The Lost Grey – A Tale of Interspecies Redemption #2

PART 2. Kelsey discovers more about his strange visitor and why it is here.

PART 2

Start with PART 1. Part 2 will be waiting for you when you come back.

Bobby

Kelsey started to bring his dog into the house. He had explained his thinking to the Grey. The door to the room would remain closed and Bobby would be allowed into the hall for short durations.

The idea was to familiarise the dog with that which was unfamiliar.

On the first try, he went berserk again. On the second, he remained aggressive but took a sniff from under the door.

Kelsey queried the Grey about its ability to communicate with animals. Yes, telepathic communication was possible, it explained, but was less developed than with humans. Abstract concepts were not possible – only qualia was possible. Bobby was afraid, but his fear was no longer as heightened as it had been previously. He was distressed over Maggie and, in his own way, knew now where to lay the blame.

It had not attempted any communication with his dog other than being aware of his emotional state. It could calm him if Kelsey wished it, but was uncomfortable with the idea for reasons it did not elaborate.

“Do you regard Bobby as being a ‘lesser’ creature?”

It replied that it did not, in the way that he had meant it, but other Greys would because Greys regard all livings as ‘lesser’ to that of life itself. Kelsey did not understand this.

Over time, however, Bobby’s aggression subsided and his behaviour calmed to that of growling and sniffing at the foot of the door. Kelsey wasn’t sure whether the Grey had anything to do with it or not.

It transpired that the mucus discharge was being caused by prolonged exposure to terrestrial dust, and all the things living in it. That was one problem which could be alleviated at least, and Kelsey emptied the room and mopped the floorboards and surfaces. The Grey had not asked him to do this. A few boxes were left as furniture.

“No, alien microbes not harmful,” it replied to his question. It was more a case of things being the other way around.

No, it did not need to lie down. No, it wasn’t cold. It did not wish for a blanket.

A Thing Made, Not Born

Kelsey wanted to know more about the alien’s eyes, and it explained that it was wearing what could be described as contact lenses or, perhaps, more accurately as sunglasses.

Its eyesight was extremely sensitive and required protection from both sunlight and the artificial lighting made by humans. Its eyes were most sensitive toward the red-end of the spectrum. What covered the eyes was a polarising film which filtered out much of the visible spectrum. That was why they appeared black to him. It could see perfectly well in the darkened room.

Behind the lenses, however, were eyes not dissimilar to his own. They were perhaps three times larger, but there was an iris and lens behind the dark film. In fact, the overall design was the same as in humans and Kelsey found that this knowledge affected him somehow.

The Grey was neither male nor female but, nevertheless, was beginning to be a thing a little less alien to him. It understood irony very well and increasingly displayed a sense of humour.

And Grey’s did indeed consume food.

It explained that it had a small stomach and a short intestine which was closed. Anything consumed, therefore, had to be fully absorbed for there was no exit chute. The Greys consumed food in liquid form, which they manufactured. Certain substances of terrestrial origin could be consumed but technology, the nature of which remained unclear, was required for the removal of waste from the body.

Moreover, Greys were used to extended periods of inactivity. In this state, the requirement for water was tiny. The period could be much longer if not for the exertion of communication with Kelsey, but there was no sense of bitterness or regret in what it told him.

He understood that it was not only starving, but was slowly being poisoned by the accumulation of waste by-products which had no place to go. It would be poisoned before it starved, and to eat would only accelerate the process.

“How long?”

“Uncertain.”

“A week? Two? Longer?”

“Weeks.” But only if it remained motionless.

Communication should be limited to extend life, but it now wished for dialogue for as long as biology permitted. This represented a subtle change in things.

He returned to the question of “why”.

Why had it come to him in this way, only to die here?

“Escape.”

“From what? Help me understand.”

With that, he knew its reality. Greys were made, not born. Some of their physiology had been engineered and altered over time, including how they digested food. While some Greys were specialised for certain tasks, every one was a clone that had been stamped out of some kind of biological mould.

Their technological heritage was old – millions of years – but had long since stagnated. Their individual lifespan, by human standards, was long also but most did not see what could be regarded as old age. Everything the Greys made or used was disposable, including the vehicles they travelled in and even themselves.

If Greys were clones, Kelsey wanted to know what had made this Grey special? Why had it chosen suicide as a form of escape?

It indicated that it would answer him, but later.

With that it lowered its head. The dialogue was over for now.

