Embracing the Alien

by Geoffrey A. Landis

The energy field glowed brighter, and a voice spoke. “Greetings, travelers.” I was surprised. Could I have heard it correctly? It was not the human's language; it was my own. I turned to translate for the others, but they understood it as well. What could speak three languages at once?

  “This planet is dangerous,” it said. “Why have you come?"

  Brown shaded his eyes against the glare. “We are peaceful travelers who have been sent here by accident. Who are you?"

  “Names are not important. I am one who watches and loves life. Call me ... the Outsider."

  The energy field again glowed brighter. I grimaced and dropped into a combat crouch. Brown dropped down onto one knee, his right arm shielding his face. Varju stood and did nothing. Apparently his eyes were less sensitive to extremes of brightness,

  “Does my brightness harm you?” the energy thing said. “It is not something under my conscious control. I will try—” It flickered and then dimmed a bit. We could look in its direction again, although with some difficulty.

  “What are you?” said Brown. “What do you want with us? How do you speak our language?"

  “I cannot ‘speak’ any language,” it replied. “Your brains contain electromagnetic fields. I modulate these fields, and you perceive it as speech."

  “Why are you here?” asked Brown.

  “I could ask the same of you,” it said.

  “But this is not your world."

  “No,” it said. “I am ... an observer. My form is not one that evolved on planets, or has much interest in planetary life. We come from the energetic regions at the galactic center, where organic life types such as yours do not survive."

  “From a black hole?” asked Varju, still trying to satisfy curiosity, when he should be asking the being to return us to our proper time. But I stayed silent. It might yet be that gathering information would prove useful.

  “Ah,” the energy being said. “You understand us."

  “Then you may be extremely old, as we measure time,” Varju said.

  “Millions of years,” it said, “billions, who can say? Time has little meaning where we live. For several millions of years I have been wandering the stars of the galactic disk, visiting the cold dark wastes at the fringes of the galaxy, observing the strange life that grows on planets, cold and hard."

  “A scientist, then, like we,” said Varju. “Are there many of your people here?"

  “Oh, no,” the thing said. “Only I. For the most part, my people have left this spacetime. There are other places to exist, universes with higher quantum energy states, and my people have migrated on. Someday I will join them, but not yet. Even in a million years, I still have not tired of the infinite diversity of life. This is one of the most unusual worlds I've visited."

  Brown smiled. “We like it. This planet is my home."

  “Indeed?” it said. “Very peculiar. I would not have come had I known that this planet had intelligent life. But was that not your starship I sensed arrive here?"

  Brown looked at Varju. “That's right,” he said. “We have come from sixty-five million years in the future."

  “Really?” said the outsider. “You come to your own past?"

  I noted that it didn't seem surprised at the impossibility that Brown had just expressed. Perhaps, as Varju had implied, this being could indeed tred paths through in time as well as space.

  “You have no fear of the danger of returning to your own past light-cone? Or—yes. You are here because of your fear. It is unnecessary. I will correct the error."

  “Error?” asked Varju.

  “Why,” a tentacle of brightness momentarily flashed upward toward the comet, “that comet. You must be here to stop it from impacting this planet, stop the great destruction. I shall put it back in its proper place. I would not let this beautiful world be destroyed."

  “No—” said Brown, “the comet hit sixty-five million years ago. Far in the past. If the comet is deflected, the human race—my race—will never exist."

  “What is that to me?” the being said. “I have made my decision. I see no reason to destroy the cold beauty of this world."

  “But it is the natural course of events,” said Brown. “Evolution."

  “You put me in a dilemma,” it said. “You see, I already have interfered with events. Only my interest in planets caused the black hole to approach this sun. No comet would be here, if not for my error."

  “That accounts for the unusual features of the system,” Varju said. “An artifact of the passage of the black hole."

  'By diverting the comet,” it said, “I will only undo the damage that I inadvertantly caused."

  “And so destroy us,” said Brown.

  The being made a complicated flickering shift of brightness that I interpreted as a shrug. “What does not exist cannot be destroyed. You are from a future, but not the only possible future. I will merely cause your species never to exist."

  “Never to be born at all,” said Brown. “But however you phrase it, it still sounds fatal."

  “You must understand that you do not really exist. You are only a virtual apparition. A side-effect of the small interval between when I perturbed the comet cloud and when I correct my error.

  “For one to live, others must die. This is the law of life."

  For a moment the Outsider brightened and was silent, a shifting blur of mottled colors. The tendrils behind Varju's neck, his electromagnetic sensor organs, stiffened.

  It made a soft sound almost like a sigh. “What being would not to choose survival of its own species? So you force me to choose.” It paused. “So let it be. If you would have me chose you to live, prepare to argue your case. Human Brown, you have with you two others who are not of your species. I name you my council of three, to convince me to change my mind. Be warned. Your vote must be unanimous if I am to condemn this planet.

  “You come from the future. One future. I will show you another, the future that you would have me kill."

