USS Kepler Dawn

by Gerald Lane Summers

  Not being a metallurgist, I hesitated to mention them all in my notes or in the order of necessity for the colony. The surveyors were more than excited. They were thrilled at the opportunities the metals offered. As soon as the Kennedy arrived, which we thought would be any day; we intended to direct them to this satellite to do a joint exploration.

  Various forms of sea life had been discovered on the main planet while the satellite had yet to be examined closely for such resources. An oceanographic team was put together to assist as we planned our first excursion. Our basic thoughts were that the colonists would be able to handle that exploration when they arrived in force and were able to properly assess the situation.

  With the Kennedy’s colonists joining us on the satellite, my suggestion to the captain was that we focus our first joint expedition on the radio signals we had been receiving. Interestingly, the signals had diminished to practically nothing after we settled into orbit.

  I was watching from the bridge, staring curiously down at the satellite when the ES Kennedy was observed approaching from out of the star’s red light. It was a beautiful ship, designed with a bit of panache. It was similar to Kepler Dawn except for it being equipped with winglets. Overall, it appeared aerodynamic as well as stealthy, the reason for which eluded me. I got the impression it was intended to impress rather than just function. Exactly who or what it was going to impress also eluded me.

  After providing the Kennedy’s science team all of our data on the satellite, we decided to commence our first joint exploration. Our main group would examine one of the large continents and theirs the other. We would leave the large islands until later. The science teams were to focus on life forms to make sure we would not be troubled by micro-organisms or other unknown threats.

  Most of our planetary surveyors had been left on Dawn while we examined the satellite, so we had only a skeleton crew to go down to the surface and check out what we had observed from space. The captain and I were designated to lead Kepler Dawn’s landing party, our primary goal to be locating the source of the AM radio signals we had been monitoring for so long.

  I would have loved piloting the ship’s main shuttle. Of course, I I had never flown one of them before so it was out of the question. Captain Hollenbeck made that clear and warned me not to try to go off on some silly adventure on my own. Perhaps he knew me better than I knew myself. I made him promise to train me as soon as we had time.

  At the last minute, he decided he would be the pilot with one of his oldest friends the co-pilot. I couldn’t gripe about the co-pilot because the fellow had many thousands of hours in such vehicles. His name was Hironimus Smith, his nickname, “Smoky.” I recognized the reason for it immediately. His complexion was a darkish, smoky color with hints of Asiatic blood within. Like Miki, his eyes were epicanthic, his face usually covered with a smile.

  I wondered on occasion what his mix of heritage was, though I could not figure out why it mattered. I’d seen him around for years and knew he and the captain were friends, but had never bothered to ask the computer. It probably would not have given me the information anyway, as it had been rapidly developing a sense of ethics that kept us all on our toes. There is nothing quite like a computer with a sense of right and wrong. What would we be doing for fun with it looking over our shoulders all of the time? Some of the best of times are had in violating a rule.

  Smoky made up for the aggravation. He was a happy fellow who could not be rattled. And, he had hundreds of fascinating stories to tell of he and the captain’s early aviation adventures.

  Once everyone who was going had settled into their chairs, Captain Hollenbeck eased the shuttle out of its bay and angled the craft into space. He took some time going over all of the instruments to make sure nothing was amiss, and then promptly rolled the craft over and dove down and around Kepler Dawn.

  My stomach immediately felt queasy, even with our inertial dampeners engaged. Fortunately, I managed not to embarrass myself. At least one of the surveyors was unable to hold his breakfast in place. Fortunately for the rest of us, he had had the good sense to grab a gag-bag rather than destroy the ambience of the cabin.

  Our AG shuttle could transport as many as twenty five people; however on this trip we did not take that many. Most were geologists and/or microbiologists to be dropped off where they directed while we, meaning Captain Hollenbeck, Commander Smith, Miki, Commander Herman and myself sought out the source of the radio signals.

  We dropped the scientists off with a spacing of twenty miles between each two man team. Miki and Commander Herman then directed us to the source of the radio signals by using a homing device. We flew over the area first, paused over a large area of what looked like bamboo, flew up and down a few steep mountains behind them, and then returned to our original entry point. The signals were varying in intensity, suggesting to Commander Herman that they were being intelligently manipulated.

  Once we settled to the ground and opened the sealed doors, I realized we were within one hundred meters of the bamboo grove. It had some kind of green fuzz growing on its stalks and was much taller than I had first guessed. From higher up, it had looked like a short brushy forest that extended from the edge of a large prairie and uphill toward higher mountains. In all, it appeared to be several hundred miles wide and had no end that we could see. From space we’d simply noted it as a green belt.

  Captain Hollenbeck stepped out and down first, a huge smile on his face. “Now I know,” he said “… how Neil Armstrong must have felt when he first stepped on the Earth’s moon.” We all congratulated him.

  We had landed on the rolling plain covered with short grasses and other species of plants and flowers, types that no one immediately recognized. In all its glory, however, it looked much like photos of a Texas prairie in the spring, with a wide variety of colors and plants struggling for soil space. It extended from horizon to horizon, east to west and south, and ended at the edge of the bamboo forest.

