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Embracing the Alien
by Geoffrey A. Landis
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Science Fiction

Fictionwise, Inc.
www.fictionwise.com

Copyright ©1992 Geoffrey A. Landis

First published in Analog Magazine of Science Fiction and Fact, November 1992

NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

I write this in the human language. The very fact that I write in their language tells how much I have fallen.

To write down the deeds of others, black laser-carved hieroglyphs on thin white rectangles, what timra is there in this? This is not our way. The way of the true people is to share directly, breathe in our pod-mate's air, share each other's soil, and let our experiences merge, without interpretation, without words.

But the great pod-fathers have instructed us to embrace difference, to root with strangers and let our seed grow rich. The universe is great and we are small; if we fear change we will be destroyed, the pod-fathers tells us; and so I have been sent out to cross the universe in the company of strange-smelling, strangely shaped predators. I have come to adopt their ways, to think their thoughts and act their actions.

But understand them, I do not.

* * * *

The ship of the humans travels at unimaginable speeds. Their curiosity is flickering, intense but transitory; they dart from place to place like pollinating insects, always pausing but never stopping to know any one place in fullness. I have seen marvels without end, some menacing, some harmless. They have no sense of pod, no sense of species-preservation beyond their selves. One day, I fear, they will in innocence awaken something greater than themselves that will destroy them without their ever knowing the danger. Before, I would have said that they could not conceive of such a threat. But I have seen it, have seen that they comprehended the threat, even embraced it. In truth, they seem to accept species destruction. They embrace the alien.

I thought I understood them. Now I fear I cannot.

* * * *

Torri is the name I have taken among the humans. The syllables are easy for them to pronounce, with no meaning in their language. In the true speech it is close in pronunciation to the word that means “alone."

The City of Anchorage is a ship of the humans’ curiosity, and my duty station is to be aboard observing them. City of Anchorage was at once both a large ship and many small ones. The powered core ferried with it the scientific stations, each one itself a small ship. It would drop these stations to gather their data at sites of interest on planetary surfaces or in orbit near astrophysical sites, then vanish back into the invisible topology of FTL space.

Six of the stations had been dropped. The station with which I was observer was next. It had the name Anchorage Station Seven, but the humans referred to it only as the Igloo. Our drop was to be an unusual area of space given their designation ‘Praesepe cluster.’ The humans’ gravity telescopes had shown mass there, but their optical telescopes showed nothing. They calculated that the cluster primary was a highly dense object, possibly a black hole. The humans, as always briefly curious about anything they thought unusual, wanted to drop our scientific station into the system to investigate further.

Through the large portal I saw only the emptiness of space, speckled by distant stars. The captain of the ship, Ringelman, was with the technician Varju in our station.

Varju was a member of a species that had no name for themselves until the humans named them the stripeys; the name refers to a violet-grey surface coloring invisible to my range of vision. It was the only other non-human on the ship. To me, Varju looked much like a human, with two legs slightly longer than the humans', two arms, and an infrared signature of about three-ten Celsius pulsing warm and cool with the syncopated rhythm of a triple-chambered heart. Its—his—race had been met by the humans some two centuries before the humans met us, and they had assimilated to the humans quickly and thoroughly, so completely that I thought of him as another human, only slightly different in shape and size from the others. Even the pronoun it chose to use—he—made him seem to emulate humans, though he was not of their seeding caste. His pod came from a star even further from pod-home than the human's star, and so his people and ours have never met, save on the human's ships. They are neither predator nor prey to us. Varju and I maintained a distant but cordial relationship.

“The primary of this system is indeed a black hole,” said Varju. Like the humans, his people also collect knowledge for the sake of knowledge, using the methodical curiosity they call science, and often enjoy showing off what they know. “I can detect no accretion disk surrounding the event horizon. This may be an indication of great age."

“Better not get too close,” said the pilot of our station. She was a human named Stakowski. She was always on duty, but when the station was docked to the ship core she had no primary duties, and she was as likely to be up on the science level as in her piloting egg. “These things have a bad rep for swallowing ships."

“Black holes are quite fascinating astrophysical objects,” said Varju. The tendrils behind his neck curled and uncurled slowly as he talked. “If one could approach the event horizon of a black hole, time would slow down. Inside the event horizon, according to theory, time and space reverse roles."

“All I know is,” said the pilot, “I don't want to be the one to try it."

“Can you get a telescope on it?” Captain Ringelman asked.

I could see it clearly, and was momentarily surprised that the humans couldn't. “It's right there,” I said.

“I don't see anything,” she said.

“It would be more visible if you could see it in the infrared spectrum,” I said, slightly apologetically, for the humans do not see very well beyond a very narrow spectrum, and dislike being reminded of it.

Varju turned to the view screen behind him and spoke to the computer. “Spectrum infrared center five microns compression three—” a faint blur became visible in the center of the computer screen as Varju continued without pausing “—magnification ten, contrast plus ten.” The faint blur enlarged to fill most of the screen, showing a black disk with a dark red corona around it, similar to the human's sun blocked by their large moon.

“What are we seeing?” the pilot asked.

Varju answered with a distant, distracted air. “You're looking at the heating of interstellar gas as it falls into the black hole."

A wavering, reddish-blue shape started to glow at the edge of the disk. Varju frowned, a facial movement that he had apparently learned from the humans, although without flexible skin over his face the gesture appeared like a war-sign to me. “Something is happening on the event horizon."

“What is it?” asked the captain.

Varju seemed puzzled and slightly awed. His neck tendrils stood out straight. “I don't know."

I looked out the porthole and saw ... something. I shut my infra-eyes, then my chromatic eyes, but could not decypher what I saw. I could feel it, too, like a slowly-changing electrostatic field. “My sense organs are picking something up. An energy of some kind."

“Good,” said the Captain. She smiled. “You'll have something to investigate. Prepare to drop the station."

* * * *

The captain sent me down to find Jared Brown, her first mate (though as far as I could see he was not mated to the captain) and the commander of our station. His name was once mentioned as having an amusing overtone, since the name was opposite to the coloration of his skin. This is a human subtlety almost invisible against the infrared glow of their body temperature, but it was explained that a lightness of skin pigment was quite unusual.

He was off-shift, but it was not yet his sleep schedule.

The core of the human ship is larger than it has need to be, with whole rooms devoted to specialized socializing activities. I found him in the commons room sipping at a mixture of ethanol and water. This is a chemical combination poisonous for us, but necessary for metabolic function in some (but not all) humans. He sat at a table with a personal viewer, musing over some sort of two-dimensional images. Another, a woman, had entered just before me. I knew her; she and Brown had been doing a courtship dance for several days. The captain had not specified urgency, so I took this as an opportunity to observe humans, my primary mission.

She rested her head on her hands and looked silently across at him. After a moment he looked up at her. I couldn't interpret his expression.

Apparently she could. “You look ... sad?” she said. “Wistful?"

“Just a bit nostalgic, I guess.” He sighed.

“You want to talk?"

Brown silently slid the viewer around so she could see the photographs. “Memories from college."

“A friend?"

“Someone I knew."

“Ah.” Her tone was carefully neutral. “Why are you thinking about her now?

“Black hole,” he said. “Being so close to one now brought her to mind. She was on the Beagle when it entered the Cygnus X-1 system."

“Ah,” she said. The Cygnus X-1 disaster was well known by space-farers; even I knew of it. She didn't have to say anything more.

“She died as she wanted to live, doing the work she loved,” he said. He shook his head and smiled. “Pretty lucky, eh? How many of us get a chance like that? I'm told that her preliminary report on Cygnus X-1 is still a classic in the field.” He paused. “She had a real talent for physics. She could have...” Brown paused again, searching for words. “I don't know. She had such talent, such great potential. But never got a real chance to see where it would lead."

He shook his head and picked up his drink. “Maybe that's good. Maybe it's better to die young, never be disappointed. I was offered a slot on the Beagle. If things had been otherwise, I might have been there too."

“Do you think you could have made a difference?"

“Saved the expedition? Of course not. I could have died with her."

They were both silent for a moment, and I considered that an appropriate time to announce my presence.

Brown looked up. “I'm sorry. Were you looking for me?"

“We're ready to drop as soon as you are. The captain wants you up-deck."

He stood up. “Hell. Okay, okay. Tell her I'm on my way."

* * * *

There were just the four of us in the station as we prepared for the drop: Brown, now commander of the station, Varju and I, and Stakowski in her piloting egg. Our weight fell away as the City of Anchorage slowed rotation, and then suddenly the all-pervasive low note of the station changed timbre. We had separated from the ship-core. Our pilot steadied the station, and in the viewscreen we watched the ship-core spin-up. Brown checked the function, Varju and I checked Brown, and Stakowski, presumably, ran her own checks. We were in orbit, and functioning perfectly. Brown took the radio. “Looking good here, guys. See you in two weeks. Don't be late, okay?"

“We'll be there,” came the reply. “Have a good session."

And suddenly the City of Anchorage sparkled and vanished.

We were alone.

I watched the black hole in the viewport. I had no duties requiring immediate action, and I watched it, fascinated, while Brown and Varju set the observational instruments in order. It seemed to oscillate slowly in shape, from oblate to prolate and back, and each orbit the knot of swirling energy at the edge of the event horizon seemed to be brighter than ever. And it continued to brighten.

Not brighter, I suddenly realized. Closer. Approaching the orbiting station. Perhaps it was the triggering of the faster than light engines. Could a gas cloud attack a ship? I didn't know. Could the others see it? I didn't know that either.

The constant, low throbbing of our engines suddenly stopped, and the warble of various alarms sounded through the station. Varju and Brown swam over to their consoles. “What was that?” Brown asked.

“Sudden overload on the power system,” the pilot replied. She was at a computer console, connected to some diagnostic routine on the ship's electrical systems. “Propulsion systems shut down automatically. I'm reading no detectable damage to the engines. They just won't put out power."

“What caused it?"

The pilot shook her head. “I don't know. I just don't know. The life support systems are still operational. We're down, but we're not dead.” She unbuckled from her jump-seat, pushed off from the deck with a spiraling upward leap, grabbed onto a go-bar and pulled herself headfirst into her piloting egg.

“Varju,” said Brown. “What's going on?"

Varju was frantic on his station, flicking the screen from one camera to another faster than I could even recognize the image. He shook his head; another gesture learned from the humans. “No information."

“Any signs of life?"

“Negative,” said Varju. “Unless the energy field itself is alive.” He paused, then continued, slowly. “A life form that evolved around a black hole would be very different from anything we know. They would have very different perceptions of space and time."

“Is there anything on the radio?"

“No."

“Let's try transmitting.” He waited while I brought the high-gain antenna on line. “Ready? Okay. This is Jared Brown of the Earth starstation Igloo

“Is anybody there?"

“Nothing.” It amused me that he seemed to expect that this thing, a thousand light-years away from his home planet, would be able to speak and understand English

“Varju? Anything?"

“High graviton flux in the energy field, showing unusual ordered flux patterns. Cohesive binding of a low entropy state ... sir, this energy field may display signs of intelligent life."

“Try another frequency. Try several frequencies.” Brown waited while the Varju patched the system.

“Is anybody there? We're in trouble. Is anybody there?"

A voice suddenly spoke. The intonation was unusual, but it was easy enough to understand. It was in the human speech, English.

“Human Brown. It is ... strange ... good to see you once again."

I abruptly recognized the voice. The overtones were different, but the rhythm was identical to the first mate's own voice.

“Identify yourself. How do you know me?"

Working furiously, Varju put something on the screen, perhaps the visual track from the radio signal. On screen it showed as a complex network of colored light surrounded by a glowing aura that wavered frantically.

“Names are of little significance to me,” the voice said. “Call me ... the one who stands outside. Or, perhaps, the one who loves life."

“You have damaged us,” said Brown.

“I do not think you realize exactly how much danger you are in."

“We are well aware of the dangers of black holes, thank you. We have no intention of approaching too close."

“That is the danger.” Surprisingly, the voice laughed. “No, Mate Brown. I am only finishing what you started long ago. Call it ... giving you an opportunity."

