The Asteroid

by M R Cates

  Sandra had a layer of perspiration on her brow, and her thigh was beginning to ache again. She looked directly at Plato. “Is there no value to you in sentience that is different from yours simply because of the beauty of its complexity and potential for application to the mysteries of the universe in ways that are different from your capabilities?”

  Plato and the others wavered, then Plato responded, “We perceive value in your sentience. And we gain meaning from acquiring understanding of it. And we experience pleasure from association with all aspects of the mass-energy of your world. Because of this we conduct our debate.”

  The astronomer sighed. Characteristically, her head went up to her head, scratching. “So what do we do next?” Sandra asked.

  Socrates, quiet for a long while, gave their answer. “We will continue our debate. In six of your hours we will speak again.” As his words ended their images faded, withdrawing swiftly in three separate, then blending, swirls that returned into the red of the ceiling.

  Sandra Hughes watched silently, feeling suddenly very alone.

  Chapter 44

  Sandra stood for a long time. Now there were three stone chairs across from her. It was about six or six-thirty in the morning, if the aliens' waits of six hours had been accurate. And why wouldn't they be? This was not an unusual waking hour for her and she felt reasonably alert, but dulled by lack of physical activity. The alien chamber was a necessarily sedentary location. The astronomer, stiffness and all, climbed up on the platform and went from chair to chair, trying it out. It was an odd thing to do, perhaps, but it gave her a chance to move about and gave her a feel of those strange entities that had occupied – if such word were accurate – those seats. In Plato's central position, she rotated each direction, looking toward the companion seats. Then she moved into Aristotle's seat and sat there a while before going over to the opposite side of the platform, to Socrates' seat. The wall nearest Socrates' seat was the wall she'd slept next to. Sandra jumped down from there and took the diagonal route to her bedroll. She went to the reflective wall and stepped right up to it, touching the smooth, slightly rippled stone with her body, leaning against it. It was cool, as expected. Her reflection did not carry a halo. Good. As she shifted a little the soreness in her right knee bothered her.

  Then for the first time the sequestered human strode – noticing and favoring that knee – toward the opposite reflective wall. This was the wall nearest to Aristotle's seat. There was nothing obviously different about it and she'd not given it much thought in her first exploration of the space. But she realized as she walked those twenty-five or thirty feet that this unevaluated wall was closest to the outside of the stone fragment in which she resided. She'd been brought into the stone chamber from that direction. Were there to be any doorway or other kind of entrance it would likely be on that wall. She began to define it as Aristotle's wall. Sandra had nothing but time, she felt, and decided to delay her transcription of the just-previous conversation for a few minutes while she cleared her thoughts. There was no fear she'd forget the discussion. Its every detail was chiseled into her brain. It was more that she didn't want to think about it just then because of the moment of subject matter.

  At Aristotle's wall Sandra touched it and it felt just the same as Socrates' wall behind her, the wall by which her bedroll lay. Then she walked along the glasslike stone, from the left to the right. The left end began at the wall that ran behind the platform; the right end terminated at the wall that ran behind her seat and through which was the single door into her “bathroom.” Sandra examined the wall with her hands, rubbing them on the surface, with her ears, pressing one or the other near or against the surface from place to place, and with her eyes, staring at her own slightly distorted reflection. She could only manage the portion from the floor to her height, but it would occupy her for a while.

  Sandra expected to find nothing. It was an exercise more than a search. She wanted something more or less mindless to do. Her feelings wandered as she moved along. Sandra missed looking out at the sky, at seeing the clouds around Mauna Kea, at the distant Mauna Loa. She missed the ranch land around Waimea and the trees – especially those behind Carl's house – the green hills where she regularly walked, the single important highway that led east and west from her home, and the beautiful beaches of Kona, separated by harsh, rugged lava fields. She missed those occasional white stones among the dark lava jumble, selected out and used by people to spell out words against the black and gray background. More than half a day in this constricted space had begun to work on her. Sandra had no tendency to feel claustrophobic, so she wasn't developing any fright, only a feeling of isolation and confinement. How had people thrown into jails for months and years, sometimes in tiny cells, completely cut off sometimes even from light – how had they survived? The inhumanity of prisons like that made her shudder. We human beings, she decided, have such limited capacities for empathy. Did the aliens know this about us? Probably. And, yes, It's true that we are completely untrustworthy. The realization was like a cold finger run down her back, making Sandra shiver. Forcing herself back to reality, she returned to her bedroll with pad and pen and plopped down to write.

  —

  Headlines in morning newspapers all around the world blared some version of the one in the Times of London: “American Astronomer Meets with Aliens.” The expected leak only took a few hours. Each story, in each media type, had the basic facts mixed with invented elements, as anyone would guess; but – full truth or not – virtually everyone in every country knew generally what was happening in the Pacific Ocean just west of Hawaii. Television, in particular, was consumed by the story. Even channels that normally didn't carry news found excuses to feature the alien visit to Earth. Pictures and video clips of Doctor Sandra Hughes were featured in every country on the globe. On the internet, the flood of discussion and images was of epic proportions. Her face was now recognizable by more people than any other face, including the American President. Third World countries, especially those locked up under the tyranny of oligarchs and dictators, were loathe to allow any knowledge about politics or the economic or social events in the advanced nations of Earth, but were more than willing to release their own edited versions of Sandra Hughes' adventures. Even grand tragedies such as wars, terrorist attacks, and destructive storms could not match the fascination and constant crowd appeal of an extraterrestrial visitation.

