"By stranding our scientists on a dilapidated space station with faulty wiring, loose hardware, and malfunctioning air systems," NASA head Daniel Goldin said, "we have created extremely favorable conditions for learning about spaceborne panic."
The two Russians and one American on board the station are reportedly terrified beyond lucidity. Among the groundbreaking experiments conducted on board Mir: a June 25 collision with a cargo craft that depressurized the Spektr module; last week's emergency power shortage, caused by a disconnected cable; and the periodic release of "dry ice" steam that simulates a shipboard fire. All have been deemed a huge success by agency heads.
"They are in a constant state of what aerospace scientists term 'mind-shattering terror,' frightened for their very lives," Russian mission director Vladimir Solovyov said. "And we have not even used the hull-mounted Alien puppet that taps on the window yet."
"We have also taken huge leaps in our understanding of the patterns created when one wets his pants in the weightlessness of space," Solovyov said. "The urine spreads out in an expanding sphere, something we did not expect."
Taking a break from his busy schedule, astronaut Michael Foale told ABC News reporters: "Where is Mommy?" "Please tell me the access code to the Soyuz capsule," Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Lazutkin said. "I would like to return to the chaotic government and widespread hunger of my homeland." Scientists expect to gain even more useful data during an experiment at 3 a.m. tomorrow. As the astronauts sleep, whirling red siren lights will flood the cabin while an ear-splitting klaxon alarm jolts them awake.
Detailed scientific data will then be collected on such variables as open weeping, defecation and hair loss.
Imagine if you will... the leader of the fifth invader force speaking to the commander in chief...
"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of
the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way
through. They're completely meat."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the
stars."
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from
them. The signals come from machines."
"So 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? You're asking me to
believe in sentient meat."
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only
sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat."
"Maybe they're like the Orfolei. 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, which didn't take too long. Do you have
any idea the life span of meat?"
"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the
Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the
Weddilei. 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! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The
meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"
"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
"Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying
to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
"So what does the meat have in mind?"
"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the
universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The
usual."
"We're supposed to talk to meat?"
"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio.
'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing."
"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
"I thought you just told me they used radio."
"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You
know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by
flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air
through their meat."
"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you
advise?"
"Officially or unofficially?"
"Both."
"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and
all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice,
fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and
forget the whole thing."
"I was hoping you would say that."
"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make
contact with meat?"
"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, meat.
How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing
with here?"
"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat
containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they only
travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and
makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim.
Infinitesimal, in fact."
"So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe."
"That's it."
"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the
ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You're
sure they won't remember?"
"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads
and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."
"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's
dream."
"And we can mark this sector unoccupied."
"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others?
Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"
"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a
class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations
ago, wants to be friendly again."
"They always come around."
"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the
universe would be if one were all alone."