by Guerin Zand
“I’m sorry, daughter. I was just trying to get to know him a little better. Let’s head to the kitchen. Dinner should be about ready.”
We all made our way to the kitchen. At least this was going to be an informal dinner. I hadn’t known what to expect. For all I knew, they were going to throw a big dinner party with a lot of their friends there to examine the Earth monkey. Cindy motioned me to my seat at the table and she sat next to me on the left. Her mother was to my right. Based on my first impression, I would have preferred if Cindy was seated between us.
Bob opened a bottle of Bree wine and poured everyone a glass. Bree wine wasn’t that much different from Earth wine. It was amazing that one of the things most of the races in the universe had in common was that their ancestors had all stumbled on the basic secrets of fermentation before they even invented the wheel. Almost all of the races had some form of wine and beer. The major differences in alcoholic beverages were mainly in the more exotic distilled variants.
The staff brought out several dishes of the vegan variety and placed them on the table. It was a traditional family type dinner where we all served ourselves. As the plates made their way to me I took a small sample of each. It was a good thing I had a cheeseburger for lunch.
“I hope you find some of these dishes to your liking, Guerin. I know that you prefer animal flesh, but it is not something we are accustomed to.”
“Your vegetables don’t scare me, Lori. I’ve been known to eat a salad or two in my day. It just seems so, I don’t know, brutal. I mean how many poor vegetables had to be slaughtered to prepare this meal. You would only have had to kill a single animal to feed us all.” I took a bite of one of the vegan dishes and smiled at Lori.
“I’m assuming that is the famous sense of humor I’ve heard so much about?”
“Not really. It was meant as more of an insult than humor.”
“Well, I must say. I see why Julie enjoys playing with you so much.”
“Yes. I’m just a cuddly little puppy dog here for your amusement.”
Andy decided to help his mother out. “I think you’re more of an arrogant little twit, I think that’s the correct human word, twit, isn’t it?”
“Well, I’m impressed, Andy. You appeared to have done a little research. I don’t see that too often in a lot of Bree I’ve met.”
“Ok, ok.” Cindy jumped in. “Can we just have a pleasant dinner?”
“I’m sorry, Cindy.” I gave her my best faux apologetic look. “Lori, your daughter told me that some people think you might be even crazier than me. I, of course, don’t believe that’s even possible. So, what’s your story?” That was kind of friendly, wasn’t it?
“Why, Guerin, if I’d had a little more to drink, I might have just confused that last statement for a compliment of sorts.”
“I’m sure there’s plenty of wine left in your wine cellar.”
“Yes, there certainly is. But as to your question, my story, as you call it, is that I am a researcher here at the school housed in this section of the station. I guess in human terms you’d say I am a Professor of Philosophy.”
“What you call universities, we simply refer to as schools or learning centers. Teachers have no title to signify their mastership of any academic pursuits. The teachers and students work in an atmosphere of equality. Each member of the class works towards the same goal. The most knowledgeable member of the class is often looked to for instruction or assistance from their peers. That doesn’t exclude the teachers, as you would call them, learning from other members of the class as well.”
“Sounds so damn Utopian. It just about makes me sick. How can you work on a research project without having a clearly defined leader to set the goals?”
“You humans seem to need to be told who your superior is. Maybe that explains a lot of your perceived insolence. We know intuitively, I guess you’d say, when someone we are working with has superior knowledge on the subject, and we treat them with the appropriate respect.”
“Wow, Lori. If I counted correctly, there were at least two insults in that little statement.”
“It was more of a compound insult with three or four sharp edges, but you obviously got the gist of it.”
We both smiled at each other. I think she really had been looking forward to playing with Julie’s little Earth monkey.
“Well, anyways, what is it exactly that you don’t teach as a researcher?”
“Like I said earlier, my area of expertise is what you humans refer to as philosophy. You know the basic existential questions. What is the meaning of life, the universe, everything.”
I thought Lori may have just moved on from insults to jokes. Was it possible for a Bree to have a real sense of humor?
“Well, let me save you some time, Lori. I’m not trying to show off or anything like that, but you do know the answer is 42, right?”
“Of course I do child. The problem is in the proof now, isn’t it?
“Indubitably!”
“I mean the answer is just as much 43 as it is 42, or even the numbers you call Pi or the base of the natural logarithm.”
“Yes, but obviously the case of 42 is the best known.”
“But it’s so, I don’t know, common? I mean even the smallest child is familiar with that case.”
Wow, now I was impressed.
“A zinger on top of humor, Lori? You’re much more talented than your daughter let on.”
“What can I say? You’re obviously easily impressed.”
The rest of the table seemed lost. Cindy was the first to admit it.
“What are you two talking about?”
“It was a joke based on one of Guerin’s favorite books, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He was probably surprised that I had read the book, but I’ve been following Guerin’s antics since the first day we made contact. I was consulted by the Collective as to his suitability as a candidate.”
