you call them , to occur closer to the body parts being controlled. Otherwise the messages ’ transit time from the brain to the hind limb for instance would have taken so much time as to be problematically slow. But I assume this animal isn’t huge?”
“No sir, it appears to stand a little more than twice as tall as the three foot long rocket that is observing it.”
That statement reminded Wheat that she was claiming to be observing real aliens on another world. His eyes narrowed, “Wait, that can’t be a planet in our solar system, how are you claiming that one of your, admittedly amazing, little rockets reached another star!”
“Um, yes sir. As you know, the rockets are possible because we can send fuel to them through portals connecting us to them through another dimension?”
Wheat nodded.
“We can open a port to another location that doesn’t have a ‘port mechanism’ at that location, though the accuracy is poor. We opened a lot of ports near Tau Ceti before we had one open close enough to put a rocket through. It still took months for the rocket to fly the rest of the way to TC3.”
Wheat sagged back in his chair, “TC3?”
“Our shorthand for the ‘third planet of Tau Ceti.’ The one you’ve been viewing.”
“You haven’t named it?”
“No sir. We thought it might be nice to let the public pick a name.”
“You’re going public?”
“Not anytime soon. We want to understand it better first. We desperately need your help with that part of it .”
Wheat felt more prickles under his scalp. She’s handing me the opportunity of the millennium for a biologist! The first to describe the flora and fauna of an alien world! He wondered if he was worthy. “So, do you have questions? Or do you want to let me look at all the recordings you have and prepare a report?”
“How about if you look through the… ‘dissection’ we’re calling it, even though it really was more of a ‘cleaning before cooking.’ We’d like your thoughts on the anatomy? We’re looking for your ‘comparative anatomy’ expertise.”
Wheat chuckled, “I don’t think anyone has much ‘alien comparative anatomy’ expertise.”
“You get to be the first then!” she said brightly.
“OK, can you take me back to the start of the dissection and run it in slo-mo?”
On the screen the knife chopped the head off of the floppy neck. “Hold it there. Note that the neck appears boneless? It’s hard to imagine keeping the spinal cord in a neck without some bony protection for it.”
“Might not have a spinal cord as we think of it?”
Wheat paused a moment then shrugged, granting the possibility. “Let’s run some more video.” They watched the skin being peeled away for a moment, exposing a brownish layer that Wheat had thought was muscle the first time through, but now he noticed it seemed somewhat amorphous. “Earth animals keep fat under the skin. Provides insulation and padding and the increased weight of the good times is evenly distributed. That might be what we’re seeing here even though it’s brown instead of white? Do we know anything about their chemistry?”
“The plants contain DNA, according to a reagent test.”
Wheat tilted his head, “Really? Maybe ‘panspermia’ is right after all. ”
“Panspermia?”
“The theory that life didn’t start here , but that DNA is spread throughout the universe in bacterial spores etcetera and thus forms the basis of life everywhere. It might evolve into different life forms on each world but it always uses DNA for genetic encoding. ” He shrugged. “ I’ve always thought it was a ridiculous theory but it won’t be the first time I was wrong . ”
“Oh. Yeah we talked about that theory, that’s why we equipped the rocket to test for DNA.”
Wheat had turned his head back to the screen , so Ell resumed the video.
Having completed the skinning, the knife made a transverse cut in the body of the animal just behind the front limbs.
“No sir, it appears to stand a little more than twice as tall as the three foot long rocket that is observing it.”
That statement reminded Wheat that she was claiming to be observing real aliens on another world. His eyes narrowed, “Wait, that can’t be a planet in our solar system, how are you claiming that one of your, admittedly amazing, little rockets reached another star!”
“Um, yes sir. As you know, the rockets are possible because we can send fuel to them through portals connecting us to them through another dimension?”
Wheat nodded.
“We can open a port to another location that doesn’t have a ‘port mechanism’ at that location, though the accuracy is poor. We opened a lot of ports near Tau Ceti before we had one open close enough to put a rocket through. It still took months for the rocket to fly the rest of the way to TC3.”
Wheat sagged back in his chair, “TC3?”
“Our shorthand for the ‘third planet of Tau Ceti.’ The one you’ve been viewing.”
“You haven’t named it?”
“No sir. We thought it might be nice to let the public pick a name.”
“You’re going public?”
“Not anytime soon. We want to understand it better first. We desperately need your help with that part of it .”
Wheat felt more prickles under his scalp. She’s handing me the opportunity of the millennium for a biologist! The first to describe the flora and fauna of an alien world! He wondered if he was worthy. “So, do you have questions? Or do you want to let me look at all the recordings you have and prepare a report?”
“How about if you look through the… ‘dissection’ we’re calling it, even though it really was more of a ‘cleaning before cooking.’ We’d like your thoughts on the anatomy? We’re looking for your ‘comparative anatomy’ expertise.”
Wheat chuckled, “I don’t think anyone has much ‘alien comparative anatomy’ expertise.”
“You get to be the first then!” she said brightly.
“OK, can you take me back to the start of the dissection and run it in slo-mo?”
On the screen the knife chopped the head off of the floppy neck. “Hold it there. Note that the neck appears boneless? It’s hard to imagine keeping the spinal cord in a neck without some bony protection for it.”
“Might not have a spinal cord as we think of it?”
Wheat paused a moment then shrugged, granting the possibility. “Let’s run some more video.” They watched the skin being peeled away for a moment, exposing a brownish layer that Wheat had thought was muscle the first time through, but now he noticed it seemed somewhat amorphous. “Earth animals keep fat under the skin. Provides insulation and padding and the increased weight of the good times is evenly distributed. That might be what we’re seeing here even though it’s brown instead of white? Do we know anything about their chemistry?”
“The plants contain DNA, according to a reagent test.”
Wheat tilted his head, “Really? Maybe ‘panspermia’ is right after all. ”
“Panspermia?”
“The theory that life didn’t start here , but that DNA is spread throughout the universe in bacterial spores etcetera and thus forms the basis of life everywhere. It might evolve into different life forms on each world but it always uses DNA for genetic encoding. ” He shrugged. “ I’ve always thought it was a ridiculous theory but it won’t be the first time I was wrong . ”
“Oh. Yeah we talked about that theory, that’s why we equipped the rocket to test for DNA.”
Wheat had turned his head back to the screen , so Ell resumed the video.
Having completed the skinning, the knife made a transverse cut in the body of the animal just behind the front limbs.
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