species — in a communist future
I cut 2 more than 2500 words, was tempted to cut at least another 300 but decided that I’d leave it to your imagination which 300 words are irrelevant. So I accept it’s probably still too long, the sentences obscuring the difficulty of the situation…
I didn’t have much to do insystem and the ship, Astrid asked me to wander around the archaeology site. We had been there a few months engaged in archaeological study in the Circe system, a conversation took place after the Rosetta stone of the periodic table of elements enabled the translation machines to almost work in translating the archaeological elements of the dead culture. The finding of the Rosetta stone was enabling us to almost understand the remnants of the dead language… Why am I here? I asked Astrid before the conversation. you are bored…
The Aliens had been there for a week or more observing, unspeaking before they entered the ruins to speak. Their first sentences are ununderstandable:
We have no interest in rebuilding.
We have concealed quarters for ourselves.
We have been analysing your language.
We need to speak… the Alien said.
“Is this related to the xenopological investigations we have been carrying whilst we have been here? “ I asked, amongst other things. The questions were badly framed, the words so ideologically loaded to be understandable and even as I recognized this, it was unavoidable.
The myrrian explained that they had/have been monitoring us for sometime; some weeks/months/years/decades. We have decided you have expanded far enough into space so that we must begin to contact you. It will make it easier for our ‘öbservers.
I wondered what the alien meant by ‘time’.’we’, ‘ýou’, ‘monitoring’ and ‘observers’ — but didn’t know if i could ask what these concepts mean to the alien. I didn’t ask (What do you mean?) But instead sighed and wondered if I was fortunate speaking to them or not.
Some of your reports and messages made us realize that you had made similar decisions to the ones we have made. We believe that you can understand the regret we feel at what happened between our species , long ago.
Again I felt confused by the depth and the ideological presumptions that were at best unrecognizable and perhaps not understandable. The words, phrases and restricted grammar obscured so much.
“Long ago? Between? Species ? What is a species? Regret?” I said.
The alien repeated itself (For a long time we believed that your species was extinct. We are pleased to see you returning to some of your old planets. )
I looked at him, (it’s a him? ) surprised by the translation, uncertain that it could be translating the story of a genocide accurately and wondered if the alien was looking apologetic or happy about the genocide.
Astrid spoke in my ear. (Your doing well Night Captain, don’t panic. I am sending help.)
(I think I forgot to explain the ruins.. They are not the ruins of our species, but your species) The aliens face convulsed. (They are not our species ruins, but your species….)
I began to relax (I don’t need help Astrid) and smiled.
“I am not sure how this will translate. I understand now. You believe in species and races. We used to, but for technological and genetic reasons and because we kept killing one another, we had to stop. In your terms we are not one species, but many, some are not even biological. We are not a species. Ruins… They aren’t our ruins, they have nothing to do with us, we’ve never been here before and will be leaving soon.” I paused looking at the aliens convulsing face before saying. “Perhaps when we were just humans what you say would have been meaningful. We don’t do species and races anymore. We use the arbitrary order word ‘humans’ to describe all of us… “ (Astrid was laughing…)
