I wrote this around Christmas for the class, before learning to write a character driven story versus a plot driven one so I hope this doesn’t disappoint. Hope you all don’t mind the length. It’s the beginning of a longer, unwritten piece, so don’t expect too tight an ending. Other than that, I hope you humans enjoy it.
Chapter One: Michael Cross
I looked past the shining sphere of the alien craft, up through the spaceport doors, and the sun was bright and beautiful. If only some of its heat could reach the surface of this cold, dead planet Earth.
The extraterrestrial in front of me was small, about the size of a child, with a pink tentacled face and smooth bulbous head. I could see my reflection in its large black eyes, dressed as I was in my green snow suit. I placed the crate of samples on the metal floor afew meters from the space ship's ramp. Supplies were already rolling off the ship's conveyor and strong, able humans unloaded the goods.
"Uchapa" the Squidhead gurgled from its small slit of a mouth.
"Uchapa" I returned the unknown word and we smiled at each other. The geeks tell us that the Squidheads just smile to please us, but the gesture was effective. Its nostrils flared large and shrunk back to two small dots on an otherwise flat face. I took that as a sign of pleasure.
Just then my geiger counter let out a few clicks from my belt. Other spaceport workers had noticed their own devices clicking and beeping. A radiation storm was on its way. The Squidheads would be stuck under the surface until the storm passed. The overseer hollered a command and overhead the bay doors began to close. Bits of ice fell and broke on the alien craft, and with a loud "thunk" the doors sealed us all underground for another month.
The Squid in front of me scowled. What brow nature had given it crumpled with displeasure and its tiny mouth twisted and worked itself. Using one of four large tentacles, it lifted its human tech radio to its mouth and let off a stream of nonsensical sounds. I could see the overseer in my mind, on the radio in the control room, with no way to understand the alien. The geeks tell us their language has as many forms of each word as there are words, making it near impossible to understand. We only get along through mutual empathy.
The Squid finished his yammering and lowered the radio. I shrugged, and put my upturned hands in the air.
"Sorry ET. Can't open the doors now or we'd fry."
The Squid reached out and touched my hand with a slimy tentacle. I forced myself not to recoil from the cool slickness of its touch.
"That's it for samples this time. If you want them so bad you shoulda come before the nukes hit."
We lived in a nuclear winter, one that had lasted a thousand years. They say long ago a fuse got fried in a missile silo and it launched itself. Counterattack after counterattack later, the sun was a faint memory for a planet encased in ice. By the time the alien fleet arrived, it was almost too late. The Squids gathered the survivors and helped start a colony, in caves beneath the North American Ice Sheet. A thousand years later, we are still here, but the planet is not recovering. Without the Squids, we would have perished long ago.
What they did with the samples we brought them was a mystery. We trekked for miles beneath the ice, bringing back samples of what life we found. We traded it to the Squids for supplies: hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen for the algae farms. You'd be surprised what the geeks can make algae taste like.
Due to the natural amiability of our two races, we live symbiotically. The geeks say that the large eyes and head of the aliens makes them look cute, fooling the human brain into caring and cooperation. Either way, it works.
Human life goes on. There are about a million of us in the colony. There are farmers, writers, geeks, doctors, they all live, shit, and die down here in the hole. I am a ranger. I collect frozen samples from the ice deep in the caves.
Recently my crew found a frozen town deep under the ice. As I returned to the colony that day I wondered how damaged the DNA samples were, and if the geneticists could clone me a copy of the tabby cat I had found encased in ice. They geeks store the genetic information of the samples we find in computers hoping that someday we will clone extinct life and repopulate the Earth.
With the samples passed off to the alien, my job was done for the day. Back at my quarters, I peeled off my snow suit and turned to the computer that was built into the wall. I had twenty thousand credits. I made an order of synth-a-food to pick up the next day, and thumbed through the news headlines. "scientists achieve breakthrough DNA repair," "ET guests stuck planetside," and "Planet core temperature dropping. Is Earth dead for good?" and "Spacetravel: getting off this lifeless rock."
They were always talking about space travel, always just on the verge of a scientific breakthrough that would could change the planet. I turned off and went to sleep, the sun bright in my mind.
