The Clarke-Bradbury International Science Fiction Competition

An Encounter - retnuocnE nA

Christa Ackermann

Dear Jess

First of all I would like to thank you for your kind hospitality.

I've got some news that may seem shocking to you, but I have found that I must tell you. Actually, it seems I have absolutely no way of getting around it. But since I still have troubles in saying complex things, I will tell you here on this piece of paper.

I really hope, well actually I know, that you won't be shocked too much by this news: I'm an alien. I mean an alien in the sense that I come from a different planet. The planet I come from is very different from the one you're living on. You would say, if you could discover our planet, that it's made out of antimatter. We, on the other hand, would say your planet is made out of antimatter. But that all depends on the point of view. Anyway, I guess you don't know what antimatter is, even though you've been bugging me quite a while with questions about it lately. Antimatter is actually the same thing as matter, except that it goes in the opposite direction of time. That means that while you're getting older every day, I'm getting younger. Or from my point of view, while I'm getting older, you're getting younger since you're made of antimatter while I'm not. I guess you can see that it gives me quite a bit of troubles living on a planet where everything else goes backwards in time.

By now I'm sure you're wondering how it happened that I came to live on your planet. So here's my story: on my planet people have been studying matter and antimatter for hundreds of years. Now our years are quite a bit longer than your years, so you can imagine that this has been a very long time. Anyway, one of the main properties of antimatter and matter, the property that when they collide, they evaporate into energy, has was long ago. About a hundred years ago, the first antimatter planet was discovered. Of course, the question whether it was somehow possible to visit these planets, like we had been visiting so many others, come up soon, and scientists from all over the galaxies started searching for a material which would successfully keep matter from antimatter. Without such a material, any spacecraft we sent close to your planet would just dissolve into energy as soon as matter and antimatter meet.

A few years ago, about 500 by your measurements, my planet was at last successful in the search, and quickly a spacecraft was coated in the material which we had named xlynx. After lots of testing and tons of calculations, a xlynx suit was manufactured and I was chosen as a test person to visit your earth. I got to your planet safely and nothing exceptional happened until I opened the spacecraft. In our calculations we had completely forgotten that your planet may have such a thing as an atmosphere, and as soon as the air streamed in, wham, the spacecraft was gone. Thank God, my suit was completely particle proof, or I would have met the same fate.

So here I was, on a completely strange anti-planet, with no chances of getting home soon. Surviving wasn't a problem; my suit takes care of all my bodily needs and it has the capability of taking keeping me alive for over two years (~300 of your years). I also could keep up a very limited contact with my people. But their news was not very encouraging since almost all of the xlynx had been used up and it would take at least a year to make enough to cover a spacecraft inside and out. And that's quite a long time to be living on a strange planet.

At first I amused myself very well. It's amazing to see everything backwards, which is, of course, how it seemed to me. I could spend hours watching plants slowly get smaller and smaller. And I can assure you that there's nothing more entertaining than watching wild animals running in backwards motion, or seeing birds landing the way they should take off. Or imagine a person eating backwards. It looks as if the person would take pieces of food out of his mouth and put them on a plate. And weirdest of all he ends up with this delicious meal on the table. It looks so strange, I sometimes completely forget myself watching. So please don't take it personally if I stare while you're eating.

But back in the beginning of my stay on your world, I didn't have contact with humans yet. After about 100 years by your standard of watching animals and plants, I got bored. But more still, I grew extremely lonely. Can you imagine living 100 years without any decent communication? I mean, the communication system with my people really left room for improvement. So I left the forest behind, to visit your settlements in the hope of making contact with you humans.

At first I left a huge chaos wherever I went. Since I go the other way in time, the people thought I was walking backwards and my attempts to communicate didn't help much either. In fact, if I would have stayed at a given place much longer than a few minutes, I'm sure I would have been put in jail, which might have given interesting consequences. But I was desperate to communicate, so I learned to blend in. I taught myself to walk backwards faster than I ever would have thought possible, and I learned your language pretty well, too. Of course it is very hard on the brain to talk backwards, especially since if I want to have a conversation, I have to start at the end of the conversation and gradually move to the beginning. Let me tell you, that is extremely difficult. So please excuse me if I have troubles expressing myself. I try my best.

Back to my story: I wandered around your world for many years, learning your ways and customs, never staying close to people for long out of fear what might happen if I made a mistake. As you can guess I was still lonely since | was living all alone most of the time. Until the day I met you. You greeted me right away, most unlike anyone I had ever met before. Of course everyone else thought I was going when I was coming, so I had learned to say „goodbye“ as soon as I met someone new. But you greeted me with a „hello“ and for a moment, you had me thinking you were actually going my way in time. But it soon turned out that I had told you about my situation in your past, my future, and you understood the difficulties I was experiencing. Now I've stayed in your hut for over 30 years. Yes, that means you'll have to put up with me for 30 more years. But don't worry. We had or are going to have fun.

But now it is time for the spacecraft to pick me up. Tomorrow evening I'm going to say „hello“ and all the other appropriate stuff, like you've told me so many times, and I'll leave for the meeting point with my people. By tomorrow morning you'll never have heard anything about me. Except, that for you „tomorrow morning“ and „tomorrow evening“ are already past and you'll live on through the 30 years we spent together. You know, actually I wouldn't mind coming along in your direction of time and living through those years once more. Of course I'm looking forward to going back to my own planet, but sometimes I find myself wondering if I'll ever get used to walking forwards again.

In everlasting friendship, Xuy

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Copyright 2003 © Christa Ackermann and ESA. All Rights Reserved
This story may not be reproduced, published or distributed in any form without the permission of the author and the European Space Agency