sorting out all the text, they made
surprising progress and, when the transmitting station was ready to
send a return message, they were able to do so in the Primaform’s
own language. The clubs worked on their own texts, so that
communication with the Primaforms became an ObLa-wide community
affair.
    This time, someone, or something,
was already listening. The Primaforms had picked up sporadic radio
signals from the early days of ObLa satellite communication and had
been sending signals toward