Skap thinks I’m superstitious. But I am very in touch with the universe,
As we approach the planet, I feel certain there is a reason we are here, something beyond our basic mission. I feel it with every atom, gluon, and haydon in my being.
But Skap insists I don’t belong on a crew if I think that way. He says we are here to observe the primitive life, take air, soil, and plant samples, and to record images of the landscape, He says we are here to observe, nothing more. Objective, cold, distant. We’re not even supposed to land. We’re supposed to stay above these primitives.
Of course, I say he’s a little behind on the times. There is no such thing as real objectivity. Everybody knows that. The act of observing, of standing above something and looking at it, sensing it in any way with any of our 23 senses, changes the thing observed. That is obvious to most of us, even at the subatomic level. You can’t really ever stand above something objectively. There is often value in trying, but only if you remember that it isn’t really possible.
I tell Skap he’s the superstitious one, still believing in the ancient myth of objectivity. Objectivity is just one more subjective experience.
He grunts and walks off the bridge.
They never should have paired us together for this mission.
We approach the planet. It’s not that unusual: varied landscapes, varied temperature and climate zones, varied species of lifeforms. The only sentient beings are only recently evolved from other lifeforms. On the last mission here, they hadn’t developed yet. It’s such a sad, sad existence. They kill each other. They enslave each other. They pretend surface features like skin tone, birthplace, facial features, or culture-based rituals give them the right to oppress their fellow creatures. They are so violent about such trivial things, but if they could see down to the levels of matter we can see, they would see that they are all the same.
I feel sorry for them. I must look forlorn, or empathetic, or sympathetic, because Skap tells me I look pathetic. He tells me I’m too soft. We are here to observe, not to feel pity for them. They are simply developing, going through growing pains, as any species does. Someday, if they don’t destroy themselves, he says, they might become like us.
Yes, I reply, cold, heartless observers of other species’ misery.
He asks what I think we should do, go down and civilize them, force them to conform to our standard for how a society should run. If we forced them, we would be no better than slave masters ourselves.
I admit this. Perhaps, I say, we could go down and merely demonstrate a new way of existing, show them how to treat people, show them how to live in harmony.
Are you kidding? They’d kill us, he says. They don’t want to hear a message like that. Better to stay up here, to merely observe them in stealth mode. Better to keep out of it. Objective.
Still, sometimes I think we should land. Sometimes I wish we could go down there and actually interact with them. There is only so much we can learn from a distance. I tell Skap that perhaps the best way to learn about them would be to actually put ourselves in their places, to immerse ourselves in their experience. He gets so disgusted with me, he leaves the bridge.
We’ve surveyed most of the planet now, and are over the final area we are supposed to scan. It’s a bleak, desert landscape, a land of oppression, slavery, and death. We fly over by night, taking up data.
Suddenly, the sensors hit an anomaly, and alarms go off. A strange reading from somewhere in a small cluster of dwellings where some kind of cultural gathering is taking place. Population levels are elevated above the average. But in one area, there is a reading, or several interrelated readings. Temporal anomalies, signals functioning in multiple quantum modes. It’s coming from a life form, I think. But I’m not sure. I’m not sure what the readings mean, and neither does he. I decide we need to investigate. We fly to the area where the readings come from, but we can’t discover what they are, or precisely where.
Again that instinct kicks on: we are here for a reason. I don’t know what it is.
I insist on breaking protocol. We need to turn on additional sensors to see if we can see what is there. The problem is, those sensors will look like a bright light to the primitives below if we turn them on.
After some resistance, Skap relents when I tell him people will just think we are a very bright star.
We turn on the additional sensors. We follow the anomalous readings.
When we rest over the group of dwellings, There is nothing there to explain them. But we stay for a time, trying to make some sense of things.
The primitives below do not seem to notice.
At least not at first.
The sensors pick a large grouping of the primitives, riding on slave-creatures, appearing to come toward us, as if they view us as a sign. Three riders in the front seem to lead the way.
I continue to tell Skap not to worry. They will mistake us for a star. They will forget this little incident of a rogue star. It won’t even be a footnote in history.
But I’m lying.
We are supposed to be here. I know it.
And when I finally figure out the source of the anomaly, I don’t tell him what it is. He wouldn’t believe me, anyway. It would seem too small to be the source of so great an anomaly.
I track the caravan of primitives. They seem to use us to guide them…
We will leave soon, with more questions than answers.
Why were we meant to be here?
There must be a reason.