That night I walked through lush garden valleys like I had only seen in books, over mountaintops and past gushing waterfalls. Then I was in a water craft, racing over a liquid lake in the sunlight. I reached down over the side into the crystal water, it sprayed into the air like a thousand diamonds. I felt fear. Something was in the water.
That day was my day off. As I lay in bed that morning a knock came at the door.
"Who is it?" I groaned, not loudly enough as the knock came again. This time i wrapped the sheet around myself and came to the corridor portal. I opened it and found a cute brunette patrolwoman in full outfit.
"Whatever happened it wasn't me. Look officer Ive been taking my medication-" I started to say but she interrupted.
"Oh no there's been no trouble. This isn't about that. Actually it's quite exciting!"
"I'm excited too," I said sarcastically, "what is it?" I groaned and rubbed my eyes under the bright LEDs of the metal corridor.
"It's the first time anything like this has happened. You'll have to come with me,” she said distractedly.
"Just a second, let me put on some clothes." I closed the door in her face. I threw on my alga-fiber clothing and snowsuit and thought about my last encounter with police, my diagnosis as schizopolar and subsequent hospitalization in the mental ward. I had crashed my mobile right into the patrol station because I thought my ex-girlfriend was chasing me riding a broomstick. One thing’s for sure it was a good way to get well known by the police. If this wasn't a medication check and she wasnt my probation officer, what was this all about?
I thumbed the portal control and entered the hallway.
"First we'll take the elevator to central control."
Central control?
"What for?"
"The ETs have requested to see you."
"How did they communicate that desire?"
"One of them drew a picture of you."
I wondered why me as we walked. Several cold metal hallways later, we took the elevator to central control. As it opened into the main hallway an ugly pockmarked man greeted us. The cute brunette who had disrupted my sleep stepped back into the elevator and disappeared behind its doors. Without introducing himself, the ugly man led me by the arm down the hallway, through some checkpoints, and into a stark white empty room with a table.
"Wait here." The door closed behind me. One wall was covered with a large mirror. I waited several minutes and then the door popped open and in came the pockmarked man again whose skin was riddled with scars. He seated himself across from me, looked at the mirror, and then at the papers in his hand. He smiled.
"Do you know why you're here?"
"Yes, the aliens stuck land-side have requested me.”
"Not only that. They've invited you into their spaceship."
"They're probably just pissed about being stuck planetside. You know how it is with the Squids, schedules, shedules and time tables and more schedules."
"You have a unique opportunity here to do something for your country."
"My country?" Home is multinational my inner voice reminded me.
"What we'd like you to do while you're in there is quite simple. Just take photos of their technology while you’re inside the Squid’s craft.”
I was starting to feel uncomfortable.
"Won't that piss them off?"
"The camera is organic so their technology won't detect it. Just take a few photos and everything will be fine."
I felt uneasy.
"The camera will connect to your brainstem and record through your eyes. It has to be surgically inserted so... Come in boys. You might feel a little pinch." Two gorilla sized men entered the room.
I freaked the shit out. i picked up my chair and beaned the ugly man in the head pretty well before they chloroformed me.
When I came to, I was in my bed. Had it all been a dream? I touched the back of my neck. There was nothing there but smooth skin. A knock at the door startled me. It was deja vous.
I put on my snowsuit and equipment belt and answered the door. It was the brunette cop.
"Hi sir. The aliens have requested to see you. You'll have to come with me."
"Sure thing, I just-" I smashed her hard on the head with my geiger counter and she was down. Was I going crazy again? I fell over her into the hallway and ran down the corridor in a panic, towards the spaceport. Afew long corridors and sets of stairs later and I emerged into the great subterrainean dome, and the alien craft was there. No one was around because of the radiation storm. I made my way to the silvery sphere's portal and banged my fist against it. Nothing happened.
Suddenly there was shouting and the sound of running feet. The hatch of the ship began to lower itself with agonizing slowness and I threw myself onto it as soon as I was able. It began to close and I entered the spaceship. A bullet bounced off the hull of the ship and suddenly it was vibrating around me. An escalator delivered me to what I could only guess was a circular elevator.
