it hard to believe any of this bullshit.'
'Believe what you want to believe,' the alien said softly. 'The fact is it's true. We work together because it is the collective effort of each one of us that keeps the structure of our society intact. We are all equal.'
'Do you feel superior?' I asked.
'Superior to what?'
'Us.'
He thought carefully for a moment, still staring at me with those piercing blue eyes.
'Yes,' he said simply. Conceited bastard, I thought. I got up from my chair and went to fetch more beer. I could feel Rob and Siobhan's mood physically lift as I walked away. I guess that if I had been in the alien's shoes then I would have probably felt the same way about our backward society as he did. But this was my backward society and my home and I loved it. How dare he think himself above us? Technical knowledge and skill was not all that success and advancement was measurable by. What did his kind know about art and music and other, less regimented pursuits?
I could hear the conversation continuing outside without me.
'So,' Rob asked, seemingly unaffected by my outburst and my exit, 'tell us more, will you? If everything's so structured back where you are, how do you deal with illnesses and accidents?'
'We don't have illnesses,' he replied.
'What?'
'We've eradicated them all.'
'How?'
'Remember your computer revolution when the silicon chip was invented?'
'Yes, why?' Rob answered.
'That was a fundamental technological change that enabled a thousand other technologies to advance, wasn't it? About fifty years ago we entered a similar kind of phase on our planet.'
'How do you mean?'
'We made a discovery that changed everything.'
'What discovery?'
'We discovered how to take apart and reassemble the smallest atoms and electrons. We're able to modify them, control them, change them, rearrange them, destroy them, create them...'
'Jesus...' Siobhan whispered.
'And once you have the ability to do all of that,' the alien continued, 'you can look at everything in a new way. You're able to do just about anything.'
'Such as?'
'You mentioned medicine? We can now look at our bodies in a whole new light. We can break things down to the very lowest level imaginable. In the same way that you might repair a complicated computer network with a single new chip or a change of software, we can repair our bodies by forgetting about limbs and bones and organs and thinking in terms of individual cells.'
'I don't follow,' Siobhan mumbled, already feeling the effect of her first bottle of beer.
'A diseased cell was probably once a healthy cell, agree?'
She nodded.
'Yeah...' 'So what we're able to do is reverse the process that caused the cell to become diseased. We can rearrange the component parts of the cell in order to return it to a healthy state. By learning the precise role of the smallest parts of even the smallest atoms of the smallest cells it's been possible for us to identify and isolate the base cause of every physical problem. And as our technology has continued to improve, so we've been able to cure those problems and, eventually, prevent them from happening in the first place.'
'So what are you saying?' I asked, entering the room in much the same mood as I had been in when I had left.
'What do you mean?' the alien sighed, obviously tiring of me.
'Does this make you all powerful?'
'You could say that. There's very little that we can't do...'
'So why do you die?'
'Because it's part of the plan. There has to be progression.'
'Why bother? You all look the same, there doesn't seem to be much progression to me...'
'Bodies age...'
'So reverse the ageing process.'
He shook his head.
'We have very strict ethics that control the use of this technology.'
'Are you controlled?'
'No.'
'You mention computers - you can erase a computer's memory and reprogram it. From what you say it sounds as if you're able to do that with your memories and brains.'
'The technology exists, yes.'
'So you could delete memories, change personalities, suppress emotions...'
'We could, but we don't.'
'You're programmed to tow the line, aren't you? You don't deviate from what you've been ordained to do because you've been programmed not to.'
'This is bollocks,' spat Rob.
'No it isn't,' I protested. 'Come on, can you tell me with any certainty that no-one's messed with your mind? Are you sure that you're not just a worker drone that's been sent out into space to do the work of who knows what?'
'It just wouldn't happen,' the visitor sighed. 'Listen to yourself, will you? You're talking about 'us' and 'them' all