Грегори Бенфорд - Not One of Us - Stories of Aliens on Earth

“So you’re three billion years old?”

“In terms of your frame of reference, yes. But according to the frame of reference of our ships, I’m only thirty-five hundred years old. The ships flew close to the speed of light, and time passed much more slowly for us than for you. Of course, once in a while a few ships dropped out of their cruise and decelerated to come to Earth so that further adjustments to the evolution of life on Earth could be made. But this didn’t require much time. Those ships would then return to cruise at close to the speed of light and continue skipping over the passage of time here.”

“Bullshit,” Qiusheng’s father said contemptuously.

“Dad, this is the Theory of Relativity,” Qiusheng interrupted. “Our scientists already proved it.”

“Relativity, my ass! You’re bullshitting me, too. That’s impossible! How can time be like sesame oil, flowing at different speeds? I’m not so old that I’ve lost my mind. But you—reading all those books has made you stupid!”

“I can prove to you that time does indeed flow at different rates,” God said, his face full of mystery. He took out that photograph of his beloved from two thousand years ago and handed it to Qiusheng. “Look at her carefully and memorize every detail.”

The second Qiusheng looked at the photograph, he knew that he would be able to remember every detail. It would be impossible to forget. Like the other Gods, the woman in the picture had a blend of the features of all ethnicities. Her skin was like warm ivory, her two eyes were so alive that they seemed to sing, and she immediately captivated Qiusheng’s soul. She was a woman among Gods, the God of women. The beauty of the Gods was like a second sun. Humans had never seen it and could not bear it.

“Look at you! You’re practically drooling!” Yulian grabbed the photograph from the frozen Qiusheng. But before she could look at it, her father-in-law took it away from her.

“Let me see,” Qiusheng’s father said. He brought the photograph to his ancient eyes, as close as possible. For a long time he did not move, as though the photograph provided sustenance.

“Why are you looking so close?” Yulian said, her tone contemptuous.

“Shut it. I don’t have my glasses,” Qiusheng’s father said, his face still practically on the photograph.

Yulian looked at her father-in-law disdainfully for a few seconds, curled her lips, and left for the kitchen.

God took the photograph out of the hands of Qiusheng’s father, whose hands lingered on the photo for a long while, unwilling to let go. God said, “Remember all the details. I’ll let you look at it again this time tomorrow.”

The next day, father and son said little to each other. Both thought about the young woman, so there was nothing to say. Yulian’s temper was far worse than usual.

Finally the time came. God had seemingly forgotten about it and had to be reminded by Qiusheng’s father. He took out the photograph that the two men had been thinking about all day and handed it first to Qiusheng. “Look carefully. Do you see any change in her?”

“Nothing really,” Qiusheng said, looking intently. After a while, he finally noticed something. “Aha! The opening between her lips seems slightly narrower. Not much, just a little bit. Look at the corner of the mouth here…”

“Have you no shame? To look at some other woman that closely?” Yulian grabbed the photo again, and again, her father-in-law took it away from her.

“Let me see—” Qiusheng’s father put on his glasses and carefully examined the picture. “Yes, indeed the opening is narrower. But there’s a much more obvious change that you didn’t notice. Look at this wisp of hair. Compared to yesterday, it has drifted farther to the right.”

God took the picture from Qiusheng’s father. “This is not a photograph, but a television receiver.”

“A… TV?”

“Yes. Right now it’s receiving a live feed from that explorer spaceship heading for the end of the universe.”

“Live? Like live broadcasts of football matches?”

“Yes.”

“So… the woman in the picture, she’s alive!” Qiusheng was so shocked that his mouth hung open. Even Yulian’s eyes were now as big as walnuts.

“Yes, she’s alive. But unlike a live broadcast on Earth, this feed is subject to a delay. The explorer spaceship is now about eighty million light-years away, so the delay is about eighty million years. What we see now is how she was eighty million years ago.”

“This tiny thing can receive a signal from that far away?”

“This kind of super long-distance communication across space requires the use of neutrinos or gravitational waves. Our spaceships can receive the signal, magnify it, and then rebroadcast to this TV.”

“Treasure, a real treasure!” Qiusheng’s father praised sincerely. But it was unclear whether he was talking about the tiny TV or the young woman on the TV. Anyway, after hearing that she was still “alive,” Qiusheng and his father both felt a deeper attachment to her. Qiusheng tried to take the tiny TV again, but God refused.

“Why does she move so slowly in the picture?”

“That’s the result of time flowing at different speeds. From our frame of reference, time flows extremely slowly on a spaceship flying close to the speed of light.”

“Then… can she still talk to you?” Yulian asked.

God nodded. He flipped a switch behind the TV. Immediately a sound came out of it. It was a woman’s voice, but the sound didn’t change, like a singer holding a note steady at the end of a song. God stared at the screen, his eyes full of love.

“She’s talking right now. She’s finishing three words: ‘I love you.’ Each word took more than a year. It’s now been three and a half years, and right now she’s just finishing ‘you.’ To completely finish the sentence will take another three months.” God lifted his eyes from the TV to the domed sky above the yard. “She still has more to say. I’ll spend the rest of my life listening to her.”

Bingbing actually managed to maintain a pretty good relationship with God for a while. The Gods all had some childishness to them, and they enjoyed talking and playing with children. But one day, Bingbing wanted God to give him the large watch he wore, and God steadfastly refused. He explained that the watch was a tool for communicating with the God Civilization. Without it, he would no longer be able to connect with his own people.

“Hmm, look at this. You’re still thinking about your own civilization and race. You’ve never thought of us as your real family!” Yulian said angrily.

After that, Bingbing was no longer nice to God. Instead, he often played practical tricks on him.

The only one in the family who still had respect and feelings of filial piety toward God was Qiusheng. Qiusheng had graduated from high school and liked to read. Other than a few people who passed the college-entrance examination and went away for college, he was the most learned individual in the village. But at home, Qiusheng had no power. On practically everything he listened to the direction of his wife and followed the commands of his father. If somehow his wife and father had conflicting instructions, then all he could do was to sit in a corner and cry. Given that he was such a softy, he had no way to protect God at home.

The relationship between the Gods and humans had finally deteriorated beyond repair.

The complete breakdown between God and Qiusheng’s family occurred after the incident involving instant noodles. One day, before lunch, Yulian came out of the kitchen with a paper box and asked why half the box of instant noodles she had bought yesterday had already disappeared.