by David Brin
Yes, the psychiatrists announced. The President is mad.
When the ship Gregory Bateson arrived, Dr. Rishke's colleagues were interviewed, and all of them swore that she could never have sent such a report. It just wasn't possible! Rumors were rampant. There was no solid evidence to support speculation that Tridden himself ordered the destruction of the Margaret Mead, a crime too horrible to credit even a lunatic. Anyway, it was decided not to rake those ashes. The man was now where he could harm no one.
Soon we were into the glorious days of the Arrival. Lentili were being interviewed on every channel. And in their charming ways, their humor and their obvious love for us, we realized what we had really needed, all along. These wonderful, wise older brothers and sisters to help ease away our awkward, adolescent millennia. The earnest work of growing up had finally begun.
Today people seldom speak of President Tridden, or of the strange hoax he tried to pull. Oh, there will always be the Kooks. Artists, writers, innovators of all kinds are forever coming forth and announcing that they have "found the Tridden Talent." Often these are silly folk, the half-mad, those at the fringes whom we all tolerate in much the same way the Lentili must love and tolerate us.
But then, on other occasions the discoveries are bona fide accomplishments. How often has the public watched some brilliant new performer, or stared at some startling piece of art, or listened to new music or some bold concept, and experienced momentary uncertainty, wondering, could this be what Tridden spoke of? Might this prove him to have been right, after all?
Inevitably it is the Lentili who are the test. How they react tells us. As yet, none of the fruits of our new renaissance seem to cause them much discomfort, or any sign of hysterical rejection.
They say they are surprised by our behavior. It seems most neophyte species—most "freshman" members of the Commonweal—go through long periods of humility and self-doubt, giving themselves over to excessive, slavish mimicry of their seniors. The Lentili say they are impressed by our independence of spirit and our innovation. Still, they show no sign of having yet been intimidated by some mysterious latent human talent, suddenly brought to flower.
We speak of Tridden, when we speak of him at all, with embarrassment. He died in an institution, and his name is now used as a euphemism for passing through a wormhole, for going off the deep end, for losing it.
And yet . . .
And yet, sometimes I wonder. A small minority still believe in him. They are the ones who thank our mentors politely, and yet patronizingly, with a serene semi-smugness that seems so out of place given our relative stations on the ladder of life. They are the ones who somehow seem impervious to the quaking intimidation that strikes most of humanity, now and again, despite the best efforts of the Lentili to make us feel loved and at home.
Is it an accident, I wonder, that every time a human team negotiates with the Commonweal on some matter, always a few Triddenites are named among the emissaries? Is is a coincidence that they prove the toughest, most capable of our diplomats?
They search—these believers in a mad president—never satisfied, always seeking out that secret, undeveloped niche in the human repertoire, the fabled talent that will make us special even in this intimidating, overpowering cosmos. Spurning the indexes they call useless, they pore over the source material of our past and explore the filmy fringes of what we know or can comprehend. Neither time nor the blinding brilliance of our mentors seems to matter to the Triddenites.
Perhaps they are lingering symptoms of the underlying craziness of Humankind.
The Lentili walk among us like gods.
We, in turn, have learned some of what we taught dogs and horses. We've supped from the same bowl as we once served to our cousins, the lesser apes. The bowl of humility.
There is no doubt that humans were arrogant when we saw ourselves at creation's pinnacle. Even when we worshiped a deity, we nearly always placed Him at safe remove, exalting Him out of the mundane world, naming ourselves paramount on Earth.
Now, humbled, we earnestly devote ourselves to making our species worthy of a civilization whose peaks we can only dimly perceive. No question, we are better people now than were those savages, our ancestors, ourselves. We are smarter, kinder, more loving. And against all expectation, we are also more creative, as well.
I have a theory to explain the latter—a theory I keep to myself. But it is why, once a year, I risk being labeled a Kook by attending a memorial service by the side of a small grave in Bruges Cemetery. And while most of those present speak of "honor," and "pity," and the martyrdom of a decent man, I pay homage to one who perhaps saw where his people were headed, and the danger that awaited them.
I honor one who gave a precious gift and changed that future.
Yes, he was a martyr. But of all the solaces to accompany him into his imprisonment, I can think of none better than the one Tridden took with him.
That smile . . .
They walk among us like gods. But we have our revenge.
For the Lentili know Tridden must have been mad. They know there is no secret talent. We are not sheltering them from some bright truth, hiding something from them out of pity. Out of love.
They know it.
And yet, every now and then I have seen it. I've seen it! Seen it in their deep, expressive eyes, each time something new from our renaissance surprises them, oh, so briefly.
I have seen that glimmer of wonder, of unease. That momentary, fearful doubt.
That is when I pity the poor creatures.
Thank God, I can pity them.