  The glow of the energy-being momentarily brightened, and we were forced to look away. When the brightness dimmed, we saw before us another creature. It was a reptilian being, seated behind a desk of some dark heavy wood, writing with what appeared to be a quill pen. It was roughly the size of a human. It was clearly similar to the dinosaurs we had seen, sitting upright,with a long tail visible to one side. It turned, and I saw that it had a smooth, sinuous grace. It had light-green skin, appearing almost silky, lighter on the underside, patterned with delicate traceries of light orange and yellow, and a ruffle of feathers behind its neck. Its eyes were large and blue, like gigantic sapphires, with small half-glasses perched on its nose. It looked up from its work and peered over its glasses.

  “You interrupted me,” said the dinosauroid being, peevishly. “I was in the middle of a stanza, and you interrupted me."

  Brown smiled. “Sorry."

  It waved a clawed hand. “No matter. This symphony has waited all my life; it can wait a bit more. Perhaps it was time for a break anyway.” The dinosauroid looked around, then stared at Brown, turning its head slightly to look first with one eye, then the other, cocking his head exactly the same way the earlier dinosaur did. “Good gracious! I've never seen anything like you. What manner of beings are you, anyway?"

  Varju turned to Brown. “This is unusual. It seems to have no xenophobic response at all."

  “Is that unusual?” I said.

  “Yes.” said Varju, turning to look at me. His eyes did not blink. “We had always believed that xenophobia was a survival instinct."

  “But—but your own species has no xenophobia,” I said, confused. “I've seen you with humans. You emulate them. You speak their language, think with their thoughts."

  Varju looked at me with large, sad eyes. “Do you not know? You have studied the history of the humans, do you know nothing of mine?"

  “No."

  “When we met the humans it was war, Torri. We studied the humans, studied their aggression, studied their technology, an
d realized that we could not possibly win. Within a century, we would be exterminated. But xenophobia—war—was encoded in our genes. Our only survival lay in revising our very genetic code. We did. We edited out our xenophobia, and surrendered to the humans, asking only that they give us protection, since we could now no longer protect ourselves.” He paused. “Don't you know how we admire your race, Torri? To survive side by side with humans, and remain yourself?"

  And the humans had cost us a hundred billion lives, I thought. Could it be worth the price?

  “Ask your questions,” demanded the energy being.

  “What is your home like?” said Varju.

  “It is a home place like any other, I expect,” the dinosauroid being said. “It is warm and friendly. We do what we can to make it beautiful, with gardens and forests."

  “You have no cities?” Varju asked.

  “No, no, of course we have cities. The best artists in the world compete to design our cities. Towers of shining crystal ten kilometers high ... I wish I could show you one of our cities, they are so beautiful."

  “Do you have wars?” Varju asked.

  “War?” said the dinosauroid being. “I don't recognize the word."

  “Do you kill one another?” said Brown.

  “Kill? You mean, kill other intelligent beings? Deliberately? What a revolting thought! Good gracious, no! Of course not! What type of beings would do such a thing?"

  Varju and I exchange glances.

  “Only a most uncivilized being, of course,” said Varju.

  The energy being spoke. Its voice was gentle. “These people are here to decide the very existence of your race. You are not real. You are only a projection of what might become, ten million years hence. A probability only."

  “Ah,” said the dinosauroid. “So then, as the poet said, ‘everything we are or seem, is but a dream, within a dream.’”

  “Edgar Allen Poe,” said Varju. Seeing my glance, he explained: “an Earth poet of the nineteenth century."

  The dinosauroid being looked puzzled. “No, no—Gornak Trallik, a poet of the amber twilight century. From the songs of sapphire cities.” He paused. “A dream I am, then, but if all I am is a dream, I must thank you for the little bit of reality I have been given. Even a dream can love life, and be thankful."

  “This is the land of your distant ancestors,” the energy being said. “The comet you see will scourge this world with flame. Most of the life you see around you will die, among them your most distant ancestors. I can prevent this catastrophe. But, if you are to exist, then this human, a child of a different possible future, cannot."

  “My mate...” said the dinosauroid. “My friends and clutch mates ... my children—"

  “Will never exist,” said the energy being. In a more kindly tone, it continued, “they will not suffer. They cannot suffer, since they never existed at all."

  “Then let me tell you about my grandchildren,” the dinosauroid said. “Such a cute bunch of lizards you'll never see. Little rapscallions, really ... but we love them. Moru—he's the oldest—he says he wants to be a famous composer, just like his grampa. I keep on telling him that if he wants to be a musician, he has to be diligent and practice every day, but he'd rather be out playing Vorik ball with his friends.” It shook its head with a jerky circular motion. “Ah, children. Well, there will be time for practice when he gets older. Let him have his fun. The little one, Kira—she's the youngest—barely out of the shell, and already she knows what she wants to be. Says she's going to to be pilot of a starship when she grows up. And I bet she will, too—she's smart enough. And so serious all the time.” It stretched out its neck and sighed. “Too bad you will never know them. But please try to think of them, one day, and they will live on, a little bit, in your memories."

  “I will,” said Brown.

  “You have starflight?” asked Varju.

  “Oh, yes—ever since the spacetime twist drive was discovered two millenia ago,” it said. “I don't see the point in it, myself—all that whooshing around through space. You'd think saurians would be satisfied with the Earth—it's a lovely planet. I've travelled up and across and around, and don't think I've seen a tiny fraction of the wonderful things there are to see."

