“Isn’t that doing something?” wondered Kakko. “I mean ‘waiting’ is doing something.”
Remarkable, thought Jalli Kakko thinks waiting is doing something! That’s worth remembering.
“Yeah. I thought so. But the teacher said that ‘waiting’ is not a verb but a party something.”
“A participle.”
“Yeah. That was it. So my sentences were all wrong.”
“But in real life that doesn’t matter much,” suggested Jack.
“Yeah. Right. So I’ve left school now and I’m going to work.”
“Great,” said Kakko. “What doing?”
“Sis, I have to tell you that that’s not a sentence,” said Shaun.
“You shush,” snapped Kakko throwing a cushion at him.
“Ow!” said Shaun. “Don’t throw things at me… I’m injured. My sister broke my leg…” he teased.
“Yeah? What happened?” asked Dzeffi concerned.
Shaun and Kakko shared a moment of silence.
Shaun shrugged. “An accident – we were in the back of a truck and my dainty sister fell on me and I don’t let her forget it.”
“Siblings!” broke in Jalli quickly. “Do you have a brother or sister, Dzeffi?”
“No. Well, yes. A half-brother but he is twelve years older than me and he doesn’t live with us.”
“Definitely not the same thing… So you are going out to work. What sort of job?”
“A care worker with old people… that is, when I get qualified. I have to have two references from people who I’m not related to whose old people I done things for to say they think it is worth me training.”
“That seems harsh,” said Kakko brusquely. “What if you don’t know anyone? It’s, like, you need experience to get a job but can’t get the experience until you get a job.”
“Yeah. Well, loads of people have done the training but it turned out they didn’t like old people when they had done it, and it was a waste of time and money. They need to know that old people who don’t belong to you aren’t going to get up your nose.”
“That makes sense,” said Jalli. “Do you think you will like old people?”
“Yeah. Doing things for them is much better than working with children. You can talk to them and they don’t make loads of noise.”
“I like kids,” said Kakko. “Better than old people. Old people go too slowly for me.”
“I like the slowness,” said Dzeffi. “They seem to like me, too.”
“That’s because you like them,” said Jalli. “Just like Kakko likes children, and Bandi likes books. I think you may have found what you’re good at. Old people don’t mind if you can write or not and most of them are not interested in parts of speech. They want someone who watches over them and listens to them – like you do the beetles. I know what you mean about the ‘doing words’ not seeming to fit. You like the ‘being words’.”
“Yeah. That’s right. Old folk don’t do much but they are good at the ‘being’ things.”
Matilda looked up from her sewing and said, “If you can stay until tomorrow, me and Ada are going into a care home to see Sadie. I’m sure they will let you talk to a few people, and write you a letter of commendation.”
“A commendation from another planet! That will work. You definitely won’t be related to them,” said Kakko with enthusiasm.
“No. But they’ll probably think I’ve made it up.”
“Maybe,” said Jalli, “but I will give you a Wanulkan translation.”
“But my mum will worry if I don’t get back tonight.”
“Of course, you must go back. Then tomorrow look and see if the white gate is still there for you. If it is, then you will know the Creator wants you to come back here.”
“Yeah. Thanks. I must wait and see,” she answered.
Kakko picked up the Wanulkan word for ‘wait’. “Spoolk! Spoolk. I hate that word.”
“It’s a verb, Kakko. You said it yourself.”
“I know. That doesn’t mean I don’t hate it. It reminds me of when Tam got— But let’s not talk about that.”
“Looking after old folk is not going to be your thing, Kakko,” affirmed Matilda. “You carry on doing the hair-raising stuff. Leave the tender care to Dzeffi.”
“You got it!” said Kakko with a high five that surprised Matilda so much that she pulled her needle off the end of the thread and dropped it.
***
It quickly became evident that the alien creatures were alive and breathing in some kind of way. When they removed some of the clothing, a small mouth that had been covered with a breathing mask was revealed. An air supply from tanks to the rear of the shuttle had been restricted in the crash but with their mouths uncovered the creatures began gulping in the fresh Johian air. To the doctors’ and the vet’s relief the basic signs were being restored. He ordered them to be cut out of the rest of their clothing and washed down with an antiseptic solution – although their skin did not appear to be damaged. The vet took close note of the anatomy he could see and feel from the outside. He spoke to a Dictaphone as he went. He was pleased to see that the creatures appeared to be recovering and that the second gradually responded more and more as the examination proceeded.
“I believe these creatures are viable in our atmosphere,” he declared. “And I don’t think that they are severely injured. I suspect that they lost consciousness through partial asphyxiation but they appear to be responding.” He called for thermal blankets and recommended they be moved into a permanent building as soon as possible.
