Claire was the only woman onboard the ship. It so happened that she also had the very unique job of monitoring the radar. It was a thankless job, where she sat all day in front of the holograph and watched for any suspicious objects approaching the ship. It had been 3 days, and nothing had shown up on screen. However, she preferred this job to the alternative, staring into the blackness of the galaxy’s deepest ocean, which was the job of the pilot.
It had been the defining moment of her career, after years of being the radar operator on spacecrafts, she felt relieved and excited when she was chosen to man the radar on the first extra-terrestrial submarine, the Corinthian. There had been much talk about it, after the planet Laguna had been discovered. The planet was pure ocean, an atmosphere and mass similar to that of Earth, but no land, just pure ocean. Estimates and calculations had been done, and scientists have believed for long that the planet-wide ocean was at least 100km deep, and at the bottom of it all, a thick layer of ice probably another 50km deep. This was already much deeper than the deepest part of the Mariana’s Trench on Earth, a mere 10km deep. Many teams have been considering voyages to the planet, some wanted to try touching the bottom. So far, only Claire’s team, Neptunian, had touched the bottom of the ocean.
However, Claire was bored. Ever since they descended into the ocean 3 days ago from their floating base Erodes, the Corinthian had done nothing but sinking. It was an uneventful 2km/h downward sink, and even after reaching the ice layer 2 hours ago, they had encountered nothing. There were sayings and beliefs of gigantic monsters inhabiting the monstrous ocean, but nothing at all. It was a very wet, dull planet.
Claire closed her eyes and recalled the events before the Corinthian had begun its descent. She and the rest of the crew had been living on the Erodes for nearly half a year while the Corinthian was being constructed and tested. Erodes consisted of one large building on a buoyant structure, which itself was huge. It had to be huge, for the waves on Laguna were terrific. They raced at nearly 100km/h and some were nearly 400ft high. The structure had to counter this by being 20km long and wide and the building had to be placed nearly 1000ft above sea level. The structure had 4 legs partially submerged in the water, like an oil rig, and each leg was about 1km long and wide at its base. There were powerful black-hole motors in the legs which helped the Erodes stay put. Sometimes, it even moved the base out of the way of 2 huge colliding waves. The building consisted of an endless array of corridors, labs, offices and living quarters. There was no need of going outdoors, unless to take the shuttle into the orbiting space station. No one wanted to go outdoors anyway, it always rained. There was just so much water on the planet that it kept evaporating and pouring back down again. It was impossible to see the star the planet was orbiting, for it was always covered by dark clouds. Erodes wasn’t the only floating base, there were 3 others for teams that had actually managed to get the financial backing and resources to do research work on this planet, but they were all spaced at least 100km apart. If one team needed help, it had to rely on members of the space station. It was impossible to travel through the insane ocean on its surface.
Claire was the radio operator, so she was largely excluded from the mission planning and technical discussions involving the operations of the ship. However, she had at least the basic knowledge of what the Corinthian would be like. A very simple design, one pointed cylinder, 500m long, 100m wide, built with Acrinix, the strongest alloy ever made by mankind. The hull had to be strong, it was dealing with pressures of 1 MPa. A person ejected at that depth would be crushed to smithereens, if he wasn’t killed by the force required to eject him first. The interior was complete with radio operating rooms, labs and living quarters, not to forget the onboard kitchen, which mainly produced dried processesed foods similar to those used in space travel. The engine room housed the black-hole engine, which provided the power necessary to propel the ship through incredibly dense waters. There was also an electrolysis chamber, which took in the water from the ocean and converted it to hydrogen and oxygen. This initiated addition had saved much preparation time since there wasn’t any need to fill the ship with oxygen before the dive. Other compartments included a weapons chamber and control room.
Claire had remembered the day the Corinthian began its mission. She was seated in the centre of the control room, behind the pilot and co-pilot, observing the 3D holograph for any signs of obstructions within a 10km spherical radius. As the green light was given and the ship began sinking, Claire had turned her head to watch the last of the light disappear. She was one of the four fortunate people to see the last of the light while in the ship, the other being the weapons manager. The other 6 members said goodbye to the light the instant they stepped into the hatch. From then on it was darkness all the way, save for the mini-headlights that shone for a metre in front of the cockpit.
Earlier that day, Claire had cheered with the rest as the ship encountered the ice floor. After it had anchored itself in the ice with its mechanical claws, a few members of the team had deployed their personal robots out of the ship to survey the seabed. This of course wasn’t the actual seabed, it was due to the high pressure that the rest of the water 50km down had turned into ice. The real seabed most probably consisted of rocks, just like the Earth’s oceans. Some of the robots had found interesting things, like queer fish-like creatures swimming around aimlessly. In the depths of the ocean, they had no visual organs, much like those deep-sea fish on Earth, and their body had somehow adapted to the almost unbearable pressure. Scientific studies down here were unusually comfortable, since the team members could lie on their beds while playing with their robots via dataports.
Claire was now drifting off to sleep while the holograph remained as silent as ever. Then, out of the blue, a crew member let out a shrill cry of joy.
“I’ve found something! Something big!”
That was enough to make everyone else abandon their posts and come rushing to his quarters. Claire did a final check on the holograph before doing so. Nothing, nothing at all. What did he mean by ‘something big’?
By now, everyone had crowded over his dataport, which showed the vision of his robot in 3D holo-space. Through the strong head light, it appeared to be looking at some form of wrecked vehicle. To be more precise, it was a severly damaged submersible. The hull had been shattered open, and it seemed completely crushed by some unknown force. So this was the ‘something big’, it wasn’t ‘big’ as Claire had imagined, but it was definitely ‘big’.
“Could it belong to one of the other teams?” asked one of the team members, Marty.
“I doubt it,” said the person in charge of that particular robot, Chris. “The other three knew how stupid it would be to send in a machine not made of Acrinix.”
Nothing else was said as Chris maneuvered his robot to get closer to the wrecked craft. It became apparent that there was no room for anyone inside the interior full of wires and machanical junk. The craft had been unmanned. It could have been one of the other team’s after all, to test the limits of certain materials under pressure.
“Most probably it belongs to the Athenians, they came to this planet only to plan on staying on the surface and doing their experiments from there. I can imagine them throwing away their money to do this kind of stuff, they should have a lot of it without a big ship to build.”
It was Laika, another team member. That was his nickname actually, after the first dog to go in space. His real name was Lawrence and was the only member of the Neptunians not to have any prior space experience before coming to Laguna.
“Hold on,” said Captian Falkes. “The Athenians are located on the opposite side of the planet, are you sure the undersea currents could carry it this far?”
Chris moved the robot even closer to find more clues as to who the craft could have belonged to. It didn’t carry any of the other team’s symbols, nor any form of writing on the hull. It was then mutually decided to take the craft aboard the ship, part by part, using the 6 robots . The robots were not designed for complicated mechanical handling, it was a job best done by human hands.
After 5 hours, the robots had recovered most of the machinary and a fraction of the hull of the submersible. After doing post-mission checks on their own robots, the team members proceeded to investigate the wreckage. Claire had set the radar to auto-alert mode, so she would receive notification should any thing appear nearby. She too wanted to join the team as they searched for clues to the submersible’s origins.
The crew had carried the parts their robots brought back to the lab and were now taking good looks at it. The first discovery was already enough to shock everyone. Apparently, the metal used to make the submersible was a metal even stronger than Acrinix. No lab on Earth could have ever produced the pressure and temperature required to make it. Chris shook his head as he looked at the scraps through his microscope monacle. Meanwhile, Marty and the rest were analysing the machines that had been onboard the submersible. Not only were they made of the same type of metal used to make the hull, but their design was so complicated and full of unknown parts that no normal engineer could have possibly created the circuits involved.
“I don’t understand any of this!” exclaimed Marty in frustration. “Have the other teams done some secret projects of their own and built this?”
“What puzzles me is that despite the toughness of the metal, it still got crushed under the pressure of the ocean. Furthermore, no sign of propulsion could be found,” said Chris.
None of the team members knew what to make of it. It was clearly a mysterious discovery, but that was it, nothing else could be said.
“It must be of extra-terrestrial origin.”
Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and stared at the wisecrack who said that. It was Laika, the only man who had never been on other planets other than Earth and Laguna.
“Impossible!” said Captain Falkes, a little disgusted. “Our computers have done intensive calculations on the development of this planet, and the chances of it having intelligent life are virtually a million to one. The conditions are just ridiculous.”
“No sir, I meant this is a craft from another planet, not Laguna.”
Everyone kept silent at that moment. Despite FTL travel being in the craze these days, only about half of the galaxy had been thoroughly explored. It wouldn’t be a surprise if another intelligent race had found Laguna first and had already deployed personel to study it. If that was the case, where were they? Why had every team from Earth not reported seeing any signs of these alien beings? Did they grow tired of Laguna and leave?
There was a loud beeping sound from Claire’s auto-alert device, which broke the silence and made everyone jump. Now the attention was on her, as they all followed her as she raced to the control room. The sight that greeted them was an even bigger shock than Laika’s relevation. On the holograph, there was a virtual image of a ship twice as large as the Corinthian. It too was cylindrical in shape, and in every aspect, looked like a bigger version of the ship. It maintained a vigilante on the edge of the radar, in other words, 10km away from the Corinthian.
