The Zoo of Intelligent Animals

CHAPTER 1

“‘Patch me through to your boss, you cretin, and this time keep your clapper shut.’”

Elizabeth finished reading the message to the two gentlemen, paused, and looked up. If anything ought to impress them, it was this.

“Hmm, interesting,” the older gentleman mused, a wry wrinkle playing at the corner of his lips. He paused – all three paused – as the study windows gave an unexpected rattle in their frames. A gust of wind hurled a dense flurry of rain, which hit the glass like gravel.

“And tell me, did they use commas?”

“Excuse me?” Elizabeth looked back into the study a bit startled and not quite comprehending.

“Around the phrase, ‘you cretin’ – did they use commas?”

“Well… Well, there are commas here. On the piece of paper I’ve got.” Who the bloody hell cares whether they used commas or not? “Does it matter?”

Elizabeth Belfort didn’t normally do flustered, but she did now, as her attention was stretched three ways between the rattling windows, the insanely important mission she was on to bring in one of the government’s most elusive advisors, and that same advisor’s apparent focus on commas.

“A little perhaps, a little,” the older gentlemen replied, unruffled. “And remind me, when was the first signal received?”

“August 15th. About five weeks ago.”

“And this signal?”

“Eighteen hours ago.”

“Interesting. And you’re sure it’s not a hoax?”

In truth, Elizabeth had also assumed it was a hoax. It was the first question she’d asked her boss that morning, when he had called her in to see him on the other side of London. Given the overwhelming importance of the message, its tone was – well – a little surprising. It wasn’t even, strictly speaking, a message. More of an instruction, and not a very polite one.

But her boss, ‘C’, was not known for his frivolity. He had assured her it was not a hoax, his face expressing all the humour of a man whose toast has just fallen marmalade-side downwards. A hoaxer would have needed a satellite with a radio transmitter at a very precise point in space a very long way away. All Earth-bound sources, including the Russians, had been discounted. Tests had been carried out, the scientists had been consulted, and 1st April was still many months away. The message was genuine.

“It’s not a hoax, sir,” she replied. And then immediately bit her tongue for calling him ‘sir’. “They’ve checked. The message was received on exactly the same frequency as the previous signal. SETI are certain it’s genuine.”

“Do you hear that, Artemas?” the older gentleman said to the younger gentleman, who had been sitting quietly, almost unnoticed. “Not a hoax.”

“Ah yes, indeed, no. Not a hoax, <em>haha!</em>” the younger gentleman replied, somehow finding amusement in the situation. “It does seem all too, hmm – how might one say? – plausible?”

“Yes, I agree. All too plausible. Very much in character.”

***

‘Plausible’? ‘In character’? Who are these people? And what do they know?

Dinner with this family an hour earlier had already been awkward enough. And now Elizabeth was going from awkward to put-out and she had every right to.

After all, she was the one who was supposed to be imparting startling information. Here she was – a young, trusted member of a highly secret government agency – urgently delivering to an esteemed government advisor a message that only twenty other pairs of eyes on Earth had seen. And this wasn’t just your average top secret, fate-of-nations sort of message. This was more than that.

Far more than that.

This was arguably the most important message that had ever been passed to a human being.

This was the first ever message – the first ever intelligent communication – from an alien race.

CHAPTER 2

“No more questions – quick, quick, children, I implore you!”

Dr Setiawan shooed his two students towards the door where his maid was waiting for them, holding their jackets over one arm.

“But, sir, you’ve not yet covered the—”

“Next time, Willem, next time.” Dr Setiawan paused at the window of his first-floor sitting room. The rain was starting to splatter the London plane trees outside. He could sense the air pressure had dropped. The weather was going to get a lot worse before it got better. “You too, Laura,” he fussed. “You’re both on bicycles. I cannot have you catching your death of cold out there. What would your parents say?”

“Sir, we’re postgrads now, I don’t think—”

“Look! You didn’t even bring raincoats. You’re still children. Be off with you!”

The maid escorted the two protesting students down the stairs, closing the sitting room door behind her.

Dr Setiawan paused to exhale.

Then, next to the door, he straightened the keris, which Willem’s backpack had knocked very slightly as it brushed past. He stepped back, checked the dagger was perfectly straight on its hook again – it was – and gently ran his finger along the ornamental markings on the sheath.

This was a room filled with colourful artefacts – fifteen years as an anthropologist had yielded collectibles beyond the average knick-knacks. But the keris held a special place for Setiawan precisely because it wasn’t a souvenir. A Javanese ceremonial dagger, the keris had been in his family for generations beyond count, since the time of the Mataram dynasty at least. In European terms, that meant the 17th Century or earlier. The Javanese believed the keris possessed magical powers, including the power to confer bravery.

