I’ve been in this cave for a couple of days. Not so long that i've given my little home a name yet, but long enough that I’ve memorized all the little details of its charm. I ventured out a little farther a few minutes ago. The being that is outside of my cave didn't stop me. It moved with me as I risked a small peak out into the encampment, but did nothing to stop me and just followed me back as I returned. They really don't seem to consider me a threat and I’m eager to not do anything to change that. The magnitude of what I’m dealing with is starting to settle in. I don't know how I know what they want me to understand. They seem to understand me. They've been content to just leave me here. There must be some point. Part of me wonders whether they are trying to starve me on purpose, but I also wonder whether they know that leaving my pack with me allows me to access my rations.
But the rations could only subdue his curiosity so long as he was starved. The minister put his notebook down and stood to approach the entrance to his chamber. He was prepared to venture out again, so tried to convey a sense of calm confidence as he strode past his escort. After a few anxious moments, he’d traversed beyond the window of space in which he’d have expected the being to react negatively.
He’d considered speaking to it calmly as he passed, but wasn't sure how that would be interpreted. He thought of how the sound of birds in the wild chirping caused him to worry they were coordinating an attack because he’d hiked past a nest, or just chirping to alert others. Huston didn't want him, her, it, to see him as a bird that might attack. It merely looked at him and followed as he moved toward the exit of the cave system.
There was always something unsettling about being followed- by anything. In this case, he was struck by how differently they moved than humans. They walked —they were bipedal— but there was something about their gait that seemed different and made him feel primitive as it strode in his wake.
Finally he emerged. Amidst the winds and trees again, he craned his neck to peer at the brilliance of the starscape above. Standing next to him, the being looked up also. The minister inwardly glowed with appreciation as he recognized that the first communication between humanity and alien beings might have occurred in that moment: bonding and sharing the experience of looking up at stars-- different stars than he’d grown up with, but stars still-- through the canopy of needly leaves.
After seconds of silence, Huston noticed a gathering in a clearing not too far away. Looking to the being at his side, he cautiously lifted his notebook out of his pack.
Never do you get the sense more that we are stardust than when you’re enveloped by a night sky so dense that your senses loosen and can no longer differentiate yourself from the kaleidoscope of it all.
I walked out into the open a few moments ago and spotted a good deal of the beings massed around a fire. You wonder when you go to another planet and meet sentient life, if even something like fire would be a shared value- of course it would be shared if you need heat, to cook things, have light-- but you don't even know if they're gonna be bound by the same physical laws. It’s cool here that they are. Maybe that's obvious, but just to see beings huddle around a fire and experience a joy and deep satisfaction that you can understand is a thread I hadn’t imagined. We looked up at the sky together a moment ago, before settling his gaze toward his fellow beings. It caused me to wonder whether he wished he was with them and not there watching me- the alien weirdo that clumsily lopes along next to his magnificent stride. I wonder if he understood me thinking of him as a magnificent strider. I hope he did. I hope that is one of his first distinct experiences of communication with humans.
Nodding in the direction of his guide, Huston turned to return to his chamber and sat down to finish his entry- smiling as he did so.
What we were witnessing looked to be a religious gathering, but I write that only on conditioned instinct, I think. If they are telepathic, they could have been communicating in silence. I was a good distance away but I didn't hear anything other than the whisper of the wind and the light crackle of the fire. They swayed back and forth in what might first be described as a trance but it felt to me almost as if they were rippling themselves with the rippling movement of the wind and fire. I wanted to approach them. I didn't for all of the obvious reasons. I don't know why they aren't talking or communicating with me. Don't know why they haven't come to get me from the cave or why they’re not confining me to the cave. It's possible I'm the goldfish and the cave chamber my plastic bag, and if that's the case I should honor their instinct and allow these sorts of limited observations to organically grow into more. My escort followed me back as I returned to my chamber. Maybe what I should do is ripple myself. There's a meditative aspect of that. Maybe that's a third shared experience from my last few moments- I can share in this with them. I will do that now.
Chapter Two
The minister stood with his face tilted to collect the careening and ricocheted mist of rain drops sprinkling through the needly leaves above. He opened his eyes as the soft clatter of something scurrying into the moment drew his attention. Huston had always felt rain a spiritual experience. It was one of the rare moments when a tangible film of interconnectivity seemed to be painted over the landscape.
Like the alien squirrel, each of the creatures he’d encountered bore some resemblance to their cosmic brothers and sisters some trillions of miles away. It was almost a sad fact, even as it was thrilling and warmed his spirit. Like reuniting with family you didn’t know about but had somehow met in your imagination. It caused him to consider again the weight of his self-assigned burden: which animals should he defend from utilization and which should he merely defend the basic rights of as Scott, determined to make use of their various abilities and dispositions, designated roles?
He’d already begun testing eggs for consumption, which Huston found little room to deny him given that they were afforded free range and that the eggs were unfertilized. But that line was grey. Huston had been asked about his stance on abortion in one of the later press conferences. It was a controversy he’d deftly avoided by pretending the journalist was asking about aborting the mission and then singing lyrics from an ancient Dave Matthews song- as he’d done in response to most questions once he realized they expected him to have such unshakable opinions and beliefs that he’d impose them on other free souls.