An alarm sounded in Captain Falkes’ head. He instantly gave the command to shut off all lights and machines. The panicked crew members raced wildly through the ship, throwing switches and smashing buttons. Soon, the entire ship was pitch black and quiet. Even the radar had to be turned off lest the other ship became attracted to the EM waves being emitted. Everyone was now huddled in the control room, waiting for the 2 minutes to pass after which the radar would be turned on briefly, to see if the other ship was still there. None of them had felt so much fear in their lives.
“Why are we panicking?” whispered Marty on instinct. “The ship looked much like ours, it could have been another team’s.”
“If that’s the case, why didn’t the space station pass us any of this data? With a ship that big, it can’t be kept a secret from the organisation,” said Laika in a jitter.
It was true. Big operations that each team were planning had to be made known to the space station, it was a law made to keep track of all the money flow. The space station would then inform the other teams what that team was doing, mainly to promote competition but also to allow for possible agglomeration. The gigantic ship that was a mere 10km away from them now hadn’t been reported. Either someone had broken the law or it was piloted by intelligent beings looking for the submersible they had lost. If so, it was best not to be found.
“What if they had installed a tracking device in the submersible?” Chris said in fear. “They would know where to find us…”
Nobody dared to give an answer. They all began to miss the surface of the ocean, Erodes, Earth and their families. Being captured by aliens at the bottom of a 100km deep ocean hadn’t been on their minds.
“I should turn on the radar now…” said Claire, and she pushed the button to switch on the holograph. To everyone’s horror, the alien ship was now right next to the Corinthian! There was no scream, just shudders of horror as Claire quickly turned off the radar again.
“Are they going to kill us?” another member of the crew chipped in his own nonsensical question.
Once again, no one dared breath a word. If they were to die, it would happen in the next few seconds. The alternative in their minds would be to get captured by the aliens and be subjected to cruel experiments.
3 minutes had passed, and Claire had already missed the interval by a minute. No one complained her, for they were all afraid as to what would happen next. In the end, she turned on the radar anyway, to reveal the truth which everyone was afraid to witness. It was hence a relief to find that the ship had vanished off the radar. It had probably been passing them, and probably didn’t notice them, which was unlikely. To play safe, Claire turned off the radar again and waited another minute. True enough, the ship was no longer there. The rest of the crew started to feel more relaxed.
The danger was far from over however. Falkes ordered a minimal startup of the ship, with only the engine and radar running. The weapons system was also activated, in case the first interstellar war should find its origins here. Slowly but surely, the Corinthian began making a slow climb to the surface. An hour passed, then two, then three, the alien ship never appeared again. Falkes then decided it was more or less safe and ordered the ship to resume full operations, but he kept Claire and the weapons managed on standby.
A day had passed since then, and the Corinthian was now nearly halfway to the surface. Claire hadn’t slept, and neither had the weapons manager nor Falkes. Marty had the good mind to make all three of them a cup of coffee each.
“You guys have it tough,” he said as he passed Claire her cup.
“Thanks,” she said, trying to give a smile despite her weariness.
“Say, why do you think they didn’t take any action?” he asked suddenly.
Claire was a little surprised by the question, but nevertheless tried her best to answer.
“Maybe they weren’t interested in us?”
It was a rather lame answer, but not a bad one considering the situation.
“They must have set up some sort of underwater base somewhere,” said Falkes, hoping to strike a conversation to keep himself awake. “Might not be too far away from where we landed. They should have been looking for their lost submersible, that was their main objective. They were not interested in us, that’s why they decided to ignore us.”
“But it does puzzle me,” said the weapons manager. “They knew where they lost their submersible, then they arrive and find us instead, they should have known we had it in our posession.”
“No, we didn’t have the entire submersible,” said Falkes. “We left quite a number of parts on the ice. They might have found the parts and probably assumed that was all that was left of it.”
“Yes, then there’s the mystery on how the submersible got damaged in the first place,” chimed Marty. “Something must have attacked it, but what?”
A brief silence followed. All the theories had been put forward, but unfortunately, no one was brave enough to go back down there to prove them right. It had been a harrowing experience, and once this encounter was made known, no one would be in a rush to send more ships to the bottom.
“Ah, enough of this. Claire, have you sent the report back to Erodes?”
“Yes sir.”
The rest of the journey back to the surface went on without any incident. The alien ship never returned. Everyone was happy they had made it back in one piece, and they had started a much heated discussion on the frightening encounter. The space station had already received the report, and had dispatched personel to interview Falkes and other members of the crew. However, that was all they could do. The station couldn’t produce EM waves powerful enough to penetrate the 100km of water, not to forget the atmosphere. There was no way anyone would know what was happening down there without actually going down there. The ice and all that had been theories which had been proven correct, but some theories would remain theories. After the descent of the Corinthians, other teams had sent down their own ships to investigate the bottom, even the money throwing Athenians. The ships of 2 teams returned with nothing to report, but the ship of the Alkeies never returned. The crew aboard the team’s floating base Nomadais had reported that before all communications were lost, the captain had let out a blood-curling scream. The ship had been missing for 3 months. As such, research on Laguna still carried on, but was confined to the depth limit of 20km. No one will ever know what was really down there, for now.
Down there
Commander Loita gave off the vibes of salutation as 2 corporals drifted pass him onboard his undersea ship, Elfis. He was tired, and his frequencies have been getting cranky. He floated to his own living quarters and lay on his bed, and groaned as his transparent body hit the dark mattress. It wasn’t even a body, it was pure energy, the energy which would be required to make up the mass of an average human being. It was a lot. Despite this, he couldn’t tap the reserves from his body, but was confined to the energy derived from the metabolism of heat. There was no light down here, not in the ship either, for they didn’t need light. They could feel where everything was.
The war with the Heisians, another race of matter manipulators, had started almost a year ago. They and the Rintians, which was Loita’s race, were the only 2 matter manipulating race of energy beings living on the planet with the endless ocean. The fighting on the seabed wasn’t much, for now, just a few minor skirmishes here and there, but things got complicated when that mysterious ship arrived half a year back. It had been the same shape as the Elfis, just half the size. It had been encountered near the site where a Helsian unmanned reconnaissance vehicle had been destroyed, and Loita was assigned to retrieve it. When the ship arrived, most of the vehicle had been removed, and Loita had assumed the Heisians were lurking around somewhere. When he encountered the ship on the radar, his intuition had told him not to fire. Cautiously, he had ordered for an approach, and had determined the ship wasn’t of Heisian origin. It was another intelligent race. Contact couldn’t be established because all communications and electronics were turned off for some reason, but Loita managed to get a microspy to latch itself on the windows of that ship to take a look.
The image that returned was shocking. From the ship, it was clearly a race of matter manipulators, but the beings inside the ship were also made of matter! It looked as if they were afraid, and Loita realised they were afraid of his ship. He then concluded that this race were aliens from another planet coming to study his, and they must have obtained the wreckage of the Heisian vehicle for research purposes. Not wanting to harm those creatures who had nothing to do with the war, Loita ordered the Elfis to turn back, but he kept the microspy on the windows, for evidence and to keep track.
Loita smiled to himself as he lay on the bed, thinking what that race must have thought of the planet. It wasn’t a place where intelligent matter beings could live, yet he doubted they knew anything about energy beings. They must have thought Loita and the others were residents of another planet that had also come to study the ocean planet. They must have thought there were matter structures nearby for Rintians to stay. But the Rintians didn’t need matter residences,other than the bases where they kept the ships, they stayed on the ice itself. The ships merely served as armour from the Heisian’s energy weapons. Before seeing the creatures, he too didn’t know that matter beings could actually exist. The many images in the microspy had been transmitted to the council of Rintia, who were really fascinated by the find. Following the first ship, 3 more had arrived afterwards and Loita and other commanders were sent to keep an eye on those ships, while keeping themselves hidden. It was thus tragic when a Heisian ship was encountered while an alien ship was under observation. The alien ship was destroyed, and all the matter beings on board were killed.
By now, Loita had got up to his ethereal feet and was staring outside the windows of his living quarters. Through the dark abyss of the ocean, he wondered what wonders were up there, above the surface of the black waters, above the mythical entity of legend which a Rintian had yet to see, the sky.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
The Eighth Intelligence
Low Lai Kim, principle scientist of the neurology department, hastened his steps as he glanced at his watch. He was almost 5 minutes late, and while that was perfectly alright within social etiquette, he hated being even a second late. His rigorous training in National Service had taught him the pain of being late, or rather, it induced the unneccessary fear in his civillian life. He knew Dr Ong would already be waiting for him, along with the patient he had mentioned in his email. Why a psychologist would be believe his patient should see a neurologist was unclear to him, why would a mentally defective person need to have his brain examined? Was it that complicated? In the first place, wasn't mental patients the job of a psychiatrist?
