He’d not thought of that. He knew 3D printers were common now and he’d heard of printing with organic substances to make body parts. It was almost a let down.
"OK," said Mike, "for travel you must be talking about worm holes and cosmic strings and dimensional doors from here to there things." Then he thought of the buzz words that were so often and inaccurately used, "Oh, and throw in some quantum whatever for good measure, that makes it sound clever and a lot more likely."
The strangers smile twinkled and, "Yes Mike and no. Our means of travel is like that and different. We developed it in our youth and have been developing it ever since. How would you describe jet travel to a cave man or to a man from the dark ages or to a man involved with the Spanish inquisition. Each person would have different world views and different perceptions or belief systems that would color and flavor their perceptions. To one it would be impossible, to another incredible and to another it might be heresy."
"So that makes me a cave man to your savant of travel then does it," said Mike with just a touch of snide sarcasm.
"No Mike," said the stranger smiling as he looked to be settling in to a long conversation. "How would that be true. I am just like a traveler from a distant country walking among other people. I am superior only in that my technology is better which is nothing to make me feel superior."
“You have a ship? A space ship then?”
Resident nodded slowly, “Yes. The ship travels most of the distance and we are able to travel the same way locally. Our connection to space-time is such we feel an area, a destination, and then we merge with it.”
“So, you used the word ‘merge’,” said Mike warming to this the whole theme of the conversation. “Over there and right here can become one and the same then. How does that work in reality?”
Resident shook his head slowly, “It is the connection of the consciousness to space-time and the way a consciousness interacts with it that matters. Your race will have this in millennia to come. How does it work? As I said, I visualize, I project, I feel to become then I merge to a new location. What is different about this space here to a space above us? The contents of the space are the only difference, as well as whatever may be passing through that space. The energy required is small if only air is displaced.”
“That ends the era of the motor car and the aircraft then,” said Mike considering the possibilities. “I suppose you don’t have such a thing as the oil crisis then?”
Resident shook his head slowly. “We seldom use hydrocarbons as lubricants as many materials do not require lubrication. We have few machines with rotating parts that require this. A fossil fuel powered automobile has many moving parts. A gravity based equivalent device does not. If we need hydrocarbons, mining a gas-giant planet is an easy source.”
“You have people, beings then who do this? Miners?”
Resident shook his head slowly. “No. We use artificial intelligence equipped machinery. We issue an instruction. A factory will make what is required, a machine will harvest what we want. That is all we do.”
---oOo---
Of Roles and Responsibilities
"I'm curious about your name, Resident sounds like a job description and not a proper name to me," said Mike. It really sounded more like an ambassador's name than anything else.
Resident looked at Mike. The smile looked to reduce a little, almost as if Resident was trying to make up his mind or the answer was unpleasant.
"I could leave that till later but you will not be happy till you know. Some of your questions can't be answered because that would be too much information. However, one explanation is that I am an ambassador from other races in this galaxy. If you imagine that there are many billions of stars, then there must be billions of habitable planets and eventually over time there will be life and some of it will be successful. Companion and I are some of that life. So are you."
"In that case you have a major problem as I am not a leader and the ones we have I would be reluctant to take you to. I think I’d be embarrassed to take you to some of them and I wouldn't trust them for an instant." He had a mental picture of introducing Resident to some previous presidents and it really didn’t go well.
Mike was at heart an anarchist at heart. The picture of hell for Mike involved lots of politicians. And lawyers. The thought of being stuck in a lift with them as they unwrapped McDonald's burgers with the smell seeping into his pores turned his stomach and mind at every level.
Resident was not concerned by that, "Mike, we have been here a few years. Soon enough we must meet politicians and leaders. We have studied your race, your political systems, we have no doubts about them. We have spent our time learning languages and idioms, studying customs, deciding on many things and one of them was who to approach first."
"Well do tell," drawled Mike, "let me guess, it’s my boyish good looks and irresistible charm that made you choose me, was it?"
This damned Resident was a bit dim thought Mike. If he could just pop in and out around the place as he wanted then why come here to the back of beyond, in the dark, with only him? Maybe Companion truly was hungry then? Maybe after offloading all their problems, then they would do away with him so there was no one around to reveal their secrets.
"Mike, you are here and out of contact with your world, able to think and take your time. You will give what we say some thought, in the peace and quiet of the area, then make a balanced decision. If we approach a person in a town or city it will be difficult to get their undivided attention with family, television, radio, stereos, games, work and their daily life intruding. They will want to talk to your media or friends to create exactly what we do not want. Imagine them posting on Facebook or Twitter and how likely that is now. Those platforms for social discussion are shaping your civilization."
Mike had to agree on that. Resident was spot on with those thoughts. Whoever revealed this would be king-of-Facebook for a week.