  “Plead your case for your people,” said the energy being.

  The dinosauroid examined Brown closely. It shook its head again with the same odd circular motion. “A featherless lifeform—descendant of mammals—and yet from Earth! Most strange. But your people, too, love life?"

  “Yes,” said Brown.

  There was a long silence as the dinosauroid looked at Brown. Then it said, “I cannot. If our existence is to be at the expense of another, it is wrong. Make your choice, if you must. I cannot and will not urge the destruction of another."

  “Well spoken,” said the energy being. “And so I return you again to the might-become."

  “I regret only—” the dinosauroid said, and hesitated.

  “That you are not real?” suggested Varju.

  “No. I accept the gift of life, however temporary. I regret only that, now, I shall never complete my symphony.” It paused. “And so I see it is true. Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are: it might have been."

  The energy being brightened, and when we could look again, the dinosaur being was gone.

  “John Greenleaf Whittier, an Earth poet of the ninteenth century,” said Varju. After a pause, he added, “and also, apparently, a dinosaur poet."

  “You must understand,” said the energy being, “that you are no more real than the dinosaur being. You claim to come from the future, but you must know that there are many futures, none of them more real than any other. This is the now, the only now that exists. Make your choice wisely."

  “Then you have shown us a possible future,” said Varju, “but by no means the only possible future."

  “Quite correct. But what I have shown you is the future that will result, if I do not allow these creatures to perish."

  “I know the humans,” said Varju. “They have flaws. But they also have a greatness. I must vote for the humans."

  The energy flickered, and I felt its attention turn to me. “And you?

  I suddenly knew that with words I could change history, undo great pod dyings and challenge greatness. This being had power, great power. I had fear, then, and knew I must choose words with utmost care. “When my race met the humans, we had no faster than light travel,” I said. “Our pods had spread across a hundred suns, at tremendous cost, but without war. When the humans with their FTL ships came, we welcomed them with weapons. The humans seemed to withdraw, and we copied their ships, a technology we would never think of on our own, to unite a hundred far-flung pods.

  “And then we were hit by the plagues. Fifty billion of the true people died in the plagues that the humans brought. We thought, then, that they had deliberately tried to destroy us.

  “Much much later, we realized that it was not the humans, but their technology, FTL travel, that killed us. The hundred worlds had evolved a hundred plagues, each of which they were themselves immune to, but the distant worlds were not immune. Century-long starship voyages acted as a quarantine.

  “And after the plagues, the civil wars. Among the hundred scattered worlds were renegade pods, unwilling to join in sharing. They had been separate too long. The human FTL brought us a new thing, war between pods. Whole worlds had to be exterminated to bring unity back to our people. In the chaos, prophets and messiahs rose up, preaching heresies and disunity, and more of us died.

  “The coming of the humans resulted in the death of eleven out of twelve of the true people then alive. Even the rooted ancestors died. Out of the hundred worlds, only sixteen flourish now. It will be centuries, perhaps millenia, before we reach such glory again."

  “Then you vote against the humans?” it said. Its voice seemed cold and emotionless.

  And so in my moment of timra I embraced choice. I shouted. “No! The humans taught my people
things we never dreamed of! Without having met the humans, we would have expanded outward and outward, knowing ourselves only, exterminating other species on planets we needed, without ever knowing or trying to understand them. Until one day we would meet an alien race with superior technology, who would exterminate us the same way. We were lucky. When we met the aliens with superior technology, it was the humans. They nearly exterminated us, true, but not in anger. They taught us how to embrace the alien. I vote for the humans, hidden one. They taught us a concept alien to us, one that is worth anything we ever knew before. Friendship, between people who are different."

  I spoke the truth, but my spoken reasons screened the truth. The humans had killed us, yes, in the billions, but the pod had survived, and, surviving, was stronger. But the dinosaur creature had said that they, too, had the secret of interstellar flight! If the dinosaur creatures had come instead of the humans, and come millions of years earlier? How could they not, even in innocence, destroy us before we even existed? The human threat had been nothing to this, nothing.

  “Then you have won your case, human,” the energy being spoke. “Though it goes against my nature to allow such destruction to occur, I choose to accept the judgement of three."

  “Not yet,” said Brown. His expression was strange; unreadable. “You said it must be unanimous."

  “Indeed,” said the energy being. “There is one more vote. I would have thought it just a formality. Human?"

  “It's not like dying, you say. No pain, no mourning. It would be never to exist at all.” He smiled. “I like that. Humanity's not so great. Give the critters a chance, and see what they do. Divert the comet."

  I might have killed him, but would it change the choice? Would the being then come for us? I hesitated. The energy being dimmed and was motionless for a moment, and then the moment for choice was past.

  “You have made your choice, and chosen against your own interests.” It paused. “But you have shown a strange compassion. I have seen this in old species, ones with a history of a million years or more, who have no fear of extinction. But in a young species? I do not understand this, but it is strange; rare and precious. I find that I have no choice. I will withdraw my interference. The comet will fall as it must."