“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

There were murmurs of assent all around the table. Julian and some friends were eating dinner in the ship’s mess—one of the last they would eat there in some time. The Ganesha was preparing to journey back to the solar system now that its customary voyage of six months was nearly up. In two days they would leave their current star system, and the return journey would take two weeks. The students could feel the end of the semester fast approaching.

“Man, I didn’t collect nearly enough data to last me six months moonside,” Hao complained. Hao was one of the astrophysics students.

“Whatever,” George replied. “You know a few data sets will last you years. Plus, if you get bored you can just come up with some self-consistent cosmology crap that can’t be disproven unless we actually visit the galactic core or some such nonsense.”

“Yeah, well, at least I didn’t spend the entire trip collecting pictures of rocks,” Hao came back heatedly.

“By rocks do you mean continent-spanning tectonic plates?” George replied with amusement. “I admit wholeheartedly that I’m going to write several papers about how the last eight planets we’ve visited have remarkably similar, yet notably different, tectonic configurations.”

“Chill out you guys,” Aeysha enjoined. She had obviously heard this conversation play out before. “I want to hear about everyone’s favorite part of the semester.”

There were groans.

“I’m serious, people,” she continued. “Let’s go around the table. Hao, you first.”

Realizing that Aeysha wasn’t going to give up, Hao said, “I really enjoyed the aurora during the magnetic storm on Gamma Epsilon Seven,” he said.

A few people voiced their agreement.

“George?” Aeysha prodded.

“I really, really enjoyed seeing that medical ship when we visited the Serendipity Five colony,” he replied. “I was especially thrilled by the fact that somebody, somewhere thought that a ship shaped like a caduceus was a real design coup.”

“Hey, lay off!” said Lily. She was born on Serendipity Five.

“I assure you my sentiment is unfeigned,” George told her. “That was the highlight of my trip.”

Aeysha cut in hastily. “Tom, what about you?”

“Well, I guess I’m going to have to go with my visit to the Uathaf,” Tom said. There had been only one sentient non-technological species on the trip. “They had an amazing instrument made out of the bodies of their own ancestors. It was actually a beautiful concept—their loved ones live on in the form of their most enjoyable music.”

“Um, ok,” said Aeysha dubiously. “Julian?”

“My favorite part of the semester was almost burning up with you and Karin in that atmosphere two months ago,” Julian replied. “I’ve never felt so alive. What about you?”

“I would have to say that my most enjoyable time of the semester was directly after that incident, when I was sure I wouldn’t be dying anytime soon.”

“I will second that,” Karin chimed in.

“Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree,” Julian said.

There were a few chuckles.

“All right, I have things to do,” Hao proclaimed, picking up his tray. The table slowly dispersed.

*

Once out in the corridor, George collared Julian and said, “We need to go visit Bob before we leave.”

“Bob the Collective of Alien Sky Piranhas?”

“Yes.”

END OF EPISODE FIVE.

“Julian man, I need help,” said Tom. He looked dejected.

“Did you finally realize what they’re doing over in bay seventeen? There’s no help for that, my friend,” Julian replied, looking up from the video game he was playing in the common room.

“No, I… Wait, what are they doing in bay seventeen?” Tom asked, bemused.

“Never mind. What’s the problem?” Julian said.

Tom was a first year student, and one of the rare non-scientists aboard the Ganesha. Tom was part of a team that was studying indigenous music on planets that had non-human stone-age societies. Such planets were extremely few and far between on most of the Ganesha’s expeditions, so Tom and his colleagues would also put on concerts for the ship’s inhabitants in their downtime. The musicians were skilled, so everyone enjoyed having them around. Many of them were also attractive and female, which of course is not relevant.

“I told the guys down in the evolutionary exobiology bay that I’d join a no limit hold’em poker tournament, but I don’t know how to play,” Tom said, and paused.

“And…?” Julian prompted.

“And I kind of told them that I was an amazing player,” Tom finished sadly.

Julian laughed. “Is this about you coming from Acidalia Planitia again?”

Acidalia Planitia had gained something of a reputation as a very conservative stronghold in northern Mars. Tom had been raised there and had also attended a university near his hometown for his undergraduate degree. The region frowned heavily on most forms of entertainment, including gambling. Consequently had been teased mercilessly for his ignorance his first few months on-board. Things had quieted down, but Tom had nevertheless continued to try and prove that, contrary to popular belief, he was actually a Wild and Crazy Guy. It rarely turned out well.

