“Stop it!” Sand-Stirrer said, pointing at the departing alien.

“Ha, it already showed it is too large to tow.” Thermal-Rock replied.

“Agreed, but it still left us proof.” Ice-Driller said.

The five grasped the supernatural objects with their tentacles, studying them with great curiosity, as all scientists and engineers do. Most of the objects were hollow metal cylinders with small ‘hairs’ of metal bonded together in some type of resin. Ice-Driller had taken the square metal object with writing on it. Those with the cylinders ran their tentacles around and through them.

“There’s a weird scent in the water around these items. Taste them.” Thermal-Rock said.

“Get them out of your mouth please,” replied Study-Up.

Ice-Driller said nothing and took the plaque and carefully studied it with different frequencies of sounds. “Everyone, picture this. This is writing.” One side had a raised pictorial representation of the aliens, including a line of figures: ⨵○ o o○ ○ ◯○○○○ ⍉ o o ...

Underneath each circle was a dot-code ., .., …, …., etcetera.

“I think those are numbers, one, two, three, four. All the way to 8.”

“That must be the alien base of counting. Instead of base ten.” Thermal-Rock said.

Above two of the circles, a small one above the largest circle, and another one above the third circle, which also had the ○ were two carved ⛛s. The decapods assumed the alien society purposely carved these much deeper and three dimensional, rather than just a simple raised or recessed carving.

“Come look, there is more to this metal than meets the eye.” Ice-Driller said. “I sense clockwork inside.”

The other decapods came over to get a better resolution on the echoes. Ice-Driller showed them the picture, and the illegible writing all across the top side of the square metal artifact. He pointed one tentacle at the largest circle.

“The Giant Swirl! It has to be ” Ice-Gazer replied, sending the mental image of The Great Attractor instead of using the word.

“So there is more to the universe than even The Great Attractor?” Study-Up asked.

“Grab the plates.” Ice-Gazer said.

The Overworld Stone and the sonographic plates laid in netting where they had removed them from the probe. They all examined the plates and found at least one recording with the great swirly eye. That seemed to corroborate their memories and the etching on the alien metal plaque.

“That is The Great Attractor. Look how these bands swirl around in the same way, just flipped.” Ice-Gazer said. “And these dots?—and this strange arrow near the second dot. And another arrow is above the third circle.”

Study-Up swam over, “Is that an image of the probe above the third circle?”

“Yes, and look, above the third circle, the one with one small sub-circle, is that the alien probe? There’s a faint line connecting two arrows.”

The other three came in, now disturbing the image with their own curious pinging. They continued deciphering the abstract shapes on the front.

Ice-Driller backed away and held the metal box with the etched front aimed toward the others. Their passed-through soundings gave Ice-Driller a different perspective and more details. The box had more complexity hidden inside. The backside had a simple pictogram and a crank recessed into it. It was not immediately obvious that it was removable. “I get a sense of cogs and other mechanisms inside—there's a tool here.” Ice-Driller said.

The backside etching showed the box and the removable crank ╚╗. Then an arrow to a hole on the side. Simple bumps led to more instructions, a dotted oval with several arrows ↷ interspersed around the hole.

With one of his free tentacles, he pulled and out popped the crank. Another two tentacles swept around the sides of the box and located the hole. Ice-Driller then took the crank and placed it into the notch and proceeded in a direction indicated by the notched triangle, which he guessed was some sort of attention focus instruction.

“Look!”

Sand-Stirrer came up and opined, “surely the pointy end is the direction they want us to turn it. It’s like a spear—”

“But what if you had a rock? Then the blunt end is the business end. How are you so sure these aliens know what a spear is?” Thermal-Rock argued.

“Just try it in the pointy direction.” Sand-Stirrer flashed orange around his face.

“Quiet everyone!” Ice-Driller replied.

He held onto the box with four arms, while two gingerly pushed at the top of the metal crank. Out came the strangest sounds any of them had ever heard. It was the narrowest of frequencies too. It was a simple cleft of sound. The tone had no repetition to it and went from a low frequency to high.

A brief pause and the sounds returned.

There was the babbling of something. They could not identify its purpose or visualize the sound in any coherent way.

Ice-Driller continued to turn the handle, and the sounds changed to something with a math to it, a repeating count, but still in a narrow range of frequencies.

Thermal-Rock flashed green and laughed. “It’s like a deaf child’s idea of singing. So narrow!” There were flashes of anger and embarrassment from the others directed toward Thermal-Rock.

More sounds came, melodies with repetitions and patterns, but still utterly alien. Sounds divorced from image.

“What was that? Who makes music without pictures?” Thermal-Rock tried to defend his previous statement. At this, they had to laugh. Orange colors of amusement flashed over their skin. “The sounds are so simple, like a child's instrument.”

Then the box progressed to a segment they guessed to be more ‘natural’ only because they could clearly identify cracking sea-ice. Other sounds like waterfalls were still quite exotic to their collective experiences.

Another pause and a new piece replayed whale songs and dolphin noises, though they did not know those terms. But the segment interested them because they could clearly see portions of what the creature was trying to visualize, albeit very truncated. As if a mildly less deaf creature was trying to communicate instead of the bewildering tones prior. They were spellbound and said nothing.

The segment ended with another pause.

“Go back!” They yelled at Ice-Driller.

Other tentacles encroached on the box before Ice-Driller jerked away. “Get back everyone. It doesn’t go backward.”

More nonrhythmic babbling on the next track, and finally there came another long segment of music. They could identify it by the repeating beats and range of sounds (though truncated).

Finally, the recording ended. Ice-Driller played it back again and this time they better understood the high-pitched squeals of the dolphin segment.

“Something on the alien planet is like us.” Study-Up said.

“So we have proof, then. Many more water worlds!” Now Ice-Driller felt excited about the coming meeting with the enemy. He was finally confident. Worlds existed, apparently eight or more, depending on how one might interpret the symbols. Perhaps they might inhabit and share them.

There was no reason to engage in the madness of warfare on this planet if abundant water existed.

Around them gathered the poorer citizens had listened to the strange sounds.

“Well team, is everyone still in this with me?” Ice-Driller asked.

“Yes,” was the reply.

“To the front line, then.”