EARTH PLAN

by David Sloma

  He moved closer.

  The woman tugged on his arm, wanting him to stay back. He broke from her grip and kept going. Not wanting to be left alone, she followed him.

  He saw an open door near the section of the wall the robots were working inside of. The man and the woman crept closer. Tools and equipment were scattered near the opening, and the humans had to step around them carefully, not wanting to touch them as they didn't know what they were. They ran through the open door and found they were in a hallway that went on ahead. Lights flickered on, showing the way, so the man and the woman ran farther inside.

  They turned a corner and saw an open room. Noises came from behind them in the hallway. They froze in place, listening. It sounded like the robots with their metal feet on the metal floor.

  The man and the woman moved into the room and went as far into it as they could. They came to a window and were again frozen in place, this time with what they saw.

  It was a window looking out into space, and they could see planets and stars.

  The sensation was at once disorienting and fascinating to them, awe-inspiring. It was like they were up in the night sky, which in fact they were. It felt like a dream, but then also like a nightmare as they realized something far stranger than they had imagined had happened to them. They were someplace they couldn't comprehend and stared out the window, unable to move with shock.

  A robot entered the room and searched for them, moving its head around, scanning for motion and heat.

  The robot found them at the window. They shrank back from the advancing robot, but there was nowhere to hide in the empty observation room. The robot shot a fine mist over them that put them to sleep, blessedly taking away the confusing thoughts in their minds. They sank into a dreamless sleep and slumped to the floor. The robot picked them up and carried them back to their habitat, sealing the door up after them.

  The computer monitored all of this, making sure the humans were not damaged. It guided the robot to put them down where they had been sleeping in the wooded area. With any luck, they'd wake up from their heavy sedation thinking it had just been a dream.

  The computer took this as an opportunity to scan them both and check on their health. They were doing much better; it seemed that being outside the confinement of their rooms and given a more natural habitat, closer to what they used to have, was doing them good.

  Also, the computer found out that the woman was pregnant.

  This was something the computer didn't expect to encounter, and it was not sure how to deal with it. The computer knew this was part of the human's biology, but it didn't think it would need to monitor the humans for this, as it didn't expect them to breed in captivity, as most animals it had captured did not. It had seen them coupling together but knew the humans did this for pleasure as well as for actual mating, so it assumed they were not going to have any offspring. The computer had been wrong and having to send that message to its masters was making it worried that it would be reprogrammed for its mistake.

  But the Watchers were not upset with this, as the computer feared they might be. They simply instructed the computer on what to do next, and that was that. The computer would monitor the woman more closely now and take steps to protect her, as the Watchers were interested to see her have her offspring. It would be the first one born in such conditions. The ship would not reach the Watchers before the birth, so the ship was told to record the event.

  The computer found this most curious, as it had thought to put the woman into cold storage, as was the standard procedure with any medical case. But that was not the instruction given here. The computer would learn what this development meant, and watch, and record, it knew. Something akin to excitement flashed across its silicon brain, and it had many thoughts about the days and months to come.

  The man and woman woke up near the pond, their favourite dwelling place. It took them some time to come awake, shaking off the drug that had put them to sleep. It was late morning, and they had slept for a long time. Their bodies were stiff and sore, and they had bruises from where the robot had handled them roughly. But otherwise they were unharmed and found their way to the water to quench their immense thirsts.

  That done, they mated again, not knowing that the woman was pregnant. Even if they did know, they would probably have mated anyhow, as they did like it. The computer watched, making notes of this and recording video; it would all go into the file for its report when it got back home.

  The computer thought back to other missions and the first humanoid man it had captured on a planet similar to Earth. That one was a lot harder to make happy, and it was a lot more angry. The first humanoid man had a similar body to the Earth man, minus the hair. He was covered in thick hair from head to foot and seemed less intelligent than the current two humans.

  He wouldn't stop flinging himself into the metal walls, hurting himself. It seemed he had gone insane, just doing the same thing over and over, until he was bloody. The computer had to put him into suspended animation to stop him from killing himself.

  The computer couldn't tell the first humanoid man's DNA makeup, as it lacked sufficient scanners at the time to do the job. The computer was aboard a much smaller ship then and had more limited capabilities. The DNA scanning could be done by the Watchers when the ship got that one home.

  And it did get the first humanoid man home, on the computer's first mission, for which it was rewarded with increased memory and processing speed. It was then put into a new ship, the current, larger one, and given another mission to go along with its increased knowledge and awareness; it would need this advanced experience to achieve the further goals set out for it by the Watchers.

