Julian and George were once more hacking through the jungle on the planet which had so thoroughly confused them on their prior visit. Matters regarding their state of elucidation had not improved much since their last planetary tarriance.
“Do you think Bob will be there when we arrive?” George asked.
It was a fair question. Bob, the Collective of Alien Sky Piranhas (Casp for short), had made first contact with them a month before, but attempts to corroborate his (it seemed wrong to refer to an entity named Bob as ‘it’) presence with witnesses and scanning equipment since then had failed. This trip was their last hope of contacting him again before leaving for the university. At their previous meeting Bob had left them with a cryptic question and told them to return alone, and so that was what they were doing.
“He’d better be. I really don’t want to find out that we’ve been suffering under a shared delusion,” Julian replied.
“Well, his absence won’t prove anything. If he’s not there I’m still not accepting your mass insanity theory. I will believe until my dying day that we made first contact with the most technologically advanced race humanity has ever encountered—and the most annoying,” George said, hacking savagely at the foliage.
“Two people sharing a perfectly reasonable delusion is hardly mass insanity,” Julian said. “And even though we are admirably sane and not given to delusions, I’d say Occam’s razor supports my argument more than yours. We don’t have to guess for long, though,” he finished, because they had just reached the cliff face that was their destination.
On their previous visit bob had met them in a cave carved into this cliff. However, the cave had disappeared after they had exited, and no amount of seismic probing had revealed anything but solid rock thereafter. Their professor had not wanted to waste time and equipment cutting into the cliff itself, much to the dismay of both Julian and George. After a while they had both begun to feel a little crazy, and had seriously considered not attempting contact again. Their fears were now assuaged, however, because yawning before them was the cave.
“All right, once we go in there we’re not leaving without some tangible evidence,” George said. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah, let’s go,” Julian replied, trying not to sound nervous.
The light remained steady as they proceeded down the tunnel, although it was difficult to tell that the stone walls were emitting light. The walls looked exactly as they had at the beginning of the tunnel, reflecting the glow of some non-existent sun. After passing through the sixth bend in the tunnel Bob was suddenly before them.
“HELLO,” Bob said. Bob was a swarm of insects connected by glowing purple light, so it was difficult to tell exactly where his greeting originated from.
George was the first to reply. “So there you are in all of your swarmy purple glowing glory,” he said. “Do you know how much trouble you caused us with your disappearing act?”
Julian motioned George to be quiet and quickly cut in. “I think what George is trying to say is that we are very interested in you and would like to know more about you and your species.”
“DO YOU HAVE AN ANSWER TO MY QUESTION,” Bob asked in a monotone, apparently either oblivious to or uninterested in their comments.
“You mean the one where you asked whether we would like to be super happy and dumb as a brick or a genius and hopelessly miserable?” George asked. “You were serious about that?”
“YES. WOULD YOU RATHER BE UNINTELLIGENT AND HAPPY OR INTELLIGENT AND UNHAPPY?”
“You know who’s good at answering questions like this?” George asked. “Karin. Can we bring her down as a proxy?”
Bob was completely silent.
“I don’t think he’s going to talk to us until we answer,” Julian said.
“OK, then answer him,” George urged.
Julian thought for a minute. “Bob, I think I’d like to somewhere in the middle. Smart enough to feel intellectual satisfaction in my work, but dumb enough that I’m not too unhappy.”
“Man, what does that even mean?” George asked derisively. “You know what, that’s fine. Bob, I agree with Julian, except that I want to be slightly smarter than he is.”
“HOW DO YOU QUANTITATE ALL OF THESE RELATIONAL WORDS?” Bob asked. “HOW MUCH SMARTER IS SLIGHTLY SMARTER? HOW SMART MUST YOU BE TO ATTAIN INTELLECTUAL SATISFACTION? A STONE AGE HOMINID WOULD BE INTELLECTUALLY SATISFIED IF HIS ROCK CLUB WAS SHARPER THAN HIS NEIGHBORS’ ROCK CLUB.”
