Little Green Men

by Peter Cawdron

conclusion

Mitchell shook his head, trying to grasp the full implications of what he’d seen. His mind was spinning with possibilities, desperately trying to make sense of the images, desperately trying to reconcile the reconstruction he saw before him with what he remembered of the event.

The scene moved on and he watched the holographic projection of himself planting a flare in the ground. Light blazed outward from that single point, casting long shadows on the ice.

“Wait a minute,” he began. “His arm is gone. Doesn’t that strike anyone else as strange?”

“And what part of it strikes you as normal?” Summers asked.

“No, no,” Mitchell answered, his mind alive with possibilities. “I mean, where is the arm? Doesn’t it strike you as strange that his arm is gone? It was severed, we know that, but where is it? Where did it fall? It should be lying there in the snow beside him.”

Dallas rubbed the stubble on his chin.

“I didn’t notice that,” replied Summers. “I don’t think any of us did. We were so fixated on them, fixed on what they’d done that we didn’t realise his arm had disappeared. But why would they take it?”

“I don’t know,” replied Mitchell. “But there has to be a reason. Life, wherever we find it on Earth, always operates according to reason. Sometimes the reasons can be instinctive, opportunistic or predatory, but there is always a reason for an animal’s actions. The question is, why did they take his arm? They didn’t just attack him or try to kill him. They wanted that arm.”

Mitchell gestured toward Harris, spinning his hand as he spoke. “Can you roll it back? Can you zoom in on one of them and enlarge?”

Harris punched the keyboard in front of him and a life-size holographic image appeared before them. A little green man stood four feet tall above the navigation desk, frozen in place, slowly rotating in a clockwise direction.

“Fascinating,” said Mitchell. “Jane, what can you tell from their physiology?”

“Good question,” she replied. “Lets start with some anatomical comparisons.”

“Here we go. Bored already,” said Harris. Dallas laughed.

Dr. Summers ignored them. She stood up, reached in toward the figure and touched certain points on the holographic image. She touched the top of the shoulder, the elbow, the wrist, hand and fingers. As she did so, the computer automatically calculated lengths, displaying the figures in the air beside the image. She mumbled to herself as the rest of the crew talked about the mining progress. She touched the hip, the knee and ankle as well as measuring the length of the torso in relation to the rest of the body.

“Well, that is bizarre,” she said, returning the conversation back to the alien. “There are no visible genitals, but the proportions are human.”

“What?” asked Harris. “Are you saying this thing is human?”

“No. But I am saying the proportions are exactly what we would find on a child of similar height. Look here, at the ratio between the forearm and the upper arm, they correspond to a Fibonacci third, exactly as we find in all mammals on Earth.”

“What are the odds of that?” asked Dallas.

“Astronomical,” replied Mitchell. “It simply isn’t possible. For one, in double the gravity, the proportions would never equal those on Earth. They should be more stocky.”

“But there it is,” said Harris, his arm outstretched before him, pointing at the holographic image.

“This is wrong,” said Mitchell. “This simply cannot be right. If it is, we’re talking about convergent evolution in different parts of the galaxy.”

The others were silent. Mitchell elaborated.

“Convergent evolution has occurred on a handful of occasions on Earth, but it is the exception rather than the norm. The norm is for similar creatures to be related, to inherit similar traits from a common ancestor. For example, humans and monkeys both have four fingers and a thumb because they share a common ancestor. They didn’t both develop four fingers and a thumb independent of each other; the chances of that occurring are next to nil. One would end up with five, six or seven fingers.

“But there are some evolutionary developments that were independent. Eyes, for example, developed differently in the octopus. The eye is such an amazingly useful organ that it evolved twice through entirely different, separate, unrelated mechanisms.

“So we, and all other mammals, have a blind spot inherited from a flaw introduced by our most ancient common ancestor while the octopus doesn’t. It’s eye comes from a convergent pedigree. It developed separately and never suffered from a blind spot.”

“And you’re saying?” asked Dallas.

“I’m saying this is impossible. I mean, conceivably, there could be some forms of convergent evolution in different parts of the galaxy for common functions like sight, but even then, you’d expect it to centre around different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, depending on local conditions. But this, this is a clone. This is an exact physical copy. Look, he’s got two eyes, two ears, a nose and a mouth. Why not one eye, four ears and a mouth at the end of his hands? Why is he exactly like us?”

Dr. Summers was still making measurements. “The cranial structure and apparent volume are the same. There appears to be a jugular vein in the neck. The skin tension over the muscular and skeletal frame are directly comparable with our own anatomy.”

“This is impossible,” Mitchell repeated.

“But it is possible,” Harris insisted. “Because it’s here. It is right here in front of us. We can see it with our own eyes.”

“Maybe there was some kind of celestial cross-pollination,” Dallas offered. “Maybe millions of years ago little green men visited Earth and we’re somehow related to them.”

“No, no, no.” Mitchell continued. “You’re not thinking broadly enough. Look at the climate here. It reaches 220 below. No organic being of any kind could function in that environment.”

“And yet they do,” said Harris.

“And that’s the problem,” replied Mitchell. “They can’t. It is just not physically possible.”

He thought for a second before continuing. “There is a scientific principle called inductive reasoning. Although it was made famous by the Sherlock Holmes stories in the 1900s, it’s more than fiction. It’s the underlying principle behind numerous scientific theories, including relativity. The inductive principle says that when you eliminate all other factors and all other possibilities, the one that remains, no matter how unlikely, has to be true.”

“So what is true?” asked Dallas.

“All the evidence leads to one conclusion. There are no little green men.”

“And yet here there are,” said Summers, siding with Harris. “I’ve seen them for myself.”

