USS Kepler Dawn

by Gerald Lane Summers

  Captain Hollenbeck stood, thanked Miki and then took over the conversation.

  “Our ships have come a very long way for the purpose of establishing colonies for our people. Our own planet has experienced a self-inflicted crisis; in that we have so polluted the atmosphere with our machinery and manufacturing that it might soon be impossible to live there. To guarantee our survival, the entire population of the planet has started working toward traveling to and building out colonies on other planets. We did not know your system was inhabited by intelligent beings and our policy has long been that we would not attempt to colonize any planet without permission of the indigenous population. That can only be done by reaching binding agreements.

  It is an unfortunate part of our history that colonists on our own planet have been notoriously vicious when populating areas already claimed by others and we have made a series of what we believe are effective rules to protect such species from our people. We now think we have overcome this poor behavior. Still, we cannot guarantee the future. What this means to you is that we will not stay unless you approve and we mutually agreed to terms that would serve to protect us all in the future. To do that successfully, we believe it would be appropriate for us to establish a trading relationship all while avoiding actual contact.

  Your young ones indicated we could stay here on this satellite. We are in agreement however, that it would not be wise for us to do so. The planet your world circles would be sufficient for our needs, however it too is under your jurisdiction as far as we are concerned. If you do not approve of us establishing a colony there, we will leave this system and go elsewhere.”

  After this speech, Captain Hollenbeck asked if they had any comments.

  They started bouncing up and down as they conferred and after a few minutes, the leader spoke again. “You have been quite candid. Now we will be candid. We have been aware of your existence for a very long time and knew your ships were on the way. The nature and behavior of your people has also been deduced from your various entertainment broadcasts and news visualizations. They say much about you that is bad, but also much that is good.

  You do not present a threat to us and we know you know it. We could with very little effort destroy you all. If you would like a demonstration of how that would be done, we will be happy to accommodate you. Violence is not our way, however. If it is possible to make appropriate arrangements, treaties, rules and regulations that would control those who tend toward such behavior, we would welcome you here to this system. There are things you have that we need or want and we would enjoy working with you for our mutual benefit.

  If you look around, you will notice this open land is devoid of large animal life. It is all plants, grasses and flowers. In the stalks there are many small insects and some small animals. We live in the stalks or ‘bamboo’ as you call it, but once roamed the entire satellite, as you call it.

  The stalks protect us now, hide us and feed us because the vast majority of animal life was killed off by the invaders. They came many thousands of your years ago and we welcomed them. But they secretly despised us and tried to kill us. They never dreamed we could stop them, but soon found out. When we first detected their missiles coming toward the stalks, we diverted the first one onto their colony here and turned the second back onto their colony on the planet, destroying all that remained of them on both planetary bodies. We did not destroy their ships because we wanted them to leave. We now think that may have been a mistake.

  We did not understand the danger to our wildlife from the radiation left by the bombs and over time it killed off all of the large animal life on the prairies. We were then forced to move away from the prairies and back into the stalks for survival, feeding upon the proteins provided by it. It protects us from observation, the poisons of the bombs, and provides us with the homes and food we need. Since that time, we have detected other alien vessels carrying unknown species as they have passed by our home, but none remained to bother us.

  Our scans of your ships tell us you may have the means to restore the animal life here and on the planet you now occupy. We would welcome that. We would also invite you to educate our young in the ways of your science so they might one day venture out into space and visit other worlds. In particular, you have developed machines that can take you into space, control gravity and exceed the speed of light. We would need such machines if we were to establish trade with you.

  The details would have to be worked out, but our thoughts are that we would order the building of many of your machines designed for our own use and pay your people with the minerals we have here in abundance. In addition, your people would assist us in rebuilding our lost ecosystems. If what you call Bison could be restored here, along with all of the other animals that once populated our prairies, we would not have to live in the stalks and could occupy the entire satellite as we once did. .

  All of this would be considered payment for your purchase of the main planet you now call, “Dawn.” It would then be yours to do with as you wish. Once all this is accomplished, we should have built out a trading system that would work to everyone’s advantage and protect us from those humans possessed of excessive avarice or violent tendencies.”

  Captain Ho stood and asked the Elder how old their people were. It looked toward its partner and said: “We do not understand this question. We have always been here.”

  “So, if our calculations are correct, this satellite is approximately four billion years old. Could you be that old? It seems unlikely.”

  The two Umon became silent. It was apparent they remained in communication with each other because we could hear very low frequency sounds being exchanged between them. The computer did not translate those messages and we assumed it was because they had asked it not to do so. This suggested to me that many other Umon might also be listening in to the conversation. Such low frequencies are known to travel a very long way both through land and sea.