Low knocked on the door of the guest room and opened it as calmly as he could, thinking of a suitable excuse to explain his tardiness. Two people were already waiting for him, one was Dr Ong, another was a kindly young man, of around 20 years of age. He had neatly combed hair, dark eyes and a rather high forehead. His attire was neat and presentable, a youth groomed for professional conduct. There seemed to be nothing wrong with this person, he looked more intelligent than most youths of the age. Low began to wonder if this was some kind of joke, since Ong had known him since primary school. Then again, there were adults now, Ong wouldn't take up his time if it wasn't completely necessary.
"Terrence! I apologise for my tardiness, got caught up with this student."
Low was aware that Ong didn't mind, but then again, Ong was a psychologist. Ever since he obtained his degree, Low had always been conscious around him, wondering whether he was secretly analysing his behaviours. Would being tardy qualify as a disorder too?
"You know I'm quite fine with that," said Ong, smiling. "Well, no time for old time reminisciences, I would like to introduce Justin Toh."
The young man stood up from his seat and proceeded to shake Low's hand. There was a firm touch to it, which was a sign of professionalism. Was this really a mental patient?
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Sir," said Toh. "Dr Ong has told me much about you."
His tone was soothing and pleasing to the ear. There was no hint of embroidered speech, everything was sincere and down from the heart. This boy was a kind person. Low nearly blurted out 'There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with you', but refrained from that for he feared it may induce some sort of trigger. He heard of some mental patients like that, kindly on the outside, ravaging murderers on the inside.
"Justin," began Dr Ong. "Would you please tell Dr Low about your problem."
The three of them took a seat on the comfortable couch. It wasn't the inclining one like Ong had in his clinic, but Toh didn't seem to need it. He put his hands together and hunched over slightly, ready to break into his tale.
"Ever since young," he said. "I have this strange ability. You know how a person analyses logical questions such as mental sums, or figures out how to win an argument, they go through a series of directions and plans in their head before acting it out in the real world? Well, the thing is, I don't have to."
At this point, Toh paused. Low was wondering whether he was stopping to let him absorb all that had been said or because he was getting to the depressing part. Then again, not much had been said.
"I can just figure it out, practically instantly, I need not do any thinking. Somehow, I just know how the problem is done, sometimes, I don't even need to learn how to do something. For instance, when I was in primary school, we often had mental sums tests. The teacher would say an operation and we would work out the answer in our heads. Some students are slower, they need to count in their heads. My sitting partner said when the operation '20*4' was said, he would add 4 20's together to get 80. He would do it very systematically, 20, 40, 60, 80. For me, the number 80 was appear in my head almost instantly, I don't know how I do it!"
"Why, this is clearly a case of you being a maths genius," said Low. "I don't see how that's a problem."
"That wasn't all, Sir. We were kids back then, and yes, I admit that I'm not the only one who can do this. There are other bright kids who could work out the answer almost instantly too. But I can do things that they cannot do. We had art class sometimes, and when we weren't drawing, the teacher would bring out a random piece of art for all of us to appreciate. She would then ask questions on what the painter was thinking when he drew it, or rather his mood. If you don't mind me asking sir, how would you go about it?"
Low recalled analysing art like this when he too was in primary school. He was often pretty terrible at it, but the teacher would bring the class through various colour tones, forms and spatial perception to deduce the artist's mood. He gave Toh his answer.
"Yes Sir, that's exactly how the teacher taught us to analyse. Then I said, 'but teacher, isn't it obvious, why do we have to go through so much trouble?' and I was promptly made to stand outside."
Low was by now getting rather interested. It seems that Toh was an art genius as well. He had heard many stories of incredible people performing seemingly superhuman capabilities at calculations and deductions. Now he was seeing one right in front of him.
"Justin," said Ong. "Is the very first person I've seen with an enhanced intuition."
Low was taken aback for a while. Indeed, that was the word that was lingering in his mind, but was hesitant to say it. Intuition! Of course, but could it be studied, could it be quantified, was there an equation for it? His scientist mind ran through all the logic of it all, then sheepishly, he laughed to himself over the fact that Toh would be able to tell in an instant.
"Intuition, you say. That's a rather psychologist field isn't it? Why bring him to me?"
"Patience," said Ong, and he seemed very patient. "Let Justin finish."
"Well," continued Justin. "It was a very good thing at first. I got excellent grades in school without even having to study, I could win arguments easily because I just knew how it was progressing. Then it got scary, as things became harder, you would expect that even a genius would need a fundamental amount of learning, of attending classes. Well, I didn't. I once had the misfortune of being sick for an entire week before a test, and many new things were taught during that week. I was given the option of taking the test at a later date, but I decided to give it a shot. After all, my grades were tip-top, I can afford to take risks once in a while. Then when I took the test, most of the material were taught in the week I was absent, and I somehow knew them all, without even learning them!"
"Could it be subliminal?" asked Low, intrigued. "Did any of your classmates pay you a visit to pass you notes or anything?"
"They wanted to," said Toh. "But it was a flu and I told them out of -" He had wanted to say 'my good heart', but decided to refrain from sounding arrogant. "I told them it was best for them to stay away from me, for I didn't want them to be sick on the week of the test as well. Besides, it was a decision I made on my own, I shouldn't implicate anyone else."
"Ok, so here comes the bad part. Because of my abilities, I was chosen involuntarily as a tutor for many of the weaker students. I protested, because there was no way I could tutor others if I didn't know how I worked out my problems. At first the teachers didn't believe me, but after going through several tutees and causing them to fail, they became pretty convinced that I didn't know the basics of problem solving. But to them, the whole notion of 'I know because I just know', was ridiculous. They began to suspect me of cheating. My mother came to my defence, and after much pleading, they agreed to let me take an IQ test. I scored a full 200."
At this point, Low let out a short gasp. To him, an IQ of 200 was godly. It almost seemed as if a god was sitting in front of him. Toh ignored it, and continued speaking.
"But I didn't know how I was so smart! To me, the answers just appeared in my head, I didn't even think! The logical steps were all missing! After that day, everyone in school shunned away from me, thinking I was some freak or something. And word of it grew, and everywhere I went, people looked at me as some sort of freak. I don't know what to do anymore, I don't want my abilities anymore."
Low nodded his head in sympathy. It was indeed a cruel thing to be ostracised by the rest of humanity, and for what? An ability which you didn't ask for, an ability which you never showed off.
"So that's why you went to see Dr Ong?" asked Low.
"Yes, I wanted to know if there was a way to fix this."
Low had wanted to say 'interesting', indeed, it was. Intuition was a well-recognised phenomenon in the scientific circle, every good scientist uses it to consider almost impossible logic. However, no one knew how it worked, or why it worked. The laymen were taught not to rely on it because anything that couldn't be explained, wasn't reliable to them. However, here was one person who only had intuition to rely upon, and it had brought him misery. If he had indeed said 'interesting', Toh may just come on him like some deranged lunatic, the type he had been expecting to see.
"I'm quite intrigued," said Low. "Why you decided to see a psychologist instead of a counsellor or psychiatrist. A psychologist doesn't do this kind of work."
Low nearly slapped himself when he asked this question. Of course! How would Toh know what made him think that? He just knew. The startled expression on Toh's face already gave him the answer he needed.
"He made the right choice actually," said Ong. "I would have thought that a counsellor or psychiatrist could solve this problem better, but if you think about it logically, this is a problem psychologists are adept at."
"Why is that so?"
"Do you know who Howard Gardner is?"
"The psychologist who came up with the 7 intelligences?"
Low had recalled reading about it a few days earlier, in a random book he found in the library. Gardner was the man who theorised that intelligence came in 7 forms, namely, linguistic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, spatial intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, musical intelligence and bodily/kinesthetic intelligence. It was practically the thing that people used to prove that IQ tests were a big phoney, for most of them mainly dealt with only 2 intelligences, linguistic and logical-mathematical.
"Yes, well, what I theorise here is that intuition could be the eighth form of intelligence, the form that supercedes all the other 7."
Ong's tone was so serious, so matter-of-factly, that Low wasn't sure how to react.
"Of course I don't intend to make it public, it's just a personal theory. You know how people would react if I declare something so elusive an intelligence."
"But, you've got Toh here! You can use him as proof!"
At this point, Low realised he had made a very big blunder common among scientists. He was treating a human being as nothing more than a test subject. While Ong winced at this remark, Toh seemed indifferent.
"Dr Ong," he said with a smile, still looking Low in the eye. "I think we should leave. This clearly isn't Dr Low's field of expertise."
Low was terrified now, he had always been careful in front of others to avoid offending them. Now he had made the most basic of mistakes, and the 'victim' was mocking him. He had to find a way to remedy his problem.
"Hold on! I'm sorry Justin," he said. "It wasn't professional of me. Please, what can I do to help?"
"Justin doesn't want his enhanced intuition," said Ong. "I was hoping you could find a way to help correct that."
Toh nodded.
"Yes sir, this is something only a neurologist can do. You can shortwire some nerves or something can't you?"
At that moment, there was an eerie air of silence in the room. This time, everyone knew it, not just Toh. What Toh had just said was the biggest careless mistake for a person of an IQ of 200. A neurologist studies the brain, and while many believe they knew what produced the intelligences, to shortwire the neurons in the brain would be to turn the person into a vegetable. There was also something else, if Toh knew this all along, why did he agree to go with Ong in the first place?