Resident continued, "Then to make it worse, they will give the wrong information based on their lack of attention and understanding brought about by an absence of considered thought. Mike, we wish a prolonged discussion without interruption with someone who is not stupid, has opinions about what can and cannot be done and is not afraid to tell us," he said.
Mike took that in.
Maybe Resident was right then? He certainly had opinions, plenty in fact. He had never been accused of being undecided or not being definite.
“So, what’s the problem then?” he asked feeling slightly amused.
Then he wondered what the contract rates would be for this; introducing a visiting alien to human society, advising on ways and means. It would sure look good on his resume’.
---oOo---
Moving Into The Future
Resident understood time differently to Mike, to the human race.
For Resident a hundred years was only a small part of a lifetime during which he expected to use a number of bodies, each built to his needs. He like most of his race had a life goal that gave him the will to live.
After a mere millennia of life, the real question was what would be worth living for, what life goal would give the will and the desire to live.
For Resident, his life goal was to mentor a civilization from its early exploration of space into becoming space-faring and suitable to join other races in the galaxy as equals.
This was not a trivial goal as many races had found to their cost. Discoveries were required to be made that gave a race the technological means to become interstellar space faring. Unfortunately such discoveries came with the risk of unleashing vast amounts of energy that could easily damage a planet and kill its inhabitants.
At the same time, if a race was able to safely tame those discoveries, the race itself must be suitable to inhabit interstellar space. A race with warring factions that became space capable seldom survived. The energies available for destruction ensured the death of planets.
Worse was the possibility of a race achieving inte
rstellar travel embarking on a mission of conquest and destruction with the weapons available to an advanced civilization. If a race’s technological discoveries were in advance of its maturity this could happen and was always a distinct possibility. In such a case, Resident had a duty to protect other races.
All these were factors for Resident to consider.
---oOo---
Resident needed more information, more knowledge to make correct decisions for his role.
He could sense within the human race its need, its calling for a new genus, for change.
He sensed the dissatisfaction with its current leaders, and he sensed the need, the calling, for something better.
He felt the undercurrent of concern, of worry and its quest for salvation. At the same time the chaos of the human race was bringing the certainty of the arrival of that genus closer every year.
Resident knew the universe was a place of balance. Everything happened for a reason so that when a race achieved a sufficient technological level, when it lived in a stimulus rich environment and its population ballooned, it was ripe for change and something had to happen. More often than not a race was calling out, seeking salvation from the chaos and the disappointment, expressing a desire for change and that made it inevitable the new genus he was expecting would arise.
He could feel it, and with the passing years he’d felt it increasing to become a near certainty. It was all a known process his race had experience with.
He could feel approximately where such a person or persons would arise and he felt the growing certainty of it happening.
The location was most probably where the chaos of the human race was greatest, at or near where its decision makers struggled in their chaos and where the human race focused its hopes, and where it felt most disappointed.
The only uncertainty was when but he knew it would not be long in coming. A year? Five years? Even ten years were but moments to him but it would be before then.
Random chance played its role as did the passage of time. Others in the human race, not quite at the new-genus level had arisen briefly to be snuffed out through the lack of support or social attitudes.
He was able to feel the 'almost' of those beings, those beings who approached the genus, who had some but not all its attributes. They led difficult lives because of their imbalance as being spectacularly gifted in one or a few areas. Some were dangerously asymmetrical, unstable, their lives chaotic and often short.
He sensed the future as myriad pathways changing from unlikely to being certainties as events unfolded.
Resident knew there was a vast difference between being able to see into the future through great knowledge of the present, and actually having that future transpire. However he did have needs, things he must to do to prepare for the coming years and what he anticipated.
He did not feel fear or its associated emotions of anguish or worry as they were non productive. His emotions were those of anticipation and acceptance and his desire to succeed.
Of the many possible futures for planet Earth and her inhabitants, Resident knew that so many led to extinction, just the same as had happened for other races at similar levels of evolution.
His race had knowledge of this process going back millennia and much of his role was one of observation and strictly limited mentoring. To take an active role was to ensure disaster, he could not speak for Earth or her peoples nor could he guide them. His role was one of very restricted mentoring, of observation and at times of providing insight. All else would lead to disaster.
More than anything, he was driven by the need to assure the survival of the true new genus when it eventuated. The survival of that being set the pathway in place that may lead to survival of the race. Alternatively and without the new genus, he felt the chances for survival were small.
His real need in that pursuit was for information, for insight that would guide him. For that, he needed to gain insights from humans, or to begin with, at least one human.
He needed to make contact with a human and his choices were surprisingly limited on a planet of so many billion beings. He needed a being who had traveled the planet, someone who had lived in many countries but also was aware of and cared about world affairs.
Most of all, he needed someone with empathy, with opinions and the ability to think outside their comfort zone and not be overwhelmed by his presence.