“Yes, and that’s the problem. The existence of little green men defies the laws of physics, chemistry and biology, laws that have been universally proven time and again over the past five hundred years. Now if the existence of little green men is not possible scientifically then the only conclusion I can reach is that none of this is real.”

“Nice theory,” said Dallas. “Try explaining that to Johnson.”

“I’ll prove it to you. Stop the drill.”

“What?” cried Dallas. “We need that tritium. Without the H3, we’ll never get off this planet.”

“Do it. Pull it out. If I’m right, we’ll get a response from the aliens. If I’m wrong, we’ll lose a few hours processing.”

“We could all be dead in a few hours,” cried Harris.

Dallas shook his head in disbelief. He picked up a headset, keyed in the construction frequency and said, “Davis. Are you there? I need you to stop drilling. Cap the the mount and pack up the rig.”

A few seconds later, a reply came in across the static. “Did I hear you right, boss? You want us to shut up shop?”

“Affirmative.” Dallas tossed the headset on the table in disgust. “So, now what, Mr. Scientist?”

Mitchell sipped his coffee. In the increased gravity, the dense fluid held its heat longer.

“This is crazy,” said Harris. “We should be fighting them. We should be arming the mining lasers for short bursts and taking these things on.”

“Has it occurred to you,” Mitchell replied, “that they can get inside the ship without using an airlock, without breaching the hull? We have no idea what we’re actually up against. Any provocative action on our part is only going to inflame the situation.”

“Inflame the situation,” Harris mocked. “So what? You just want to sit around and wait for the next one to show up and chop off a limb?”

“A limb,” Mitchell mumbled to himself, lost deep in thought.

“Are you listening to me,” Harris demanded. “We need action. We need to take the initiative. We’re the UAE Space Corps. We lie down before no one. We need to get out there and kick some ass.”

Dallas was quite happy to let Harris say what he was thinking. From the headset lying on the table, Dallas could hear the radio calls as the surface team backed out the drill and set a pressure cap in place on the mount.

“If we’re going to go down, we should go down fighting,” cried Harris, looking for support from the others.

Mitchell smiled as the realisation settled. “In all the universe, there is no monster more insidious than human pride.”

“What?” asked Dr. Summers, wanting a double take.

“Don’t you see? It was pride that got us into this in the first place. We thought we could just come down here and strip-mine the planet for its volatiles. It didn’t matter what we had to do, we could just do it. For billions of years, this planet has been here and we come along and want to suck it dry in a few days.”

“Don’t go all eco on me,” said Dallas. “It’s a rock.”

“But not a lifeless rock. And pride, that’s what started all this. Johnson was swept up in it and so was I. Don’t you see? There are no monsters on this planet. We are the monsters.”

Dallas shook his head. “I think you’re being a bit to...”

A flashing light on the console next to him caught his eye. He reached out and tapped on a keyboard. An image came up showing the tritium levels rising in the containment tank.

“That’s impossible,” he stated, realising he had just repeated the mantra Mitchell had been proclaiming for the past half hour, but there it was, tritium levels being restored. “The tank is sealed. We’ve stopped pumping from the mantle. How can the tritium increase?”

Mitchell smiled.

“What is going on?” asked Summers, confused.

“It’s all about us,” Mitchell offered. “We thought all this was about the little green men, but it’s not, it’s about us.”

“I don’t get it,” said Dallas. Harris was silent.

“Why did they chop off Johnson’s arm?” asked Summers.

“Why did we chop off a limb of coral?”

“What?” said Dallas. “Are you saying they’re copying us?”

“Yes. Think about it. We took a sample, so did they. We were all boisterous and brash, so were they. We pillaged their natural H3, they rupture our containment tanks. Jane, you said you thought the alien you ran into was afraid, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How were you feeling at the time?”

“Afraid.”

“Exactly. And that’s what they mimicked.”

“But why copy our actions and emotions?” asked Dallas.

“I think they’re trying to communicate with us,” replied Mitchell.

“No bloody way,” cried Harris. “They just about killed Johnson. That’s like calling attempted murder a casual conversation!”

Mitchell ignored him. “When Columbus first discovered the new world, when Cook first sailed the pacific, the biggest challenge was in overcoming communication barriers. And that was between two creatures of the same species, using the same means of communication.”

“Fishing,” said Summers, remembering her ancient Earth history lessons.

“Exactly,” replied Mitchell.

“Fishing?” asked Dallas.

“Yes,” said Mitchell. “When Cook’s sailors first arrived at Botany Bay in Australia it took eight days before they could even make it to shore. They were constantly harassed by the natives. Once ashore, it took several weeks before they could both understand each other and discuss even basic concepts they were both familiar with, like fishing.”

“So you’re saying they’re trying to talk to us?”

“Yes. Remember, when you eliminate all other factors and all other possibilities, the one that remains, no matter how unlikely, has to be true. There are no little green men. It is impossible. Therefore we are seeing the initial attempts of an alien race trying to communicate with us.

“We thought of little green men, they obliged and gave us little green men. By the same token, we stopped plundering their resources, they obliged, restoring our supplies. At each step, they have mirrored our actions and expectations.”

“So they’re mimicking us,” said Dallas.

“Yes. They’re trying to establish a baseline for communication. Jane was afraid, and they reflected the same emotion back at her, trying to open dialogue with her. I believe they are whatever we want them to be.”

“So if we go out there with guns blazing...” Dallas replied.

“The only one’s we’d hurt would be ourselves.”

“And that’s it. That’s all this is?” Dallas asked.

“That’s all,” replied Mitchell. “The attack on Johnson was a mistake. That’s the only logical possibility that is consistent with the laws of science.”

Dallas laughed.

At first, his laughter was light and breezy, but it grew more heartily as the irony sunk in. With his chest heaving, he slapped Harris on his back. And beside him there appeared a little green man laughing as well.

to Challenge 391...