Zoran Zivkovic - First Contact and Time Travel Page 4

  lower levels of development, and Dr. Brenner is right not to exclude the

  possibility that certain microorganisms might be found on Jupiter and even

  some simple equivalent to plants.

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  His conclusion that the absence of free oxygen on Jupiter means that beings

  which might correspond in terms of level of development to terrestrial animals

  cannot exist there, rests on a mistaken belief that the chemistry of oxygen, on

  which earthly life is based, is universally valid. We met this same type of

  fallacy, in its intentional form, in “Report on Planet Three.”

  This fallacy will soon be unmasked. Falcon discovers certain forms of life

  that he assumes to be considerably more complex than microorganisms and

  plants. However, a further implication arises from Dr. Brenner’s statement.

  Not for one moment does the exobiologist bring into question the possibility

  of there being a difference between living beings and the non-living phenom-

  ena in the atmosphere of Jupiter. This differentiation is based exclusively on

  size. His point of view is soon confirmed by Falcon in the Kon-Tiki space

  capsule: after looking through his telescope, he declares that

  “[There] is life on Jupiter. And it’s big...”

  “The things moving up and down those waxen slopes were still too far away

  for Falcon to make out many details, and they must have been very large to be

  visible at all at such a distance. Almost black, and shaped like arrowheads, they

  maneuvered by slow undulations of their entire bodies... Occasionally, one of

  them would dive headlong into the mountain of foam and disappear

  completely from sight.”

  The standards by which Falcon judges his discovery of living beings in

  Jupiter’s atmosphere are obvious ones. They involve a demonstrable aspiration

  towards purposeful, meaningful “behavior,” manifested in this case as a regular

  rhythmic movement which cannot simply be the product of the blind and

  chaotic forces of nature, but must be the result of a certain organization of a

  higher order. Although the reasons for this “behavior” do not have to be

  intuitively evident, it always has its phenomenal, discernable aspect, through

  which unarticulated natural phenomena can be perceived in the background.

  However, there may appear in nature nonliving phenomena characterized

  by hints of similar meaningful and purposeful “behavior.” A good example of

  these phenomena in “A Meeting with Medusa,” the gigantic “Poseidon’s

  wheels,” are an exceptionally law-abiding light phenomenon which at first

  makes Falcon think that there are living beings in front of him.

  With similar nonliving natural phenomena, however, the noumenal back-

  ground can always be easily comprehended: Mission Control very quickly

  discovers the key to this unusually regular fiery display in the Jovian atmo-

  sphere on the basis of corresponding phenomena from the oceans of Earth. In

  the field of the non-living, there are no noumenal differences between the

  phenomena: the “Poseidon’s wheels” will in principle be the same both on

  Earth and on Jupiter.

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  The differentiation starts only on the level of life, because here conclusions

  can no longer directly be drawn intuitively on the basis of phenomenon. This

  split between the level of phenomenon and that of noumenon is not, indeed,

  significant at lower degrees of evolution, where the noumenal identicalness of

  natural phenomena is still proportionally preserved. Things, however, change

  radically with the appearance of organisms which possess self-awareness.

  The central character of the novella is first confronted with the difficulties

  which appear in relations between the planes of phenomenon and noumenon

  when he tries to understand something more of the nature of the living beings

  he encounters first in the Jovian atmosphere. Falcon establishes that they are

  creatures far larger than any earthly ones, which is not strange when one bears

  in mind that they are made according to the measure of the world they inhabit.

  Closer examination shows him that these unusual creatures have nothing that

  might remind him of sense organs—and this is also understandable, consid-

  ering that every similarity with terrestrial creatures on the plane body structure

  would be in obvious disharmony with the great exophysical differences

  between the two planets.

  In both these cases, Falcon does not succumb to possible fallacies of

  anthropomorphism. Without reluctance, he readily accepts the possibility

  that the proportionately evolved beings living within the gaseous mantle of

  the giant planet are essentially different from the inhabitants of our own world,

  both in shape and in size.

  Problems arise when he needs to fathom those specific characteristics of the

  mantas that cannot be identified through simple observation. Falcon tries to

  discover some higher order in the “behavior” of these creatures which might

  help him to discover the possible purposefulness directing them, the key to

  their “intelligence.” But he suddenly comes up against a dead end because the

  available data by which he might arrive at some reliable pointer to the

  noumenal nature of the huge creatures living in the clouds of Jupiter are

  shown to be either insufficient or ambiguous.

