THEY ' RE MADE OUT OF MEATThey ' re made out of meat . Meat ? Meat . They ' re made out of meat . Meat ? There ' s no doubt about it . We picked up several from different parts of the planet , took them aboard our recon vessels , and probed them all the way through . They ' re completely meat . That ' s impossible . What about the radio signals ? The messages to the stars ? They use the radio waves to talk , but the signals don ' t come from them . The signals come from machines . So who made the machines ? That ' s who we want to contact . They made the machines . That ' s what I ' m trying to tell you . Meat made the machines . That ' s ridiculous . How can meat make a machine ? You ' re asking me to believe in sentient meat . I ' m not asking you , I ' m telling you . These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they ' re made out of meat . Maybe they ' re like the orfolei . You know , a carbonbased intelligence that goes through a meat stage . Nope . They ' re born meat and they die meat . We studied them for several of their life spans , which didn ' t take long . Do you have any idea what ' s the life span of meat ? Spare me . Okay , maybe they ' re only part meat . You know , like the weddilei . A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside . Nope . We thought of that , since they do have meat heads , like the weddilei . But I told you , we probed them . They ' re meat all the way through . No brain ? Oh , there ' s a brain all right . It ' s just that the brain is made out of meat ! That ' s what I ' ve been trying to tell you . So . what does the thinking ? You ' re not understanding , are you ? You ' re refusing to deal with what I ' m telling you . The brain does the thinking . The meat . Thinking meat ! You ' re asking me to believe in thinking meat ! Yes , thinking meat ! Conscious meat ! Loving meat . Dreaming meat . The meat is the whole deal ! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over ? Omigod . You ' re serious then . They ' re made out of meat . Thank you . Finally . Yes . They are indeed made out of meat . And they ' ve been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years . Omigod . So what does this meat have in mind ? First it wants to talk to us . Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe , contact other sentiences , swap ideas and information . The usual . We ' re supposed to talk to meat . That ' s the idea . That ' s the message they ' re sending out by radio . ' Hello . Anyone out there . Anybody home . ' That sort of thing . They actually do talk , then . They use words , ideas , concepts ? Oh , yes . Except they do it with meat . I thought you just told me they used radio . They do , but what do you think is on the radio ? Meat sounds . You know how when you slap or flap meat , it makes a noise ? They talk by flapping their meat at each other . They can even sing by squirting air through their meat . Omigod . Singing meat . This is altogether too much . So what do you advise ? Officially or unofficially ? Both . Officially , we are required to contact , welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe , without prejudice , fear or favor . Unofficially , I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing . I was hoping you would say that . It seems harsh , but there is a limit . Do we really want to make contact with meat ? I agree one hundred percent . What ' s there to say ? ' Hello , meat . How ' s it going ? ' But will this work ? How many planets are we dealing with here ? Just one . They can travel to other planets in special meat containers , but they can ' t live on them . And being meat , they can only travel through C space . Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim . Infinitesimal , in fact . So we just pretend there ' s no one home in the Universe . That ' s it . Cruel . But you said it yourself , who wants to meet meat ? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels , the ones you probed ? You ' re sure they won ' t remember ? They ' ll be considered crackpots if they do . We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we ' re just a dream to them . A dream to meat ! How strangely appropriate , that we should be meat ' s dream . And we marked the entire sector unoccupied . Good . Agreed , officially and unofficially . Case closed . Any others ? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy ? Yes , a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G 445 zone . Was in contact two galactic rotations ago , wants to be friendly again . They always come around . And why not ? Imagine how unbearably , how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone .