by Peter Kratky
Only humans
Three weeks later, the sequencing of human nucleotides was complete, and the generation of individuals had begun. There were thirteen males and fourteen females, with no special characteristics in any of them. All memory n-grams were intact, and were reinserted and converted into memory proteins. For their comfort, they were accommodated in a large and comfortable living environment, where they could carry out their daily activities, whatever they might be. It was known that their brains only allowed voice communication, so no mental scanners were installed. Besides, it might have taken too long for such primitive minds to calibrate them.
Finally, the twenty-seven human beings were removed from ecstasy, once their accelerated embryonic development, converted into adults, and their minds activated, were completed. Several dozen LauKlars scientists, and other species, observed the process: the return to life of an intelligent species lost in time. Primitive beings and without any special characteristic, beyond the fact that, inside their brains, were found the stored memories of an epoch that had ceased to exist millions of years ago, when the Earth, as they called it, only counted half the present time, and when the LauKlars had not yet begun their evolutionary development from lower birds.
The attitudes of those humans, however, were not in line with what they expected, or at least not predictable for a mammalian bipedal species of its physiological and mental characteristics. They were locked in their space, without any interaction with the outside world, and had begun to try to find ways out. They spoke to each other heatedly and it was evident that their state was becoming more and more agitated. Their attitudes were inconsistent with simulations of their behavior patterns. They hit the walls hard. A LauKlar in that situation would have settled on one side and let time pass, taking the nutrients and water to which they had access. But those humans didn't seem to settle for anything. Something had to be done. And it had to be done soon.
Deblar, along with Kirak and his assistant Garrin, decided that the time had come to communicate with these individuals, these primitive “mammals”. If that communication was really feasible. Although certainly primitive, humans were intelligent beings, albeit on a limited scale, and were therefore entitled to know their status, according to the rules and laws of the LauKlars, which clearly specified respect for all sentient life. Of course, those laws had always referred to other intelligent beings of the same Era, not to beings at least three billion years old.
The great main gate where humans were housed was opened, and those early mammals were able to see a LauKlar for the first time, just as a LauKlar was contemplating, for the first time and directly, a human being. Two species separated by an ocean of time, each dominating the planet in its own time, were facing each other for the first time. Or at least that was the assumption.
Galactic Encyclopedia: interspecies communication.
The Galaxy is populated by several thousand intelligent species, understanding as such intelligence the concrete meaning related to technologically advanced species. Communication between these species has always been defined at four levels:
Level 1.
The mathematical level, in a first contact, is the one that allows basic communication, which is established by means of parameters modeled on simple concepts of algebra and calculation.
Level 2.
A second level is verbal-guttural language, but it requires both species to be able to emit sounds and to receive and process them, so that they can be common in order to build correct communication, as well as a language that both can understand.
Level 3.
A third system involves the use of a computerized automated information transfer system, so that each party understands what the other party communicates through an artificial device. This model is usually useful, once correctly configured, but requires the constant presence of this system among the interlocutors. Any malfunction leaves both parties without the possibility of communication.
Level 4.
The fourth system is direct mental communication. It is the most precise, but it requires that both species can share ideas with the mind. In this case, it has been discovered that the mental waves of many species allow the transmission of idioms, which are ideas and concepts that inform an interlocutor of something by means of a mental language. Languages are the preferred means of communication between members of the LauKlar species, although not the only one.
A bridge between minds
The humans seemed impressed. The large difference in size between the mammalian species and the LauKlars was evident.
“A dragon?” muttered one.
“Some kind of vitamin bird?” whispered another
“It's not a chicken, that's obvious,” commented a third.
Humans retreated, though not much, separated as they were by an invisible protective force field. The bird on the right looked up at the bird on the left and sounded like a grunt or whimper. In fact, it was Garrin's mental commentary to Deblar accompanied by a guttural nuance that reinforced an idea, indicating that the blood pressure and pulsations of humans clearly showed restlessness and nervousness. Although inexperienced in human physiology, it was clear that the physical and mental tension endured by those primitive beings was very high. They had to calm them down, and do it right away.
Deblar replied, and again appeared what to humans were those incomprehensible sounds, which seemed the distant echoes of the hawk or eagle furrowing through the sky.
Deblar made the decision: they had to communicate with them immediately. In those primitive bipedal mammals were the answers to many questions she had been feeding in her mind, and it was time to start answering those questions. Clearly, she should use her mental capacity. Telepathic communication is direct between minds; it conveys ideas and concepts, not words, so although it is not a standard spoken language as the one known to humans, it incorporates many more nuances. Nor does it serve to read the human mind, due to the important structural difference and lack of exhaustive knowledge of these primitive minds. Only ideas that are formed instantly can be read by LauKlars. That's why she needed to speak directly with them, even with my mind.
One of those who seemed to have taken the lead stood before the others. Deblar would address everyone, but she'd look at that particular individual. Her eyes rested on her mind, and, curiously, this one, a female, although evidently surprised, did not turn away from her gaze.
The twenty-seven humans looked at each other, trying to understand where that voice came from within them.
“You mustn't be afraid, nothing will happen to you,” Deblar said. “It's me, I'm standing in front of you, and I'm communicating mentally with you. Your brains are fortunately on the frontier of development to receive my messages, and to respond. They're not for you to start a conversation. But you can always ask me to speak with you through mental gestures, that is, expressions of what you want to communicate with your minds, and thus initiate a mental conversation.”
Humans murmured some sounds in what seemed to be their strange language. A language made up of sounds emitted by their larynx, small muscular structures called vocal cords, and the manipulation of the sound wave with the mouth and tongue. It was undoubtedly a coarse but effective system for forming a rudimentary verbal language, as was the case with other lower intelligent species. The LauKlars had long since gone on to combine physical sounds with mental messages, in a system of extremely superior efficiency. Finally, a female from the group of humans took two steps and began to think about what she meant. Surprisingly for her, she saw that others could hear her thoughts. Not directly, but through Deblar's mind.
“My name is Helen, and I have been appointed spokesperson for the group by my colleagues.”
“Hello, Helen,” Deblar greeted, as she had seen humans doing when they populated the planet, in some of the fragmentary data on customs they had been able to recover. “I suppose in your language my name might sound like Deblar. You can address me by that name. The first th
ing I want to say is that, if you have any doubts, any complaints, about your state and situation, tell us right away. We know you'll have many questions.”
“Are you going to kill us?” was Helen's first direct question.
“No, no, not at all. What's the point of recreating and then killing each other?”
“I don't know. Fun, maybe? Or maybe some sort of morbid curiosity?”
“We don't understand how such a thing could be fun. And our curiosity is scientific.”
“Are you sure?”
“Completely. What else?”
“Are we prisoners?”
“No. You're definitely not prisoners.”
“Then why can't we move freely?”
“Move where? Right now, we are on board an interstellar spacecraft, in orbit of what you know as planet Earth. And, on Earth, the survival conditions for your species, in reality, for any species, are zero.” The humans looked at each other.
“Any other questions?” Deblar suggested. Helen raised her eyebrows slightly and smiled.”
“What if we have any other questions? We have hundreds, thousands of questions,” Helen answered in a deep voice. “And we have a request: clothes.”
“Clothes?” asked Deblar strangely.
“Clothes. Garments. A kind of element we humans use to cover our bodies. I don't have anything against nudists, but here, we don't have that style.” Deblar reflected for a moment and replied:
“Oh, yes, clothes! Warm clothes, clothing, it's true!” Deblar recalled the ancient images of humans with tissues covering their bodies. Several hypotheses had been given for this custom, but it was never very clear why. Deblar unconsciously named some of them.
“Your species required to cover your body with different materials, for unknown reasons, although we suppose that climatic, aesthetic, cultural, and moral. I remember it from the few data we've obtained on your species. I think we have samples of these “garments” or “clothes” as you call them. We'll replicate them.”
“And another thing,” Helen added by raising her finger. “Isn't there anything better to eat than that crap?” Deblar didn't understand the question. She then realized that she was referring to nutritional inputs.
“They are carbohydrates, proteins, and other basic elements that will allow you a stable development of your organism. Especially because your bodies have been recreated from a bioinformatics matrix, and will never end up being exactly the same as the originals.”
“It's rubbish, and I'm being nice,” Helen complained. The others moved their heads up and down as if to indicate something, although Deblar did not understand the gesture.
“You were omnivorous and fed on meat, fish, vegetables... We understood many thousands of years ago that we could not keep our bodies by the sacrifice of other living beings. Since then we have been manufacturing our own artificial foods.”
“Wow, you're vegans, what modern!” laughed Helen.” Well, you're lucky to be alive.” Deblar again didn't understand exactly what she meant by ‘vegans.’ Then, after processing Helen's response, and through the mental context, she understood its meaning.
“We're not what you call ‘vegans.’ I suppose you refer to a specific form of nourishment for some humans in your time. We don't feed on living tissue of any kind. We have evolved a lot since then, since the ancient times of the Ancient Age, when we began our journey through the Galaxy... But now let's drop this subject, we'll get you the clothes....”
“And shoes. And bathrooms. We're not animals.” Deblar didn't understand that last statement. Of course, they were animals. With intellectual capacities, but animals. She answered:
“... And shoes, it's true, you protect your feet, and baths? What are bathrooms? Does it have anything to do with aesthetic issues?” Helen didn't seem too excited about these questions.
