Editor’s Note: This is a work of fiction and yet this has been kept in the letter section for its format.
To: hgreer@oxbridge.uni.net
From: mgrey@oxbridge.uni.net
Re: Application for transfer
Cc Directorate for Personnel
Directorate for Legal Conformity
Dear Professor Greer,
I write to inform you that, after some consideration, the decision of the Central Directorate for Science is to refuse your request to be reassigned from the Department of External Studies. In short, we dare not risk losing your unique experience and expertise at this time.
We are, however, not insensitive to the concerns you have raised regarding the project. I am sure you would agree that the situation is unique. The near-hysterical coverage of the initial discovery has put us all under the spotlight in a way to which we are not accustomed. The combination of the need for discretion, our lack of media training, and the scrutiny of central government has led to pressures for which none of us were prepared.
We are, therefore, prepared to allow you an additional and fully-paid leave of absence so that you might refocus and return to your team with renewed energy and focus. Please contact the Department of Cultural Assignments who will be happy to recommend a choice of destinations for your family at secure resorts where you will not be disturbed by security checks, journalists, campaigners and so forth. They are expecting your call.
Rather than engaging in a lengthy exchange of correspondence and series of interviews to explain our decision, I am instructed to give you our reasoning in some detail in the expectation that this will be the final word on the subject.
The consensus opinion in the Directorate is that, given that we cannot know how or why these creatures travelled to our space volume, we need to accelerate our efforts to obtain concrete data and spend less time on moral or philosophical distractions. Our political masters, and funders, want answers not questions, and it is not our role to question their priorities.
The reemergence of the creatures so close to home was a shock to us all, but their existence was not unknown. Discoveries of crashed or damaged craft have been reported in the appropriate circles for many years. Decomposing organic remains have been variously recorded. The existence of your own department is testament to this, as is the long-term effort to discredit fringe interpretations of scant evidence. Though these historical records vary in detail, there is enough commonality to make a consistent picture with the your own, very much complete, material. The insights you have gained have been behind several recent technological advances advantageous to our economy and security.
You are aware of the Directorate’s policy of caution over terms such as ‘intelligence’. These stand in the way of objective study of what we have before us. Your career has been built on these shared understandings. Many, and here I must include myself, find ourselves deeply uncomfortable with the notion that the specimens could possibly be other than primitive creatures without our higher brain functions. Did we not send dogs into space long before we sent ourselves? Others deny the possibility of all the but the simplest life forms existing anywhere in the universe.
In answer to some of the detailed points that you raise in your letter:
Since we have been unable, despite every effort, to communicate directly with the specimens we must assume that they are inferior to ourselves. Your team has made an over-long and inconclusive study of their scratchings and vocalisations on the assumption that they are communicating a universal language of mathematics. This, and similar lines of research, have yielded no useful results because there are none to be found.
The apparent sophistication of the vessel in which they were found is, at first sight, clear evidence of an advanced technological civilisation. Deeper analysis reveals that our inability to access any command and control functions would suggest that it has been, as it were, lobbed in our direction rather than piloted. How this came about, we cannot know.
To quote from one of your own reports, “The vessel itself is of similar construction to those salvaged after historical incidents. The outer hull is made that we might loosely call wood, though much enhanced. It is one hollow piece. The internal ‘machinery’ is made of various organic substances combined with more familiar metallic and silicon based elements. It may be possible to determine the function of many of these by following their connections within the vessel without being sure of the details of their operation.” This is clearly a description of a nut or similar organic product. The creatures inside must therefore be equivalent to bugs. We do not believe that either bugs or trees are intelligent.
The reverse engineering work must be made a priority. The argument that we should not disassemble their vessel since that would remove their means to return whence they came, is unscientific. Since we cannot ask the creatures themselves and have no guarantee that they would be willing to share their knowledge, how else are we to learn? Moreover, the long-term viability of the specimens is not guaranteed.
Your suggestion that we give the specimens access to the vessel, is clearly reckless. Since your own work demonstrates they lack higher cognitive functions, they cannot show us more of how the vessel operates or use its equipment to aid mutual understanding. There is no way of knowing what might happen. If, however unlikely that it seem, they are in some sense able to send messages, we do not wish to be met with a deluge of these creatures and their disturbing nature. The specimens might have been trained to activate some offensive weapon, or a scan that would disrupt our entire system. We cannot take the risk.
You argue then that for these concerns to be valid there must be some intelligent purpose behind their existence. We feel that would be to say that the danger of a panicking herd of animals is proof of their intellect, rather than an unfortunate outcome of their collective reflexes.
These are very kind of arguments that you would have made not many months ago.
