by M R Cates
“Why do you want to observe our planet?” Sandra continued.
“It is of interest to us.”
“Have you observed other planets in this way?”
There was a pause. Plato said, “Yes.”
“And have you found life similar to us?”
“No.”
“Is that why you are curious about us, because you’ve found no life similar?”
“We are curious about all life.”
“Can you tell me of other life you have observed?”
“We wish to speak to you, Sandra. Our interest now is with life on your blue planet.”
She took a breath. “You speak in the plural, Plato. Are you representing a large race of beings?”
“I am a part of a large race of beings,” he said. “We have taken this form in order to make you comfortable as we communicate.”
“Thank you,” Sandra said. “From your knowledge of human beings, do you think that I would be disturbed if I saw you in your actual form?”
There was a hesitation. Sandra heard the low background noise again, then Plato said, “You are seeing us in our actual form. But our form is not constant.”
Sandra's mind raced. Not constant. Their actual form. Unless Plato was lying he was saying they were, in fact, the glowing red substance in front of her. “The ...” She found her voice was trembling, and held back a moment. “The glowing red of your image, is that a ... manifestation of you, as a being?”
Again a hesitation with its attendant swelling of background noise. Longer this time. “Yes,” Plato said, succinctly.
Her mind raced. Sandra began to consider a series of further questions. But Plato spoke first. He said, “We have some questions for you, Sandra.”
“Okay,” she replied, shelving her own queries for the moment, but now ready to ask when the chance came. “You appear, however, to know very much about us already.”
“We know what we can observe from beyond your nourishing atmosphere,” he replied. “We also know a little more about your individual essence, from touching. Our knowledge, however, is incomplete. It is important that we learn more.”
“It was you, Plato, who touched me, as you call it? Three times?”
The hesitation returned, with a brief fuzz of background. “It was I and others who touched you.”
“More than one of you touched me?”
“Yes.”
Sandra scratched her head. “What did your touch consist of?”
“Our essence occupied part of the molecular space of your brain. Within what you would call 'the overlap distances of electronic wave functions.' In that way we attempted sense the sequence of energy processes in your brain.”
“Indeed?” Sandra looked intensely at the figure. “Did you consider the possibility that I would not want to be touched?”
“No.”
“Would you have touched me if I had told you I did not wish it?”
“Yes.”
Sandra reddened noticeably. At least noticeably to herself. “Plato,” she said, “for humans that act would be a violation of privacy.”
“Our interest is information.”
“Do human traditions, cultures and moral systems have any importance to you?”
The familiar hesitation once more. “Yes.”
“As information right? Not as something to respect from your own system of values.”
“Yes.”
Exasperation surged through the astronomer. Not that she should be surprised. The brutal honesty of this Plato was amazing. Yet why should it be amazing? There is absolutely no reason he, or they, should think like human beings. Observing from beyond – what was it, 'your nourishing atmosphere' – had to give many details. But not all, of course. It could be that the glowing aliens were more interested in the fine points than might be expected.
“You said you had more questions, Plato. Please ask them.”
“We must touch you as you answer, Sandra. Will you agree?”
“Your last touch was very painful,” she said flatly. “Why would I not fear?”
“It was unanticipated.”
“I will not agree to your conditions, Plato, unless you will first explain what happened to me during the unanticipated touch and unless you will give a summary of what you learned in the three touches that I gave no permission for.”
The dull background cacophony swelled to a distinct noise. Plato's image wavered before her eyes, reforming several times. Once it vanished entirely for a few seconds. Nearly a minute had passed before the figure stabilized. “We agree to do so, Sandra.”
“Thank you. I await your answers.” Sandra tried not to look any different than she had; yet her sense of anticipation had peaked.
“The unanticipated touch diverted a part of our essence that was occupied with other considerations. It was not in communication with you or observing you directly. Consequently, energy was instinctively directed along the mass path. The energy disturbed the electromagnetic force configuration in your body. Your reaction alerted us and the energy was withdrawn.”
She nodded. “Would it have killed me?”
“Yes.”
“And the summary of information gained from the earlier touches?”
“We sensed electromagnetic pulses within the mass of your neural system – your brain. We could not determine how your brain coordinates the ocular, acoustic, tactile and olfactory sensations that you routinely send through your nervous system from the exterior. We have already learned – from analysis of your physiological literature – the basic mechanism of neuron and synapse interconnects, but we could not anticipate or identify your thought sequences. There seem to be many interrelated pulse patterns, with wide ranges of electromagnet strength.”
Sandra was genuinely amazed at his facility with English. “Was this brain function a surprise to you, Plato?”