  Finally, the Elder spoke again. “You speak of a time before we can remember and we cannot quantify that in your years. We evolved in the stalks along with many other small animals, and one day we were who we are now. We can remember from that time and not before. It was a very long time after our awakening that the aliens attacked.

  We know it was a time when the red star was larger and more radiant. It frequently sent forth large flares able to pass through the protection of the magnetic field as well as the atmosphere. However, to understand how we live so long, you must know that none of us has ever ceased to live except by physical injury due to accident or natural events. Our adaptation to the radiation gave us the ability to both repel it and use it to protect from disease. We also use it for our own defensive purposes. The smaller creatures did not do well until they too evolved to survive it. During that early time, we all lived in the stalks. Finally, enough animals grew on the prairies that we were able to move out and incorporate them into our way of life. When the aliens attacked, that way of life came to an end.”

  Ho waited for a moment while we all contemplated this, a species that was essentially immortal except through a violent death. He then asked about the aliens.

  The answer was unequivocal. “They are monsters of a hive culture interested only in expansion. Other forms of life were of little concern to them and they gladly gave up their own to support the desires of their queen. We were never able to sit down with them for negotiations but were able to understand their thoughts and their talk.

  Those who landed here were simple soldiers who thought of nothing but duty to the queen. They landed without warning, built out what we came to understand was a colony, and then came forth in their thousands to kill us all. They moved very fast on eight legs, but were only slightly larger than you humans. When they conducted large scale attacks, they used their wings to descend upon us. Once we realized that trying to deal with them was futile, we destroyed those that had landed on Umon as well as those on the mother planet. It was not easy because there were so many of them.
Nevertheless, they were not able to harm us because of our ability to repel any personal attack. Our youngest laughed at their attacks and walked right through their millions, killing them as they came too close. Our elders finally realized they were not going to go and we could not simply leave them alone to ravage Umon. Together, we swept their masses away in one all-out attack. That is when they fired their missiles at us. You already know what we did to those missiles.

  None of them have come back, but we do not believe we have seen the last of them. Occasionally, we detect their communications from many light years away, but have not been able to interpret the meaning. Our leading minds have suggested they are in the process of occupying other planets somewhere in this part of the galaxy, but it is mostly speculation. That is another reason why we would like to have some of your anti-gravity ships, to intercept them far out if they come again rather than allowing them to bombard us from close by.”

  Ho waited for a full minute before asking his next question. “Can you describe the ships the aliens came in? Were they capable of faster than light travel?”

  The necklaced elder seemed to shudder as it recalled the alien invasion. “We detected them from their message traffic when they first entered our system, over several hundred million of your miles away. They came in from the outer reaches, inspecting each planet as they came upon it. It was not the way you came and they did not immediately come to our home. They landed on the planet.

  Their ships were all black with many beam weapons protruding from their structure. As far as we could tell, they were not traveling at or above light speed and it took them several months to attain orbit around the big planet. We had no idea any ship could exceed the speed of light until we detected your vessels outside of our system. It was two years before they decided to land a force here and the first thing they did was start digging a home in the ground. Until we decided to speak to them, they did not know we existed.

  Several of our young were attacked one day by two of the aliens and we tried to find out why. They did not care what we thought. So, we destroyed those two. That is when they massed their numbers and tried to exterminate us all. The attack was not sophisticated. It was just a mass charge that kept coming until the last one was destroyed.”

  “Did the individuals carry weapons?”

  “Some did, but only after they knew we were present. When we approached them, they pointed light beams at us created with small stick-like instruments. The beams tickled us, but no more than that. Our estimate is that your protective clothing would have limited the effect of the weapons, but would not have stopped the beams completely. Once we were certain we had destroyed all that remained here on Umon, we vaporized all those still on the planet you now call Dawn.

  When we saw their ships starting to leave the system, we did not try to destroy them. It was enough for us that they were going away. When they left, they went out the same way they came in. Very slowly.”

  “How big were the ships, relative to ours?”

  “There were two of them, both the same size as your smaller ship, the Kennedy. Before they left, they fired weapons from the ship but the light beams they used did not penetrate through the atmosphere. The magnetic field of our home deflected them.”

  Director Heartfield stood. “How, exactly did you destroy them on Dawn? You have no ships to take you there.”

  The grey necklaced Umon responded. “We asked if you would like a demonstration. So, here it is.”

  Both Umon backed off about one hundred feet. They looked up and leaned together. As they did so, sparks flew between them. Suddenly, a beam of what we took to be focused microwaves streamed from antennae on their heads. The air sizzled as the beam passed through and disappeared into space. A strong smell of ozone filled our nostrils and a trail of smoke could be seen as it disappeared from sight.

  I was amazed. Heartfield was not satisfied. “That did not look any stronger than a phased plasma burst,” he said. How could it possibly reach out far enough to damage the planet?”

