Carl Sagan’s Hunt for Intelligent Life in the Universe

by C. Gockel

  Hsissh had chosen his hatchling’s body for its proximity to the Sato’s homestead. He was at the edge of the trees, dirt stained and exhausted, just past sunset. He came to an abrupt halt before he entered the garden. There were boys outside of Noa’s window. He felt venom pool on his tongue. Were they there because of some human “elopement” ritual?

  A voice rose among the boys—it sounded like Jacob’s, but deeper. “You’re not going to race your brother’s new antigrav bike?”

  Noa was silhouetted by light and he couldn’t read her facial expressions. But through the wave he felt her fury. “I’ve already beaten your ass twice, Jacob. Now I’ve got to study.”

  “Waste of time,” said Jacob.

  “If you’re only interested in being in the Luddeccean Guard, sure,” Noa hissed.

  “Nothing wrong with joining the Guard,” said another voice … again, familiar but deeper. Hsissh sniffed. It was Sergei! He’d grown since Hsissh had been gone. Noa’s silhouette turned to Sergei and Hsissh could feel the war within her. He rushed through the garden, all ten legs pumping.

  “She’s lost her edge,” said Jacob. “Let’s go.”

  The boys turned away.

  “Wait!” said Noa, her eyes on Sergei.

  Hsissh leaped into the ivy on the side of the house and began climbing the vines.

  “Noa?” Sergei said.

  “I heard something!” Noa said, and Hsissh could feel her concentration had left the boy.

  “A wild werfle!” Jacob cried, “Kill it!”

  Noa shouted, “Stay away from him or I’ll kill you!” Before Hsissh could blink or think, she was soaring through the window above his head and landing lightly on the ground.

  “It’s your funeral if he bites!” Jacob said.

  Dad’s voice roared through the night. “Who’s there!”

  Hsissh took the opportunity to sneak in the window and leap onto Noa’s bed. He heard Sergei say, “It’s her dad, run!”

  Inside the house, there was the sound of Mom’s footsteps running toward Noa’s room. Hsissh dived behind the pillows on Noa’s bed just before Mom burst in. Outside, he heard the boys’ retreating footsteps, Dad’s thunderous approach and booming voice. “Noa, what was going on?”

  “They wanted to go racing,” she said. “And then Jacob tried to attack a wild werfle.” He could hear her rifling through the ivy.

  Hsissh watched Mom go to the window, peer out, and then turn to shoo Masako and John from the room.

  In the garden, Dad said, “Go back inside.”

  “But the werfle …” Noa said.

  “Will be fine,” said Dad. “You go inside …”

  There was the sound of soft, quick steps and then a thump against the house. A moment later, Noa was climbing through the window, a few pieces of ivy clinging to her fingers.

  “That wasn’t what I meant!” Dad shouted.

  “I have to get back to studying!” Noa said, landing lightly on her feet and immediately going to her hologlobe. The device was larger than the one she used to have—this one was as large in diameter as two grown werfles. Hsissh felt her concentrate. The globe glowed and within it appeared a scene of Fleet ships below a time gate.

  Noa’s paws balled at her side. “The Guard won’t take me …” she muttered. Shaking her head, she focused ... and then her mind was alight with the thoughts of members of the Reserve Fleet Training Corp.

  “Hey, Noa, you’re back!” said a boy Hsissh didn’t recognize.

  “You weren’t kidnapped by crazy fundies and forced into marriage with a man five times your age,” said a girl who looked to be about Noa’s age.

  “Ha, ha, you’re hilarious,” Noa said aloud. The words were picked up by the nanos in her mind and sent across the galaxy to her friends. Noa punched the air. “Let’s get back to the Battle of Time Gate Five. What would we have done in Captain Malik’s position? I was thinking … ”

  Hsissh dropped from her consciousness. He was warm between the pillows, but an uncomfortable feeling was coming over him. Noa didn’t really need his help. She was going to leave. She had to, not because of any plague, but because she didn’t belong here. Maybe he didn’t, either.

