Myth Or Bust: a short story by GF Willmetts.
You visit a new inhabited planet and you would think it was the second coming to the inhabitants. Then again, considering the distance between planets, it probably is. Space flight without enhancement is so slow. We have three significant agendas since we gained the capacity. One to pursue another species that took the same route but leaving us the tech to develop it. Two we could therefore to check the inhabited worlds on their route and see if they favoured any other planet and maybe find out more before meeting them. Always a safe plan. Third was to add to our knowledge of inhabited worlds and DNA and RNA changes to the evolutionary problems on different worlds. Covertly, was there anything in their DNA matrix that we could add to and strengthen our own. A couple of the tweaks we’ve added has improved over bodies space-worthiness. We no longer had calcium deficiencies in low gravity simply by using a modified calcium salt. Our scientists had thought for a long time that we would need a different element compound or isotope. Instead, a simple modification didn’t even need gene therapy. We were just unlucky not to have it already in our DNA. The species we were following had these advantage and probably thought we wouldn’t be able to use their tech.
We were careful on any planetary approach. A look for all media traffic to see what age they are. Anything below silicon technology is likely to be spooked if we popped out of the sky. We might have a look around, take a few samples and let them wonder about the lights in the sky and move on. It wasn’t worth the bother to do anything else.
If they showed limited levels of space travel, we might make contact after checking the political situation between countries and see their reaction, providing it was shared equal with no favouritism. Any hint of weapons being pointed our way and we left. Not worth the bother.
If not, then we go to a secondary study of their media and how they feel about alien life. Were they likely to be suspicious or curious? Their fiction might reflect all kinds of moods and xenophobia. We would still look around before making official contact. Cultural shock was always likely to be a problem. That could vary from religious experienced to envy.
The odd planet was in ruins so we monitored radioactivity and noted they failed to civilise and definitely avoided any survivors. They would need to die or recover and learn from their mistakes. There’s always the possibility of bunker survivors who would jump at a chance of new technology or get off-planet. It was a kindness to just move on.
Of course, we checked all the usual places where our alien species predecessors might have landed but we quickly realised these protocols also applied to them. They might pick a gas giant for a fuel stop. Once there was a realisation of fast travel, there was so many habitable planets to visit, that they didn’t stop long at any. There was also the possibility that they could bite off more than they could chew. We had a lot of questions. Among them was why did they leave their tech on our planet. It couldn’t have been because they thought we couldn’t use it. We were an odd species. Why give us such favouritism? Something they hadn’t done in all the planets we followed them since. Was that a mistake or were we borderline ready to make the jump, especially when we found we could track their route. Did they expect us to follow them? I mean, it would keep us occupied than taking over other planets. It might also give us appreciation of life on other planets so we didn’t do anything reckless. The planets they chose were either inhabited or dead by their own mistakes so were they checking on their previous finds or looking, like us, for the previous alien flyers? After all, we were making the assumption that they were the first when there was also a possibility they were doing what we were doing, following the chain. For all we know, we could end up at the same interstellar café one day and find we’re the chosen space travellers.
In the meantime, we checked out each inhabited planet. Surely they would leave a better clue than an ionised trail to follow. Some of us thought we were being tested and if we came up with a better detector, we could skip some planets if we wanted to catch up. Self-improvement had to be on the list. Was there some look-out to see if we could evolve our tech while on the move? At least it kept the tech members of our crew occupied, even if they requested we picked up rare elements on our visits.
Finally, a planet of people in the space age as we examined their media. A little over-crowded but they were reaching out to their local planets. They were expanding. Space travel was a consequence.
We parked the mothership around one of the moons of an empty nearby planet. No sense showing them how big we were and the techs were happy because their instruments showed a layer of strontium they could mine. Hopefully, some other rare elements as well. A rich seam can supply everyone. Even the natives when they can travel this far.
Travelling to their homeworld, we chose one of our cargo vessels because it would look so impressive. Stun them enough to give us some respect when landing. It also allowed us to bear gifts and get over the fact that our translation devices made it easy to communicate. None of the trinkets this time, we can jump to the chase with some serious science formulas. Not to give them the technology. We were never given that but it would enable them to jump several stages in development and, like us, gain the technology and follow us in our own pursuit of our own developers. Who knows where that will lead. We don’t. Maybe that was the reason, some of our philosophers. Keep following and we wouldn’t develop any further. Others said we wanted to know why. As with this planet, because we can.
The inhabitants of planet Vaga-4 were surprised but hospitable enough. If the species had been here before, time dilation would have been generations ago. We sent a message to the mothership to see if there was anything beacon-like on any of the other planets to keep them busy. There was a vague resemblance to ourselves. DNA tended towards practical limbs for holding things in sentients. Well, except for that species on Acor-6, but the heavy radiation deprived them of arms and just versatile feet. They had a couple breakthroughs in science we hadn’t had so it wouldn’t be a disproportionate trade. We also included population control contraception very warily in case it was a religious thing and we would rush off as heretics. Some species could be touchy about such things. Religion I mean more than contraception. It would be so easy to just look at their DNA and drop something into their reservoirs but that could wipe them out. Let the next species following us worry about that. Population gets its own control eventually. War. Sterility. Half a dozen things. Maybe even space travel. Would their spacecraft tolerate over-population? Their life expectancy was a third of ours, so maybe it would sort itself out.
It only became a problem when we finally took off and found a bunch of them in the cargo hold. A bunch. Eighty or so. Some were families. They wanted to see the stars. We figured that within a decade or so, they would over-populate even the mothership. I doubt if they would even be missed if we opened the airlocks.
That would go down well in our reports and the beacon we left behind. These early worlds aren’t likely to contact the species ahead but information does get passed along the route. We haven’t figured out how yet. Bet there’s some kind of stealth beacon keeping an eye on us.
Do we show ourselves to be ruthless and vacuum them. It would be the easy thing to do, especially as we were approaching the mothership when they were discovered. We were supposed to on a tight schedule when we left so we didn’t outstay our welcome.
None of their star system’s outer planets and moons were inhabitable. The next one out seemed possible. We keep them in the cargo vessel and drop them off there with some tools and survival gear. It’ll become legendary when their homeworld inhabitants get this far one day and think their kind has parallel evolution on other worlds. As if that would happen for real. Instead, they would have a mythology of their own spread in local space, probably calling it the great migration or something arranged by the gods and we would become legendary.
end
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