Within an hour, the aliens were in a special isolation ward in the hospital, and within two hours they showed signs of regaining consciousness. The first to wake up was shocked to find himself outside of the craft he and his companion had lived in for many years but was quick to ascertain they were being cared for. He turned towards his companion and studied her. He seemed satisfied that she, like him, was not seriously damaged. He tried to speak. The sounds were strange and guttural and not understandable. His sign language was not much clearer.
Then one of the doctors thought of Shaun. He had just come from the outpatients’ department where he had been examining the progress of Shaun’s broken leg, and he remembered the Smith family’s ability to understand the Sponrons, the previous alien species to pay a visit. He asked an orderly to see if Shaun was still in the hospital. She found him with Wennai in the refectory.
When the orderly returned with Shaun and Wennai, they were immediately detained by a severe-looking security officer.
“I’ve come because I’ve been sent for,” explained Shaun. The orderly repeated the request she had received from the doctor. They were made to wait while the officer got clearance for them. A senior uniformed man appeared and began questioning Shaun and Wennai.
“It’s his ability with languages,” explained the orderly.
The important-looking officer snorted. “And what makes you so sure you will be able to understand our visitors?”
“I’m not. I suppose I was sent for because I can pick up a translation in my head when different languages from other planets are spoken… sometimes.”
“And how often have you had contact with aliens from other planets?”
“Quite often. Through the white gates our family get given… We make no secret of it.”
Shaun detected a personal disapproval. The man turned to Wennai in an officious manner. She confessed she had never been anywhere off the surface of Joh.
“I will authorise you.” The officer almost spat the words. He didn’t like people sending for people without his permission. These doctors thought they knew everything; but they didn’t know anything about security. “The girl must remain here.”
“Fine,” said Shaun. “Thanks for coming to the hospital with me, Wennai. I’ll text you later.”
“She stays here until you return,” stated the officer. “Then we will decide what is to be done with you both.”
“You’re detain
ing her?” said Shaun, getting cross.
“You will go with my officer. Do your translating… if you can. No more questions.” A security guard led Shaun away into the isolation ward. Wennai was made to sit on a chair in the corridor. Shaun was angry but now was not the time to make a scene.
Inside the ward, the first thing he noticed was an odd smell. Then he was shown into the room where the two alien creatures were now fully conscious. They were conversing in low guttural sounds from a mouth at the top of an oval torso from which sprouted four even-lengthed limbs. For the most part they were bluish-green – but they didn’t look particularly unhealthy. Shaun thought that a line of slits below the speaking mouth might be some kind of eyes.
“Hello,” he tried. “I’m Shaun.”
The couple instantly looked at him. He must be sounding intelligible.
“They have asked me if I can speak to you because you might be able to understand me.”
“We can,” said the creature on the left of his colleague. “You know our language?”
“No. It is complicated to explain but I have the ability to hear and speak in ways the Creator translates.”
“Ah. You are His prophet?”
“No. Not exactly. Let me explain as best I can. Then you must let me tell these people where you’re from and why you’re here.”
7
After a few minutes, during which the security officer grew increasingly impatient, Shaun was able to make some sense of things.
“They’re telling me they come from a planet they call Zath, or something like that. They want to know where they are and how they came to be here.”
“Tell them this is Planet Joh,” said a scientist from the spacedrome before the uniformed man who had assumed command could answer. “Tell them they arrived on a small craft no bigger than a shuttle – you saw it. Tell them there was another that landed before them – but it bore no life…”
The uniform raised his hand but Shaun ignored it.
“You are on a planet called Joh. Do you understand me?” The Zathians grunted an affirmative. “You arrived – crash landed – in a small ship no bigger than a shuttle.” The mouths and eyes showed expressions that Shaun began to interpret. They were not surprised to hear the description of their craft and clearly moved by the news of the other craft that bore no life.
“Our planet is in crisis,” explained the male Zathian. “We know our sun is coming to the end of its life. It will soon explode into a red giant. Whatever happens to us, we know Zath will be utterly destroyed. Our forebears decided to try and preserve our race by building space vehicles to take some of us into outer space. They also developed a way to suspend life at super-cold temperatures while we were in hibernation. Over several years it has been tested and works well – but we have no idea how long the state can be endured.”
“You’ve been frozen a long time?” asked Shaun.
“We have no idea – we have no point of reference. The idea was that when the sensors came within range of a solar system with a habitable planet, it would deploy the solar panels and reactivate the computers and defrost all biological life. It appears we have drifted until our computers detected your system and we were brought back to consciousness. You say there was a similar craft to ours that also landed?”
“Yes. Your craft contained this.” The scientist withdrew a metal plate from a clear polythene bag. “It is titanium. It seems to have markings on it of some kind. Does this mean anything to you?” Shaun translated.
The Zathians took the plate and held it so that the light revealed what appeared to be several squares of scratches. The female placed a digit that protruded from her left upper body on the plate and said, “It is a message. It has been put on metal to prevent it degenerating. It reads:
‘I am writing this in the hope you will one day awake on a new planet. Your craft and five others have been equipped and dispatched with the programmes necessary for you to survive and revive as planned. We shall continue to equip and dispatch craft as planned until C-day.’
