Helium 3: Fight for the Future

by Brandon Q. Morris

  It was a penetrating fierce pain, like nothing he had ever experienced before. It was so intense that it seemed to come from everywhere. Norok had to focus in order to figure out where the pain was coming from. The right wing. He turned to the side, doing his best not to move it. It was easier than he’d expected.

  But now he saw why. A sharp piece of metal had drilled through the middle joint of his wing. Thanks to the suit, the outer part extending beyond the destroyed joint hadn’t been torn off. It didn’t look like the joint would grow back together naturally. It would have to be amputated, leaving him crippled for life, even though functional artificial wings had already existed for a long time.

  Norok was neither upset nor sad. He only registered the facts. The flight suit would hold him together until he got medical help. It was a miracle that he had survived the onslaught. It had been awfully close. For a long time, the cloaking device had protected them. And then Kitok and Lashok had tried to put the magnetic cannon in the beak. But then the attackers had the obvious idea of just firing with everything they had, and that had been more than the flying machine had been able to handle.

  If only they had activated the cloaking device sooner! It had been his mistake. He hadn’t thought they were in danger. Kimikizu’s theory had seemed downright absurd to him. Wormholes! At best, that was the stuff of bad science fiction. But it was also the technique used by the aliens, who were obviously many cycles ahead of them.

  Where was Kimikizu? The fog cleared a little, and he noticed that this wasn’t the right question. Where were the others? The part of the cockpit that was to his right no longer existed. The room had burst open like an overripe fire fruit, its contents apparently having poured out into space. Anyone who had remained here had to be dead. Norok saw several fine lines. He was familiar with these patterns, bullets from a magnetic cannon. This type of weapon fired small but ultra-fast rounds that could ravage any material. The cockpit must have split open under such a line of fire.

  The two seats to his left were empty. Rolok, he recalled, had helped get the magnetic cannon going. The position on the far left had been Kimikizu’s place. He remembered that she had wanted to go looking for the Guardian shortly after the alarm had sounded. But she hadn’t returned. How much time had passed? The screens in front of him looked dead, but he tried to restart the computers, anyway. The one on the far left was still working. He could tell from the signal lights. But to reach it, he’d have to get up.

  Norok groaned. The pain would be excruciating, he knew, but it wouldn’t kill him. And he could not just sit there and wait for death! The Supreme Explorer pulled himself together. He lifted his upper body. As expected, the pain shot out from his wing, making his head explode. Or that was what it felt like. He dealt with it, then stood up, although he faltered. But he was standing. He took the three steps to the left seat, sat down, and looked at the screen.

  The flying machine was descending slowly. The engines had failed. There were so many warnings on their status bar—he couldn’t fix this. But the flying machine was destroyed anyway. No matter, he had two healthy wings—make that one healthy wing, he corrected himself—he could use to fly through the atmosphere on his own.

  But why didn’t they crash instead of calmly gliding? Norok checked the pressure and temperature and was surprised. The flying machine was no longer flying but was swimming, its buoyancy keeping it up. However, this also meant that they must be immersed in the atmosphere. They had only just located this planet and had no density profile for it, so it was impossible to say at what depth it was.

  This made it unlikely that he’d be able to bail himself out on his own. In such a dense medium, he’d need far more strength to move his wings. The suit did have reserves, but would they carry him all the way up? He didn’t have to make a decision right away. The flying machine was sinking slowly. As long as he stayed on board, he could tap into the energy storage units available here. They were designed for a crew of 50 Iks, and these would be enough for him alone.

  But was he alone? In the cockpit, yes. He needed to scour the ship. Maybe other Iks had survived the attack. He’d be especially delighted if Kimikizu were among them.

  The sliding door to the corridor was undamaged. Even the mechanism was still working. The door opened, and an Iks slid into his arms. Norok recognized him—Kitok. He carefully placed the lifeless figure on the floor. A line of fire from the aliens’ magnetic cannon extended diagonally across his body. The damage looked harmless from the outside, but the bullets must have ripped his internal organs apart. The passage behind the door had no holes, so it must have been somewhere else. But Kitok had still managed to make it to the door.

