Jenna tolerated the racket of the squeakers as she scythed her way through her assigned field. Every breeze raised unnerving sounds from the plants’ rubbery leaves as they brushed against one another.
A grey-tailed musuri abandoned the cluster of birdlike creatures that had been circling nearby; it dove for a squeaker tuft close to Jenna, and she flinched as the bird-like creature snatched the floating pod midair and tucked it into a beak-like mouth. A feather, or something like it, drifted in lazy circles, and when it was close enough, Jenna plucked it from mid-air and shoved it into a utility pocket to examine later.
It was enough to drive a person mad, Jenna mused. She made her way through the field with her fresh-sharp scythe, clearing down the fast-growing plants before they could flower and seed.
The farmers, who were here to stay, had limited patience for the constant clearing needed, so short term workers came out for a few months, for a few larks, for a few bucks. As a side effect of the terraforming process, the super bloom had to be continually cut back, in order for human crops to grow.
The birds, as always, were silent. Perhaps they were unable to compete with the constant noise. Jenna wondered how they communicated with each other. Were they telepathic? She’d ask Beth later. She waved gaily at Beth, her roommate, who was working in parallel, and they slowly mowed the entirety of Farmer Choudhury’s field.
“You’re heading out at the end of the week?” Beth asked that evening from her bunk above Jenna. The relative silence of the dorms compared to the fields rang in Jenna’s ears as she caressed the grey feather, more in common with squeaker tufts than Earth bird feathers, she thought. She gave it one last brush of her fingers then set it on her nightstand.
“Yeah, I’ll find my next gig in the Deepvas system, after a few weeks off. I’m trying to book a seat on the shuttle off-world right now” Jenna said as she poked at her personal tablet.
Ah there, got it.
“Ha, it’s booked,” Jenna pronounced.
“Have you done your re-entry declaration yet?” Beth asked.
“Nah, I’ll do it from the ship. It only takes a minute.”
“Cool, send me pics of the planet, or I’ll never forgive you.”
The bunk above Jenna squeaked as Beth rolled over in the dark. Jenna froze at the sound, then relaxed. She set her handheld tablet on the rickety nightstand next to the feather and lay awake for what felt like a very long time. Eventually she succumbed to dreams of squeaker plants boarding spaceships and Jenna mowing them down with a long grey dandelion fluff.
The next morning, Jenna used her tablet to translate an argument with Li Ping about which of them was taking the back field of Mr Longmire’s hilly acreage. The unpleasant duty fell to Jenna, and she grunted and shoved her tablet into her back pocket as she made her way to the back. She’d remembered her hearing protection today; the squeaks had been muffled down to more pleasant peep-peeps. Only a few birds circled over her field, and she waved at them.
The hike took longer than she had expected, and once she had reached the field in question, she pulled out her tablet again to check her blood sugar before starting work. The translation app was still open.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
The words scrolled across the device’s screen as she watched.
Jenna whipped her head around, and pulled out her ear protection, her ears popping as she did so. Suspicious, she looked up at the flock of musuris and waved at them again. There was no change to the noise. She ripped a frond from its stalk and threw it toward the small flock while watching the app. The sounds stayed the same. She stared hard at the tablet’s screen, but she couldn’t work out what was going on.
She pulled at her ears and reinserted the plugs. The sound diminished.
With an eye on the passage of the sun across the azure dome of the sky, she closed out the app and checked her glucose levels. It was getting late, and there was a full field to be mowed. Satisfied that she was safe to start working, she put the tablet away and began swinging the scythe with confident strokes. She forgot the oddity and resumed humming a tuneless song that only she and the plants could hear, occasionally glancing at the nearest cloud of musuris, circling aimlessly and sometimes diving for a fluffy treat.
She mentioned the story to Beth over dessert, who didn’t laugh off the experience the way Jenna had expected. She picked at what was left of her cake as Jenna told the story of the glitch in the translation app, and when the story was done, Beth remained silent for a minute, looking at the mess on her plate.
“How long have you been out in the fields, Jenna?”
“I’ve done my full four months,” Jenna scrunched her eyebrows. “You know that.”
“Have you brought your tablet out with you every day?”
“Yeah, of course, I need it to make sure my blood sugar’s in range.”
“The translation AI learns by picking up input even when you’re not using it, you know.”
Jenna tilted her head. “Yeah, OK. And?”
“It doesn’t just take in sound, it registers electrical current, air pressure, chemical compositions, that’s how it works as a glucometer.”
Jenna held up her hands. Beth had studied integrative technology at uni, while Jenna had barely finished high school.
