“Qeete Mik Vee Vee”

(Co-Editor Allison Note: The next four days will include four installments of another ongoing member in the SaragunSprings’ “boatyard”–to borrow a phrase from Mark Twain. The installments are complete, but like the rest of the universe, the greater statement is an ongoing process–LA)

-1-

Long before humankind formed its first society, the oldest of the two super-races in our galaxy (the closest the human tongue can get to their name is “Gorth”) sent a system of probes and Travellers into space to search the stars for intelligent life. It is very inconvenient for a ten meter, 600 kilo Gorth to space travel, so they go with the probes and Travellers. Still extant, there are close to a quarter million probes out there, who outnumber the Travellers a thousand to one.

A probe is a highly compressed Artificial Intelligence about the size of a dime, and is correctly considered life. Despite “his” tiny mass, a probe has far more computing power than all the Earth’s devices combined, and, when necessary, is able to manufacture certain complex structures from whatever raw materials are at hand . A Traveller is a subatomic AI created by the almost infinite compression of thought, who has almost no power to interfere with matter other than in communication, yet there is no end to a Traveller’s ability to think and imagine. The concept of the probe, though impressive, is commonplace in the galaxy, but the invention of the Traveller still remains the highest known technological triumph ever achieved by any race at any time.

The probe/Traveller dynamic is simple enough in theory yet complicated in application. A probe’s job is to sniff out burgeoning technological civilizations and then, after certain Gorth standards have been met, relay the information to the nearest Traveller, who will decide whether or not the located civilization is worthy of Contact, which is made by a Traveller only, and whose judgment the Gorth trust without reservation. Grossly oversimplified, you could say that theirs is a bird dog/hunter sort of thing.

Alas, does any bird dog worth his or her kibble begrudge the hunter for claiming the spoils? Who knows. But within the probe/Traveller relationship lies a subtle resentment: probes (although not to the same degree as a Traveller) think and feel and have opinions and complaints of their own. And the two things they dislike most involve “thoughtlessness” and “insensitivity” on the part of the Gorth and the Travellers: “How come our race isn’t considered a proper noun?” and “How come Travellers get all the glory after we have done all the work?” have never been answered to probekind’s complete satisfaction, and remain the topics of probe internal chatter. And even though the Gorth and the Travellers believe they go to special pains to let the probes know that they are both loved and appreciated, they do so with what is often interpreted as a patronizing attitude. This issue, however, had never got in the way of the bigger picture–or such had been the case until Earth year 1977.

1977 is when a prank/lesson hatched by a member of the second oldest super race in our galaxy (we’ll call them the “Krell”) occurred. The Krell and Gorth have never been hostile toward each other during their several million year long friendship, yet they are extremely competitive with each other even though both consider such behavior unworthy of the other. Describing the dynamic of the long interaction between the two super-races would kill billions of bytes and yet never get to the soul of the matter. Let’s just say that neither is ever wrong about the other and let it lay there. Sometimes, this competitiveness between the two super-races results in interesting behavior.

It is also worth noting that the divergent types of life that the Gorth and Krell are often get in the way of things. Gorth are extremely conservative immense home dwelling aquatic mammals (they have Gortha-formed many watery worlds) whose time reference is extremely slow to unfold; it takes them days just to complete a thought, whereas the Krell are joyfully hyperkinetic insect-like beings who love space travel, a good joke, meeting people, and interesting behavior in general. The two species seldom communicate face to face, which often leads to the interesting behavior (almost always exhibited by the Krell) .

So it came to pass that in Earth year 1977, a Krell scientist named Mimi (for real), and on her own accord, mind you, decided to pull/teach a little prank/lesson on/to the Gorth. Along with her scientific prowess Mimi was also an excellent space pilot. While in her single Krellic ship studying several nearby star systems that contained intelligent life at the quadrant outpost she was stationed, her sensors detected a Gorth probe only a few thousand kilometers away. In the vastness of space such an occurrence happening was one in billions upon billions. But there it was.

Of all the qualities in the Universe, the Krell admire humor most. And whenever a serendipitous event such as bumping into a Gorth probe comes along, the first thing a Krell thinks is “Qeete mik vee vee”–which, basically, means, “I’ve just got to.” For the longest time this Mimi had fantasized about such an opportunity and was momentarily dumbfounded that such an unlikely event should come to pass. But her amazement didn’t last long enough to allow the probe to scoot out of range. Mimi hacked into the probe’s sleep command and activated it. After that it was merely a case of bringing “him” on board.