It was, and it lifted me into a room that was much larger than the craft seemed to be from the outside. Ten squids were in a circle of pilot's chairs around me, and I could see SWAT teams on the video displays setting up blockades below the craft. We appeared to be hovering in the middle of the spaceport.
"What's this all about? Am I losing it?"
"You're fine. Please be calm." The alien had spoken English. That was one of the less surprising things that had happened that morning.
"Whats going on?"
The aliens shared glances and whispered to each other. Then the whispering stopped, and one of them approached me holding a small silver orb. It was identical to the spaceship I had just entered. Seemingly on it's own the orb opened and revealed something I didn’t recognize that smelled edible.
"Would you eat a sandwhich? Are you hungry?"
"A sand-what?" I gazed at the strange food. Suddenly I felt quite peckish and the sand-what looked good enough to eat.
"So I just attacked a cop and come down here to eat a sand-what?"
"Partly." said the lead Squid.
“Was last night a dream?”
“Yes.”
What would you have done in my situation? I marched up to the sand-what and grasped it with both hands and took a big bite. I chewed and swallowed. It sure beat the nutri-algae.
"Is that it?"
"Now we wait," said the Squid.
"Wait for what?"
"To see if you will live."
I took another bite of the sand-what.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"We have been collecting samples from your planet for a long time, since our first scouts happened upon this solar system and saw your race evolving from apes. Our work with the samples is finished. We have prepared a new Home for your race, on Mars, where verdant hills await. We have done all this in secret, repairing the damaged DNA of the samples with ET organism DNA. We only hope the ecogenetic system of animals and plants is organically compatible with your own."
I looked down at the sand-what as I swallowed a bite.
"Why do I feel expiramented on?"
One of the Squids came close to me with a small device in his hand. Several electrodes ran from his head to the device. He pasted a couple of them onto my body in different areas and we waited. He said, in English for my benefit,
"All systems nominal."
I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Your race will finally help us get off the planet? To Mars?"
"Do you think we will hand Gaea's daughter to the likes of your earthly government? The premonition you had this morning is only a small part of a larger picture of treachery your race plans against us. Humans as a species cannot be trusted with technology, space travel, or a living planet. But individual humans can be trusted with much. You will be the first Martian colonist."
"Why me? You know I'm technically crazy, right? Schizopolar... Why not a healthy human?"
"You have the traits we are looking for. You are kind and well meaning. A little open mindedness is tolerable."
"You call crazy open minded?" I asked the Squid.
"Know this, on our home planet, there is no thing like a psychiatric hospital. However, we do have many shamans or mystics. Our race is not like yours. The love in our small hearts is great. Before we learned the secrets of wires and metal we knew the secrets of the soul and psyche and the chemical mastery of the body through discipline.”
I didn't think the aliens really understood the situation. I had an incurable chemical disorder in my brain that was controlled by medication. If I didn't get the meds I didn't sleep, and if I didn't sleep I lost sanity over time and would eventually endanger myself or die from lack of sleep. As if reading my mind, the alien responded.
"Mars is attuned to higher mental frequences and should accomodate your advanced brain without the need for medication."
“Ok, I’m open-minded, not crazy. But an advanced brain? Give me a break, if anything I’m over-imaginative.”
“And what are these imaginings of?”
“Other places, other times. Hypothetical situations, a lot of the time.”
“What if I told you that all realities are alive in their own dimensions? Imagine a living dove, from Earth’s youth. It flies away from you in your mind. Where does it fly to? When it breathes, when it fears, what is breathing or fearing? No indeed, the mind does not contain imaginings, but creates windows into a multiverse of infinite possibility.”
Images swam through my mind, of my childhood on the algae farms, of colonists in alien ships headed to mars, and they were given all the more meaning by the alien’s words. I refocused on the present moment.
"Who can come to Mars, exactly?"
"Anyone who signs this contract."
Another silver orb floated into the room and opened in front of me, revealing what appeared to be a legal document written in English on some kind of syntha-paper.
"What does it say?"
"Basically you give up all your human rights and join the Altruuan collective."
"And why would I give up my human rights? Aren’t they like, the culmination of human social evolution?"