"I don't understand," said Toh, rather sheepishly. "This has never happened in my life! How...how did this happen!?"
The tone wasn't one of fright or disgust, it was one of elation. Toh was happy that he had been wrong, for the first time in his life.
"You see, Justin?" it was Ong that said it. "Do you know why your intuition was wrong?"
Toh shook his head.
"You were overcome with emotion and thus, you blocked out your intuition. Your intuition wasn't wrong, you were right to come to me. However, you were wrong when you agreed with me that a neurologist should be able to do it. At that point in time, you had wanted not to believe your intuition anymore, you wanted to get rid of it, so subconsciously, you shut out your own intelligence."
There wasn't only one shocked person in the room this time, Low was horrified by what Ong had said.
"So that means..."
Ong motioned for him to wait, and continued speaking to Toh.
"Justin, I brought you here today to show you how dependant you are on your intuition, just like other people are dependent on certain intelligences they have. If you remove it, you won't be able to experience the joy everyone else has in life. You would be lost, devoid of all logic and well, I dare say you would be quite a buffoon. You have a powerful gift, Justin, one many people would kill to get. I want you to treasure it."
Justin sighed.
"As I said, Dr Ong, this intuition has given me nothing but trouble."
"The trouble came from your own unwillingness to explore. Everyone can find a way to help others. You are weak in logical intelligence because, well, you never used it. In this case, why don't you let yourself be the tutee, read books on how people would solve problems and ask yourself, how do they do it? The answer would come readily, you already know that, but at the same time, you would get an insight into how others not as extraordinary as yourself, do their best to help others. You can also ask yourself, 'how can I understand the normal workings of humanity?' Then you would find that you are able to fit in."
Toh thought over what Ong had said, it was the first time he really thought.
"You're right, doctor," he said. "Without my intuition, I can't do anything! And of course, why didn't I think of it before! I can use my intuition to help me figure out how to get into the normal workings of society! I can use it to figure out how to make friends! I don't have to fear my intuition anymore, how can I fear something that is really a part of me...wait, that means..."
"I'm sorry to say it, Justin," said Ong rather solemnly. "But all the sufferings you had gone through, you can only blame yourself."
Toh looked on the ground, hanging his head quietly, then looked back at Ong and smiled.
"Thank you Doctor, you've made me seen the light, I guess I wasn't wrong in coming to find you after all."
"That's great, now if you don't mind, I would like to speak to Dr Low here for a moment. Would you mind waiting in the car?"
With that, an elated Justin Toh skipped happily out of the guest room, quite forgetting the proper etiquette. It was alright though, for he was a psychiatric patient who had just been cured.
"Well, you had to take up my time to cure this guy, huh?" Low asked Ong, not with distaste, but rather a little humour. "In the first place, you're a psychologist, how come you go about treating patients like a psychiatrist?"
"Well, I was intrigued," said Ong, in good humour. "The eighth form of intelligence, doesn't that puzzle you? When Justin emailed me, I too was puzzled as to why he didn't choose a psychiatrist, or a counsellor for that matter, but I could tell, somehow, he knew I was the right person to choose. A psychiatrist dealt with madmen and depression, someone he should go to, but by coming to me, he has invoked my interest in this field of research. In a way, you could say his intuition chose the path which benefits the most people."
"Yes, a few questions there though. Didn't you say you weren't going to publish the theory? It's still a little difficult to stomach why he didn't choose a counsellor though."
"Well, I lied at that time, because I didn't want it to interfere with matters at hand. And well, you almost blew it."
Low cringed at this remark.
"You also know that a counsellor wouldn't have any knowledge of the 7 intelligences, and wouldn't be interested in a follow up. I intend to keep in contact with Justin, learn more about his phenomenal intuition, then hopefully publish a paper about it. It would benefit many people who believe they are dumb and inept."
Low saw that Ong was ready to leave.
"Well, I'm sorry for taking up your time, Lai Kim, I understand it hadn't benefitted you at all, but I had to do something for Justin's sake. I hope to make it up to you someday, how about lunch tomorrow? My treat."
"Why that would be excellent, Terrence," said Low gleefully. "Just a few more questions though, how do you know people are going to accept your new paper, and also, how did you learn those skills of counselling? I mean it doesn't strike me that you were a good counsellor, or even knew anything about counselling, no offence."
Ong laughed.
"Well, I guess there's a Justin in all of us," he said. "The answers to those 2 questions are 'I just know'."
Low knocked on the door of the guest room and opened it as calmly as he could, thinking of a suitable excuse to explain his tardiness. Two people were already waiting for him, one was Dr Ong, another was a kindly young man, of around 20 years of age. He had neatly combed hair, dark eyes and a rather high forehead. His attire was neat and presentable, a youth groomed for professional conduct. There seemed to be nothing wrong with this person, he looked more intelligent than most youths of the age. Low began to wonder if this was some kind of joke, since Ong had known him since primary school. Then again, there were adults now, Ong wouldn't take up his time if it wasn't completely necessary.
"Terrence! I apologise for my tardiness, got caught up with this student."
Low was aware that Ong didn't mind, but then again, Ong was a psychologist. Ever since he obtained his degree, Low had always been conscious around him, wondering whether he was secretly analysing his behaviours. Would being tardy qualify as a disorder too?
"You know I'm quite fine with that," said Ong, smiling. "Well, no time for old time reminisciences, I would like to introduce Justin Toh."
The young man stood up from his seat and proceeded to shake Low's hand. There was a firm touch to it, which was a sign of professionalism. Was this really a mental patient?
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Sir," said Toh. "Dr Ong has told me much about you."
His tone was soothing and pleasing to the ear. There was no hint of embroidered speech, everything was sincere and down from the heart. This boy was a kind person. Low nearly blurted out 'There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with you', but refrained from that for he feared it may induce some sort of trigger. He heard of some mental patients like that, kindly on the outside, ravaging murderers on the inside.
"Justin," began Dr Ong. "Would you please tell Dr Low about your problem."
The three of them took a seat on the comfortable couch. It wasn't the inclining one like Ong had in his clinic, but Toh didn't seem to need it. He put his hands together and hunched over slightly, ready to break into his tale.
"Ever since young," he said. "I have this strange ability. You know how a person analyses logical questions such as mental sums, or figures out how to win an argument, they go through a series of directions and plans in their head before acting it out in the real world? Well, the thing is, I don't have to."
At this point, Toh paused. Low was wondering whether he was stopping to let him absorb all that had been said or because he was getting to the depressing part. Then again, not much had been said.
"I can just figure it out, practically instantly, I need not do any thinking. Somehow, I just know how the problem is done, sometimes, I don't even need to learn how to do something. For instance, when I was in primary school, we often had mental sums tests. The teacher would say an operation and we would work out the answer in our heads. Some students are slower, they need to count in their heads. My sitting partner said when the operation '20*4' was said, he would add 4 20's together to get 80. He would do it very systematically, 20, 40, 60, 80. For me, the number 80 was appear in my head almost instantly, I don't know how I do it!"
"Why, this is clearly a case of you being a maths genius," said Low. "I don't see how that's a problem."
"That wasn't all, Sir. We were kids back then, and yes, I admit that I'm not the only one who can do this. There are other bright kids who could work out the answer almost instantly too. But I can do things that they cannot do. We had art class sometimes, and when we weren't drawing, the teacher would bring out a random piece of art for all of us to appreciate. She would then ask questions on what the painter was thinking when he drew it, or rather his mood. If you don't mind me asking sir, how would you go about it?"
Low recalled analysing art like this when he too was in primary school. He was often pretty terrible at it, but the teacher would bring the class through various colour tones, forms and spatial perception to deduce the artist's mood. He gave Toh his answer.
"Yes Sir, that's exactly how the teacher taught us to analyse. Then I said, 'but teacher, isn't it obvious, why do we have to go through so much trouble?' and I was promptly made to stand outside."
Low was by now getting rather interested. It seems that Toh was an art genius as well. He had heard many stories of incredible people performing seemingly superhuman capabilities at calculations and deductions. Now he was seeing one right in front of him.
"Justin," said Ong. "Is the very first person I've seen with an enhanced intuition."
Low was taken aback for a while. Indeed, that was the word that was lingering in his mind, but was hesitant to say it. Intuition! Of course, but could it be studied, could it be quantified, was there an equation for it? His scientist mind ran through all the logic of it all, then sheepishly, he laughed to himself over the fact that Toh would be able to tell in an instant.
"Intuition, you say. That's a rather psychologist field isn't it? Why bring him to me?"
"Patience," said Ong, and he seemed very patient. "Let Justin finish."
"Well," continued Justin. "It was a very good thing at first. I got excellent grades in school without even having to study, I could win arguments easily because I just knew how it was progressing. Then it got scary, as things became harder, you would expect that even a genius would need a fundamental amount of learning, of attending classes. Well, I didn't. I once had the misfortune of being sick for an entire week before a test, and many new things were taught during that week. I was given the option of taking the test at a later date, but I decided to give it a shot. After all, my grades were tip-top, I can afford to take risks once in a while. Then when I took the test, most of the material were taught in the week I was absent, and I somehow knew them all, without even learning them!"
