The Caliban Proclamation

Sarah Zettel

It had been decided early on that the Calibans should have no voice.

“People respond anything with voice as if it was human,” said the project heads of Terrafirma Inc. “They can help it. Its evolution action.”

So the Calibans were mute. They stood about knee high, squids on frog legs, with one bulging, limpid, octopus eye set above their tentacles to look up at their creators, and their works. At the moment, they clustered around Sonia Taggart’s ankles, staring up at her with their huge, liquid eyes.

“We want to eliminate human-like features as much as possible,” the project heads had gone on. “The last thing we need is extremists flashing around pictures of smiling little Calibans being forced into slavery. They need to be ugly. They need to be inhuman.”

“And besides,” Sonia herself had added. “Reducing human similarity reduces the risk that their brains would develop human-style thought. We don’t the Caliban rebellion either.”

“Exactly,” said the project heads, although pleased, and Sonia had gotten the job of training and programming the Calibans.

As a result, she was the one who discovered that they had developed a sign language. They had brought her algae, and stones and twigs from their terrarium, and they had moved their ten tentacles into patterns her stiff human fingers could just about match, over and over, until she understood. They were speaking to her, and speaking a variant of English, and she responded. She couldn’t help it.

When Planet ET439012 had been discovered to be astonishingly Earthlike, and without sentient life of its own, a debate had begun over what to do about it. The sight of so much new space to an Earth full to the bursting with humanity was irresistible. The question was, how best to develop it for human use.

The answer was the Calibans. Living, self-repairing, self-reproducing machines, existing on algae and sunlight, capable of using specially designed tools and fitted with organic DNA-based receptor chips to take orders and corrections. They would work ceaselessly for the twenty years the best minds determined it would take to build a nascent infrastructure on Planet ET439012 (now called New Earth), to allow for large-scale emigration.

Sonia? signed Primia, which was what Sonia mentally named the leader of the Calibans. She had a sign for herself, but it belonged to no word Sonia understood. You take care of voices now?

Yes. Sonia knelt among her trainees, a needle probe in her trembling hand. She was supposed to be packing them into the drop capsules along with the bales of electronics and nanotech they would need to begin their work. The cameras were running a video of Sonia solemnly loading tanks of the amphibians into the capsules. They had recorded that days ago.

Unwatched by curious Earth, or the other four members of the crew, the Calibans lined up in front of Sonia, and she inserted her needle into one after the other to turn off their specially designed, remarkably responsive chips. Now you are free. No voices in your head saying what to do. I take care of you, for always. I promise.

Who takes care of you? PH hurt you. Primia, stepped forward from the cluster of Calibans, all her tentacles busy folding into signs. You say. PH lock you in dry tank.

The Caliban had not been able to come up with a satisfactory sign for jail.

No. We keep secret close. We careful. You do well, no one hurts me.

She had the promo map all laid out, scrambled and coded in her off-line desk back home. All her reports, her extensive private records of the Calibans’ evolution of language and culture backed up by pictures of the Calibans making a new world, not for their masters, but for themselves, they would burn around the world. Support would be instant, and vocal. Terrafirma Inc. and its project heads wouldn’t have a chance to turn around before the world legislatures were declaring New Earth a Caliban homeland.

We fail PH hurt you?, signed Secundus, Primia’s mate, the gaze of his single black eye roving restlessly about the room rather than watching what he was saying. You take care of us. We never want you hurt.

You don’t fail. Sonia pressed all her fingertips together for emphasis. I take care of you. In return, you promise you don’t fail. Go now. She added the urgency sign. The recording would be done soon, and soon the bay doors would be opened to drop the capsules down. Go.

We go, signed Primia. We all go.

And the Calibans swarmed forward. They grappled with Sonia’s trouser hems, surrounding her to push on the backs of her knees. Too stunned to even scream, Sonia toppled backwards, and the Calibans wrapped their tentacles around her. Working in a coordinated team, just as she had taught them, they hauled her up the ramp into the drop capsule. Half stood below, holding her hands, arms, legs, and head, in their dry, soft tentacles, half clambered up onto the edge of the tank to catch her as she was lifted up and pull her into the warm saltwater. Primia herself clamped the oxygen mask they had dragged aboard from over Sonia’s face, while Secundus oversaw the closing of the capsule doors, and the sealing of the tank.

You come with us, the Calibans signed all around her as the bay doors clanged open underneath the capsule. We love you. Now, we take care of you. For always, now we take care of you.

Copyright © 2008 by Sarah Zettel

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