  Commander Herman warned us to be careful of the plants and to keep our gloves on. They might be poisonous, she’d said.

  “Do you think that might be the reason we are seeing no animal life?” I asked.

  “It could be,” she replied. “I think we can take comfort in the fact that if they were capable of that, we’d likely be feeling the pain ourselves by now.”

  I looked around, shading my eyes from the red glow of the dwarf star. This place was very old, according to the computer, and red dwarf stars were known to live much longer than larger main sequence stars like our own, ‘Sol.’ It could still have as many as a trillion years of life left in it.

  Why had animal life not evolved to take advantage of all this largesse? On Earth, prairies like this had been the rule rather than the exception and life had teemed on them. Animals of all kinds, from large predators to small prey had occupied every nook and cranny. The lack of them here was strange and deserved close study.

  I made notes on the subject and intended to discuss it with the biologists now examining the prairie farther to our west.

  Commander Herman wandered off about one hundred yards from the shuttle, picking samples of flowering species as she went and placing them in sample bags. Miki did the same in the opposite direction. I stayed with the captain and expected he would want to examine the bamboo for whatever life it might harbor.

  The captain, Commander Smith and I looked around for a few minutes and then started walking in the direction of the bamboo forest. On average, each bamboo stalk appeared about thirty feet tall. Clearly this forest could supply the soon to be colony with enough bamboo to construct just about anything. And the fuzz upon them appeared to be a form of algae. Samples would have to be taken before we could know if it was toxic or edible.

  The captain stopped suddenly, waved me back and I stopped alongside him. Commander Smith stood behind us. Without warning, a soft singing sound surrounded us. I could not tell the direction from which it came. Since there was nothing in any direction we could se
e, we assumed it was coming from the bamboo. When we stopped, it stopped. So, we stood still, looking for the source. I took another step toward the grove and it started up again, only this time much louder. I stopped abruptly, concluding rightly as it turned out, that we were being warned.

  Chapter 27

  “Activate your security belts,” I said loudly. “Now!”

  Our personal security belts provided protection against any penetrating object or force that came into contact with them. I had no doubt they could protect us from any type of harm. Such devices had been around for many years and were both capable and reliable.

  The control was a simple on-off switch on our belts. The device itself looked like an old style medical pager. The system hooked into our clothing and was designed to put a force field all around anyone wearing one. It would also protect against microorganisms and biting bugs. The power was transmitted through microscopically embedded wires in our clothes and delivered a substantial repulsive shock to anything that came too close.

  Originally designed for the protection of police officers in riot situations, they’d gained widespread approval for being a non-deadly method of putting a stop to violence. I’d tried them before and was aware that even when activated the force field could not be seen. It was an advantage of significant value.

  “Captain,” I said. “I think we should introduce ourselves.”

  He nodded. I took another step forward and put out both of my arms, palms open. For some reason, I sensed there was an intelligence out there watching us. I heard something and turned. Commander Herman and Miki had rejoined us on the run with their radio emission sensors and showed the readings to the captain. The volume of the AM signals had suddenly become stronger.

  “Andy,” Miki said. “The internal signal has gone way up. There is a carrier wave within the transmission. I think we may have frightened whatever is in there. Let’s step back again and see what happens.”

  We did step back and the sound lessoned. “What do you make of that?” I asked Miki.

  “I suspect the same thing you are making of it. There is someone or something in that grove or whatever it is that is warning us not to approach.”

  “Well, now what?”

  Herman was still looking at the emissions scanner. “Now it has dropped back down. I think it is trying to communicate with us via the carrier wave. What it might be saying, I have no idea.”

  Miki whispered to Captain Hollenbeck. “Perhaps if I hold the scanner out, activate our own AM signal and twiddle the knobs to rotate a return signal, it will respond in some fashion.”

  Captain Hollenbeck nodded. “What do we have to lose? Do it.”

  She held the scanner out and turned on the signal generator. As she rotated the frequency, the sound coming from the grove matched it. If she turned up the volume, it turned up its volume. She kept doing this and finally decided to step back to wait. “It knows we are here and that we do not want to hurt them. So let’s see if they are brave enough to make contact.”

  We waited for approximately half an hour and then noted a rustling sound coming from the grove. I could hardly keep from peeing my pants. Were we about to make contact with the first intelligent life form on another planet?

  “Steady,” Miki whispered. “I think it wants to meet us.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I have an instinct for these things. I always know when someone wants to meet me. They give off all kinds of signals, whistles, smells, flirts, etc. I knew the first time you looked at me with more than fear on your mind and I returned your smile. Don’t you remember that? I smiled back at you.”

  “Holy shit, are you kidding me? You expect me to remember that? It was years ago.”

  “Well, I remember it like it was yesterday.”

  “Damn. Are you sure you’re not an alien?”

  I started slowly shaking my head. Miki was smiling, but abruptly stopped and started staring at the bamboo.

  “Quiet,” she said. “Something’s coming out.”

  I turned my head toward the grove. Captain Hollenbeck and the others were also staring at the grove.”

