The Common-Sense Consensus

by Edward A. Rodosek

I hustled through the afternoon crowd when I felt somebody’s grip on my arm.

“Step in, pal! Join the ‘Common Sense’ conference! The admission is free and you could have a chance on a raffle for a wonderful prize!”

With a dozen other passers-by, I stepped into a lobby and caretakers directed us toward a balcony over the roomy hall.

My neighbor poked me. “Today we’ll finally show those damned fantastics, won’t we?”

“I must admit,” I said, “I don’t know what it’s all about.”

“Where are you from, pal? Here and now, we’ll have it out with those cock-and-bull stories about aliens claimed to be from space.”

The first speaker came onto the platform.

“Ladies and gentlemen! The management of today’s conference has decided that all the participants should use only simple pseudonyms, without any titles, and I’ve chosen the pseudonym Mulli Rips. As you can see, there are not only the most eminent scientists present here today, but also the lay public. And now I will ask my dear colleague, Nixot, to present the prefatory report.”

A lanky person started talking:

“God Almighty created our beautiful world where everyone could find food and shelter. Indeed, there came periods of various troubles: lack of food, too dry a climate, or, worst of all, attacks of dangerous beasts. Who among us doesn’t know these troubles: ogahp, itna, ocuel or nirbif? But the Creator gave us the intelligence and power to prevent them.”

Nixot made a dramatic break in his speech.

“Still, some individuals are trying to poison our spirit with apprehension and doubts. They are spreading queer nonsense about would-be alien civilizations in space that could be, as they say, even more developed than ours!”

The speaker waited until the unrest among the audience subsided.

“They imposed on us so-called ‘testimonies’ about allegedly inexplicable phenomena in the atmosphere, unidentified flying objects and similar rubbish. Some say that aliens have kidnapped them and then made some biological experiments on them!”

Shouts of indignation erupted. “Faugh!” “Shame!” My neighbor poked me again, radiant with joy.

“Regrettably, even some of our scientists support such twaddle. They try to impose so-called ‘alternative science’ on the public, and develop vague hypotheses about the possibility of alien civilizations. I sincerely hope that we can here and now clarify that situation once and for all, and so calm public opinion.”

The uproar was so loud that I hardly noticed how the interrogator of the witnesses was chosen. He climbed to the platform and began to speak right away.

“For tonight I’ve chosen the pseudonym Sul Licab. On my list, the first witness is... um, there are, in fact, two of them, the twins Olpid. They want to testify about something they’ve experienced lately. Come forward, both of you, and tell us what you’ve... um, supposed to have seen.”

“Well,” began one of them, “not long ago, during our travel across the country, we stayed overnight in the open air. Suddenly, something woke us up: the entire horizon was glittering and in the middle of that glitter, we saw something... something huge that slowly moved. It resembled a-”

“You mean to say,” the chair interrupted him, “that you think you’ve seen something, don’t you? I’m sure that was a natural phenomenon. Come on, be reasonable, you two seem to be intelligent chaps. Thank you for your... um, imaginative story.”

The intelligent chaps descended the podium with relief.

The second witness was a lean midget, who said his pseudonym was S. Uriv.

“Something unusual occurred to me, also. I’ve seen, high above me, several strange objects that moved swiftly over-”

“What?” shouted the chair. “Don’t tell me you believe in those cock-and-bull stories about unidentifiable flying objects! You and others like you are guilty of spreading such fibs all around.”

The witness crawled away as the audience sniggered.

“Hey!” a loud shout came from the audience. “Allow me to speak!”

“I doubt you’re on my list,” the chair said reluctantly. “Still, come on up here.”

A big fatty pushed his way to the podium. “My pseudonym for tonight is... well, O. T. Perts. Mister Chair, you should have asked the witnesses what those objects looked like. But you did not do that. I’m afraid we won’t find out anything important and our entire symposium will prove useless.”

“If there is anything useless,” said the chair, “it’s your provocative statement. Let’s proceed. The next witness is... sorry, are — where are you, anyway?”

“Here we are, sir,” said somebody in the middle of a small group. “Call me Olih Pats, please. I stand for all my relatives here, and I wish to tell you about something we’ve all experienced together.”

“Report, then.”