"Could it be subliminal?" asked Low, intrigued. "Did any of your classmates pay you a visit to pass you notes or anything?"
"They wanted to," said Toh. "But it was a flu and I told them out of -" He had wanted to say 'my good heart', but decided to refrain from sounding arrogant. "I told them it was best for them to stay away from me, for I didn't want them to be sick on the week of the test as well. Besides, it was a decision I made on my own, I shouldn't implicate anyone else."
"Ok, so here comes the bad part. Because of my abilities, I was chosen involuntarily as a tutor for many of the weaker students. I protested, because there was no way I could tutor others if I didn't know how I worked out my problems. At first the teachers didn't believe me, but after going through several tutees and causing them to fail, they became pretty convinced that I didn't know the basics of problem solving. But to them, the whole notion of 'I know because I just know', was ridiculous. They began to suspect me of cheating. My mother came to my defence, and after much pleading, they agreed to let me take an IQ test. I scored a full 200."
At this point, Low let out a short gasp. To him, an IQ of 200 was godly. It almost seemed as if a god was sitting in front of him. Toh ignored it, and continued speaking.
"But I didn't know how I was so smart! To me, the answers just appeared in my head, I didn't even think! The logical steps were all missing! After that day, everyone in school shunned away from me, thinking I was some freak or something. And word of it grew, and everywhere I went, people looked at me as some sort of freak. I don't know what to do anymore, I don't want my abilities anymore."
Low nodded his head in sympathy. It was indeed a cruel thing to be ostracised by the rest of humanity, and for what? An ability which you didn't ask for, an ability which you never showed off.
"So that's why you went to see Dr Ong?" asked Low.
"Yes, I wanted to know if there was a way to fix this."
Low had wanted to say 'interesting', indeed, it was. Intuition was a well-recognised phenomenon in the scientific circle, every good scientist uses it to consider almost impossible logic. However, no one knew how it worked, or why it worked. The laymen were taught not to rely on it because anything that couldn't be explained, wasn't reliable to them. However, here was one person who only had intuition to rely upon, and it had brought him misery. If he had indeed said 'interesting', Toh may just come on him like some deranged lunatic, the type he had been expecting to see.
"I'm quite intrigued," said Low. "Why you decided to see a psychologist instead of a counsellor or psychiatrist. A psychologist doesn't do this kind of work."
Low nearly slapped himself when he asked this question. Of course! How would Toh know what made him think that? He just knew. The startled expression on Toh's face already gave him the answer he needed.
"He made the right choice actually," said Ong. "I would have thought that a counsellor or psychiatrist could solve this problem better, but if you think about it logically, this is a problem psychologists are adept at."
"Why is that so?"
"Do you know who Howard Gardner is?"
"The psychologist who came up with the 7 intelligences?"
Low had recalled reading about it a few days earlier, in a random book he found in the library. Gardner was the man who theorised that intelligence came in 7 forms, namely, linguistic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, spatial intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, musical intelligence and bodily/kinesthetic intelligence. It was practically the thing that people used to prove that IQ tests were a big phoney, for most of them mainly dealt with only 2 intelligences, linguistic and logical-mathematical.
"Yes, well, what I theorise here is that intuition could be the eighth form of intelligence, the form that supercedes all the other 7."
Ong's tone was so serious, so matter-of-factly, that Low wasn't sure how to react.
"Of course I don't intend to make it public, it's just a personal theory. You know how people would react if I declare something so elusive an intelligence."
"But, you've got Toh here! You can use him as proof!"
At this point, Low realised he had made a very big blunder common among scientists. He was treating a human being as nothing more than a test subject. While Ong winced at this remark, Toh seemed indifferent.
"Dr Ong," he said with a smile, still looking Low in the eye. "I think we should leave. This clearly isn't Dr Low's field of expertise."
Low was terrified now, he had always been careful in front of others to avoid offending them. Now he had made the most basic of mistakes, and the 'victim' was mocking him. He had to find a way to remedy his problem.
"Hold on! I'm sorry Justin," he said. "It wasn't professional of me. Please, what can I do to help?"
"Justin doesn't want his enhanced intuition," said Ong. "I was hoping you could find a way to help correct that."
Toh nodded.
"Yes sir, this is something only a neurologist can do. You can shortwire some nerves or something can't you?"
At that moment, there was an eerie air of silence in the room. This time, everyone knew it, not just Toh. What Toh had just said was the biggest careless mistake for a person of an IQ of 200. A neurologist studies the brain, and while many believe they knew what produced the intelligences, to shortwire the neurons in the brain would be to turn the person into a vegetable. There was also something else, if Toh knew this all along, why did he agree to go with Ong in the first place?
"I don't understand," said Toh, rather sheepishly. "This has never happened in my life! How...how did this happen!?"
The tone wasn't one of fright or disgust, it was one of elation. Toh was happy that he had been wrong, for the first time in his life.
"You see, Justin?" it was Ong that said it. "Do you know why your intuition was wrong?"
Toh shook his head.
"You were overcome with emotion and thus, you blocked out your intuition. Your intuition wasn't wrong, you were right to come to me. However, you were wrong when you agreed with me that a neurologist should be able to do it. At that point in time, you had wanted not to believe your intuition anymore, you wanted to get rid of it, so subconsciously, you shut out your own intelligence."
There wasn't only one shocked person in the room this time, Low was horrified by what Ong had said.
"So that means..."
Ong motioned for him to wait, and continued speaking to Toh.
"Justin, I brought you here today to show you how dependant you are on your intuition, just like other people are dependent on certain intelligences they have. If you remove it, you won't be able to experience the joy everyone else has in life. You would be lost, devoid of all logic and well, I dare say you would be quite a buffoon. You have a powerful gift, Justin, one many people would kill to get. I want you to treasure it."
Justin sighed.
"As I said, Dr Ong, this intuition has given me nothing but trouble."
"The trouble came from your own unwillingness to explore. Everyone can find a way to help others. You are weak in logical intelligence because, well, you never used it. In this case, why don't you let yourself be the tutee, read books on how people would solve problems and ask yourself, how do they do it? The answer would come readily, you already know that, but at the same time, you would get an insight into how others not as extraordinary as yourself, do their best to help others. You can also ask yourself, 'how can I understand the normal workings of humanity?' Then you would find that you are able to fit in."
Toh thought over what Ong had said, it was the first time he really thought.
"You're right, doctor," he said. "Without my intuition, I can't do anything! And of course, why didn't I think of it before! I can use my intuition to help me figure out how to get into the normal workings of society! I can use it to figure out how to make friends! I don't have to fear my intuition anymore, how can I fear something that is really a part of me...wait, that means..."
"I'm sorry to say it, Justin," said Ong rather solemnly. "But all the sufferings you had gone through, you can only blame yourself."
Toh looked on the ground, hanging his head quietly, then looked back at Ong and smiled.
"Thank you Doctor, you've made me seen the light, I guess I wasn't wrong in coming to find you after all."
"That's great, now if you don't mind, I would like to speak to Dr Low here for a moment. Would you mind waiting in the car?"
With that, an elated Justin Toh skipped happily out of the guest room, quite forgetting the proper etiquette. It was alright though, for he was a psychiatric patient who had just been cured.
"Well, you had to take up my time to cure this guy, huh?" Low asked Ong, not with distaste, but rather a little humour. "In the first place, you're a psychologist, how come you go about treating patients like a psychiatrist?"
"Well, I was intrigued," said Ong, in good humour. "The eighth form of intelligence, doesn't that puzzle you? When Justin emailed me, I too was puzzled as to why he didn't choose a psychiatrist, or a counsellor for that matter, but I could tell, somehow, he knew I was the right person to choose. A psychiatrist dealt with madmen and depression, someone he should go to, but by coming to me, he has invoked my interest in this field of research. In a way, you could say his intuition chose the path which benefits the most people."
"Yes, a few questions there though. Didn't you say you weren't going to publish the theory? It's still a little difficult to stomach why he didn't choose a counsellor though."
"Well, I lied at that time, because I didn't want it to interfere with matters at hand. And well, you almost blew it."
Low cringed at this remark.
"You also know that a counsellor wouldn't have any knowledge of the 7 intelligences, and wouldn't be interested in a follow up. I intend to keep in contact with Justin, learn more about his phenomenal intuition, then hopefully publish a paper about it. It would benefit many people who believe they are dumb and inept."
Low saw that Ong was ready to leave.
"Well, I'm sorry for taking up your time, Lai Kim, I understand it hadn't benefitted you at all, but I had to do something for Justin's sake. I hope to make it up to you someday, how about lunch tomorrow? My treat."
"Why that would be excellent, Terrence," said Low gleefully. "Just a few more questions though, how do you know people are going to accept your new paper, and also, how did you learn those skills of counselling? I mean it doesn't strike me that you were a good counsellor, or even knew anything about counselling, no offence."
Ong laughed.
"Well, I guess there's a Justin in all of us," he said. "The answers to those 2 questions are 'I just know'."