"No one has rights in our society. Instead we all agree to respect life and each other. We live in perfect harmony. Copies of this document and explanations will be posted on every computer in the colony tonight. Tomorrow, we take the first colonists to Mars."
“You realize you could get everyone or no one at all doing it this way. The colony will be in complete chaos once your contracts hit the computer network. The legal document should be a standing invitation to get off the planet, not a one night, hit or miss, do or die kind of thing.”
“Unfortunately it can’t be that way. For you humans, a certain size and isolation is important for a colony to maintain good levels of moral behavior… In large societies there are those who would use others to their own ends, to say the least, and there is little personal accountability. When Earth’s population was at its peak, around fifty billion, moral and ethical code was in shambles around the world. 1% of the population lived in extreme lavishness, about ten percent were provided for, and the rest were mostly starving, diseased, or living in poverty or in fear of it.”
We looked at each other in silence for several minutes. I thought of leaving everything familiar behind. Finally, I thought only of the tabby cat, encased in blue, irradiated ice.
What the hell. It beats being on medication. I thumbed some engine grease on my snowsuit and put my print on the dotted line. The alien smiled.
-- Chapter 2: Sarah Williams
When I awoke my first thought was pain. My skull would not quickly forget the blunt instrument and the man who had accosted me. Michael Cross was his name.
A fellow officer shook me hard.
"Sarah, you ok?" he asked.
I touched my head and winced. There was a lump that was sure to look hideous, but no blood.
"Damnit Nick, Don't you know not to shake an injured person? What if I had a neck injury? And didn't I already tell you not to touch me in general?"
Nick radio'd central that I was alright as I waved him away. I used the wall to help stand myself.
"You should see the commotion in the flight bay. SWAT has an ET craft surrounded, Cross is inside it, and they're saying he's a multinational security risk."
"A what? I read his file, he's just a ranger. A mentally ill geek toady on ice skates for heaven's sake!"
"They're saying he possesses sensitive technology… Won't say what of course. My guess is, he found somethin' good in the ice caves, wants to sell it to the aliens. I’m gonna go check out the scene."
Nothing was making sense. Why would the aliens notify central to fetch Cross, why not keep it a secret if there was supposed to be some kind of exchange?
I entered the override code into the portal control and entered Cross's chambers. I thumbed the computer there and entered another passcode. I had no new orders. In fact, the certified government contact, the pockmarked man who had qued me to summon Cross, was missing from my contact list. There seemed to be no trace of the data in my account. The computer reported an error when I tried to manually call it up. However when I checked the server overflow, there was his IP address. I called up a prompt and commanded a trace-route. It appeared the agent’s computer was broadcasting from the genetics lab in Outpost R.
Outpost R was a sample collection station deep in the ice caves and was abandoned due to contamination by radiation. It was about 200 miles from the colony, a mile below the surface of the ice sheet. And someone was there, someone with computer savvy, someone who worked for central but illegally manipulated the network. Someone who wanted Micheal Cross, and didn't want to be found. Are they monitoring my online activity right now? How far does their power extend?
I noticed I had a new email. My security privileges had been revoked due to unobserved contact with a person designated a security risk. More paperpushing to get this cleared up, I thought at first. Then I realized just what it meant. I couldn't enter central control to find the scarred man. I was being targeted. My superiors were possibly in league with the unknown hacker. I decided to play dumb. I wrote an email to my supervisor requesting a hearing to reactivate my privileges.
With no other jobs in my que I returned to my warm chambers and felt curiosity and paranoia overcoming me. It was like a bad fiction novel somebody wrote for their college class. I had to get to Outpost R, to find out who wanted Michael Cross and why.
Chapter 3: Michael Cross
I discussed many things with the aliens that day. Their home planet was a single great ocean with a few archipelagos and they evolved in the shallow tropics from something like a cuttlefish. They were originally a caste oriented society, with warriors, egg tenders, queens, gatherers, and hunters, all physically unique. This created an empire where decisions were made with the idea that the majority and minority achieve perfect inter-accommodation of needs, all roles having equal importance to the society as a whole. Evolutionary pressures, such as the numerous predators, sculpted a massively social species, whose first and greatest technological achievement was a perfect society. Once that was achieved, all things were possible, and their civilization became space-born.