  In President Jefferson McBrand's mind, the information leak – accepted as inevitable – was accomplishing its main purpose, as he conceived it. The world was pulling together, at some level, and would continue to do so as long as the story remained hot. With so much attention diverted, political trouble spots were likely to lose attention – even if the loss of attention allowed thugs in leadership in those places to behave even more abusively for a while – and give opportunity for a more coordinated response around the world to whatever the next events would be as related to the aliens. McBrand – like many other leaders – recognized the threat posed by the peculiar entities whose huge stone doughnut floated in the Pacific Ocean. He took his responsibility seriously to protect the public welfare. It would have been far more comforting to him had he been able to anticipate anything credible about the next actions of the aliens. So much depended on what Sandra Hughes was told or would find out.

  After reading through the astronomer's message for the third time, the President called his Chief of Staff to discuss it. He had waited long enough for Madeleine Vigola to get a few hours rest. She took his call in her Kona hotel room at about the time Sandra was settling down to write near the wall of the alien chamber.

  “Madeleine,” he said, without preamble, “I have to tell you I am very confused by what we are learning from Sandra Hughes. The analysts here don't know a damn thing about what anything means.”

  “Are you thinking of something in particular, sir?” she asked, sounding far more composed than he. But she also sounded a little sleepier.

  “Extend
ed intelligence, energy out of space-time! It all sounds completely phony. Like she has lost her mind.”

  “Do you really believe that, Mr. President?”

  “No. That's what makes it such a hell of a situation. Sandra Hughes is nothing if she's not reasonable and practical. At least as I see her and as everyone else who knows her sees her.”

  “I agree with the assessment, too.” Vigola yawned. His Chief of Staff was only slowly coming to life. “She's not going to say what she said in the message unless she thinks it has value.”

  “What are we to do, then?” he blurted out.

  “Nothing for the moment. We can only wait.”

  “I don't want to wait, Madeleine. I want to do something.”

  “He also serves who only stands and waits,” she said, surprising him with Milton.

  “Very clever, Madeleine. But what are we to do if Sandra doesn't come back, or if she returns hurt or mentally disturbed. These scenarios are being bandied about by the teams here with something that approaches glee. Doesn't that bother you?”

  “It does, sir. But we have a mechanism for contacting the aliens. With or without Dr. Hughes. If necessary, we can contact them. They, however, may or may not respond.”

  McBrand, sounding a little bitter, said, “Don't I know it? Listen, you should know that the evaluation of the zone around the landed craft has been completed. There are differences of opinion on how much metal and what type can be taken in there.”

  “I'm not surprised at differences of opinion among our DOE lab scientists.” It was Vigola's turn to sound bitter. “Sometimes I wonder if they care at all about the measurements we ask them to do. There's so much 'I'm so brilliant, just listen to me,' going on that I don't think we're getting much useful at all.”

  “Perhaps,” he muttered. “The blimp we discussed is nearly finished, by the way.”

  “In Honolulu, right?” she asked.

  “That's right. Moored to a Coast Guard boat now. No metal. Powered by compressed gas. Can get to the location in less than an hour.”

  “Weapons?”

  “Explosives in plastic housings. Can do some damage.”

  “To that big rock, sir. I rather doubt it.” Again, a bitter tone.

  “It's what we have. The one thing the analysis agreed on was that approaching the craft with anything metal is asking for trouble. Some of the guys think there's an extensive magnetic field emanating out from the doughnut. Something like being in a huge MRI machine.”

  “Damn,” Vigola muttered, out of character.

  —

  It was nearly two hours later that Sandra Hughes put her latest set of notes into the small bag next to “her” chair. She wondered if the aliens might decide to prevent the taking of these notes along when she ... would they really let her leave? The horrifying possibility that they wouldn't pervaded the scientist's spirit for a moment. Surely they wouldn't do such a thing. It took some effort to force her rational side back in charge. The notes. There was nothing in them except what the aliens and she had said. They had been remarkably candid with her, she thought. Do they have no ability to dissemble or stretch the truth? Given their extended and interrelated existence, would lying or hiding facts or being moody even be possible? Could it be that whatever evolutionary path their sentience had followed – and she had no doubt it had followed some evolutionary path – gave no survival value to sneakiness of this kind, since these were behaviors that could not be useful? Or was their connectedness only partial? Could some traces or elements of individual intelligences among them hold, modify, or isolate certain types of information? With that possibility in mind, why had the aliens not simply lied to her when she gave her ultimatum? They could have said, "No, we won't hurt you, promise," then done so later if they wished, saying, "Oh, we just changed our minds." That's a human way of doing things, Sandra knew. In fact, could lying, pretending, and the like be fundamental aspects of advanced intelligence everywhere? There were clear survival advantages for human beings on planet Earth in lying, cheating, stealing, pretending and ignoring. Why would there not be in other places and times in the galaxy?

