Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

“Bram, say hello to Pfaf-tlk-pfaf.”
    The director pressed a pair of dry, lifeless tentacle tips against Bram’s palms. Most Nar found it hard to believe that humans got any input from the Great Language and involuntarily held themselves stiff until they got to know an individual human being well.
    “Hello, young Bram,” the director said in stilted Inglex, repeating it unnecessarily in Chin-pin-yin: “Ni hao, Bram-xiao.”
    “I am augmented to mesh, Pfaf-tlk-pfaf,” Bram said respectfully, speaking in the pure Small Language with no human admixtures.
    The director was half a tip shorter than Voth, and his outer skin was a younger yellow. “So you’re the youngling who is interested in galaxies?” he said.
    “Yes, Pfaf-tlk-pfaf,” Bram said.
    “We’ll have something to show you shortly. In the meantime, why don’t you have a look around the place? Jun Davd here will show you around.”
    A very tall human person with white hair and umber skin had appeared at the director’s side. “Hello, Bram,” he said with a nice smile.
    Bram smiled back. He wondered how Jun Davd knew his name. The tall man took him by the hand and led him away. Voth and the director were deep in conversation, their tentacles melded up to what in human beings would have been the elbow, and the bifurcate tips of a second pair of limbs were beginning to quest toward contact.
    “I hope I haven’t disturbed your routines,” Voth was saying, still speaking the Small Language in rough parallel to his real conversation. Nar did that all the time in the first stages of establishing intimacy. It was a throwback to a less civilized epoch of Nar development, when two primitive decapods, meeting for the first time on some tidal flat, would literally have sounded each other out before entrusting their tender inner parts to a stranger.
    The director’s Small Language was full of slips and elisions now that he was no longer vocalizing primarily for Bram’s benefit. “Not in the least, Voth-shr-voth … scheduled anyway … optical monitoring … prime interest object … after all, first best proof … search … intelligent life … universe.”
    Voth replied, still eliding hardly at all: ” … still kind of you to indulge us, Director. I am old … soon time to mate and die… . I have adopted many human children over the centuries, but none has affected me as deeply as this boy, Bram. Perhaps—” There was the steam whistle sound of a Nar laugh. “Perhaps it is a side effect of beginning endocrine changes … prepare for maternal behavior—”
    He broke off as he realized that Bram was still within earshot. Bram felt a tug on his hand. “Come on,” Jun Davd said gently.
    Bram didn’t exactly understand everything that Voth was saying. He knew that Voth was talking about his own death. But there was no sadness in it. Instead, there was a sort of joy. The Nar didn’t fear death the way human persons did—maybe because they lived for a thousand years or more. Whatever sadness there had been in Voth’s tone had been reserved for Bram. But that was silly, Bram thought. He wasn’t the one who was growing old.
    “Have you ever been in an observatory before?” Jun Davd asked.
    Bram shook his head.
    “Most of the really important work is done in space or on the airless moons,” Jun Davd explained. “But there’s still plenty of work for a planet-based observatory. This is one of the biggest.”
    Bram could believe it. He and Jun Davd were mere specks in the immense perforated ball of the main chamber. It must have taken years to grow. Echoes bounced off the distant walls, and huge, spidery steel and polycarbonate structures rose out of the shadows. There were human figures in white smocks here and there, but most of the personnel were decapod. Jun Davd hurried Bram past a group of scientists having a conference; one of them was stretched out against the tilted star-shaped surface of a body reader, absorbing input from some instrument or other, while three more Nar, two of them wearing optical girdles, linked tentacles with him.
    Jun Davd brought Bram to a halt on a balcony above a tremendous bowl of blue jelly. A great latticework cylinder enclosed them. Suspended high above the center of the bowl, almost close enough to touch, was a silver sphere the size of a young house.
    “This is the big eye, Bram,” Jun Davd said proudly. “With it, we can see far into the universe. There are bigger eyes in space—thin films