An Ecology of MInd (36 page)

"I'm very sorry to hear that Wendy, but I will respect your decision. I wish you the best. Good bye."

With that Kim rose, turned and walked out of the restaurant.

"See," spoke Don. "She didn't even argue. She knows she's involved in shady stuff, and that this is the best way."

Wendy started to cry quietly. "She's been such a great friend and was so fun, but I can't have the fear, violence and danger in my life."

"Everything will be fine sis; you will see. This was definitely for the best and like I said, she obviously agreed."

_________________________________________________________

Kim was outside walking towards where her car was parked. She did not agree with Wendy. It hurt, but Wendy had decided this was best for her. She was too
much of a hothouse flower. She wanted the results of her brother back but did not want anything to do with violence and the person that did what was
required to get him back.

Kim was aware of similar reactions to cops and soldiers sometimes by people. They wanted and expected the protection but did not want to deal with the
stuff that went along with getting that protection. It was also like the situation of a woman who complains that her veal is slightly overdone in a
five-star restaurant but who considers killing a calf herself totally unthinkable and people who do as being cruel and heartless.

For some people, this was just a preference or societal habit and if push came to shove, they could do what is required to get the result needed. Others
could not. You never knew for sure until the test came up.

Wendy it seemed could not. Kim was sincerely saddened by this. The only reason she had kept the Kim persona going was Wendy. She had created it to gain the
education and knowledge of computers she wanted a number of years ago, and after she had done that it was no longer needed. She had formed a friendship
with Wendy though and for that reason still kept it going.

Even though she had definite loner tendencies, she felt the need for contact or interaction on a personal level. Humanity had a lot of positives, and she
had some incredible friends, lovers and wives over the years. She and other of her bodies had often been disappointed by relationships as well. Currently,
there was still her Michael persona's relationship with Chris and his family to fill part of the need, but she suspected that would sour or get bumpy in
the very near future. Once Chris understood what was planned for him, he might get very resentful.

On the positive side, humanity was not the only game in town now. With her having the star drive, the universe and all its residents became available to
Kim and her other selves for potential interaction. Kim was fully aware that interaction may not always be positive but her abilities and several thousand
years of exposure to, and participation in; human schemes, plots, betrayals, conspiracies and genocides should prepare her well for contact with other
intelligent species.

Kim thought, again about the situation with Wendy and while it was disappointing, this sort of thing used to bother her a lot more. One thing about
multiple bodies linked by a single consciousness was that extreme emotion in one body was moderated or diluted in the central consciousness by what was
going on with all the other bodies. Most of Kim's other bodies were drones that simply functioned to absorb energy or doing calculations through their
quantum computer additions so Kim tended to be pretty even keeled emotionally at all times. Oh crap!, thought Kim.

She suddenly realized something that seemed very important. She had made some major changes with regard to her multiple bodies as a result of her contact
with the aliens, and her line of thought had just triggered the realization that there were implications she had not taken into account. She quickly put
several of her bodies' mental resources to work exploring some of these.

When she put the recent changes to herself as an entity in motion, she had assumed the status quo would still apply to her, and it didn't. She could no
longer assume her previous plans would be workable in the form she had anticipated. She'd better make alterations and fast. The nature of her central
consciousness was going to change. It changed somewhat already without her realizing it, and it was going to change a lot more. She had to get new plans in
place before it changed too much. She was already noticing a growing indifference to humanity.

On a totally different note, another of the projects her other selves were working on had just reached completion and the results were very interesting.

YOU SAW THE STORIES CHRIS, about the arrival of the aliens on television. When the agents came for me that night, I was taken to Washington to head a task
force on how to deal with contact with them. Years ago, I wrote a protocol for the government on dealing with initial alien contact. It was one of those
things you expect to be filed and never used. I was heading the task force but after making a number of recommendations, I was fired or resigned, depending
on your point of view. Things were not advancing as I wished, and I chose not to force the issue. Instead, I gave advice and left them to follow their
chosen path. I decided to pursue my goals in other directions. I was already taking my own actions independent of the task force through other versions of
myself."

“You know from my lectures about some of the dangers to letting two different ecosystems meet. The barrier that had everyone so concerned was not the
aliens. It was mine. I put it in place as a quarantine barrier, so I could examine what dangers may be inherent in contact with the aliens."

"They are an alien race from another star system and have an interstellar drive which is not only faster than light but is virtually instantaneous. They
had a civilization spanning a few more than two hundred star systems and have made contact with a number of other civilizations as well. They have a name
for themselves, but it is not in any form that is translatable to human speech. I’m sure humans will come up with one that is non-flattering to allow them
to feel superior even though we are their technological inferiors by at least several hundred years. They are an insectoid race, not like our insects in
terms of internal function, but of that basic appearance. Humans will probably end up referring to them as "Bugs" or "Roaches" or something along that
line.”