“Yes. We did not anticipate the varied levels of what you would call consciousness. Nor did we expect the extent of continuous modification of the sequences arising from the sensory inputs.”
The astronomer thought about that last comment. He is saying, perhaps, she thought, that we don't tend to draw fixed conclusions from our various inputs. Our interpretations would naturally evolve while we're thinking because our inputs are always changing and because memories are growing and fading, constantly. These glowing aliens, then, may not be so burdened. “Plato,” she said, sensing a pause that gave an entry, “do your own thought processes constantly evolve, changing continuously because, like human brains, the input changes continually and the neural substance is never the same from one moment to the next?”
The delay in response was relatively brief, compared to her expectation. Sandra hoped she had thrown him a kind of curve. “Our neural substance is not mass-laden energy,” Plato said. “Our thought processes cannot be directly compared with human brain function. Thought and action for us are the same processes. In this way we do parallel your continuously evolving neural activity.”
It was he who had thrown the curve! “Your action and thought are the same things? How can that be?”
“Action, as we define it, Sandra, depends on mass-energy. Were there no mass there would be no action. When mass-energy is not involved, our processes might be called pure thought. When mass-energy is involved, thought and action exist in parallel.”
Oh my God, Sandra thought.
“When you draw conclusions,” she asked, “do they evolve or do they remain fixed?”
“Each of us influences the conclusions we draw. All conclusions evolve. In this we fully understand that human brain function is not static. Our incomplete knowledge, however, arises from your internal processes of correlation of sensory input with established neural sequences already residing within your brain, as well as the dynamic sequences that cannot be predicted.”
“You mean, from not knowing how memory affects immediate input from the world around us?”
“Yes. Your memories, in particular
, are not understandable in a context of our own memories.”
“How would touching me – as you call it – while listening to me help your understanding?” She asked the question already sensing she knew the gist of the answer.
“If we know what questions you are answering – beginning with very simple ones – we can perhaps identify and follow the associated neural pulses, thereby mapping particular sequences.”
“Plato, would you also expect to interfere in some way with the neural sequences during your observation?”
A hesitation. “Interference that would affect your natural neural processes would defeat our purpose. However, imposition of what you might call 'tags' will make our investigation far more reliable.”
“Tell me about the tags.” A side of Sandra's brain – this, the main subject of their discussion – was thinking how truly bizarre this whole conversation was. Would they be able to sense the idea of bizarre? Somehow she doubted it.
Plato continued. “Some of our substance would be associated with the electromagnetic field fluctuations produced by the polarized molecules that are generating the neural sequences that operate your brain. We can easily recognize our own substance, therefore, we can follow its progress through your thought sequences.”
Sandra had no idea of how such a thing might be possible, or even what the association they spoke of might be. But she got the idea of the concept. “Is this what you did earlier, when you touched me without permission?”
“Yes.”
“Are there still traces of what you call your essence inside me?”
It was a logical question she thought, and even slightly innocuous. But it caused a long hesitation. The background noise ebbed and flowed for more than a minute. The Plato form was poorly defined most of that time. Then the answer came. Plato, intact again, said, “We are uncertain. When we touch you again, there will be an effort to find remnant traces of ourselves.”
Sandra was surprised by the comment, but immediately realized its importance. “Let me get this straight,” she said, sounding – in her own mind – very Texan indeed. (It almost made her smile.) “Leaving traces of yourselves means leaving some of the glowing substance I see in you, Plato? Am I right?”
“The glowing surface you see is not specifically our substance, Sandra. Substance is an inadequate word because it connotes mass-energy. There is no mass-energy associated with our substance. Your eyes are responding to photon emission by our substance. The photons are energy messengers that could be said to represent our substance.”
“Very interesting,” she said, not understanding much, again, except the implication. “Then the traces left inside me are not photons per se but are aspects of space-time that can give rise to photons?”
“Yes.”
“And these aspects of space-time can be left associated – as you say – with my neurons and their interconnections without your being sure you left them there?”
“Yes.”
“Why can you not be sure?”
“Because our identification of our substance requires our substance. Isolated portions of it can be expected to eventually merge into space-time in such a way as to lose definition. However, we – unless we actually contact these isolated portions – cannot ascertain their degree of definition. The length of time required for loss of definition is a function of location. In this case, it is a unique and different location – your brain. We have no experience with human brains.”
“So the traces of your substance might last indefinitely in my brain?”
“Yes.”
“Can you remove them?”
“We do not know.”
“Have you not left tags before in other places?”
“No. Our use of tags has only been required in the case of the human brain?”
“Will the tags, left inside my brain – assuming they last indefinitely – have any effect on my neural processes?”
