INTERGALACTIC EXPLORATION REPORT
Alphaezoli #643^bij
::After initial reception of radio-wave contacts from deep space, evidence
suggests that Galaxy D4293 is Occupied.
::No traces of persons in the outer rim planets of D4293. Search will continue
into the third planet - waves indicate that Occupants call this planet “Earth.”
::Startling discovery. Conversation with District Manager recorded below.
"We found them. But they are made of meat.”
"What?"
"Meat. They’re just meat, like the rest of the meat on the planet. We brought back several samplings from different
locations just to be sure. They’re completely meat.”
"That can’t be true. What about the radio waves, the signals into space?"
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
"Then 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? Does all the meat make machines, the
tentacled, the four-legged and such?”
“No. Only this meat.”
!
“But there is so much meat down there. You’re asking me to believe that this particular
meat is sentient unlike the others?"
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. They’re different."
"Maybe they are like the Wafluri. You know, 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."
"Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Zokar. A meat head, with
electron plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Zokar. 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. Dreaming meat. Loving meat! Artistic meat! The meat is the whole deal!
Are you getting the picture?"
“You're serious then. They're made of meat."
"Yes. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. And they wonder why the other meats cannot.”
“What do you recommend?”
::Executive decision: disregard contact with thinking meat, and label sector Unoccupied.
Adapted from Terry Bisson’s “They’re Made Out Of Meat,” 1990.