through the clouds to show splotchy green everywhere .
The detail continued to astonish Wheat as the viewpoint slowly dropped down to a landing in a meadow surrounded by an enormous rain forest. Similar to an Earth rain forest, yet without a single piece of flora he recognized. Some obviously modeled on Earth’s trees , but much too tall for the diameters of their trunks. He mused, perhaps as if the trunks are constructed of stronger material than the cellulose of Earth’s plants? Then something flew across the image. His eyes widened, the alien? It crossed the field of view again, closer this time. Shortly it crossed the field one more time as if it were circling. W hen he would have expected it to cross again it landed, the eyes in that prehensile neck looking at him. My God, something about that gaze… they’ve managed to make it look intelligent somehow! It has a harness made out of leather or something. And , there’s the hilt of that flint knife. The w ings may be too small but they beat like wings should , instead of with that oddly “wrong” motion of most of the other CGI wings I’ve ever seen. The filmmakers must have studied small bird ’ s wing beating in slow motion and modeled them . Or something? He turned to Donsaii, “That’s amazing! You must be dedicating supercomputer time to the CGI or somehow doing something much more sophisticated than the big studios.”
He tilted his h ead, “But why? I thought you were into physics, not sci-fi movie making?” He carefully didn’t express his disappointment that she would use her prodigious talents for making movies instead of continuing her research, or whatever you would call turning out profoundly new technology at an unheard of rate like she’d been doing . He supposed she had the right to do whatever she wanted with the talents God gave her , but he felt troubled nonetheless .
Donsaii seemed to struggle with her expression a moment, then her face turned serious. “Thank you for the compliments. It’s gratifying to think that you would believe that I could make such a movie from scratch but I really have no talent along those lines.”
Wheat cocked his head, “Who then?”
She smiled, “No one.”
Wheat stared at her in confusion a moment, then felt icy prickles run down his back, “Huh?” He suddenly remembered that this girl had saved the space station and stopped a comet. She probably was more accomplished and comfortable in the realm of space travel than movie making. But that wasn’t any planet in the solar system! He frowned, was it?
Wheat turned to look at the screen again , still showing the intelligent appearing eyes of the… alien? “Uhhh,” he said, “You’re not trying to say that’s a real alien?”
“Yes sir,” she said quietly.
“But… but the wings are too small!”
“Ah , yes sir . T he atmosphere is seven times denser and the gravity is only 0.27G.”
Wheat drew back, considering, “The dense atmosphere makes the fire burn hotter too?”
“Yes sir, and it’s 36% O 2 .”
“Oh.” He leaned back, thinking again about his objections. Of course the animal bounced high if the gravity was low. He thought through his others. “But the head of that— p resumably smart — alien is too small to hold a brain big enough to be intelligent !”
“Yes sir, we have a couple of hypotheses on that?”
Wheat nodded for her to go ahead.
“One, it has a small brain in the head that has more efficient neurons than our s, so it still has the computation al power to make it intelligent.”
Wheat shrugged, “Seems unlikely , but can’t rule it out.”
“ Two, i t has a large brain, located somewher e other than the head. Similar to the likelihood that many of the computations carried out in our brains actually occurred somewhere in the spinal cord of the enormous dinosaurs with their notably small cranial cavities.”
“Well yes, but in a huge dinosaur it would make more sense for the ‘calculations’ as
The detail continued to astonish Wheat as the viewpoint slowly dropped down to a landing in a meadow surrounded by an enormous rain forest. Similar to an Earth rain forest, yet without a single piece of flora he recognized. Some obviously modeled on Earth’s trees , but much too tall for the diameters of their trunks. He mused, perhaps as if the trunks are constructed of stronger material than the cellulose of Earth’s plants? Then something flew across the image. His eyes widened, the alien? It crossed the field of view again, closer this time. Shortly it crossed the field one more time as if it were circling. W hen he would have expected it to cross again it landed, the eyes in that prehensile neck looking at him. My God, something about that gaze… they’ve managed to make it look intelligent somehow! It has a harness made out of leather or something. And , there’s the hilt of that flint knife. The w ings may be too small but they beat like wings should , instead of with that oddly “wrong” motion of most of the other CGI wings I’ve ever seen. The filmmakers must have studied small bird ’ s wing beating in slow motion and modeled them . Or something? He turned to Donsaii, “That’s amazing! You must be dedicating supercomputer time to the CGI or somehow doing something much more sophisticated than the big studios.”
He tilted his h ead, “But why? I thought you were into physics, not sci-fi movie making?” He carefully didn’t express his disappointment that she would use her prodigious talents for making movies instead of continuing her research, or whatever you would call turning out profoundly new technology at an unheard of rate like she’d been doing . He supposed she had the right to do whatever she wanted with the talents God gave her , but he felt troubled nonetheless .
Donsaii seemed to struggle with her expression a moment, then her face turned serious. “Thank you for the compliments. It’s gratifying to think that you would believe that I could make such a movie from scratch but I really have no talent along those lines.”
Wheat cocked his head, “Who then?”
She smiled, “No one.”
Wheat stared at her in confusion a moment, then felt icy prickles run down his back, “Huh?” He suddenly remembered that this girl had saved the space station and stopped a comet. She probably was more accomplished and comfortable in the realm of space travel than movie making. But that wasn’t any planet in the solar system! He frowned, was it?
Wheat turned to look at the screen again , still showing the intelligent appearing eyes of the… alien? “Uhhh,” he said, “You’re not trying to say that’s a real alien?”
“Yes sir,” she said quietly.
“But… but the wings are too small!”
“Ah , yes sir . T he atmosphere is seven times denser and the gravity is only 0.27G.”
Wheat drew back, considering, “The dense atmosphere makes the fire burn hotter too?”
“Yes sir, and it’s 36% O 2 .”
“Oh.” He leaned back, thinking again about his objections. Of course the animal bounced high if the gravity was low. He thought through his others. “But the head of that— p resumably smart — alien is too small to hold a brain big enough to be intelligent !”
“Yes sir, we have a couple of hypotheses on that?”
Wheat nodded for her to go ahead.
“One, it has a small brain in the head that has more efficient neurons than our s, so it still has the computation al power to make it intelligent.”
Wheat shrugged, “Seems unlikely , but can’t rule it out.”
“ Two, i t has a large brain, located somewher e other than the head. Similar to the likelihood that many of the computations carried out in our brains actually occurred somewhere in the spinal cord of the enormous dinosaurs with their notably small cranial cavities.”
“Well yes, but in a huge dinosaur it would make more sense for the ‘calculations’ as
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