An Ecology of MInd (37 page)

While restoring the area with identical copies of the originals is not ideal and is messier in some ways, it seemed the fairest to the people from within
the barrier and any loved ones outside the barrier. They did not ask for the aliens to land there, but sometimes crap happens, whether you ask for it or
not."

“Hopefully, humanity will continue to improve its technology levels and mature as a civilization to the point that they can meet these and other aliens in
space on a strong enough footing to survive the encounters on their own.”

“Are you going to help that along? You said you understand how their star drive works.”

“I don’t have any plans to give the star drive to humanity at present. If they develop the technology on their own, fine. There are a number of
possibilities, and I have not fully decided on a long term course of action yet."

Chris suddenly sat a bit more upright. "I just thought of a major question. I've been so dazzled by the strangeness and amount of all the information
you've been giving me that I never thought of it sooner."

"Go ahead and ask it. I've been waiting for you to get to the question," smiled Michael.

"Why are you telling me all of this? It's amazing and fascinating, but why me?"

AS HE WAS LED DOWN THE HALLWAY, Leader 1* felt no fear or anger related to his impending death. He did feel that the actions planned by his people were a
mistake. He definitely understood the decision and reasons for it, but his thoughts on the entity and its actions and messages made him feel that there was
another way that was possible. Soon his thoughts on the issue would have no bearing.

The world around him shimmered and a barrier that looked like a smaller version of the one on the entity's planet, appeared. The barrier was small; it did
not extend as far as any of the fighter units ahead of, or behind him in the hallway. After a few moments, it expanded to enclose a space similar in size
the command area on Leader 1*'s ship. The floor he was standing on changed to a material that looked and felt like that on the ship as well. A table
appeared to his right on which an assortment of foods and drinks appeared along with a rest platform.

Leader 1* continued to look around him but nothing further happened. Obviously, the entity was here. After waiting for a while with no further changes, he
decided nothing was happening for the time being, and he made himself comfortable and waited.

He mentally reviewed everything he could think of about the entity and spent some time considering the strange concepts the entity had conveyed to him.
They were still difficult to understand, but he felt as if he was starting to unravel their meaning. He seemed to make the most headway and make some sense
of them if he first as a mental exercise suspended his understanding of the workings of the universe and substituted the entity's concepts instead.

He did this long enough to get hungry, and he paused to eat and drink from the offerings on the table. After a while, he tried something different. First,
thinking solely in terms of the entity's concepts, he then allowed reality as he normally saw it to superimpose itself over the alien concepts. Doing this
he could see a way in which the reality of the strong survives, eat or use or be eaten or used would still apply, but you could find situations where this
fact could be suspended or set aside, to a certain extent. The entity's assertions that it did not wish to harm Leader 1*'s people, but it would not allow
them to dominate its own seemed workable. There was a possibility of a choice unless immediate events forced a confrontation. You could agree to set the
natural law aside for a time and choose not to engage in a struggle for dominance.

Chemicals of communication wafted over his sensory organs. "I am glad to see that you begin to understand what I was trying to communicate to you."

"You can read my thoughts."

"Yes."

"It is an odd way of thinking. I see part of it now but feel I don't fully understand it all. I was unable to get my superiors to consider it at all."

"I know. I tried as well with the life pack I sent for them and through you as a messenger. They were unwilling to consider the possibility that it was
worth the effort to try to understand. Your species has had a way of looking at your surroundings that has not varied for countless generations and has
been successful for you, until now. Your own success acted to reinforce the idea that you had no need to question your beliefs as they seemed obviously
true."

"They are true."

"Yes, I agree. As you see now though, you don't always have to engage in the conflict which is reality, and sometimes it is better not to."

"I think I understand somewhat."

"Your people refused to consider thinking differently and were going to destroy my world and people."

"Were? Did you change the Supreme Commander's mind?"

"No. I eliminated your people as I said I would if you tried to harm my world."

"I have only been within this barrier of yours for a short time. You could not eliminate my species. We are in hundreds of star systems."

"Nevertheless, they are gone," answered the entity sadly. "You were and are the hope for your species."

Leader 1* could not understand how his species could be all gone, but he believed that it was. He saw the entity do too much not to accept the possibility.
He was greatly saddened and felt a vast emptiness of loss and waste. If only he had been able to get the Supreme Commander to understand, or if he had
understood better himself sooner.

"All is not lost. I said you were and are the hope for your species."

Leader 1* looked up. "I don't understand."

"I saw that you were trying to understand and were close to it even if your people were moving ahead to try to destroy mine. I kept you safe to see if you
would understand, and you did."

"But my species is destroyed."

