"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of
the
planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way
through.
They're completely meat."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the
stars."
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them.
The
signals come from machines."
"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made
the
machines."
"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to
believe
in sentient meat."
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only
sentient
race in the sector and they're made out of meat."
"Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence
that
goes through a meat stage."
"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several
of
their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the
life
span of meat?"
"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the
Weddilei.
A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the
Weddilei.
But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."
"No brain?"
"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of
meat!"
"So... what does the thinking?"
"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The
meat."
"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The
meat is
the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"
"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
"uh huh"
"So what does the meat have in mind?"
"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the
universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The
usual."
"We're supposed to talk to meat?"
"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio.
'Hello.
Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing."
"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
"I thought you just told me they used radio."
"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know
how
when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their
meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their
meat."
"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you
advise?"
"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all
sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear,
or
favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the
whole
thing."
"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" 'Hello, meat. How's
it
going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers,
but
they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C
space.
Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of
their
ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."
"So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe."
"That's it."
"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones
who
have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You're sure they
won't remember?"
"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads
and
smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."
"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's
dream."
"And we can mark this sector unoccupied."
"Agreed."