by G. L. Argain
Lives Of The Unknown
Book 1:
The Legend of Andrew Lockeford
(2nd Edition)
By
G. L. Argain
All rights reserved. © 2014
Smashwords Edition
No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any way without prior consent from the author.
Any and all people, places, and events depicted in this work of fiction are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to real people, places, and events are a result of pure coincidence and are beyond the intent of the author.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
Chapter 1
A shooting star soars through space at twenty kilometers per second, set towards a specific planet in a spiral galaxy. Many life forms watch this meteor as it passes by—some make a wish upon it, even though there is nothing a mere meteor can do to magically grant their wishes. Although there is a negligible chance that someone wishes for the meteor to strike somebody’s head—anybody’s head—and as such the meteor falls toward the planet and crushes some bystander’s head into the ground. That unlucky bastard was probably outside just so he could take a deep breath and enjoy the sunshine—nothing at all harmful.
The meteor indeed infiltrates the planet’s atmosphere, increasing its temperature by thousands of degrees from colliding with so many air molecules. The meteor, however, is as durable as a spacecraft and does not deteriorate. The ground gives way to form a crater as the meteorite lands into a wildlife area outside of civilization. No one was outside to look at the wildlife for the time being, so no skulls had been crushed.
However, this is no wildlife area found on Earth, and the meteorite is not just a hunk of rock that made it through the atmosphere. This meteorite is a spacecraft—an escape pod, to be precise—that appears to contain an alien life form. The crater that the escape pod created is several meters in diameter, making its mark on the surface of a large shield volcano. All of this information is gathered from within a nearby laboratory, where two scientists of a specific alien species—different from the one inside the escape pod—have tracked the meteor’s progress and used various technologies to determine what may be inside.
The two alien scientists are both fifty-two inches tall, having short legs and long, double-jointed arms that reach down just below the knees. They stand upright and have an I.Q. above two hundred each. They have small noses and ears along with three eyes to see; the center eye looks straight ahead while the other two look to the sides like the eyes of a bird. Finally, they have hairless, dark gray skin. They are really speaking in an alien language, but the English translation is as follows…
“Activate the teleporter, Shul. We’re bringing it in for analysis. Make sure to get all of your tools ready,” said Anzem, the first scientist.
The other scientist Shul hesitates at this comment and looks back to say, “That’s kind of hasty, don’t you think? What if it’s part of a trap? What if it has come here to kill us?”
“Did I stutter? I said get all of your tools.”
Shul pauses for a moment, appearing deeply offended, and responds, “You didn’t have to say it like that, Anzem. I was just clarifying to see if you were aware of the safety protocol—”
“I’ve been working here for far longer than you have! Don’t act like you know more than I do, dumbass.”
Shul sneered, though deep inside he wanted to pout. Although Anzem is a rather critical and harsh person, Shul knows for a fact that he had endured worse words. He’s just a bit on the sensitive side, that’s all.
After equipping his vaporizer—some would prefer to call it a “blaster”—Shul sets the coordinates for the teleporter onto the spacecraft’s position as it gathers energy. Once he pushes the button, a flashing beam of light envelops the escape pod, teleporting it to the lab within two seconds. Both the scientists wear outfits that conduct very little heat and electricity—a safety measure against potential mishaps from operating on the pod. As they look into the alien vessel, they see that the life form is also wearing a spacesuit, this one specifically made for the occupant to survive the void of space and the impact of crash landing. The pod’s mechanisms make various hissing and beeping sounds from feeding water, oxygen and other nutrients into the occupant’s body. A lab computer ran a diagnostic on the creature within the pod, finishing to say that there was insufficient data on it.
“This looks like a Selentor escape pod,” said Anzem, “but this can’t be a Selentor inside…”
“What is it, then?” asked Shul.
“Not even the computer knows……let’s open up the pod and remove the life support tubes from the body. Then we’ll take this guy out of the suit and place him onto the platform.”
“Wait, what?”
“It’s the best option for analysis at this point.”
“Alright, but I’m not taking any chances.”
Ready to fire, Shul aimed his vaporizer directly at the creature while Anzem opened up the pod. According to the computer, the life form inside was unconscious, but Shul did not lower his guard.
“You’ll have to put down the vaporizer for a second, Shul. I’ll need help—”
“I know.”
“Oh, do you?”
Shul pressed a virtual button on an electronic screen affixed to the wall on his left. A smaller vaporizer popped out of the ceiling, its aim locked onto the creature. The computerized system would fire if it detected any sudden movements from the life form.
“How could I be here if I wasn’t prepared for anything?” said Shul.
Anzem looked slightly annoyed yet also impressed.
