“And the Lord appeared to them and confused their speech, when they had built the tower to the height of four hundred and sixty-three cubits. And they took a gimlet, and sought to pierce the heavens, saying, “Let us see (whether) the heaven is made of clay, or of brass, or of iron.”

Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, 3:5–8

Elthomiel Danuba was a peculiar sort of person.

Thin as a reed, his careworn face spoke of his African Ancestry, large perpetually wet – looking doleful brown eyes suggested a myopic personality that tended more towards bookish academia. Older than most of the science specialists on Dr Jin Motonobu’s team, the habitually eccentric Elthomiel seemed out of place at the best of times and not anyone’s ideas of an adventurous Starfleet – rating.

Incongruous then the fact that they were the only Ethnolinguistic Specialist aboard the USS Astute, voyaging out beyond the stars instead of being comfortably ensconced in some dusty and sedate library somewhere.

But when Danuba was engaged to speak on the subject of his scientific discipline, then his passion shone through with fervent aplomb.

As his hands constantly fidgeted, the slight scientist fussed nervously around the smallest configurable lab aboard the Echelon – class light cruiser that had been afforded him and Commander Kottu watched the ritual unfold and wondered absently how the frantic little man ever managed to find anything at all – that the clutter in the space was so great.

Wedged between the matter reclamation – process tanks for Deck 7 and the Turbolift entrance, the allocation of laboratory space for Ethnolinguistics surely was an indicator of the importance that was normally afforded for this obscure field in an age where the Universal Translator reigned supreme. If this was a dedicated research vessel, such as a Sutherland – class, then possibly Elthomiel might have found himself amongst a small (if rarified) collection of his peers.

As it was, the frantic – little Linguist did not seem duly concerned by his lodgings or display any reaction to some perceived slight at being billeted – so.

The XO folded his powerful forearms and noted with some amusement that Elthomiel was probably so entranced within his spectrum, that he probably hadn’t even taken the time required to consider it?

“Ethnolinguistics, as you know Commander, is the anthropological study concerned with the interrelation between a language and the cultural behavior of those who speak it!” Elthomiel spoke quickly and breathlessly as he dove into a pile of datapads and actual printed books. These venerable tomes of knowledge must have been priceless in their own right as artifacts, but the linguist just tutted and seemed to throw them aside with abandon as he rummaged and sought the particular prize of his focus.

“When starting from first principles, we ask ourselves – ‘Does language shape culture, or vice versa?’, ‘What influence does language have on perception and thought?’ and most importantly ‘How do language patterns relate to cultural patterns?’”” Elthomiel prattled away, his voice slightly muffled as he half – disappeared into a large drawer that he had pulled out and set to exploring.

Kottu blinked his nictating membranes over his coal black eyes, at a loss of what to say. Long experience had led the Saurian to his own theory that it was best to let academics run their train of though to the end of the line without interruption, as at the terminus they would invariably ask all passengers to alight and present them with their final reckoning.

It also worked well alongside the adage, ‘Let a lunatic rave and always be aware of the location of the nearest exit’ which, because the lab was conveniently located right next to the starboard turbolifts, was thankfully not far away.

Specialist Danuba paused so suddenly that Kottu had the impression that he had forgotten about what he had been searching for so enthusiastically and he peered at the XO and reasoned.

“At its core, in its most stripped-down concepts, it could be argued that it centers around ‘Whorfian hypothesis’. For example, Commander, an Andorian has many words for ‘snow’, whereas a Romulan might employ a single term for the concepts of snow, cold and ice.” Elthomiel smiled and suddenly resumed his rummaging with a vengeance.

“The Whorfian hypothesis reasons that the structure of a language conditions the way in which a speaker of that language thinks.” Elthomiel explained happily and then exclaimed ”EUREKA!” so loudly that even the stoic Saurian gave a small start and the awkward little man turned around happily, brandishing an ancient leather – bound volume in his twitching hands.

“When you came to me with your query, Commander, well you can imagine my unfettered delight! Although, I must confess, I rather thought that this might constitute one of the many childish pranks that my erstwhile colleagues seem to delight in playing upon me ! However,  the opportunity to delve and unlock the key to not only a new language, but a wholly new and undiscovered form of life and culture is a career defining opportunity only the seriously deranged would pause to embrace!”

Adhering to his own scientific imperative, Kottu remained silent. Honestly there did not seem a pressing need for two – way conversation, such was the intensity of Danuba’s diatribe and rhetoric.