While Setiawan was ninety-five percent scientist, that still left five percent of his mind free to wander. In his experience, it was at the boundary of life and death that the unknown forces of the Universe were most likely to manifest. And where could come closer to that boundary than a curved, twelve-inch blade of razor-sharp, tempered steel?

Setiawan exhaled again, with satisfaction. The formal working day was at an end. He turned round to tidy up a few books that were still open on the coffee table. He often invited his brighter postgrads back to his home for a tutorial. It brought a touch of Oxford to his London existence.

He straightened back up and looked out the window. Willem and Laura were already wheeling their bikes down the twenty yards of garden path that led to the road, their bodies hunched against the rain. He could see an unbroken strip of Union Jack bunting left over from the Silver Jubilee gusting erratically between the trees at the end of the garden. He’d let it stay there for months, out of sentimentality. I really must get that taken down, he thought to himself, before it snaps.

From simple force of habit, he took a single step sideways from the window to the mirror that was hung next to it. He adjusted his stiff white collar, shifting its position from straight to very straight. He dusted some barely visible fluff from his jacket sleeve. Both in his speech and in his dress, Setiawan brought precision to his Englishness as only a foreigner could. High shirt collar, pinstripe trousers, black jacket. Even by the fusty standards of his friendship circle in London, he passed as old-fashioned.

But he didn’t care.

A life of research among the native tribes of South-East Asia had given Setiawan a singular appreciation of traditional costume. His philosophy was simple: what you wear is a costume. When you put your clothes on, you present an image to the outside world. Some people might think they’re not wearing a costume, nor presenting an image – they might dress casually, perhaps even sloppily. My students are masters of sloppiness. But he – Setiawan – was only going to wear the best. And the best costumes, sadly, were to be found in the past.

He picked up a small, fine comb and started to re-establish the just-off-centre parting in his sleek black hair. True, he would always be an outsider among the English upper classes. An amusing curiosity. Descended from the kings of Solo, his aristocratic status – Raden Mas Agustus Setiawan – had been his ticket into high society. He was quite happy to play the role of exotic foreigner. His years of fieldwork had left him perfectly comfortable with that – and if he had to park his books and bags anywhere, he was quite happy for it to be here, in London.

He loved the contrast. For nine months of the year, the elegant bachelor; for three months, a life of pure simplicity among tribal peoples. His London friends were perpetually amazed that someone so fussy could slum it in the field. But people were essentially unknowable in Setiawan’s view; and he certainly liked being a little bit unknowable. And, after all, if he didn’t punctuate his life with periods of adventure, what on Earth would he talk about over dinner?

With the working day over, he started to pull his jacket off.

And then he paused.

A strange feeling shivered down his spine.

He stood there for a moment, mid-motion. Jacket half on, half off.

His years of travel in remote places had given him something of a sixth sense. Or, to be more precise – and Setiawan liked being precise – it had taught him not to ignore his sixth sense. What was this feeling?

He couldn’t place it to begin with.

And then he did.

He felt like he was being watched.

He carefully hung his jacket over the back of his desk chair, composed himself, and returned to the window. He looked out at the rapidly darkening rainscape before him. He looked at the trees that formed the majority of the view, and the few houses he could see between them.

Nothing.

He went over to the other window, further along the same wall.

Still nothing.

Regents Park looked exactly how Regents Park always looked, which was what Setiawan liked so much about it. And yet.

Strange, he thought to himself, and decided to dismiss the feeling. For now. He wanted to get on with his evening. He picked up two sleeve garters from his desk and carefully slid them over his arms, each one to a position just above the elbow.

Still trying to shake the queer feeling, he headed to the staircase, making his way to the attic rooms on the fourth floor. Anthropology was Dr Setiawan’s life. The way humans interacted, organis­­ed themselves, transmitted their culture – it was endlessly fascinating. If he could, he’d find a tribe of humans, shrink them to ant-size, pop them in a miniature town the size of a lab, and study them under a magnifying glass.

But he couldn’t.

So he had his special hobby instead.

CHAPTER 3

Seriously, who were these people?

Elizabeth watched as the older gentleman – the ‘esteemed government advisor’ – reached down into his desk drawer and withdrew a polished wooden box. He opened it, took out a pipe and a tobacco pouch and proceeded to parcel the contents of the one into the other.

Elizabeth felt exasperated by his calmness to the point of irritation. She was expecting excitement, she was expecting gasps, she was expecting disbelief. Fainting might be over the top, but it could possibly – plausibly – be expected. And instead, what did she find?

Bemusement.

Elizabeth thought of her own reaction when C had told her the news.

Her world had turned upside down.

She had been dimly aware of the earlier signal, the so-called ‘Wow’ signal. Back in August, the SETI Institute – the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence – had detected a signal broadcast at a frequency of 1420 MHz. The signal was strong, clear, blank, and inexplicable. Not something found in nature. And, more crucially, 1420 MHz was the exact frequency at which scientists had predicted one alien species might reach out to another. Unsure what this blank signal signified, speculation had been rife and publicity widespread. That’s how Elizabeth first heard about it, the same way as everyone else.

