Page 46 - Extraterrestrials, Foreign and Domestic

Anthropic Fallacies

highly-intelligent modules contained the life-history of the aliens—
the entirety of their heritage, in every conceivable aspect—
encoded in ways far beyond today’s information science. Billions
of lightyears could pass before the vessels detected a suitable
planet in another galaxy.”
“Suitable for what?” croaked Upchurch. “Colonization?
Enslavement of humanity? Are they carnivorous?”
O’Day’s lips flickered into a brief smile.
“There’s the influence of B-movies again. No, this is only a way-
station en route to other destinations—some in our cosmic
domain, where their mission has already located several planets
very similar to ours. Those are the worlds they intend to populate
and where they will recreate their culture—not ours.”
“Then why do they want to have sex with us?”
“They don’t. They can’t. This may be a little difficult for you to
follow, so let me begin with a picture, one worth many words. It is
the last of the pages in front of you.”
Zorbach and Upchurch shuffled through their own
photographs until they found the last sheet.
“Oh, my God!”
Upchurch crossed himself. Zorbach giggled.
“Yes,” nodded O’Day peremptorily, “that’s what they looked
like on their home planet, at least after optical correction, digital
enhancement, and spatial readjustment. Octamerous, glabrous,
nacreous—quite hideous and unglamorous in human eyes. And
quite unadaptable to any planet in this cosmic domain. But they
knew this would be the case when they set out. Creatures looking
like that did not make the teraparsec voyage; instead, data did,
incorruptibly recorded in a medium unknown to human scientists.
The alien agenda is to regenerate themselves in the form of an
intelligent species which is adaptable to local conditions of life. In
practical terms, that means using the existing species Homo
sapiens, instilling selected people with their culture, and shipping
them out in suspended animation to those other earth-like planets
in far-flung galaxies. This is, you see, a very long-range strategy for
survival.”
Reverend Upchurch’s gaze remained fixed, glassy-eyed, to the
alien image; his attention to O’Day’s speech was in doubt. But Ray

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