Things Unknown

There was a television in Kelsey’s home, but it lay disconnected. He had used it to watch DVD’s for a time, but they had quickly become old on him. Living as he did, he had become accustomed to silence and nothing more. He had brought Bobby into the living room. The dog had paused at the door to give a short growl in a manner which now seemed almost comical. It had become Bobby’s little ritual.

He sat quietly, stroking his dog, while contemplating on the nature of things disclosed. Dark questions circulated. Some disturbed him.

It occurred to him how matter-of-factly he had accepted the telepathic nature of their communication.

Inside its skull, he knew, were four ‘quartiles’ rather than two hemispheres. The brain had been augmented somehow for the purpose of what he understood to be telepathy. The explanation of how this worked lay in an ocean of science he was yet to have any conception of. There were many things now which he knew from the creature, but at least as many he did not.

Could it be that it remained in contact with other Greys even though it had told him that it was not?

Although diminutive in form, it was a thing of fearsome knowledge and intellect. It had indicated that Greys used human beings, coming and going as they pleased. It had not elaborated on the how or why of it.

That led to the possibility of its presence here being part of an elaborate experiment on him. It seemed, however, to be actually enjoying his company now. Was all this part of some cruel manipulation for reasons unknown?

It understood human beings and their affairs at least as well as he did. What could the Greys possibly hope to get from him that they did not already possess?

What? His knowledge of solar physics?

It preferred telepathic communication, but could understand what it had called “vocalics”, or at least that was the word which had formed in his mind for him. This information had in no way surprised him. Nor would it surprise him now if it turned out that it could read and write as well.

In any case, what could he do about any of it? Flee? Kill it?

The image of him trying to stab it in the neck with a potato peeler came in mind.

He laughed at himself dryly.

Gods of Aliens

It had heard him talking to Bobby outside the window the previous day, and had found it amusing.

“You’re not to bite it,” he had said, wagging a finger in the dog’s face. “Are you listening? No biting.”

“Did he understand me?” Kelsey asked, curiously.

“He seeks to please. He understands that my presence here is to be accepted.”

“That’s good, I guess.”

“Yes, there is a bond between the dog and you. It is good.”

Then, for the first time, it asked him a question.

“My presence here is accepted, is it not?”

“Strange you ask when you already know what’s in my head.”

“I know,” it replied. “But perhaps I should not.”

“I quit drinking when you came here,” Kelsey said. “Strange that. Did you have anything to do with it by any chance?”

“I did not.”

“But you can implant thoughts and ideas. You could control as well?”

“Control, in the way that you mean it, is not permitted.”

“Permitted? Not permitted by whom?”

“By others who are not Greys.”

That was big, Kelsey thought. He sensed the sand suddenly move under his feet.

“Explain?” he replied simply.

“There are many civilisations, as you imagined. Many come here, but in ways you had not.”

“How do they come?” he asked, realising this was the verge of something.

“The point at which technology becomes sufficient for travel between stars is also the point at which such travel becomes unnecessary.”

This, he contemplated, represented the first crack in what had long stood as an impenetrable mystery.

“Unnecessary? What do you mean?”

It indicated that a full answer would take time. Other concepts had to be sown first.

He came at it from a different angle: “Greys travel. You travelled here?”

“Yes,” it replied. “Greys are imprisoned in ways others are not.”

“Imprisoned? Do these ‘others’ imprison the Greys?”

“Greys imprison themselves.”

“Is that why you came here? Suicide as a form of escape from imprisonment?”

What came back was simple and complex at the same time. It contained amusement at the irony present in the literal truth when expressed using human language – truth and irony in equal measure -- but orthogonal direction.

“Suicide less fatal.”

But there was more. The imprisonment was not a physical one, but one of the mind. It really had meant what it said. Kelsey’s own mind was starting to unpack things on its own. He was beginning to understand without it having to do all the work. The exchange was actually happening very quickly now.

“Greys do not possess humour, do they? But you do, don’t you?”

“Humour was possible in Greys but has atrophied. I was shown-taught by other. I have also learned much from you.”

This Grey had been exposed to human beings and their mode of thinking, including Kelsey’s own. But there was an ‘other’ with which it had been communicating for some time, and in a way which paralleled how the Grey communicated with Kelsey.

The ‘other’ was a thing neither singular nor plural in nature, he understood, but something else.

“This other… is this what told you to escape? To come here?”

“Not ‘told’ in the way that you mean it. The ability to conceive the idea was given. The choice was given, you may say. I could not foresee the outcome of my action. I therefore chose it as a means of de-control, which was that which was suggested.”

“You mean you did a random thing, not knowing what would happen? Is that it?”

“Greys have long sought prescience and control over all things. The universe has limits on this which the Greys no longer know how to accept. The over application of control, however, is fatal in the long-term through the loss of entropy – a concept with which you are familiar but are yet to understand. Yes, I did a thing that could not be predicted. Nor did I foresee the nature of our interaction that would be born of it.”

Everything Kelsey thought he knew about things had been turned upside down. It was yet to be folded inside out.

“This other…”, he asked again but with incredulity, “is this God?”

“Not God, but mind-spirit complex of ancient origin that is closer to God.”

Aubrey

Aubrey did not look at him. He had picked ‘Aubrey’ because, being neither male or female specific, the name had just seemed apt.

“Well, what is it you want me to call you then? … Yoda?”

He knew it was laughing silently and trying not show it.

The name ‘Aubrey’ stuck.

There had been more discussion on the nature of what Aubrey had referred to as a ‘mind-spirit complex’. The implications were staggering. The universe was no longer what Kelsey had understood it to be.

Aubrey often referred to ‘space-time’ and ‘time-space’ as different realities. It told him that there were multiple layers of existence permeating the universe that interacted only weakly. In this one, our one, travel through time is restricted, but relatively free through space. In the others, things were reversed in complex ways that Kelsey did not understand. However, gravity was a common factor to all them.

“Where did this mind-spirit complex originate?” he asked.

“Here,” Aubrey replied, simply.

“You mean on Earth?”

“Not Earth. Venus.”

The Russians had landed spacecraft on Venus in the mid-1970s. The surface conditions were discovered to be uniquely hostile to life.

“But Venus is a dead world,” Kelsey said.

“It wasn’t always so. You already suspected it.”

Indeed, he had.

He already knew that Venus had been subject to catastrophic volcanic activity sometime in its distant past and it was this which almost certainly created the thick toxic atmosphere it possessed today. In fact, he had once been interested in whether the sun’s increasing activity, despite the planet’s weak magnetic field, had been what lay behind Venus’s apparent and sudden planet-wide resurfacing event.

So much was still unknown about Venus, however.

Venus had, indeed, been a habitable world long before things crawled out of the oceans on Earth, he now knew from Aubrey. As if to answer the question which was just beginning to form in his mind, he also saw that the planet’s slow rotation had been the thing which had once kept its surface cool, despite being somewhat closer to the sun than Earth. A day on Venus lasted the equivalent of months, even back then, with water clouds blanketing its day side which promptly cleared on the night side.

But everything on Venus had died with the destruction of its atmosphere or, at least that is how he understood it, and this had occurred around the same time there had been an explosion in the complexity of life on Earth. The implication was that this planetary system had given rise to more than one technological civilisation in its time.

“And what happened to the mind-spirit complex?” he asked in awe.

“It remains on Venus still, and here on this body… and others also.”

He was not quite ready for that.

“Here? How?”

“Many individuals left to travel in space-time early in their technological development. Others remained, and ultimately entered time-space, thus becoming one but not one. This is the thing sought by Greys.”

More Life

The days rolled by and Aubrey’s condition began to deteriorate. Bobby often came to the door to peer in, but would not enter.

Kelsey begin to think much about what Aubrey’s loss would mean now. It was then Aubrey made a shocking suggestion.

“Time is short, but extension is possible.”

“You mean an extension to your life?”

“Yes, of life in time.”

Kelsey wondered what Aubrey meant by “in time” but, before he could finish the thought, his mind turned to ones which were darker and more pragmatic in nature… would it entail draining him of his bodily fluids so that Aubrey could live?

Aubrey indicated that, “no,” it wasn’t going to involve such a thing. It found how the human mind could conjure up such possibilities intriguing. It was, however, going to be something that he would find suitably dramatic nevertheless.

“Tell me what you need?”

A flood entered Kelsey’s consciousness. No words, but there was everything down to the temperature of the water and the things that would be needed – petroleum jelly, lots of it, and a scalpel or sharp knife.

“Oh my God,” he said out loud, understanding.

Aubrey’s skin was synthetic and had to come off.

CONTINUED IN PART 3

Andy Thomas is a programmer, software author and writer in the north of England. He is interested in the philosophical implications of science, the nature of nature, and the things in life which hold ‘value’.

© Andrew Thomas, 2024