The Camper: First Contact and the Planet Tamer (The Stellar Universe Book 0)

by Richard C Holmes

  "I think Mister Resident," said Mike quite firmly "I might go and fix myself a nice little drink. It is a wonderful single malt from a place far away where the people talk with a very odd accent. Oh, they also invented the game of golf but I'll forgive them that sin because of their creation of the single malt. Would you like to join me in appreciating it?" he asked. The Macallan was a superior tipple he rarely drank.

  Resident had tried alcohol and it didn’t agree with him at all. It affected his mind, his entity matrix that placed him in the universe, which was a disturbing feeling. "Thank you Mike but alcohol does not agree with me but if you will excuse me for a few moments I will fetch a more comfortable seating arrangement," he rose then promptly disappeared. The panther known as Companion didn’t move. It just lay there looking into the fire paying scant regard to anything.

  "Well," said Mike, "that leaves just the two of us, let me know if you'd like anything I can get for you." Companion looked briefly at Mike then nodded, put its head back on his paws, then zoned out.

  Mike went over to his supplies, found a glass and his bottle of single malt whiskey. Pouring himself a generous amount he ambled back to the camp fire, placed another log on the fire, sat back down and joined Companion in a prolonged 'brotherly' silence contemplating, well, everything. Single malt featured highly.

  As the single malt did its magic, Mike stretched out his legs, leaned back, really enjoying the moment of peace. It looked like Companion did too. Looking up at the stars Mike wondered just where Resident and his Companion came from as he was thinking they really were from the stars the more he thought about it. The disappearing trick was hard to beat. The other thing was Companion. Mike had almost no experience with large 'cats' and in fact his only real experience was with domestic cats and dogs but he could tell and without any kind of doubt that this large black panther 'Companion' was anything but a wild animal. Mike had the feeling that it, he, listened to everything and understood it all. What was the old saying 'opening you mouth only made people sure you were an idiot' and Companion seemed to understand that very well indeed. With a few more whiskeys he’d prove it most likely.

  It came therefore as only a small surprise when Resident returned, walking into the camp carrying a folding comfortable chair very similar to his own. He walked up to the fire beside Companion and settled himself down with his feet extended and his face gently illuminated by the flickering flames as they licked around the logs.

  Silence reigned. At that stage Mike realized the incongruity of the situation. If someone came up to the campfire with a camera and snapped off a flashlight photograph it would not be special at all except for the very large and lethargic looking panther laying between himself and Resident. The whole scene looked like any other campfire of which there must be many spread around the country.

  Mike took a long sip of his whiskey as he enjoyed the moment letting it extend. He wondered what Resident would say, when, and how he would get around to the meat of the whole reason for his being there as there must be a real reason.

  After a while, Mike's mind got to wandering further afield. All sorts of ideas and fantasies went twisting round in his mind. Then it came to him.

  "So, how did you find us then," and that seemed a reasonable question. After all, if there were so many billions of suns and planets in this galaxy, finding a civilization such as Earths in that mix would not be trivial.

  Space was quite big after all. The single malt helped with that thought.

  Resident looked up from the fire, "Imagine you made a device that could transit between stars very quickly, covering light years in seconds. When it gets to a star system it stops then detects any radio waves, just listening. Then it goes to the next star. Now imagine you made many of them. Billions of them coming out of completely automated factories spread across the galaxy. Now, send them off in a completely random fashion with different starting places, keep them at it for thousands of years. Periodically they report back and that is what we do."

  Mike was impressed. "So it seems then that all this is built on two things. Instantaneous travel and also a very good power source, possibly matter transformation or something like it. Nothing else would provide the level of power duration you’re talking about here and also that then makes me wonder about you and your friend."

  Mike was 'red hot' at this, giving Resident pleasure as he talked to someone from another vastly different technological background, felt them absorb then deal with technology he took for granted.

  "Mike, well done. Few could make those kinds of thoughts so quickly. Companion and I are mainly flesh and blood but significant parts of our body are what you would call nano machines, integrated in a symbiotic fusion."

  Mike sat still for a few minutes as he finished his single malt. This was damned interesting, that was the only way to describe it. So interesting another single malt was very definitely in order so he got one and sitting back in his chair posed the next question. "So then, once you have found a planetary or star system with some radio signals where they were not before or you were not aware of them, you do what precisely," and that was not difficult at all. Mike could think of some ideas there but he wanted to know how the Resident thought.

  "Mike, you could answer that."

  Mike nodded, "Yes of course but it is not me doing the survey, I could make some wild guess but I thought it might be nice to cut to the chase."

  "Well Mike, we send many survey devices, millions or more, into the system and take readings to determine exactly what is happening then build up a picture of the system, its planets and inhabitants. We keep that going to refine down to the few planets with intelligent life on them and keep recording and analyzing. Once we find the planetary system and its radio sources the remainder is easy and automatic."