A hesitation. Too long for Sandra's comfort. “We do not know.”
“What could be their possible effects?”
“If the traces of our essence retain enough of our organization – our subconscious memory, to use a human analogy – they will instinctively draw and release energy from space-time. The effect could be to change the amount of available electromagnetic energy in the neural sequences of your brain. The energy intensities there, as we already know, are very important aspects of your memory building.”
“So would this cause me to lose my personality and intelligence?” Sandra gritted her teeth as she spoke.
“It could affect the processes of your brain. We are still attempting to understand your personality and intelligence. Our opinions vary as to how our essence could affect you. We will perhaps know more after touching you again.”
“You've already touched me three times. Isn't that enough?”
“As we mentioned, your neural processes, during each earlier touch, were randomly directed, and did not allow us adequate perception of which electromagnetic sequences should be traced. There are far too many patterns and sequences to trace every one.”
“Interesting to hear you have limitations, Plato,” she said. “So why did you try in the first place?”
“We did not anticipate the complexity. Nor did we expect to disturb your brain since our touch was for only a brief time.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” Sandra returned, sarcasm dripping. Did they understand sarcasm? “So you must have sensed that you might damage my brain?”
“Not until we touched you. It was the second touch in which we left tracers. With the third touch we sought to identify the tracers, and found it very difficult.”
“Great to hear that. So I have little red spots in my head, thanks to your curiosity?”
“Not red spots. There is no color associated with the tracers.”
“Oh, sorry.” Sandra reconsidered the sensations she'd had when they had 'touched' her. It had not been uncomfortable, but it had been different from any other sensation of her life. The fact that she had felt something inside – she guessed it was in her head, though the effects seemed to pervade her body – convinced Sandra of the likelihood that the alien substance, whatever it was, had in truth affected her brain responses, if not functions. Did she feel affected mentally by what happened? Not that she could identify. “Plato,” she continued, “When you find these so-called tracers, how do you remove them?”
“They re-unite with our substance, Sandra, and exit with all the substance.”
“So you have to get close to them to allow this reunion?”
“Yes.”
“How close?”
“It depends on the density and type of mass-energy with which the tracer is associated. In free space – what you would call vacuum – the separation can be many of your meters, still allowing re-connection. Inside the human brain, it seems that the required distance may be very short, perhaps one of your nanometers.”
“Free space?” A thought struck her. “Your communication through space, then, is achieved by extending your ... your substance from place to place?”
A pause. After a wavering moment, Plato vanished completely into something like the original luminous column. What had she said that was a problem? It had already been her opinion that the asteroid beings had transmitted communication by the dim strands of red-orange that could sometimes be discerned. She waited. After nearly two minutes the figure reformed. Plato said, “Our substance is used for communication among ourselves. It is not extended from place to place, as you define the word. Our substance is expressed in space, but as a distributed entity, interrelated, not isolated.”
“Expressed?” she asked. “From the space-time continuum?”
“Yes.”
Did she believe this? Sandra wasn't sure. Theories which describe the intrinsic energy of space-time would leave room for the idea that energy could appear, through some interaction of overlapping fields, in one place or another, without having to be carried there
by some particle or photon. This was worth investigating further. “Can your distribution in space be disturbed by something? Could your streams of connection be broken?”
“We do not have streams of connection, in the same sense that mass would be joined together, like links of a chain. Our connection is achieved by space-time proximity. The closer we are together the closer our connection.”
“Literally closer? That is, do you mean, Plato, that space-time coordinate differences that are small produce closer connections?”
“Yes.”
“And this connection can be associated with time just as easily as with space?”
“Yes.”
“What would be required to achieve a loss of connection among your associated ... selves?”
“That is information we will not provide you.”
Sandra winced, but was a little bit proud of her question. “So if I knew how to separate your interconnected parts, what would happen?”
“If one of the separated parts were limited enough in scope and relationship it would gradually cease function and lose distinction from space-time. If it were adequately sized it would possibly begin to establish a separate identity.”
There was a hesitation from the astronomer, during which the background drone swelled and faded a little. Sandra then said, “Are you all contained here in this toroid? And if so, did you depart the other fragments in orbit?”
Plato spoke without hesitation. “We are extended throughout these ‘fragments’, as you call them, and also the asteroid you have numbered 1744.”
Sandra let the realization sink in. These beings, if such were the right term, were distributed over a huge volume of space. But then, was it? It was only a pin prick on the fabric of the galaxy, after all. But that presence in the other fragments and the asteroid made a kind of bizarre sense. Those red emanations were their communications, yes, but communications by extending themselves into the space-time proximity of each other.