  CHAPTER 7

  It was time to water the grasses and trees on the ship, so the ship made it “rain” by releasing a spray of water from jets near the ceiling. The man and the woman looked up at the water falling on them. The computer knew this would be good for them, to have another experience like they used to have back home. And it was good for them, as it made them feel more like normal as they walked in it for a while.

  They crawled under the heavy branches and were able to miss most of the rain. They lay together and hugged each other for warmth. The computer noticed their body temperatures were going down and raised the temperature in their area; the computer had to protect the baby.

  The rain also caused the animals to seek shelter, and a rabbit found a spot not far from the man and woman. The area was warmer and that attracted the rabbit, apart from the cover from the rain. The man noticed the little hopper and peered at it with one eye, while pulling out his stick. He slipped from the woman and moved very slowly towards the rabbit, his movements concealed by the falling rain.

  He had gotten close enough to the rabbit to strike, when the computer sent out a warning noise that scared the man and the rabbit. The man looked up for the source of the noise, and that gave the rabbit the opportunity it needed to hop quickly away.

  Frustrated, the man banged his stick on the ground before returning to the woman, all wet. She didn't let him get close until he dried off, so he sat off on his own, watching her and looking out for the rabbit, with a forlorn expression on his face.

  The computer scanned the man and woman at regular intervals to monitor their health and that of the unborn child. The computer decided this was a good time to take a DNA sample of them both and check the results against the database it had accumulated. The information would be valuable to send back and store, and also it might help the computer to safeguard their health during the trip.

  The tranquilizing mist was sprayed into the air nearby, and the man and woman fell into a deep sleep. A humanoid-type robot was sent out from a doorway that opened in one of the walls. It walked across the field in the rain, scaring the animals away, then made its way into the wooded area, climbing over rocks and fallen branches.

  When it reached the man and the woman it opened a compartment in its hand, and a small tool came out. With the tool it
was able to obtain several samples from them: hair, skin, and blood.

  When the robot was done it walked back and disappeared inside the open doorway, which closed over. Everything in the field was still again, except for the rain.

  The humans soon came to and were sore in some places where the robot had taken the samples from, but they were otherwise unharmed.

  The computer, now able to analyze the samples, sent the DNA results to the Watchers, as it had been programmed to do such things right away.

  When the signal with the data finally reached the Watchers, they reviewed the results with great interest. There was something unexpected in the DNA codes of the humans from Earth. The Watchers were genetic masters, and they found that the DNA of the humans had been altered—and they suspected this had been done by the Dark One and his minions, the Grey aliens. These were not the only servants the Dark One had, but they were the most numerous.

  The Greys were a race of slave life forms created by the Dark One. They resembled a premature fetus and were clones with a hive mind, programmed by the Dark One to carry out certain tasks. They were the ancient enemy of the Watchers, second only to the disincarnate being the Dark One himself—but he insulated himself with his creatures, and had them do his evil work, so he was rarely encountered. The Watchers had been in many battles with the Dark One and his servants over the millennia and had chased them across many galaxies.

  The Dark One was powerful but also evil and insane. It was just his way to find a beautiful planet like Earth with its biosphere intact and its creatures in their natural state and mess with them, to alter their DNA to his ends. The Greys were known to have done this on other worlds, and they were the scourge of the universe. It seems they had found another place to infect.

  That would explain the containment shield put around the Earth that the ship of the Watchers had found, but who put the shield in place they did not know; they could only be glad it was there. At least the Greys would be confined to the Earth for now, but sadly, along with all of the wonderful life forms there.

  There had to be a way to rid the Earth of the influence of the Dark One, and the Watchers started thinking about how this could be accomplished. They gathered in their meeting halls of crystal and studied the problem, moving with their bodies of light—they were an impressive sight! They had no need to speak, for they shared thoughts with ease.

  They agreed that the Dark One's servants must be on Earth, and they would send special ships to check for their presence. They would also send ships equipped with advanced equipment to study the shield around the Earth, which they were very thankful was there. Whoever did it knew the Dark One and his evil ways, and had suitable technology to construct such a barrier. The Watchers wanted to find the makers of the shield to befriend them, and also to ask them about their technology, as they were more advanced than the Watchers.

  That there was another group in the universe aligned for the good, as the Watchers were, that they had not met yet surprised them. But the universe was a vast place with many dimensions and was always expanding, so there was the possibility they had missed them in their travels. The Watchers considered that the Creator, who was good, was also mysterious, so wonderful surprises like this did still happen, even to beings as old as the Watchers.

  Further study of the DNA of the humans aboard the ship was made, as now it was suspected that the life forms could have been tampered with if they were trapped on Earth with the Greys, who had a history of doing such things.

  It took careful work, but the Watchers were able to look more deeply into the genetic code of the Earth man and woman. They did find what could be considered tampering, but without more data, and other samples to compare it to, they could not be sure. They ordered the ship to sample the rest of the life forms it had in storage and send the DNA results back.

