They're Made Out of Meat
What would advanced aliens think of us?
A story by Terry Bisson
"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"There's no doubt about it. We picked
up several from different parts of the
planet, took them aboard our recon
vessels, and probed them all the way
through. They're completely meat."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't
come from them. The signals come from machines."
"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell
you. Meat made the machines."
"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a
machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you.
These creatures are the only sentient race
in that sector and they're made out of
meat."
"Maybe they're like the orfolei. You
know; a carbon-based intelligence that
goes through a meat stage."
"Nope. They're born meat and they
die meat. We studied them for several
of their life spans, which didn't take
long. Do you have any idea what's the
life span of meat?"
"Spare me. Okay maybe they're
only part meat. You know like the
weddilei. A meat head with an
electron plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that,
since they do have meat heads,
like the weddilei. But I told you,
we probed them. They're meat
all the way through."
"No brain?"
"Oh, there's a brain all
right. It's just that the brain
is made out of meat!
That's what I've been trying to tell you."
"So... what does the thinking?"
"You're not understanding, are you?
You're refusing to deal with what I'm telling you. The
brain does the thinking. The meat."
"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat.
Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning
to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"
"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
"Thank you. Finally Yes. They are indeed made out of meat.
And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a
hundred of their years."
"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"
"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to
explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas
and information. The usual."
"We're supposed to talk to meat."
"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by
radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.'
That sort of thing."
"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
"I thought you just told me they used radio."
"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds.
You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise?
They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even
sing by squirting air through their meat."
"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether
too much. So what do you advise?"
"Officially or unofficially?"
"Both."
"Officially we are
required to contact, welcome, and log in any
and all sentient races
or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without
prejudice, fear, or favor.
Unofficially I advise that we
erase the records and forget
the whole thing."
"I was hoping you would say that."
"It seems harsh, but there is a
limit. Do we really want to make
contact with meat?"
"I agree 100%. What's there to
say? 'Hello, meat. How's it going?'
But will this work? How many planets
are we dealing with here?"
"Just one. They can travel to other
planets in special meat containers, but
they can't live on them. And being meat,
they can only travel through C space.
Which limits them to the speed of light and
makes the possibility of their ever making
contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."
"So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."
"That's it."
"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat?
And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you
probed? You're sure they won't remember?"
"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into
their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a
dream to them."
"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we
should be meat's dream."
"And we marked the entire sector unoccupied."
"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially Case closed. Any
others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"
"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence
in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two
galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."
"They always come around."
"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably
cold the universe would be if one were all alone...."
Terry Bisson is a Hugo Award-winning science fiction
author whose most recent hook is In the Upper Room and
Other Likely Stories. He can he found in rea1space in New
York City and in cyberspace at
terrybisson.com.
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