Pilot Stakowski was in her piloting egg, but with the hatch open to the science bay. She was watching her consoles. “We may be in trouble here,” she called out. “The event horizon of the black hole is oscillating, and the oscillations have been building in amplitude. That shouldn't be happening. The varying gravitational field is turning our orbit chaotic.” She tapped her keyboard and scanned the screen hastily. “Our orbital eccentricity is increasing. Hard to predict. If the resonance builds up..."

“That is impossible,” said Varju. “No possible force could generate gravity waves powerful enough to shift the orbit of a ten-million kilogram station. The energy required would be enormous."

Softly, as if to itself, Varju continued, “of course, if a life form evolved around a black hole, it might control enormous energy."

Brown reached for the radio, but it was already too late. I could feel the passing gravity waves now, millions of tiny fingers slowly stretching and then compressing my limbs, my internal organs.

The station made a sound like a generator revving down, and alarms began to sound as stress bult up on the station's structural shell.

“It's too late,” said Stakowski. Her voice was calm and professional. “On this orbit our periapsis grazes the event horizon, and I can't get the engines running. The station won't make it; we'll be pulled to spaghetti. This is it—"

The disk of blackness elongated; the boundary of blackness distorted, writhed. There was no sense of motion, and too little time for fear. I had a feeling of being stretched and compressed at the same time, and then there was a sudden sharp snapping crackle as the plasma cloud discharged against the station. The tendrils behind Varju's neck stiffened. The blur ahead of us enlarged, and then suddenly the station was elsewhere.

Swirls of ionized dust motes sparkled around the station, then faded. In the viewport was a blue planet with white clouds and unrecognizable continents in brown and green against blue oceans. Far away behind it, a comet was visible against the stars.

“What the hell?” said Brown.

“Impossible,” Stakowski muttered. She reset all the circuit breakers, and the lights and control panels came back to life. “Impossible ... unless ... no, that's unconceivable.” Stakowski and Varju argued for a moment, in rushed sentences too low and clipped for me to follow. Then she turned to us and spoke again. “The only way I can figure it,” she said, “is the gravity waves. It seems impossible, but a gravity wave could have exactly cancelled the tidal distortion of the gravity field as we skimmed the surface of the event horizon and prevented us from being torn apart. It's possible in theory, but...” She paused. “Well, anyway, it is possible in theory."

“But where are we?” asked Brown.

She shrugged. “Could be anywhere. In a gravity field like that? Spacetime is unstable.” She checked her instruments. “A type G two star, main sequence. “Seven major planets plus planetoids visible, maybe more on the other side of the star. One of the planets is an Earth-sized world with a breathable oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere."

Varju had been looking at his instruments as well. He looked up at Brown. “I can't calculate our galactic location. The computer can't match the star patterns with the standard galactic reference beacons. I'll try initiating an extended search of the data base."

“Good. Keep searching. Mr. Torri: has the energy ... thing followed along with us?"

“No,” I said.

“Any engine power at all?"

“Engines work fine,” said the pilot. “Came back on line like it had never been out when I reset after we hit the hole.” Not that that would do us any good. Only the core ship had the FTL drive. If we weren't there to be picked up...

“Good,” said Brown. He opened a drinking tube and took a long, slow sip of diluted ethanol from the supply he had brought with him on board. It seemed to calm him. “So, get us into orbit."

* * * *

The planet was much like our pod-home, much like the humans’ Earth, although the land-masses were strange, with elongated continents straddling the north and south rotational poles, and island continents in the ocean between them. Behind it a huge comet shimmered with the cold, faint glow of hydroxl ionizing in a stellar wind.

Brown stared out fixedly “That planet,” he said, his voice seeming puzzled. “Something ... it looks oddly familiar."

Varju looked at him with interest. “Have you seen this world before?"

Brown shook his head slowly without taking his eyes off the viewport. “No. No, but still ... something ... the color, the clouds...."

“Sir?” said pilot Stakowski.

He shook his head as if to clear it. “Yes?"

“Sir, there's something else peculiar about this system. If you look at the screen—” She touched her keyboard. An image of the orbits of the various objects in the solar system showed on the main viewscreen. Five were parabolic orbits originating far away from the sun. “You see that there are currently five comets in the inner solar system."

“That's a very unusual situation,” said Varju. “Normally one would expect to find at most one comet, or perhaps two, in the inner solar system at any one time."

“What of it?” said Brown.

“Well, this comet here—” The pilot paused.

“What about that comet?” said Brown, his tone indicating irritation.

“The trajectory,” Stakowski replied. “It's on a direct course toward the planet."

“How long until impact?

“About thirteen hours,” Varju replied.

“Is there life on the planet?"

“Life is abundant on the planet,” said Varju. “No signs of intelligent life, though."

“A tragedy,” said Brown, “but what does it have to do with us? Torri, do you think we can destroy the comet before impact?"

I worked for a moment at my station, which included full diagnostics on what insufficient weapons the human station had. “No. If the engines operated, we could try to nudge it off course. Without engines, nothing."

Varju spoke up. “Sir. Observe. Here, on the big continent.” Varju brought up a display on the main screen. The planet showed as a grid on the screen. As Varju manipulated his console controls, the image rotated, and one area was magnified until a contour plot showed at a location near the center. A crosshair grid blinked to mark the center of the contour. “This is an infrared telescope view, but microwave or millimeter contours look the same. A complex energy field. Just one. And ... it is not an exact match, but it is in many ways similar to the energy anomaly at the black hole."

“Anything on the radio?” said Brown. “Any attempt at communication this time?"

I worked at my station. “Nothing. No radio emissions of any kind except solar static."

“Apparently if we are to leave this place,” he said, “we will have to meet this ... phenomenon. Stakowski?"

“The area is mostly jungle,” she said. “There is a clearing roughly two kilometers south-east of Varju's energy field large enough to land the station."

“But do you think you can get this pile of junk out of orbit and land it without breaking anything?"

“Sure,” she said.

He shrugged. “Then do it."

