Short story: The Super Computer

Lakshmi Narayan Once, a long while ago — perhaps in a previous life — I found myself abducted by aliens and taken to their spaceship. After the initial fear, we started chatting. Needless to say, I was full of questions. Since I was a UFO tracker and a sci-fi buff, I wanted to know how the spaceship operated, especially after I saw all the gleaming apparatus. They sportingly allowed me to play with the controls, then urged me to try and push my palm through the steel-like walls of the craft. Of course I expected terrific resistance. But was shocked when my fist went right through the wafer-thin walls. When they asked me to repeat the exercise on them, it was like they too were no more than etched contours. “We’re just holograms. Our real selves are still in the home planet,” they laughed at my bafflement, obligingly morphing from alien to human to animal to illustrate. “We can take any form we like,” they explained. “What about this ship?” I asked with growing concern. I didn’t want to be standing in a void, with nothing to hang on to. “It too is an illusion.” They matched word to action by changing the craft in quick succession to a submarine, a rocket and a fire breathing dragon with wings. Sensing my mounting alarm, they reassured me, “Don’t be scared. You won’t fall. Because it’s your hologram we’re communicating with telepathically. You are safely in bed in your room.” “I suppose it’ll take us another thousand years before we reach your advanced sophistication,” I sighed enviously. I was shocked when they revealed that aeons ago, it was our rishi-munis who’d taught them the science, when they’d visited their planet. “For some reason, we progressed and you regressed,” they remarked thoughtfully. “Can you not teach us what our ancestors taught your ancestors?” I suggested eagerly. “But the knowledge is still with you. It was never taken away.” When I looked puzzled, they pointed to my head. “The most advanced and complicated computer in the galaxy is the human brain, with the mind in the driver’s seat,” they elaborated. “There’s no need to ride in cumbersome spaceships, use expensive fuel, suffer years-long journeys, be scared of being hit by meteorites, face searing hot temperatures or noxious acids in hostile environments. “When the mind steers through space, it becomes part of its surroundings. It soaks in everything and communicates with other beings in their language. Instead of behaving like a colonizer, it becomes one with the host planet, imbibing the many lessons offered. It’s mutually beneficial — they share their knowledge and we share ours. “To operate this spaceship skilfully, you must learn to merge with the universe and blank out all distractions. A time will come when you’ll be adept at this. When that happens you will straddle the world of dreams and of factuality and traverse to the most extra-ordinary realms.” I woke up abruptly, unable to tell the real from the…