Story Notes
This section, "Contact," is devoted to that special, often maligned subgenre of SF, the think piece. Once upon a time, such tales constituted nearly all of science fiction. An author would ask, "What if?" or "If this goes on?" and head off from there, working out what might result from a given premise. Einstein called it Gedankenexperiment, or thought-experiment, and while it may not promote great style, characterology, or High Lit'rahchoor, it still merits a place in a genre that's more concerned than any other with ideas.
The story just finished, entitled "Sshhh . . .," continues a series I've been writing about First Contact, exploring possible answers to the towering mystery of our time. Why have we seen no clear signs of life beyond the Earth? All evidence and logic seems to demand a cosmos teeming with living beings, which should, by the reckoning of many keen minds, have already been here long ago. With apologies to my friends working on Project SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), this quandary is a deep and perplexing one.
The next story, which was inspired by a few stints on late-night talk radio shows, takes on the question of Alien Contact from a completely different angle. Yet there is an underlying thread the two tales have in common.
The thread of rebellion.
Those Eyes
". . . So you want to talk about flying saucers? I was afraid of that.
"This happens every damn time I'm blackmailed into babysitting you insomniacs, while Talkback Larry escapes to Bimini for a badly needed rest. I'm supposed to field call-in questions about astronomy and outer space for two weeks. You know, black holes and comets? But it seems we always have to spend the first night wrangling over puta UFOs.
". . . Now, don't get excited, sir. . . . Yeah, I'm just a typical ivory tower scientist, out to repress any trace of unconventional thought. Whatever you say, buddy.
"Truth is, I've also dreamed of contact with alien life. In fact, I'm involved in research now. . . . That's right, SETI . . . the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. . . . And no, it's not at all like chasing UFOs! I don't believe the Earth has ever been visited by anything remotely resembling intelligent . . .
"Yes sir. I bet you've got crates full of case histories, and a personal encounter or two? Thought so. I got an earful when some of us tried studying these 'phenomena' a few years back. Spent weeks on each case, only to find it was just a weather balloon, or an airplane, or ball lightn
ing . . .
". . . Oh, yeah? Well, I've seen ball lightning, fella. Got a scar on my nose and a pair of melted binoculars to show just how close. So don't tell me it's a myth like your chingado flying saucers!"
We commence our labors this night in England, near Avebury, braiding strands of yellow wheat in tidy, flattened rings. It is happy work, playing lassos of light upon the sea of grain. These will be fine circles. Humans will see pictures in their morning papers, and wonder.
Our bright ether-boat hovers, bathed in the approving glow of Mother Moon. The sleek craft wears a lambent gloss to make it slippery to mortal eyes.
To be seen is desirable. But never too well.
Fyrfalcon proclaims—"Keep the edges sharp! Make each ring perfect! Let men of science jabber about natural phenomena. We'll have new believers after this night's work!"
Once, he might have been called "King." But we adapt to changing times. "Yes, Captain!" we shout, and hurry to our tasks.
Our Listener calls from her perch. "We are being discussed on a human radio program! Would all like to hear?"
We cry cheerful assent. Although we loathe humanity's technology, it often serves our ends.
"Let's cover your second question, caller. Are UFO enthusiasts so different from us astronomers, probing with our telescopes for signs of life somewhere? Both groups long to discover other minds, other viewpoints, something strange and wonderful.
"We part company, though, over the question of evidence. Science teaches us to expect—demand—more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved?
"Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
The boy drives faster than he wants to, taking hairpin turns recklessly to impress the girl next to him.
He needn't get in such a lather; she is ready. She had already decided when the night was young. Now she laughs, feigning nonchalance as road posts streak by and her heart races.
The convertible climbs under opal moonlight. Her bare knee brushes his hand, making him muff the gears. He coughs, fighting impulses more ancient than his race, swerving just in time to keep from roaring over the edge.
I sense their excitement. He is half-blind with desire. She by anticipation.
They are unaware of our approach.
At a secluded cliffside he sets the brake and turns to her. She teases him playfully, in ways meant to enflame. There is no ambiguity.
We circle behind, enjoying such simple, honest lusts. Backing away, we dip over the cliff, then cruise along its face until directly below them.
We turn on all our pulsing glows to make our craft its gaudiest!
We start to rise.
No one will believe their story. But more than one kind of seed will have been sown tonight.
"There's a saying that applies here. 'Absence of evidence is not evidence for absence.' While Project SETI hasn't logged any verified signals from the few stars we've looked at, that doesn't prove nobody's out there!
". . . Yeah, sure. The same could apply to UFOs, if you insist.
"But while SETI has to sift a vast cosmos for radio sources—a real case of hunting needles in haystacks—it's harder to explain the absence of decent evidence for flying saucers on Earth. It's a small planet, after all. If ETs have been mucking around here as long for as some folks say, isn't it funny they never dropped any clear-cut alien artifacts for us to examine? Say, the Martian equivalent of a Coke bottle?"
