An Ecology of MInd by Stephen Johnston Read Free Book Online Page A

but
    that put you in the middle of the star. For this reason standardized energy expenditures were used for blind jumps to place the ship a set distance out
    from the star centre. It usually worked. Nasty problems occurred when there was something else in the space, like a planet. Occasionally, a survey ship
    lost contact on a new system jump, and if it did, the next one jumped two standard jump units. Fortunately, the volume of empty space in a star system was
    huge, and the space occupied by planets if there were any, was minuscule. The number of occasions where a survey ship had been lost to a bad jump was
    small.
    They began scanning the system. Eight planets and assorted moons and asteroids were found. They had jumped to a point almost mid way between the orbits of
    the fifth and sixth planets. Nothing seemed to orbit through that exact spot so a beacon was dropped. The beacon would act as confirmation of a valid jump
    point in the future. They could be placed anywhere in the system and future jumps made to the beacon as a known safe spot but the location of their initial
    jump seemed fine for now. Additional beacons could be placed if warranted.
    There was no activity in most areas of the system, but a lot of signals in the electromagnetic spectrum were coming from the third planet; so intelligent
    inhabitants of some sort seemed likely. Due to the volume and variety of signals, it was probable that they were used as some form of communication.
    Exactly, what form that communication took was impossible to tell with the current information available.
    While most systems were unoccupied, it was not unknown for survey ships to find life or in fewer cases, some sort of civilization. Extra caution would be
    required in general, and a very careful approach and risk assessment would be required.
    They had never encountered anything that their species could not handle. In a few previous cases, they had come across races that were advanced enough to
    warrant treating as a threat due to the potential danger they represented. Usually though, whatever physical or biological resources were available on new
    planets were exploited for their own species’ benefit.
    Local life forms could be transformed into a source of labor. The altering of other species genetically to become docile productive sources of labor was
    something their species had been doing as a natural function since the dawn of their civilization on their own planet. To do the same during their
    expansion into space was a normal extension of their way of life. Those best able to dominate or survive would. It was a natural law of the universe.
    For now, the third planet in this new system was an unknown. Unknown, meant exactly that, and extreme caution for initial contact was only prudent.
    The ship's commander had a designation which located its exact position within the hierarchy of the ship, the larger space fleet, its political group and
    its importance to the species itself. Due to difficulties in translation, it can best be referred to as Leader *. Its species also has three sexes, but it
    can reasonably be described as male.
    Leader * directed that they start with a full survey of the outer planets first and work their way through the system. They would bypass the third planet
    and explore the inner planets, and then, when the rest of the survey was complete, they would approach the final planet. Any contact would have to be
    carefully managed as to assess and adapt to whatever they found.
    The survey ship began to move towards the eighth planet.



Chapter 7

    DR. PEARSON SURVEYED THE AUDIENCE. "I need four volunteers to do an exercise that may seem odd and unrelated. It should be physically painless but may, or
    may not, cause social embarrassment of a mild nature. That should cover my legal responsibility to obtain informed consent," laughed Dr. Pearson.
    "A show of hands of who would be willing. It will only take a few minutes, and you won't miss