"You can rebuild it with changes so that hopefully I don't have to destroy it entirely."

"How?" Leader 1* felt a surge of hope.

"Once an individual unit thinks a certain way, it is difficult to get it to change. You were a special case. What I propose is providing you with a chance
for a fresh start. A number of features of your species make this possible, and as I have told you before, I have no animosity towards you or your species
and prefer there to be no clash between us. There has been, and the results were as I promised, but it does not have to be that way."

"Your species hatches from eggs that can sit dormant for extended periods until an adult activates the hatching process. When they hatch your species is
almost immediately able to function physically. Using life packs you normally provide the information that the newborn units need to be useful trained
units."

"Yes, that is correct," replied Leader 1* hesitantly.

"All hatched units of your species other than you have been destroyed. Your home planet has had almost all trace of your civilization removed and returned
to a wild state. I have replaced the minerals and ores that had been depleted by your species during your growth and expansion as a civilization. There is
a single structure left. It is a large pyramid which in the chambers beneath it houses six hundred thousand unhatched egg units of your species. There are
units of all types of your species. Beneath the chambers with the unhatched eggs is a vast library which contains all material which was stored in the
various libraries of your people."

"This is all you would need to rebuild your species fairly quickly. By yourself, you could begin to hatch units to help you, and you could provide the life
packs that they need to function. The initial knowledge that the hatched units have, would be what you choose to provide them with. The former way of
thinking by your people resulted in their near extinction. You have a chance to change that and to rebuild your species' civilization in whatever form you
feel is best for your people. What your people become, and their future is dependent on what information you decide to provide them in the life packs you
give them. You are their hope."

Leader 1* stared at the location the communication chemicals were forming. "Why have you done this? My species was going to destroy yours? It would be
easier and natural for you to have completely destroyed us and not leave me alive. It would give you all the resources of my species planets."

"Yes, I could have. If I followed your species old way of thinking, I would have. However, I chose not to. Think about the concepts I gave you a bit more.
You will understand better."

The barrier around Leader 1* faded, and he saw no sign of the city, or Central Command around him. He saw instead, undeveloped forest. He turned and
noticed a vast cleared area with a gigantic pyramid structure in the centre.

"You will need a new name, Leader 1* no longer has meaning with respect to your position in your society."

Leader 1* asked, "What should it be?"

He almost replied to Leader 1* that it should be "Prophet" but he stopped himself. I'm sure I will continue to make mistakes, but if I do, they should at
least be new ones he thought wryly.

"Here is a life pack with a few more concepts your people did not have. The name I suggest is explained among them. I think your new name should be
"Teacher." I will leave you now to pursue the future you feel is best for your species. I wish you well Teacher."

Teacher rested while he considered the new information and concepts he had been provided. Teacher did seem an appropriate name he thought after a while.

He started considering what should be in the life packs for the first members of his species rebirth.

THE CENTRAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE GROUP entity that had Michael and Kim as individual extensions pondered the choice it had to make. His life had changed so
much since the later part of the nineteenth century but even for him the idea of making a decision like this would have been unthinkable a month ago.

He remembered when life seemed simpler. Not much had changed for him or humanity for several thousand years before agriculture. That had ended the nomadic
life-style of the hunter-gatherer and rapidly in terms of the time, led to the rise of civilization. Looking back on it, change seemed more manageable
then. It was easy to get nostalgic, especially since he had so much time to reflect on.

Fortunately, change also often gave you the tools to deal with the change. His quantum additions made it so much easier to handle the vast amounts of
information he was processing continuously now. His brain as it had been before that was a human brain with one minor difference. Even now with all the
changes, much of how he viewed and processed information was shaped by his human brain. This meant a lot of limitations, distortions and blind spots, but
until now, it had been quite workable.

The coming of Leader 1* and his people changed all of that. As he learned their language and to read their minds, he realized that even with his abilities
at the time, it would not be enough to prevent them from destroying Earth if they chose to. Their technology gave them too many ways to eliminate humanity
for him to prevent them all. As it turned out he would have been powerless against their plan of jumping multiple antimatter missiles into various parts of
the Earth. While he did not know exactly what they would do, he had realized early in his contact with the aliens that he could not ensure Earth would be
safe. His power at the time, while great, would not have been enough.

Because of this, once he understood the full nature of the star drive; he created one on his extension within the star Alpha Centauri. He then created five
duplicates of that extension, including the star drive. Using astronomical data taken from Leader 1*'s ship, he jumped those five extensions to the centres
of other stars. Once there he used those extensions to absorb enough energy to repeat the process. Each extension in a star created five more extensions
with star drives. He repeated this process every hour for twenty-two hours.