They found it in the ruins. It called itself a “she”, but there was no way to tell. There were no obvious genitalia on the thing. The eggs were externally fertilised, the thing explained very calmly, despite the chains. The eggs are laid and then the males fertilise them. This is how it explained. They decided to keep it as an “it”, however, because giving it a gender gave it some sort of identity. Right now they were barely comfortable with the fact that it could speak their language.

There were a number of reasons this was so troubling. One of the top reasons was because it had a habit of talking about things they didn’t particularly like to listen to. Another was that it should have been impossible for it to speak their tongue – not just anatomically, but because it had been discovered in ruins that were thousands of years old, and were created by an ancient, long-dead civilisation. It should have been dead and yet here it sat calmly in the undisturbed dust and dirt and ancient, barely-breathable air, talking. Talking a language its entire anatomy should have made impossible.

Occasionally, it smiled.

So they brought it back, back to their ship, and they ran tests on it. They kept it sedated or caged at all times, but it did not seem too perturbed by their tests. It smiled and closed its eyes, as if it enjoyed the needles and the tissue samples and the scans and pokes and prods and constant, constant questions.

“How do you speak?”

“What did you live on?”

“What did you evolve from?”

“What are your regenerative properties?”

“How long do you live?”

“Where did you come from?”

But always, always, they came back to the same question. The same furrowed brows, the same failure to understand. She smiled and nodded and answered their questions amiably enough, but always they failed to listen. Always they failed to understand the answers they were given.

“How do you exist?”

It was pure misunderstanding, pure mystification, pure bewilderment, a total and utter lack of understanding. How, they always asked, how do you exist?

I exist, it would always answer, the slithering voice thick with accent.

But how?

They always returned to the same question. They always looked at the scans of its organs, always studied the blood samples and the scales it shed for them, and they studied them endlessly. All logic pointed out that it shouldn’t exist. That it was simply impossible for this thing to sit in their laboratory, cool as a cryogenic cucumber, and go on existing.

Eventually they acknowledge her gender. Eventually they acknowledge the name she gave them. Eventually they acknowledge the answers she gave to all their questions. But never were they satisfied with the answer she gave to the question, the endless question, of how she could possibly exist.

Finally, one day, tired of running in circles, she looked at them. Her scaly gold-edged lids lowered over her unsettling gold eyes and she studied them with endless care, as they had studied her. She smiled, clearly thinking over the question with more care than she had ever previously shown. Finally, her scaly lips sliding up over her needle-thin fangs in an unsettling half-smile, she seemed to come to a conclusion.

They waited, excitement creeping up behind them. This was what they had waited for, more than anything. The answer to this question, which they knew she knew, and only she could answer. This was it.

She nodded, slowly closing her eyes, and opened her mouth to speak. It was a moment of historical significance – they could feel it. And then she told them…

I think, therefore I am.

After that she smiled with immeasurable smugness.

*

How do you exist?

They ask her again and again and again. Always she answers them, and they fail to understand. They would never understand. Once, just to annoy them, she quotes one of their ancient philosophers, and then enjoys their outraged scowls and glowers as they shuffled away.

They would never understand. But she is tired now, and so she quietly tells them she will try to explain, one last time. If they do not understand this time, she tells them in that continuous hiss, they will never know. These are her conditions, she explains, and they nod eagerly, but a little bit sceptically because they had hoped before, and it did not end well.

So now they all stand and they watch her with suspicious gazes, and she gazes back amicably and smiles.

What is relativity? She asks them this, in her slow, accented voice. How do you Earth scientists explain this concept?

You stand on a boat, she continues, for she does not want them to answer. She does not want them to make a fool of themselves. Instead, she explains herself. You stand on a boat, and the boat rocks in the water. The boat sways. But does it? Is it the boat that sways, or the sea?

Both, one of them points out, aggravated.

She smiles.

Neither, she argues, for it is all relative.

She pauses, and they see that perhaps there is an explanation. So they stand in bated breath, waiting for it. She asks them another question.

What is the definition of solipsism?

It is the belief that nothing, not in this whole universe, is certain, except your own existence.

She smiles as she tells them this. Now it is she who is asking the endless, endless questions. They do not answer as she did, they do not smile and close their eyes lazily and answer them patiently. They shift their weight around and cough impatiently and wait for her to Get To The Point.

What is logic?

Logic is a lie, she tells them, and because they are scientists they all scowl.

The sky is blue, you say. This is what she tells them. The sky is purple, I say. Who is right? You say you are, for we all see with our own eyes that the sky is blue. You are right, logically. But then I argue, what about animals that see only black, white and grey? What about the man who is colour blind and sees another colour we could not dream of instead? What of the blind man who does not see the sky at all, only the endless emptiness of his disease?

Logically, we are both wrong. The sky is not blue. The sky is light and atmosphere and a complete and utter lie. Logic fails, and so logic is a lie. Logic means nothing. Nothing is certain, not that the ocean is swaying or that the boat is swaying.

But I exist. This is certain to me.

It is a word that is a noise. We make up words, and others say that it isn’t a word. We argue, ah yes, but you understood the meaning behind it, didn’t you? The difference between a word and a noise is meaning. If it is not a word, then it is a noise, and if it is a noise, then it would have no meaning and you would not understand what I had said. But you did, because you knew the meaning behind the word, and so it is not a noise, but a word.

I am not a noise, she tells them, I am a word. I am not in any of your dictionaries, but I have a meaning.

She smiles at them with immeasurable smugness.

I think, therefore I am.