When I asked what punishments there were for criminals, the alien just looked at me as though I were a child.
“Suppose one of us was bent on Murder. We have a bodily organ that contains a hallucinatory chemical. It becomes stimulated when the brain is malfunctioning. The chemical releases, causing a hibernation state. In this state, the individual’s consciousness rests. When the individual awakens, any imbalances in his mind and emotions are gone. The hallucinogen could be adapted and synthesized for use with humans.”
“So… Your race’s moral decisions are left up to a built-in organ that regulates your behavior?”
“If humans were were not interested in murdering each other, no matter what the cause of this disinterest, I have no doubt they would find other ways to settle their differences.”
I sat in silence, wondering if the human race were risking some kind of enslavement to the aliens. The conversation turned to other areas.
The human colony on mars was already built, in the Northern icecaps of the planet. They said that remaining in the icy environment would ease the psychological transition of the new colonists. All Interesting conversation aside, I was now stuck on the alien ship. I probably wouldn’t get a chance to pick up my syntha-food order.
“Is there somewhere here I can sleep?” I didn’t know what time it was but I had talked for what seemed hours with who I thought was the lead squid. they were hard to tell apart. Did they even have individual identities?
“This way,” one of the squids guided me to a portal and into a small chamber with a bed and large video screens displaying something I recognized.
“Are those… Tropical plants? Like from the
“Yes.”
“And that’s… The ocean.” It was Bright, blue, dazzling, and Infinite. I was in love.
“It’s an ocean, yes.”
“… But not Earths…”
“It’s Mars. Sleep now.”
My eyelids suddenly felt very heavy. I hadn’t taken my meds. For months my nightly slumbers had been drug induced, but I was so tired this night I fell hard asleep without any help.
When I awoke, I was staring at the floor. I lay face down in an alien hospital bed, made of some strange white porous material. I could see a few drops of blood on the silver floor. I felt a shock at the back of my neck, and then I was overcome. Images flashed before my mind, of the alien ship. But I seemed to see it from within, to comprehend it. I knew what made the alien craft fly, although it was nothing I could explain easily.
I was not restrained. I tried to move, but couldn’t. I was scared. A voice spoke into my mind.
Don’t be alarmed. Your government implanted you with a neural magnetic resonance imaging device. Had we not reversed the flow of data, causing your visual cortex to receive input from the device, it would have drained your brain of all electrical activity over the period of a month. You will have more sense-data to deal with from now on, and it will take time to get used to.
I thought back a response. Instead of letting me wake up on the operating table, you could have told me what was happening. One of them spoke finally.
“Had we told you about the magnetocamera it would have detected such and self destructed your nervous system. Apparently your government did not want this technology falling into our hands.”
I was confused. I thought I had merely drempt the episode with the pockmarked man and the magnetocamera.
“You’re wondering how it got into your neck. On your clothing, we found traces of a government developed retrovirus. It seems that your room was gassed last night with the microorganism. Once your DNA was altered, the organ developed on your brain stem overnight. Your conscience warned you that something had happened to your neck, and pushing the limits of human consciousness and psychic ability, showed you a picture of one of your many new enemies.”
I was overcome just then with another cascade of images flooding my mind, pictures of me hitting the brunette with my Geiger counter. She vibrated and sparkled with living energy under my newfound sensory capability. In slow motion I watched the plastic tool hit her on the head, and I could see her life functions change as she passed out. Still on the operating table, I waited patiently for a more comfortable moment.
“It’s over. Return him to his bed,” the lead squid gurgled to the others. My eyelids felt heavy again, and I slept.
As soon as I was awake, the circular portal opened and revealed what looked like a human technology hallway and yet another squid-faced alien. Colors, vibrations and sparkles crept in the edges of my vision but weren’t terribly intrusive. The data feed into my brain from the magnetocamera was causing the visual noise.
“Am I… On the ship?”
“No, you’re on Mars.”
Chapter 4: Brian Slayne
It was nighttime. The chiefs of staff of the colony surrounded the table in front of me. We had all gathered to address the issue of Michael Cross and the alien contract showing up on everyone’s computers. The nightly lockdown prevented any chaos – everyone was safe, imprisoned at home.