  There was a sudden rattling sound and the bamboo began to shake. Green fuzzy dust was flying in the air … and there it was.

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  It was not on two legs or even feet, because it did not appear to have any. The creature, for want of a better name, was shaped like a large pear, or an elongated ball covered with loose brown fur. It was also spotted with the green fuzz that was growing on the bamboo. It had a head, although one unlike any I’d ever seen. It was just a bump on what was otherwise the top of the pear shaped body of fur and fuzz.

  My first impression was that it was similar to the Koalas of Earth’s Australian continent. Those were lovable sloth-like animals, not known to be dangerous to humans. These were much larger.

  “They’re cute,” Miki said. “Nevertheless, ‘cute’ does not translate to harmless. Many animals are cute but can kill if angered or frightened. We need to be careful.”

  I stared at the bump I had taken to be the creature’s head, because it was located where a head ought to be and had eyes. At first, they looked normal. Then, the creature extended them on stalks about six inches in length and rotated them around. Clearly stereoscopic, the eyes appeared able to see in all directions at once. I was reminded of a species of lizard that existed back on Earth.

  As I looked down where its feet ought to be, I noted its skin folded backwards and forward as it moved. It did not need feet, it moved on its own loose skin, not unlike the way of a snake. I thought at first it did not have arms, but they were just hidden, folded within its loose fur.

  The first one to come out was a light brown. As we stood there with our mouths no doubt hanging open, another edged out. It was light grey. I wondered if they could change their colors like a gecko.

  I bowed my head and again held out my hands in the universal sign that we meant no harm. It did not respond.

  I turned to Commander Herman. “Commander, can we broadcast our voices on your scanner? If so, let’s try it. Use your sultry voice. Keep it soft. It always used to get to me.”

  Herman gave me a snotty look. Miki imitated it. I was outnumbered, so I decided to keep my thoughts to myself.

  “Okay,” the commander said. “Here goes nothing.”

  She placed her mouth close to the scanner set in broadcast mode on the same frequency they had been using, and whispered, “Hello. Can we talk?”

  The two creatures looked at each other and then back to us. They seemed curious, although how I knew that I don’t know. Perhaps they were sending signals to us that we did not grasp.

  Herman noted a response on the scanner. “Hello. Can we talk?”

  Damn, it was mimicking Commander Herman, right down to her sultry voice. We all got excited and that must have been received by them as welcoming.

  Miki suggested we all sit down and invite them to do the same. She thought our height might be intimidating to them.

  “Okay, that sounds like a good idea,” the captain said.

  We sat down Indian style with legs crossed, ignoring the possible risk of dangerous plants. The two animals immediately came forward and settled before us. I was reminded of a parley in the old west and started thinking all sorts of wild thoughts.

  “Okay guys,” I said. “We have something going on here, but what?”

  I looked back at the AG shuttle and had an idea. The main computer had been locked into the shuttle’s system before we left the ship.

  “Computer,” I said into my wrist com. “Are you monitoring this?”

  “Affirmative. And, I have activated the shuttle’s sensors.”

  “Please continue and store the images for posterity. These beings apparently communicate by way of AM radio signals. Do you have any way of interpreting what they are saying?”

  “Ah … perhaps. Let me give it a bit of thought. Okay, I have an idea.”

  “What t
ook you so long?” I joked.

  “My apologies,” the AI replied. “At any rate, bad jokes aside, I do have an idea. I can interlink with the ship’s language courses and see what the basics of language are and if we can figure out how to use theirs.

  Okay, all languages are thought to have evolved using the same basic structures and while these beings are completely alien, it is likely their language is structured in the same way. It is different only in that it is based on transmissions by EM emission in the AM band. Evolution of language ability has been said to be universal, just like eyes. You may note that if someone wants to see something, they need eyes. And look at them. Their eyes are the same as yours except that they are more efficient.”

  “How long would it take you to do this?”

  “It’s already done. Are you ready to proceed?”

  I looked at my companions. “Damn, I’m getting to like this computer.”

  “How do we proceed?” Commander Herman asked.

  “First you must understand the structure of language. The five main components of language are phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, syntax, and context. Along with grammar, semantics, and pragmatics, these components work together to create meaningful communication among individuals. Syntax is the set of rules by which a person constructs full sentences. Now, all we have to do is figure out which frequencies of their language correspond to your alphabet and grammar. From there, I should be able to calculate a reasonable facsimile of their language. Once I have done that, you should be able to communicate effectively using the AM scanner.

  Note, AM frequencies range in a band from 540 to 1600 kilohertz and are artificially assigned by humans at 10 kilohertz intervals. I suspect these individuals are capable of using more than just these, because the human assignations are based on nothing more than convenience. Nevertheless, it is a good place to start.

  Now, Commander Herman, perhaps you would be so kind as to hold up one of your fingers, say the first letter in your alphabet and then rotate your AM frequency dial to the lowest number, 540. Proceed in that fashion with 10 kilohertz intervals until you have completed your alphabet. My guess is that they will get the idea and you can then work from there to fill in what needs improvement.”