Carl Sagan’s Hunt for Intelligent Life in the Universe

C
opyright © 2016
C. Gockel

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“ …
c
ells are made of proteins
, proteins are made of molecules, molecules are made of atoms, atoms are made of particles … And do you remember what those are made of?”

“Waves, Third One!”

“Yes, you are waves manifest as matter. You can become waves again at any time.”

Sliding down the embankment, his ten legs not able to lift him, Hsissh reprimanded himself,
Next body, no sleeping in a field frequented by lizzar.
He knew better, but the rock had been sunny and wonderfully warm. And then one of the clumsy, wave-ignorant oafs had whacked him with its tail. Now this body was beyond reasonable repair and he had to move on. Finding a dry spot, he curled into a ball. Tucking his nose to his tail, he closed his eyes and … hesitated. He blinked. He didn’t want to let this form go … Shissh, his blood kin in her last life, had been urging him for years to give up this shell and the pain that was tied to it; to let his memories of their third parent become a dream.

“What’s that?”

His ears perked. It was the vocal utterance of a wave-ignorant Newcomer. Ish, one of the more scholarly members of Hsissh’s kind, had decoded most of the language and shared it in the waves. Hsissh hadn’t thought the Newcomers had spread this far north. He wondered what they’d found.

A sharp pain in his side made his body uncoil with a startled squeak.

“Is it some sort of albino-mutant-ten-legged weasel?” There was another sharp pain, and Hsissh was flipped over. Helpless in his weakened state, he lay sprawled on his back, all ten limbs and tail wriggling. Through blurry eyes, he saw three Newcomers standing over him. They smelled strange, like alien vegetables and meats partially digested and burned. Their naked bodies, where they showed at the edges of the faux furs on their heads and forelimbs, were disgusting. They looked smaller than he’d been informed; yet, even their shorter forelimbs were longer than his entire body. They could kill him by merely stepping on him.

“It’s a werfle,” said another Newcomer, using the enormous deformed paw on a hind limb to prod Hsissh’s limbs. “Their bites are poisonous. Don’t touch it.”

The poison oozing from Hsissh’s fangs could kill them with a single bite, but his body wasn’t responding to his mind’s order to roll over. And the pain was disorientating; he couldn’t focus enough to agitate the waves into starting a fire. A shadow moved. He felt a stinging in his chest and a soft squeal came from his lungs. His mind slowly processed that one of the Newcomers was jabbing him with a stick. Ish thought these beings were worthy of study … Obviously, Ish was an idiot. Hsissh felt rekindled determination to leave this body—when he was new and healthy again, he’d join the faction that was pushing to have the Newcomers wiped off The Planet.

“Huh, looks almost dead,” said the one with the stick. He poked Hsissh again, and pain shot from every root of fur on his body.

“My mom says they’re really soft and we should make them into coats,” said another, prodding Hsissh’s side so hard it sent him rolling. When Hsissh came to a stop, he tried to squirm, but pain shot from his tail as one of them stepped on it, and he clawed helplessly at the dirt.

“Too small to make a coat. Maybe a muffler?” said the one that had kicked him.

Hsissh closed all ten of his claws and reminded himself he was a wave. He just had to focus …

“Leave him alone!”

The pain in his tail vanished. He shot forward and was able to feel the waves that coursed through his body. Grabbing hold, he let them carry him up and out, changing the electrical impulses in his body and mind to a pattern of particles in the waves. Bit by bit, memories from every shell he’d ever worn and his current thoughts were encoded. He felt Shissh’s consciousness in the wave, and
felt
her speak. “Finally! You should have left that hide ages ago.”

Not wanting to encourage her nagging, Hsissh did not answer. As the pattern that was Hsissh expanded out and upward, he was able to
feel
the scene in every direction. Above him, the Newcomer’s time gate hung like a ring-shaped moon, visible even though it was nearly midday. He could just barely make out the ships that were slipping into the gate and then disappearing, primitively transported in their physical forms across the Milky Way to their home planet “Earth” and nearly a dozen other colony worlds. Below him, much closer to his rapidly dying body, a smaller Newcomer was standing at the top of the embankment, fists clasped at its sides. It looked different from the others. The fur on top of its head was nearly black and pulled back in a way that exposed a flat metal circle at the side of its skull. Its eyes were nearly as dark, and its skin was a deep brown. The others looked more like what he’d gleaned from the collective consciousness of his kind, The One. They had hazel-to-brown eyes, tan skin, and fur that flopped over the peculiar metal ornamentation Newcomers wore in the sides of their heads.

