Cultural Exchange

Cultural Exchange

by Naomi Krant

“Let’s talk about time,” Emerson announced, putting extra lilt and drama into his voice as he tapped his smart board to begin the grammar lesson. He strained to radiate charm and above all, the confidence he did not feel. 

Teaching this class was like singing “The Hokey-Pokey” from the stage of an empty theater. The eleven identical students squatted—if that was the right word—in a group. If they heard him, Emerson could not detect it. He’d taught intensive English to human emissaries from every part of Earth and recently from Mars. Never before had he failed to ignite his students’ interest, to connect with them. Hell, these giant gumdrop-shaped beings didn’t even have faces that might register a reaction. 

Disguised as a meteor, the Xacians’ spacecraft had dropped into the Pacific Ocean off Half Moon Bay, California, the week before. The next day, the crew had presented themselves at the SETI Institute in Mountain View. How they’d crossed the base of the peninsula was anyone’s guess. Although they’d fooled the scientists who watched the sky through Earth’s largest telescopes, the National Security Agency had arrived almost immediately and had the building completely sealed off in the blink of an eye. A human eye.

The Xacians understood English; they’d sampled Earth’s media, confusing and unorganized as they found it. But they asked for more language practice, plus cultural exchange. Culture? asked the NSA interrogator. What kind of culture? Like Brahms, one of the Xacians had replied. The words issued from a small hole that opened in its integument. 

“Brahms?” the interrogator asked sharply. “What do you know about Brahms?” 

The Xacians had fallen silent. They weren’t the diplomatic envoys they were letting their interrogator think they were. In their line of work it was well known that any information about themselves could lead to a violation of the Xacian prime directive. If that happened, Xacian Security would be able to track them; they had no wish for that.  

#

Emerson continued the lesson con brio. 

“We show what time we are speaking about by changing the form of the action word, or verb!” 

At his tone, one or two new “ears,” shaped like dish antennae, had popped out of each Xacian’s smooth body. But as his explanation of verb tenses continued, these appendages subsided. Emerson’s anxiety deepened. They said they wanted English, but he was losing them. What did they want?

#

In a room down the hall from the classroom, three NSA analysts huddled over instrument readouts.

  “Internal body pressure up…and now sinking, again,” Baynard said, glancing at a display to his right.

“Hydraulics!” Meravi breathed. “The way they change their body shape, pop out ears, hands, feet—wonderful!”

“O.K., now I’m getting that damn electronic aura again,” Baynard reported. 

“They’re definitely generating it physically,” Sangket said. “They’re not wearing any devices.” 

“They’re not wearing anything,” Meravi reminded them. “Amazing evolutionary result—total simplicity, inside and out.” 

“Yeah, you’d think they’d evolved from jellyfish,” Baynard growled. 

“Interesting theory,” Sangket said. Then Baynard’s snide tone sank in. “No, really. I’d give anything to study them.” 

“Our job is to figure out what they want and what they’ll do to get it,” Baynard reminded him.

#

“This planet is a bust,” Xacian-1 mentally projected to his ten colony-mates. “These you-mans couldn’t possibly have stims we can use. They’re completely separate individuals.” 

The images and feelings that he projected along with this thought added manifold depths to his message.

“So two-dimensional!” put in Xacian-6.  “All they can do is interpret sounds.” 

“It follows that their emotional range is just as limited,” projected Xacian-2. “They couldn’t possibly achieve the level of sensory fusion we’re looking for.”

“Definitely nothing worth the bribes we’d pay to get it past planetary security and sell it on Xacious,” Xacian-9 concluded. “Not to mention the tedium of this language lesson ruse. Listen to him! Verb tenses! Gaaaah!”

#

As if he’d heard this judgment, Emerson tapped the smart board and the verb tense lesson disappeared.

“Let’s do something different,” he said, with just a hint of desperation. At some point, he was sure, the NSA project manager would decide he had failed and remove him. He didn’t know when that point would come, but he felt dangerously close to it. He needed a positive response, fast. “Let’s see who can earn the most points for remembering the words to this song.” He slapped the board.

The voice of Whitney Houston, a singer from generations before, began the anguished, but slowly and clearly pronounced, first verse of “I Will Always Love You.”  The music spoke of self-sacrifice, loss, anguish.

Ear saucers popped out on the Xacians like clusters of flowers. The sight elated Emerson. He’d made the right move. Finally! 

A keyboard began an insistent background beat, and Houston’s voice surged as she belted out the song’s refrain in full heartache mode: hopeless passion. 

But what was going on? The Xacians appeared to be melting! Their rigid conical forms were collapsing, flattening, flowing towards and over each other. Emerson was aghast. Were they hurt? Dying? He reached for the board and cut off the sound, just as Baynard, Meravi, Sangket, and their boss, a four-star general, burst into the room. 

In the silence, the Xacians  began to ripple, slowly withdrawing from their merge and expanding upward into their former shapes.

“What…what happened?” Emerson croaked.

“Did the music this idiot played cause you pain?” the general demanded. “I assure you, it was unintentional! Do you need help? What can we do?” 

A speech hole opened in Xacian-1’s outer layer. 

“Better than Brahms,” it gasped. “Quicker. More powerful. Top grade!” Xacian-1 trembled, either with the after-effects of brief intoxication or simply as part of the process of restoring its shape. “We wish to open trade with you.”

“Trade?” The general was taken aback. “For what?”

“Your music. It is a…medicine for us,” Xacian-1 lied adroitly. “We would bring it to our population as a token of good will from your species. What can we give you in return?” 

Easy as stealing saccharides from a squirt, the Xacians group-thought. Whatever object the you-mans named, they would never see it. The eleven-member colony would disappear back to Xacious with this esoteric and profitable tidbit of ecstasy. 

“What about lessons in your language?” Emerson piped up.

“Uh?”

“We agreed to cultural exchange. But if we’re going to open trade between us, we’ll need to be able to understand you.”

The general, who had been about to ask for faster than light travel, gulped and stayed silent. Language; that could open more than one secret.

The Xacians met Emerson’s request with internal derision. 

“Oh, my! Reach for the stars, little you-man.” “This one’s as swelled as a nebula.” “And as lacking in substance.” “Pathetic!” “Let’s project a big ‘HELLO, LITTLE YOU-MAN.’ ” “Yes! Three-two-one…”

Emerson’s eyes grew as large and as bright as two moons. 

“Oh!” he said softly. 

The Xacians knew what had happened. In an instant, human culture had been irreparably altered, the prime directive, along with the Xaciens’ future, sucked into a black hole.

“And how do I reply?” Emerson asked aloud. “Like this?”