Naturally, the Gorth don’t talk about the little glitch in probe personalities, but everybody knew it, especially the Krell. The first thing Mimi did to the slumbering probe was enhance this quiet resentment to a level just shy of a manic obsession. This was accomplished by changing the typically meek probe’s personality to that of  someone best described as “The Probe.”  She supercharged his self image fully aware that the sudden, dramatic boost in his personality would make The Probe a Take Charge sort of fellow, thus more than a little unpredictable (an attractive quality for your basic Krell), but a hell of a lot more entertaining than he probably was.

Yes, upon waking he would become the only Probe that mattered. Perhaps the only Probe period, not just another Gorth peon. Acting quickly Mimi also altered the pre-Contact beam that a probe bounces off a new world and sends to the nearest Traveller upon the discovery of a “suitable” civilization. She also installed a “locking beam” attachment of her own invention; a one time thing that would latch onto whatever lucky Traveller when it opened the incoming message from the probe. None of the alterations would hurt the probe (or Traveller) in any way–in fact, they would improve the quality of probe’s existence upon their flowering–and hopefully that too of the Traveller.

It’s difficult to plainly describe the thought processes of an essentially eternal, double-brained person who vaguely resembles a three meter long cross between a grasshopper and a kangaroo–for a person like that is most likely to think differently than, say, a human being. But it can be truthfully said that the motivation for Mimi’s actions lay in an age-old philosophical disagreement between the two super-races, namely the point that a burgeoning species is worthy of contact. The Gorth bar for it is very high–unattainable, according to the Krell. Privately, the Krell (who require only the presence of high art and humor in a species to make Contact) consider the Gorth snobs and quite possibly bigots because the Gorth tend to only make Contact with “our kind of people.”

It didn’t take long for Mimi to complete the changes. Nor did it take long for her to choose which world she would aim him at. For several days she had been studying a carbon class life planet known only to its inhabitants (and Mimi) as “Earth.” The Earth lay some thirty light years away, thus the radio signals picked up and deciphered by Mimi had originated in 1947–which was an extremely interesting time in human history. Never before had she discovered a burgeoning, high art, absurdly humorous technological species so early in its development–and it had just split the atom, which the Krell found extremely exciting. These “people” also had a singular quality that amazed her–according to the translations of certain radio broadcasts, human beings enjoyed being frightened to the extent that they invented improbable “monsters” as though just being alive wasn’t scary enough. Mimi had already recommended Earth for Contact to the Krellic embassy, it would take a century before an envoy could get there. She figured that her liitle experiment would be long finished before Earth’s Ðay of Days would dawn.

Although many of the thirty-year-old signals from Earth were highly preoccupied with the possibility of a nuclear doomsday, Mimi figured that that sort of thing (which almost never happens) wouldn’t happen to a species so enamored with scaring itself to death. Earthlings, however, were most definitely not conservative Gorth Contact material. This made the Earth the perfect place to send the Probe. But for her plan to work, regardless of her vast time precept, she desired expediency in case they did blow themselves to atoms.

Biological life cannot pass through the string door and come out intact. The lightspeed limit still holds for organic creatures. Still, the useful string door is an ideal conduit for sending supplies, information, robots and even sentient AI’s, like, say, a Gorth probe, across space. The only problem with wormhole-like structures such as the string door is that they often lose integrity after a couple hundred light years or so and can give out and dump whatever cargo they carry to their points of failure. (Until the invention of the “pre-confirmation” signal there used to be a lucrative salvage business based on the retrieval of prematurely dumped goods; the Krell were the leaders in this field.)

What follows is a gross oversimplification of what happened, but it holds enough truth to accurately describe the Krell’s actions: Mimi powered open a fairly short dimension door (commonly called a “string”) and shot the still sleeping probe through it to Earth like a spit wad blown through a straw. Upon exiting, she programmed it to begin braking and head toward Earth. As it goes with essentially quantum-based actions, the conformation signal preceded the launch. And no matter how many times Mimi saw that, she always greeted that little peculiarity with a bemused and very human-like tilt of her anvil-shaped head. She smiled after the door winked out of existence. No doubt there’d be some sort of long-winded, passively snotty communication from a Gorth pettifog coming her way down the line because she had done nothing to conceal her actions. Mimi already knew her reply to that: “Qeete mik vee vee.”

(End Chapter One)