  Mike understood entirely. It was quite simple once you found the system where something was happening. The survey was easy, probably fully automatic. it just took time and probably a lot of it.

  "OK," said Mike "I can get all of how that happens. Quite neat really. The next problem is that once you determine the planet, like earth for example, then you can just record what is happening, setup some kind of data capture devices and then eventually make a personal visit. The real question is, "How difficult is it to make that first visit?'" and that intrigued Mike.

  "Mike, that is exactly the issue and why I am here right now." He looked back into the fire as his thoughts slowed in the memories. "Visiting a planet is easy. We arrive then absorb as much as we can. That takes time. Then we must make contact and from that determine a direction." Resident waited a few moments, letting the fire play on his face.

  "You are the first person we've contacted on this planet, our first alien contact."

  Mike laughed out loud, to Resident and Companion he was indeed an alien! This mirror opposite of viewpoints amused him.

  "Myself and Companion have been here on and off for two years. It has been difficult to stay aloof of contact, to not actually speak to anyone. We monitor and learn from your broadcast transmissions but we can only learn so much. That is why we are here now."

  Mike was surprised. "So you find a lone camper, sit down with him and look at how you have assimilated and understand the culture. Is that it?"

  The Resident nodded. "Yes Mike. We are considering if we should contact government leaders, who we should contact, when, and how to proceed."

  Mike was nodding slightly, "Sure but I have to ask, why? What's your real agenda here? I've not heard any actual reason for making this effort which sounds like it is substantial at a personal level. The effort of finding this planet, of all the devices required with your level of technology, that just means it's probably all automatic. You being here spending time assimilating is a different thing. Why are you really here?"

  Resident sat back looking into the fire, letting the flames warm his face, letting the moments pass, feeling the flames on his eyelids. He seemed to be zoning out as the moment lingered, time stretchi
ng as he sat still. A last he looked up then across at Mike.

  "We knew you would ask, it is a logical question. We are here to observe, to perhaps even mentor," he hesitated for a few moments as if considering it more fully, "to a very small degree, this next phase of your possible development. Your race it as a cross-roads, at a time when it can flourish or be destroyed."

  "Whoa," Mike said as the words reached him, struggling a little past the single malt. He was feeling a lot more sober after that.

  "Some big words there. Being destroyed sounds a bit drastic. I've lived through the cold war when we had enough nukes to make the planet uninhabitable. I thought we were past that." He was not happy the way this was going; from 'take me to your leader' to maybe the end of the planet was a bit of a nasty trip.

  "Mike," Resident hesitated again building the suspense, "there are some things I can tell you and many I can't because they could shape your future too strongly. You have an allegiance to your planet, a duty to see that it prospers so I cannot be too specific."

  "Sure," Mike said. That sounded reasonable.

  "There are things I can do, and things I cannot. Some things will work and others won't. Your race is your race and me and my race cannot and should not interfere."

  "This destruction thing, though, sounds extreme."

  ---oOo---

  Extinction

  There was a small delay as Resident looked back into the fire, seemingly lost in the discussion. He broke his reverie with, "Mike over the millennia my race has been technologically advanced, races have destroyed themselves by not understanding their discoveries."

  He looked sad as he continued. "Destruction by nuclear weapons has happened but is unusual, it seldom happens because the consequences are easily understood."

  Again the delay as if the words were hard for him to gather or painful to let out. "Much more common is an accident in the discovery of matter conversion into energy usually leading to a planet being so badly damaged it is no longer viable. To put it simply, the planet is destroyed by one small mistake. That's the most likely event unless certain situations exist which I monitor, and may within limits, to mentor."

  Mike felt better at that, it didn't sound quite so black and bleak. The next part didn’t fill him with happiness though.

  "Alternatively your planet will be destroyed by an outside agency such as myself if you become a threat to others. If your citizens developed a technology that enabled them to cause destruction or destabilization on a large scale to other races in this galaxy or others, you would be seen as a threat and destroyed. That happens too often."

  “You would do it? You could do it?” He had to ask. It put things into perspective.

  “Yes,” and Resident was definite on that. “Converting a few ounces of matter on each side of the planet will split it. Pulsing the gravity of your sun will make it flare then incinerate your solar system. The means do do that is available.” Resident sat looking into the fire, “Your sun is not large enough for a nova evolution, but we can trigger a similar short term reaction.”

  “Genocide of a race,” Mike whispered into the flames, feeling particularly worried, nauseous, and more than a little disturbed.

  It sounded like the options were not looking encouraging, considering his opinion of the human race as a whole. "So we either make discovery that most likely causes us to destroy the planet or we do it safely then become a pest and have to be eradicated?"

  The Resident nodded slowly, looking into the flames, affirming that what Mike suggested was the case. "Those two form the balance of probability. Your survival is far from certain."

  Then, letting that sit for a half dozen seconds Resident added, "Yes it is one of my roles to destroy this planet should it be necessary. If not me, others would do it."

  That sounded final.