  Norok hoped that this would be the last body he found, but he also knew how unlikely it was.

  Encounter

  The alien moved cautiously, stood up falteringly, and looked around. Tolkut and the entire crew of the Solstice Bud intently watched every movement on the screens that were located throughout the ship. Of course, every Mendrak was anxious and excited to be present for the first encounter with a strange intelligent life form, so Tolkut had allowed the video feed to be broadcast across the onboard network.

  By the time Tolkut had dragged the rescued alien into the airlock and equalized the pressure, there were already three other Mendraki waiting behind the inner airlock bulkhead. Those on board had been watching his adventurous maneuver anxiously. It had almost gone wrong, but just in time Tolkut had managed to get ahold of the alien space traveler that had been hurled from its downed spaceship. The Bud’s crew had taken no chances, and was more willing to let the aliens take control of the gas giant’s atmosphere than put their ship further at risk. It had been the closest call imaginable.

  The Bud had narrowly escaped the planet’s gravity funnel and was now orbiting far above the roiling atmosphere. The Techweaver worked feverishly together with his auxiliary weavers to restart the tokamak that had been powered down. This would take a few more pulses, since the destroyed memory cells had to be bypassed first, and the plasma shield’s containment fields had to be readjusted. So they had enough time to carefully study the alien who’d been snatched from the jaws of death.

  Nobody knew how to deal with alien intelligent life. It had caught them off guard. There were no instructions, protocols, or even precedents. After Tolkut and the others had pulled the alien out of the airlock, they immediately took him to a small storage room located next to it. The room was empty and could be hermetically sealed. Nobody had any idea what environmental conditions the alien needed. He appeared to scarcely be alive. His movements were weak, indicating that he was barely conscious. There was nothing the Mendraki could do for him, so their only hope was that he would regain full consciousness and be ready to communicate.

  The body was almost hidden under the spacesuit, but some peculiarities caught their eyes. It appeared to be an airworthy biped, and to everyone’s surprise it seemed to have only two eyes that, although closed, could be seen beyond the transparent helmet visor. The long tip on the front side of the helmet appeared to encase the space traveler’s protruding mouth. There were orifices, probably for smelling, located on the long outgrowth, which was shaped like a thorn.

  It was amazing that a creature could have such a long nose and mouth located so far forward, and Tolkut wondered what evolutionary advantage this might provide. Perhaps an extraordinary sense of smell was needed on the alien’s home planet to survive. Maybe the beings dug their food out of the soil of their planet with this protuberance.

  The body itself was rather slim and delicate, even if the bulky spacesuit did not allow for a careful inspection. However, the strangest thing was that two large wings projected from the spacesuit instead of gripping legs. In the middle of the outer edge of each wing were three multi-jointed fingers, which the being could probably use to perform clumsy motor operations.

  Tolkut could not imagine how it would be possible for the fingers at the ends of the sweeping wings to do anything
with precision. Nobody had an explanation for why the wings were outside the spacesuit. There were tight-fitting sealing collars at the transition to the body, but no one could understand why the rest of the body had to be protected from an environment hostile to life, but not the two wings, of all things. The creature’s physiology must be unusual, although for Tolkut it wasn’t particularly surprising to find this in a strange species from the depths of space.

  Of course, no one had known which gases it would be best to use to fill up the storage room that had been hastily converted into an isolation chamber. Since the alien had kept the helmet of its spacesuit closed in the atmosphere of the gas planet, it was assumed that a hydrogen/helium mixture was probably not particularly suitable for him, and for lack of a better alternative, they’d just decided to keep the room at the Bud’s standard onboard atmosphere.