Perhaps you are not aware of how sentimentally your recent observations are framed. Here, for instance, are direct quotations from your original report:
“The first subject is of a broadly simian body plan about one and half metres tall. It is alert and interested in its surroundings. It is capable of digesting a range of foodstuffs. Scans have shown it to have a collection of organs, vessels and stiff structures that superficially resemble our own physiology. The exact function of each of these is hard to determine without dissection. This remains a possibly fruitful future option.”
“The second subject is of a clearly different nature. Scans reveal that it has no stiff internal structures and that its organs and vessels are dis-aggregated. It’s several limbs appear to be able to operate with complete independence. The ability to change colour could be an adaptation for instinctive camouflage rather than communication. Again, this could only be confirmed by dissection.”
A more recent report takes a very different tone:
“The absorbing and varied nature of our interactions with both creatures cannot help but make the observer feel that there is a deliberate attempt to communicate emotional as much as physical needs. They clearly enjoy company and do better when given a range of engaging tasks to fill their days. When they succeed, it brings joy to the whole team.”
We direct you to maintain the complete separation of the vessel and each of the creatures. We cannot take the risk of finding out what they can do in combination.
Consequently, I am directed to make the following observations out of concern for your welfare and the future of your career.
We insist that you resume experimentation. You have clearly developed an emotional attachment to the specimens and this is inhibiting your work, and so that of your team. These cannot be fully sentient in any way meaningful to us, so there can be no moral barrier to the use of drugs and surgical interventions in the advancement of science. If you are not able to carry these out yourself, someone who can will be found. National security is the first concern.
I am sure you would agree that you are responsible for both modelling and maintaining the highest standards of professional conduct. The close working atmosphere of working long hours on matters you cannot share with your loved ones can cause confusion. I am sure your family would be upset to hear if we were investigating possible rumours of inappropriate relationships within your team. These kind of investigations distract from our main purpose and often lead to the break-up of an expert group. This cannot be allowed.
The constant questioning of the authority of this Directorate must cease. We are proud of our culture of consultation and open discussion, but once a decision has been reached we feel justified in asking for conformity. Continuing to badger Directors with requests for clarifications or lobbying government ministers will be detrimental to your career and to the progress of your valuable research.
In order to help you implement these cultural realignments we are appointing a Director of Operations whose function will be to free your brilliant mind from the day to day running of the department and to focus on the research functions. We feel that we have not supported you as well as we might have given the expansion of your department and the urgency of the work. I have offered my services and expect to formally appointed in the next few days. Much of the reorganisation will be done while you take your well-earned rest without in any way discrediting the intellectual and academic heft that you personify.
You say in your communication that, “Science is not so much about making mistakes but about recognising them and leading change. To do otherwise is to condemn ourselves to ignorance, stupidity and stagnation. These, in turn, lead to moral decay. I can no longer allow myself to be part of this process.” I fear that you yourself have become stuck in such a loop. To continue to advocate for the extension of so-called universal rights to blobs of alien flesh that come without our asking, is beneath you, your record and your public profile. We have no idea how many of them are out there and whether it is desirable to accommodate them. I speak for the whole Directorate when I urge you to restore your perspective.
Should you choose to resign, as is your right, we do not feel we could recommend you to other employers given the disloyalty and dereliction of duty such an act would represent. A national emergency requires sacrifices from us all. How this would affect your career and family is not for us to know, but we fear an outcome that would distress our friend and colleague. It would also affect the prospects of the many talented young researchers whose reputations would surely be tarnished by association.
Any contact with external agencies or organisations should now be through the Directorate for Government Media Relations, and only through them. Our own departmental communications team will happily forward any material. This particularly relates to the so-called Free Scientists and any person or institution associated either officially or unofficially with their widely questioned world view. We are well aware that you asked you to keep friendly relations with the more moderate elements when this could still be considered an intellectual and academic discussion. As they have drifted to a more ideological and political position you, as a key government employee should cut off all contact. This, again, is to protect you and your team. We are informed that the authorities will be taking a harsher line with the more disruptive elements and we do not wish for you or this Directorate to have any further association with possible radicals.
The Directorate is well aware how determined you can be when you feel you are in the right. In the past you have used this outlook to drive innovation and necessary change. Let us urge you to take the time consider where your own interests, and the interests of science, truly lie. Do not make a decision in haste or from misguided principle. We esteem your long record of academic achievement and would not want to see your reputation sullied by one very understandable misjudgement.
If you were not to conform to these instructions we would be forced to act. There would probably be criminal as well as civil consequences. Working in another department would not change these legal realities and we feel that your welfare can best managed among those who know you well.
This decision could be reviewed after perhaps six months when the new administration has bedded in. More measured and meaningful analysis will be resumed and succession planning becomes appropriate.
Yours cordially,
Dr McKenzie Grey
On behalf of the Central Directorate for Science
DoubleSpeak 