An Ecology of MInd (29 page)

Leader 1* thought for a short while. The reaction of its duplicate and the suggested plan, were the same as those that Leader 1* thought it would have
itself in the same situation. “I agree. We shall proceed as you suggest. Prepare for the start of decontamination procedures. We will then let you in, but
make no hostile moves, or we will attempt to kill you.”

Kim was aware of all actions that had occurred and had been monitoring all brain actions and chemicals that had been exchanged by both live entities. She
also observed chemicals used by the artificial communication devices between the airlock and the ship and between the crew and the ship's commander. So
far, it was merely data collection. She needed to start making definite linkages between the chemicals and meaning, and specific brain activity and
meaning. She had been able to track the brain activity that controlled movement but needed a lot more information to interpret actual thought and language.

So far, her "Trojan Horse" had gained admittance and had not been killed. Judging by the delay in gaining entry and the leader unit coming to the airlock,
she assumed it had been recognized as being a copy and still had not been destroyed. Hopefully, the aliens would recognize it as an attempt to communicate
with radically different organisms and would co-operate with the learning process. It would make things progress so much faster that way.

The humans in the area inside the barrier were behaving as could be expected. Some were trying to communicate with radios, or by yelling at the ship.
Others were afraid and stocking up on weapons and ammunition. Looting began in some areas within the barrier. Many had tried to leave the area and been
stopped by the barrier which added further to the panic for some. The people inside the barrier assumed that the barrier was put in place by the aliens.

There were no nuclear weapons within the barrier, just the usual assortment of guns that private citizens, and a few police officers had when the barrier
went up. There were some explosives used in construction as well. Kim would not allow any damage to the alien ship at present but chose not to interfere
with anything else within the barrier.

She wanted to see what the aliens did and observe any effects by the chemicals being released by the ship. She was also monitoring action and results of
various microbes, viruses and life of any sort being in contact with each other. Other than ensuring there was no attack on the alien ship, she let
everything progress naturally.

The response by people outside the barrier was predictable. They also assumed it was put in place by the aliens and were studying it carefully and trying
different ways to penetrate it. They were trying radio, television, phones, the internet, everything that they could think of, but all forms of
communication between the inside and the outside of the barrier had been cut off by the barrier.

During leader 2*’s time outside the ship, he had been exposed to earth life in many forms while he walked to the ship. Chemicals and microscopic life
passed both ways, to and from Leader 2. Kim was observing effects on earth life and on Leader 2*. She was not allowing any organisms to pass to the rest of
the aliens from Leader 2*.

Kim’s knowledge of the potential risks of contact was progressing very rapidly, but more was needed. One of the drones walled off an internal section of
the area enclosed by the outer barrier with another barrier. Kim could have done it, but her focus was currently on Leader 2* and the events within the
alien ship. The new walled off section included land and a portion of the enclosed area of Lake St. Clair. Inside was a sampling of people, houses and
farms along with some animals.

Next, the drone copied some samples of all the life she could sense within the alien ship. She had noted that the species seemed to have specialized in
sub-classes, so she included at least one of each.

She then set about observing the results, on the alien and earth life forms, down to the atomic level. After a few hours, she broke everything within the
sub-enclosure into its component atoms and reformed things and reformed a different area of Earth. A section of tropical rain forest was used this time.

Again through the drone she monitored interactions between the Earth life and the alien life forms. In another few hours, she would repeat the process with
life and conditions from a different area of the planet. The results would not be absolute as to whether or not there were ecological concerns on either
side, Earth or alien. That would take much more time and assessment. Hopefully though, she would catch any major ecological hazards.

While not perfect, it was hopefully better than blindly letting full exposure of alien and Earth ecosystems. Already Kim, through the drone, noted a number
of concerns in both directions.

Inside the star ship, the aliens had begun some basic language lessons for the entity they had deduced was watching. Kim now knew the chemical codes for a
number of simple words or concepts and the speed of learning new ones was increasing with each additional word she learned.

She was also integrating the language with activity within the brain and nervous system of the aliens. This meant that Kim was learning to recognize the
thought patterns associated with the words she was learning.

Along with helping to speed the understanding of the chemical language, this was also granting the ability to read thoughts in the aliens' minds.

A few more hours into the process and Kim discovered about the life packs. The aliens mentioned them a couple of times related to some concepts they were
trying to define for Kim. These concentrated collections of memories could be passed from one member of the alien species to another, passing on massive
amounts of information quickly, even to newly hatched aliens.

They could also be stored outside the body to create stored memories. All the aliens kept a life pack going at all times that they kept adding to. If
something happened to a particular member of the species, then an attempt could be made to recover the life pack and either read it, or store it, usually
both.

"Well, well," thought Kim. "This will make things so much easier." She located and began to analyze the life packs of all the aliens on the ship and found
a large collection of them in a ship's library. She could decipher some of them already, and as her abilities in understanding the language and thoughts of
the aliens progressed, she was deciphering more and more.