“Assuming that you’re even right, so what?”
“I’m right,” Beth replied. “This is what I know: your tablet is registering communication and has been able to translate it. Is anyone else out in the field with you?”
“No, no one.”
Beth shrugged. “Well, it’s coming from somewhere?”
“It’s a glitch.”
Beth crinkled her nose. “Unlikely.”
She took the feather that Jenna had been playing with into her own hands, then shuddered. “What if we’re destroying their food supply? What if they’re begging us to stop killing the only thing they can eat?”
Jenna scoffed to cover the unease rising in her. “What were they eating before the planet was terraformed?”
“I don’t know,” Beth said helplessly. “Whatever existed before the squeakers. There must have been something, this world wasn’t completely uninhabitable, it just wasn’t suitable for humans.”
“You’re saying that whatever the squeaker plants mutated from, that was their original food source?”
Beth moved her head in assent.
“Let’s go try the app now,” Jenna declared. “Farmer Torrens’s field is walking distance. If you’re right, we need to tell someone. Everyone.”
“That field just got mowed this afternoon, plus there’d be no birds at night.” Beth replied. She looked pale. “There’s no place we could walk to in the dark and get back before lights out. Try it in the morning.”
“If what you’re suggesting is true, I can’t clear the field. It wouldn’t be right.”
“If you don’t clear the field, you’ll be in breach of contract, you won’t get paid, you won’t get a reference. You’ll get sent back to Earth and your visa rights will be revoked.”
“I can’t.”
“They’re just birds, Jenna. Just keep your translator off. Finish your last shift. Go home. Then report it, if you want to.” Beth touched Jenna’s sleeve with an expression of sympathy on her face.
Then she brightened. “I know, I’ll try to replicate your discovery: I’ll send it on to Unisys, maybe I’ll be famous, the girl that talked to birds.” Beth paused. “You actually discovered this; do you want to be part of my research?”
“Like tomorrow?”
“No, I’ve got another two months in my contract. I’ll take tons of recordings, the app should be able to talk back at them, in theory. I could start a conversation with them…”
Jenna couldn’t believe her ears.
“Chat with the people you starve?”
“They aren’t people, they’re just birds.”
“Possibly sentient birds.”
“Look, I’ll start reporting my findings immediately, to the team leader, to Unisys, to everyone. Maybe they’ll stop mowing.” She stopped. “Though then I’d be out of a job.”
Jenna’s insides were boiling.
“Are you kidding me? First thing tomorrow, when I get out to the field, I’m using the translator. I’m talking to them. If they reply, then I won’t mow, I’ll report it in. They can’t make me destroy the food source for a sentient race.”
Beth dropped her fork onto her plate with a clatter.
“Up to you Jen. Do you really want to know? I’m telling you I’ll handle it for you, and if you’re right, we can stop the mowing.”
She held a finger up.
“But remember, you have your whole future in front of you. And you need to keep your visa rights with a clean record.”
The sky was grim, threatening thunder, but otherwise empty. No birds. Jenna had to work rain or shine, but she was looking around for the lightning that would require her to stop mowing. Nothing yet, so once she’d checked her blood sugar, she put her tablet away and began mowing until she received the buzzing alert notifying her that lightning had been spotted and she was required to call the day a loss. Only one day left, she cheered herself as she made her way back to the dorms. Almost there, she realised that she’d left her water bottle at the mowing site. This one was walking distance, so she turned on her heel and went back for it. The thunder was audible now, even wearing her ear plugs. As she scooped up the half empty bottle of water, she looked up into the sky and saw a single musuri in the distance. She dropped the bottle and scrabbled for her tablet, opening the translation app.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Jenna’s head spun as the words spooled across her screen but when she looked up the bird was gone. What…
She stared at the freshly mowed squeaker stalks and at the rest of the field beyond with a sinking feeling. She’d gotten it all wrong.
Jenna’s shuttle was minutes away from docking in the Deepvas System. She’d been putting off the re-entry form since she’d boarded; she needed to click through the answers on her tablet or she wouldn’t be allowed to disembark.
A popup window appeared on her tablet, a reminder for the touristic ring glide booking that she’d made days ago. She clicked it closed and returned to the last question on the reentry form.
“Have you ever been arrested or convicted for any offence or crime?”
Jenna pulled the feather from a pocket and left it on the empty seat next to her. She touched the “no” box and her tablet went blank for a moment, then the words “Re-entry granted” popped up on the screen, distorted by the splashing of Jenna’s tears.
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