And then eighteen hours ago, a second signal had been picked up by SETI on the exact same frequency, from the exact same source. But this time it was a message. In English.

Elizabeth’s world had been turned upside down and, moments later, when C had invited her to imagine how the world would react if it were to find out that an alien species was in contact, her world had spun on its axis a second time.

And now – as she shared this inconceivable, quite literally Earth-shattering news with a trusted government advisor, who seemed not only to take it in his stride, but to know more about it than anyone else – who seemed to know its context – her world was spinning a third time.

“You don’t seem very surprised?”

“Hmm?” the older gentleman replied in a distracted tone, as he bedded the tobacco down in its little wooden tomb.

“The message. You don’t seem very surprised?”

“Oh, I’m surprised alright,” he replied as he reached for his matches. “The way you are when you suspect a thing is going to happen, but don’t know exactly when it’s going to happen. It still comes as a surprise, despite all one’s attempts to stay calm.”

From where Elizabeth was standing, his attempts to stay calm appeared to have been entirely successful.

“It seems that you know – or at least think you know” – she added with ill-disguised contempt – “a lot more about this message than we do?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say a lot more. I wouldn’t claim that,” he replied, looking at her over the top of his pipe as he struck a match.

“Well, what would you claim?”

“Well, let’s see now…” He paused while he started to puff rapidly on his pipe, drawing fire from the match onto the small bonfire that he was lighting at the far end. Puff “…I’d say I know” – puff – “who sent this message and” – puff – “why they sent it. But sadly,” he concluded as he shook the match and exhaled a longer and clearly very satisfying puff of smoke into the air, “that’s all I know.”

Elizabeth Belfort spluttered.

She didn’t want to – in ordinary life, she no more did splutter than she did fluster – but this wasn’t ordinary life and she spluttered.

“How do you… Could you… What do you­—”

She pulled herself together.

“Would you mind telling me how you know this?”

“Well, I could tell you,” the older gentleman started, as he drew in a deep draught of smoke from his successfully lit pyre, “but I haven’t yet decided if I shall.”

“And why not?”

“Because I’m still getting the measure of you.” He released a long draught of smoke.

Patronising git.

Even through the vapour, Elizabeth Belfort could see his eyes were fixed on her. His gaze was uncomfortably penetrating, even as his eyes sparkled with amusement.

“Let’s see first how we all get along, shall we?” He sprang up from his seat with surprising agility, picked up a small silver box and stepped towards her. “Snuff?”

“What? Excuse me? No… No thank you. I don’t.”

Not a patronising git, Elizabeth re-evaluated. Plain git will do.

At that moment Elizabeth was distracted by a sudden flash. Lightning illuminated the room, throwing shadows outwards from the windows. A few seconds later, a distant peal of thunder reverberated through the study, sonorous and electrical. The rain shower was turning into something more potent. That feels about right, she thought to herself.

She pulled her gaze back into the room and watched as he offered snuff to the younger gentleman. Artemas James. Dr Artemas James if the introduction was to be trusted, which she wasn’t sure it was. Dr James smiled like a child who has been offered a boiled sweet and, with his right hand, took a pinch from the small silver box in front of him. Elizabeth couldn’t help noticing Dr James’ fingers. They were long and fine, almost feminine. The skin was soft and lightly freckled. They didn’t look like they’d done a day’s manual work in their lives. They’d almost certainly never dug a potato.

The rest of him didn’t look much like a potato-digger either. His frame was slight. He was just under average height, with light brown hair – tidily combed – and a light brown moustache and beard. The beard was small, pointed and carefully trimmed. Professorial. He was presumably in his mid-thirties – although it was hard to be sure. His face was boyish, even while his manner seemed old to the point of antique. On his nose was perched a pair of small, round, gold-rimmed glasses that were almost on trend. Although Elizabeth suspected it was 1940s fashion that had installed them there, not John Lennon.

The only thing that lent this wisp of a man any bulk were his clothes. And how. A heavy three-piece tweed suit, complete with a gold watch chain hanging in a loop across his non-existent tummy. This was the 1970s for Heaven’s sake, not the 1930s.

The contrast with the older gentleman couldn’t have been starker. There was nothing slight about Sir Claude Danziger. He was tall and square-shouldered. He possessed a face that was lively, broad, and framed by a jawline like the bumper of an over-engineered car. It had the ruddy complexion of a well-exercised – and equally well-watered – Englishman. Beneath his nose was a steel-grey moustache, the two halves of which shot out in horizontal spikes like a pair of repelling magnets. It was a face that couldn’t hide in a crowd, not even if you put a box over it.