Alien Assessment
P. Garrett Weiler
Copyright 2012 by P. Garrett Weiler
A transparent golden plasma enclosed Elliot. When he reached out, the protective torus yielded easily to his slow touch, but if he tried to poke a finger through it the field resisted firmly.
“After awhile,” one of the Baderian contingent had apologized, “the thing itches. We’ve developed a device that taps into the body’s nuclear forces, but still can’t get rid of that itch.” Itch and all, it was still better than the cumbersome protective suit in which Elliot had trained.
Maybe it was foolish to read meaning into Baderian expressions; after all they were aliens. But as Elliot had met more of them an impression formed of cordial patience and a collective eagerness to please their visitors.
His attention wandered back to the meeting, another in a seemingly endless succession called by the contact commissioner.
“We are just now reaching out for the stars,” Doctor Simpson was saying. “We are strangers on a foreign shore, and as such are not prepared to deal successfully with aliens cultures.”
The same thing over and over again, Elliot mused. Different words but always the same theme. He tuned out; he’d learned the futility of trying to reason with them. He let his thoughts meander back to his first meeting with Bar Fash.
“I suppose you’ve already been asked a hundred times or more how you like our city,” the Baderian had said by way of greeting.
“Well, I suppose a conversation has to start somewhere,” Elliot said with a chuckle.
“There’s always the weather.”
“Except you don’t have any here inside Tilith.”
The Baderian shrugged his narrow shoulders in a thoroughly human gesture. “Then I’m all out of ideas.”
Elliot laughed and Bar Fash made a brief hissing sound.
Even after all the images transmitted to Earth following first contact, Elliot was still fascinated by their appearance. He traced the outline of a slight protuberance between the wide-set eyes, a vestigial bulge where an elegant snout had once been. Bar Fash’s head was rounded and hairless, tapered to merge with a thick neck. Beneath a tight-fitting porous garment beaded with moisture his shoulders were slightly more pronounced than a terrestrial dolphin. Remorseless nature, after finding no further use for flippers, had refashioned them into short arms.
Elliot delighted in a kind of communion. The ancient molecular code he shared with the alien declared that a common bond spanned the dark gulfs between stars. Beneath Eta Cassiopeia’s glare Darwin’s postulates had molded another world with the same precision as on Earth.
Seated now at the very end of the conference table, as far from Simpson as he could get, Elliot became aware of the commissioner’s stare. Beneath lowered brows, displeasure shadowed his eyes. Elliot recalled their last encounter aboard the ship just after transition.
The contact commissioner had popped another anti-vertigo capsule into his mouth while Elliot stood before the main viewer and contemplated the hard, tiny point of brilliance towards which they hurtled.
“Wonder if I’ll ever get used to unity transition,” Simpson complained.
Elliot resented the intrusion. “Not too pleasant, having all your nuclei reduced to elementary particles, then reassembled light years away.”
Simpson shuddered and held up a hand. “Please, spare me the details. Something seems to be in your mind, Doctor Elliot.”
“Just thinking.”
“Another of your. . .theories?”
Elliot ignored the critical tone. “Just wondering. Why didn’t the Baderians initiate contact with us? I mean all this time. . . “ He frowned. “It’s almost like they’ve been hiding from us.”
“Now, Elliot,” Simpson scoffed. “You’re making something out of nothing again. Their technology has been way ahead of ours for a very long time. You know that. Baderian interstellar communications have always been through the currents, and we didn’t gain access to UT until fifty years ago.” He peered narrowly at him.
“All right,” Elliot countered, “then why haven’t they ever returned to Earth?”
Simpson slouched against an instrumentation pallet. “The real issue is whether or not we want them to.”
Elliot slipped his hands into the pockets of his jumpsuit and, knowing that it would be futile, assaulted Simpson’s arrogance. “I remember a Christmas once when I got an expensive and very elaborate chemistry set. A pal of mine, Jimmy Hawkings, got an old bicycle his big brother had outgrown. I can still remember how pleased I was with the beautiful chemistry set, but how embarrassed and uneasy I was around Jimmy after that. In this instance, mankind got the old beat-up bike, and the Baderians were handed a shiny new chemistry set.”
“That’s pretty vague,” Simpson objected.
“Just try to put yourself in their shoes,” Elliot persisted. “About a million years ago some of the Baderian’s biological ancestors are removed from Earth to Eta Casseiopeia by someone they called the Toysarians.” He caught the lift of Simpson’s eyebrows. “I know. . .not everyone believes that, but the facts are there.” He nodded towards the view port. “Now here the Baderians are today, a unified, star-faring civilization. It could have been us instead.” He stared at Simpson. “Imagine how uneasy the Baderians must feel about us now.”
“It would seem, Dr. Elliot,” Simpson said stiffly, “that you’re overlooking the fact there we’re also a star-faring civilization. And no one ever helped us get here either. You’re losing sight of why we came here. It’s foolish to put too much reliance on what the Baderians have told us.”
Long ago Elliot had believed that any race that moved among the stars could not transport unreason, prejudice and irrational fear in the unspoiled vaults of the galaxy. Foolish visions of a romantic. Simpson’s words reminded him of the primitive instincts which mankind effortlessly hauled around. He looked back at the distant sta
“I’m just a token member of your team, Doctor Simpson,” he said. “We both know that you brought me along merely in deference to those on Earth who haven’t succumbed to your way of thinking.”
Just then a chime sounded. “Gravpulse deceleration will commence in five minutes,” a hollow voice intoned. “All passengers must return to their births. Arrival in Tilith will be in three days. Gravpulse mode in five minutes.”
Even to his ordered and disciplined mind, what Bar Fash had shown him in the following weeks were barely imagined wonders.
“Remarkable. . .He looked down into an instrument-laden chamber deep beneath Tilith Academy.
At his shoulder, Bar Fash explained. “Familiar unity transition technology is a means by which constituent atoms of a mass are broken down into their individual elementary particles, what you call ‘quarks.’ These are then injected into the current where, as your John Bell long ago foresaw, they instantaneously influence other particles separated from them by vast distances. The trick is to cause that remote disturbance to manifest itself as virtual particles, stir them to real life, so that the initial mass will be reformed with all its characteristics intact.”
In the chamber below their vantage point, technicians made final adjustments. A large metal sphere rose from a pedestal and hung in midair, suspended by a small gravpulse generator. An array of rods was focused around the sphere.
“UTs one major drawback,” Bar Fash went on, “has been the temporary availability of whatever current one wants to access. That availability has been restricted by available energies. If only enough power could be accessed, any mass, no matter how great, could be transferred at any time.”
“Although of course no mass ever actually changes position,” Elliot added.
“Correct. Movement of mass does not oc
cur through unity transition. It’s merely an apparent superluminal propagation.”
Elliot stared down at the metal sphere and thought aloud. “Those rods around the ball focus enough power to enable access into the currents at any time.”
“Yes,” Bar Fash agreed. “They focus power from a vault deep with the planet where quark fission occurs.”
Elliot’s head snapped up. “You’ve broken quark confinement? But how? That’s. . .” He almost said impossible.
“In simplest terms we’ve found a way to change the binding characteristics of individual quarks.”
“You can change quark colors then?”
“In your terminology, yes.”
Below, the Baderian technicians hurried from the chamber. Others worked nearby at controls massed around the room.
“Watch now,” Bar Fash said.
More felt than heard, a low hum insinuated itself into Elliot’s consciousness. Gradually it climbed in frequency until all that was left was a vague sensation of some distant force struggling for freedom.
In the chamber, the hovering sphere was gradually immersed in a pulsating haze. The glow deepened steadily