* * * *

When the station had landed and the disturbance of the landing engines died out, Brown and I got ready to exit while Varju scanned the area. A team of three, one of each species on board. The pilot remained in her egg; she would stay there until we were safely back in space.

I checked my weapon, a small plasma beam rifle. It was not really suitable for an unknown planet, but the humans explore with callous disregard for safety, and tend to look askance at larger weaponry carried by those on their science ships. They are the most dangerous animals on their own home planet, and expect no danger from others. Except other humans.

Brown had no weapons, but carried a large radio to communicate back to the station (we all had suit radios as well, of course) and Varju carried an assortment of scientific equipment.

“Looks clear,” said Brown. “Atmosphere should be okay if there's an emergency, but we'll keep suits on. Ready?"

We were ready. Varju opened the lock, and we jumped out onto a new world.

We had all been on landing teams before, and knew what to do. We had landed at the edge of a forest densely green with ferns and odd towering trees. Varju stepped out and surveyed with his instruments. I waited a moment to see what would happen to him. Nothing. I jumped down, ran flat out to a spot where I could see around behind the station, crouched down, and looked frantically around me, my weapon drawn and ready. I wished I could smell the air for danger, but of course the suit prevented it. Brown stepped out calmly and looked up at the comet, which loomed huge and cold in the pale blue sky.

Varju continued surveying with a gas chromatograph. “Earthlike, a bit higher carbon dioxide.” He put down the instrument. “Seems to be hardwood forests. Very few flowering plants.” He looked in the opposite direction. “Some sort of large animals in the vicinity, I think."

Suddenly even I could hear the crashing. A gigantic reptilian head on a snakelike neck suddenly poked out from the trees.

I instantly aimed my weapon. It was only a small plasma beam, but a well-aimed shot might disable the beast and save our lives.

Brown shouted. “No!"

As my weapon discharged, Brown knocked my arm aside. The deep blue bolt skewed off to the side. No time for a second shot. Brown and I held absolutely still.

The animal—whose head alone was as large as both of us—dipped its head down to look at us, cocked its head quizzically to the side and looked with one tiny black eye, then the other. After a long moment the beast snorted, and the head withdrew back into the underbrush.

“Herbivore,” said Varju calmly.

“A lucky guess,” I said. This was a survival issue; I was angry. “First-Mate Brown, why did you deflect my shot?"

“Because I recognized that animal!” said Brown. “Varju?"

“Quite right,” said Varju. He, too, seemed to know something I did not. “One of the saurischians, the largest land animals ever to exist on the planet Earth. Alamosaurus, judging from the size and the shape of the head. Indigenous to the late Cretaceous period of Earth history."

“Then this planet is—"

There was an attention beep from our radio link. Brown flicked it on.

The voice on the radio crackled, but the tone of fear in Stakowski's voice came through clearly. “I've identified the star pattern from the computer archives!” said Stakowski. “I know what has happened! We have been displaced backward in time nearly seventy million years."

A buzzing sound. I turned my head to follow the motion of an insect.

“The planet we're on is the Earth."

The insect landed on my shoulder. It was a very large insect, perhaps a poisonous one. I raised my hand to squash it.

“Don't harm any animals you encounter! A change in history at this point could have severe consequence a millions of years hence."

I stopped suddenly, and gently bushed the insect off my shoulder.

Brown pushed his mike to transmit. “Yes,” he said dryly. “We've figured that out."

We all put away our weapons.

Brown looked at a compass. “This way, I think."

Varju looked toward the comet. “Sixty five million years in the past."

Brown raised his eyebrow. “Yes?"

“And that comet,” he gestured, “will impact in twelve hours. The catastrophe caused by the collision will cover the planet with a thick cloud of dust and smoke. The freeze will destroy every life form on the planet larger than a vraln ... larger than a rabbit. It will wipe the slate clean. And give your species a chance to take over."

“So this comet will spell an end for the dinosaurs,” I said. I knew what dinosaurs were. I had studied the history of the humans, my strange but amiable hosts, and of their planet.

Brown nodded. “And a beginning for us."

My companions puzzled me. Space and time are the same, and in principle we all knew that if space flight is possible, so also must be travel in time, but the reality hadn't seemed to disturb them a bit. First-mate Brown apparently had no fear at his position; no sense of impropriety at being co-located with the ancestors of their most ancient pod.

“Onward,” said Brown.

We trod in the direction Varju indicated, through thick underbrush toward distant trees. Behind me, I could see Varju scan with his various scientific instruments, occasionally pausing to examine areas of unusual interest. Despite the demonstrated danger, he seemed not to be especially watchful.

“This planet is not unlike parts of the my home world,” I said. And just as dangerous to the unwary, I thought, but kept my thoughts to myself.

“You have animals like that?” said Brown.

“Not quite so large, First Mate Brown. But a bit more ferocious."

Varju was still scanning the area, oblivious. Without looking up, he said, “this is a magnificent opportunity to observe biosphere evolution—"

Just then there was another call from the ship. Pilot Stakowski had found something she thought was of interest, and wanted Varju's opinion.

We found a cliff wall of mostly bare rock, which I figured as probably the most defensable position we could. Brown set up a portable video screen.

“I ran a calculation,” Stakowski said, “based on the hypothesis that the cluster of comets we observe fell into the solar system because of a perturbation of the Oort cloud by some massive object. Based on the results of the calculation, I computed the probable current location for the object and conducted a search using the long-range telescopes."

“And?” asked Brown.

“It's on the screen.” The view was of empty space with scattered stars, evidentally a computer-enhanced telescopic view. A blinking rectangle in the center indicated the search location.

“Well?” said Brown. “I don't see anything there.” There was a pause. “I see. A black hole?"

“I think so. Similar to the one in the Praesepe Cluster, perhaps slightly less massive."

“And you believe they may be one and the same?"

“Well ... a black hole would be expected to gain in mass over time."

“Can we use this to get the Igloo back to our own proper time?"

“Negative. Tidal forces near the event horizon would tear the ship apart. In any case, without FTL drive, it would take twenty years to get there."

“Hmmmf,” said Brown. “Well, carry on with your work.” Brown folded the video and the umbrella antenna back into their box, and we continued on.

