Flash Fic Redux - Roulette

The survey ship Appaloosa drifted in the interstellar void, its sensors straining for the whispers within the CMBR that hinted at intelligent life. Signal processors and computers danced around each other, comparing previous signatures against new data. And the dance came to a stop.

"Captain, we've got a hit. G4 star, about forty light-years out." Tilda Vaughn's young eyes shone like miniature suns with excitement. "SERAPH reports high confidence for a K1 civilization!"

Dylan Bridger looked to his left. "Does Xenology concur?" he asked mildly, already seeing the hammered iron mask falling over the expedition's xenologist.

Horacio Durand looked over the markers, double checking the raw data at certain points. "Xenology concurs. High confidence for a K1 civilization," he said, his voice low and grinding.

Vaughn had been on the Appaloosa for two years now, and she was no closer to understanding the xenologist than she had when they left Sol. "A K1 civilization, Horacio! We've never seen a K1 since we started!"

"And we still haven't," Durand growled. "This is a snapshot from forty years ago, from this particular point in space. The star is over four hundred light-years from Earth. Which means that this snapshot won't reach Earth for another thirty-six decades. Even from where we're sitting, Tilda, a lot of things could happen in forty years."

"Why are you such a miserable bastard?" asked Vaughn.

"Why aren't you?" Durand snapped back, eyes narrow with scorn. "Over a century of manned interstellar exploration, we've never seen another species reach the level of a K1. Either they wipe themselves out or we hand them the instruments of their own demise. We're sextons in an infinitely expanding graveyard, and all we're doing is walking between the tombstones." He shifted his gaze to Bridger. "Permission to retire to the probe bay, Captain?" he asked, his expression hard, voice slightly tightened. "I'd like to get the instrument packages calibrated and loaded up before we reach the system."

"Granted, Doctor," Bridger said with a gentle smile. "Go play with your sample cases." Durand nodded and left the bridge. Once the hatch was fully closed, Bridger looked over at Vaughn with a sympathetic smile. "Ensign, for what it may be worth, you're going to have to make some allowances for Dr. Durand. He's really not an asshole, least not by nature. But he is a shining example in the field of xenology, so it's probably not unreasonable that his attitude is equally...exemplary."

"Respectfully, Sir, what the hell is his problem?" Vaughn asked between clenched teeth.

"His problem, Ensign, is that he's right. He hates being right. Not ironically; he literally doesn't want to be right, and the Universe seemingly reinforcing the fact he's right at every turn just twists the knife every day. Even Cassandra didn't have it that bad."

*    *    *

Bridger sat in a comfortable chair, opposite the liaison officer "temporarily detached" to the Appaloosa. The trip to the candidate star had only taken twelve days. In the thirty days since they arrived and were hailed by the Hievenli, it had been a whirlwind of meetings, conferences, and public appearances. Yorlath, the homeworld of the Hievenli, was slightly bigger than Earth, but less dense and with a proportionally lower gravity. Human crew members were sometimes getting dragooned into appearing on Hievenli variety shows, pulling off incredible feats of strength. All in all, it had been an incredible first contact experience.

Like all Hievenli, Cneo was a low-grade empath, yet to Bridger, the alien felt more uncomfortable than they should have. "Thank you for sitting down with me, Dylan. I wanted to, as you say, keep this meeting in the family."

"Something wrong, Cneo?"

"That is what my superiors and some of my colleagues are wondering. We have some questions regarding Dr. Durand."

"Has there been a problem? An incident that wasn't reported to me?"

"Nothing in our interactions with him, no. We're surprised that we can pick up your emotions, and many have observed that all of your crew are...highly energetic, shall we say? But Dr. Durand is particularly confusing to us. Every one of our interactions with him have been almost exhausting, in some ways. The joy he exudes is intoxicating, the hunger for knowledge almost too intense to bear at times. In those moments when he's working, it is what you might a call a 'roller coaster ride.' Does that sound correct?"

"Yeah, that sounds like Horacio. When he gets going, he just goes all-out. He's an exceptional scientist."

Cneo nodded slowly. "Yet outside of those interactions, a few of my fellows have had to go looking for him. When they find him, he's shaking uncontrollably, making sounds of great distress. Such glimpses are not only intense, but incredibly painful. He seems to be the only member of your crew experiencing this duality. We hope you can perhaps shed some light on this."

Bridger shifted in the chair and steepled his fingers. "As I understand, your efforts at interstellar exploration is still in its infancy, correct?"

"Correct. Our leadership has prioritized fully exploring and exploiting our home system before we go wandering out beyond the heliopause."

"All right. One of our famous scientists from a few centuries back posed an academic question which became known as the 'Fermi Paradox.' The question was, 'if there's intelligent life in the galaxy, why haven't we been contacted yet?' Fermi was brilliant, but even he didn't quite appreciate how...coincidental such contact scenarios have to be. The conditions have to be so perfect, it's incredibly rare. You're the first civilization we've encountered with a technology level comparable to our own which is still functional and which we had no prior interactions with.

"Horacio's field of study is xenology, the study of alien life. And his career has generally been closer to what you might call xeno-anthropology, the study of alien cultures and peoples. He's been involved in over two hundred planetary surveys, half a dozen observation missions, and only one other 'first contact' scenario before this one. That was just when he was fresh out of school, maybe forty years ago. And that one left some scars."

"Scars within his mind, you mean," said Cneo slowly.

"Yeah. Back then, all we had found was the remains of other civilizations. The first half-century of our interstellar explorations only found dead worlds and no good explanations for why. So it was a shock when we found the Tirpa. They weren't quite up to the tech level you or I operate at, but they were headed in the right direction. We were so excited, we shared all that we knew and had on hand. We wanted to give them that last little boost to take them to the stars.

"Horacio was on that expedition. He'd gathered so much data, learned so much, and it wasn't even a tithe of what was there. Our survey ship had to return home, but we promised that a follow-up mission would be sent." Bridger pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "The follow-up mission arrived a year later. And the homeworld of the Tirpa was gone. They'd destroyed themselves using the knowledge our people had provided. Horacio was devastated. It changed our entire process for first contact situations. He's seen at least three other species obliterate themselves since then, even just watching from a distance."

Cneo's pearlescent skin rippled in shock and dismay. "I cannot imagine how distressing that must be. To be able to prevent disaster and not permitted to do so."

"It's worse than that," said Bridger, shaking his head. "Intervention accelerated the destruction. Non-intervention just drew out the agony. Among my people, xenologists have the highest suicide rate of any scientific endeavor. And it tends to bring out the worst qualities of those who stay in the field." Frowning in thought, Bridger gave Cneo a searching look. "Have your people ever exhibited violently self-destructive behaviors?"

"Less so now than in the past. But sometimes, such behaviors do crop up."

"There was an ancient game on my homeworld called Russian roulette. It involved putting a ballistic weapon with a single live projectile in the weapon's storage cylinder against your head and pulling the trigger. The cylinder typically held six projectiles, so one live round, five empty chambers, one in six chance you'd kill yourself."

"We had a similar 'game', and variations on the theme," Cneo nodded. "Such recklessness is gently discouraged these days."

"It's unfortunately Horacio's preferred metaphor. To him, every intelligent species in the galaxy that has ever had a chance to reach the stars has played Russian roulette over and over again. And he's seen too many species lose the game." Bridger gave Cneo a thin smile. "So seeing another species who 'won' enough to quit playing is bringing out a lot of emotions in the man."

"I believe I understand. We'll try to help him through this. After all," Cneo said, their own smile gentle, "there's so few of us left."

(Originally written on r/humansarespaceorcs)