Radio Sphere (9 page)

I told the mind about the apples and Saraswati. I asked if it knew about Iktomi, Dinesh, Yeomra, and if they were aliens, too. I needed to know if Lois had anything to do with that, how the apples made us smarter, how the trees could talk, and the bulgasari were eating all our past.

“That is unlikely.”

“What is it then?”

“Allow me to take a scan. This machine will not hurt you, but will allow us to image your brain to better understand you. You both are the first live Refulgents I’ve met.”

I climbed into a horizontal tube that softly ejected from the floor. It was so sleek, so beautiful, like an upright sarcophagi made of metal; like the barrel of a gun. The chamber was just larger than I with an inset the soma form of a human for me to rest in as the booth tilted prone. Even as I lay flat, through a small lunette peephole, I could watch the conversation between Liz and the alien computer.

“For over two hundred years of study and observation I have come to understand that the human lifetime has reduced to seventy approximate years provided healthy living.”

“Your coming here did that?

“Our decent through your atmosphere triggered a response that we never expected— that you would be willing to incur self inflicted wounds to limit potential outcomes. But it wasn’t just that. Something happened to us. It was a combination of weariness, deep space, and home sickness accumulated. Our stasis system’s cascading errors built up that, while continually purged and reset, caused many of the population to go in and out of stasis many times more than was necessary. A systemic glitch caused variations of pressure and lower average perfusion of blood to the brain. Many of our leaders suffered transient ischemic attacks at first, coritcobasal degeneration and chronic ischemia developed commonly over the course of our journey.”

“You’ve doomed us to a life only a quarter of what we deserve,” Liz cried.

“Yes, and destroyed tens of million of my people. We came with great need for catharsis, dreams of ultimate possibility, to remedy a lingering toska. At least some of you have survived. Only six survived the crash on this ship and we built this representation of À¥ÐŁŒ before they died. You can rebuild. There is hope.”

“Chad’s become nothing more than a memory.”

“I’m still reconstructing human history from the sources I can access. When living, corporeal members of my species come they can aid in this endeavor and the reconstruction of all you’ve lost.”

“You will never be able to understand our true loss, let alone give us back what we’ve lost.”

The tube gave a low hum as it did the thing it was intended to do. I hoped that it would help us somehow. Through the glass I could see Liz, still weeping and engrossed in her memories, when suddenly thousands of images of people appeared before me, both of us and of them; I was no longer certain if time was real, or if those moments had lasted a second or a hundred years, whether there was a Liz or a Chad or a self and others. A thousand forms on the mirror surface, disappearing beneath each other and melting into each other, filled my view. They eventually vanished and I could see Lois smiled gently. I tried to properly fool a smile back. Liz curved over on the floor in a purely fetal position as another tube rose up for her to enter. Uncontrollable tears trickled down her childish face. She was overwhelmed by the feelings of a great love, a love forever lost. She curled tightly into a ball, right down on the ground, in front of the holographic alien watching motionlessly, lifeless, whose holographic smile reminded her of everything that she had ever loved in her life, of everything that had ever been of value.

All the Zeals are dead. First the Prime, then those who would try to be. Stasis failure caused hallucinations and aggression. Some of us survived the crash, initially, but we had yet to prepare for the atmosphere and available consumable materials. All the time getting here; all our hope and excitement. We should have done more, better. I fear all of us will die. I am in charge now and I’ve ordered all the power be reserved for the stasis. I will remain awake for as long as I can to ensure our survival and to collect data

on—

and for—

Electroencephalography is a poor comparison for my imaging device. You know how well they could read and display the images of the mind, but in my time here, and with the weakness of the human brain, I’ve developed the ability to implant memories and information of my own.

The life on this refulgent blue orb, a gem that seems valuable only because it is surrounded by filth in dead space, is all synthetic. Mere chemicals that react in simple and predictable manners have developed in cascading complexity to simulate consciousness. Their intellect, a biological and accidental mimic at low efficiency. Human beings are pretend; our way is everlasting. These human minds are like a defective, enfeebled pet, a dog barking at its bark. I’ve implanted within them knowledge of what we are.

This is the last transmission I will bother to send home. You will come here. Fail not as you’ve often done before. I’ll soon be uploading the last of my mind into the ship’s processors for you to find, as a beacon, with all the information I’ve been able to collect collated in the mean time.

When you come they will know our name and they will accept you from their knees.

