The Virus: Final Part

 6. The Virus Revealed

By the fourth day, Prithvi couldn’t help thinking that the crisis might be over. Eris seemed like a part of the family, Alia chortled at her sight and Rebecca even felt comfortable enough to leave the two alone in the room at times. There was something still gnawing in Prithvi’s mind, but this time, he was not going to take any risks. He knew that Eris was not what she seemed, but in 24-hours it will not be his problem. He might even get his Lunar job after the ordeal is over.

That evening, all of them had a nice supper like a family. Alia laughed softly from her crib and Rebecca talked to Eris like speaking to an old friend. ‘You need to visit Titan’s resorts before you leave. The view there is amazing. The Saturnian rings fill the whole sky. I and Prithvi went there for our honeymoon.’

Like an intrigued tourist, Eris promised to visit it on their way back to her star system.

Prithvi controlled his impulse to ask about their civilization… he was as much afraid of offending Eris as getting a truthful answer. He couldn’t risk knowing anything that might put his family in harm’s way. He went to sleep with a comforting thought. Just a few hours and they will be gone… and my family will be left alone.

###

Prithvi woke up with a start. What time was it? Rebecca and Alia were fast asleep next to him. Outside the window, pitch-black darkness was only betrayed by dim moonshine in which he noticed the silhouette he only knew too well.

The figure loomed at the bedside. Moonlight glinted off a reflective, metal-like surface.

‘Eris, is that you?’ he called out, nervously. His one hand slowly slid under the pillow.

Rebecca woke up. ‘What’s in your hand, Eris?’. Eris didn’t respond.

Then, things happened in quick succession.

The weapon in Eris’s hand fired, Rebecca rolled over Alia offering herself instead to the lightning bolt. Rebecca’s body fell to the ground like a ragdoll. Meanwhile, Prithvi leaped towards Eris. Fired his energy gun… and a large bubble of pure energy trapped Eris and himself.

‘You killed Rebecca…’ bellowed Prithvi. ‘You monster.’

Eris calmly looked around at the bubble that the energy gun had created. She tried to poke her hand out, but the shimmering layer of pure energy repelled her.

‘You weaponized our technology,’ Eris said, looking at the bubble around her. ‘And yet we are the monsters?’

‘You killed her,’ Prithvi repeated. ‘Why?’

‘Relax. It was not lethal power; she will wake up in a few hours.’ Eris said, looking at Rebecca’s unconscious body. ‘But she didn’t know that and yet she willingly sacrificed herself to save her daughter.’

Prithvi glanced in her direction. Rebecca seemed to be breathing.

‘But WHY?’

‘For the same reason as you. We wanted to know more about your species… just as you were testing us, Prithvi. No being, however sentient, can fight the impulses evolved over millions of years. Those impulses gave Lizzies away and the same impulses told me something invaluable… something raw… something fundamental about the humans. Your daughter is no value to your species… and yet a functioning individual was ready to sacrifice her life to save her. Most interesting.’

‘”Most interesting”! Is that what you have to say for yourself?’

‘I understand you are agitated, Prithvi. Could you please remove this bubble so that we can talk freely?’

‘I won’t, Eris. You are disconnected with Ares and Adonis right now and that is my only leverage against you.’

‘Impressive.’ Eris stared at Prithvi. ‘So, you do know. ‘How did you suspect us, Prithvi? What gave us out?’

Prithvi steadied himself. She has done this for a reason. And now she knows that he knows. He took a deep breath. All cards on the table then. ‘Well, at first I didn’t suspect anything. When you first got down from your spacecraft, I was as mesmerized by you as the rest of the world. You looked and behaved like Gods.’

Eris nodded. ‘It is always better to don the appearance of the species we approach. It makes our job a lot easier. Our real form is quite different. Anyway, please continue.’

‘At first, I had no doubts about the nature of your being. However, when I saw Adonis stumble on the carpet in the grand ballroom, that was when the alarm bells started ringing in my mind.’

‘You figured it out from that? How?’

‘I didn’t exactly figure it out then, but that was my first clue. There was something off... something non-humanlike in how differently you and Ares’s reacted. Remember what exactly happened there? Adonis had stumbled on the carpet and Ares impulsively tried to help him.’

‘So?’