“Can you just teach me?” Tom asked desperately.

“Alright,” Julian chuckled. He turned off his game and got off the couch. “Have a seat,” he said, pulling up a chair to one of the many tables littering the common room.

“Hold’em poker is a time-honored game, steeped in a rich and glorious tradition of degenerate gambling,” Julian continued. “The rules are simple. Each player is dealt two cards, called ‘hole’ or ‘pocket’ cards. The betting begins at this point. After initial bets are placed, the dealer discards one card from the deck—this is known as ‘burning’ the card—and then lays three cards face up on the table. These cards are known as the ‘flop,’ and more bets can be placed at this juncture. After that another card is ‘burned,’ and the dealer then lays another card on the table, known as the ‘turn’ card. As you may have guessed, more betting goes down. Finally, after another card is ‘burned,’ the last card is laid on the table, known as the ‘river.’ Final bets are placed, and if there are still more than one player left cards are shown. Out of the seven cards you have access to—the two in your hand and the five on the table—you create the best possible hand of five.”

Tom’s eyes were large. “Whoa, ok, too much info all at once. You’re going to have to repeat some of that, but first, what constitutes a good hand?”

“Oh, right,” Julian said, laughing. “Sorry about that. Here, let’s pull up a list of poker hands.” He tapped on one of the many touchscreens embedded in the table, and brought up a list:

“So as you can see, the highest possible hand is a royal flush—a straight flush ace high. Can you see what the lowest hand must be?” Julian queried. “I want to make sure you’re interpreting the list correctly.”

Tom stared at the list for a minute. “Hold on. So a pair is the lowest combination on this list, but what happens if all the players don’t have any of these combinations?”

“The person with the highest card wins.”

“So then the lowest possible hand must be 2-3-4-5-7, non-suited, because those are the lowest cards you can have without getting one of these other combinations,” Tom said, continuing to examine the list of hands.

“Excellent, young apprentice,” Julian said, rubbing his hands together. “You are learning quickly. Any questions so far?”

“Why do you ‘burn’ cards?” Tom asked.

“That rule was created to try and stem inadvertent cheating—if you burn a card it makes it harder to see the next card that will be laid down.”

“Hello lads, what are we up to?” George cut in, collapsing in a chair by their table. “Oh ho, Texas hold’em,” he said, not waiting for a reply.

“Julian’s teaching me how to play,” Tom said. “I’m playing in a tournament in a few days. So Julian, how does this betting thing work?”

“Well…” Julian started, but was cut off once more by George.

“You need to just start playing. Jump in the water and then learn to swim, is my motto. Why don’t we play heads up for practice, and Julian can continue his pathetic attempt at coaching while we play.”

“What’s ‘heads up?’” Tom queried.

“It’s one-on-one,” Julian replied. “That’s a good idea. We don’t have any cards, though, so we’ll play on the screens for now. You can’t see each other’s screens, right?”

“No, we’re good,” George replied. “Here, the computer is dealing now.”

Julian and Tom looked down at the display embedded in the table. A pair of queens stared up at them, a club and a heart.

“This is good, right?” Tom asked.

“I would say so,” Julian replied. “There are only a few better hands than that.”

“ALL IN,” George yelled.

“Now what does that mean?” Tom said irritably.

“That’s George’s bet. Both of us have seen our hands, and now he’s betting all of his imaginary money. At this point in the game it’s difficult to determine what the outcome will be, but betting ‘all in’ is common in tournament play. We’ll call him—match his imaginary bet. Since nobody has any more money to bet, now, we show our cards.”

George’s hand popped up on the screen. He had an ace of spades and a king of hearts.

“It’s going to be a close one. Ace-king is considered the best possible starting hand. His isn’t suited, but it’s good enough,” Julian said.

“Why?”

“OK, it’s time to go more in-depth. Have you had any basic statistics?”

“A little bit on Mars before I came here,” Tom said. “I don’t really remember any of it, though.”

“Well,” Julian said, “All we’re going to look at here are combinations and probability. First let’s look at a simple example. If I gave you four aces, all in different suits, how many ways could they be arranged on the table? Actually, no. First tell me how many different ways one ace could be laid on the table.”