C-Day is Critical Day – the day when our world comes to a final end.”
The Zathian continued to read.
“‘As you know there are twelve prepared people in the six craft in your batch. We are well aware that twelve is not sufficient to provide a viable breeding colony. We have no expectations of preserving our race through you. It is the best we can do. Our hope is that you can make contact with other races and instruct them in the history and culture we treasure, then that which belongs to Zath will be passed on through them. Your computers contain digital facsimiles of the major treasures of our history. You have been selected for your understanding and appreciation for these treasures, including the priceless Divine Testament.
Brave adventurers, we wish you well and thank you for providing the only hope we have. May God bless you. Brill Peek, President of the Supreme Executive of the United Council. Anno 24790.’”
“Just twelve of us,” sighed the male Zathian. “You say that there is another craft here. What of the people aboard?”
“It landed intact… but was empty of life, I’m afraid,” answered the scientist with concern in his voice. “It contained the elements and compounds for life but they were completely without structure. We have analysed the carbon and can say that life came to an end at least 50,000 years ago… A standard year is 300 days here on Joh. It was probably more than that. It could be millions of years. We identified a star which we call Gax sigma but it is a yellow star. If your star has become a red giant, we have not identified one in the area of sky you came from; neither is there any record of a supernova occurring in that vicinity in the recent past.”
Shaun repeated this so that his explanation could be translated.
The Zathians spent a moment in silence as they did some mental calculations. “That is when life ended on that craft?” asked the male.
“Yes, at least.”
“But we do not know how long they were in cryogenic suspension before the decomposition… That could have been even more millions of your standard years.”
“Clearly,” agreed the scientist. “You have been travelling a very, very long time.”
“Travelling and travelling until we came into contact with another inhabited system…” reflected the female. “C-Day will have been so long ago that maybe many more civilisations will have come and gone around the galaxy in that time.”
“Almost certainly,” agreed the scientist. “We can trace our own species back to Planet Earth in the Sun system but that only makes us a few tens of thousands of years old… Your cryogenic suspension technology is incredible.”
The female nodded slowly. “It seems so. We—”
Shaun was interrupted in his translation by the arrival of Prof Rob. He was carrying a metal plate similar to that in the hands of the Zathians from their wreckage.
He greeted Shaun, then acknowledged the Zathians and introduced himself. “I heard you had regained consciousness and were conversing through Shaun Smith… We have found this stowed in the intact vessel that landed before yours and thought you might like to see it… I see you already have a similar piece. From your own craft?”
His scientific colleague concurred. He went on to explain that they had learned it bore a letter from their president. “This looks like an exact copy.”
The female took the plate from the first craft and turned it over in her digits. Unlike their own, the reverse contained scratchings too. These were light but distinct – lines and curves in square boxes.
“It recalls how our friends died,” she said. “They were revived far from any visible system. They had provisions for only a short time. They spent that time trying to ascertain why the computer activated their revival in a hopeless place. Shortly before their end they detected a faint trace of a large dark object that was travelling like them in outer space… But it was a long way off. They conclude by saying their computers had recorded no change of course which would inevitably hav
e been the case if they came within the influence of such a body. They can offer no plausible reason why the system had revived them early. The last square indicates that, before their computers exhausted all power reserves, they were going to reset the system to bring down the craft when it reached a habitable planet. The craft would then be in suspension and they would die. They finish by saying that they rejoice in their confidence that they would be taken into the divine realms beyond all spacial dimensions, and wish any who encounter their craft in the future much joy.”
As Shaun translated, the female caressed the engraving.
“What about the other craft?” asked the male. “The president seems to say that twelve of us were on the same course.”
“We have not detected any more craft,” said Rob. “Over so many years just the slightest thousandths of a degree of difference could mean other craft would miss our system entirely. The miracle is that two of you made a similar landfall.”
“Can we find something for these people to wear?” asked Shaun. “Like us, I don’t think they are comfortable naked.”
“We don’t have clothes for their shape,” said the military officer, in a nonchalant tone.
“I have their measurements,” smiled the scientist. “I’m sure something can be made.”
“Thank you,” said the Zathians. Shaun had begun to understand more than just language. “We are grateful.”
“Thank you,” said Shaun. The officer intervened. The chatting had gone on long enough. His instinct told him Shaun was not to be trusted, and was about to have him and Wennai transported to his headquarters for questioning, when Prof Rob asked for his authorisation to do so.
“You are here to protect these aliens, not to arrest those whom we use to help us help them,” he complained.
Reluctantly, the officer allowed Shaun to leave the room, collect Wennai and exit the hospital.
Outside in the street, Shaun was shaking. Wennai looked at him concerned.
The Spark (White Gates Adventures Book 4) Page 7