Varju paused and frowned in concentration, tendrils stiff, scanning each side of the path. “Interesting,” he said. He shook the machine and looked at it again. “I seem to be detecting a—"

A low resonant note, a sort of booming, vibrating warble, came from behind the treeline. I pivoted and reached for my rifle, then deliberately let my hand drop to my side. It was an order of pod survival to kill nothing here. The human pod, to be sure, but survival of an ally pod takes precedence over any individual, no matter what. At least until the alliance is dissolved. I searched for cover.

“What was that?” said Brown.

“Hadrosaurs,” said Varju.

I could see their body heat reflected off the tree leaves before I could see the animals themselves. They slipped out from between the trees with amazingly silent footsteps for animals so large, a herd of fifteen of them.

“I'll be damned,” said Brown. “Duck-billed dinosaurs with purple leather capes. Now I really have seen everything."

They ran past on two legs, twice as tall as a human, running with a curious rolling motion, heads down and necks stretched out ahead of them. The ‘capes’ were a flap of skin, fluttering from a flagpole-like crest on the head and stretching loosely back to the shoulderblades. The hadrosaurs did not even spare us a glance as they ran past, blood pulsing hot patterns across their skin. They silently vanished into the forest behind us. They were fast, and in a moment nothing was left of them but the swirls of heated air from their labored breathing.

Behind them the woods still rustled. “And apparently also a large theropod,” said Varju.

“A what?"

The warbling roar repeated, and branches shook. A tree crashed forward into the clearing where we stood, and suddenly a gigantic hot-blooded shape loomed up half-visible behind the trees.

In a moment a huge head rose up above the highest branches of the treeline. This was no gentle plant-eating reptile. Even my inadequate knowledge of extinct Earth animals could recognize this one. It was the king of the giant lizards: a tyrannosaur. It turned sideways and a huge eye looked down. The mouth opened, showing large daggerlike teeth, and the dinosaur roared again.

Brown and I looked up in awe.

“A large, carnivorous dinosaur."

“Don't shoot!” shouted Brown. “Run!"

The dinosaur's shadow fell over us. We turned and ran. With a loud crash, another tree shattered and fell. The roar repeated. I looked behind me. The beast stood motionless on top of the fallen trees, its head turned sideways to watch us.

We ran. A large boulder blocked the path; Brown cut to the left around it; I and Varju dodged to the right and through a narrow cleft in the red sandstone cliff face.

The tyrannosaur looked to the left, saw Brown, and with a jerky motion slued around to follow. It moved with incredible swiftness for a beast so large, running with its tail stiff out behind it and its back almost horizontal.

I scrambled up the rock face and turned to look back. From my new angle it was clear that the other path came to a dead end at the face of the cliff, with no convenient niches to hide in and rock walls too steep to climb. I stuck my head out to look for Brown.

He looked left and right, but saw no escape. The shadow of the tyrannosaur rose over him. He looked up.

The tyrannosaur pivoted its head down.

Brown stood frozen on a large rock, his bubble-helmeted head eye to eye with the tyrannosaur. The head of the beast was nearly as large as Brown. He stood perfectly motionless, and the tyrannosaur sniffed at him, then opened its mouth, showing pointed, six-inch long teeth. A snakelike tongue darted out of its mouth and licked him, once, twice, again. With a disappointed querulous noise almost like a meow, the tyrannosaur spun around in a single graceful movement.

It hopped onto a high rock outcropping, raised its head, and puffed out its throat sac. Then it sang out, with a long, low warbling note that trailed out into a trilling coo. It cocked its head and listened for a long moment, but only silence greeted it. It hopped to the ground and vanished into the forest.

Varju and I came up behind Brown and stared after the retreating dinosaur. My hand repeatedly reached toward my rifle, but stopped without drawing the weapon. I did not understand.

Varju explained calmly. “It detects its prey by scent. In the suit, Brown had no smell, therefore, he was not prey. When it realized he was not edible, it lost interest."

“Never would have figured it,” Brown said, still looking after the vanished animal. He seemed unshaken by the encounter. “Never. Who'd have thought a tyrannosaurus would have gold and brown spots like a leopard?” Brown shook his head. “Onward,” he said.

We continued around the boulder. The radio sounded, and the first mate stopped, unfolded the umbrella antenna, and turned it on. “Brown here."

Pilot Stakowski was audible over quite a bit of static. “You're entering the vicinity of the anomalous energy field,” she said. “I can still pick up your signal, but may not be able to get through to you."

“Are you suggesting that we turn back?” asked Brown.

“No,” she said. “No point in that. Just ... be careful."

“Will do,” said Brown. “Out."

I looked up into the sky as Brown folded up the antenna. The comet hung suspended against the blue. It seemed to have grown larger than ever.

We continued on.

* * * *

We continued over a ridge and look down into a valley. Varju's anomalous energy field was a fuzzy blob of light drifting slowly in the air, a fine network of webbing slowly moving inside it, glowing with light but no heat.

Varju scanned it, and shook his head. “Strange. Interesting. Highly organized energy fields. The intensity is remarkable."

“Is it alive?” asked Brown. “Is it intelligent?"

“Is it dangerous?” I said.

“I don't know,” said Varju.

The energy field glowed brighter, and a voice spoke. “Greetings, travelers.” I was surprised. Could I have heard it correctly? It was not the human's language; it was my own. I turned to translate for the others, but they understood it as well. What could speak three languages at once?

“This planet is dangerous,” it said. “Why have you come?"

Brown shaded his eyes against the glare. “We are peaceful travelers who have been sent here by accident. Who are you?"

“Names are not important. I am one who watches and loves life. Call me ... the Outsider."

The energy field again glowed brighter. I grimaced and dropped into a combat crouch. Brown dropped down onto one knee, his right arm shielding his face. Varju stood and did nothing. Apparently his eyes were less sensitive to extremes of brightness,

“Does my brightness harm you?” the energy thing said. “It is not something under my conscious control. I will try—” It flickered and then dimmed a bit. We could look in its direction again, although with some difficulty.

“What are you?” said Brown. “What do you want with us? How do you speak our language?"