“Um, four?” Tom asked, as if that was too simple an answer.

“Yes! You could lay down an ace of any of four suits,” Julian said. “What about two aces?”

“Well, if the first ace can be laid down four ways, and the second ace can also be laid down four ways, then won’t there be sixteen possible arrangements?” Tom said, less certainly.

“Not quite,” Julian said. “You’re on the right track, though. The second card only has three possible suits, because one suit was used for the first card. So for two cards we have four possibilities for the first card and three for the second, or twelve for both.”

“Ah,” Tom exclaimed. “So the third card has two possibilities, and the forth only has one. Then the total number of arrangements for the aces are four times three times two times one, or twenty-four.”

“Good!” said Julian. “What you just did is a mathematical operation called a ‘factorial.’ We write that operation like this,” he continued, typing on his own screen:

4! = 4 * 3 * 2 * 1

“So now how many ways can you arrange the thirteen cards in a single suit?” Julian queried.

“Thirteen factorial?”
“Wonderful! But what if I gave you all thirteen cards, but then asked you how many ways you could arrange two cards only?” Julian asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Thirteen ways for the first card, and then twelve for the second card, so thirteen times twelve,” Tom replied with a little more confidence.

“Exactly. We call that calculation a permutation. We usually write it this way,” he said, tapping some more:

“Eleven factorial cancels eleven factorial on top, leaving thirteen times twelve. Generically the permutation is written like this,” he continued:

“Where ‘n’ is the number of things you have and ‘r’ is the number of things you are arranging. Now there is one more set of notation we want to look at. In poker, we don’t care what order the cards are in when they’re dealt. That is, a three and a four is the same as a four and a three. To account for that, we divide thirteen times twelve by two. This is called a ‘combination,’ and is written more generally like this,”

“That extra r factorial gets rid of duplicate hands,” Julian finished. “We say this ‘n choose r.’ So then the total number of possible starting hands is 52 choose 2, or 1326. The number of ways you can be dealt a pair is 4 choose 2, or 6, so then the probability of being dealt a pair is 6 divided by 1326, or about point zero zero four five.”

Tom looked stupendously bored. “That’s all great, but what does it have to do with George’s ace-king?” he asked.

“If you use the tools I just gave you, you’ll figure out that ace-king suited has a higher probability of giving you the largest hands than any other starting hand. Aside from a good chance of families of aces and kings, it also sets you up for a high flush, straight, or royal straight. At worst you have two high cards,” Julian said. “Alright, let’s finish this hand.”

The computer flopped the ten of diamonds, the eight of spades, and the deuce of clubs.

“That’s a good flop for you,” Julian remarked. “It’s now much less likely that George will hit a pair.”

“Shut up and keep dealing,” George said.

Julian tapped the computer again and the turn card was dealt. It was the queen of diamonds. George began cursing far more violently than a round of poker with imaginary bets warranted. It seemed to cheer him considerably.

“So you’ve got it pretty much in the bag,” Julian commented. “The only thing that can save him is a jack. There’s four of them left, so he’s got about a nine percent chance of hitting one.”

The computer dealt the river. It was the jack of diamonds. George whooped.

Julian nodded thoughtfully. “That’s what I love about poker. You think you’re doing well, and then against the odds your hopes and dreams are crushed. The only way to win in the long run is to stay completely unemotional and detached. It is a metaphor for life—it does, in fact, describe life perfectly.”

George was nodding sagely, all vestiges of his previous elation either gone or well-hidden.

Tom furrowed his brow. “I think… I think that might be really depressing, you guys.”

END OF EPISODE FOUR

Note:

I began writing this as a rudimentary introduction to combinations, permutations, and poker, but realized halfway through that it was veering sharply away from anything resembling entertainment. I consequently cut it shorter than I had intended it to be. If you like the concept but not the implementation let me know—I may attempt a longer one in the future if there is any interest.

Finally, if you are new to poker one of the most important concepts to learn (which I did not mention) is that of pot odds. Have fun.

Pawan’s bench was across from Julian’s in the computational exobiochemistry bay.

“What’s up, Pawan,” Julian replied.

“You know how the University of Space is ranked 122nd in the Sol system for graduate studies?”

Julian nodded in affirmation.