We are flying over eastern Canada on key-patrol . . . creating temporary, microscopic singularities in random houses to swallow wallets, car keys, homework assignments. Meanwhile some of us reach out to invade the dreams of sleeping men and women, those most susceptible.
Gryffinloch plays the radio talk show in the background as we work. We laugh as this idiotic scientist talks of "alien artifacts."
Such stupid assumptions! We do not make things of hard, unyielding matter! I have never held a Coke bottle. Even those human babes we steal, to raise as our own, find painful the latent heat in glass and metal, which were forged in flame.
Men have built their proud new civilization around such things. But why, when they had us? Can iron nourish as we do? We deal in a different heat. Ours inflames the heart.
"Yes, yes. . . . For those of you who don't read the Enquirer, this caller's asking my opinion of one of the most famous UFO tales—about a ship that supposedly crashed in New Mexico, right after World War II. 'They' have been clandestinely studying the wreckage in a hangar at an air-force base in Dayton for forty years, right?
"Now, isn't that news to just boil the blood of honest citizens? There goes the big bad government, keeping secrets from us again!
"But wait, suppose we do have remnants of some super-duper, alien warp-drive scout ship from Algerdeberon Eleventeen. Do you see any technologies pouring out of Ohio that look like they came from outer space? I mean, besides supermarket checkout scanners—I'll grant you those.
"Come on, would our balance of payments be in the shape it's in if . . .
". . . Oh yes? It's being kept top secret? Okay, here's a second question. Just who do you suppose has been discreetly studying the wreckage all this time?
". . . Government engineers. Uh-huh. Have you ever met an engineer, pal? They're not faceless drones like in stupid some secret-agent movie. At least most aren't. They're intelligent Americans like you and me, with wives and husbands and kids.
"How many thousands of people would've worked on that alien ship since forty-eight? Picture these retired coots, playing golf, puttering in the garage, running Rotary fundraisers . . . . and all this time repressing the urge to blab the story of the century?
"All of 'em? In today's America? Come on, friend. Let's put aside this Hangar Eighteen crap and get back to UFOs, where at least there's something worth arguing about!"
I yearn to swoop down and give this talk-show scientist a taste of "proof." I will curdle the milk on his doorstep and give him nightmares. I'll play havoc with his utilities. I will . . .
I'll do nothing. I don't wish to see this golden ship evaporate like dew on a summer's morn. Our numbers are too small and Fyrfalcon has decreed—we must show ourselves only to receptive ones, whose minds can still be molded in the old ways.
I look up at the moon's stark, cratered landscape. Our home of refuge, of exile. Even there, they followed us, these New Men. An ectoplasmic vapor is all that remains where some of our kind once tried putting fright to their explorers. We learned a hard lesson then—that astronauts are not like argonauts of old.
Their eyes were filled with that mad, skeptical glow, and none can stand before it.
"This is Professor Joe Perez, sitting in for Talkback Larry. You're on the air.
"Yes? Uh huh? . . . Well folks, seems our next caller wants to talk about so-called Ancient Visitors. I'm game. Let's pick apart those 'gods' and their fabulous chariots.
"Ooh, they taught ancient Egyptians to build pyramids! And golly, they had some of my own ancestors scratch stick figures on a stony plateau in Peru! To help spaceships find landing pads, right? I guess the notion's barely plausible, till you ask . . . why?
"Why would anyone want such ridiculous 'landing pads,' when they could've had much better? Why not open a small trade college and teach our ancestors to pour cement? A few electronics classes and we could've made arc lamps and radar to guide their saucers through anything from rain to locusts!
". . . What? They were here to help us? Well thanks a lot, you alien gods you! Thanks for neglecting to mention flush toilets, printing presses, democracy, or the germ theory of disease! Or ecology, leaving us to ruin half the planet before finally catching on! Hell, if someone had just shown us how to make simple glass lenses, we could've done the rest. How much ignorance and misery we'd have escaped!
"You'd credit human innovations like architecture and poetry, physics and empathy, to aliens? . . . Really? . . . Well I say you insult our poor foremothers and dads, who crawled from t
he muck, battling superstition and ignorance every step of the way, until we may at last be ready to clean up our act and look the universe in the eye. No, friend. If there were ancient astronauts, we owe them nada, zip, nothing!
". . . What's that? . . . Well the same to you, pal . . . No, forget it. I don't want to talk to you anymore. Go worship silly, meddlesome star-gods if you want to. Next caller, please."
Although we barely understand its principles, we approve of this innovation, radio. It is like the ancient campfire, friendly to gossip and tall tales.
But tonight this fellow vexes me. His voice plucks the air-streams, sharper than glass, more searing than iron. He asks why we did not teach useful things, back when humans were as children in our hands! Ungrateful wretch. What are baubles such as lenses, compared to what we once gave men? Vividness! Mystery! Terror! Make one night seem to last a hundred years, and what cared some poor peasant about mere plagues or pestilence?