“I cannot ‘speak’ any language,” it replied. “Your brains contain electromagnetic fields. I modulate these fields, and you perceive it as speech."

“Why are you here?” asked Brown.

“I could ask the same of you,” it said.

“But this is not your world."

“No,” it said. “I am ... an observer. My form is not one that evolved on planets, or has much interest in planetary life. We come from the energetic regions at the galactic center, where organic life types such as yours do not survive."

“From a black hole?” asked Varju, still trying to satisfy curiosity, when he should be asking the being to return us to our proper time. But I stayed silent. It might yet be that gathering information would prove useful.

“Ah,” the energy being said. “You understand us."

“Then you may be extremely old, as we measure time,” Varju said.

“Millions of years,” it said, “billions, who can say? Time has little meaning where we live. For several millions of years I have been wandering the stars of the galactic disk, visiting the cold dark wastes at the fringes of the galaxy, observing the strange life that grows on planets, cold and hard."

“A scientist, then, like we,” said Varju. “Are there many of your people here?"

“Oh, no,” the thing said. “Only I. For the most part, my people have left this spacetime. There are other places to exist, universes with higher quantum energy states, and my people have migrated on. Someday I will join them, but not yet. Even in a million years, I still have not tired of the infinite diversity of life. This is one of the most unusual worlds I've visited."

Brown smiled. “We like it. This planet is my home."

“Indeed?” it said. “Very peculiar. I would not have come had I known that this planet had intelligent life. But was that not your starship I sensed arrive here?"

Brown looked at Varju. “That's right,” he said. “We have come from sixty-five million years in the future."

“Really?” said the outsider. “You come to your own past?"

I noted that it didn't seem surprised at the impossibility that Brown had just expressed. Perhaps, as Varju had implied, this being could indeed tred paths through in time as well as space.

“You have no fear of the danger of returning to your own past light-cone? Or—yes. You are here because of your fear. It is unnecessary. I will correct the error."

“Error?” asked Varju.

“Why,” a tentacle of brightness momentarily flashed upward toward the comet, “that comet. You must be here to stop it from impacting this planet, stop the great destruction. I shall put it back in its proper place. I would not let this beautiful world be destroyed."

“No—” said Brown, “the comet hit sixty-five million years ago. Far in the past. If the comet is deflected, the human race—my race—will never exist."

“What is that to me?” the being said. “I have made my decision. I see no reason to destroy the cold beauty of this world."

“But it is the natural course of events,” said Brown. “Evolution."

“You put me in a dilemma,” it said. “You see, I already have interfered with events. Only my interest in planets caused the black hole to approach this sun. No comet would be here, if not for my error."

“That accounts for the unusual features of the system,” Varju said. “An artifact of the passage of the black hole."

'By diverting the comet,” it said, “I will only undo the damage that I inadvertantly caused."

“And so destroy us,” said Brown.

The being made a complicated flickering shift of brightness that I interpreted as a shrug. “What does not exist cannot be destroyed. You are from a future, but not the only possible future. I will merely cause your species never to exist."

“Never to be born at all,” said Brown. “But however you phrase it, it still sounds fatal."

“You must understand that you do not really exist. You are only a virtual apparition. A side-effect of the small interval between when I perturbed the comet cloud and when I correct my error.

“For one to live, others must die. This is the law of life."

For a moment the Outsider brightened and was silent, a shifting blur of mottled colors. The tendrils behind Varju's neck, his electromagnetic sensor organs, stiffened.

It made a soft sound almost like a sigh. “What being would not to choose survival of its own species? So you force me to choose.” It paused. “So let it be. If you would have me chose you to live, prepare to argue your case. Human Brown, you have with you two others who are not of your species. I name you my council of three, to convince me to change my mind. Be warned. Your vote must be unanimous if I am to condemn this planet.

“You come from the future. One future. I will show you another, the future that you would have me kill."

The glow of the energy-being momentarily brightened, and we were forced to look away. When the brightness dimmed, we saw before us another creature. It was a reptilian being, seated behind a desk of some dark heavy wood, writing with what appeared to be a quill pen. It was roughly the size of a human. It was clearly similar to the dinosaurs we had seen, sitting upright,with a long tail visible to one side. It turned, and I saw that it had a smooth, sinuous grace. It had light-green skin, appearing almost silky, lighter on the underside, patterned with delicate traceries of light orange and yellow, and a ruffle of feathers behind its neck. Its eyes were large and blue, like gigantic sapphires, with small half-glasses perched on its nose. It looked up from its work and peered over its glasses.

“You interrupted me,” said the dinosauroid being, peevishly. “I was in the middle of a stanza, and you interrupted me."

Brown smiled. “Sorry."

It waved a clawed hand. “No matter. This symphony has waited all my life; it can wait a bit more. Perhaps it was time for a break anyway.” The dinosauroid looked around, then stared at Brown, turning its head slightly to look first with one eye, then the other, cocking his head exactly the same way the earlier dinosaur did. “Good gracious! I've never seen anything like you. What manner of beings are you, anyway?"

Varju turned to Brown. “This is unusual. It seems to have no xenophobic response at all."

“Is that unusual?” I said.

“Yes.” said Varju, turning to look at me. His eyes did not blink. “We had always believed that xenophobia was a survival instinct."

“But—but your own species has no xenophobia,” I said, confused. “I've seen you with humans. You emulate them. You speak their language, think with their thoughts."

Varju looked at me with large, sad eyes. “Do you not know? You have studied the history of the humans, do you know nothing of mine?"

“No."

“When we met the humans it was war, Torri. We studied the humans, studied their aggression, studied their technology, and realized that we could not possibly win. Within a century, we would be exterminated. But xenophobia—war—was encoded in our genes. Our only survival lay in revising our very genetic code. We did. We edited out our xenophobia, and surrendered to the humans, asking only that they give us protection, since we could now no longer protect ourselves.” He paused. “Don't you know how we admire your race, Torri? To survive side by side with humans, and remain yourself?"

And the humans had cost us a hundred billion lives, I thought. Could it be worth the price?

“Ask your questions,” demanded the energy being.

“What is your home like?” said Varju.