“Well, do you think it’s a coincidence that, if you multiply 122 by ten to the seventeenth power, you get approximately the Planck mass energy equivalent in gigaelectronvolts?” Pawan continued.

“I think that it is definitely a coincidence, and I don’t know why you would even ask that question,” Julian replied. “In fact, if you ask me a question like that again I may have to slap you in the face.”

“OK,” Pawan said, grinning and returning to work.

END OF EPISODE THREE.

“Dude, we’re on a spaceship sixty-eight light-years from our home planet. We’re advanced.”

“Yeah, but think about it for a minute. If Shridhar Rangarajan hadn’t come up with the theoretical method for creating a traversable space-time discontinuity, we wouldn’t even be here right now,” Julian said, furrowing his brow. “One guy came up with the method we used to get here. I’m not sure that we, as a species, can claim to be advanced when all of the technology that our societal infrastructure is based on was invented by a thousandth of our population. That’s point zero one percent. All that separates us from our cave-man ancestors are a few pretty ideas and some materials technology, the majority of which were created by some very rare guys who had superpower-level curiosity.” He paused. “Actually, it’s our computers that are keeping us out of the dark ages, but they are just a function of an application of time to the aforementioned ideas and materials. My point stands.”

“Are you saying that out of the eighty billion people in the sol system and another thirteen billion stellar colonists that only ninety-three million are engaged in meaningful research?” George paused. “Actually, I can believe that. Only about one percent of the people I know are engaged in really useful research, and all the people I know are academics.”

“But still,” he went on, “You are assuming that if Rangarajan hadn’t come up with his method, nobody would have. Maybe we had just reached a collective level of knowledge that allowed Ragarajan to put all the pieces together. At the end of the 20th century science exploded because communications networks had developed to the point where any person had access to hundreds of years of research.”

Julian looked skeptical. “Having the data required to do something and being clever enough to do it are two completely different things. Historians have found palimpsests written by Archimedes that speak about discoveries in science and mathematics that he made that nobody matched for fifteen hundred years. By your reckoning shouldn’t somebody have come along a little sooner and picked up where he left off, instead of forgetting everything he said? Not to mention writing over his books with prayers to some guy who created the universe because he was bored, and is apparently still hiding somewhere waiting to see what happens.”

“You’re getting off-topic,” George said, slightly exasperatedly. “I’m telling you, it’s because back then not very many people had access to the kind of information that Archimedes did. Shortly after he died the dark ages came and nobody really had time to ask questions. Everyone was too busy trying to avoid living in their own excrement, and not really even succeeding at that. Archimedes was a smart dude, though.”

Julian looked pensive. “So I guess the real question is whether or not the natural behavior of large groups of humans quashed all the little Archimedeses for a thousand years, or if there were no little Archimedeses for a thousand years.” He laughed. “The fact that we actually have to ask that question demonstrates that we aren’t really much more advanced than Neanderthals.”

“I don’t like your attitude toward Neanderthals. They could have been great guys! Except that we killed them all off. Which actually reinforces your point. Damn.”

George was silent a moment, then added, “We’re assuming that ‘advanced’ and ‘technologically proficient through rational thought and profound curiosity’ are synonymous. What about art, and being spiritually advanced?”

George looked at each other seriously for about three seconds, then broke down into hysterical laughter.

END OF EPISODE TWO.

Julian was a grad student in the special area of applied science, which meant that he got all the most interesting (read: incredibly difficult and dangerous) research projects. More specifically he was a computational exobiochemist, which was currently making him wonder why the hell he was chopping through this dark tangled bitch of a jungle with only thirty-two micrometers of ED suit between him and who knew what kind of deadly organisms instead of sitting in front of a computer computing something. Ah well, he needed physical data as much as the next guy. His com unit beeped to life.

“Julian, you there?” the voice belonged to Astrid, the post-doc in charge of the lander.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“There’s a clearing up ahead of you, and something strange seems to be going on. We’re getting some bizarre scans from the Ganesha and I need you to keep your eyes open.”

The Ganesha was the laboratory vessel that Julian and his colleagues called home. She was getting old, and wasn’t the prettiest of ships, but she was functional. In theory the university was supposed to perform regular inspections and maintenance on its fleet of lab ships, but in practice the governmental standards were rarely enforced and the academic bureaucracy was such that the people actually running the ships had limited access to maintenance funding. Most of the endowments related to infrastructure were budgeted for new vessels. Consequently the Ganesha had a patched look, both inside and out. Even so, Julian wouldn’t have traded her for a new ship. She had developed a character of her own and had served his lab well. If trusting her meant someday being blown into the icy blackness of space, well, that’s the way it was going to be.