“Behold! The Pseudepigrapha of Baruch 3! “ Elthomiel proclaimed breathlessly as the large pink reptile looked on impassively.

“It’s a book.” Kottu allowed. So much effort had gone into its procurement and presentation that he felt he really should say something in return.

“Not just any book, Commander!” The linguist cleared a space for the antique volume on his workbench by the simple expedient of elbowing whatever was stacked there onto the floor with one bony elbow as he laid the book down.

“This a first edition of “The Greek Apocalypse of Baruch! A first edition!” Elthomiel opened the crackling tome with a flourish and nary a white cotton – glove in sight. “A visionary, pseudepigraphic text written sometime between the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD and the third century. Attributed to Baruch ben Neriah, the scribe of Jeremiah in the 6th-century BC, it forms one of the earliest accountings from Greek and Slavic sources of the “”Tower of Strife” and the sundering of mankind!”

“I’m sorry?” Rumbled Kottu, ”I’m not sure that I entirely follow?”

“It is one of the first accountings that scholars agree gives an accurate accounting of the Tower of Babel and it’s fall – wherein God in his righteous anger smites down the tower man has built as a monument to his own hubris and sunders language and understanding from one true source and casting them into an endless age of confusion and conflict!” Elthomiel smiled triumphantly and began to finger through the pages of the book.

“And this is relevant to our current problem how exactly?” Kottu asked mildly.

Elthomiel blinked and ran a nervous hand through his erratic hair and Kottu made a mental note to have a quiet word with the scientist’s line – supervisor about permissible adherence to the uniform standards, as the scientist looked momentarily astounded that the Executive Officer couldn’t make the obvious connection.

“It represents the beginning point where human ethnolinguistics was born, Commander !” Elthomiel admonished roundly, before going on to say, “An in the same merit, the discovery of these creatures encountered on Encedis-#5 represent an equal point of genesis!”

As Kottu looked blankly on, Elthomiel beckoned him over to view the page he had opened in the book.

It was a beautiful illustration; hand painted in antiquity which depicted the fall of eponymous tower erected by man to celebrate his equivalency with the divine. This vengeful smiting took the form of a powerful beam of energy lancing down from the heavens whilst a cadre of bright angels looked serenely down on the serried destruction.

Even Kottu wasn’t blind to the parallel to the encounter with the energy – beings reported by Captain McDowell on the surface of the ocean – world below. But he wasn’t here for coincidental triptychs, he had come at the summons of this strange little man, as he had claimed to have solved the means with which to communicate with the aliens.

“Linguistic structure has a syntaxial relationship with the function of speech to provide insight to a sentient beings perceptive and cognitive faculties and help explain diverse behavior between people of different cultural backgrounds, Commander.” Elthomiel’s finger traced the many peoples of the earth, once of one voice and mind and now forever exiled by a variance in tongues.

“It’s hard to engage with and establish a meaningful discourse to someone that doesn’t have any physical or corporeal organs with which to form words or hear speech, let alone find a common language base.”

“But many species communicate through non – verbal means do they not? Pheromones? Semiotics? Paralinguistics?” The XO reasoned, feeling entirely out of his depth here.

“Very good, Commander, but such species typically inhabit a physical morphology, be it biological, crystalline etcetera!” Elthomiel brightened considerably now that his discourse was obviously gaining some traction. “True, there are some organisms that communicate purely on a telepathic medium, but their thought – wave patterns are typically analogous with biological life.”

Kottu frowned, his ridged forehead crenelating into deep valleys above his tiny nostril – holes. “But our beings are made of pure energy?”

“EXACTLY!” Crowed Elthomiel. “Which was what lead me to eschew all that we know about established norms of traditional linguistics and  lexicography and take a novel detour into the unfamiliar realms of engineering – science!” The little man in the habitually ill – fitting teal uniform nodded and somehow managed to unearth the controls to the tiny – lab’s Holoprojector.

Within the air above the clutter of the desk, a holo-screen glittered and resolved into being.

“I started with the data recovered by Lieutenant Aslaine during his mission to rescue the Captain and Lieutenant Søgaard.” Elthomiel explained, his brown eyes shining with the reflected light of the hovering data – displayed in thin air.

“Here is the Interphasic energy signature that was picked up by the “Azimuth’s” sensors, as the shuttle approached the search area.”

The hologram began to display the recorded Interphasic energy signatures picked up by the SAR shuttle during the rescue displaying the modulation on the electromagnetic spectrum that oscillated between frequency wavelengths from radio waves to gamma radiation.

