by Tim Blagge
“Come on in folks, grab a beverage and make yourself at home,” I said. Rolf grabbed a soda and motioned for me to come over.
“Bill, I saw two vans parked on the street when Stella and I drove up. I’m going to look around to see if anything is not right. In the event that anything happens, and this is important, get your grandmother, grandfather, Joanna, Brenda, Stella and yourself into the fallout shelter and lock yourselves in. Do not argue or waiver. The enemy will want you and Stella but they will take anyone who they feel will have leverage over you. Now have a good time and I’ll be back when I know more.”
Have a good time? I thought. The biggest buzz kill I know just told me to have a good time.
I went up to Jerry and Joanna and gave them Rolf’s message. Then I went to Brenda and told her too. Next I told Pops and Grandma. The weirdest thing was that no one doubted or questioned what I told them. Thanks to me and my earth shattering invention, we had all become battle worn, battle weary and ready!
The party continued on and everyone including Vaughn and Alvarez and their wives appeared to be having fun.
Rolf returned and motioned for Vaughn, Alvarez Jerry and I to go into the house where we couldn’t be seen from the outside.
“There appears to be a significant force in the neighborhood”. Rolf said. “There are probably many more men in the brush behind the house. We have to get the women and untrained men out of here now but we can’t let the people watching us know that we are aware of them. Go tell the people I’ve mentioned to wave goodbye, walk toward their cars and leave. Is everybody armed?”
“Not me,” I said
“That’s OK Bill you’re going in the shelter.” Rolf continued. “Jerry, you go and alert the trained men. If they are unarmed, I understand that Pops has a gun stash here. Get those guns and ammo and give them to the people that need them. Felix, call in the police, National Guard or whatever group can get here fast. OK lets move.”
We all dispersed and within ten minutes, most of the guests had left, the remaining men were armed and six of us were moving toward the barn. Pops activated the bomb shelter and all of us hurried down the stairs. Pops stepped back outside and closed the floor.
“Pops don’t do that. You’re supposed to be down here with us,” I yelled as the floor was closing.
“I’m trained, I’m armed and this is my house,” Pops yelled back. “See you when it’s over.”
I pulled the metal door open and we all went in. I closed the door behind us, turned on the lights and inserted the metal bar though the wheel so it couldn’t be turned from the other side. I walked over and activated the sound system to the outside. When I did, my heart sank. There was nothing but the sound of gunfire.
“Oh my God,” Grandma shrieked, folded her hands, sat on one of the bunks and began to pray.”
I went over to the old submarine periscope Pops had installed in the shelter and turned it on. I pushed the ‘up’ button and it slowly rose. With one view completely obstructed by the side of the barn, I rotated the scope around. It was dark but a few flood lights that Pops had turned on for the party partially illuminated the pasture and the bushes beyond. I could see muzzle flashes going both ways and hear the retort through the speaker. I saw what looked like Jerry hiding behind a tree. Occasionally he would step out and shoot at the enemy.
Then the worst happened. Jerry ducked out from behind the tree and he took a bullet and fell. I couldn’t tell where he was hit but then, to my amazement, Pops ran out and tried to drag Jerry to safety. While trying to help Jerry, Pops was also shot. He dropped his gun and fell to the ground right next to Jerry.
I guess it showed on my face because Joanna screamed “What’s happened Bill!”
I sank to the floor and couldn’t stop my tears. But before I could answer there was a tremendous explosion just outside the front door to the shelter. The metal door latch rotated until the bar stopped it. I switched the sound system to the front door. Men on the other side yelled at each other to stand back while they set explosives to blow the door.
“Get back from the door and cover up,” I yelled.
Suddenly I heard a rapping noise on the back door of the shelter. Two quick raps and two slow ones.
Stella jumped up and announced, “It’s time to go!” With that she turned the latch and opened the back door.
To my astonishment, there was Rolf waving us to come out and go down a tunnel that hadn’t been there when I went through Pops escape tunnel before. It started just to the left of the original opening Pops had built. We all bent over and ran down the new tunnel having no idea where it led. We were just following Rolf.