A short time later Kim was learning more from the life packs than from the language lessons themselves. Some of the knowledge Kim discovered in the area of
mathematics was particularly interesting. Especially when combined with some aspects of human mathematics that the aliens seemed unaware of. Kim put her
giant quantum computer additions to work on the implications immediately.

Leader 1* noticed the marked increase in learning rate for the entity, but he was already amazed and concerned by the rate the entity that was using
Leader2* seemed to be learning, so he did not realize the reason for the new increase in rate, or the implications of it.

Leader 1* was still seeing this as teaching the entity controlling Leader 2* their language so they could communicate and had not realized this entity was
also learning to read their thoughts and was already accessing information from other sources that he did not know were vulnerable to accessing. If he had,
his concern would have ballooned into out and out fear. As it was, while he had some concern and unease at how fast, this entity was learning, he was happy
that they seemed to be opening up communication. You always needed to communicate with servants for them to be useful.

The communication so far, while crude, had indicated that the entity did not wish any harm to the ship. The barrier was as they had hoped and suspected a
precaution and form of quarantine, until more about them could be learned.

This was understandable. Leader 1*'s people had their own precautions that they used to try to prevent or minimize ecological contact. Longer term contact
between species and planets was normally done through the use of space stations so that the risk could be more closely controlled. It was a system that
worked fairly well with other interstellar races that they were in contact with.

There was still some occasional crisis that cropped up from time to time, but nothing that had not been able to be controlled so far. Leader 1*'s people
were very aware of the risks of contact between ecosystems and did not want anything to happen to their ecosystem either. Some early contacts in their
history had been major disasters. Fortunately, they were disasters for other species, not them.

MICHAEL WAS IN A LARGE OFFICE space, which took up an entire floor of the building. The space was fairly open in design. Scattered around the immediate
area, talking in pairs or small groups, were the members of the Task Force for Initial Alien Contact. For the last four days, they were all working pretty
much non-stop with only minimal breaks for food and sleep. He could see that the pace was taking its toll on them all. As Chairman of the task force,
nobody had put in more hours than he had and all the information gathered had funneled into him.

They made regular update reports of findings and did briefings with government representatives. They were about to deliver their most-recent news,
conclusions and recommendations. The backgrounds, and opinions varied greatly but that was what was needed in an effective task force. Despite varied
opinions and occasionally heated emotions and arguments, the members of the task force were above all else, reasonable people. Michael had handpicked all
of them, but it was nice to see the group function as he had hoped.

He had written the protocol a number of years ago for what the government’s action should be in case of alien contact. He fully expected it to remain
locked in some filing cabinet somewhere and never be actually activated or used. In the protocol, he included names and contact info for all recommended
members of a task force. Some things had changed since he had written it. Not all recommended members were alive, and some were unable for a variety of
reasons to participate. In the report though, he had included a number of recommended replacements for each position, and the resulting team had been all
he had hoped for when he had written the protocol.

The only exception was the one he had been unable to include in the protocol, and that was who they reported to. This was a White House functionary by the
name of Blaine Collier. Much of their contact with the government was carried out through him. He conveyed information away from the task force and gave
directives to it. In Michael’s opinion, he was an irritating governmental whiz kid, who while very smart, had tunnel vision and seemed to view everything
in terms of political advantage or optics.

If he thought the problem was limited to Blaine Collier, he would have tried to see if there was any way he could get him replaced. The impression he got
though, was that Blaine was only one of many similar cogs in a large machine.

Michael raised his voice to be heard over the other conversations going on in the room. "Can I have your attention please?" The other conversations
stopped, and people gave him their attention.

"I will be getting picked up by Mr. Collier in a few minutes to go brief the President and his advisors. Before I go, is there any new information that I
need to be aware of or any concerns that you have not had a chance to mention to me yet?"

The members of task force and their assistants looked around at one another to see if anyone had anything new, but nobody did.

"Okay, keep working while I'm gone and thank you for your efforts so far. I think given the situation that you all are doing a great job. As before, Dr.
Pritchard will be in command until I get back, and you can relay information to him. Thank you."

Michael moved over to the table where the laptop computer he was using was located. He inserted a memory stick and transferred over some data and photos
that he wanted for his presentation at the White House. It was not his first presentation since this started, so he was familiar with what he would need
and worked quickly and efficiently to transfer what he wanted to highlight. He glanced at his watch and saw that Collier would be downstairs soon to pick
him up. Collier had his faults in Michael's opinion, but he was almost always on time.

Pocketing the memory stick, Michael took one last look around the room at the people working and then headed down to be ready to meet Collier's car when it
got there. The guards nodded at him as he went by. They were present to keep reporters and anyone else that should not be there out.

Reporters had been pushing hard for information of any kind related to the situation and there had not been much to give them. The public was at best, on
edge, and in some places riots and looting had broken out. The rioting and looting had been decreasing as more time passed.