Outward Borne
Alien Abduction and Return
R. J. Weinkam
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 Robert J. Weinkam
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13- 9781310772047
Smashwords Edition published 2015
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Chapter 1 14 April 2126
DePat Kiefer, my grandfather, is one of the thirty-five men and women that were returned to Earth sixty-one years ago from the interstellar ship they called Outward Voyager. DePat is an old man now, almost 81, and the eldest of the three surviving Voyagers. He is somewhat diminished from what he was, but I can still see him as I did when I was a child. Tall, erect, and graceful, with his long fingers, blond hair, and green and yellow markings, he was a fierce presence. People were drawn to him. They wanted to be near, but not close. As he came into a room, people would step away and then reach out to touch his sleeve, his unearthly origin always present. It seemed that he was always at the center of some spectacle, in the midst of a crowd, but I knew him as a quiet man who was forced to live his life amidst a plague of notoriety, suspicion, and morbid fascination.
I always thought that I knew as much as any Earth-born person about the Outward Voyager and what had happened to the people who had lived on it. Everyone knew about the landing, it was such a sensation, but there was so much hype and confusing publicity that a lot of the things people now believe are not actually true. We know why they were abducted, it was part of some grand scientific experiment by the ObLaDas to study intelligent life in our galaxy, but we know very little about the abduction itself. People, I forget exactly how many, and dogs of course, were taken from some isolated villages in northern Germany around the year 650. They and their descendants lived and traveled through space for nearly fifteen hundred years. Grandfather told me stories of his life on the ship, which is why I thought I knew more than other people. He said that their habitat was like a sprawling hotel that was built inside a windowless warehouse. I still cannot imagine living all my life in such a place, but they did, and those people must have adjusted to it because DePat said that very few were willing to be returned to Earth when the time came. Why their alien masters chose to return a few of them to Earth, no one knows, not even DePat, or so he had always claimed.
That was not true. He does know. He was the only person who did, until he told me. I will never forget that day because it changed my life. I was nearly twenty when I received a message from Hali Umballa, the daughter of one of the other Voyagers and DePat’s sometime helper. DePat requested a formal appointment with me, Michael DePat Kiefer, grandson, college student of undeclared major with somewhat average grades, to meet with him in his home office on the evening of 14 April 2126. This struck me as being a bit odd because I often stopped by and talked with him, at least once a week, and had been doing so for as long as I could remember. So why was it necessary to set up an appointment? I knew the old guy. He would not do anything without a reason and I was not sure that I wanted to hear it.
I had always been close to my grandfather. He took time to talk with me even when I was small. I liked to hear his stories and always asked a lot of questions. He always seemed to make time for me, even when he was very busy. I never quite understood this attention, but recently he seems have become distracted. He looks off into the distance when he talks. I feel that he is struggling with some problem, from his body language perhaps, I am not sure. He might again be on the dangerous side of being a Voyager.
As I walked toward his house that day the wind was strong, not a quick urgent wind that precedes a storm, but a persistent wind, a wind that would continue for some time only to die down in its determined place. I arrived early on that fourteenth of March. Hali and a man were already there waiting. They scanned me for bugs. DePat was in his office, they said, but I should call him before going back there. All this protocol was strange and getting stranger. I made the call. Grandfather answered right away, he told me to shower in his private bathroom and put on a yellow robe that was in a plastic bag near the sink. Obviously, he was going to great lengths to get rid of the ubiquitous recording widgets that infect our lives. Grandfather once found twenty-two miniEars, sticky confetti-like transmitting microphones, and ten FlyingEyes in his living room alone. He obviously did not want any of those things around today. Even his dog, the beauteous longhaired Gweneth, a notorious bug carrier, was banished to the yard.
Duly washed and wrapped, I went to the office, entered, and closed the door quietly. DePat was sitting at his old desk, looking out the window, back into the dark leafed oaks. His thoughts were far in the past. When I said hello, he seemed nervous and more serious than I expected him to be, but then he did not usually summon me to an audience and have me cleansed and gowned either. He looked up and I saw his timid smile. I relaxed a bit thinking that all this formality was not really because of me. At least that was that I thought until Grandfather started talking.
His expression changed, the color drained slowly from his face and he seemed to grow smaller. I was taken aback to see him so hesitant and perhaps afraid. He is still a tall, lean man though not as erect as before, his blond hair has now turned white and he has lost some weight recently. DePat has unusually straight eyebrows that determine his look. He has wide yellow stripes went from the side of his nose to his ears, with narrow green stripes across his face above his brows. His hair was always cut to create another straight line high across his forehead and across the nape of his neck. He sat before that desk, leaning forward with his jaws clenched looking into the evening’s fading light, then turned toward me and took a deep breath. He had no choice but to begin.
“I have something that I must give to you, Michael. You have long been my favorite grandchild and a very bright and talented young man, though you have slacked off lately. Ever since you were a small child, I could see your curiosity and determination to understand the meaning of things. You could not be gotten rid of with some silly explanation. You were annoying, really.”
