Carl Sagan’s Hunt for Intelligent Life in the Universe Read Online Free PDF

Hsissh’s world and live. He didn’t have Shissh’s worries about spreading black waters, or Ish’s scientific enthusiasm, Hsissh cared only about the human girl who had twice endangered her life trying to save him. He looked at her now, her eyes darting down the aisle to check on him as though he were the kit, not her, and he felt the same rush of feelings he’d felt for his blind hatchlings.
    “Does it matter that they can’t touch the wave?” Hsissh said to Ish. “They are telepathic in their own way.”
    Ish sniffed derisively. “If their satellites go down, or their time gates go offline, they are trapped in their own minds. Light beams, radio, and microwaves … they are as primitive as their speech. Their ethernet is a trap, distracting them from true oneness.”
    Hsissh thought of the minds across the galaxy Noa spoke to. She’d joined a Reserve Fleet Training Corps. It was a group for adolescents who dreamed of joining the Fleet; through them she’d found support for her ambitions and discovered that although her dreams weren’t average for a young girl, they weren’t weird, and she wasn’t a deviant.
    He bowed his head. She had confessed to her friends that the only thing she was worried about was leaving her “pet Fluffy.” His hearts beat painfully at the thought. “Does it matter though?” he whispered. “Maybe they aren’t wave aware, maybe they will never be … but they feel as much as we do.” Even though they’d evolved light years away from one another. Even though they weren’t wave-aware. Perhaps it was because they were creatures that had to raise helpless young communally, too?
    Ish lowered his head and narrowed his eyes at Hsissh, his hindquarters’ furious hopping abruptly coming to a stop. “Are you crazy, Hsissh? Rats have feelings, too … even lizzar do!”
    “But it’s not the same,” Hsissh said. “Rats don’t grieve their dead for decades.” Like I do, he almost said.
    Ish raised his head and put a paw through his whiskers. “Rats don’t live long enough, Hsissh.”
    Hsissh’s body hunched. “We could communicate with the humans if we wanted to, we could even discuss the wave with them; they see its existence—”
    “Through the primitive mirror of their mathematics,” said Ish. “Until they feel it, they can’t know it.”
    “They could still be useful!” Hsissh protested. “They have opposable thumbs and fighting machines!”
    Ish’s whiskers twitched. “Are you worried about Shissh’s dark waters?” He poked Hsissh’s chest with a sharp claw. “I can feel you are not, Hsissh. You’ve become too close to your humans, or that old body of yours has. We cannot announce ourselves to the humans. Announce ourselves, and we would, at least temporarily, lose the upper hand. It would be very inconvenient if they tried to wipe out our host species.”
    “We’re thinking of wiping them out,” Hsissh countered.
    Ish got very still. “Only on this planet, Hsissh. They will still have their sanctuaries on other worlds.” Ish’s eyes bored into Hsissh’s, and then his consciousness did as well. Probing Hsissh’s memories, Ish found the ones where Hsissh tried to talk telepathically to Noa—and succeeded—and then failed due to her mind’s rationalizations.
    “You’re lucky you didn’t succeed in that,” Ish said, the wave crackling with malevolence. “It would ruin my observations and their natural evolution—and you’d be ostracized, if not condemned to have your pattern dissolved.”
    Hsissh swished his tail. “I never tried to tell her I was sentient … I just tried to let her feel that she doesn’t have to worry about me.”
    Ish’s frame relaxed. “You’re young—well, not your body, you look terrible—and I see you didn’t successfully break any rules.” He put a claw through a whisker. “They’re your ‘pets,’” he said, using the human word. “And you’re worried. But don’t be. They’ll evolve; you’ll