He knew that last part was the most difficult as his existence would challenge the perceptions of most beings on the planet.
Resident was able to feel beings, to know them at a deep level. His consciousness was not constrained to his physical being, he could resonate with other consciousnesses to understand them better than by the spoken word. His, the ability of his people, was the gift of deep emotional empathy.
In their searching, he and Companion had sensed Mike in the high country. They'd been aimlessly allowing their shared meshed consciousness to travel, to feel the remote areas in the hope they would find a dweller who met their needs, a beings remote yet connected to the planet, a beings with understanding yet flexible in their thinking. All however had, till they sensed Mike, failed in some way or another.
In some they sensed a phobia to civilization, an unwillingness to engage with it and an inability to understand themselves. In others they sensed suspicion and an inability to accept reality, theirs the need to shape reality in their minds, to corrupt and craft it into strange and twisted parodies.
Mike fitted their needs. He was in his middle age and had traveled much of the planet, spoke a little of a few languages and had been exposed for much of his life to different cultures. Mike was an avid reader of the news but not in any particular way; he browsed and foraged and grazed on bits of news from many sources, internet, print, television, friends abroad via email. He read a bit of everything from everywhere and not a lot from any one place so his diversity suited them. They sensed all this in him, in their empathy and the resonance they looked for.
Mike was very much a man of many pieces. He had been brought up in a religious environment and he had experience with Buddhist and Muslim countries.
Those were the reasons he had been chosen; Mike was an ideal person who had a wide range of experiences, and also a wide cultural knowledge for Resident and the Companion. He was also able to speak his mind. Often with little prompting.
---oOo---
Kicking back
Mike sat back in his comfy chair and thought about what he’d heard, and who or what had said it.
It was hard to believe.
The old joke about the Martian landing and saying 'take me to your leader' looked to have happened to him right here and right now. Mike looked up at the stars and wondered, letting his mind wander. One good thing about Resident was that he could keep his mouth shut to let a person think. He didn't jabber away at him niggling and poking and annoying him because there was a silence.
As Mike sat and thought, many things went through his mind. It had to happen sometime. It has to happen to someone. There was probably no reason why it shouldn’t be him and right now. Looking up he said to himself, 'perhaps there really is life out there.' Then, 'perhaps it is right here too.'
Returning to the present, he looked at Resident perched on the log with his elbows on his knees. This Resident was looking very normal with just the right amount of oddness to make him think that perhaps it had happened.
Mike made up his mind, "Well, you’d better pop off and get a chair then. You’re going to get uncomfortable and sore after few hours sitting on that log. I should also warn you that I feel a drink or two is in order, and after more than a few my value and ideas might not be the best value you can get."
Mike looked at the Resident but nothing was forthcoming.
"Have you read much of our science fiction?" he asked. Mike had no interest in letting anyone dictate where the conversation would go. He would keep it flowing, jumping around topics, keeping this Resident whatever a little off balance. That was th
e new name of the game.
Resident had read a lot of everything in fact. The fiction he liked because it spoke of what authors thought was appropriate and possible and fitted into what the population would be accepting of, also of what they were most afraid. Science Fiction was in fact a rather important piece of Residents research.
"Yes Mike, I have read your Science Fiction. It has been enlightening in fact. I gain a lot of information about your science, your goals, your observations and how you think about the universe from science fiction."
"Nah," said Mike. "I was thinking about one book I read where any important decision could not be enacted as a law till the lawmakers had got really drunk and talked it over. I think that is the kind of society we need here." Mike also remembered a book by a famous author, "The other thing that would help would be to export all lawyers, law makers and people who split hairs in conversations."
Mike was warming to this. He had a willing victim to talk at and he could feel himself climbing onto a tall soap box for a long time until the whiskey did its job and he fell off.
Resident against all probability laughed. It was not a first for Resident, but it was unusual to feel that level of humor. After centuries, it became more and more difficult to be amused. Indeed, he knew that 'amused' was almost as difficult to feel as 'interested'.
He was so old, so old by many standards that he knew few would believe him. Millennia had passed since disease in his race had been eradicated and even longer for Companions race. With their ability to generate new bodies, the aging process was no longer a cause of life-end.
The greatest cause of loss of life for all species in the universe had become the worst curse of a long life; boredom. How do you keep interested in living when you have done it all before, many times? What challenge is there when you can cross the galaxy quickly and you have almost God-like powers? That had become the biggest problem. Therefore, the number of times Resident had been 'amused' in the last few hundreds of years was few indeed. That this man had given him such an outrageous concept and phrased is like that, to him, the being who was charged with the life and possible death of a planet was surprising in the extreme.
The Camper: First Contact and the Planet Tamer (The Stellar Universe Book 0) Page 3