‘Well, what was off was your response to the stumble. You didn’t even look at Adonis, not even a glance or a flinch. For a human, or a human-like species, there should have been a certain reflex response, but there was none from you. That was when I started thinking about it and then a possible explanation occurred to me. I formed a hypothesis. It was a very tenuous link, but I wanted to test it nevertheless.’

‘First, I hired an actor to talk to all three of you… with three different identities.’

‘Ah, so that’s what it was. I admit. It did confound us greatly.’

‘And I did notice it on the tapes. You did try to pretend that you were meeting Anthony Hopkins for the first time, but your face betrayed you for that one fleeting moment. As you said, no being can fight the impulses evolved over millions of years.’

‘And then you knew?’

‘Well, almost.’ Prithvi continued. ‘But I needed more direct evidence to be sure. I then set-up an accident at the HEO facility. It was a risky move because in case I was wrong, I was endangering an all-powerful alien guest. But I was right. When the metal debris fell towards you, only Adonis had the direct line of sight. And yet, you sidestepped it, just at the right second. It was too coordinated to be a coincidence. It was much, much more than that.’

There was an impregnated silence for a while. Prithvi looked intently at Eris expecting her to speak, but she waited patiently. She wanted him to spell it out. Well, So be it.

‘My hypothesis was correct, all three of you share the same consciousness.’

A grave smile appeared on her face. That was the acknowledgment he needed.

‘And I am willing to bet, that by extension, your entire species shares the same consciousness. You are either a Hive mind or have a central consciousness, a queen bee that governs all of your actions. Whatever one of you sees, hears, or experiences gets shared with everyone else. Once I arrived at that conclusion, things began to make sense. When Adonis stumbled, you didn’t help him because your central consciousness, like the human nervous system, directed Ares to help him. Same way when a human’s two hands won’t both reach out to scratch an itch at the same time.’

‘Very well done, Prithvi.’ Eris finally said. ‘One forgettable stumble gave away the biggest secret of our species. We do have a central consciousness, which you can call the Mind. Having the Mind was necessary for our evolution. Unlike humans, for us each action of every individual contributes to making the whole better. All our pleasure and all our pain are shared across the entire consciousness. In other words, entire species works as a whole… an ultimate form of cooperative evolution if you will.’

‘At the cost of your individuality. Tell me something Eris, are you not feeling disoriented right now?’

‘Yes.’

‘And if I removed the bubble, your central consciousness would find out everything that you witnessed?’

‘Yes.’

‘And that would be bad for humans?’

‘I can’t be sure as this brain’s logical prowess is quite limited without the connection to the Mind. But as far as I can tell, yes, Mind may perceive you to be a big risk.’

After a long silence, Prithvi said tentatively. ‘I have an offer for you Eris… and I mean Eris the individual and not the Mind.’

‘Within this bubble, you are talking to the individual named Eris.’

‘If other humans found out the truth about you, they will freak out. We are afraid of what we don’t understand. And we only have one way of dealing with what we fear. Violence -- even when it is guaranteed to fail against the advanced Lizzies -- would be the first response. And we will use the only weapon that is known to work against you. Imagine large energy-ships firing energy bubbles on the Lizzy flotilla. It would be a war, humanity will assuredly lose, but a war nonetheless.’

‘Are you threatening us, Prithvi?’

‘No… actually quite the opposite. Your true nature is a secret that only I am privy to, no other human knows that. On the other hand, you, Eris, are the only individual of your species who is aware that your secret has been discovered by humans. Moreover, only you know that we have developed your technology that can be used against you.’

Eris went into a thoughtful glance. ‘You are right, Prithvi. So, what do you propose?’

‘We both know things about each other’s species which can lead to an interstellar war. We can avoid this future. Both of us are expendable for our species, for very different reasons. There is only one to prevent that unnecessary bloodshed— we would need to die together inside this energy bubble tonight.’

Eris smiled. ‘Your species never ceases to surprise me. I know you are proposing this to protect your family more than saving your species. From the limited foresight, I do see how that is the only logical option. I agree to your proposal, Prithvi, for your sake. After all, you have been a good host.’

‘How do I know that you are not lying?’

‘You don’t… the same way I wouldn’t know if you are honest.’