“We’ve been... how shall I put it... kidnapped by unknown creatures. They were entirely different from us; oh, they were mysterious. Sir, we believe they had to be aliens from outer space.”

“Aliens!” The chair roared with laughter. “Before you jump to premature conclusions, tell us more about this claimed ‘kidnapping’.”

“We were just taking our lunch, when a huge mass hovered above us and then it suddenly jumped-”

“Just a moment,” the chair interrupted him. “What did that ‘huge mass’ look like?”

“Sir, we could glimpse it just for an instant — it was... round and oblong, like an enormous cylinder. Just a moment later that mass... well, it gulped us down — some flood grabbed us and then floated us away-”

“Easy, boy. Do you expect us to imagine a huge and round and oblong mass, which grabbed you and gulped you down and then floated away? Tell me what terrible things you met after that.”

“Sir, the place where we were brought to... that could not have been our world. Everything there was totally different, sir.”

“I’ll lose my patience any moment,” he threatened.”How ‘different’?”

“Well, it was so cold we were numb. We were lying in a strange... how shall I put it... fluid. Then we saw some huge things above us, and they moved slowly.”

“I see,” observed the chair. “That was, undoubtedly, a group hallucination. And then?”

“Suddenly, a surge of water overflowed us — and that water was teeming with wild beasts! They encircled us and rushed at us. An enormous ocuel attacked me; oh, that was terrible-”

“Try to cut the long story short.”

“I managed to get out of the turmoil of the battle. I was so knocked about that I fell into a lethargy. When I regained my senses, I realized I was in our world again. I hadn’t any idea how I had returned. If there hadn’t been so many dead corpses of my poor comrades all around me, I’d have thought it was a nightmare.”

“That could be one of two possibilities, mister... um, Olih Pats; and the other is that you’re a damned liar. You may step down. And now I’m going to open a panel discussion. I see there are several entries already — I think the lady at the rear was the first. Come up, please.”

The discussant made her way through the crowd. “Please, call me Airet Cab. I wish to know on which criteria you’ve chosen these witnesses. Why didn’t you call upon any intellectuals? Are you afraid of them?”

“Your questions are insulting, they do not deserve an answer. Please, give way to the next-”

“I am an intellectual,” a loud voice uttered. “My pseudonym is S. Uccoc. Mister Chair, are you aware of how incapable you are? All the witnesses, although lay persons, have tried to enlighten you as to how little you know about such phenomena. And the worst is, you’re quite satisfied with your ignorance.”

A proper storm of condemnation erupted among the audience and lasted a long time. Finally, the speaker continued as loudly as he could.

“Yes, I am a representative of alternative science. And, yes, I am convinced these shocking testimonies are true. And if so, we are confronted with the most important challenge in our history. You, the orthodox scientists, are like little children who never saw, for instance, a nirbif, and so think that horrible monster doesn’t exist. Don’t be equally naïve, for God’s sake!”

A thunder of shouting drowned his final words. None of the following debaters took the trouble to introduce himself, and each of them contradicted an opponent from the other group. The audience booed everybody, irrespective of which opinion he tried to express.

The chair didn’t try to intervene any more. Finally, the tumult died away and he said placatingly, “I understand the indignation of the greater part of the audience — the clear-headed part. Before the conclusion of this symposium, I propose the government should announce a prohibition of spreading hearsay about aliens and similar nonsense. Every normal person knows there couldn’t be any other world except ours.”

The orthodox majority wasn’t satisfied with such a moderate conclusion, so they began to threaten the few supporters of the alien hypothesis. Suddenly, somebody hit somebody else and a general brawl began. After a while, several wardens intervened and took away the most excited brawlers. Then the rest of audience made for home.

I waited until the crush thinned and talked with my neighbor. We laughed at those silly fantasists who believed in alien worlds, and we agreed that common sense always wins. Finally, we set out for home, as we were both starving.

As soon as I swam out of our agreeable shelter, a strong current seized me, for this was one of the arteries. Though I was a good swimmer, I prefer veins and the lymphatic system, where there is plenty of food and not so much fibrin. Finally, I managed to clutch at a wall where I could devour the soft, delicious protoplasm.

I decided I wouldn’t go any further, not for a while. Now was the crucial moment to divide myself into two equal parts.