“This I'll have to check. Baths... How many unknown terms... Well, tomorrow we'll follow this conversation.” Helen didn't seem to have much fun with that last statement.
“Tell us at least what do you want from us,” she asked forcefully both verbally and mentally. “Why are we even here? How long has it been? What are you going to do with us?”
“You are here because we have recreated you from a bioinformatics matrix that we obtained from the planet.”
“A what?”
“We'll explain it to you in more detail. The place is Earth, or at least Earth after many millennia since your era. And time, well, that's more complicated; actually, your old bodies died about three to five billion years ago, we can't know for sure at the moment.” Humans began to speak with an increasingly louder tone, muttering things like cloning.
“Please, please, please” required Deblar. “Not all at once.”
“Four billion years? Is this a joke? Did you clone us?”
“No, it is not a joke, and yes, in a way we have cloned you, although it is not that simple, it is not a cloning, because there has not been an organic matrix, but bioinformatics. But now the important thing is that we've had a first contact. Tomorrow, with your clothes and your baths, whatever they are, we will continue.”
Galactic Encyclopedia: The Past Era.
The Ancient Age is known as the time when the history of the LauKlars is lost among myths and legends, when the species began to spread through the Galaxy. In those early centuries it is believed that the expansion was caused by major population changes, combined with a greater inability of the parent star to maintain the species on its original planet.
This Era ends approximately sixteen thousand years later, when the first self-managed information systems were developed. Systems whose data capacity was virtually infinite and self-supporting. These early ancient systems still maintain what is called the writing system, prior to mental communication and direct storage of the memory and memories of LauKlar historians.
Since then, the memories and ideas of LauKlars can be stored directly in memory devices, usually managed by historians and archaeologists with mental abilities of various species, although only LauKlars can read the information completely. This system of storing direct memories has two advantages: it doesn't fit the interpretation; everyone sees what the historian saw and recorded, and it doesn't change with time, since the two LauKlars' brains have remained virtually unchanged. With this system, any LauKlar can literally know the past recorded by historians as the historian himself saw it. It is the closest thing to time travel...
Introspection
Deblar retired and the front door closed. She was relatively satisfied with that first contact. The human female who had been chosen as a representative seemed intelligent enough to have an acceptable basic level of conversation. Always keeping in mind their primitive mental schemes and basic brain development. But it was all she had, and they could certainly expect to get a good deal of data from that experience.
Humans were observed, and their minds read as far as possible, to try to find out as much information as possible about their nature, and to try to find out what might have led the Xarwen to record in a bioinformatics matrix a group of ancient humans, who had already become extinct about a billion years ago. The Xarwen were a methodical race, very rigorous in their scientific work, and had the immense fortune of never having believed in mystical and supernatural options, which had allowed them a truly remarkable scientific development. However, they still became extinct, not before leaving that secret timeless mausoleum where they had found the database of human patterns. The answers could only be found among the same humans, or they would never be known. Knowing and understanding why the Xarwen had decided to store and preserve this information for millions of years was essential.
The next morning, Deblar returned to the lab to talk to the humans. She was accompanied by Kirak and Counsellor Narhum, a member of the High Council, the highest institution of the LauKlars, who was specially displaced from the main ship of the group to attend the interrogation.
The gigantic door opened, and the light momentarily bli
nded the humans, who were now already dressed in various garments that had been made that night. Deblar found it grotesque to see these human beings dressed. They had no need for it, but they seemed much more comfortable. They didn't seem too excited to see what they called three “giant birds” in front of them. Deblar approached them mentally to try and calm them down.
“Hey”, Deblar had a hard time getting used to that kind of human greeting. “As I told you, I am here again, and I am accompanied by two members of my species to evaluate this interrogation.”
“Interrogation?” Helen replied. “What we want is our freedom. This is demeaning. We want to know why we're here, and why you keep us locked up like dogs.” Deblar reflected, and finally assumed that ‘dog’ had to be, so she could read in their minds, a quadruped animal that lived with humans, and that in general had to endure some kind of abuse, or at least live in conditions not consistent with an acceptable level of well-being, hence the comment of the human female.
“Please, there's nothing to worry about. We need answers for an investigation. We want information that can help us understand the facts.”
“Don't you have an almighty mind that reads our minds?” Helen asked mockingly.
“Yes, but I cannot read what is not built and molded by the mind at all times. The most important thing, the fundamental thing you should know is that you are an extinct species, which disappeared some four thousand to five million years ago.”
“And why should we believe you? We want proof, evidence!”
“Evidence?” Deblar responded softly, trying to calm the human. “All right, there's the proof.” An earlier gate opened, and began to show the light of outer space. Behind it was drawn what was the emptiness of space and its stars, a huge red star of great size, and a yellowish and dry planet, which seemed devastated by the action of that star.