As the scientists try to lift the suit out of the pod, both of them think about how remarkably heavy the creature must be; each scientist is about two-thirds the size of the life form, and their strength is no better. They don’t have a harness or leverage system in the lab at the moment, so if they absolutely had to take the creature out, it would be easier to gather some more people to come and help out.
“Screw this,” huffed Anzem, “we can’t even lift this thing out of the pod. It’s more than just the suit—that seems fairly light.”
“Let’s open up the suit right here, then.”
“*Sigh*…I suppose so.”
In Shul’s defense, there really isn’t too much need to place the creature onto a platform in the first place. He takes the head protection off of the creature’s suit and, although having seen plenty of other alien species before, felt his heart pound after beholding the life form that lay before him.
“Oh my Yhn, what is that? I don’t know whether I should be fascinated or frightened by this…this…whatever it is, it’s definitely not a Selentor!”
“Ok, you need to shut the fuck up about this ‘Yhn’ nonsense, because there’s no scientific proof that such a thing exi—………um, wow, that really does look…different, I suppose.”
As far as curse words and expletives go, the meaning behind them has been extinct for millions of years for aliens such as these, considering such expletives are often related to religious references, sexual activity, or a variety of crude activities—much of which is n
ot a part of these aliens’ modern culture. However, they stuck as they provided the alien people a way to express their thoughts with emphasis.
Both the scientists bore the same expression on their faces at this point. They had seen beige skin before, as well as hair, ears, lips, and noses, but never all at once on the same head, and they were especially amazed with the structure of the head itself—it looked strange yet familiar in comparison to their own sentient-minded skulls.
“Big head,” said Shul, “It must certainly have an effective brain.”
As Shul quoted this, Anzem took out a device that shone a ray upon the creature’s head, listing data about the brain onto a floating screen of light. The ray did not work through some materials, hence why the head protection was taken off. “Hmmm…doesn’t look like it. See how the cortex doesn’t have that many folds and wrinkles? Says here that it has two-thirds the capacity of most intel-beings.”
“Two-thirds? So is it just an animal?”
“Doubt it—you can see here,” pointing to various parts of the creature’s body, “that it walks upright, has an oral cavity fit for language, and its hands could easily use tools such as ours. Plus, you should note that this is a primitive life form whose body has almost no genetic modifications whatsoever.”
“Less than an intel-being…but capable of intelligent life?”
“I would believe so. I wouldn’t necessarily call it an intel-being just yet, but I’m not discarding the possibility, either.” At that very moment, Anzem had an epiphany and developed an expression of shock.
“What? What is it?”
“Oh shit, I really hope the computer’s wrong on this one.” He looked through both physical storage cabinets and electronic files, but like the computer, he found no data on the alien being. He paused for a couple of seconds before going back to the body with a conclusion: “This creature’s not anywhere on the lists. That means he—or she—is either part of a species that we haven’t discovered yet, or a species that we’re forbidden to contact. Yeah, he’s got to be one of the forbidden species, considering how primitive he is.”
“…Out of the tens of thousands of intelligent species we’ve discovered so far, there’s only, let’s see…fifteen species that we can’t contact. And you’re telling me we just happen to have one right here at our feet?!?”
“I see no alternative. However, we can’t technically say that we contacted the species, and unless the incalculable odds were bestowed upon this fellow’s favor, this escape pod must have been sent here following the coordinates to our planet. This creature contacted us, and to no accident.”
“This is still bad news.” Shul was shaking at this point. “We’re done for, aren’t we?”
“Oh, calm down, Shul, I’m worried too, but you don’t see me whining.”
“The AOIB is going to find out and—”
“Enough already! I’m sure even they will be lenient, given the situation. In fact, call in Juvir right now.”
Utterly shocked, Shul elevated his expression and shook his head while saying, “What?! NO!! If you’re thinking that we should contact the Vice President directly, then forget about it! I don’t want him of all people to find out we brought in a forbidden species!”
Anzem begun to laugh; he thought Shul looked hilarious whenever on the rare chance he got angry. “Ha ha ha! I know you’re scared shitless about all of this, but come on! Perhaps this could be a change for the better! Don’t you want a change like this sometime in your life? Some excitement?”
Shul thought he had enough excitement for one day, but he had also spent most of his adrenalin at this point, so anything on par with this would not surprise him as much.
Anzem added, “I’d rather see what happens next than spend another boring day in this lab anyway.”
In due time, Shul took a deep breath and said, “Fine, let’s report this to Juvir and get this over with. Whatever this guy…or thing is…it’s most likely going to end up in the hands of the AOIB anyway.”
Chapter 2
The creature woke up in a daze, unaware of its current surroundings and somewhat amnestic after being left in a coma during its trip through space. Its eyes were mostly white, but a small hole bore through the center of each eye and a brown, circular area surrounded each hole. It had thick black hair on top of its head, and its nose was extruded with an approximate sixty-degree draft upward.