“Are you going to stop us, Noa?” one of Hsissh’s tormentors goaded.

Dipping its chin, the smaller one said, “Yeah!”

“Pfft! You’re a girl.”

One of the others whispered, “She wants to be a pilot … she doesn’t know the Luddeccean Guard doesn’t take girls!”

The one that must be Noa snarled, “I’m going to be in the Galactic Fleet. It’s better than the stupid Guard, and they take girls!”

One of Hsissh’s tormentors picked up a clump of dirt and tossed it at her. His other friends followed suit. Hsissh’s would-be protector sensibly retreated into the forest that surrounded the embankment.

“Ooooo! The brave pilot retreats!” one of the tormentors hooted before turning back to Hsissh. They huffed air out in staccato bursts of sound. “What are we going to do with the werfle?” one of them asked, swinging a stick.

Resuming his slow, steady slip into the wave, Hsissh had a moment between panic and curiosity. If he was hit hard enough in the head, and life seeped slowly from his body, would he become waveless, like his third parent? Energy could not be created or destroyed. Perhaps the waveless like Third went some place … else?

His rumination was interrupted by a frenzied vocalization he did not understand. “Arrrrrggghhhhhh!”

In his in-between state, Hsissh
felt
the girl swinging a branch thicker than his girth and longer than her body above her head. Her lips were curled, and her flat white teeth were bared.

The boy with the stick danced over Hsissh’s body and cried, “Are you crazy?” right before the branch connected with his jaw. In his bodyless state, Hsissh felt the Newcomer’s pain. The shock sent a ripple through the wave, Hsissh lost his concentration, and he found himself back in his body, staring up at the Newcomer known as Noa. She was panting, holding the branch in front of her chest with two hands. His body, perhaps trying to avoid its inevitable passing, slipped into unconsciousness.

H
sissh awoke
next to a wall of immense, deadly, roaring flames. He might have immediately bolted, but he hurt too much; his body felt tight and alien. It was definitely time to leave.

Closing his eyes, Hsissh slipped from his body. Floating away, carried on the waves again, he saw that his shell had been wrapped up in some sort of plant fiber, and was cradled by a soft square of a similar fiber. He abruptly slipped back into his “werfle” form with a shocking realization. They’d made him a nest. He sniffed. More accurately, Noa had made him a nest. He smelled her all over it.

Ever so gently, he flexed his claws. It was a nice nest, he could tell that, despite his pain. It was almost as soft as the one made by Third of ptery scales and her belly fluff. The fire was a nice touch; bigger than he would ever light on a cold night, but he supposed that the nearly naked Newcomers might need more to ward off the chill. And now that he studied it, he realized it was well contained.

“He’s awake!”

He heard a rush of footsteps and looked up to see Noa, his rescuer, leaning over him, forelimb outstretched. He drew back and another Newcomer said, “Be careful, Noa.” This Newcomer was larger than Noa, and tan like most Newcomers, with black hair and golden eyes. By smell, Hsissh identified her as a female member of the dual-sexed species, probably Noa’s mother. In spite of himself, he felt sympathy for her. How difficult would it be to raise a litter with only two adults? How would Third ever have managed without First and Second to hunt and protect her, Hsissh, Shissh, and their brothers and sisters?

“But the veterinarian milked his venom, Mom.”

Whiskers trembling in alarm, Hsissh slipped his tongue beneath the sharp tips of his fangs and gently pressed. There was no swell of poison. He hunched into the nest, feeling violated.

“Yes, the veterinarian did,” said Mom, and Hsissh entertained visions of killing Veterinarian once his venom returned.

“... but the veterinarian also said that it would take a while for his ribs to heal. You have to be gentle, Noa.”

Heal ribs? Whatever for? It was easier to leave a shell and find the body of an unclaimed member of one of The One’s host species. He blinked. But of course, the Newcomers were wave-ignorant—like Third had been at the end. They couldn’t slip out of their shells and so had become resilient to injury and disease. They’d overcome the three plagues The One had let loose among them with “nanos” and “antibiotics.” And he’d heard that, even when they lost limbs or organs, they replaced them with mechanical parts. Those who had such parts were called “augments.”