‘I have to be. I know that with your tech, we don’t stand a chance against you. By taking myself out of the equation, I am making sure that Lizzies don’t have to destroy humanity. By agreeing to die with your secret, I am doing my species a favor.’

‘Logical. Then so be it. Whatever both of know needs to die with us for the betterment of both of our species and to avoid the war.’

Prithvi trusted her. There was no other option, anyway. He looked over at Rebecca again, she was still unconscious but her breathing showed a regular pattern. Alia was still sound asleep. Prithvi gave a long affectionate look.

‘How do you want to end it Prithvi?’ asked Eris, in a dispassionate tone. She might have been asking for a coffee.

‘Well nothing sanguinary,’ Prithvi said sitting down on the floor. ‘Carbon-dioxide levels will continue to rise in the bubble. We will feel nausea and eventually we will pass out as our blood depletes its oxygen. It will be a painless death. We may have about an hour.’

Eris followed the lead a sat down. ‘I may not even hold for that long without the Mind. I trust you will hold your end of the bargain if I die before you.’

‘I will,’ Prithvi replied, truthfully. ‘We as well may hasten the process by talking. I had a few more questions, not that it will serve any purpose more than to satiate my curiosity.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘What was your real purpose behind this visit?’

‘Let me start from the top. In our tongue, our species is called Xhalgaks and our home star-system is near the center of the Milky way. Our star revolves around the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*. Due to the proximity to the black-hole and high concentration of star clusters made our evolution take a different path than most other civilizations. In order to survive the harsh conditions on our planets, we developed a centralized consciousness. Evolution needed species-wide cooperation as a critical precondition for the survival of our kind. Sacrifices of many were needed so that a few could carry our genes. This allowed for an exponential evolution, and now, our species has expanded to hundreds of star systems and thousands of planets in the galaxy. We will soon be intergalactic, and our expeditions are already on their way to the Andromeda Galaxy.’

‘Then why were you here?’

‘Well, yours is not the first alien species we contacted. As we explored the vast expanse of the galaxy, we started discovering more and more alien civilizations. You know, the Galaxy is brimming with all kinds of life-forms and consciousness—from silicon-based life that lives in the coldest of the places to fiery monsters feeding off star’s corona. There is a whole spectrum of wildlife out there that is outside the realms of your imagination.’

Eris paused to inhale deeply. Reducing oxygen levels were clearly taking hold. She pressed on. ‘However, there is very fundamental classification that defines the core dynamic of every species. We discovered that species can either be ‘Cooperative’ or ‘Competitive’ in nature. A Cooperative civilization, much like the Xhalgaks will make decisions basis the whole species. On the other hand, in a competitive civilization, individuals look after themselves first.

‘We met and analyzed hundreds of civilizations, and we figured that competitive civilizations were selfish and self-destructive. In rare cases when they made it to the space-age, they were a grave danger to the other peaceful cooperative civilizations.

‘These competitive and invariably violent civilizations needed to be culled out. Much like you weed out unwanted  growth from the healthy crops. We keep an eye out for any species that are on the verge of  interstellar travel. We contact them, earn their trust, and assess them for their behavior. We followed the same protocol for you. Past few days, we were assessing humans on our scale.’

‘And…?’

‘You are one of the most competitive and violent species that we have ever met. It is surprising that you have made it this far, technologically speaking. You should have gone extinct from this in-fighting long ago. Two of our species are at the opposite spectrum of our cooperative-competitive scale. Whatever you do to each other is absolutely revolting to Xhalgaks.

‘In other words, Humans are an extremely dangerous virus. You destroy the planets you live on and move onto the next, and it allowed to replicate, you’d end up destroying not only yourself but other planets and civilizations across the galaxy. Mind determined you to be a galactic virus and gave us our orders.’

‘Orders to what?’

‘Annihilate you. Our rocket contains an anti-matter bomb and we started our sequence three days ago. Whatever I said about Xhalgaks’ custom of spending a few days with you was true though. We record as much detail as possible about the species before exterminating them. I planned to spend time with you, collecting the last few bits of knowledge about human culture and family structure for the Mind library, while Adonis and Eres triggered the bomb. Humans would have been extinct by now, if not for a curious encounter.’