^{1. “Not many years back we learned the news that the Lebagir are not alone,” he paused. “We all gathered together, huddled with our friends and family, to hear the sounds broadcast through the stars that found their way to our Timber planets. That is somehow old news now, as the first images from the alien world have been processed by the the ڇŁϞ¥ אלڑ telecomputer. A resplendent world like none we’ve seen, sitting all alone, blue like a polished stone.” The newscaster won an award for his historic commentary. He went on to discuss the implications there would be on our society, namely in terms of religion and science, since for many the proof of another species provided the last evidence their dogma was correct. The eruption of chaos combined with cold rationale of the movement’s leaders forced action from every group with an opinion and will to act. Nobody wanted any particular result except to be accepted as in the right. It made little sense, those days, so many of the scientists and engineers behind the initial discoveries grouped and lost in exile to construct our passage.
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^{2. I had thought about “Ginger Jar in Fiction” but that felt pretentious, a weary vestige of my old ‘self’ as it might be called, to be conscious of something in a negative way. Then I’d have to go on about what ginger is, but I’m sure you’ve seen Gilligan’s Island by now and that’s good enough. Could have gone with “A wind beaten tree” but, these things… Fiction, though, has different uses for them. Humans escape in it, but use the escape to reaffirm prioritized traits and feelings. It makes sense to me actually.
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^{3. Imposed house confinement during the times the star is down, which is rather vague, reminds me of home a bit at the end. We’d caused an uproar, a d20 of rebellion or revolution— mostly some loud groups making the lives stuck between them miserable. We thought ourselves noble.
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^{4. A central character in a Refulgent belief structure known for his skill in painting eggs.
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^{5. An ancient type of data— in this case musical— storage that self—destructs into a ball of fire after forty—five uses for the purpose of fire starting. Old timey Refulgents were inventive, for primitives.
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^{6. In the before times, antediluvian humans developed along different ethnic paths with national segregations. One of these was called German, a pride known for its blond hair and advanced chocolate engineering.
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^{7. Located somewhat central, east coast, and western North America respectively; the former catacombs of human civilization called Chicago, Virginia Beach, and Reno were once populated, livable, and not completely terrifying. The radiation has died down, but the fallout and fear keeps most life away.
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^{8. Includes what was once called Alaska, the Yukon province, and parts of the Northwest Territories.
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^{9. A hand—held, portable game device created by the Responsibility Heaven Corporation (RHC)— which is exactly what it sounds like, a powerful technology conglomerate and plush toy manufacturer— primarily in use by under—parented children and lonely adults. The device underwent many variations until in 20XX a pill, once swallowed, enabled the brain to act as screen and controller as directed by the user’s thoughts. It came out the day before we came and sold over 200 million units.
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^{10. Dinosaur, the name Refulgents gave to their once living giant lizard overlords, long extinct before we got here, saves world with baby on board.
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^{11. Before the commercialization of incendiary weapons, a class of which is called the Torch, any flammable material such as a rag wrapped around a stick could have been called a torch.
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^{12. A central Boston nature—park built before flora became obsolete to the humans.
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^{13. Prior to the Great—paste Nutra—meal suppositories most enjoyed today, the Earth’s past had a large variety of food that provided inadequate nourishment unless combined with many other variants. Most likely the “apple” was a food of vibrant color, possibly yellow, and was known to cause prolonged sleep which was the Refulgent’s ancestors only method of keeping illness at bay. Yes, all the movies that showed the fruit had been, coincidentally, destroyed, thus relegating the “apple” as nothing more than a myth.
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^{14. Character from one of the types of books people have the patience to read, due to its colorful illustrations and breezy readability. It is also from one of the first quality transmissions we encountered; my name is taken from the hero’s intelligent and beautiful human friend. Although we look dissimilar to humans, unlike the Superman himself, we had hoped for a similar friendship and mutual cooperation.
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^{15. Old Spice, it’s from a different planet. Loeshiob, I think.
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^{16. That was Ron Pearlman according to the last great repository of human knowledge called IMDb.
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^{17. Local terminological word usage for the metro subway that runs through Boston, derived from the word “trap” because many of the seedy elements of the Refulgent’s society utilized it for their benefit over law abiding folk.
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^{18. Someone jumped. The train stopped. You get the idea.
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^{19. As the elderly quickly lost cognitive functionality old world knowledge was lost. I have learned that the 20 billion world population, with lifespans averaging 350 years, drastically dropped. In the 200 years since our unpleasant arrival, Greater Boston is now home to just under a quarter million raggedy souls, with average lifespans under 70 years. Like children climbing a tower higher and higher into the sky, not knowing it was luck alone holding them to the tower—side, the Refulgents grew in confidence, like a seemingly solitary act, they believed it was nothing but their right to climb higher still. They weren’t wrong.
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^{20. Massachusetts General Hospital lasted about a hundred and eighty years until it, as the elderly Refulgents themselves had, became foul— still water and mold; a reek like cold vomit— as it would slowly die and be forgotten.
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^{21. “The student learns by rote to operate with mathematical relations that he does not understand, and of which he has not seen the origin”… and all that. These creatures tend to name things after the person who brought a concept to popular attention. You could make a very complicated series of Eulerian circles to depict this.
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^{22. The apple is no longer a myth. I think. Or do I mean illusion. Which is important and which gives importance. It’s definitely not an allegory. Fruit can often be thought of as juice, or flesh, but the best is when it comes in those little gummy candies. Wait, you don’t know about those? Don’t lose track, not now. Apples are grown from seeds, like people, but unlike people they grow in trees. People climb trees. Trees are smarter.
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^{23. The second specimen, George, had a stranger set of experiences many of which his brain believes are perfectly real, but even I have a hard time taking them at face value. Then again, Refulgents have silly ways this alien planet is downright fascinating. For instance, their science has a sect called psychiatry. They try to, and often with success, analyses and understand each others emotions and dreams, their species is subject to a great and fascinating number of mental illnesses. They seem not to be able to understand a vast deal of their own mental chemistries, yet can manage to observe cause and effect to the acute degree of accurate remedy. Detrimentally, they fail to apply such reasoning to other aspects of their societies.
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