It was a lesson made clear: they wouldn’t just be bringing their blood, technology, and bits of culture when they colonized: they’d be bringing all of mankind’s ideological baggage. The journey through space represented the future of the species, and nothing would be staying home.
One of his favorite books as a younger man was on ‘General Systems Theory’, in which was presented the parallels in nature’s patterns of organization and energy distribution. He was reminded of it at nearly every turn on planet G. Some trees were broadleaved and others needled, sap carried energy and nutrients through branches, mammals had fur, lichen grew on rocks… once life forms evolved to gather sunlight and water to survive, the path of least resistance seemed to extend across similar enough environments throughout the universe. There were twitches in evolutionary edgework to behold, though, such as the green fur and slightly larger eyes and ears of the squirrels in the area.
He was interested in observing life forms in less conventional, austere places, as was he excited to meet sentience that looked and persisted altogether differently than the hominids of Earth. These aliens weren’t talking dolphins or car sized cockroaches with thumbs, but they were about as amazing a species as he’d dreamed of finding.
He looked to the small group of beings, Clouds, as he’d come to think of them, as they huddled some fifty yards away. Tongues of flame lashed toward the sky from the mound of wood piled at their feet, and the rain’s insistent pounding melted into drifting flecks as he watched them drop mossy bushels at the edge of the heat. Intrigued, Huston softly sniffed to find that a cinnamon-sweet scent hung in the air.
Having been escorted to the cave by
them barely 36 hours prior, and having only summoned the resolve to leave the cave and set up his tent a few hours ago, it was the first time he’d witnessed them do more than walk or stand about- though he couldn't be sure whether the purpose of the moss was recreational or a utility, and to what depths it benefitted the species. It occurred to him that it might be a repellant, which would've explained the conspicuous quiet of the surrounding woods.
Hours passed before he tiredly cast his eyes toward the small outcrop his tent abutted. Turning to his escort as he stepped toward sleep, he opened his mouth to wish a good night when the corner of his eye caught the sheen of what might've been a dense fog crawling among distant trees. Finally able to make out details, he noticed it was a band of a few dozen of the beings moving toward the fire.
They seemed new to him, but he couldn't feel sure given his lack of experience in distinguishing one from another. There was one, however, he was certain he hadn’t seen before. It shone through the darkness like a ray of sun bursting through a forest canopy. The distinction between its matter and the matter around it was a boundary of pearly translucence - even less distinct than its fellows.
“Komorebi” he muttered to himself, quietly naming the being after the Japanese term for sunlight shining through leaves of trees. It was fitting.
Huston was struck by how the other beings seemed to offer it such reverence. As it led the team back to camp, the beings Huston had been watching gather around the fire again, rippling as they were, having done that each night since Huston’s arrival, opened to accommodate his presence. He wasn't sure where he drew the sense that the being was a ‘he’, but his brief time with the Clouds had been full of such mysterious understandings.
After only a moment, the group disassembled and the leader approached his escort where they stood at the mouth of the cave. Watching with intense wonderment, Huston felt subtle waves of comfort when the leader gave his guard something of a hug- though he perceived it only as an emotive parallel. It then looked at the minister for a couple of seconds in silence-- sending a great sense of being read, of being shared, reverberating through him-- before leading the escort away. Alone at the entrance to his cave, the minister considered the paternal feel in the air and the way the two interacted and hovered about one another as they soaked into the mass around the warmth.
Wiping his face on his sleeve as he turned, he unzipped his tent and crawled into warm comfort. Beyond the tent membrane’s thin veneer of safety, Huston could hear the characteristically soft shuffle of the Cloud beings' movement along the dew slicked leaves lining the forest floor.
All he could do as he lay there was recognize the gravity of where he was and what he was doing. He’d joined the mission because he wanted to explore a new perspective of the same universe he’d always been a part of - almost an immaterial thing because it wasn’t the material they’d always lived around. To bound into deep space and experience the fundamental forces of creation. To explore God. He’d wanted to be there to help the community as they embarked into deep space-- what was almost traveling through a spiritual ether-- and well the depths of spirituality. He’d only dreamed of meeting beings. That he’d been fortunate enough to meet non-hostile life forms so soon after setting out was convenient; that they’d been sentient and intelligent was… perfect.
Feeling sleep’s tug at the edges of his mind, he rolled onto his side and drifted off to the light crackle of a fire that may have well been along the shores of Lake Champlain, in the swamps of Florida, deep in the mountains of Colorado, or virtually any other place he’d been a million miles away. Places he’d been with family and friends. Fleeting images and colors rushed through his subconscious as his mind played in the space between planes- his spirit finding an old friend, whose soul cast a slobbery, big-eared, smiling face into view. Clear scenes of a house he’d lived at melded with elements of other houses to form an unrecognizable compound he knew to be a collective home shared with this friend. In the world beyond the boundaries of common perception, a collective home he knew they shared still. Moments passed in what would later feel like fleeting flashes as the planet’s moon descended from the deep of night, Huston neither stirring nor lifting from his sleep.
