An ambient electric hum emanated from the various computers and research equipment as the scientist waved his hand over a control panel, seeming to fumble blindly until his fingers found the switch he sought. Flipping it, a screen before him lit up, but no light met his eyes, for they had been removed years ago, replaced with a psionic implant set into his forehead. His implant allowed him direct mental connection with any and all of the instruments in this lab, though he was still getting used to it and preferred to focus on one at a time until he could train his mind to accommodate it all, even his exceptionally genius mind could only handle so much.
The Kaled government had bestowed the newest and most advanced technological equipment upon his laboratory and declared him their people's greatest scientist. He had been entrusted to discover any means by which his people could secure and maintain their continued existence. Having been in a multigenerational war for centuries, the concept of total annihilation was as possible as it was daunting. The relentless will to survive was his charge, and there was no price too high or ethic too unquestionable to ensure what to him was practically a sacred duty.
To this end, he had begun work on designing an alloy that seemed nigh unto impermeable by any known form of weapons-grade radiation, but the question remained on how to work said metal into a desired shape. He knew, however, that armor alone cannot guarantee protection from all dangers. Chemical and biological assaults would best be combated by immunity, not medicine, and would not natural immunity be preferable to inoculations? But how to force those developments?
He reached now for a closer control panel, and moved a lever. His seat swiveled to the right as his personal vehicle responded to the control. His own body had indeed been a disappointment, and were it not for the medical technology of his day, he would likely have died an infant. Below the torso his body was atrophied and skeletal, and now completely encased in a vehicle of his own design. Hovering on a cushion of air, his vehicle made it's own electric hum as it propelled him toward another group of machines. He reached toward a green console and slowly turned a dial, the screen beside it displaying waves which responded acutely to the slightest movement of the dial. Sensing the waves in ways mere Kaled eyes could never accurately convey, he "listened" with rapt attention. This device, he knew, was scanning what could best be described as various layers of wavelengths that resonated within and around the planet. Just as light had many frequencies, so did physical things, and he had theorized that either ideas, people, or something that may elicit a new idea might be found if one was keen to alternate wavelengths of current reality.
Though he had theorized that beings capable of intelligent thought could exist on a wavelength not previously realized, nothing could have prepared him for what his device detected. He sensed the life forces of three massively intelligent beings. His machine gave him a visual of three small, shriveled, pinkish beings, waving tentacles and blabbering incoherently in alien speech with one another. He could not be sure if they were aware of his espionage, as it seemed two of them were directing their excitement toward the third, who itself was passionately waving and blabbering, presumably in its defense.
Suddenly, he was quite sure they had noticed him, as he literally felt their minds focus on him. Somehow their minds had not only detected the perception frequency, but had traced it to its source and were reverse-scrying on him. He sensed a general inquisitiveness in their "gaze" and attempted to communicate with them, speaking orally in a room alone, but his words forming an organized thought to convey to these alien minds. Knowing that whoever these beings were, they would not share his formalities nor care for his titles, he reasoned it best to identify his cause for interest and his goal. "Scientist", he said clearly, thinking of himself. "I seek knowledge", he said with sincerity, thinking of his goal to perpetuate his species.
"It is small", he heard an echoing baritone say, "damaged, but repaired".
"It seeks knowledge, but is inferior", said a higher pitched, equally echoing voice.
"Not inferior!" he focused as his physical mouth shouted the words to a room void of any but himself. "Greatest Mind of my World!" he insisted, as though such were self evident.
He sensed a fluctuation in the resonance fields, as though the mental waves were pulsating like the muscle contractions of... laughter?
"Child" said the echoing baritone, dismissively.
"Go home" said the other, and he felt pushed.
The rear of his hovercraft bounced off of a wall-sized computer on the opposite side of the room from the device he'd been interfacing with. He HAD been pushed! What psionic power these creatures had! What amazing intellect! Had they been there, just the other side of a quantum resonance frequency, on this very world, all this time? The implications were overwhelmingly staggering! He needed time to think, to reflect on what had just happened, what he now knew, and what it meant.