“I don’t know,” Julian said, looking pained. “We understand that intelligence is relative, but to be honest we don’t really have a good definition for intelligence. Is a great engineer more intelligent than a great artist? What are your criteria?”
“WE CLASSIFY INTELLIGENCE AS THE ABILITY TO SOLVE PROBLEMS. THE ABILITY TO PROBLEM-SOLVE AND THE ABILITY TO DISCERN THE TRUE NATURE OF REALITY ARE CORRELATED.”
“What do you want us to give you, IQ points?” asked George. “Let me make this simple for you. We can’t quantify intelligence accurately.”
“WELL, WE THOUGHT WE’D ASK,” Bob said, with something as akin to a sigh as his lack of inflection would permit. “IT SEEMS MOST UNENHANCED SPECIES HAVE DIFFICULTY WITH THIS QUESTION.”
“So I guess we’re unenhanced now,” George said.
“Are you saying that you are enhanced, or that you don’t know the answer to your own question?” Julian queried.
“WE ARE INTELLIGENT ENOUGH THAT WE ARE UNHAPPY, BUT WE ARE NOT ENHANCED ENOUGH TO BE BOTH INTELLIGENT AND HAPPY. WE HAVE HEARD THAT PERHAPS THE CIVILIZATION KNOWS HOW TO BE BOTH INTELLIGENT AND HAPPY, BUT WE HAVE ENCOUNTERED NO OTHERS.”
Civilization somehow sounded capitalized when Bob spoke it.
“Are you saying that you personally are too smart to be happy, or that your entire species is unhappy?” said Julian.
“WE ARE UNDIFFERENTIATED. THERE ARE NO CASP INDIVIDUALS. THE MORE NODES WE HAVE, THE MORE INTELLIGENT WE ARE. IF WE GAIN TOO MANY NODES WE BECOME CATATONICALLY DEPRESSED, BUT IF WE ARE DEPRIVED OF NODES WE CAN FEEL THE LOSS OF INTELLIGENCE.”
“That really, really sucks,” George commented. “It doesn’t sound like a logical way for a hive organism to evolve, though.”
“WE ARE NOT EVOLVED. WE WERE CREATED.”
“Wonderful. Julian, the only technological species we have ever met is a religious nutjob,” George said.
“WE ARE NOT REFERRING TO AN UNSUBSTANTIATED DEITY,” Bob clarified. “WE HAVE MET OUR CREATOR RACE. PERHAPS YOU WILL ALSO MEET THEM.”
“Yes, perhaps,” said George dryly.
“I DIGRESS. I AM HERE TO TELL YOU THAT YOU MUST GO TO THE XO-4 SYSTEM.”
“The XO-4 system?” Julian types rapidly on his forearm console, bringing up star charts. “That’s 956 lightyears away! It would take six months to get there!”
“YOU MUST GO TO THE XO-4 SYSTEM. PERHAPS YOU WILL HAVE THE INGENUITY TO GET THERE.”
“Perhaps? I think this damn alien is giving us a test, Jules!” George said. “I’ve had enough aptitude tests without being given one by some random alien.”
“Bob, why do we have to go to the XO-4 system? And what is the Civilization you were talking about? Are they your creators?” Julian asked in rapid succession.
“THE CIVILIZATION DID NOT CREATE US. ALL OTHER QUESTIONS MUST WAIT UNTIL YOU REACH THE XO-4 SYSTEM. YOU MUST LEAVE NOW.”
“We can’t leave without evidence!” George protested. “Will you hurt us if we jack one of your nodes?”
“YOU MUST LEAVE NOW,” Bob repeated.
Suddenly two insect-like nodes darted out from the swarm and tapped both Julian and George on the necks of their suits. Darkness swallowed them.
*
Julian and George were both lying on the ground beneath the cliff face when they woke up. The cave had disappeared again.
“Julian,” George groaned, sitting up. The groan was theatrical, as he was feeling perfectly fine.
“What, George.”
“Bob is a fucker. I think that alien bastard drugged us.”
“I believe you are right, George.”
END OF EPISODE SIX