  It wasn’t until she was putting on her pajamas that Hsissh slunk from his hiding place. Her back was to him, and he was pondering quietly leaving … but then she turned suddenly. Her eyes grew wide at the sight of him—and he reared on his hind legs at the sight of her. She’d grown in the time he was gone, and developed the secondary sexual characteristics of her kind, but she was still lean, her skin was still a beautiful rich brown, and her eyes that deep almost-black.

  “Fluffy?” Noa said, reaching out hesitantly. In the waves he heard her thoughts. It’s not really Fluffy, but so much like him, he’d stand just like that …

  With a strike of inspiration, Hsissh dived beneath the covers and did his circuit. Coming up for air, he gave the squeak of ‘all clear.’ He tugged at the waves, and tried to reassure her, I won’t bite.

  Noa fell onto the bed and scooped him up into her arms. She scratched him behind the ears, the way he’d liked in his old body and still liked in this one. He purred unabashedly and she wept into his fur.

  Later, with a belly full of leftovers Noa had sneaked from the kitchen, he curled up with her under the covers. Noa didn’t need him to escape Luddeccea … and he didn’t need to love her. But life without love was like a rat that had been dead for a few days. You could eat it, but it wasn’t as delicious.

  6

  RELEASING PETS INTO THE WILD

  Hsissh’s body was old again. If he moved, his joints would ache, and his fur was thinning. But he wasn’t moving, the chair beneath him was soft and comfortable, and he was warmed by a sunbeam.

  “Looks like you’ve stolen my seat, Sir,” said Tim. Hsissh blinked his eyes. Tim was Noa’s husband. His appearance was as striking as Noa’s. Instead of tan skin, his was as pale as a shaved werfle. His eyes were an eerie sky blue, and his hair was the color of dead grass.

  Hsissh raised his head. “Oh, don’t get up on my account,” Tim said, scratching Hsissh gingerly behind the ears.

  Not that Hsissh would dream of it, even though he liked Tim, despite his disturbing appearance. Tim was an engineer in the Fleet and served on the same “space ship” that Noa did. They were stationed light years from Luddeccea. Noa would be safe when the plague came; just as important …

  Noa’s voice echoed from the kitchen. “You’re moving back to Earth?”

  Dad answered, “Luddeccea is becoming too fundamentalist.”

  The turn in conversation drew Tim to the kitchen. Hsissh watched him go. As far as he understood these things, Tim was a fine specimen of the masculine gender of Noa’s species. Broad-shouldered and tall. But more important, Noa and Tim were happy when they were together—the waves buzzed with their feelings. Hsissh was pleased. Humans, from the werfles’ observation, were mostly polygamous in their youth, but then settled into monogamous relationships as they aged. It seemed to correspond with stability and happiness.

  “We just don’t feel comfortable staying here,” Mom said.

  Hsissh felt a warm glow in the pit of his stomach and put a proud paw through his whiskers. He couldn’t speak into Mom’s and Dad’s minds, but he’d discovered he could tug at the waves in a way that sparked emotional reactions. Whenever a news report came on the hologlobe about The Three Book’s growing influence in civic affairs, or a riot against new settlers occurred in the city of Prime, he’d pulled hard on the waves and made their natural unease greater. When Dad had gotten a job offer on Earth, Hsissh had augmented his elation. When Mom contemplated moving her own consulting business, Hsissh had increased her optimism.

  “We’ll all be off world …” said Noa.

  Hsissh kneaded his claws. He’d nudged Masako to go there to further her studies—and she’d stayed! John had always wanted to leave; his parents had died in the Third Plague before Mom and Dad had immigrated to the planet. Joh
n himself had augmented kidneys because the Third Plague had destroyed his; Dad had taken him to Earth for several operations as he aged so that his “plastic kidney beans” could be replaced with larger ones for his growing body. John blamed the “Luddeccean crazy-late acceptance of nano cures” for his parents’ deaths and the augments that had cost him painful operations. Hsissh had only needed to strengthen John’s resolve to leave the planet.

  Mom sighed. “Kenji is very upset about us selling the house.”

  Hsissh’s ears twitched. Kenji had been the only member of the family he hadn’t been able to influence. Whenever Hsissh pulled on the waves coursing through his mind, Kenji had heard voices … much as the humans The One had tried to inhabit had. Perhaps it was because Kenji’s mind had special nano augments to make up for a congenital syndrome he had? Hsissh wasn’t sure, but the “voices” had worried Mom and Dad tremendously. Hsissh had to give up his attempts to guide Kenji, but in the end, the boy had left on his own, drawn by the promise of a better education on Earth.