About sixty yards out, the tunnel rose up and we were suddenly above ground. Right in front of us was a round metallic structure about one hundred feet wide and twenty feet high with what looked like small windows around the perimeter. We all stared wide-eyed at this strange object and we all knew what it was.
It was a flying saucer!
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A door to the craft opened and Rolf told us to get inside and find a seat. We obeyed and entered. The door closed behind us and the saucer began to hum. Within a few seconds the vehicle began to rise up in the sky; slowly at first and then faster and faster. Within a few seconds I looked out the window and the earth was well behind us getting smaller and smaller. I looked at Stella. She had the biggest smile on her face I’d ever seen.
Inside, the saucer was a large open space with a side wall and a door on the right and the same configuration on the left. It looked like it created some sort of adjoining room. There was a large round column in the middle of the ship and it also had what looked like a door. There were two banks of twelve seats on opposite sides of the room facing the center of the open area. Other than those details, the cabin was quite austere.
Stella and Rolf were sitting close to Joanna, Grandma, Brenda and me in one cluster of seats on one side of the craft.
“I knew you were too good to be true Stella. I’d say you were out of this world but I wouldn’t because it would be stupid to say that. But I guess this is a real alien abduction isn’t it?” I asked her.
“In a manner of speaking Bill,” she answered. “But we aren’t taking you permanently and we won’t be performing experiments on you. Rolf and I just decided that the organizations trying to possess your technology had gotten too aggressive and eventually would either capture you or you’d be killed accidentally in the melee. All these entities needed you alive but in activity as intense as the one we just left, we couldn’t insure your safety.”
Then Grandma came over with a scared look on her face and asked. “How’s my husband? Did he make it?”
“He’s in surgery now and we believe he’ll be fine,” Stella answered.
“Did Jerry make it?” Joanna asked fighting back tears.
“I believe so Joanna, but his wounds were more serious so I am not actually sure of the outcome.” Stella answered.
“Oh my God, my stupid invention has ruined everything and may have gotten a lot of people hurt or killed.” I wailed.
“It’s not you Bill, it’s the lust for power of the people in your world organizations. As bad as this was here though, it’s not as bad as we’ve seen before,” commented Stella.
“What do you mean, Stella? Has someone else invented the device before me?” I questioned.
“No Bill, you are the first on Earth,” Stella answered.
“On Earth, you mean you’ve been to other planets where this has happened?” I asked.
“Not personally Bill, but in our world’s history we have intervened several times,” came Stella’s answer.
“I’ve got a thousand questions Stella”. I commented.
“Bill, before you start with questions, let me give all of you a short history of who we are and the details of why we were on Earth before we get to the jump zone.” Stella said.
We all heard a noise and looked up and the door in the center column slid open. An older man wi
th a bandage on his chest walked out slowly. It was Pops. Grandma got up and ran over and gave him a hug. Pops flinched.
“Take it easy now, I’ve been shot but I feel surprisingly good. Stella, those doctors you have below are amazing!” Pops said as he carefully walked over and took a seat.
“Good, Mr. Burton, I was just about to explain who my people are and what we do,” Stella said. “I’m sure you now know that you are on a vessel traveling in space.”
“It didn’t take me long to figure that one out especially when I woke up and saw those doctors. They’re not long on looks but they sure know what they are doing.” Pops said.
“Rolf and I are from a planet called Velador.” Stella began. “Velador is a planet slightly larger than earth and has a similar distribution of land and water. Planets such as ours, with the ability to sustain life, are rare in the universe. When we developed the ability to travel in space by manipulating space-time, the worlds with life that we found were surprisingly like our own. The developmental time tables were always a little different but considering the eons of time that has passed, not much. We are actually nearly identical from an anatomical standpoint too.”
“We estimate our development as a species to be about 400 to 450 years ahead of Earth. This is tiny compared to the billions of years the cosmos has existed. When we compare our historical development to yours, and other worlds, the similarities far exceed the differences.”