“Place the translator into here,” said an alien standing near the creature, pointing to its ear. Once the translator was placed, everyone sat in a wide circle around the being—out of its pod and suit now, placed onto a large circular table.
“Welcome, fellow life form,” said Juvir, standing about twenty feet away from the waking mortal. Juvir was the one to ultimately decide to keep the life form and interrogate it, so he felt the most responsible in introducing himself first. “Can you understand me?”
“Unngghh…yeah, I hear you. If you’re speaking English,” it said drowsily, “then is this Earth?”
“No, there is no Earth here. I suppose Earth is the planet you came from?”
“Yeah, but why—”
At this moment, the creature widened its eyes and inhaled deeply as it sat up immediately, just as most people would from waking up after a terrible nightmare. As it looked around to make sure that nothing would move too suddenly, it shouted, “WAIT! DON’T MOVE! Don’t move a single fucking muscle!” The life form looked around for a weapon as though it had one earlier, growing more frantic when nothing could be found. In response, the creature raised an arm and directed its hand toward the alien within its direct line of sight, tightening the hand so it would resemble an eagle talon. However, the nails on each “talon” did not look pointed, but rather like rounded plates on the top of each finger.
None of the surrounding aliens moved or lost their composure. Everyone would stay exactly as they were until the life form settled down. No one dared to speak except for Juvir.
“Calm down, please, there is nothing to be afraid of. We have no reason to harm you anytime yet. Although we did find that sword you were keeping in the pod with you once we took you out.”
“Yet? What’s that supposed to mean? And where’s my sword?”
“It means that if you’re friendly, we will be friendly. If you’re hostile, we will be hostile.”
After a few short moments to think, the being decided to lower its fake claw and listen to what these alien people had to say.
“So then, what do you call yourself? Tell me about your species.” said Juvir.
“…My name is Andrew Lockeford. I’m a human…from the planet Earth. And until a few months ago, I never had any certain proof that there were intelligent species outside of my own planet.”
“Really? Your species isn’t aware of any intelligent species other than your own?” Vice President Juvir was aware that many “intelligent” species hadn’t seen others outside of their own planets, but some still had the technology to give themselves proof through other means.
“Well, we know that there would likely be intelligent life somewhere light-years away from Earth, but so far—FUCK WHY AM I NAKED?!?” Andrew finally realized that he hadn’t been wearing any clothes, thus deciding to cover his privates with his hands. Rumor has it that humans may prioritize their possessions over necessities, though what would be so important about a sword?
“We were just figuring out your anatomy, Andrew, and in order to get a clear view we needed to remove your spacesuit. You’re a male, correct?”
“…Yeah?”
“Just checking. We’ve seen some species with reproductive organs like yours who were actually female, or something else entirely. It’s a big universe, you know. I’ll give you a clothing suit now.” Juvir pulled out a ball that was slightly over an inch in diameter and said, “Stay still, and don’t try to catch it.” He tossed the ball toward Andrew and—once it hit his arm—it immediately expanded and covered his body. Andrew tensed his body but otherwise did not
move. He found himself covered in a thick, black material that lay everywhere on his body except for his head. Embossed lines forming angles with one another generated on the suit—a different, less intricate pattern compared to the outfits that the aliens were wearing.
“As you can see, this suit is flexible, breathable, light, and very durable. Think of it as armor that you can wear anytime.” All of the aliens around Andrew were wearing this material, as it happens that most of the creatures on the planet wore this anywhere they went. Even the two scientists wore this kind of suit as they found Andrew in his escape pod. There were no special markings or differences among the aliens’ suits, so it was hard for Andrew to rank them by importance at this point in time.
“There’s something I want to ask,” said somebody across from Juvir. This person was of a different species; each alien surrounding Andrew was from a different species, to that matter. The human turned around to hear what this alien—or person, since he’s the alien here—wanted to say. “These increments of time that you use…‘months,’ and ‘light-years’…how exactly long are they?”
It’s hard enough for someone to describe the human’s version of time without some kind of reference, but Andrew was also put on the spot, so he said only what he could think of. Luckily it didn’t take him long to find a solution.
“Well, to begin, my species’ measurement of time starts with the second.” He began to tap his finger each second onto his wrist, making sure that everyone was paying attention. “The amount of time that passes between each cycle that my finger is making here is equal to one second. Sixty seconds is equal to one minute. Sixty minutes is equal to one hour. Twenty-four hours is equal to one day. And about thirty or thirty-one days is equal to one month. Does that sound right?”
Andrew doubted that this person could have understood everything immediately, but the alien replied, “Got it. But I’m still curious about the light-year.”