The Visitor

Randall was sitting on the bench, looking across the river Charles,
when the man sat down next to him.

"Hello Randall, how are you?" he said in a friendly tone.

"Who are you?" asked Randall, disturbed.

"I’m a visitor. Do you mind if I sit down?"

"Yes, I mind. You are being very mysterious, and it’s a scaring me a
little."

"Please don’t worry, I mean you no harm."

Randall looked the man in the eyes, and decided that he did not indeed
seem dangerous. He was pleasant enough looking, and impeccably
dressed. Joggers, bikers and strollers passed behind him frequently
enough that an outright assault seemed very unlikely.

"Very well, what can I do for you?"

"I’d like to talk to you about something. I’m a visitor from outer
space."

"Yes, of course, so am I," laughed Randall.

"Seriously, but please let me tell you my story. You can hold your
skepticism to the end."

"Ok, so you are some kind of alien who is able to take on human form,
is that it?"

"No. I’m in fact biologically human like you."

"Right, so they swapped your brain or something?"

"No, but I was raised in a virtual environment, simulating the
conditions and culture of my hosts. So I’m physically human, but
culturally alien."

"Your English is pretty good for an alien," joked Randall.

"I was raised speaking American English, though I didn’t know at the
time of course that it was English. After I matured, the truth was
revealed to me, and I was trained in Earth customs and mannerisms to
facilitate communication with you."

"I see. Well, this is a very nice yarn, but I’ve got to get back to
the lab now."

"Please, professor, give me five more minutes of your time? This is
very important."

"Right, sure, go ahead," said Randall. The man seemed sincere, and
Randall had to admit to himself that he was intrigued, even if the guy
was clearly a lunatic.

"I’ve got some scientific papers that we prepared on the ship. They
will demonstrate to you that I am either a super genius, or that my
story is true."

"Really? And how would I verify your super-genius results?
Instructions to build a warp drive..." Randall joked.

"The paper I’ll share with you first builds on the basic knowledge
already available to you now. You or one of your colleagues would
have derived these results on your own probably within the next 5
years. You’ll be able to either verify them yourself, or wait until
someone else independently comes up with these results."

"Excellent, so I’ll see you in 5 years then?"

"Yes, if that’s how long it takes. But perhaps you’d like to glance
through the paper right now? I think you will find it compelling."

"Very well, let me see it," said Randall, his curiosity peaked.

Randall read the paper with a steadily increasing sense of discomfort
and dread. The paper delivered on the man’s promises, it seemed
genuine and described results that seemed just beyond the reach of
Randall’s current research effort. It was unlikely anyone else on
Earth had reached these conclusions independently.

"Very interesting," murmured Randall. "Of course it could be a very
clever hoax."

"Yes, which is why you’ll need to verify it one way or the other. But
if I’ve got your ear, please let me tell you the rest of my story. I
think you will find it very interesting."

"I’m sure I will," sighed Randall. "But I really don’t have time for
this!"

"Please? It is really important!"

"Fine!" said Randall, angry with himself for being unable to resist
the man’s persuasions.

"I was born one hundred and thirty years ago, aboard a spaceship
orbiting the sun near Pluto."

"You’ve kept in pretty good shape," quipped Randall.

"On the ship we can live indefinitely. By coming to Earth however I
am sacrificing my life. I will wither and die on Earth like all other
living creatures here."

"Why can’t you use your super-alien technology to prolong your life
here on Earth?"

"Because it’s complex and requires a lot of infrastructure to be in
place. Also, we don’t want to stand out from ordinary people. Better
to grow old and die like everyone else."

"Right, but why not go back to the ship to be rejuvenated once you are
old?"

"It doesn’t work that way. They can keep us healthy and young, but
they cannot reverse aging, or if they can they are refusing to do it.
Besides, I came here of my free will knowing full well that I would
pay this price."

"So why did you do it?"

"Because it is a chance for me to help humanity. I still feel a
strong bond with Earth and its people; I’m still one of you even if I
came to life in an unorthodox fashion."

"Right, so how did you come to life exactly? Were your parents
abducted or something?"

"They extracted sperm and ova from recently dead cadavers. People who
die in remote areas from accidents. The zygotes are cloned several
times, and finally allowed to mature ex-vitro."

"Wonderful. So you arise from the dead!"

"Yes, in a way. But it’s the most ethical way to obtain live humans."

"Yes, indeed. An unethical goal of course."

"True, but as you will see, they believe that the end justifies the
means."

"Sure, and what is the end purpose of this pseudo-abduction process?"

"To produce people like me who can serve as ambassadors of their
culture. We seek out life, and especially sentient life, and try to
help it grow and develop, because it is so rare in our universe."

"Sounds like you’ve got a serious identity problem!"

"Yes, I do," laughed the man. "Many of use choose not to come to
Earth. Some even prefer euthanasia."

"Lovely; more unethical behavior. This is all very disturbing,
whether or not what you are telling me is true!"

"Yes, I’m sorry about that, but it’s important that you know the
truth."

"Yes, you keep saying that, but tell me why it’s so important?"

"Because we believe it is important that we intervene at this point of
human history. Humanity has great potential, but is also in severe
danger of sliding into backwardness, or even going extinct!"

"Yes, of course, but this has always been true. Why intervene now?"

"I didn’t say we never intervened before!"

"Ah, yes, of course, you’ve been our guardian angel for a hundred
years. A lot of good that’s done us!"

"Actually it has done a lot of good, but obviously there is only so
much we can do. Humanity ultimately has to determine its own destiny.
All we can do is try to facilitate the path towards achieving super
sentience."

"Yes, how very noble of you. So how do you plan to intervene this
time around?"

"I don’t know all the details of that, but my current mission is to
contact you and establish a trust relationship. We want to use you as
a conduit for disseminating information we hope will be useful in
helping maintain forward progress of human culture and civilization.
I’m sure others are working on different fronts as well, but we don’t
necessarily know about everybody else."

"How long has this been going on?"

"I don’t know. It could be thousands of years, maybe longer."

"But it must have taken a long time to get here?"

"Yes, from your frame of reference it took millions of years."

"So when you, I mean they, left their planet or wherever they are from, they
couldn’t possibly have known they’d find humans here?"

"Of course not. But the oxygen signature was an unmistakable sign
that some kind of life was present on Earth. Based on the age of
Earth and other aspects of the solar system, they judged it likely
that complex life forms had arisen. So they sent a ship."

"And how old is their civilization then?"

"I don’t know, but it must be very old by now. Maybe a billion
years?"

"Well, I suppose you have lots to teach us in that case. But how do
you know that they don’t intend to wipe us out?"

"It’s very unlikely that they would have come all this way and go
through such an elaborate process just to wipe out humanity? I
genuinely believe they are here to help us. You’re right that I could
be wrong, but if so we are simply not smart enough and capable enough
to fend them off. So we might as well go along with the plan and hope
it does indeed end up benefiting humanity."

"Very well. So how do I contact you?"

The man laughed. "You don’t, but I will contact you."

"Yes, of course. And what if I don’t want you to?"

"I think you will be anxious to speak to me once you read the paper in
more detail. I strongly suggest giving it to one of your more
enterprising students to decipher. You don’t have to give us credit."

"Of course. I’ll have them do a search to make sure it’s not a
fraud."

"Please do. And one more thing. Please don’t mention this
conversation to anyone. The last thing we want is for you to be
declared crazy!"

"Yes, indeed," laughed Randall. "You have a nice day!"