“The frequency modulations have a distinct pattern &  common repeats to the intervals between wavelengths, that you can see between the distance of the sine – wave patterns. These shorter intervals between, Gamma rays to Ultraviolet are typical to ionizing radiation – which we know our ‘visitors’ are associated with. The patterns bear remarkable similarities to morphology that we would associate with standard phonetics. In short, it has a recognizable structure of amorphic – returns and cognitive – correlations that are akin to language.”

At this, Commander Kottu’s interest was finally piqued.

“This is them speaking?”

Elthomiel rolled his eyes as such a simplification but nodded in turn “Certainly not in the phonetic sense, but yes – it has all the hallmarks of the mental processes typical to what we term as Psycholinguistic register.”

“So, we can speak with them? Understand them?” The Commander pressed.

The linguist sucked air through his teeth and raised a hand in caution.

“Let’s not learn to fly until we at least know how to walk, Commander. Whilst we now know how they talk; we need to form a basis for mutual understanding of what structure those thought processes are translated into a common language base. Without that, it’s basically Babel all over again.” Elthomiel gestured poignantly to the ancient tome and it graven – image of the sundering of mankind.

“We need to establish norms of Syntax – how their sentence structure and grammar interrelate. Lucky that is within the realms of Computational Linguistics, which is firmly the purview of the Universal Translator. We can feed this data directly into the ship’s computer and it will do the heavy lifting for us.” Elthomiel nodded and set the process in train.

“The real challenge presents in the realms of Sociolinguistics – or rather what language variations are typical to their culture and society. That is something that, in all of our storied history and innovation, we have ever found a machine that can do that better than the organic mind. Only by direct interaction can we find a common syntaxial framework and discern the meaning of their language and in – turn arrive at the Pragmatic, letting us know how that language is used in context.”

“So, you’re confident that we will be able to communicate with these beings, but cannot guarantee that we’ll be able to establish a common base of understanding?” Kottu pondered aloud.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day, so to speak, Commander.” The scientist shrugged easily. “Normally a Second Contact undertaking of this magnitude would be the result of months or years of planning, undertaken by an expert team aboard a specialist vessel. You really can’t expect miracles here.”

“Second contact?” Kottu interrupted. “I though that this was a First Contact situation?”

Elthomiel snorted and shook his head in amusement. “Only insofar that no meaningful dialogue has ever been entered into between both parties. It has to be inferred that these creatures have been here far before there was colonization – just because we have been blissfully unaware of their presence and ignorant to their culture, certainly doesn’t mean that they have similarly occluded. It is reasonable to hypothesize that they have been observing us for a very long time and have doubtless learned far more of our culture through direct observation.”

“So, they are the First Contact team and we are the ignorant aliens?” Kottu realised with some amusement.”

“If you like.” Observed Elthomiel with a murmur of professional attachment.

“So we now we have the “ears” to hear and the “mind” to unravel their meaning, but where to be find the “mouth” with which to frame our questions. The last time I checked, no one aboard speaks in fluent electrical potential?” The Executive Officer challenged.

Elthomiel smiled craftily at this and said cryptically.

“No one aboard the ship does, but the ship does.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s perhaps fortunate that we have been the ones to make contact with this new species , Commander, by merit of being aboard one of the only vessel – classes in Starfleet with the ability to deploy configurable payloads……..”

“Which are able to ionize a target’s hull!” Realization dawned upon Kottu.

“If we modulate a phaser array to project a continuous beam at a low frequency modulation in the wavelengths of Ultraviolet – an ionizing radiation which it is reasonable to suppose our guests can discern, then that should be able to be purposed as a carrier beam to transmit the output of the universal translator to a target location. Instead of destruction, the weapon can be instrumental in the first conversation with a new species and establishing the basis of understanding and (hopefully) peace itself!” Elthomiel smiled.

Commander Kottu looked upon the odd – little scientist with a newfound respect and said admiringly.

“Specialist, you are a genius! What on earth are you doing on a vessel like this and not aboard a science vessel?”

Elthomiel blinked myopically as his hands fidgeted and he shrugged noncommittally.

“Well, I needed somewhere quiet to work on my thesis and thought that this would be the perfect assignment”.

Kottu smiled at the linguist and assured.

“Mr. Danuba. Once you’ve been aboard with us for a while, you will come to realize that nothing is ever quiet around here!””