Here's an oldie but a goodie folks!
"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the
planet, took them aboard our recon vessels and probed them all the way through.
You say they're completely meat? That's impossible!
What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars. They use the
radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come
from machines.
So, who made the machines? That's who we want to contact. They made the
machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you.
Meat made the machines. That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine?
You're asking me to believe in sentient meat.
I'm not asking you, I'm telling you!
These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're
made out of meat.
Maybe they're a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat
stage.
Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several
of their life spans.
(Which didn't take too long.)
Do you have any idea the life span of meat?
Spare me.
Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, a meat head with an
electron plasma brain inside.
Nope. We thought of that, but I told you, we probed them.
They're meat all the way through.
No brain?
Oh, there is a brain all right.
It's just that the brain is made out of meat!
So... what does the thinking?
You're not understanding, are you?
The brain does the thinking!
The meat?
Thinking meat!
You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!
"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat!
The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?
You're serious then. They're made out of meat.
Finally, Yes!
They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to get in touch
with us for almost a hundred of their years.
So what does the meat have in mind?
First it wants to talk to us.
Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, swap ideas and information.
The usual.
We're supposed to talk to meat?
That's the idea.
What's the message they're sending out by radio.
Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?
That sort of thing!
They actually do talk then?
They use words, ideas, concepts?
Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat!
I thought you just told me they used radio."
They do, but what do you think is on the radio?
Meat sounds!
You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by
flapping their meat at each other.
They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.
Singing meat? This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?
Officially or unofficially?
Both.
Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all
sentient races without prejudice, fear, or favour.
Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole
thing.
I was hoping you would say that. It seems harsh, but there is a limit.
Do we really want to make contact with meat?
I agree one hundred percent.
What's there to say? Hello, meat. How's it going?
But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?
Just one! They can travel to other planets in special meat containers,
but they can't live on them.
And being meat, they only travel through C space, which limits them to
the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact
pretty slim.
Infinitesimal, in fact.
So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe.
That's it.
That’s Cruel!
But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat?
And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed?
You're sure they won't remember?
They'll be considered crackpots if they do.
We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just
a dream to them.
How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream.
By Terry Bisson