Monday, June 2, 2008
Scifi Shorts by others, review!
Hey hey, yep, I decided to put reviews of other scifi stories here instead. I think the atmosphere is better here for that.
ya, I've been reading some works by Asimov over the past few days, his lengthy 'short' stories from 'The complete collection volume 2'. I haven't finished the whole book yet, think I've at least 5 stories to go, but the famous ones were all put in front. Since this is a review, I'll still comment on the stories even if I think they were not so fantastic.
The Ugly Little Boy
In the not too far future, a company known as Stasis Inc has invented a method to obtain individuals from the distant past and bring them to our present time, on the condition that they stay within an area known as Stasis, where normal time doesn't flow. This lady, Fellowes, was brought in to take care of a Neantherdal child that had been brought to the present.
It is a very sentimental story, where the child learns to speak and how Fellowes becomes more accustomed to the boy's ugliness. Then, like in any other sentimental stories, the two were about to be separated, since the boy had to be sent back to his time. By now, Fellowes had felt like his mother, so I guess you can expect what happened next.
Personally, I find such themes overused, about how a person interacts with a strange object or person with first revulsion, then affection. The idea of bringing objects to the present time isn't new to me either, I've seen it somewhere before and I kind of find that idea boring. So, sorry, this story would only get a 3/5 from me.
Nightfall
Wow, throughout this story my heart was like, wooh! racing all the way. Imagine your world was surrounded by 6 suns, well, not orbiting all of them of course, just one, but the other 5 were well in the vicinity. because of that, there was no such thing as night, as total darkness over the landscape. no one believed in night, nor the so called 'stars'. Everyone was terrified of the dark, spend too much time in it and they'll lose their minds.
then there's a cult on the planet, predicting the coming of total darkness, where all men lose their minds and the cities go up in flames. no one believes them, but scientists discovered that they were right after all. an eclipse would occur when only one sun shone in the sky, then the long night begins.
the story follows a young reporter, Theoreon, on this distant planet as he interviews the scientists who believe the coming of darkness was right, on the very night of the eclipse. He stays with them and watches the entire eclipse as it happens. As it happens, the scientists talk of many theories, about how many stars there were, and how they all believed there were to be no more than 6 stars, about how they might survive the long night. and it also tells of the crazy cultists who try to obtain salvation at the last minute. the story continues until the eclipse was complete, and 35 000 stars shone down on the dark land, making everyone lose their minds, and burning their cities for light.
the concept of this story is very different, and a worthwhile read, for it is a situation which would never be imagined on Earth, for we only have one sun, and we know what night is. It is a very interesting portration of the end of days on another planet that has never seen night. a definite 5/5.
Hostess
What is it with aliens that make humanity seem so pathetic? Probably it's because they never die involuntarily, because they never stop growing, and you could expect them to be at least a few centuries old when one visits you.
their equivalent of cancer would known as the inhibition death, where you stop growing, then you die within a year. quite the opposite of cancer actually. after interaction with earth, the numbers of such diseases increase, particularly on the planet closest to earth. a biologist on earth pays hostess to a doctor from this planet, and much to her dismay, he has aroused the interest of her policeman husband. after much pretense and flowerly words, the man kills the alien in an attempt to prevent him from bringing back the truth of the inhibition death to his world.
it is a very interesting concept we have here. the reason why we live limited lives on earth is due to a parasitic intelligence that resides along with us. this parasitic intelligence sucks on our life force, and thus we die after a while. however, other planets don't have such an intelligence, and so are effectively immortal lest they choose not to be. however, we can't get rid of our parasitic intelligence now because we will all get cancer. written by asimov in his position as a biologist, this story is given 4/5 stars for concept and scientific accuracy, and thus possibility that such an intelligence may actually exist.
well, thts all the stories i want to review. the others weren't tht significant to me. i may be reviewing more stories from the book soon. anw, soul machina part twelve will be the next post, thts a definite promise. haha, i think my writing has developed quite a bit after reading asimov's stories.
ya, I've been reading some works by Asimov over the past few days, his lengthy 'short' stories from 'The complete collection volume 2'. I haven't finished the whole book yet, think I've at least 5 stories to go, but the famous ones were all put in front. Since this is a review, I'll still comment on the stories even if I think they were not so fantastic.
The Ugly Little Boy
In the not too far future, a company known as Stasis Inc has invented a method to obtain individuals from the distant past and bring them to our present time, on the condition that they stay within an area known as Stasis, where normal time doesn't flow. This lady, Fellowes, was brought in to take care of a Neantherdal child that had been brought to the present.
It is a very sentimental story, where the child learns to speak and how Fellowes becomes more accustomed to the boy's ugliness. Then, like in any other sentimental stories, the two were about to be separated, since the boy had to be sent back to his time. By now, Fellowes had felt like his mother, so I guess you can expect what happened next.
Personally, I find such themes overused, about how a person interacts with a strange object or person with first revulsion, then affection. The idea of bringing objects to the present time isn't new to me either, I've seen it somewhere before and I kind of find that idea boring. So, sorry, this story would only get a 3/5 from me.
Nightfall
Wow, throughout this story my heart was like, wooh! racing all the way. Imagine your world was surrounded by 6 suns, well, not orbiting all of them of course, just one, but the other 5 were well in the vicinity. because of that, there was no such thing as night, as total darkness over the landscape. no one believed in night, nor the so called 'stars'. Everyone was terrified of the dark, spend too much time in it and they'll lose their minds.
then there's a cult on the planet, predicting the coming of total darkness, where all men lose their minds and the cities go up in flames. no one believes them, but scientists discovered that they were right after all. an eclipse would occur when only one sun shone in the sky, then the long night begins.
the story follows a young reporter, Theoreon, on this distant planet as he interviews the scientists who believe the coming of darkness was right, on the very night of the eclipse. He stays with them and watches the entire eclipse as it happens. As it happens, the scientists talk of many theories, about how many stars there were, and how they all believed there were to be no more than 6 stars, about how they might survive the long night. and it also tells of the crazy cultists who try to obtain salvation at the last minute. the story continues until the eclipse was complete, and 35 000 stars shone down on the dark land, making everyone lose their minds, and burning their cities for light.
the concept of this story is very different, and a worthwhile read, for it is a situation which would never be imagined on Earth, for we only have one sun, and we know what night is. It is a very interesting portration of the end of days on another planet that has never seen night. a definite 5/5.
Hostess
What is it with aliens that make humanity seem so pathetic? Probably it's because they never die involuntarily, because they never stop growing, and you could expect them to be at least a few centuries old when one visits you.
their equivalent of cancer would known as the inhibition death, where you stop growing, then you die within a year. quite the opposite of cancer actually. after interaction with earth, the numbers of such diseases increase, particularly on the planet closest to earth. a biologist on earth pays hostess to a doctor from this planet, and much to her dismay, he has aroused the interest of her policeman husband. after much pretense and flowerly words, the man kills the alien in an attempt to prevent him from bringing back the truth of the inhibition death to his world.
it is a very interesting concept we have here. the reason why we live limited lives on earth is due to a parasitic intelligence that resides along with us. this parasitic intelligence sucks on our life force, and thus we die after a while. however, other planets don't have such an intelligence, and so are effectively immortal lest they choose not to be. however, we can't get rid of our parasitic intelligence now because we will all get cancer. written by asimov in his position as a biologist, this story is given 4/5 stars for concept and scientific accuracy, and thus possibility that such an intelligence may actually exist.
well, thts all the stories i want to review. the others weren't tht significant to me. i may be reviewing more stories from the book soon. anw, soul machina part twelve will be the next post, thts a definite promise. haha, i think my writing has developed quite a bit after reading asimov's stories.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
The Specimen
Ladono switched on the lights over the operating table and motioned for the surgeons to stop work. The cries from the struggling creature lying on the hard metallic board had died out but not before giving everyone working on it a headache.
"5 minutes," he said to the other surgeons who promptly threw their tools into the tray and left the room to take a breather. Ladono couldn't understand it, why was the creature in so much pain? All he did was cut up the surface of the skin, it wasn't as if he drew a knife right into the body.
Ladono followed the other surgeons as they watched the new planet from outside the window of the spacecraft. It was the homeplanet of this creature, a rather melancholic one. All shades of dark gothic colours could be seen, mixed with bright colours of blue and green. He imagined years ago, the planet had been a beautiful one. The liquid of the planet would have been the small blue bits that were remaining, and the vegetation of the planet would be the green areas. There had been areas where neither the liquid nor the vegetation were present, areas of brown. Now those areas were huge, greater than the liquid and vegetation areas. Ladono understood that the brown areas could only sustain the sturdiest of life, and the creature, now lying dead on the operating table, wasn't the sturdiest of life.
The planet had been a home for an intelligent species, a species which somehow couldn't get along with each other and killed each other for their own survival, a very disturbing and angry species. Ladono's ship had arrived at the most perfect timing. A major war had just been waged on the planet's surface, turning the lush blue planet into a sad one. The remnants of the intelligent species were now struggling to survive, and Ladono had managed to capture one of them, roaming around endlessly in the ruins of civillisation.
