Existence

strangeness of syntax and grammar. Rather, the sheer number of symbologies seemed startling. Just when one linguistic system was starting to make sense, it would get jostled aside, forced to make way for another. So far, there had been at least fifty, spanning a range greater than all human languages.

This very complexity helped convince the advisory committee against any likelihood of fraud. One or two eerie grammars might be counterfeited. But why would hoaxers go to so much effort, creating scores of them, apparently bickering and competing with each other for attention? Pranksters would want to convey authority and confidence- not an impression of inner squabbling.

Oh, it seemed likely this was real, all right. Some kind of emissary artifact, representing a menagerie of sapient races, a blizzard of dialects, and a panoply of shining planets, depicted in varied colors and living textures, from pure water worlds to hazy desert globes. That very diversity seemed reassuring, in a way. For, if so many races shared some kind of community, out there, then surely humanity had little to fear?

Without willing it to, Gerald found his left hand creeping closer to the ovoid, as if drawn by habit, or a mind of its own. And soon, the Artifact reacted. Vague, cloudy patches clarified into more distinct swirls that gathered and clustered in the area closest to him. That sense of depth returned. Again, he seemed to be looking inward… downward…

… and soon, a clump of minuscule shadows appeared, as if they were figures viewed at a great distance, through a shimmering mirage-haze. Starting small and indistinct, these tiny black shapes began rising, growing larger with each passing moment, as if approaching through banks of polychromatic fog.

Physical contact with my hand doesn’t seem to be required, anymore, he pondered with bemusement. Just proximity.

And there was another difference, this time.

There are several of them, at the same time.

Always, before, there had been a jostling sense of exclusivity. Just one hand met his. One alien alphabet lingered for a while, before being pushed aside by another.

Now, he counted four… no, five… figures that seemed to be striding forward together, side by side, gaining color and detail as they approached. Two of them were murky bipedal shadows, accompanied by what seemed to be some kind of a four-legged centauroid, a crablike being and-well-something like a cross between a fish and a squid, propelling along with tentacular pulsations, easily keeping pace beside the walkers.

Apparently, reality operated under different rules, in there.

“What the devil are you doing?” Akana hissed, beside him. “We agreed not to trigger a response till the president said so!”

“I’m not doing anything,” Gerald grunted back at her, partly lying. His hand wasn’t touching the Artifact. But nor was he drawing it back. Indeed, clearly, the approaching figures seemed to be moving toward him, drawn by his attention.

Speaking of attention, Gerald could sense the dignitaries nearby, halting their private conversations and turning to look at the big screen, amid a rising babble of excitement. Those nearby clustered close behind Gerald to look at the real thing. He felt warm breath and smelled somebody’s curry lunch.

“You… really ought to…” Akana began. But he could tell she was as transfixed as the others. Something important was happening. More so than a lapse in protocol.

At that moment, while the alien figures were still some “distance” away through that inner haze, somebody pushed a switch and the stage curtains spread apart, exposing the dais and the big screen to a thousand people in the auditorium… and several hundred millions of viewers around the globe.

Some interval later, while a babble filled the hall, a fanfare played through the public address system. Gerald guessed, with a small part of his mind, that it must be for the president coming on stage. Just in time to be ignored.

The five figures loomed, their forms beginning to fill one side of the Artifact boundary, facing Gerald. He recognized the centauroid and one of the bipeds, from earlier, brief encounters. The first had a hawkish face, with two extremely large eyes on both sides of a fierce-looking beak. A nocturnal creature, perhaps, yet apparently unbothered by bright light. The other strode on two legs that moved like stilts, swinging to the side in order to move forward. Its head seemed a mass of wormlike tendrils, without any breaks or apparent openings.

The crablike being closely resembled-well-Gerald’s dinner, two nights ago, while the aquatic seemed something of a nightmare. At least, those were his vague impressions. To be honest, Gerald had little attention to spare. For the moment, despite all his previous experience with the alien object, he felt as pinned and fascinated as any of those watching from their homes, across the planet.

Gerald abruptly realized there were more entities now, emerging from the distance, hurrying forward-at least dozen or more of them, propelling themselves with haste, as if eager to catch up with the first ones.

Those five alien figures stopped, crowding together at the lens-like boundary between the ovoid and Gerald’s world. He sensed them looking outward, not just at him, but at Akana and others within view. He could no longer hear or feel hot breath on his neck. For a few seconds, no one exhaled.

Then, from each of the five aliens, there emerged a single dot. A black form that grew and fluttered as it took shape. A symbol or glyph, each quite different than the others. One was sharply angular. Another manifested as all slants and intersections. A third looked like a crude pie chart… and so on. The signs plastered themselves in a row, along the curved surface where the Artifact’s interior met the outside world of humans.

Is that it? Another set of enigmas? Well, at least a few of them are working together, for a change. Maybe we can start the long process…

The symbols began to mutate again. Each transformed, and Gerald had an intuition-they were turning into blocklike letters of the Roman alphabet, just like that day during reentry.

If it just says “greeting” again, I may scream, he thought.

Fortunately, it didn’t. Not exactly.

This time, instead of one word, there were two.

JOIN US.

PART FOUR NOBLER IN THE MIND

We need not marvel at extinction; if we must marvel, let it be at our presumption in imagining for a moment that we understand the many complex contingencies, on which the existence of each species depends.

– Charles Darwin

SPECIES

autie murphy verifies + + + he found the basque chimera

+!+ the child lives +!+ and is safe, for now.

safe from the normalpeople who would treasure +/- persecute -/+ or study himherit -/- perhaps to death

born in a year that would have been the square of the number of birthdays that jesus would have