Teleport This Read Free

signals.”
    “Impossible.”
    “I’m serious. I was analyzing the way the top layer seems to pulsate and repeat so I calculated some threshold levels and shoved the whole thing into a binary filter. I took the output of that and ran it through a decryption algorithm I got from a friend at Langley. Then I ran the output of that through a series of translation programs”
    “What in the world made you do all that?”
    “Boredom, mostly,” replied Simon.
    “Ah, so you did miss me. What did you come up with?”
    “This,” said Simon, handing Gilbert a stack of papers. “Read the top sheet.”
    Gilbert glanced down and began to read the short, simple decoded message, “Greetings. Do not be alarmed. You have discovered us. We do not care. We send instructions to access.” Gilbert leafed through the rest of the pages. They looked like gibberish.
    “Very funny.”
    “Dead serious. Those other hundred pages are some of the most kick ass programming scripts that use the craziest functions and transforms I’ve ever seen. I don’t understand a tenth of it, but I figured out how to program it into the system.”
    “Still not believing.”
    “Check this out,” Simon pointed to his computer monitor. “I followed their instructions and built a signal interface program. I can communicate with them.”
    “Not one word am I currently believing. Not only is your entire premise beyond belief, but not even you would be presumptuous enough to contact extraterrestrial life as the sole representative of all mankind.”
    “Sure, I already did. They sent me an application starter kit.”
    Here’s what really happened while Gilbert was away visiting his parents; Simon, representing all mankind, passed the second intelligence test by decoding the communication signal layer just as he said he did. Decoding the communication layer is actually meant to be fairly straightforward since the hard part is usually detecting the signal in the first place. The basic thought is that if a civilization has the technology to detect the signal and communicate back, then it should be invited to the party, provided it meets certain requirements. The entire process is very similar to applying for a bank loan, but instead of running a check on your credit history, it runs a check on your actual history. A big focus is on a civilization’s aggressiveness, but there are over a thousand other cultural parameters taken into consideration. It uses all this to derive what is known as the Congeniality Index. The higher the CI, the better that world will fit in.
    Once Simon figured out the math, developed the code for the interface and responded with “Hello, my name is Simon,” an automated process put itself in gear and began evaluating mankind. Undetectable probes zeroed in on Earth, picking up all terrestrial communications and tapping into the internet, as well as a lot of very secret intranets. The whole of human knowledge, history and culture was being analyzed. Unbeknownst to them, the human race was being weighed and measured.
    Now you would think that this would be a lengthy process, what with the probes and all, but this is an established operation and it is driven by a technology that moves at millions of times the speed of light so it was only hours later that Simon received a response.
    The response read, “Hello, Simon. Thank you for contacting us. We invite you to visit us and have sent you the manufacturing instructions for a teleportation portal. As you will see, it can be constructed and powered from readily available material. We estimate it will take you approximately four weeks to complete it. The destination is preset and will send you directly to our facility. We look forward to meeting you. No further communications are necessary.”
    The Earth and mankind had been deemed acceptable.  
    Gilbert reread the message for the umpteenth time. “Do you realize what this message means?” he asked.
    “Oh sure,” said Simon.