I felt a lump in my chest, as if I could not breath. I never expected my grandfather to speak this way. “There is something that I have, something I have kept for many years, waiting until it was the right time, for the right one. I know that I can trust in you, but I apologize for all the difficulties that this may bring about. You did not ask for any of this, it was my task, but I could not finish. I have no right to impose it on you, but I know you, Michael. I know you will want to make it your own.”
I was not so sure about that. Not when someone who has been jailed, robbed, slandered and tracked by spies most of his life starts talking about trouble. He is not referring to a parking ticket and I was about to say so, but was not given the chance. He again looked toward the window and into the past.
“The Outward Voyager had been following a course toward some star, another solar system that the ObLaDas thought might harbor life, but midway into the mission the ship had changed to a new course. The People were told that the ObLaDas had decided to begin promoting planetary life forms. It was many years later that they learned that they w
ere that species, that some of them were being returned to Earth, the planet of their ancestors. They were stunned. The idea had a chilling effect on all of them. They knew Earth only from ancient legends, some distant past event that had no relevance to their expectations. They had no thought whatsoever of going near the place. They were People of the Outward Voyager and had been for some sixty generations. No reason to change.”
DePat took a sip of water and settled back into his chair.
“In time, a group of children was chosen, raised, and educated to make the return. I was one of those selected. I never knew why. The pending return to Earth had a profound effect on everyone, even those who would not be in the landing party. For me, it fueled an interest in the People of Outward Voyager and its mission through the interminable years that it had been in space. I did not really care about Earth as some did. I was drawn by our past. I was encouraged to pursue this project and the ObLaDas gave us, KeDom Sa and I, access to some achieves and later to the computers that operated the Outward’s data storage systems. We spent almost four years looking through those files and pulled out a lot of information. I even found records of some other aliens.”
I was confused. I knew that DePat had the famous Alien Planet Cube. He had given it to Earth many years ago, but it only had data on planets and some low life forms. There was nothing about the Outward Voyager or aliens.
“Did they make you leave your files on the Outward Voyager? It would have been fantastic to have such a thing.” I asked.
“No, I have them here.”
“What! Where?”
“Here, well, right over there,” he said pointing to an antique cabinet.
“You mean you have kept some data from the Outward Voyager? All these years?”
DePat seemed to snap into the present. “Some, oh yes, much more than some. That is the point.”
“Oh shit!”
“Why shit, and that stricken look on your face?”
Stricken, like in cold panic fear. Almost nothing was more dangerous than keeping ObLaDa information secret from the government. So much flashed through my mind, fear of having forbidden information, excitement when I thought of looking at that file, dread of the likely prospect of being caught. Caught, I would just disappear into some secret prison and no one would ever know.
“All of that material is here, some of it is still a hash of copied files, but the thing is, what I need to tell you, Michael, there was much more in that memory cube than we ever put there. A great, great deal more. There is data from ObLa, how that cloud-bound planet came to know of the universe, all their science, information on alien civilizations, I do not know how they acquired such detailed knowledge.”
DePat paused a while, inward looking, he gathered himself. “When I discovered all this, the question I kept asking myself was why? Why did they give me this huge repository of knowledge? I began to look into these files, trying to find out.”
He shook his head, “There was something very curious, Michael. The ObLaDas were quite anxious about Earth’s technology and concerned over how fast it had developed. They saw the same things happening here that troubled some of the other planets they had visited. They wanted me to use this information to help, somehow. Help prolong our way of life I think, but they did not know enough about Earth to tell me how, and I could not find a way to do it. It took too long for me to understand, then Liana and I were arrested, all the problems in the Compound, when she became ill, was dying, it was too hard for me. I was too old by then. What I am telling you, must be kept an absolute secret,” DePat said very seriously. "It is extremely dangerous.”
“For certain! I imagine the government would confiscate the data, or steal it, even break in, take us hostage.”
“Yes, there is that, but I mean dangerous, a danger to everyone, to Earth. If some nation or organization had this knowledge, they would be able to dominate the planet, or start a war should others try to stop them. That is the opposite of what must happen.” DePat was drained.
I was stunned. My grandfather, all the Voyagers, was a pawn of the alien ObLaDas and now I was drawn in as well. I was to continue their plan, it seems. Who were they? I wanted to know about them. How could they launch an interstellar space mission? They seemed to be the only civilization in the galaxy to do it. To deliberately give us knowledge far beyond everything that we had, it could change everything here. Why?
Chapter 2 ObLa
Minute secretions float freely into the thick perpetual fog. The dense air reeks of film-covered spores. Plant spawned oils coat vegetation and furtive animals alike. So little light finds its way into the hot, humid stench of the deep mist that the few plants that are visible through the stagnant gloom are reduced to uniform gray tinted shadows. Distant sounds are swallowed by the fog and replaced by the muffled hiss of fine drops hitting the sodden ground. So it has ever been.
