{{Pause=2}} CHAPTER 2 {{PAUSE=1}}Our First Discussion {{Pause=2}} 22 December 1974 Due to the intense work that we were engaged in at the laboratory of the University, some colleagues and I had agreed to finalize all the tests which would take us to the end still in time for vacation. This was very important as we were working on a new vaccine. The empty classrooms were cold and full of silence. The air felt lighter and the gardens lie resting from their normal activity. While analyzing a cell under the microscope, I imagined that the solitude might inspire us to carry on our labor. While awaiting the cellular reaction, I leaned my head against the window to feel the weak rays of the sun that came through the glass. It was a cold day, but absolutely clear... beautiful. While looking toward the hallway, I saw her! Standing out beside a door she looked directly toward where I was. She gave me the impression that I had known her all my life. As I looked at her I felt a relaxation such that it produced in me an incredible happiness. Emotionally reinvigorated should be the word. And if I had sang and danced it would not have seemed strange to me. I experienced also an undefinable association between her and I, still at a distance. Her presence seemed completely familiar to me. It was as if some thing in my interior awaited her without having advised me. I turned my work over to a colleague and went down, a little to be sure she was still there and another such impulse that I didn't know what, which attracted me irresistibly toward that place. At two or three meters I stopped. She smiled, but in her smile there was no evil, nor any coquettness. It was a sweet look and therefore a candid smile, like one who greets with pleasure the return of a friend. "Good day, professor." She greeted me. "Good day, senorita." Was my response. I looked at her profoundly while she extended her hand. "It may seen strange but to me you seem so familiar, so well known, that I would judge that you and I have already had a pact at a level of friendship." I told her. "Professor, I have come to look for you. I have tried to make these encounters, having come precisely to see you. The strangeness is not that you have expected to see me, but that you would have the occasion to see and hear afterward." "You have come to find me?" I asked, full of surprise. "Thus it is. My name is Lya and on the Earth, as well as in other parts of the universe, my mission is to investigate all types of intelligent life, it’s association with the planet, it’s adaptability, and the biological-social prolongation in it's development." "What are you trying to say? What other parts of the Universe?" "I shall explain, professor. I am not of this planet. I come from one that is thousands of light years from Earth. I am part of an investigative group." "How?" I asked, still without believing what I was hearing. "Yes, I know that you do not believe now this that I tell you. Members of the group to which I belong and I have tried to open telepathic communication but we felt that this could have disturbed you a little emotionally, for which we decided on direct communication. You are an objective and analytical man. It will be very difficult for us to overcome your skepticism. You yourself at the and of all this will be able to analyze with empathy all that I have said to you. We know that you do not believe all that you receive through the bioelectric telepathic stimulus. You are an honest receiver but our intentions would not change the results if we did not speak to you directly." "What is it that you are intending? To make me leave my way of life? I have heard of persons who spend their life jumping from one fantasy to another, but what you say surpasses the limits of imagination," I said getting angry. "So professor, I know that for you it is difficult to believe, but finally you will accept our existence, which is not as brainbusting as the existence of the human being on the earth, or, do you believe perhaps that a being of this planet would be able to doubt your existence still while I am looking at you?" Momentarily I felt confused. "Pardon... I must go to my work." I said in a manner of excuse. "Look professor. Peer directly into my eyes and think of some thing that interests you... or some thing that is not fixed in your cerebral neurons, though being imaginative... to yourself." "And that, why?" "I can know what you think." She added. I laughed incredulously. "Try it." She insisted. I could not lose anything. I closed my eyes and in my mind I began to pronounce the Greek alphabet. "Oh, no professor, the Greek Alphabet is too simple. Think of something else. Ask me a question in your mind." I mentally asked, "Is it true that you come from another planet?" She answered me, "Yes." I could have been surprised, or perhaps she could have made me nervous. Nevertheless I felt profoundly relaxed and also experimented with unusual mental concentration. "If in truth you come from another planet, how is it that you speak perfectly in Spanish?" I asked. "On my world they take very little time to learn a language. We dedicate ourselves to knowledge. It takes us very little time to know a planet in all it's totality." "What do you want or what do they want of me?" I asked. "Not only of you, we hope that we will be given the opportunity to explain all that has been discussed with us. Because of our presence here on Earth, many are afraid, terrified. They look on us as divine beings, celestials, but we nevertheless are like you, with some variations. We love life. It seems to us an affront to the same Universe that the intelligent beings live opting for the mistaken line. They express themselves with violence and live in ignorance. But the rescue of worlds such as yours is not permitted, at least to us. Nor are we permitted to defend other people who live in constant bellicosity and live in constant fear of other people through extended frontier lines. Your planet has no overseer. No part of the Earth carries this distinction. That is what we study, we analyze the life, also of planets like yours. We study the beings who possess a short life, like you, for example, and also we study the human reaction faced with death." "Why do you say planets like ours?" I inquired. "Because on planets like ours death does not exist, or there are almost no deaths to speak of." "And for this you have come? Perhaps you are representatives of a new religion for which you are presenting? I must say I am feeling little thanks thinking that I am the victim of some scheme." "No, professor don't think that. In the same manner that you are carrying out an investigation of cellular reaction to obtain, or to try to obtain, a vaccine, in the same way we work to eradicate many similar factors that could prejudice a great number of races which, distributed throughout the universe, do not know or have lost the capacity of knowledge concerning the eradication of antigens." "How do you know what I am working on?" I asked in surprise. "I know much about you. Ask and I will respond." "How is it that there are races that do not die? How old are you?'’ "The cellular degeneration brought as a consequence of decrepitude or old age produces a constant anxiety in the human being. The fear of dieing or to cease being is reflected in the fear that man has of death. Many races have found the way to prolong life. This for you would be a secret that has ceased being such in my world, in which biological prolongation is no secret, but now universal knowledge. About my age, I am young in relation to many of my race type. I am almost nine hundred years old... or nine centuries if you prefer it that way. I will respond to many of your questions, but for now I desire that you meditate on our discussion, that you not comment on, not for now. I may surprise you that at times I am near to you, very near, for now I want you to know that, when our conversation is still telepathic you can sometimes produce it yourself. Our communication will be as direct as you permit." "And if I deny it?" I asked, still incredulous, though no less flattered to be conversing with such a beautiful woman. She looked at me a long time, reading perhaps each of my thoughts. Then she said: "Do not deny it professor, you are educated. The same as I, you try to apply all the physiological knowledge that is at hand to know me still more. You fear that I am playing a prank on you, and desire to submit me to some study to understand my mind. I, professor, could refuse to respond and nevertheless I have come to this, to converse with you about your world, about the future of this fabulous planet called Earth. I can tell you that not only we have been visiting your Earth. There are many civilizations which have done this, and almost all are in agreement that your world is a privileged place. For now, professor, be a little calm, relax, think... and above all guard our secret. In due time we can talk." She extended her hand in goodbye. I wanted to take myself out of all this. I felt fear. It seemed to me that I could be stopped at a point from which I might be easily pushed. Am I the victim of a joke? Who would be interested in playing such on me? Perhaps someone who well knew my points of view concerning beings of other worlds... but, are they reading my mind this way? Speaking Greek also? This was still at the point of beginning... the rest, the unknown, the surprising, the incredible would come with the passage of the months, with the transpiring of years... and nobody would leave off questioning me. Why me? {{PAUSE=2}}