Noa, who Hsissh was beginning to suspect was an adolescent among her kind, gently touched Hsissh’s head. He thought of delivering a non-venomous bite out of spite for letting Veterinarian milk his venom; but her touch wasn’t unpleasant, and he was too exhausted to bother. And then she scratched him behind his ears, and he couldn’t help purring.

“Can we keep him as a pet?” Noa asked.

Hsissh’s eyes snapped open at the unfamiliar word and the implications of “keep.” Something to be eaten later?

Another voice, deeper than even Mom’s, rumbled, “You know that we shouldn’t do that.” Hsissh’s nose twitched. A male of the species, also tan skin with dark brown hair, who smelled like Noa, but not like Mom. Perhaps the other parent?

“But why, Dad?” said Noa.

“Because he is a wild animal,” Mom said. The round metal plate in the side of her skull glinted dully in the light. At the center of it was an opening … and then darkness. Hsissh could smell no blood, bone, or other gore from the gaping hole. “And it wouldn’t be fair,” Mom continued. “You heard what the veterinarian said. These creatures die in cages; it would be wrong to keep him.”

Maybe he wouldn’t kill Veterinarian … but what was this “keeping” business? They didn’t seem to want to eat him.

Mom continued, “We don’t know why they die in captivity, but we do know they are intelligent, and social. They probably need to be with their own kind to remain healthy.”

Hsissh’s nose twitched. He’d become rather solitary since Third died the true death. He could go months without contact with his kind. Still, even a non-claimed member of The One’s favorite host species, the “werfles,” would leave its shell, too, if caught in a cage out of sheer humiliation. But it was a well-considered hypothesis.

“And they help us kill rats!” Noa interjected.

The deep-voiced one, Dad, muttered, “Damn rats, invading this pristine ecosystem.” Hsissh’s mind tripped over the word “damn,” but he had the impression that Dad was angry. Whatever for?

Noa stroked Hsissh’s head and the two adult Newcomers walked away. Another smaller, though still enormous, Newcomer came over and gazed down at Hsissh. He smelled like Noa, Mom, and Dad—a blood kin. His skin was tan, with dark brown fur on top of his head, like Mom and Dad, and his eyes were light in color.

“I wonder if he has a name, Kenji?” Noa whispered, scratching Hsissh behind the ears and under his chin, evoking a helpless purr.

“There are three sexes among werfles; I don’t think it is a ‘him,’” Kenji said. He idly played with the metal disk in the side of his head with the long, slender appendage of a paw.

Hsissh's whiskers twitched. In point of fact the werfles had males, females, and females that had matured to Thirds, nursing adults who passed on genetic information through their milk. “Him” and “her” worked well enough for members of the species not in a breeding triad.

“I’m not calling him an ‘it,’” Noa said, increasing the intensity of the ear scratching. The Newcomers had curiously ineffectual claws; they were short, stubby, and thin. However, Hsissh was discovering they were perfect for grooming without the worry of shedding blood.

“And he needs a name,” she continued, lowering her head so Hsissh was able to look into her dark eyes. Maybe he was becoming fond of this Newcomer because he didn’t find her general furlessness disturbing. Or maybe it was the color of her skin. It didn’t look as though her fur had sloughed off from illness. It was the same rich brown as the bark of a healthy red nut tree, and twice as smooth.

“A name,” Noa whispered. “He has to have one.”

And he did. It was against the rules of The One to communicate with the Newcomers, lest they know they were being scrutinized. Like sub-atomic particles whose behavior changed when observed, research subjects behaved differently when they
knew
they were being watched. But suddenly he wanted her to know. He concentrated and tugged at the waves that coursed between Noa, Kenji, and himself. “Hsissh,” he sent along the wave. “Hsissh, I am Hsissh.”

“Hsissccchhh!” said Kenji, the sound erupting not just from his mouth but also his nose.

Hsissh squeaked in joy and wonder. He’d been told that the Newcomers were incapable of wave riding, but Ish had hypothesized that they were on the verge of it—and Ish was right! The Newcomers were truly an intelligent species!

“God bless you,” Noa said, eyes set on Hsissh. She nodded. “Fluffy, I think I’ll name him Fluffy.”

Kenji wiped his nose with a forelimb and touched Hsissh’s fur gingerly with the other. “That is a good name; he’s very soft.”

Or maybe they weren’t quite so bright.