  He cast his mind back to the start of this. The causes of destruction seemed easy to understand. That then left the other option, something about mentoring, and that was where hope lay. "What circumstances are you talking about that lead to us surviving this time of change then?"

  Resident leaned back in his chair, seeming to relax, seeming to somehow lighten up. "Mike it is a terrible thing see a civilization destroy itself. It's even worse when one goes rogue then must be pursued and eradicated, its members hunted then destroyed else they cause much damage to others. We have experienced those things." He closed his eyes in the memory.

  "The human race is at an evolution cross road Mike, a point in time where you can go wildly different ways with many of them leading to extinction. Much of your civilization is undergoing rapid change, where rapid change is fostered. You are at a point where everything you have discovered to date builds toward new discovery. Your health and education systems are promoting your abilities and where pollution and medicines allow and foster rapid evolutionary change. Your information gathering and collaboration systems along with your planetary ethos works toward change and discovery. Never before has this situation existed on this planet."

  Mike thought about it for a while. "You talk about change in people, in our evolution. I suppose we haven’t had the kinds of things that impact our DNA as they do now for all that long. We've got a history of releasing things without proper testing." Sure, he knew that UV and background radiation caused change, but pollutants and diet also caused change.

  Resident nodded slowly, "Yes. Not just chemicals and medicines. Now members of your society who would not have survived previously, do. The weak now survive as do the different, and so your gene pool broadens. The effects of radio exposure from all your transmissions and communications devices, the effect of residual radiation from nuclear testing even decades ago, the effects of impurities or chemicals in your food stuffs all have a real effect. Don't forget Mike, there are over seven billion of you in a wide gene pool affected by random chance from external influences. We have experience in this process Mike. Yours is not a unique civilization, I have visited others with striking similarities. Change and evolution are part of growth. Your salvation may lay there."

  There were no surprises in much of this for Mike, except for the last part. Change through the impact of civilization seemed normal to him. Everything has a consequence, a pay back and he'd always believed the human race was affected by everything around it.

  How could it not?

  Then the sheer arrogance of thinking that they knew everything was staggering! He'd laughed at that so many times when time and again, articles in newspapers and the internet contradicted each other or made new discoveries that to his eyes were just plain common sense.

  "So is it possible then? You believe a new species or sub species will suddenly pop up to save us all? It sounds a bit, well, convenient." Said this way it sounded impossible, but at least it crystallized what he was thinking.

  "Not a species Mike. It will be gradual, as has been our experience. Perhaps it shall be only one or two, a few perhaps, at a time. These shall be to any casual observer a completely normal human but they shall be as different from you as I am from you. You have had hundreds or even thousands of these beings through the last decades and centuries who have not quite taken that final evolutionary leap. Your high achievers. Some of your best inventors, your scientists, your artists have been a part of this process."

  For Mike sitting back in his chair looking into the fire, enjoying a single malt, an amazingly interesting conversation, life just did not get any better especially when there was hope.

  "These other civilizations you've visited, they've been like us?" It was an intriguing thought, something that had consumed scientists for decades if not millennia. Now he had the answer to so many questions.

  "Of course. What works as an evolutionary success here works everywhere with similar conditions. Bipedal upright, warm blooded life is common through the universe where water is liquid and carbon in its various forms is abundant. However the DNA and configuration of that life is infinitely variable. Just small changes in solar radiation
, small changes in the biosphere and everything within it cause differences in DNA. Some differences are subtle, others are not so, such as number of limbs or digits or shape of the various parts of the body. However the base similarity exists."

  Mike heard that and was suddenly feeling distracted. There could be a new species? Maybe a sub-species with some kind of a slight genetic change?

  ---oOo---

  A New Genus?

  "This new genus or species or whatever. You can sense it? Or is it a prediction based on history, or on recent events?"

  Resident looked at him for a moment, then turned slowly back to stare into the flames again. He sat, the light from the flames flickering around his face. "The probability I sense is from both options Mike and also from history on my planet and others."

  Then Resident said something he understood which put it into perspective, "Do you know how a resonant circuit is susceptible to other resonant circuits?"

  Mike nodded, "Sure, that's why its resonant. A bell is resonant at the frequency it makes when struck. Likewise a sound at the same frequency will make it vibrate the most efficiently. It's a two way process, they’re in balance with each other."

  Resident nodded slowly. "Imagine Mike then that my knowledge of what is happening comes from a resonance. My race has experienced this, we know what it feels like and we can sense an early connection. Can you imagine that?"

  Mike understood that at a fundamental level. It was part of his life understanding such things. There was one concern, “If you are in fact an alien, being resonant to a human should pose an issue. Wouldn’t it be impossible?”

  "We, our race, can shift our perceptions to be sensitive to some kinds of person or species or genus, call it what you like. Those that have the qualities that will be needed, we can sense and they can sense us. We can feel areas where this may happen and over time we hope to feel one or more gain eminence.”