“What kind of strangeness?” Julian asked, still hacking savagely at the vines in front of him.

“Well,” Astrid said, sounding uncertain. “There’s a clearing ahead of you, and a large rhino-sized creature was just there. Then a large fuzzy thing came, and now the creature is gone.”

“. . .”

“a ‘large fuzzy thing?’ what does that even mean? And when you say ‘gone,’ do you mean the rhino ran away?” Julian said, exasperated. “You know what, just hold on a minute. George, did you hear that?”

George was a geophysicist and a good guy–’Good’ in the sense that he wouldn’t abandon a friend in the middle of a jungle on a largely unexplored planet (we won’t talk about his unorthodox ethical philosophy right now). Protocol stated that members of a landing party must never wander off solo, so George and Julian were collecting data in the same general direction.

“Yeah, that sounds like some not particularly helpful information,” George replied. “Maybe you could be a little more specific, Astrid dearest.”
“There is nothing else,” Astrid said, exasperated. “The fuzzy thing may have been an insect swarm, but that’s a guess. And no, Julian, the rhino-thing did not run away. It is just no longer there.”

“All right Julian, I’m coming over to join you before we hit that clearing,” George said.

On his HUD Julian could see the red dot that was George moving toward him through the jungle. After a few minutes of crashing sounds coming closer and closer, George emerged from the foliage.

“OK, where is this clearing, Astrid?” Julian asked.

“About fifty meters northeast of you,” she replied. “Also, Andre Villalobos is converging on your position from the northwest. He’ll meet you at the cliffs east of the clearing.”

Julian and George chuckled grimly. Last year while on the Ganymede main campus they had convinced Andre that the Ganesha was leaving a day later than scheduled, stranding Andre on Ganymede for six months. This had significantly delayed the completion of Andre’s thesis, and they had every reason to believe that he was still pissed about it. To be fair, Andre was kind of a dick. He had previously had his uncle reject a perfectly good paper that George had submitted for peer review by insinuating that the data George referenced was partially fabricated. There was no evidence of any misconduct on either side, but everyone knew. The feud between Andre and George had started as an argument over a girl  their first year, and had been escalating ever since.

Julian called Andre from his com unit. Might as well be civil. “Hey man, how’s it going?”

“Screw you,” came the reply.

“OK, so we’ll see you at the cliffs then,” Julian said, and terminated the connection.

About twenty minutes later they were in the clearing. There was a spiky grasslike plant growing right up to the  edge of the trees, about a meter tall. All along the eastern edge of the clearing the plants were recently crushed by something large (possibly rhino-sized). Julian and George started poking through the growth, and after a moment Julian yelled.

“Check this out! There’s a pile of white chips over here, they look bonish.”

“Really? That’s the best you can do? ‘Bonish?’ Aren’t you a bio person?” George shook his head. “Alright. Astrid, Julian says…”

“Yes, I heard,” Astrid cut in. “There’s something a little more pressing going on right now though, guys. I’ve lost contact with Andre.”

“Um, what?” George said. “Astrid, why and how have you lost contact with Andre?”

A long sigh was heard over the com channel. “Guys, Andre reached the cliffs a couple minutes ago and told me that there are a series of tunnel openings there. We can see the tunnels with density mapping from the Ganesha, but we don’t know what’s in there. He said he was going to poke his head in, and about thirty seconds later there was a scream and then nothing. His tracking signal disappeared also.”

There was silence for a moment, then Julian cleared his throat and said, “OK, we’re going to head over there now. Are we sure there’s nothing here that could get through his ED suit?”

“We haven’t detected any extremely large animal life on the surface, and there’s no trace of a technological civilization,” Astrid replied. “Also, there’s no indication that any possible large sub-terrestrial life frequents the surface at all. The most likely scenario is that he was startled and damaged his com unit somehow. However, to be safe I’ll attempt to land in the clearing you are in now and bring some help.”

“We’re leaving now,” Julian said, and they began hacking through the jungle once again.

