Starship Traveler: Chapter Four:
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It takes great patience to travel between stars."
"I don't think I will ever be patient like that."
"Revekah, you are just a newborn infant, only eighty-six years old. Do not discount your capacity to learn and grow. You will learn many things."
"What did you do to pass all that time as you traveled?"
"I studied the worlds I discovered. I reviewed information gleaned from thousands of worlds. Travelers do not meet often in the expanses of space but when we do, we exchange what we have learned. When I return to my home planet, I acquire vast amounts of information and download it into the ship's data banks. When I was on your planet I recorded as much of your world's history, art, natural wonders, and scientific knowledge as I could. While you are sleeping I have been studying various chemical compounds unique to your planet that may have some marketable value on other worlds. There is much to keep my mind busy. But I missed companionship, someone to talk to, and someone to share with."
"Is there any way I can access this information?"
"I had anticipated your need to do this. The few humans on my planet have wanted the ability to access our information storage systems and have paid a great deal to our scientists to develop interface systems that are adapted to your communication styles. I purchased one of these interface systems prior to my voyage to your planet. It is not simple, but with practice I am sure you will be able to become adept. One large barrier is that my species does not need to learn the language of other species. With telepathy, we automatically understand the meaning of the words without needing translation. You will need to learn the languages of other species to understand the verbal information and learn their writing systems to read their text information, but you can still view images and listen to the sounds of their cultures until you master their languages. You will not have that difficulty with most of the Earth data because your internet primarily used your native language."
"How many worlds?"
"Do you mean how many worlds do I have information about that you could access?"
"Sort of, I guess I really mean how many worlds are there with life on them?"
"Again, I must ask a clarifying question. Exactly what do you mean by life?"
Revekah shook her head, "Xeno, we have been talking in the dark. Turn up the lights and let's try to make oatmeal and then maybe you can tell me exactly what you mean by life and we will work from there. This is obviously very much more complicated than I had originally anticipated." As the room grew brighter, she closed her eyes and imagined warm oatmeal with brown sugar and cream.
As she sat cross legged on her bed, Xeno sat down on the far corner and began to talk, "You are right; this is very complicated. There is great debate about what constitutes life at all. Must it reproduce? Must it move? Must it consume energy? Must it grow? Is a tiny single celled organism life? Most likely, but viruses on your planet have more in common with crystals than they do other single celled animals. But then again, I can show you crystals on other planets that look more like cells than minerals. Then there are the arguments about what constitutes complex life versus simple life. Is it the number of cells? Is it how they are organized? And there have been wars fought over what the definition of intelligent life is and what self awareness is. And don't even get me started on the numbers of theories and debates over what the definition of an advanced civilization is. Currently the only overriding rule is whether the civilization has independently developed interstellar travel. That ability is the required level of technological development to qualify as an advanced civilization."
Revekah scraped the last bites of her oatmeal out of the bowl and licked off the spoon. "That was good. Did you like it?"
"I liked you liking it."
"Okay, let's figure this out. Is there a legal definition for life on your planet?"
"Interesting that you use the concept of law, because my species does not have the capacity to lie to one another, there never is any question of guilt or innocence. One cannot conceal the evidence of their crimes so it is very rare for a member of my society to do anything antisocial deliberately. My culture is very tolerant of mistakes and diminished mental capacity. There is very little in the way of laws in my culture. We have rules of conduct, but if an individual chooses not to follow themm we just opt to not interact with that individual. My culture allows individuals to make their own determination when it comes to opinions about debatable things, like the definition of life. I personally do not worry too much about it. I just look for what interests me, life or not. I gather what interests me and try to trade it to other cultures for more things that interest me."
Revekah smiled, "Is it possible for me to lie to you?"
"It would be difficult. You would have to have amazing control of your thoughts. You would almost have to believe this untruth yourself, never once letting the real facts leak into your thinking from your memory."
"I can see how that would be hard."
"It took my culture as a complete surprise to learn that there were species that could deceive one another. It was a concept so alien that we studied the phenomena for many thousands of years."
"So how many worlds have been explored, that you have data on?"
"I have data on 1,756,542 worlds stored in my data banks. Of those, by my definition, over half have complex life, and over seven hundred thousand have intelligent life. Only 357 advanced civilizations have been discovered, using the definition of having developed some form of interstellar travel as a measure of advanced."