“When the barrier went up, I started the process of being able to communicate with the aliens. It was complicated because they don't use words or language
as we know it, they communicate using chemical messengers. With the help of my quantum computer analysis, I did manage to set up clear communication
however. They have a feature of their communication, which is quite remarkable. They store the knowledge they accumulate during their lives in complex
chemical structures and normally pass them on to others. In this way, the accumulated knowledge of the entire race is preserved and passed on intact. Our
books can do this, but much less efficiently and the aliens can also pass on entire memories that include all the senses, which our books cannot.”

“The aliens that were here have already managed to communicate with a number of other races so their language acts as a type of Rosetta stone for me with
respect to communicating with those races as well."

"Once I had their language and began accessing their stored memories I could understand how to use their star drive. It is amazingly compact and requires a
surprisingly small amount of energy to operate. I created duplicates of the drive mechanism in many of my various bodies and drones.”

“There were several issues and dangers in both directions. Many were caused by micro-organisms, but they were problems that could be minimized with
precautions taken before hand. Any future contact between the aliens and Earth would be best at a neutral location in space where it can be controlled
better. The use of sealed containment suits would also need to be used. Any actual goods exchanged or transferred from a different ecosystem would require
rigorous sterilization before it could be allowed any contact with our ecosystem."

Chris stopped him to ask a question. "So the big concern that first contact would release some major force of devastation and change into one of the
ecosystems has not come to be so far? Nothing has been unleashed to alter either ecosystem?"

Michael smiled sadly. "It has but not in the way you are thinking. You will see what I mean later?"

"I realize it is a judgement call, but unfortunately, I feel that humanity is not ready for full contact with the aliens yet. To have full contact with
these or other aliens at the current time would put humanity in a subservient position at best. The bodies of the aliens that were here act as chemical
factories of immense complexity. This particular race has expanded by a pattern of chemically altering the DNA of other species to enslave them as labor
sources."

"Letting nature take its course would have resulted in humanity becoming another enslaved species within their interstellar civilization. Considering the
way the enslavement process works, humanity would have almost no chance of ever breaking free on its own. While I usually try not to interfere, I find that
unacceptable. It is the result of a species-related bias, but I don’t care. All things being equal, in matters of survival I choose to side with what is,
despite some major differences, my species.”

“That is horrible that they would do that,” exclaimed Chris.

“Not really, you are speaking from a species bias. Humans did the same thing without using chemicals to the horse millennia ago. We did not ask the horse
or bother to consider its wishes in transforming them from wild creatures to beasts of burden. It was something we could do and was beneficial to us, so we
did it. The aliens are doing the same thing, just using chemical modifiers to do it.”

“But we are a sentient, species. It is totally different.”

“No, it is not. Humans are a sentient species, true, but there is no universal natural law that says another species has to care. Virus and bacteria don’t
care when they kill us, a shark does not care. Pigs are quite intelligent animals, but we still enjoy bacon with our eggs or a nice rack of barbecued pork
ribs. Natural selection as a process does not give any preference to any species. It can survive or it can’t. The rest is bias and wishful thinking
distorting reality. We can create comfortable situations or relatively safe enclaves that can allow us to ignore natural laws, for as long as we are strong
enough to enforce exceptions to them, but the core realities of the workings of the universe remain and will apply themselves whenever we are not strong
enough to keep them at bay.”

“That seems awfully cold and harsh," complained Chris.

“Yes it is. I didn't make the rules. I also don't take them as absolute. In the end they are, but sometimes for a limited time or within certain
parameters, you can act differently and avoid the harshness. You just can't forget totally that the harshness is always there ready to act."

"How did you get the aliens to go along and not enslave us?"

“What I did was give the message to these aliens that humanity was to be left alone and treated with respect until they are able to meet them on a more
equal footing. I chemically tagged that message to them as being a matter of species survival for them. I made it clear to them that species death could
result if they violate it. I will continue to monitor contact with them and any other aliens that come along as well. They don't have concepts in their
language for things like friends, equals, ally, and so on so I have tried to introduce those ideas to them. Time will tell what comes of it. I noticed a
lot of similarities between the thinking of the aliens and humans though, so I am not overly optimistic.”

"So the aliens are gone, the barrier is down and everyone inside the barrier is fine then?"

Michael hesitated. "Not exactly. I ran many tests within the barrier of what happened with contact between the two ecosystems. Many of the people inside
died or were contaminated. Even if they were not, there was the risk that something may surface at a later date. I destroyed everything inside the barrier.
I tore it down to its individual atoms and then reassembled it from a copy I made initially."

"That's terrible but at least they are all right."

Again, Michael hesitated. "No they are not. You are thinking in terms of an electronic copy like a computer file. Everyone inside the barrier is dead. If I
make an exact copy of you and then kill you. You are dead. The copy has existence but is not you, only a copy."

"Oh my God! How many people died?"

"About twenty-five thousand people were lost. The copies were from the time the barrier first went up, so I implanted a variety of innocuous memories in
the people to account for the time until the aliens left. I'm sure many will be subjected to fears of being pod people or some other alien conspiracy. It
seemed like a lesser evil and to cause fewer long-term problems than having all of those people simply vanish. Again, time will tell."