“It is a home place like any other, I expect,” the dinosauroid being said. “It is warm and friendly. We do what we can to make it beautiful, with gardens and forests."

“You have no cities?” Varju asked.

“No, no, of course we have cities. The best artists in the world compete to design our cities. Towers of shining crystal ten kilometers high ... I wish I could show you one of our cities, they are so beautiful."

“Do you have wars?” Varju asked.

“War?” said the dinosauroid being. “I don't recognize the word."

“Do you kill one another?” said Brown.

“Kill? You mean, kill other intelligent beings? Deliberately? What a revolting thought! Good gracious, no! Of course not! What type of beings would do such a thing?"

Varju and I exchange glances.

“Only a most uncivilized being, of course,” said Varju.

The energy being spoke. Its voice was gentle. “These people are here to decide the very existence of your race. You are not real. You are only a projection of what might become, ten million years hence. A probability only."

“Ah,” said the dinosauroid. “So then, as the poet said, ‘everything we are or seem, is but a dream, within a dream.’”

“Edgar Allen Poe,” said Varju. Seeing my glance, he explained: “an Earth poet of the nineteenth century."

The dinosauroid being looked puzzled. “No, no—Gornak Trallik, a poet of the amber twilight century. From the songs of sapphire cities.” He paused. “A dream I am, then, but if all I am is a dream, I must thank you for the little bit of reality I have been given. Even a dream can love life, and be thankful."

“This is the land of your distant ancestors,” the energy being said. “The comet you see will scourge this world with flame. Most of the life you see around you will die, among them your most distant ancestors. I can prevent this catastrophe. But, if you are to exist, then this human, a child of a different possible future, cannot."

“My mate...” said the dinosauroid. “My friends and clutch mates ... my children—"

“Will never exist,” said the energy being. In a more kindly tone, it continued, “they will not suffer. They cannot suffer, since they never existed at all."

“Then let me tell you about my grandchildren,” the dinosauroid said. “Such a cute bunch of lizards you'll never see. Little rapscallions, really ... but we love them. Moru—he's the oldest—he says he wants to be a famous composer, just like his grampa. I keep on telling him that if he wants to be a musician, he has to be diligent and practice every day, but he'd rather be out playing Vorik ball with his friends.” It shook its head with a jerky circular motion. “Ah, children. Well, there will be time for practice when he gets older. Let him have his fun. The little one, Kira—she's the youngest—barely out of the shell, and already she knows what she wants to be. Says she's going to to be pilot of a starship when she grows up. And I bet she will, too—she's smart enough. And so serious all the time.” It stretched out its neck and sighed. “Too bad you will never know them. But please try to think of them, one day, and they will live on, a little bit, in your memories."

“I will,” said Brown.

“You have starflight?” asked Varju.

“Oh, yes—ever since the spacetime twist drive was discovered two millenia ago,” it said. “I don't see the point in it, myself—all that whooshing around through space. You'd think saurians would be satisfied with the Earth—it's a lovely planet. I've travelled up and across and around, and don't think I've seen a tiny fraction of the wonderful things there are to see."

“Plead your case for your people,” said the energy being.

The dinosauroid examined Brown closely. It shook its head again with the same odd circular motion. “A featherless lifeform—descendant of mammals—and yet from Earth! Most strange. But your people, too, love life?"

“Yes,” said Brown.

There was a long silence as the dinosauroid looked at Brown. Then it said, “I cannot. If our existence is to be at the expense of another, it is wrong. Make your choice, if you must. I cannot and will not urge the destruction of another."

“Well spoken,” said the energy being. “And so I return you again to the might-become."

“I regret only—” the dinosauroid said, and hesitated.

“That you are not real?” suggested Varju.

“No. I accept the gift of life, however temporary. I regret only that, now, I shall never complete my symphony.” It paused. “And so I see it is true. Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are: it might have been."

The energy being brightened, and when we could look again, the dinosaur being was gone.

“John Greenleaf Whittier, an Earth poet of the ninteenth century,” said Varju. After a pause, he added, “and also, apparently, a dinosaur poet."

“You must understand,” said the energy being, “that you are no more real than the dinosaur being. You claim to come from the future, but you must know that there are many futures, none of them more real than any other. This is the now, the only now that exists. Make your choice wisely."

“Then you have shown us a possible future,” said Varju, “but by no means the only possible future."

“Quite correct. But what I have shown you is the future that will result, if I do not allow these creatures to perish."

“I know the humans,” said Varju. “They have flaws. But they also have a greatness. I must vote for the humans."

The energy flickered, and I felt its attention turn to me. “And you?

I suddenly knew that with words I could change history, undo great pod dyings and challenge greatness. This being had power, great power. I had fear, then, and knew I must choose words with utmost care. “When my race met the humans, we had no faster than light travel,” I said. “Our pods had spread across a hundred suns, at tremendous cost, but without war. When the humans with their FTL ships came, we welcomed them with weapons. The humans seemed to withdraw, and we copied their ships, a technology we would never think of on our own, to unite a hundred far-flung pods.

“And then we were hit by the plagues. Fifty billion of the true people died in the plagues that the humans brought. We thought, then, that they had deliberately tried to destroy us.

“Much much later, we realized that it was not the humans, but their technology, FTL travel, that killed us. The hundred worlds had evolved a hundred plagues, each of which they were themselves immune to, but the distant worlds were not immune. Century-long starship voyages acted as a quarantine.

“And after the plagues, the civil wars. Among the hundred scattered worlds were renegade pods, unwilling to join in sharing. They had been separate too long. The human FTL brought us a new thing, war between pods. Whole worlds had to be exterminated to bring unity back to our people. In the chaos, prophets and messiahs rose up, preaching heresies and disunity, and more of us died.

“The coming of the humans resulted in the death of eleven out of twelve of the true people then alive. Even the rooted ancestors died. Out of the hundred worlds, only sixteen flourish now. It will be centuries, perhaps millenia, before we reach such glory again."

“Then you vote against the humans?” it said. Its voice seemed cold and emotionless.