Through studies by other scientists, the species of the planet consisted of 2 genders, one was the life-bearing gender, the other responsible for the fertilisation of them. This was in contrast to the beings of Planet Cories, where Ladono was from. There was only one gender, and everybody was capable of reproducing asexually. In fact, Ladono had just given birth to his first offspring. The creature they captured was believed to be of the 'female' gender, the life-bearing one. Ladono recognised this by the presence of ovaries and the absense of an external sexual organ. Another thing he learnt of these species, is that they were somehow unreceptive to the idea of appearing in the nude. They wore layers of fabric over their naked bodies, and everyone seemed to do it. It was a running joke among the scientists that the different genders found each other's sexual organ offensive, for they wore an extra layer over those regions. It was hard for the Corians to accept, for to them, nudity was pride in one's body.
It was almost time, Ladona decided to go back to the operating table and analyse the specimen a little before they began further internal work. He saw that the creature had not too fair, not too dark skin, but apparently different types showed different skin colour. However, it was believed that the colour of their blood were all red. In contrast, Corians all had the same skin colour, green, but had different colour bloods. Those from the northern hemisphere of the planet had blue blood, while Ladono, from the south, had orange blood. There were other blood colours too, all across the visible spectrum. The skin colour of the species weren't as constrasting, ranging from very dark, to very fair. The hair of the female was black, long and silky, and hair apparently appeared in other regions too. The range of hair colours were also diverse among the species, from what he knew. Ladono only had a few strands of green hair protruding his ovoid head, and this was about it for the Corians. On the face of the specimen, there were 2 seeing organs, 2 hearing organs, a smelling organ and another organ which all the cries had been coming out from.
"Ladono," said one of the surgeons as he returned. "What do you intend to do now?"
"I was wondering why the creature was screaming so badly when we dissected it, we had taken all the necessary precautions to prevent it from feeling pain."
"I'm afraid we do not have the necessary chemicals," said the surgeon, whose name was Elkis. "The nerves of this organism is very close to its skin."
"Oh, I see," replied Ladono, at the same time wondering why he seemed to be the only one not aware of this fact.
"What do you think about it?" asked Elkis.
"A very simple structure," replied Ladono, toying with his 4 tentacle-like arms. "A head, two limbs on the upper body and 2 at the lower body, their evolution took place for little over a million years, so it's no wonder they look so pathetic. Look at us now, five billion years of evolution, maybe we looked like that once."
"Unlikely," said Elkis. "Our home planet wasn't as beautiful as this one was before. There was a need for our features even in our early stages of evolution. Four legs connected to an elongated body for mobility and speed, tentacles for flexible handling of objects, large eyes to counteract the dim light of our sun. These creatures have it easy, pity they had to ruin their own homeland."
By now, the other surgeons had entered the operating theatre, gathered over the corpse of the female alien.
"Sir," it was Ladono's student, Norto. "I don't mean to be rude, but I think the specimen is dead."
There was laughter among the other surgeons, Ladona too let out a chuckle.
"Yes, we can see that," he replied, trying to stuff down his laughter. "How would that affect our operations?"
Norto wasn't offended, he knew he didn't get his point across like he was supposed to.
"Would there be trouble studying the specimen if it's dead?"
This time, no one laughed. Norto had a point. There hadn't been much preparation for the operation since everyone was really excited about having captured a species from the planet for the first time, and an intelligent one to boot. The first thing that ran in any Corian scientist's mind after capturing a new specimen would be to cut it open. On Cories, no one died of dissection, it was done when the specimen was wide awake. Some medical students even dissected themselves in front of the class to present their findings. All it took was some minor medication to seal back the wound. Apparently, the alien species were very vulnerable.
"What do you propose we do?" one of the surgeons asked Norto.
Norto confessed that he had no idea, because there wasn't equipment or chemicals they knew of that could nullify pain in the specimen. Ladono and the others let out a sigh, the only way they could find out anything new would be to go capture another specimen and try to keep it alive while they were studying it. As such, the remainder of the session wasn't much. In the silence, they extracted internal organs and did a map of the body. They weren't sure exactly what did what, just that the ovaries bore the fruit of the next generation.
"I think I'll raise the possibility of setting up a base on the planet in the next council meeting," said Ladono. "With their civillisation in shambles, we shouldn't have any trouble creating our own down there."
There was much discussion afterwards, until Ladono called off the session. The surgeons took a few cell samples and stored the organs in preservatices before throwing the hollowed-out corpse into deep space.
A few days later, the council meeting was held within the ship. It wasn't a totally grand affair, for there was only one representative from the collective consciousness that was present. He had followed the members of the ship to study the new planet. But he alone was good enough, one could say the entire government was already present. Other than Ladono, the members of the meeting included reknown individuals in their profession. The social analyst was the first to speak.
"Your honour," he addressed the representative. "I have determined that the system of governance on the planet is nothing short of primitive. There isn't one nation on the planet, but rather hundreds, each having their own government whose interest is only for their own people. Furthermore, the government isn't a collective consciousness one like ours, but consists of many individuals all intent on their own needs."
"That's horrible!" said representative Yakan. "No wonder the war broke out. With such messiness, how could they expect to thrive?"
Representative Yakan was one of the 500 members of the collective consciousness. This consciousness was the only government on Cories. Each knew what the other member was thinking, and they all operated with one mind, literary. This resulted in 1 million years of peace.
"Actually," continued the social analyst. "Their system wasn't much different from ours 1 million years ago. We were in the middle of a war among nations back then, until the great rebellion occured and stopped the war before we ended up destroying ourselves. Apparently, on this planet, the same thing happened, but no one bothered to try to stop the war. They fought and fought to the very last man, that's the name of the non-life bearing gender by the way."
"I see," said the representative sorrowfully. "So they weren't as lucky as us."
The social analyst ended his report there, for there wasn't much he could understand from the planet at a glance. Apparently, it was too complicated, the interactions of many separate minds. It was impossible for him to imagine a government that operated like that. After him was the geographer, who gave a detailed breakdown on the tectonics of the planet. After at least ten more speakers, it was finally Ladono's turn to report.
"Your honour, my team have successfully managed to capture one of the intelligent lifeforms that live on the planet. After some study, I can conclude that we're dealing with a very frail species with a very frail mind. As such, I propose the construction of a base on the planet itself to study the lifeforms closer to their natural habitat."
Ladono had already expected the commotion that followed. Representative Yakan was the only one who didn't stir as he carefully analysed the possibilites with the rest of the collective consciousness.
"Dr Ladono," he said eventually. "The rest of the government would need more convincing before we can even consider sending you down there for a long period of time. Do you have any reports to show me?"
Ladono then took out the data he had collected the day he studied the specimen and showed it to the representative. As he looked at it, he was also consulting the relevant expert in the government.
"This is not enough," he answered dryly. "I'm afraid you would have to do more research before you raise that possibility again."
"But sir, that's the problem. The lifeform is just too different from us! We do not have the relevant chemicals, or equipment to keep it alive. We need to go down there, and see exactly how they work. Mesonic scans from up here aren't good enough."
This time, the room was silent. No one knew what to say. The representative was now listening to the thoughts of his colleagues, his gigantic eyes twitching over their comments. Before he could reach a conclusion, the social analyst raised a tentacle again.
"Sir, if I may. I would like to make a personal trip down to the planet too. I want to see for myself how the survivors of the war organise themselves. It would give me a better understanding of how their government had run before."
The whole room was now focused on Ladono and the social analyst. With two people intending to go, the pressure on the collective consciousness was effectively doubled.
"Alright," said the representative. "We have a lot of money and resources anyway, so there's no harm in making a trip to the planet for educational and research purposes. 3 months, the both of you have 3 months, effective tomorrow. You may ask for anything you may need, but after 3 months, if nothing turns up, I'm afraid you would have to pay back the government everything."
The meeting was adjourned, and congratulations were given to the social analyst and Ladono. Ladono now knew the social analyst was called Sydeburn, and after a liquor chat, they were friends. However, they were both faced with a new challenge. How were they going to get the denizens of the planet to accept them? The specimen had been terrified when they brought her up, and cried and struggled as they thrussed her on the operating table. Would they be able to keep their promise to the government? Ladono looked out at the planet again, the melancholic skies now turning ashen gray as it turned away from its star.
"I'm just glad we're not like them," said Ladono with a smile. He then went to find his offspring in the playroom, to give him a good lesson on how fortunate the Corians were.
Moral: Wake up planet Earth! In the eyes of aliens, we're such losers.
"5 minutes," he said to the other surgeons who promptly threw their tools into the tray and left the room to take a breather. Ladono couldn't understand it, why was the creature in so much pain? All he did was cut up the surface of the skin, it wasn't as if he drew a knife right into the body.
Ladono followed the other surgeons as they watched the new planet from outside the window of the spacecraft. It was the homeplanet of this creature, a rather melancholic one. All shades of dark gothic colours could be seen, mixed with bright colours of blue and green. He imagined years ago, the planet had been a beautiful one. The liquid of the planet would have been the small blue bits that were remaining, and the vegetation of the planet would be the green areas. There had been areas where neither the liquid nor the vegetation were present, areas of brown. Now those areas were huge, greater than the liquid and vegetation areas. Ladono understood that the brown areas could only sustain the sturdiest of life, and the creature, now lying dead on the operating table, wasn't the sturdiest of life.
