(or so it seems to me), as a noun it bears the description, ‘sentience, that which is sentient; as a sentient being or mind ’—my italics. A contradiction in terms, it seems—or perhaps a contradictionary? I mean, does a plant have a mind? As a vegetarian, that concerns me.
“Ophiuchus VIII is not the first world on which I have come up against this paradox. But then, neither is it unknown on the home world, planet Earth. Is a squirting cucumber sentient? Is a scallop? Is that shrub (I can’t remember its name, but then I’m no botanist) whose myriad leaves on all the neighboring bushes close up in apparent distress if just one leaf feels the artificial heat of a struck match?
“The first (my dictionary says it’s a cucurbitaceous plant, native of Earth’s Mediterranean regions) forcefully ejects ripe seed pods when it ‘senses’ footfalls or ‘feels’ an animal brushing against it. Well, it’s certainly not ‘aware’—but ‘responsive to stimulus?’ As for the scallop: it is, after all, only a bivalve, having a shell in two parts. But it also has rudimentary eyes, a good many, and avoids oceanic predators by clapping its valves and ‘swimming’ away from them. And we (human beings, that is) have been eating them for untold thousands of years.
“So then, these things are patently mindless—they have no appreciable brains; and, in the botanical examples as specified above, none whatsoever—but they do respond to stimuli. This is my problem, and confronted by Ophiuchus’s javelin-hurling tree ferns, I thank goodness I am not the ship’s exobioecologist!
“One other thing about the tree ferns: they sing, and when ‘hurt’ they wail. I have heard their wailing and it is painful; or perhaps pain-filled? In future I shall follow the example of my Number One: leave the forest well alone and stick to tending my engines….”
II
RESTRICTED! RESTRICTED! RESTRICTED!
Non-electronic. By hand only!
ANOMALY 13: Preliminary Report.
By: Helmut W. Silberstein Jr.
Comdr United Earth Station IV.
Dated: 5th Aug. 2407.
To: Security List “A” only.
Non-electronic. By hand only!
Retrospective:
Of the 12 previous so-called “anomalies” recorded since United Earth Station One was commissioned in 2297, one was a disintegrating comet whose fragments fell into the sun; three were NEOs (Near Earth Objects) of which only one came inside Luna’s orbit; six were “drifting scrap iron”—debris left over from the various “space races” prior to planetary reconciliation and harmonization—since dismantled, assisted into decaying orbits, and allowed to burn up in atmosphere; one was a quarter million tons of rock and ice on a collision course with Earth, atomized by massive nuclear bombardment from Titan Base; and No. 12 was detected, observed and recorded by a robotic early warning buoy for a period of six days Earth standard in an apparently stable orbit around Venus. It then removed or disappeared…this was some three years and four months ago.
In every respect this penultimate anomaly—No. 12, which was more properly an anomaly in the truest meaning of the word, not merely a means of reporting (usually) NEOs—was identical to the subject of the following report, namely ANOMALY 13 . This did not become a proven fact until midway through the following sequence. However, in any event, my course of action would have been no different as the exploration and investigation of space is the approved business of the United Earth Space Agency and I am a Commander of that organization….
REPORT
Sir, I have to report that:
At approx 2340 Hrs. 1st Aug. 2407 I was the Officer in Command of UES IV, in a stable orbit over the North Atlantic, when Anomaly 13 was detected, a) by onboard radar, and b) manually, telescopically, some seven kilometres in advance of the UES in a corresponding orbit.
At approx 2347 Hrs, when it was observed that the anomaly’s proximity
“Ophiuchus VIII is not the first world on which I have come up against this paradox. But then, neither is it unknown on the home world, planet Earth. Is a squirting cucumber sentient? Is a scallop? Is that shrub (I can’t remember its name, but then I’m no botanist) whose myriad leaves on all the neighboring bushes close up in apparent distress if just one leaf feels the artificial heat of a struck match?
“The first (my dictionary says it’s a cucurbitaceous plant, native of Earth’s Mediterranean regions) forcefully ejects ripe seed pods when it ‘senses’ footfalls or ‘feels’ an animal brushing against it. Well, it’s certainly not ‘aware’—but ‘responsive to stimulus?’ As for the scallop: it is, after all, only a bivalve, having a shell in two parts. But it also has rudimentary eyes, a good many, and avoids oceanic predators by clapping its valves and ‘swimming’ away from them. And we (human beings, that is) have been eating them for untold thousands of years.
“So then, these things are patently mindless—they have no appreciable brains; and, in the botanical examples as specified above, none whatsoever—but they do respond to stimuli. This is my problem, and confronted by Ophiuchus’s javelin-hurling tree ferns, I thank goodness I am not the ship’s exobioecologist!
“One other thing about the tree ferns: they sing, and when ‘hurt’ they wail. I have heard their wailing and it is painful; or perhaps pain-filled? In future I shall follow the example of my Number One: leave the forest well alone and stick to tending my engines….”
II
RESTRICTED! RESTRICTED! RESTRICTED!
Non-electronic. By hand only!
ANOMALY 13: Preliminary Report.
By: Helmut W. Silberstein Jr.
Comdr United Earth Station IV.
Dated: 5th Aug. 2407.
To: Security List “A” only.
Non-electronic. By hand only!
Retrospective:
Of the 12 previous so-called “anomalies” recorded since United Earth Station One was commissioned in 2297, one was a disintegrating comet whose fragments fell into the sun; three were NEOs (Near Earth Objects) of which only one came inside Luna’s orbit; six were “drifting scrap iron”—debris left over from the various “space races” prior to planetary reconciliation and harmonization—since dismantled, assisted into decaying orbits, and allowed to burn up in atmosphere; one was a quarter million tons of rock and ice on a collision course with Earth, atomized by massive nuclear bombardment from Titan Base; and No. 12 was detected, observed and recorded by a robotic early warning buoy for a period of six days Earth standard in an apparently stable orbit around Venus. It then removed or disappeared…this was some three years and four months ago.
In every respect this penultimate anomaly—No. 12, which was more properly an anomaly in the truest meaning of the word, not merely a means of reporting (usually) NEOs—was identical to the subject of the following report, namely ANOMALY 13 . This did not become a proven fact until midway through the following sequence. However, in any event, my course of action would have been no different as the exploration and investigation of space is the approved business of the United Earth Space Agency and I am a Commander of that organization….
REPORT
Sir, I have to report that:
At approx 2340 Hrs. 1st Aug. 2407 I was the Officer in Command of UES IV, in a stable orbit over the North Atlantic, when Anomaly 13 was detected, a) by onboard radar, and b) manually, telescopically, some seven kilometres in advance of the UES in a corresponding orbit.
At approx 2347 Hrs, when it was observed that the anomaly’s proximity
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