Prithvi’s furrowed his brows as a realization dawned on him.

‘Alia.’

‘Yes.’

‘What does she have to do with all of this?’

‘Alia proved to be the antithesis of everything we know. I just told you that we are the most cooperative species in the Universe. Each specimen of our species contributes to the whole and in turn, all our pleasures and pain are shared. The Mind decides whatever helps our species as a whole even if that means sacrificing a few. And that we thought was the most extreme form of selflessness.’

‘Till you met Alia.’

‘Till we met Alia – she is of no real use for your civilization, she will never contribute to the progress of the whole, and yet, you and Rebecca would go to any lengths to protect her. A perfectly healthy individual was ready to sacrifice her life for another who is completely infirm. This was a form of selflessness that goes beyond Xhalgaks. Such a being would have been culled immediately after hatching on our planet. But on yours, you not only let them survive, but adopt them and take care of such beings.’

‘It was the most irrational selfless emotion we have seen… and we least expected to see it amongst the humans. You even have a name for it… Love.’

‘Even Mind was caught by surprise. It changed the way we see this Universe. A large chunk of resources is now being diverted to understand this emotion which had made our Cooperative & Competitive scale useless. Needless to say, Mind stopped the antimatter bomb sequence the moment I witnessed this selflessness.’

Prithvi stood dumbfounded. The energy bubbled still shimmered around them noiselessly. Eris was visibly gasping for breath. She stammered as she continued to speak.

‘Y… You know, I also felt it. P… Perhaps not as strongly as you and Rebecca do but I did feel it. When I fed Alia, she innocently hugged my hand, and I felt a shiver run down my body. All my thoughts cleared, and I just wanted to remain in that moment. Maybe that was my first brush with love.’

Eris smiled while still gasping for air… and this time it was not a goddess’s smile… it was a mother’s.

Prithvi took out the energy gun, and pressed a button. The energy bubble disappeared and both of them heaved for fresh air.

After several gulps of urgent breaths, Eris spoke. However, this time the voice was not hers. ‘You continue to surprise US, Prithvi.’

‘Am I talking to the Mind now?’

‘You are… through Eris. I am now connected to her and I know everything you talked about. It is an incredible risk you are taking by letting her connect to US.’

‘A well thought out risk, the hive-Mind. Even if Eris had died in that bubble, you would have figured out that something was wrong. You might have gone back to your decision of exterminating us. But now, Eris is alive, and you can now eliminate me to preserve your secrets.’

‘What if WE decide to exterminate your kind anyway? Did you think about that?’

‘I did. And that is why I wanted to talk to you. Humans are aggressive and competitive – but that only applies to some humans. You have known that each individual human is different, but let me tell you this – Each one is capable of love. Give us an opportunity to prove ourselves. As far as extermination goes – you can do it any time you desire. But it will never be needed. And all this while humanity’s affiliation will always be with you, our leaders and our people revere you like Gods. The only exception is me. And that problem can be solved easily.’

A laugh emanated from Eris’s mouth. ‘You are a remarkable specimen, Prithvi. WE don’t want to kill you, but after all that you know, WE can’t leave you either.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You have to come to our star and help US. Your individual mind is of so much value to our collective.’

It was Prithvi’s turn to be surprised. He sat in a thoughtful silence. ‘It is better than dying.’

‘WE will take that as a yes. Thank you for your sacrifice, Prithvi. WE will make sure that your species remembers you. And WE do have a small gift for you. WE are sure you will appreciate it.’

With that Eris’s voice became normal. She was back at her smiling self.

Rebecca was just waking up and so was Alia. Eris walked to Alia’s bed and whispered something in her ear. As Rebecca and Prithvi watched, Alia put her feet on the floor and cautiously began to walk on her own.

Tears rolled from Rebecca’s eyes and Prithvi embraced them in a tight hug.

‘Are you ready for your voyage Prithvi? We must leave immediately,’ said Eris.

Prithvi glimpsed a faint hint of moisture in the corner of her eyes, but it might have been his imagination.

Prithvi nodded. Lizzies had done so much for the humans and it was time to pay back the debt. The galactic virus had an 80,000-light-year journey to the center of the galaxy to teach aliens about love.

### THE END ###

JUMP TO

Part 5: An Alien Next Door