The planet had been a home for an intelligent species, a species which somehow couldn't get along with each other and killed each other for their own survival, a very disturbing and angry species. Ladono's ship had arrived at the most perfect timing. A major war had just been waged on the planet's surface, turning the lush blue planet into a sad one. The remnants of the intelligent species were now struggling to survive, and Ladono had managed to capture one of them, roaming around endlessly in the ruins of civillisation.
Through studies by other scientists, the species of the planet consisted of 2 genders, one was the life-bearing gender, the other responsible for the fertilisation of them. This was in contrast to the beings of Planet Cories, where Ladono was from. There was only one gender, and everybody was capable of reproducing asexually. In fact, Ladono had just given birth to his first offspring. The creature they captured was believed to be of the 'female' gender, the life-bearing one. Ladono recognised this by the presence of ovaries and the absense of an external sexual organ. Another thing he learnt of these species, is that they were somehow unreceptive to the idea of appearing in the nude. They wore layers of fabric over their naked bodies, and everyone seemed to do it. It was a running joke among the scientists that the different genders found each other's sexual organ offensive, for they wore an extra layer over those regions. It was hard for the Corians to accept, for to them, nudity was pride in one's body.
It was almost time, Ladona decided to go back to the operating table and analyse the specimen a little before they began further internal work. He saw that the creature had not too fair, not too dark skin, but apparently different types showed different skin colour. However, it was believed that the colour of their blood were all red. In contrast, Corians all had the same skin colour, green, but had different colour bloods. Those from the northern hemisphere of the planet had blue blood, while Ladono, from the south, had orange blood. There were other blood colours too, all across the visible spectrum. The skin colour of the species weren't as constrasting, ranging from very dark, to very fair. The hair of the female was black, long and silky, and hair apparently appeared in other regions too. The range of hair colours were also diverse among the species, from what he knew. Ladono only had a few strands of green hair protruding his ovoid head, and this was about it for the Corians. On the face of the specimen, there were 2 seeing organs, 2 hearing organs, a smelling organ and another organ which all the cries had been coming out from.
"Ladono," said one of the surgeons as he returned. "What do you intend to do now?"
"I was wondering why the creature was screaming so badly when we dissected it, we had taken all the necessary precautions to prevent it from feeling pain."
"I'm afraid we do not have the necessary chemicals," said the surgeon, whose name was Elkis. "The nerves of this organism is very close to its skin."
"Oh, I see," replied Ladono, at the same time wondering why he seemed to be the only one not aware of this fact.
"What do you think about it?" asked Elkis.
"A very simple structure," replied Ladono, toying with his 4 tentacle-like arms. "A head, two limbs on the upper body and 2 at the lower body, their evolution took place for little over a million years, so it's no wonder they look so pathetic. Look at us now, five billion years of evolution, maybe we looked like that once."
"Unlikely," said Elkis. "Our home planet wasn't as beautiful as this one was before. There was a need for our features even in our early stages of evolution. Four legs connected to an elongated body for mobility and speed, tentacles for flexible handling of objects, large eyes to counteract the dim light of our sun. These creatures have it easy, pity they had to ruin their own homeland."
By now, the other surgeons had entered the operating theatre, gathered over the corpse of the female alien.
"Sir," it was Ladono's student, Norto. "I don't mean to be rude, but I think the specimen is dead."
There was laughter among the other surgeons, Ladona too let out a chuckle.
"Yes, we can see that," he replied, trying to stuff down his laughter. "How would that affect our operations?"
Norto wasn't offended, he knew he didn't get his point across like he was supposed to.
"Would there be trouble studying the specimen if it's dead?"
This time, no one laughed. Norto had a point. There hadn't been much preparation for the operation since everyone was really excited about having captured a species from the planet for the first time, and an intelligent one to boot. The first thing that ran in any Corian scientist's mind after capturing a new specimen would be to cut it open. On Cories, no one died of dissection, it was done when the specimen was wide awake. Some medical students even dissected themselves in front of the class to present their findings. All it took was some minor medication to seal back the wound. Apparently, the alien species were very vulnerable.
"What do you propose we do?" one of the surgeons asked Norto.
Norto confessed that he had no idea, because there wasn't equipment or chemicals they knew of that could nullify pain in the specimen. Ladono and the others let out a sigh, the only way they could find out anything new would be to go capture another specimen and try to keep it alive while they were studying it. As such, the remainder of the session wasn't much. In the silence, they extracted internal organs and did a map of the body. They weren't sure exactly what did what, just that the ovaries bore the fruit of the next generation.
"I think I'll raise the possibility of setting up a base on the planet in the next council meeting," said Ladono. "With their civillisation in shambles, we shouldn't have any trouble creating our own down there."
There was much discussion afterwards, until Ladono called off the session. The surgeons took a few cell samples and stored the organs in preservatices before throwing the hollowed-out corpse into deep space.
A few days later, the council meeting was held within the ship. It wasn't a totally grand affair, for there was only one representative from the collective consciousness that was present. He had followed the members of the ship to study the new planet. But he alone was good enough, one could say the entire government was already present. Other than Ladono, the members of the meeting included reknown individuals in their profession. The social analyst was the first to speak.
"Your honour," he addressed the representative. "I have determined that the system of governance on the planet is nothing short of primitive. There isn't one nation on the planet, but rather hundreds, each having their own government whose interest is only for their own people. Furthermore, the government isn't a collective consciousness one like ours, but consists of many individuals all intent on their own needs."
"That's horrible!" said representative Yakan. "No wonder the war broke out. With such messiness, how could they expect to thrive?"
Representative Yakan was one of the 500 members of the collective consciousness. This consciousness was the only government on Cories. Each knew what the other member was thinking, and they all operated with one mind, literary. This resulted in 1 million years of peace.
"Actually," continued the social analyst. "Their system wasn't much different from ours 1 million years ago. We were in the middle of a war among nations back then, until the great rebellion occured and stopped the war before we ended up destroying ourselves. Apparently, on this planet, the same thing happened, but no one bothered to try to stop the war. They fought and fought to the very last man, that's the name of the non-life bearing gender by the way."
"I see," said the representative sorrowfully. "So they weren't as lucky as us."
The social analyst ended his report there, for there wasn't much he could understand from the planet at a glance. Apparently, it was too complicated, the interactions of many separate minds. It was impossible for him to imagine a government that operated like that. After him was the geographer, who gave a detailed breakdown on the tectonics of the planet. After at least ten more speakers, it was finally Ladono's turn to report.
"Your honour, my team have successfully managed to capture one of the intelligent lifeforms that live on the planet. After some study, I can conclude that we're dealing with a very frail species with a very frail mind. As such, I propose the construction of a base on the planet itself to study the lifeforms closer to their natural habitat."
Ladono had already expected the commotion that followed. Representative Yakan was the only one who didn't stir as he carefully analysed the possibilites with the rest of the collective consciousness.
"Dr Ladono," he said eventually. "The rest of the government would need more convincing before we can even consider sending you down there for a long period of time. Do you have any reports to show me?"
Ladono then took out the data he had collected the day he studied the specimen and showed it to the representative. As he looked at it, he was also consulting the relevant expert in the government.
"This is not enough," he answered dryly. "I'm afraid you would have to do more research before you raise that possibility again."
"But sir, that's the problem. The lifeform is just too different from us! We do not have the relevant chemicals, or equipment to keep it alive. We need to go down there, and see exactly how they work. Mesonic scans from up here aren't good enough."
This time, the room was silent. No one knew what to say. The representative was now listening to the thoughts of his colleagues, his gigantic eyes twitching over their comments. Before he could reach a conclusion, the social analyst raised a tentacle again.
"Sir, if I may. I would like to make a personal trip down to the planet too. I want to see for myself how the survivors of the war organise themselves. It would give me a better understanding of how their government had run before."
The whole room was now focused on Ladono and the social analyst. With two people intending to go, the pressure on the collective consciousness was effectively doubled.
"Alright," said the representative. "We have a lot of money and resources anyway, so there's no harm in making a trip to the planet for educational and research purposes. 3 months, the both of you have 3 months, effective tomorrow. You may ask for anything you may need, but after 3 months, if nothing turns up, I'm afraid you would have to pay back the government everything."
The meeting was adjourned, and congratulations were given to the social analyst and Ladono. Ladono now knew the social analyst was called Sydeburn, and after a liquor chat, they were friends. However, they were both faced with a new challenge. How were they going to get the denizens of the planet to accept them? The specimen had been terrified when they brought her up, and cried and struggled as they thrussed her on the operating table. Would they be able to keep their promise to the government? Ladono looked out at the planet again, the melancholic skies now turning ashen gray as it turned away from its star.
"I'm just glad we're not like them," said Ladono with a smile. He then went to find his offspring in the playroom, to give him a good lesson on how fortunate the Corians were.
Moral: Wake up planet Earth! In the eyes of aliens, we're such losers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