  Perhaps the biologists had at least been right in their prediction that conceivable life forms on other planets would likely be oxygen-breathers, just like the Mendraki. However, since all their other speculations had been so far off the mark, Tolkut remained skeptical. He just hoped they wouldn’t poison the alien with their oxygen atmosphere. It would be tragic to have rescued him from the storms of the gas planet only to accidentally kill him on board the Bud.

  The remote scout had pointed out that the aliens had seemingly used their body shape as the basis for the ship that had tumbled and vanished without a trace into the deep layers of the gas planet’s atmosphere. Nobody could explain it. Geometrically, more basic shapes such as a cylinder, a sphere, or a cube would undoubtedly have been easier to manufacture and more practical. The radio drummer had suspected religious or species-specific cultural motives.

  Before the provisional isolation chamber was closed, assistant weavers quickly brought a portable thread communicator and a pheromone sniffer into the room. The two devices were intended to facilitate communication, providing the alien survived the next micropulse. Tolkut doubted that the alien could execute any complicated dance steps for communication using its two legs. Perhaps it communicated exclusively through vibrations and olfactory messenger substances, although he wondered how the creature could perform difficult and complex drum movements with the awkward-looking fingers on its broad wings. Maybe it used the two legs that were still in the spacesuit. He wondered what the alien’s thread organ, presumably also hidden beneath the suit, would look like.

  The Mendraki primarily used artificial threads for communication. However, they could spin threads from the organ at the back of their bodies if necessary, something that had been increasingly viewed as inappropriate over the past 1,000 generations. A civilized Mendrak used modern thread technology and not the primitive, biological method of their archaic ancestors.

  He’s exploring the room, one of the bridge officers drummed unnecessarily. The remote scout standing next to Tolkut exuded a smell of excitement and curiosity. He could see how some of the Mendraki were involuntarily executing steps that conveyed anxiety.

  The alien still had his helmet closed. He walked through the empty room, his steps becoming increasingly precise, and stopped in front of the thread communicator. He paid no attention to the smaller pheromone sniffer next to it. He put a wing around his body and pressed a button on the chest of the suit with the middle of the three fingers. His helmet swung up and folded like a collar around the slight neck.

  His suit had probably been able to analyze the atmosphere of the air on board and classified it as harmless. An excellent first sign!

  The pheromones released in the bridge attested to the excitement and surprise of the Mendraki, and even the disgust for some. With his left rear eye, Tolkut could see his crew performing the steps of anxiety and restlessness. His legs also instinctively wanted to twitch, but he forced himself to control himself to set a good example. It was important not to be guided by emotions and impulses now.

  Send out a message to the communicator, Tolkut instructed the radio drummer. Even if he doesn’t understand it, he will surely answer. If we give the computer enough data, maybe it will be able to decrypt the foreign language. Did the pheromone sniffer register anything?

  No, there are no emanations detected, the radio drummer replied, while simultaneously striking a neutral welcome message onto the thread. The vibrations were converted into electrical impulses and transmitted to the communicator, causing the thread to vibrate. The alien would have to notice the vibrations if he was not blind.

  It looked as if the flying creature was carefully inspecting the device with his two strange little eyes. He was visibly interested in the box-shaped apparatus, on the top of which there was a thread as thin as a hair stretched between two vibration transducers. Tolkut was satisfied that the eyes, small as they were, could see clearly. Those who had so few eyes surely had to compensate for this deficiency with particularly good resolution. How else would they find their way around or track down prey?

  But the alien made no move to vibrate the thread with his little fingers. His legs remained covered in the spacesuit, so Tolkut suspected that they were not suitable for communication.

  On the screen, it was possible to see how it opened and closed its long ‘thorn,’ which was split into two sections and seemed extremely hard, with a certain rhythm. Could this be an attempt to communicate? Did these species perhaps communicate in a kind of sign language using these facial thorns?

  The communicator is receiving very weak vibrations, the radio drummer reported to Tolkut’s astonishment.

  How is that possible? But he didn’t touch the thread at all? he asked.