“Why let the colonists off the planet at all?” Bob retorted.
“We’re a democracy Bob, in case you’ve forgotten,” I replied from across the large, circular table.
Robert watched me from across the room, with a perfect poker face, silent eyes peering through two slits in his scarred up skin. Our breath showed in the unheated room. Reflected in the metal wall, I could see myself behind him. I was older, burly and grey. Bob was thin, and ugly.
“We can’t stand by and let our neighbors give up their human rights.” Bob had a point. What a snake.
“Granted,” I said, “But look at the rights you’d violate by preventing them.”
“What do you suggest then? Are you going to sign the alien contract, Mr. Slayne?”
I hadn’t really thought about it. As the leader of the counsel, my place was with the people. I had read the contract. The offer was to move the humans to Mars, to a planet with life.
“Is that so far fetched? We have every reason to trust the aliens completely. Our races have cooperated for a thousand years now, they could annihilate us, abduct us, let us starve. Instead they have gone out of their way to insure our survival on near our own terms. We have every reason to expect a continuance of this beneficial relationship.”
“So you would have us give up our sovereignty as a race, indeed our individual sovereignty, to abide by the whims of an alien race who claim to have a perfect society? They didn’t explain how this society works in the least.” Bob smiled with self satisfaction at his own remark.
“A thousand years ago, people from across the world collaborated to make this colony what it is today. People who were very different from each other. As different as we are from the aliens, it makes sense that we join something greater than ourselves. We have no future on this lifeless planet.”
“So you suggest we just give up. Let the aliens have the stolen technology, let them take over the human race.”
“Now you’re blowing things out of proportion. If you had read the contract you would realize it is revocable so long as a working colony remains here. Any colonist who doesn’t like the Altruuan’s ways can reassume his human rights and return to Earth. The government should encourage people to think carefully tonight and make the choice that is best for them. Send out a bulletin not to be alarmed and that we endorse the alien contract. In addition, send the SWAT team in the spaceport home and issue an apologetic, uh, drawing to the aliens for the idiot who fired at their ship, whom I want suspended. Additionally, assemble a transition team that will join the colonists on Mars. In the morning, I want Michael Cross, off that ship and in my office for a friendly chat. If he has any stolen technology, we’ll find out then. Make it so.”
Chapter 5: Sarah Williams
That night the ET’s offer hit everyone’s home computers. They were all the same: A one use, two way ticket to Mars. I leaned forward slightly to speak into the computer’s microphone.
“Mom, have you looked at the contract? I’m going. What’s dad saying?”
“He… He wants to stay. We want to stay.”
“I can’t believe you! I know you want off this frozen rock, just tell him it’s the way it’s got to be!” I practically shouted into the microphone. There was silence for a long moment.
Finall, I could hear her lean away from the microphone and yell into the next room.
“Harold, I want off this god-awful frozen rock and that’s the way it’s got to be! And you’d better take me goddamnit!” she finished in complete seriousness.
“Mom, I didn’t expect… What’s he say?”
“I think he shit his pants. Looks like we’re going to Mars.”
I thanked the technology gods for the closed circuit microphone system, impossible to tap or listen in on from outside the colony.
“Mom, I’m in some trouble.”
“Oh no, what’s happened, I told-“
“You know Michael Cross, from the news? In the ET craft? There’s something strange going on. They’re saying he’s a security risk but he’s just a nobody, and then someone was playing with the computer system, someone in Outpost R.” Mother let out a big sigh. She knew me too well.
“So you’re headed to Outpost R?”
I gave her a long moment to think about arguing with me.
“You can take our mobile, but the rooms are locked, hon, with curfew and all.”
“See you in ten minutes. Bye.”
Getting out of the room was the least of my worries. I quickly grabbed my pistol, Geiger counter, and radio.
I keyed into the door that there was sensor failure and a fire. It popped open with hesitation, and I was through in an instant, jogging down the corridor and towards the stairs that would take me to Residential Zone B where my parents lived.
(Goes to outpost R)
Chapter 6: Micheal Cross (considers returning to earth… explores new colony)
Character list:
Michael Cross
Brian Slayne
Sarah Williams
Nick
Pockmarked Man - Robert