The explorers sent down from the ganesha always traveled with one very important piece of equipment: an Environmental Defense Suit. The ED suit could be completely sealed and had self-contained life-support systems—it could even function temporarily in complete vacuum, although the Ganesha had other suits more suited for non-atmosphere environments. The material was notoriously difficult to puncture, especially since the material became rigid when an extremely large force was imparted. The threshold of rigidity was high enough along the joints to allow a person to move freely, but the suit would become a hard shell if stepped upon by a large animal, the force being evenly distributed throughout the material. The suit could also vary its surface temperature, becoming extremely hot or cold in order to deter any creatures who decided a grad student would make a good snack. Finally, the suits were equipped with communications systems, positioning systems, limited sensors (electromagnetic and sonic), and other tool attachments. The suits were quite expensive, and were handled with care by the students. It was difficult to imagine a com unit malfunctioning or being so easily damaged. Julian was beginning to get slightly nervous.

After only a few minutes of walking the cliffs loomed over the jungle in front of them. They headed for  Andre’s last known location and were soon at the yawning entrance to a cave.

“Astrid, we’re definitely going into a really scary cave right now. Please tell our mothers we love them if we don’t come back out,” George said with a mock sob.

“Right, George,” Astrid replied, without humor. “We’re landing in the clearing now, and will be where you are shortly.”

The cave was damp at the entrance, but became gradually drier as Julian and George walked on. The walls and floor were made of a stone that displayed a weak iridescence under their suit lights.

“Can we hold on a minute?” George said. “These walls appear to contain some interesting plagioclase feldspars.”

“Um, you might want to see this,” Julian said. He stood very still.

George took his attention off the cave wall and looked ahead. “Oh,” he murmured.

In front of them was a large swarm of flying creatures. Astrid had been partially correct. They did look like insects, but much larger than most insects from Earth. The most impressive thing about the swarm, however, was the purple light that appeared to be shining from every member to every other member. The purple was so high frequency that it was just barely in the visible range. They flew around in a tight cloud, apparently ignoring Julian and George completely.

After a moment George slowly said, “Sooo, what are we looking at here, Julian?”

“It looks like the swarm that might have eaten that rhino-thing,” Julian said dazedly.

“Yes, thank you professor science,” George said.

Julian snapped out of it. “Sorry. The creatures seem to have disproportionately large wingspans, which would make sense if they are carnivorous. The energy required to sustain hovering flight with tiny wings is quite large, probably too large for an insect that metabolizes primarily proteins. That’s probably why we don’t see any on Earth. If this thing ate that rhino, it’s quite a formidable carnivore.”

“I think you may be understating,” George said. “This is the most fucking amazing thing I’ve seen in a long time. What’s all these purple lights for?”

“Man, I don’t know. Although,” Julian said, getting excited, “It could be a substitute for pheromone communication. If that’s true, than the information transfer rate would be many orders of magnitude faster. All together the bugs could even be semi-intelligent!”

“I think it’s looking at me,” said George, staring at the swarm obliquely. “I’m calling it a Collective of Alien Sky Piranhas–CASP for short.”

Suddenly a deep mechanical voice boomed.

“WHAT IS A PIRANHA.”

Julian and George looked around wildly, until they realized that the voice had come from their com units. The units did not register an ident code for the voice.

“Who is speaking, please?” Julian said.

“I AM,” boomed the voice.

Julian looked at the swarm suspiciously. “Are you in this cave with us?”

“YES.”

“Are we looking at you?” Julian continued, more nervously.

“YES. YOU CAN CALL ME BOB.”

George started laughing hysterically. “All right Andre, you can come out. We know it’s you,” he said between convulsions.

“I BELIEVE THIS ANDRE OF WHICH YOU SPEAK IS NO LONGER HERE. HE MADE A HIGH FREQUENCY NOISE AND LEFT MORE RAPIDLY THAN HE CAME.”

George’s laughter subsided. “And we’re supposed to believe that a carnivorous alien swarm named Bob is talking to us in this cave for no apparent reason?”
“YES. AND THERE IS A REASON.”

The swarm seemed to think that this was enough information for now.

Julian turned to George. “I actually don’t think that Andre could have brought enough equipment down in the lander to create an illusion like this,” he said.

“So you think that we are actually talking to this CASP?” George replied.

“I’m just saying it seems like a pretty elaborate illusion just to fool us.”