  It turns out that the secretive mantas can be either unintelligent, harmless

  herbivores or intelligent bandits. Since they pay no attention to the Kon-Tiki

  during their first encounter, Falcon at first concludes that they are indeed

  harmless vegetarians. The events of the next day cause Falcon to change his

  opinion: these same mantas, which had completely ignored him while he

  floated among them, simply change into intelligent bandits with a highly

  developed strategy of attack when they pounce on those other strange inhab-

  itants of the Jovian atmosphere—the giant medusae.

  It is symptomatic that, in both cases, there is the same measure of intelli-

  gence: a capability for aggression. Falcon’s initial conclusion that the mantas

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  are not intelligent is based on the fact that they do not attack him, while their

  transformation into “intelligent birds of prey” is directly conditioned by the

  circumstance that they take an aggressive attitude towards the medusae.

  Doubts nevertheless remain with regard to the possibility of establishing the

  intelligence of the mantas only on the basis of their external “behavior,” in

  view of the fact—as is soon demonstrated—that the attack on the medusae was

  fated to fail from the beginning, because the victim, not so fated, has a weapon

  which would discourage a far mightier and more intelligent enemy, and it is

  evident that there are certain contradictions in the “criterion of aggression”

  which Falcon had in mind when coming to the above conclusions.

  The nature of these contradictions becomes clear if one considers more

  closely the name which Falcon gives to these strange “mantas.” At first glance,

  it might seem that he was led to choose this appellat
ion because of the

  similarity of the form and way of movement of these strange inhabitants of

  the great waxen clouds to that of manta rays. The events in the first part of “A

  Meeting with Medusa” suggest, however, that this seemingly superficial anal-

  ogy has considerably deeper roots.

  1.3.2 Medusae and Mantas

  The tragic crash of the giant dirigible, the Queen Elizabeth, indirectly enables

  Falcon to become, as a cyborg, a suitable astronaut for the mission to Jupiter.

  At the same time, his human identity is seriously brought into question.

  During the Jupiter episode, the disunion between the “nightmares brought

  from Earth” and the new, no longer human status to which he increasingly

  belongs reaches a culmination.

  The Queen Elizabeth resembles an inhabitant of the seas of the planet Earth

  which in its resembles a jellyfish: a medusa.

  “He had once encountered a squadron of large but harmless jellyfish pulsing

  their mindless way above a shallow tropical reef, and the plastic bubbles that

  gave Queen Elizabeth her lift often reminded him of these—especially when

  changing pressures made them crinkle and scatter new patterns of reflected

  light.”

  The association is, at this moment, a completely spontaneous one, and there

  are no complex themes behind it at all. However, each time it reappears, even

  if only in an indirect form, it is burdened with references to the tragic events

  that follow soon after its first appearance. In Falcon’s nightmares, indeed, the

  past happenings are not so much linked with the air crash itself as with the

  moments and hours after regaining consciousness—his rebirth. But the last,

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  19

  firmly rooted representation from his previous, human status of the associa-

  tions of the Queen Elizabeth will, like a gigantic medusa, acquire the value of a

  double-meaning symbol, the ominous nature of which will change depending

  on which of Falcon’s two identities—innate and human or acquired and

  cyborg—predominates.

  Although the conflict between these two identities started during his

  physical recovery on Earth, the exceptional circumstances in which Falcon

  finds himself while descending through the atmosphere of Jupiter are inten-

  sified to the utmost limit. This intensification has, however, a gradual charac-

  ter: the initial circumstances much more stimulate fear of the loss of his old

  identity than joy in acquiring a new one.

  It is quite understandable why the encounter with a possibly intelligent

  entity in medusa form cannot arouse euphoria in him. It awakes recollections

  of a completely different kind.

  When he calls the strange inhabitants of the gigantic waxen clouds

  “mantas,” Falcon defines his attitude towards them, casting doubt on the

  validity of his conclusions about the nature of these creatures and practically

  preventing him from developing any intuition about them. Conditioned by

  feelings of danger and fear, Falcon’s perception of the mantas narrows down to

  the plane of aggression, and this inevitably results in the anthropomorphiza-

  tion of aliens by ascribing to them a negative emotional stance towards man.

  Only with this in mind can we understand the background to some of

  Falcon’s statements during his encounter with the mantas. For example, the

  effect of his attitude is evident in Falcon’s first statement after he has informed

  Mission Control of his discovery of living beings. Up to this moment, Falcon

  has been at a safe distance from the mantas, and that they have been paying no

  attention to him. “And even if they try to chase me,” he says, stifling the echo

  of a distant earthly cry, “I’m sure they can’t reach my altitude.”