This perpetually cloud-covered planet and its two oversized moons travel in a nearly circular orbit around a large main line star. That unnamed sun can be found midway between the core of our galaxy and its outer rim among a stream of closely aligned stars along the base of the spiral arm Orion. It is an extraordinarily smooth round planet without mountains or oceans. Its dark surface undulates like immovable swells on a calm sea.
The equator of the dim planet is aligned with its sun, and so it has no noticeable or even measurable seasons. Time passes unmarked. Thick clouds retain surface heat within its heavy atmosphere; temperatures never vary. Neither sun, moon, nor stars can be seen through the layered clouds and the dense surface fog. There is no indication from its sodden surface that this dismal planet orbits its sun or that its moons exist. There are no lunar months or solar years, nothing beyond a recurrent change in the level of light from the dim colorless day to an even dimmer, darker night. The universe in its wide expanse is unknown. Nothing is known to exist beyond the surface of the planet ObLa.
The atmosphere is especially thick, having a surface pressure several times higher than Earth. Wind within this dense atmosphere has an impressive power to have its way. A breeze can blow sand and dirt into the sky and a strong wind will topple anything standing. Storms are uniformly fatal to anything living above ground and even ravage the planet’s surface, tearing away plants and stripping soil from its layers. Dune-like hills form and blow over, creeping across the land in an irresistible desiccated slow motion flood.
Strong winds rage in an upper atmosphere between the thick bands of unbroken cloud. Layer after layer, each reflects its share of light as if protecting the permanent gloom. Globe circling currents stir the thick, dense air unimpeded; no mountain ranges disrupt its variable progress. Wild storms frequently descend to the surface in the extreme northern and southern latitudes where thick air flows heavily over the well-scoured land like an invisible river in full flow. Nothing lives in the dangerous barren wastes that bracket the prevailing calm of the central plains.
There, thick oily fog is a constant presence. Visibility varies marginally from day to day as the dimly lit mist is blown about in the mild breezes that stir languidly across the midlands of the planet. The flat, featureless horizon is never seen. The land, the small patch of which is visible, is without distinction or variety. ObLa’s low, wide mounds are shallow; their slope is barely discernible. Surface water is abundant with massive bogs, shallow ponds and broad lakes, some quite large, but none sufficient in breadth to contain the land. So ObLa is without oceans, the land is without mountains, and its surface remains a vast interconnected track of low terrain liberally splattered by wet.
ObLa is an ancient planet that has harbored life for longer than Earth has existed. The rich warm uniform climate once fostered a diverse plant life, but over the eons of time, the homogeneous terrain and seasonless climate selected only a few highly evolved survivors. Floating gray mats grow over the edge of bogs and swamps. Low gray-leafed shrubs dominate the landscape like dark islands on the grimy yellow land. A ubiquitous stench drips from their outermos
t leaves. These oils coat minute water droplets to markedly slow evaporation and inhibit their coalescence so that the fine mist persists as fog and rarely falls as rain.
These ancient, slow-growing plants have thick, rigid, widespread branches that are havens for the small animals that thrive beneath their protective cover. Small parasitic plants live on these robust supports. No flowers. Flat mats of low, broad-leaved ground cover grow within the open spaces surrounding each plant-island. The thick mist and poor light make escape easy, and attack must be quick and decisive. Predators are sedentary opportunists that spend much of their lives lying in wait for prey. No eagles or sight hounds on this planet. The pungent atmosphere and limited light precludes most sniffing out, spying, and chasing strategies. Lurk and leap has always been the order of the day.
Night is filled by a flickering darkness. The sky is black, but a dim variable glow surrounds phosphorescent plants that pulsate for hours after night arrives. Quick yellow and green flashes can be seen among the leaves as small animals signal their presence. Few large animals roam the stifling, malodorous plains. Solitary grazing animals move among the clover-like plants and wade knee deep in the shallow bogs. Smaller beasts flit beneath the sheltering branches of the hard low shrubs. Long thin creatures populate the bogs and marshes only rarely emerging from the muck to move and breed. All are covered in a glistening slime. Nothing lives on ObLa that is not covered by the foul smelling secretions of its oozing plants.
A band of stocky, chattering hexapods disperse among the larger shrubs. They slink silently into the shadows to wait. These hunters, the leading species on ObLa, are rather more broad than tall, having six limbs, short in the rear, longer in front, that lead down from a flabby, hanging folds of multicolored striped flesh. They have no head that we would recognize, only a lump with two protruding eyes in front and oval purple lips below, constantly moving opening, tasting, smelling, swallowing the air around it. Extremely agile, able to run, swim and climb using both arms and legs and, when assuming an upright stance, they can grasp and carry even heavy objects. They are a versatile platform, open to every opportunity.
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