  These were disturbing ideas. Yet she didn't really think the aliens would lie to her. They had little reason to ... no, that was wrong, she decided. There were reasons for the aliens to lie. But did they? Why would they spare her feelings when they seemed unconcerned about any human being's feelings? But was this right? Their stated concern was that Sandra be relaxed and cooperative when they 'touched' her and studied brain function. That seemed to be their real concern, anything else they might say to the contrary. Had she been in their place, Sandra realized she'd probably have lied. She'd have assured her counterpart that nothing would happen to its planet and its population. Then, when later on the “truth” was discovered, zap, she'd do them in! It was a hard admission but important one for her. Her tendency, like most people, was to rationalize the larger goal, doing whatever was required to achieve it, going by the assumption that some wrongs might have to be employed to achieve a higher right. It would be completely understandable if the aliens did the same thing. But they had refused to promise not to do any harm.

  Sandra kept herself from believing that these visitors from wherever were in any way naïve. Even if there were gaps in their knowledge about human languages, behavior, and traditions, they had achieved an enormous amount of understanding already. They seemed to perceive most of what she said to them, even picking up many of the subtleties of her words. Probably facial expressions, body positions, and voice tones were much more difficult for them, but at least they were aware that these factors figured importantly in human communication. So, given that they weren't naïve, and that they had been unwilling to make any deal with her regarding her cooperation, what did she think they'd do next? It was critical, she decided, to try to anticipate; because she couldn't believe for a minute that the aliens were through with her.

  First, she went back to the idea of brain evolution. What was so important about that, as far as the visitors were concerned? Sandra had long believed that extrapolating future human evolution on the basis of past developments was a foolish exercise. Humans were now in control of their own evolution. Anything that nature would take thousands of generations to work out could quickly be trumped and changed by genetic manipulation of some sort. And manipulations would occur more and more, resulting in larger and larger excursions from today's standard of humanity. Didn't the aliens understand that? How could they not? They had spoken of memories of their own evolutionary development. How had their evolution proceeded? What did they know of life based on protoplasmic processes. Yes, they had specifically mentioned protoplasmic life in a way that might have been somewhat disparaging. And why not? We human beings are lucky to be around a hundred years; they – unless they are lying in the teeth they apparently don't have – have been going on indefinitely. They probably have a difficult time relating to mortality, despite their determination to provide the necessary conditions for my survival.

  One thing seemed clear: something about the human brain is important to them. There is some capacity or potential humans do or don't have that the aliens want to determine. If so, what capacity? What aspect of our neurological processes is of concern? Human neural complexity was something of a surprise to them. More specifically, perhaps, they hadn't expected the parallel sequences, the multiplicity of neural action going on simultaneously. But if they have some kind of intrinsic control of space-time, why couldn't they slow down human neural processes, and watch them as deliberately as they wish? Or is such a thing possible? Must not be. Would disturb the sequences themselves, probably, so would be a self-defeating exercise.

  Okay, Sandra thought, almost speaking out loud to herself, let's say the aliens must know we are starting to be in control of our own evolution – as they probably did theirs. What are they worried about? Humans could only threaten them if ... if we could find their weaknesses. The aliens have something like individual existence and corpor
ate existence. The individuals apparently can associate themselves with each other in some kind of sharing. The three images she saw must have been composites put together into three temporary individuals. To provide three different perspectives, or maybe really to have three different sets of themselves approach the human with various emphases. So, in a way, the aliens are really a single huge brain! They break it up into subgroups, working together for some purpose or another. That is not terribly different from a single human brain – just probably far more enormous in scope. Humans carry on all the autonomic functions – like operating the body, feeling contact, hearing a full background of sound, and so on – without concentrating on them, using sets of neurons working automatically. Human brain activity that requires concentration reorganizes the use of the neurons and synapses, just like the aliens redistribute themselves to achieve certain functions – probably.

  The individuality of the aliens is never complete. Sandra found herself walking back and forth as she thought, eyes almost closed. They are never isolated from each other in their thought processes. That's the big difference between them and us. If I can believe them. Maybe that's the focus of their concern. Maybe they're trying to figure out how human individuality works. How can we work together and not work together, at the same time? How can we get things done in groups despite the fact that we usually lie, deceive, don't get all the information, misinterpret and so on? Didn't they ever have existence of that sort? Possibly not. Even if they started off as carbon atom chains like us, they may never have had separate brains. Maybe the original creature was something like a jellyfish, but with a number of nodes containing their version of neurons and synapses. This creature then could have continued to grow and expand, maybe losing some portions through a process that was like death. Eventually, however, this multiple existence thing figured out how to go straight to the well of space-time and get energy, and did away with their jellyfish structure. That might leave them with those quasi-individual aspects, but now with much more ability to interrelate and cross-associate, since they would have no fixed association, like in a jellyfish or other physical structure.