  When the additional DNA tests came back the results were mixed. They showed that only some of the life forms on the ship had the telltale signs of their DNA codes having been altered by the Dark One's servants. This was evident because certain life forms were more advanced than others of the same species; those that had not been altered.

  This puzzled the Watchers, for it was usually the way of the Dark One to interfere genetically with the humanoid life forms to make them more into animals and take away their higher mind functions so they would be better slaves. These humans did have some functions taken away, but those were more to do with finer perceptions, like the Watcher's own advanced telepathic powers and abilities to project and work with raw energy.

  The humans that had been altered still had their minds quite intact but were made more docile. In certain humans their capacity for work was increased, particularly manual labour; in others, certain mental functions were actually heightened, like logical problem solving. It seemed, the Watchers speculated, that the Dark One was making two races of humans: one who would be very inventive biological computers, feeling little; and the second side of humanity who would be the workers, with reduced rational minds, more animalistic. One thing they both shared in common was having no spiritual connection to the Creator, that having been severed by the manipulation.

  In this way the Dark One could have the best of both from the early humans, a class that was smart and invented technologies the Dark One could use, and then a class of slaves that would dig the Earth for materials to assemble the technologies and put into them into practice. It didn't take the Watchers long to determine the Dark One's purpose in all this: To break through the energetic shield around the Earth from the inside, as the Dark One had already been trying to penetrate the shield from the outside and failing.

  It was an ambitious plan that would take perhaps thousands of years to see any results. But like the Watchers, the lives of the Dark One and his minions moved in much different time frames than humans, and they were in most respects immortal. By turning to the humans the Greys were trapped with, they had a way to create a race of workers to serve their goal of breaking through the shield; a plan the Dark One delighted in with its perversity.

  While the Watchers were thankful of whatever power had contained the Greys to the Earth and prevented their spread in that solar system, they felt sadness for the troubles they knew the humans, and all life on Earth, were going to experience. The humans would not be left alone to develop on their own, as their DNA was now altered to serve the evil agenda of the Dark One, and the Watchers knew this must be corrected.

  A grand plan was made by the Watchers to help the life forms of the Earth and find a way to counter the damage that had been inflicted on them.

  CHAPTER 8

  The message came back to the ship from the Watchers that the DNA of some of the Earth humans was different, and they would have to be studied more closely as a whole to further understand what these differences would mean to their future.

  It seemed the genetic tampering had been imperfect in some cases, and there would be humans who had mutated DNA. Over time, these humans would gain some of their natural abilities back, perhaps even new ones, as their DNA repaired itself, so the Watchers had some hope that Nature would intervene. But would it be enough?

  Why this would happen could only be suspected at this point. It could be due to many factors, like contamination by the Greys of Earth's pristine biosphere and life forms, or letting in of more cosmic radiation than was natural due to the attempts to break out of the barrier.

  Whatever the cause, the Watchers wanted the life forms studied more closely that had been taken from Earth and for a quarantine to be put in place when the ship arrived back at the Watcher's planet. The Watchers would not take a chance at contracting any infections that the humans may have been given by their otherworldly visitors—infections both physical and mental/spiritual/energetic.

  Time passed on the ship's long voyage home, and the child in the Earth woman's belly grew. It was noticeable now, several months along. Both the man and the woman marveled at her swelling state and ran their hands over her sto
mach. They knew that she was going to have a child, having seen the same thing happen with other women in their groups. And while they were feeling joy at the prospect, a fear was coming over them too.

  Many women died giving birth amoung their people, and the risk was always there that this might happen to the woman, they knew. Sometimes there was something wrong with the children too, and they didn't live very long after being born, but this was more rare.

  But another, new fear came over them on the ship; that of having their child born here, in this strange place they couldn't escape from. They still didn't know how to think about the ship, that they were inside a vehicle that was traveling through space, as it was just so far apart from what their primitive lives had been on Earth.

  They did see some stars and planets that one time, out of the window of the ship, but it didn't really make sense to them. Also, they were drugged right after that, so their memories were fuzzy. What they did know was that they were afraid for what was to come with her and the child, soon.

  But they needed not worry, as the ship was equipped with robots that were capable of advanced medical procedures, such as any that would be needed to save the life of the woman or child, if they could indeed be saved, from any medical emergency they were likely to present.

  The ship knew this; if there were only some way to tell the man and the woman this too, then the ship would have done so. Knowing this would take some stress out of their lives and increase their changes of survival. But the language skills of the humans was not very developed, and there wouldn't be enough time to teach them a language anyway; the child would be born before the message could be communicated to its parents.