“And you found me acceptable?”
“Well, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that. I thought some of the things you said were rather interesting. My opinion was a simple one. You were mostly harmless.”
We both laughed out loud. The rest of the table still had no clue.
“I have to admit, Lori, at first I thought you were just going to turn out to be another colossal bitch like Julie, but I was wrong.”
“I’ll take that as a definite compliment.” Lori finished her third glass of wine.
Cindy was still confused. “So, does this mean you two are actually enjoying each other’s company?”
“I don’t know about that, Cindy,” I said as Bob refilled my wine glass. “She’s just not as bad as a lot of the other Bree I’ve met.” I raised my glass to Lori. She returned the gesture and we both took a sip of our wine. Cindy simply shook her head. She was probably thinking people were right. Her mother was just as crazy as I was.
“Guerin,” Bob decided to join our conversation finally. “Have you given any thought to the subject you and Milly discussed the other day?”
“What subject would that be?”
“Working with Steve to train and supervise human exploration and first contact teams.”
“Oh, that. Not really. I mean, Milly just brought it up the other day and I haven’t even had time to talk to Steve yet.”
“But you are considering it?”
“I haven’t ruled it out. Why do you ask? Does the Council have an opinion I should know about?”
“No. I discussed it with Milly of course, but the Council has decided to let her handle matters concerning you.”
“So, it’s Milly’s job now to handle me? Wasn’t it the Council that once decided that Milly and I should have no further contact?”
“That was probably a mistake, I’ll admit that. Your attitude towards the rest of the Council, in particular Julie, leaves us little choice. Milly seems to be the only Council member that can have a reasonable discussion with you.”
“Bob, I can be reasonable with any C
ouncil member if they approach me in that way. It’s the arrogant and judgmental attitude the other Council members take towards me that is the problem. It’s the Council that thinks it’s ok to make decisions without discussing them with me.”
“I’m not looking to argue those issues with you, Guerin. I’m simply explaining the Council’s current position regarding your future interaction with us.”
“Ok, but do you have an opinion on Milly’s proposal?”
“Yes, of course. The entire Council had discussed the issue before Milly approached you with the idea. She convinced us that you needed more independence and had proven yourself enough to the Council. We still have concerns, but we all agreed the chances of you turning into another Heesa is unlikely. It really comes down to the fact that we’d rather have you working with us than out there working on your own. At least this way we have some input.”
“What if I need help like I did with the Alacians? Do I still have to run to the Council for approval?”
“Milly has the authority to make those decisions. You only need her approval. Perhaps knowing that will help you to decide?”
“It helps knowing that, but I still have a lot of concerns. First, I need to talk to Steve. We have to make sure we’re both in agreement about what actually needs to be done, and how we should do it. Then we need to discuss our plans with Roger and get his input.”
“But we’re putting you in charge of this effort, Guerin. Why do you need Steve and Roger’s input before deciding?”
“Because, Bob, if I do this, I won’t be doing it for the Collective. The reason to do this is to help humanity as it moves out beyond its own solar system. I don’t think a lot of you realize that the governing powers on Earth have never been happy with my role in these matters. They’d prefer to select one of their own to work with the Collective in the position you’ve created for me. They see me as a wildcard and a threat to their authority.”
“Yet they accept our decision on this matter.”
“Because they’re a bunch of ass kissers. They don’t want to risk losing the Collective’s support. That doesn’t mean they’re happy with the situation. I can guarantee that some of them will work to undermine my efforts. That’s what started the whole Chinese incident when I was working on Earth. That whole situation might have been avoided if the Collective had replaced me with a person of the IOET’s choosing.”
“That’s possible. But it was also possible that it would have just delayed the inevitable. In that case, we wouldn’t have had someone in that position that we could trust.”
“So, you’re saying you trusted me, Bob? It sure didn’t seem that way to me.”
“We trusted your motivations. Our issues with you have always been more about your methods than your objectives.”
“I guess I still don’t understand. If you have problems with my methods, then why not choose someone else for this project?”
“Well, that’s the subject of a lot of our debates on the Council. We would choose other methods, but the problem is we don’t think like humans. Your methods appear to be effective. Humans seem to respond to your way of doing things. That is the reason we selected a human, and not a Collective member, to act as our emissary in the first place.”
“When I get back to the Earth ship, I’ll talk with Steve and Roger. Then I’ll make my decision.” I turned to look back at Cindy’s mother. “So Lori, do you want to tell me why you wanted to meet me? According to Cindy, that’s the reason I’m here.”
“Stella and Julie contacted me about the dream you had and the results of their scans.”
“So, you are one of the experts they contacted?”
“Yes. If we are all finished with dinner, then perhaps you would join me in my study where we can discuss the issue privately.”