"Then by your definition, Earth is an intelligent, but not advanced civilization?"
"By my definition, that is correct. Almost all forms of interstellar travel depend upon a very specific form of radiation that travels many times faster than the speed of light. That radiation is not found in the zone of space occupied by your galaxy. It is unlikely your species will ever develop interstellar flight unless they make some kind of scientific breakthrough and discover something that no one else has."
"You said almost all. Then some other species have developed interstellar flight without this radiation stuff."
"Yes, a very few adapted to space in other ways, some creating living evolving cultures that lived out generation after generation on board vast ships that move at conventional light speeds across space. They technically did travel to other stars, but it took thousands of years to travel just a small distance. Another learned how to put themselves into suspended animation and slept for thousands of years, but it too was slow and could only take them to the nearest of star systems. My species developed nano bots and with functional immortality, it became possible to travel the distances. It was the ship species that has made true interstellar travel possible."
"Do all Travelers live as long as you do?"
"Most opt for the introduction of nano bots into their bodies, but there is a small sect of spiritualists who believe that there is an existence of a soul and that to deny death is to deny the evolution of this soul. They believe that their spirit is ultimately destined to travel to a higher plane of existence. I personally do not believe this is a valid theory."
"Is is possible to have the nano bots removed from my body?"
"It is not difficult, but they are very beneficial. They help with a lot more than just preventing aging. They keep harmful germs from damaging your tissues, they detect any nutritional deficiencies and can create the needed compounds inside our bodies as we need them, and they help enhance the rate of healing if there ever is an injury to your body. They do a great deal more as well."
"If I asked for you to take them out of my body, would you do that?"
"It is one of those things I would not give you the option of doing. I am sorry, Revekah, you would begin to age normally and die in just a few decades. I cannot allow that."
"I don't know if I would ask for it anyway. Like you, I don't really believe that I have a spirit destined for a higher plane. It was easy to look forward to death when I had nothing else to look forward to. But now, like you say I have an adventure ahead of me."
"I am glad that you are willing to accept this."
Revekah looked at the empty bowl she had been holding in her hand and leaned over the edge of her bed and gently placed it down on the floor. She watched as the bowl and spoon slowly sank out of view. "Does the ship like this, traveling with you?"
"The ship has very limited self awareness beyond a strong sense of self preservation. It instinctively will not place itself at risk. As long as it has opportunities to feed, it will continue to perform the tasks I place before it indefinitely."
"So the ship lives forever too?"
"We introduced nano bots into ships as well. Prior to that, they lived for only approximately one millennium."
"These nano bots, they are an important part of the Traveler culture?"
"In many ways they are the single most important defining thing in our culture. They are not found naturally. A very famous scientist created them from another life form. They are living things. They are dependent upon our bodies to survive and in return they make sure we survive a very long time as well. It was nano bot technology that made it possible to develop interstellar travel. Prior to that, we were not known as Travelers."
"So I am a Traveler now too, aren't I?"
"Yes, Revekah, I have made you a Traveler, more specifically a Starship Traveler, because you are a ship partner now."
"Where are we going?"
"We are going to a zone of the universe where the radiation is very rich. Our ship is very low on stored energy. Traveling to your world is at the very limits of its abilities. It will take us about sixty years to arrive there. Once we are there the ship will need to feed for another twenty years to replenish its reserves. Then we will travel on to my home planet. That voyage will take another seventy years."
Revekah giggled, "Okay, the next hundred and fifty years for a fill up. It gives a whole new meaning to running to the gas station."
"You are aware that I have been converting my measures of time to your years so that you might have a frame of reference."
"I guess so. For now keep doing that. Later I will try to learn your measures, but right now I think I am dealing with enough new stuff."
"You are doing very well."
"You keep saying that. Telling me how good I am doing, like you weren't expecting it."
"Not all alien species collected by Travelers are successful in adapting to the situation they find themselves in. It is not uncommon for there to be emotional breakdowns. Many go catatonic. I studied your mind carefully, hoping to select a likely candidate. Not only was I searching for a mind that is very sensory in its information processing, I was also searching for curiosity, intelligence, and resilience. It has been well documented that older candidates seem to have less difficulty adjusting. You have turned out better than I had hoped."
"I don't know if I should say thank you."
"I meant it as a compliment."
"Is your species capable of love?"
"Very much so, Revekah, great love."