It was several hours before he woke, excitement rushing back as he lay sleepily awash in the frenzied calm of morning. Birds raced through the canopy above and the cool moisture-laden wind whispered across parts of him not covered by sleeping bag. He rested on an elbow to reach for his comm unit. The weight of having not called Scott about the alien beings rushed back to him too- all the more pressing now that he'd received an early morning message from the Chief Planetary Officer. Huston wasn't prepared to return to Port Wallace yet, but he was comfortable enough with what he felt from the Cloud beings that he knew it was time to inform the colony.
His concern had been that the aliens could've been largely driven by instinct and that alerting Scott would only lead to the colony’s defenses being raised such that it might be a destructive influence on their first encounter- particularly if it were a surprise. Now he knew they were more deliberate, and felt that he might've been wrong in his decision anyway. If the colony anticipated a possible encounter and felt safely entrenched, it might've contributed to a peaceful reception of the potential threat.
Regardless, his faith in letting the water settle had long been rewarded, and even if he'd been wrong, he’d set his unit to send a pre-recorded message to Scott in the event that he didn't turn the timer off each night, and he’d sent a message to Scott the previous day, telling him that he was ok but not ready to come back- for reasons he couldn’t explain yet.
Huston waited for a moment to let a gust of morning breeze rush against the side of his tent before pressing play.
“Huston, this is Scott, for reference this is day 19 since the first establishment of our colony. Listen, we need you to come back-- I need you to come back. Just as in the past, your desire to go it alone is jeopardizing our chances to actually work together...I suppose it's a familiar situation, really, once again you have your flight and I’m trying to reel you in. Just like Radio Tashkent. Truth be told, I think we actually are on the same page this time. Now, the situation in Port Wallace remains pretty delicate. It is still under construction and we are now behind schedule on the solar orbiter and advanced assembly is having trouble producing spare parts for the Hound Dog. Wallace himself is still in stasis and the doctors really don't know what they're gonna do to bring him out of that yet. Cooper is still watching over him, but he’s coming down next week. Hopefully he can tell us more.
I can't have people running off. It's not like the old days where the State Dept was always ready, half the time begging, to get you out when the trouble started. I can't afford to lose you or anyone. It's not just about you, but about anybody who might be motivated to follow in your footsteps to go do their own thing- the people I’d have to send out to help if something went wrong. There’s a lot to this planet that we don't know about. A whole lot. Listen, I need you to get back into that mindset of Radio Tashkent- to tune into that tonight and get back to me. Hope to see you soon.”
The message was concerning. Everything was fine when he’d left the colony. Scott’s tone, language, and haste was as uncharacteristic as it was unfitting the circumstances. Something was wrong at the colony. He would need to ‘tune in’ to Radio Tashkent that night- a reference by Scott to another time, when they’d used short-wave radio in Kazakhstan to effectively communicate in private. The CPO had the mechanism installed on their mobile devices for a situation like this. But what was the situation? Had some competitor advanced Wallace’s lightspeed tech and caught up with them? Was it a state government? Why privately? Some internal factions fomenting dissent?
It was starting to affect him that he was so far from Port Wallace. It didn’t feel like a mistake to continue pursuing knowledge of the aliens. All he could do was be sure to be available that evening as Scott asked, and to have his observations and thoughts organ
ized.
On that front, it’d been interesting to try and discern their nature by observation alone. Huston knew it wouldn’t be fair to them to use his own cultural baseline for interpreting anything he saw but he believed there were some patterns he could comfortably speculate about.
Day 20- morning
This is day 4 that I’ve been with the beings. I still haven’t heard them make noises that I can distinguish as phonetic language. That doesn’t mean they don’t have it, obviously.
I also still can’t presume gender or sexuality. In their adornments or physical makeup, there’s little to differentiate one from another in class or role- save for the density of their respective boundaries (which may be a product of age), the obvious respect paid to the leader, and these long bows carried by the retinue closest to him. Further, whereas only a few of those I’ve been with to this point wear bits of cordage and/or are laden with satchels full of things gathered, each of the new arrivals are so outfitted. They are also among the tallest and faintest of the Clouds.
It’s the next morning now. Whatever this temporary encampment was meant for has apparently been accomplished and the beings seem to be preparing to set off. I get the sense that I’m invited to follow them when they leave, or at least that I'm not not invited. I need to see these beings’ home- to know more.
Stuffing his book back into his bag, he laced up his boots and crawled out. The forest air was beset with thick fog as the moisture collecting at the valley floor responded to spring’s first exhales.
“Hello” he said bemusedly as he got to his feet- finding his escort idly standing next to the clothes he'd hung to dry. He tried to send an image of a sunrise, but had no idea how to do such a thing beyond just envisioning a sunrise, so did it fleetingly.
Still Human- Planet G Page 2