  I don’t understand it myself! the radio drummer responded, then performed a few steps of amazement.

  Perhaps the device is defective?

  No, I tested it myself before we brought it into the room.

  How did he get the thread to vibrate? Can you detect a pattern?

  I’m not sure. If it’s a pattern, it’s not one I’ve ever seen. There is no denying a certain regularity. There are shorter and longer vibrations that are interrupted by short pauses. But I have no idea how he’s making them. In any case, he never touched the thread. There’s no way we could have overlooked it.

  What did he do when the thread started vibrating? Tolkut asked.

  Nothing! He just stood around and opened and closed his thorn, but he didn’t touch the thread with it.

  It doesn’t make sense, Tolkut thought. How was the bird able to make the thread vibrate without... Wait! Tolkut suddenly had an idea. Is it possible that he’s making the air vibrate? That would explain why the thread is only stimulated very weakly.

  How would he get the air to vibrate? the radio drummer asked skeptically. The opening and closing of his thorn in no way explains the different vibrations we’re receiving. Even if they are only very weak, they are quite varied. Harmonic analysis shows that the overall vibration consists of a fundamental vibration with many harmonics and different amplitudes. What the communicator is getting is a superimposition of different, complex individual vibrations. The opening and closing of the thorn do not explain this phenomenon!

  But Tolkut wasn’t quick to give up on the idea. It might be crazy, but it would explain the phenomenon. Assuming that the being had the ability, by possessing an organ, to get the air to vibrate, and also has an organ for receiving these vibrations—wouldn’t this explain why the thread is vibrating, and why these vibrations are so complex?

  Do you think these beings can communicate with each other using vibrations without needing a thread? I think that would be impossible!

  But wouldn’t it explain things?

  The radio drummer disliked this theory. His dance steps conveyed a mixture of doubt and disapproval. To him, communicating without a thread seemed unnatural.

  But Tolkut was ready to dispense with traditional ideas. The universe had many surprises, as they’d discovered. They had found intelligent creatures with only two legs and two eyes that could even fly! So why shouldn’t it also be possible
to entertain the possibility of communication that was not based on the transmission of vibrations through a solid object?

  It would be an explanation, the radio drummer reluctantly admitted. But I still think it’s implausible!

  As implausible as wormholes were a few hundred generations ago? Tolkut emphasized his words with a few steps of good-humored derision. He didn’t want to upset the radio drummer, but he did want to get him to think. He’d still need him if he wanted to communicate with the bird.

  Assuming your theory turns out to be correct, how are we ever supposed to communicate with each other? We don’t have such... organs!

  Vibration is vibration, Tolkut declared. If we’re able to capture the alien’s vibrations with a thread, amplify them and put them on our thread, and also build a device that can amplify the thread’s vibrations and transmit them to the surrounding air, this would be a first step.

  We could make it even easier! The radio drummer seemed to be slowly getting used to Tolkut’s idea. Or he wanted to show that he wasn’t as backward as his Shipmaster might have thought. We could even leave out the thread entirely, at least on the alien’s side. If we manage to record its vibrations directly from the air by using a membrane that vibrates, we can convert them into electrical impulses and analyze them and maybe even translate them, then have them introduced onto our thread. On the other side, we could feed our thread vibrations into a computer that translates them and uses a vibrating membrane to transmit them to the air for the alien.

  And the being could then detect these air vibrations using its receiver organ. It’s an excellent idea, radio drummer. Build us such a device!

  53rd of Frien, 298

  She was alive. Kimikizu heard the soft rushing of blood coursing throughout her body. She opened her eyes, and seeing only the ceiling of the room, she knew that she could neither be on board the flying machine nor in the generation ship. It was not easy to explain where this knowledge originated. The ceiling was made of metal and sealed with brown paint—the storage rooms of the generation ship looked very similar to this. Still, everything seemed so strange to her that she shivered, even though the air was quite warm.