  “What will happen to Fluffy?” Noa said, and Hsissh’s body grew rigid.

  “Sarah Benjamin has offered to take him in,” said Mom.

  “She and Sergei know having an old werfle sleeping in the house is better than no werfle,” Dad said. “Rats hate them.”

  “I wish we could take him aboard the fighter carrier,” Tim said. “We have a rat problem.”

  Noa said what Hsissh was thinking. “He’d never survive the Fleet quarantine, even if he were younger.”

  Mom sighed. “Sergei and Sarah, they’re kind people … they’ll treat the old man right.”

  Hsissh’s whiskers twitched. They wouldn’t treat Hsissh at all. He’d be leaving this old body soon. In the kitchen, he heard Noa and Tim discuss their ship’s upcoming voyage. Mom and Dad discussed their upcoming move off-world.

  Hsissh blinked. The sunlight felt especially warm, and made bits of dust sparkle in its beam like distant stars and brilliant expectations … He’d done it, he’d seen that his humans would leave this world and make it to safety. It didn’t feel a little like seeing hatchlings leave the nest; it felt exactly like that.

  7

  CARL SAGAN DISCOVERS INTELLIGENT LIFE

  Hsissh was in the body of a male werfle in his prime. He was watching as his latest hatchlings, now grown adults, set off through the undergrowth. Beside him the second in his parental triad squeaked. She wasn’t inhabited by The One and was simple, but Dich, the “other female” in the group, and the third in this triad was. It had made Hsissh’s time as First more interesting. Dich touched her nose to Second fondly, and Hsissh did the same. Second wiggled, sniffed the air, and set off on her own through the undergrowth.

  “Well, that was well done,” Dich said into the wave. “We made great parents.”

  Hsissh agreed and felt the warmth of satisfaction in his chest.

  “I’m going to curl up and join The Gathering,” Dich said. “Will you be coming?”

  Hsissh’s tail flicked, a dark mood settling upon him. He didn’t relish going over plans for the Fourth Plague.

  “Suit yourself,” said Dich, and she hopped over to the tree log they used as a den.

  Lifting his nose to the breeze, Hsissh detected the scent of a rat. He licked his lips. He could eat all of his kill for the first time in cycles! He slunk off, and an hour later he was rolling over on his back in a bright patch of sunlight, a rat carcass partially consumed beside him. He was utterly content. And then a wave-dream apparition appeared beside him. Hsissh blinked. The apparition was in the form of a cat. Before Hsissh could ask, the cat flattened its ears. “It’s me, Shissh!”

  Hsissh blinked. “You’re a cat now?”

  “I wanted to hitch a ride on one of the humans’ space ships,” Shissh said.

  “How interesting,” said Hsissh, not particularly interested in anything but enjoying his current sunbeam and full belly.

  “It’s Noa’s space ship,” Shissh said.

  Hsissh sat up with a start. “Really, how is she?”

  Shissh swished her tail. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t—”

  “Pay attention,” hissed Shissh. “It may be the maternal hormones from the litter of kittens I just bore, but I’ve become fond of your human. She saved me from being thrown out of an airlock.”

  Hsissh put a claw to his chest that was swelling with pride. “Well, of course she—”

  Shissh hissed again. “She went to visit her brother on Luddeccea.”

  “Kenji is here?”

  “He’s been back for years. Haven’t you been paying attention?”

  “Years?” said Hsissh.

  “Listen,” Shissh growled. “Luddeccea’s time gate has gone offline and Noa is on the planet. If you want her to get off that self-righteous fundamentalist rock—”

  Hsissh blinked.

  Shissh licked a paw. “The attitude toward Luddeccea around here is influencing me.” She swished her tail. “You’ve got to find her and get her off the planet.”

  “Is she alone—or is Tim with her?” Hsissh asked, rising to his hind legs.

  For a moment, Shissh said nothing. She just sat, swishing her tail and glaring at him. And then she snarled, “Tim has been dead for several Earth years now.”

