It Might as Well be String Theory (book 3 of the hexology in seven parts)
Chapter 13: Impact Plus One

I am dead; it has to be true. After all, the bomb exploded on impact. I lived, or should I say died through that. My colleagues and I had waited dumbfounded through the agonising seconds, as the orbiting ship disgorged it’s load, and like a high diver descending, the swollen package of death moved from it’s cradle in the Acturan bomber; snug as it had lain, to assume it’s vertical plunge that would kill us all.

So am I experiencing what some might say, is the mind’s attempt to solve the unsolvable? By showing me every instant of my life, in a vain attempt that I might discover a way out; to prolong my life by learning from a lifetime’s experiences.

I am born, doted over by indistinct figures that I will come to recognise as my parents. Scroll on and I play with the toys of my youth. What’s that I hear; not that it makes sense to my tender ears. “They’ve finally made contact with an alien species from beyond our solar system.”

Another jump along my personal time line, and I am filling my head with school boy facts, as I sit at the back of a room filled with my class mates. An animated teacher points to a diagram on the board, and explains how, many years ago great men sent probes in to space, in the hope of replaceing intelligent life among the stars. And that one day, we finally got a message back from our galactic neighbours; it was a message of hope. They were on their way, and whished to learn more than the scant information our greeting bore, when we sent it on its way all those years ago.

So with the help of our new friends we built a device, a telephone to the stars, with which to hold a conversation with these beings from afar. The time between a call and its reply would get quicker, as their emissaries of peace grew steadily closer. But we had disgorged so much of the requested information already requested by them, and in turn learnt much of their culture.

I reel on some more, and my head is now full of the knowledge of my education; I have proved myself worthy for my role in life many times over, and so I can take my place with the select few, who’s task it will be to actually welcome the Acturan emissaries to our planet. I recall a life spent thus far leading me to this glorious moment, the culmination of my achievements.

They live much as we do, on a planet ruled by many. But some looked to the stars as our ancestors did, and asked the all-important question, are we alone? If we were but advanced in our technologies a bit more than they, then it would be emissaries from Earth who would be journeying to a distant star, to extend the hand of friendship across the void. But they were the big brothers, having had a millennium or two’s head start on us. And so in this first contact between intelligent life off our home planet, they have the bridge to fill the gap.

I soon rise through the ranks of my peers, to attain a position of great responsibility, in the Earth’s end of this on-going conversation with our new allies against the loneliness of space. By now scant months pass for the messages between us and the ship speeding it’s way to Earth, and we will learn first hand the names and faces of our counterparts, as they too attain the skills with which we will all negotiate our first actual contact, in the flesh. “Councillor Prodine, greetings from the emissaries of Acturan. We sincerely hope you have enjoyed the many examples of art, that we consider great works of our civilisation.”

The measure of a man is said to be in his eyes, and I found the emissaries’ were not wanting; but as with all from that distant world, he shared the same trustworthy look; for they were truly made in their maker’s image, being clones.

It did cause some confusion at first; after all if you expected to see the same face, and then get confronted with a plethora of different visages, you might just expect that you are conversing with a myriad of sentient species, a federation of civilisations. But when our reproductive differences were explained, the Acturans recalled an age-old technology they had indeed dabbled with in the infancy of their civilisation’s youth, soon discarded in the mists of their history.

Thus as our art seemed so strange to them, we also found their great works peculiar. To see the same face painted a myriad times over, through the progress of art movements and styles, took some getting used to. But it was their works of a divine nature, that struck myself and my fellow ambassadors as most odd, for they truly portrayed the Acturans to be formed in their makers image.

We did broach the subject with our counterparts, and after some discussion between our groups, taking some considerable time due to the delays between replies, we concluded that both parties had indeed evolved in to a secular form of government, as was fitting for a truly enlightened civilisation.

And then the communication stopped. Had we offended our new friends in some way? Was there perhaps some technical problem? For our part we tried all possible avenues of re-establishing contact; after all it seemed implausible that a civilisation would traverse such great distances if not to share the common bond of intelligence.

That was when we first got a glimpse of their approach, as our own sun illuminated the vessel sent to greet us. Still there was no signal from them; that was until the bomb bay door opened and disgorged its message of doom. Were we a threat? Had we offended in some way? As the last moments of my life ebbed away, I had only one thought. We were not truly made in our maker’s image, and so we must be eradicated from the perfect universe, the Acturans had come to expect.