Privately? Since when was anything regarding me private? I guess I was going to find out. Lori asked the rest of her family to excuse us and stood up. I stood as well and followed her upstairs to her personal office. She closed the door behind us and took a seat behind the desk in the room. As she fiddled around with the viewer, she motioned me to take a seat next to her at the desk.
Chapter 23
A Secret Assignment
“We probably should start with a little background. As I said my primary area of research is what you might call philosophy. I was only partially joking when I said I studied the reason for existence. It’s true to some extent, but primarily I concentrate on what is the essence of reality.”
“When you first addressed the Collective’s committee, you told a little story of how humans might be simply the manifestation of advanced beings in this reality. While Milly said it was most probably some nonsense you made up at the time, I found it interesting. Even if you just made that up as you went along, it came very close to a theory that some of my colleagues and I have discussed. The fact that a human, who had no knowledge of our society, had stated a theory that many brilliant minds were researching made me take notice.”
“Well, Milly was right. It was mostly bullshit, mixed with a dose of plagiarism that just popped into my head at the time.”
“But isn’t that how most ideas are born?” I shrugged my shoulders.
“Anyway, when I was told about this dream of yours, I asked for a little more information. Stella explained how you had mentioned that you had a feeling of predestination. You felt somehow you were being led to events. That trouble was following you around even when it seemed that your destinations were randomly chosen in most cases. You even theorized a temporal paradox of sorts. I found all of this extremely interesting, especially when coupled with the unusual dream you had. The anomaly they discovered in your scans which you referred to as a temporal anomaly.”
“So, do you have an explanation for all of this, Lori?”
“I don’t know, but let me provide you a little more insight into my studies. The big question is, ‘What is reality?’ We all wonder at times if we close our eyes does this reality still exist? We convince ourselves it does because we are still aware of the physical reality based on our other senses. What if you could detach all of your senses from your conscious mind? True sensory deprivation. We’ve done experiments like this, think about when your conscious mind is in the void for example.”
“Well, when that happens, I still have a sense of reality. I mean, it doesn’t make sense, but still, there’s something. I’ve never really understood the feeling I get when I’d meet with the Council in the void. I always feel more than a bit unsettled there, but still, I had some sense of reality.”
“That’s because your consciousness needs to make sense of the situation. It only has what we call reality as a reference. What if you raised a being from conception in a laboratory with no sensory input? A being of pure thought.”
“Don’t tell me you arrogant bastards have actually performed such an experiment. That sounds like those idiotic experiments my professor used to talk about when I took a class in sociology. What if you raised a child with no human contact? Of course, they never did any of these experiments, at least not that the public ever found out about, but just the idea is abhorrent.”
“I agree, and of course we would never perform such an experiment. It’s a purely intellectual exercise used for discussion. But imagine a brain raised in this way. No external connection to what we call the physical world. No sensations of any kind. No bodily functions to control. Would that consciousness exist in our reality, or would it make its own reality?”
“I think that the answer would be none of the above. You’d probably find zero brain activity, and thus no consciousness would exist. Like a computer that was never plugged in.”
“Very good, Guerin. That is definitely one school of thought. It’s also very insightful that you would compare it to an unplugged computer. That implies that for consciousness to develop, there must first be a reality in which it can exist. To go back to your comment about how in the void you still had a sense of reality. That’s
because the void is only the absence of physical dimensions, not the absence of reality. This line of thinking inevitably leads one to what you humans call the chicken and the egg dilemma. Which came first? Was there reality before consciousness, or consciousness before reality?”
“Maybe we can just ask God when we finally meet him?”
“That’s not as funny as you might think. We are not just talking philosophy but theology as well. The difference between the two is not so clear-cut when you start trying to understand reality, is it?”
“I guess not. But this whole line of thought gives me a headache. It’s recursive.”
“Now, I’m truly impressed. The theory I support, as do many of my colleagues, is just that. Reality is recursive. Take the basic thought we all have. What happens when you die? Does this reality cease to exist? My answer is no. When you meet someone, your reality shapes their reality, and vice versa. A recursive loop. Then your reality interacts with another, as does theirs, connecting all of us in a giant recursive loop we call reality.”
“So, what does any of this have to do with the dream I had?”
“I’m getting to that.”
“The theory I just explained does not exclude the possibility of separate and unrelated realities existing at the same time. We know that other universes exist, but we can’t physically travel between them. The physical laws that govern these other universes are incompatible with our physical presence. We can’t send probes from this universe to another since they would be physically incompatible as well. Any physical manifestation from one universe would cease to exist once it entered another. There could be other universes with the exact same physical laws, but we’ve yet to find such a universe. We do conduct experiments to try and get glimpses into these other universes, but we have not been successful in any significant way. We can tell they exist but that’s about it currently. If you take our discussion of what is reality and apply it, then it would be reasonable to assume that the realities in these other universes would be incomprehensible to beings from our reality.”