And so in my moment of timra I embraced choice. I shouted. “No! The humans taught my people things we never dreamed of! Without having met the humans, we would have expanded outward and outward, knowing ourselves only, exterminating other species on planets we needed, without ever knowing or trying to understand them. Until one day we would meet an alien race with superior technology, who would exterminate us the same way. We were lucky. When we met the aliens with superior technology, it was the humans. They nearly exterminated us, true, but not in anger. They taught us how to embrace the alien. I vote for the humans, hidden one. They taught us a concept alien to us, one that is worth anything we ever knew before. Friendship, between people who are different."

I spoke the truth, but my spoken reasons screened the truth. The humans had killed us, yes, in the billions, but the pod had survived, and, surviving, was stronger. But the dinosaur creature had said that they, too, had the secret of interstellar flight! If the dinosaur creatures had come instead of the humans, and come millions of years earlier? How could they not, even in innocence, destroy us before we even existed? The human threat had been nothing to this, nothing.

“Then you have won your case, human,” the energy being spoke. “Though it goes against my nature to allow such destruction to occur, I choose to accept the judgement of three."

“Not yet,” said Brown. His expression was strange; unreadable. “You said it must be unanimous."

“Indeed,” said the energy being. “There is one more vote. I would have thought it just a formality. Human?"

“It's not like dying, you say. No pain, no mourning. It would be never to exist at all.” He smiled. “I like that. Humanity's not so great. Give the critters a chance, and see what they do. Divert the comet."

I might have killed him, but would it change the choice? Would the being then come for us? I hesitated. The energy being dimmed and was motionless for a moment, and then the moment for choice was past.

“You have made your choice, and chosen against your own interests.” It paused. “But you have shown a strange compassion. I have seen this in old species, ones with a history of a million years or more, who have no fear of extinction. But in a young species? I do not understand this, but it is strange; rare and precious. I find that I have no choice. I will withdraw my interference. The comet will fall as it must."

“But—” said Brown.

“I have made my decision,” the energy being said, its voice like low thunder. “Your species will have its chance. Use it well. Perhaps we will meet again, millions of years hence. Goodbye.” With a rising sound that quickly became ultrasonic, the energy being shrank and brightened. It continued to brighten past all bearable levels, until I wondered if the very rocks it hovered over would melt. As even Varju shielded his eyes and dropped to his knees, the energy condensed into the smallest of tiny sparks, and then accelerated off into the sky.

It was a long walk back to the station. We met no dinosaurs.

* * * *

We returned to orbit, and none of us were surprised when the station was again pulled into the event horizon of the black hole. We again looked into the black depths of the Praesepe Cluster.

When it was clear that we had returned and reached a stable orbit, Stakowski cracked out of her piloting egg and confronted Brown. “Brown? Tell me, how did you know that it would spare us?"

“I didn't know anything for certain,” Brown said. “It just—” he shrugged—"seemed the thing to do. At the time.” He paused for a moment, and sipped nourishment from his ethanol solution as he ragarded her, then continued quitely, almost to himself. “They had so much potential. It's not like we did so great, ourselves."

Pilot Stakowski gave him a piercing look, but said nothing.

“And I still wonder ... what would they have been like? If they had evolved?"

“I expect that we'll never know, Jared,” she said. She didn't seem to be angry at what the mate had done, at the fact that one human had chosen extermination for them all.

And then the voice of the outsider came over the radio. “Greetings again, human Brown. It has been a long time."

“Outsider?” said Brown.

“Names are of little importance,” it said. “Once I took that label. This universe is expanding, growing cold. I had thought to join my fellows, but waited a little while longer, to see again the one who showed compassion. To say, in your words, goodbye."

“But you still let them die,” said Brown. He seemed angry, although it was his own pod the thing had chosen to save.

“I could not save them all,” it said. “But as many as I could I took away with me, to a planet similar in climate, far away across the galactic disk. Among the ones I took were those which would, in time, evolve to become the being you met. To let them find their own destiny."

In the viewport, the blur of energy at the horizon of the black hole was intensifying. On the radio, the voice was fading. “Someday you will meet them, I think. But now, goodbye."

The energy field in the viewport grew outside the bounds of the viewscreen and then faded to blackness and stars.

“It is gone,” said Varju softly.

“We are done here, I think,” said Brown. “It is time for us to go home."

We orbited the black hole for two further weeks, until the City of Anchorage returned for us, but we collected only numbers and useless facts.

On its schedule the human starship brought us back to Earth, and, later, returned to its mission of gathering useless knowledge about stars and dust clouds. On the return voyage the human crew discussed First Mate Brown's actions among themselves, and most of them agreed that they would not have acted as he had. But the first mate was not punished for his actions, not relieved from his duties, nor, as far as I could tell, even reprimanded by the captain for risking the existence of his species.

It is true: the humans embrace the alien. The wisdom of the great pod-fathers has has instructed us to embrace the alien, told us that our species, the pod of all pods, must inevitably die if we do not. But I wonder, I wonder. Must we embrace the alien even at the cost of self destruction? Will we, too, one day be forced to make such a choice? And if we choose wrong?

I request to leave this mission, to return to the pod-home, share the soil with my pod-mates and meditate in warm darkness. I cannot stay among these beings that I do not want to understand.

I am learning to think like them, and I am afraid. I am afraid, yes, afraid for all of us.

Even the humans.

Author's Notes

I haven't written a whole lot of classic “space opera,” I'm afraid, in part because I have problems believing in the premise that we would ever be able to understand a real alien, much less chat and adventure with aliens. I mean, so far we have been utterly unsuccessful in being able to talk with other Earth species, such as ants or squids, and if we can't talk with species that share our biology, how can we expect to talk to real alien aliens?

“Embracing the Alien,” is one of my few space-operas. It was originally published in the November 1992 issue of Analog, and was the cover story for that issue, with a spectacular painting by Bob Eggleton. It has not been reprinted since. It made the preliminary ballot for the Nebula award in 1993.

I admit to playing a bit loose here with the physics of black holes (although I want to say that the event horizons of black holes can oscillate, and will give off gravitational radiation). If you want an introduction to the real physics, look at the Black Holes section of the Relativity FAQ, which you can find at: math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/relativity.html

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