“But—” said Brown.
“I have made my decision,” the energy being said, its voice like low thunder. “Your species will have its chance. Use it well. Perhaps we will meet again, millions of years hence. Goodbye.” With a rising sound that quickly became ultrasonic, the energy being shrank and brightened. It continued to brighten past all bearable levels, until I wondered if the very rocks it hovered over would melt. As even Varju shielded his eyes and dropped to his knees, the energy condensed into the smallest of tiny sparks, and then accelerated off into the sky.
It was a long walk back to the station. We met no dinosaurs.
* * * *
We returned to orbit, and none of us were surprised when the station was again pulled into the event horizon of the black hole. We again looked into the black depths of the Praesepe Cluster.
When it was clear that we had returned and reached a stable orbit, Stakowski cracked out of her piloting egg and confronted Brown. “Brown? Tell me, how did you know that it would spare us?"
“I didn't know anything for certain,” Brown said. “It just—” he shrugged—"seemed the thing to do. At the time.” He paused for a moment, and sipped nourishment from his ethanol solution as he ragarded her, then continued quitely, almost to himself. “They had so much potential. It's not like we did so great, ourselves."
Pilot Stakowski gave him a piercing look, but said nothing.
“And I still wonder ... what would they have been like? If they had evolved?"
“I expect that we'll never know, Jared,” she said. She didn't seem to be angry at what the mate had done, at the fact that one human had chosen extermination for them all.
And then the voice of the outsider came over the radio. “Greetings again, human Brown. It has been a long time."
“Outsider?” said Brown.
“Names are of little importance,” it said. “Once I took that label. This universe is expanding, growing cold. I had thought to join my fellows, but waited a little while longer, to see again the one who showed compassion. To say, in your words, goodbye."
“But you still let them die,” said Brown. He seemed angry, although it was his own pod the thing had chosen to save.
“I could not save them all,” it said. “But as many as I could I took away with me, to a planet similar in climate, far away across the galactic disk. Among the ones I took were those which would, in time, evolve to become the being you met. To let them find their own destiny."
In the viewport, the blur of energy at the horizon of the black hole was intensifying. On the radio, the voice was fading. “Someday you will meet them, I think. But now, goodbye."
The energy field in the viewport grew outside the bounds of the viewscreen and then faded to blackness and stars.
“It is gone,” said Varju softly.
“We are done here, I think,” said Brown. “It is time for us to go home."
We orbited the black hole for two further weeks, until the City of Anchorage returned for us, but we collected only numbers and useless facts.
On its schedule the human starship brought us back to Earth, and, later, returned to its mission of gathering useless knowledge about stars and dust clouds. On the return voyage the human crew discussed First Mate Brown's actions among themselves, and most of them agreed that they would not have acted as he had. But the first mate was not punished for his actions, not relieved from his duties, nor, as far as I could tell, even reprimanded by the captain for risking the existence of his species.
It is true: the humans embrace the alien. The wisdom of the great pod-fathers has has instructed us to embrace the alien, told us that our species, the pod of all pods, must inevitably die if we do not. But I wonder, I wonder. Must we embrace the alien even at the cost of self destruction? Will we, too, one day be forced to make such a choice? And if we choose wrong?
I request to leave this mission, to return to the pod-home, share the soil with my pod-mates and meditate in warm darkness. I cannot stay among these beings that I do not want to understand.
I am learning to think like them, and I am afraid. I am afraid, yes, afraid for all of us.
Even the humans.
* * *
Author's Notes
I haven't written a whole lot of classic “space opera,” I'm afraid, in part because I have problems believing in the premise that we would ever be able to understand a real alien, much less chat and adventure with aliens. I mean, so far we have been utterly unsuccessful in being able to talk with other Earth species, such as ants or squids, and if we can't talk with species that share our biology, how can we expect to talk to real alien aliens?
“Embracing the Alien,” is one of my few space-operas. It was originally published in the November 1992 issue of Analog, and was the cover story for that issue, with a spectacular painting by Bob Eggleton. It has not been reprinted since. It made the preliminary ballot for the Nebula award in 1993.
I admit to playing a bit loose here with the physics of black holes (although I want to say that the event horizons of black holes can oscillate, and will give off gravitational radiation). If you want an introduction to the real physics, look at the Black Holes section of the Relativity FAQ, which you can find at: math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/relativity.html
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