  The next day, while he is watching a shoal of mantas charging an enormous

  medusa, Falcon abruptly declares this move to be an attack, but soon realizes

  that the facts do not favor such a conclusion. Above all, the differences in the

  sizes of these creatures are so great that the mantas on the back of the medusa

  appear “about as large as birds landing on a whale.” When the medusa reacts to

  their presence, Falcon immediately returns to his first instinctive assumption

  and even identifies emotionally with the “attacked” medusa.

  “It was impossible not to feel a sense of pity for the beleaguered monster...

  Yet he knew his sympathies were on the wrong side. High intelligence could

  develop only among predators—not among the drifting browsers of either sea

  or air. The mantas were far closer to him than was this monstrous bag of gas.”

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  Z. Živkovic

  The easy and effective defense by the medusa shows that Falcon’s intuitions

  about the mantas rests upon anthropomorphization—an anthropomorphiza-

  tion rooted in fear of the ray—like form of the mantas, and ultimately, in fear

  of loss of human identity. Aggression as a “yardstick of intelligence” does not

  help Falcon to perceive the true nature of the bizarre denizens of the waxen

  clouds.

  The medusa’s reaction follows too late to remove this yardstick completely.

  In the meantime, it has even expanded its reach into that area where no direct

  association with a medusa exists. A link between fear and intelligence also

  appears between the two encounters with the mantas, when the stupendous

  firework display of “Poseidon’s wheels” begins in front of the astonished

  Falcon.

  Faced with the enormity and regularity of this fantastic natural phenome-

  non, he conceives for the first time that there might be intelligent beings in the

  atmosphere of Jupiter. “No man could look upon such a sight without feeling

  like a helpless pygmy in the presence of forces beyond his comprehension. Was

  it possible that, after all, Jupiter carried not only life but also intelligence? And, perhaps, an intelligence that only now was beginning to react to his alien

  presence?”

  The possibility of the appearance of intelligent aliens at the beginning of the

  mission to Jupiter is accompanied every time by a deep feeling of fear. The

  perplexity that remains after the disappearance of the mantas is, however,

  properly recompensed by the appearance of a new creature which—at least at a

  superficial narrative level—shows not only convincing signs of intelligence but

  less indifference. This encounter with the medusa takes place under circum-

  stances which have an important influence on all the later conclusions that

  Falcon reaches about this strange creature. This event follows immediately

  upon the discovery of the mantas—that is, after a specific anthropomorphic

  mechanism has already been activated in Falcon’s consciousness.

  Although brief, the events that happen from the moment of the sighting of

  the huge “oval mass,” at the base of a terraced layer of Jovian clouds, until the

  dusk prevents further observation, are sufficient to determine the direction

  Falcon’s later deliberations on the medusae.

  The “oval mass” reminds Falcon of a “forest of pallid trees,” since he

  discerns something resembling “hundreds of thin trunks, springing from the

>   white waxy froth.” The lyrical charge that characterizes this association testifies

  that it is not a question of a simple analogy of notions deprived of any

  emotional stance, but rather a complex mechanism behind which there no

  longer stands an indifferent objectivity.

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  This subdued, emotionally colored image, without precedent in Falcon’s

  earlier mental reservations, suggests that his ability to come to unbiased

  conclusions is impaired. The nature of this impairment is soon defined by

  the second image that comes to Falcon’s mind: the “oval mass” reminds him of

  a “giant mushroom”—in which one can already perceive an approximation to

  the central symbol of his nightmares, that of the “medusa.”

  The disturbance of the equilibrium of indifferent objectivity here is, indeed,

  still an inconspicuous and innocent one, since the first passing glance at the

  “oval mass” has not provided any basis for assuming that a certain form of life

  is involved; however, when specific indicators suggest this possibility, that

  equilibrium will be brought into question more seriously.

  As in the case of the mantas, the indicator of life in support of the

  unarticulated laws of nature is represented also this time by a certain coherent

  organizational order which is not met in non-living phenomena in the macro

  world. Just before he dives into the shadow of the Jovian night, Falcon sees the

  incredible synchronization of the strange “trees” bending, which casts doubt

  on his previous assumption about the nonliving nature of the “oval mass.”

  In favor of the new assumption that this is a living being is the circumstance

  that the “enormous tree” is no longer in the same place where Falcon saw it

  first. Two data are thus learned on the plane of phenomenon that are

  conditionally relevant for drawing a conclusion as to whether it is a living

  creature, but are utterly insufficient to learn anything at all about it on the level of noumenon.

  Nevertheless, Falcon joins unawares in one such understanding, and the

  far-reaching, distorted effect of this will seriously affect the validity of his next conclusions about the medusa. Along with the observation that the “oval

  mass” is a living being, Falcon again links an image that brings into even