  “Are you in contact with your people on the planet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Contact them and tell them to watch the area where the big bomb crater remains. Make sure all of your people are far away from it, at least as far back as the colony you have established.”

  Heartfield pulled up his communicator, but the computer interrupted him. “I have already done it,” it said.

  “Tell us when they are ready to observe.”

  A few moments later, the computer spoke. “They are ready.”

  “Very well, pay close attention.”

  Again the two Umon leaned together. “A massive burst at least twice the size of the previous one leaped upward from their heads. It disappeared from sight and for a moment no one spoke.

  “Ask your observers what they saw.”

  The computer spoke. “They confirm the crater has now been replaced by a massive crater more than twice the size of the original.”

  “Holy Cow,” I said.

  Captain Hollenbeck stood with his mouth open. “And a couple of holy goats,” he added.

  Heartfield sat down.

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  Captain Hollenbeck turned back to the Umon. “We have been derelict in not asking you what you call your home, this satellite. We would like to do the same.”

  “Thank you for that. But we do not think of our home as a planet. Our young ones told your people that we refer to it as the place of Umon. They were correct. Now, however, we would prefer it be called Umon, because we consider ourselves as one with the planet. What it knows, we know. It also supplies us with the energy necessary for us to live and defend ourselves. The energy beams we showed you come straight to us from the ground. We gather that energy and then focus it to go where we want it. There are many ways we can do it, by focusing it down to a small point as we just did or spread it out over a large area. The wider the area, the less strong the energy beams are. But, at any given moment, with all of our elders working together, we can cover the entire mother planet you call, Dawn. We can only do that from here. If we were to travel to what you call, ‘Dawn,’ we would only be able to use the energy we took with us and it would not last long if used in that massive way. Still, we believe that Dawn itself provides enough energy for us to recharge our defenses there within a fairly short period.

  The captain nodded. “That makes sense. And, from now on we will call you and your planet, ‘Umon’ and enter it forever in our records.

  Commander Herman stood. “Elders. Please forgive our doubt of your abilities. Your demonstration was quite impressive. I seriously doubt anyone would think it rational to confront you. But I do have a question. You said when the invaders came; you were able to understand their talk?”

  The two Umon looked at each other and then back to Herman.

  “We could understand when they spoke one on one with each other and when they communicated with their queen who remained in their ship. When they were all together, as they were most of the time, they all made noise all the time. Every one of them was doing it at once and we could not understand. There was a large low frequency hum coming from them, but none of it made sense to us.’

  “Could you duplicate that sound and provide it to our computer? It is pretty good with languages, as you can tell. It may be able to interpret the noise if you can repeat it.”

  The necklaced Umon appeared to nod its head. It then closed its eyes and sat still for several minutes.

  Finally, it started making a low fluctuating growl that continued for several seconds. I thought it sounded like some kind of radio telemetry, which would mean it was a digital communication.

  “Computer,” I asked. “Does this noise sound familiar?”

  Chapter 31

  After returning to the ship, Captain Hollenbeck and Ho met to plan out how they would proceed. The end result of their work was a comprehensive plan both for defense as well as colonial expansion on Dawn. They needed little help, but I
did my best to keep them on task whenever Captain Hollenbeck called me in. Both had a tendency to drift into personal anecdotes as they were working. I found it distracting. The better part of valor suggested I should not interfere and I did not. Besides, I did learn much about the two of them and their incredible experiences. Both had been fighter pilots in several wars on Earth during the 23rd century.

  Miki was charged with setting up a diplomatic department for our people to rely on when dealing with the Umon, and she became so busy we were hardly able see each other. I was at the same time trying my best to stay ahead of the captain’s general needs. Everyone wanted to talk to him, from colonists building manufacturing plants to archaeologists digging in the hills.

  Whenever I had a spare moment, I went to the library to talk privately with the computer. Unfortunately, those spare moments had become fewer in number as we worked things out with the Umon. I had things on my mind and had missed talking freely with it. When engaged in a long discussion, I got the impression we were both forgetting our basic natures. As a machine, even an intelligent one possibly on its way to achieving sentience, I tended to forget it was incapable of understanding emotion.

  Again I sought out my favorite seat and entry console and activated the interact system.

  “Ah, Commander Kelso,” it said as I sat at the command desk. “How are you this fine day? It has been some time since we have been able to talk one on one.”

  “Yes,” I said, as my mood lightened. “I’ve now realized that those discussions meant more to me than I’d thought. There are few others on board besides Miki Sakura who have as much insight and knowledge as you do, so I will be looking forward to discussing more and more matters over time. As of now, I am simply hoping to pick your mind regarding the potential threat of the invaders mentioned by the Umon. Do we need to be concerned of these creatures, or is it a waste of time?”