The Embedding by Ian Watson
"The Embedding" is a science fiction novel that intricately weaves together three distinct yet interconnected plot lines. The first follows Chris Sole, a linguistics researcher who experiments with an "embedding language" on a group of orphans. Concurrently, his former colleague, Pierre, conducts research among the Xemahoa, an endangered tribe in the Amazon whose unique two-tiered language poses significant cultural implications. The narrative shifts to a cosmic dimension as Sole is recruited to decode alien signals, leading to contact with extraterrestrial beings known as the Spthra. These aliens seek to collect knowledge from various languages across the universe to unlock the mysteries of reality.
The three storylines converge around a pivotal exchange involving the Xemahoa's shaman, a key figure in Sole's quest for interstellar communication and the preservation of indigenous knowledge. Tensions escalate as global powers intervene, culminating in a dramatic confrontation that highlights themes of greed and manipulation. The novel ultimately explores the consequences of colonization, both on Earth and beyond, while also addressing personal betrayal and the search for identity through Sole's journey back to the embedding project with one of the orphans. Readers interested in linguistics, cultural preservation, and the interplay of extraterrestrial themes in literature may find "The Embedding" particularly engaging.
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Subject Terms
The Embedding
First published: 1973
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Science fiction—invasion story
Time of work: The mid-1970s
Locale: England, the Brazilian jungle, and a Nevada desert
The Plot
The Embedding weaves together three plot lines. Chris Sole, researcher in linguistics for the Haddon Neurotherapy Unit, conducts experiments on four orphans (Rama, Vidya, Gulshen, and Vasilki), teaching them an “embedding language.” Soles former fellow researcher and friend, Pierre, is at the same time doing fieldwork in the Amazon, where the existence of a small tribe of Indians, called the Xemahoa, is threatened by a dam built by Brazilians but sponsored by Americans. The Xemahoa tribe speak a two-tiered language, Xemahoa-A and Xemahoa-B, the latter of which is inspired by a fungus, maka-i, and resembles the “embedding language” Sole teaches the children. The third plot involves contact with extraterrestrials.
After an American radio dish picks up strange signals from outer space, Sole is recruited by Tom Zwingler, an American agent for national security, to unscramble the coded messages. Meanwhile, the Americans and Soviets together send astronauts to investigate an object that seems to be the source of the signals. The astronauts land on the alien ship, and then, after being taken aboard, negotiate with the aliens to land a small craft in the Nevada desert while their main ship goes into parking orbit.
The aliens, who call themselves the Spthra, have been on a mission to discover all the languages in the universe and superimpose them in an attempt to find the entire signature of This-Reality and thereby escape it. As explained by their representative Phtheri, the Spthra came to Earth in order to trade information: six human brains that know separate and distinct human languages in exchange for vital information on interstellar communication and intelligent life-forms near Earth as well as improvements in technology for spaceflight. With this, all three plot lines tie together, for Sole bargains with Phtheri for the six brains, which are to include the brain of the Xemahoa Bruxo or tribal shaman, who knows the embedding language of his people. The Spthra are willing to sweeten the pot for the acquisition. Sole and Zwingler are sent to the now nearly flooded Amazon jungle to find Pierre and recover the brain.
The resolution of the novel is precipitated by the greed, opportunism, and duplicity of the world political powers involved. The Americans, realizing the potential significance of the Xemahoa tribe and its powerful drug, decide to blow up the dam with a small nuclear bomb. A Chinese satellite picks up the explosion and broadcasts the incident for propagandistic purposes and to incite revolution in Brazil and the rest of Latin America. Attempting to avoid blame and global indignation, the Americans and Soviets issue a joint communiqué stating that the bombing was done by an unidentified flying object that had been spotted circling Earth. The Spthra landing ship is destroyed by a one kiloton tactical homing missile, and the main ship is wrecked by a Soviet orbital bomb. Having failed, Sole returns with Pierre to England only to realize that Peter, his three-year-old son, is not his child but a product of his wifes affair with Pierre in Paris four years earlier. Sole returns to the embedding project, where he reclaims Vidya, the child of his mind, carrying the boy back home in his arms through the frozen English countryside.