  Hsissh sank to all ten paws. “What?” He’d been distracted by hatchlings and kits for a long time … he hadn’t realized how long. Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to follow Noa too closely, afraid to know what he wouldn’t be able to influence.

  “None of that matters,” Shissh said. “Find Noa!”

  Hsissh launched himself into the waves, spreading himself as thin as he could… and encountered Ish’s consciousness in Prime. Ish was in werfle form, dancing in a home that had a ceiling that was a hundred werfle lengths high. “Isn’t it wonderful, Hsissh! The time gate is closed. No more ships from Earth, the humans here will be able to focus on enlightenment; they’ll evolve!”

  Hsissh thought frantically, “Have you seen Noa?”

  Ish put a paw through a whisker, and Hsissh felt his disapproval. “Your human is somewhere in the capital … she is wanted by the Central Authority. She is involved in some horrible new ‘technological experiment.’ But never fear, we’ll catch—”

  Hsissh cut away from the conversation, feeling a bubbling wrath in his stomach—the same he’d felt when a rat had tried to attack one of his hatchlings. He tore himself completely away from his body, leaving behind just a werfle bewildered at finding itself stuffed with a delicious rat in a field. Letting his pattern flow through the waves, Hsissh found a werfle host not inhabited by a member of The One in Prime and slipped in.

  Blinking his new eyes, he was assailed by the overwhelming smell of human. Instead of sod, underneath his feet was pavement.

  He’d never been to Prime, but this werfle host had lived here all its life and Hsissh had all its memories. He wore a collar—once this werfle had lived with humans. He recognized the “alley” he stood in. It was behind a tall, slender “town home” where he’d resided with two adults and a little boy. But recently, the “boy” was only a technological imitation of the man and woman’s child who’d died of a lung infection. Outwardly it was almost perfect, but it smelled wrong. And when the adults were not in the room, it became nothing but a piece of furniture, its mind simple and unchanging. It never cried, and it never yelled at the parents. The real boy had chased the werfle with such enthusiasm that they sometimes knocked over furniture and he’d screamed when the werfle had been separated from him. The machine boy never played chase. The memory of the strangeness of the artificial boy sent a cocktail of depressive hormones to Hsissh’s mind, and he cried into the waves at the lie that was the machine. Shissh must have been paying attention, because she heard. Hsissh felt Shissh reply, “Ah, yes, Noa’s spoken of those … Some humans use robots to replace their dead—but they don’t have the computing power to be like real humans. Something about Moore’s Law banging into Moore’
s Wall … Human innovation has been stalled for the past few hundred years. To have a robot as smart as a human, you’d need a machine with the brain the size of a small moon and a nuclear plant to power it.”

  Shaking his head to clear it of Shissh’s gibberish, Hsissh stood up on his hind limbs and looked to the home. He knew without going in that it was empty. He was assailed by a painful memory of Luddeccean Guards coming into the house, dismembering the machine boy, and taking the parents away. This werfle—not intelligent like the one inhabited by The One—had attacked one of the Guards and had been kicked across the room. Hsissh took a deep breath. His “new” ribs still hurt from the experience. He patted his body. It was amazing he hadn’t been killed … that had been months ago. This body hadn’t eaten well since then, even though he had fresh venom on his tongue.

  Hsissh pivoted on his back hind legs and caught a glimpse of blue sky between the tall town homes on either side of him. He paused, struck by another memory. That ribbon of blue should have been filled with space ships traveling up to the time gate, but it was empty of everything but clouds. He craned his neck to see the time gate. A bright spark flashed beside the gate’s ring and then streaked toward the planet like a falling star. A meteor? He searched his mind, and the mind of The One … and all the thoughts of all The One on Luddeccea collided with his. He knew what the explosion was; it was a space ship. Worse, he knew where the two parents of the machine boy had been taken. He saw it through the eyes of another werfle somewhere so far north the snow had already fallen: a huge camp where humans were dying like they’d been afflicted by another plague. He felt in the collective consciousness of The One that these humans were “augmented” or had been owners of imitation robots. They had been rounded up and made to work until they dropped because of it. It wasn’t plague, but hunger that made them slump into the snow … Humans were starving their own kind to death.