Cary Neeper--Writings© 2002-2012 Carolyn A. Neeper

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I. An End to Games
Kohrek:
They had already committed to orbit when their argument focused on the most critical issue facing the planet. Kohrek adjusted her passenger restraints and looked at the young varok sitting erect in the adjoining seat--her colleague, Lok Antalorian, called Lokan. He was young, with a grand mind still exploring its potential, a nearly mature varok still a Callisto cycle away from graduation at the Concentrate. He had won a position as relief scientist to help address the crisis on the newly discovered planet Ellason--a wild place not yet fully understood. His dedication to the project was clear, but his ideals shone through, his words as raw and vulnerable as his person would be, too soon.

"We can win over the ellls, Kohrek, if we can find a way to communicate with them--I mean understand them on their terms--not ours. Surely the Directorate will not overrule this approach. Surely."

The fire in his eyes danced with urgency that his mentor, the aging varok Kohrek, found tragic. Usually, Lokan's young face stretched with laughter and sagged with disappointment, as if words of honest feeling would, at any moment, spill from his lips. She hated not to reassure him. "We haven't cracked the ellls' sonic code, and now we have evidence that they communicate with pressure signals on their body tiles. We'll be aliens with no way to communicate, Lokan."

"Aliens? What do you mean by aliens, Kohrek?" Lokan asked.

"Fearsome creatures from an unknown place beyond Ellason, a place they can't imagine, a place we can't describe--or won't, because they don't have a language within our sound range."

"Is that the lab's assumption? What about the electromagnetic signals from their tile lines. We understand the lateral lines on Earth's fish, don't we?"

"Ellason is not Earth, Lokan, and ellls are not fish."

"Bioluminescence? Chemicals?"

"Unlike everyone else in Ellason's oceans, ellls have none. They stay dark, and they don't indulge in chemical conversations. Both are probably a result of defensive selection."

"So we are aliens--beings they can't possibly understand? Is that what you imply?"

Kohrek loosened her restraints and tried a definition. Still a tiny ball of mist, Ellason had come into view, but the elder didn't want to interrupt the conversation to point it out. There would be better views later, but not a better chance to talk. "Aliens are something alive, and I agree that life knows life and may share some biochemistry, some basic needs like food and shelter, but--yes--life on Ellason may be so different we will never understand it. On Varok different languages cause different thought patterns, even among us varoks. The ellls may never understand us."

"So if we learn to understand each other, we will no longer be alien. Right? I claim there is no such thing as an alien. The word alien comes from a failure to recognize that every living being is a person, a conscious entity, no matter how they sense their environment or communicate between themselves."

"I like your idea," Kohrek said. "Treating every living being as a person could make a huge difference in how we treat the ellls." Here was the attitude varoks at the lab needed in order to make real progress.