“I AM NOT AN ILLUSION,” the swarm interjected. “ALSO, WHAT IS A PIRANHA.”

“Uh, a Piranha is a creature from our planet that lives in water. There is a myth that a shoal of Piranhas can strip a human to the bone in seconds. Bob, can we look at you more closely?” Julian inquired. “We would like to verify that you are not an illusion. By the way, it’s nice to meet you.”

“YES. ALSO, I HAVE NO DESIRE TO STRIP A HUMAN TO THE BONE.”

Julian took this to mean that an examination was acceptable. He walked over to the swarm and pulled out the magnification attachment on his ED suit.

George said, “Dude, be careful. The ED suit can probably hold the thing off, but you don’t know anything about it.”

The warning was useless because Julian was already magnifying one of the bugs. The swarm seemed to behave itself, however.

“George, this thing is real for sure. My sensors are being a little screwy, but I know that this level of detail could not be simulated on our ship. We’re talking to a real apparently sentient being here.” Julian stood there in awe for a moment. “I cannot believe this is happening.”

Other intelligent species were not unknown to humanity, but the list of known sentients was not long, and Julian had definitely never been a part of discovering one.

“THIS IS DEFINITELY HAPPENING,” the swarm said. “ALSO, CASP IS A SATISFACTORY TERM FOR MY SPECIES.”

George began laughing again. “Julian, I just named a sentient alien species. Astrid better get here soon. She’s going to love the fact that I’m going to be super rich and famous.”

Julian looked around. “Yeah, where is Astrid? She should have been here by now.”

“WE WILL NOT BE INTERRUPTED,” Bob the casp said. “I HAVE ANOTHER QUESTION.”

“Wait, why won’t we be interrupted?” Julian asked. “And how are you speaking English?”

“YOUR COMPANIONS WILL NOT FIND US. I HAVE TEMPORARILY SEALED THIS CAVE. I HAVE NO DESIRE TO SPEAK WITH ANYONE ELSE AT THE PRESENT TIME. ALSO, I HAVE ANALYZED THE LINGUISTIC DATA CONTAINED IN YOUR EXOSKELETONS. I AM NOW POSESSED OF YOUR LANGUAGE RUDIMENTS.”

George said, “You know, this should be much more terrifying than it is. Julian, you realize that this thing has locked us in a cave with unknown tech and is now going to proceed to ‘question’ us, right?”

“YES, I HAVE A QUESTION,” Bob interposed.

“Hold on, why won’t you let anyone else in the cave?” Julian asked.

“I HAVE A QUESTION,” Bob repeated.

“Alright, what is your question?” George said impatiently.

“WOULD YOU RATHER BE UNINTELLIGENT AND HAPPY OR INTELLIGENT AND UNHAPPY?”

Julian and George looked at each other for a moment. Finally Julian said, “Can we get back to you on that?”

There was a long silence. Apparently Bob had to think about that one.

“YES, YOU MAY GO. PLEASE COME BACK SOON, ALONE.”

“OK, thanks!” George said. “It was nice meeting you!”

“Hold on, can we ask you some questions before we go?” Julian said to Bob.

“NO.”

“Got it.”

They both backed up a few steps, turned around, and walked rather hurriedly out of the cave.

Once outside they quickly found Astrid. She and a couple techs from the lander were examining the cliffs off to the north. Julian and George quickly told her what had happened, and they all went back to the entrance of the cave, but the opening had disappeared. Astrid clearly didn’t believe a word of their story. After hunting around for a few minutes she insisted that they drop it.

They found Andre wandering around a few hundred meters to the south.

“Hey man, what happened? Did you see that swarm thing?” Julian asked.

Andre looked uncomfortable. “I haven’t seen anything since I was speaking with Astrid. I tripped on a rock and my com system went down for a while. I’ve been looking for you guys ever since.”

“And your positioning system as well, huh?” George asked suspiciously.

Andre ignored him.

“Well, it’s been a long day for all of us,” Astrid cut in. “Maybe you two will find something on your next trip down.”

She ferried them all back up to the Ganesha in silence. Their rotation on the planet was over for a few days.

*

Back up on the Ganesha, Julian and George walked down the corridor to their quarters in silence. Finally George spoke.

“Man, this is bullshit. I’m going to bed.”

END OF EPISODE ONE.