“Captain, this is Mannion. I’ve busted it....”
“I’ll be right there,” I said, and left at a run.
Mannion was writing as I entered ComSection. He stopped his recorder and offered me a sheet. “This is what I’ve got so far, Captain,” he said.
I read: INVADER; THE MANCJI PRESENCE OPENS COMMUNICATIONS.
“That’s a highly inflected version of early Interlingua, Captain,” Mannion said. “After I taped it, I compensated it to take out the rise-and-fall tone, and then filtered out the static. There were a few sound substitutions to figure out, but I finally caught on. It still doesn’t make much sense, but that’s what it says.”
“I wonder what we’re invading,” I said. “And what is the “Mancji Presence’?”
“They just repeat that over and over,” Mannion said. “They don’t answer our call.”
“Try translating into old Interlingua, adding their sound changes, and then feeding their own rise-and-fall routine to it,” I said. “Maybe that will get a response.”
I waited while Mannion worked out the message, then taped it on top of their whining tone pattern. “Put plenty of horse-power behind it,” I said. “If their receivers are as shaky as their transmitter, they might not be hearing us.”
We sent for five minutes, then tuned them back in and waited. There was a long silence from their side, then they came back with a long spluttering sing-song.