“About 400 years ago,” Stella continued, “when our young genius invented the first anti-gravity device, it began a chaos that took almost one hundred years to resolve. We went through two world wars that included limited nuclear strikes. Our planet lost several million people before cooler minds prevailed and we regained some semblance of order.”
“This was a horrific period in our history. When we developed the ability to travel to other worlds, it became our mission and our passion to help other planets make their transition to anti-gravity smoother than ours with a lower cost to society.”
“Bill, Rolf and I are just two of over a thousand of our people who currently dwell on Earth and look for signs of someone discovering the anti-gravity technology. When the time distortion occurred, we knew you were responsible. It was determined that I would lead the effort to control the transition from creation to production with the least amount of distress.”
“Why were you selected Stella? Mind you, I’m certainly not complaining but I am curious.” I asked.
“Bill, I think you suspect the answer to that question; so to answer, except for a brilliant mind, you are a typical young man with a libido to match,” Stella explained. “We discovered that your level of intimate experiences were limited so I was chosen to work with you because in your world I am considered to be very beautiful. Do you understand now?”
“Yeah, sure; horny young man meets gorgeous, sexy woman and gets manipulated. It’s a story as old as time, or dirt, or anything else really ancient. But to repeat, I’m not complaining.” I said.
I heard Brenda and Grandma laughing out loud but I chose not to look at them.
“I’d like to make one more comment before I open this up for questions.” Stella continued. “Doing the work that people like Rolf and I do in different worlds now is considered on Velador to be a profession of the highest calling. We chose this path early in life and attended school for many years to learn the languages and culture of your planet. Earth, with its diverse culture and belief systems is considered to be one of the most challenging and rewarding we have encountered. We have about ten minutes until we arrive at the jump zone so what are your questions?”
I raised my hand and asked, “What’s a jump zone?”
“Remember Einstein’s theory of Relativity, Bill, well it’s mostly true,” Stella elaborated. “A variation of anti-gravity technology will alter time just like you experienced back home. Our system actually bends and wraps the space-time fabric so we can transition over thousands of light years in just a few minutes. This disruption of space-time must be done as far away as possible from large objects like stars to avoid affecting them. If a star were to come apart near our jump zone, there’s no telling where we’d end up,” Stella explained. “Now I have time for one more question.”
Brenda asked the next question, “Will we ever get back to earth and will it be the same time as we left. It was pretty dangerous then.”
“Good question Brenda. “We have the ability to return to earth at any time period we choose. It’s difficult to understand but if we go back to an earlier time than when we left, anything we change will affect events going forward from that point. If we go into the future, time will be forced to catch up with us which in our experience should be avoided. Our goal is to create a strategy to deal with whatever the current situation may be and return to that exact time.”
Just then, the door in the center column opened and to our great joy, Jerry was sitting in an odd looking chair and an attendant pushed him out. The chair had no wheels and appeared to just float. We all crowded around Jerry and he sounded like nothing had changed. Joanna began crying.
“Back on Earth, I’d be in intensive care for the next month,” Jerry said. “Somehow my strange looking friend here has a way to speed up the healing process. Less than an hour ago, I was lying in Pops pasture figuring it was over for me. Now I’m somewhere in outer space feeling alive with my friends and Joanna. Give me a hug girl.”
“That chair is another application of anti gravity Bill,” Stella commented. And that strange looking man you see before you is what I used to look like before I took this assignment.”
“Stella, you looked like him?” Jerry hollered. “Forget anti-gravity, Bill. I say we get a group of Stella’s guys, and open up an office in Beverly Hills. We could make a fortune in Plastic Surgery and it would be a whole lot less dangerous.”
“And look at my ear lobe. It’s almost all grown back!” Jerry added.
“OK people,” Rolf announced. “Our jump is coming in ten seconds so brace yourselves.”
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It was a bumpy ride coming through the jump zone; a little bumpier than driving down the freeway when every pothole seems to find you. When it ended it was as if the sky had opened up and sunlight beamed through the side windows of our craft.
I looked down at this new world. It was similar to Earth but the continents and oceans had different shapes and sizes. It had white areas at the poles like Earth and vast green sections that looked like forests. I was able to make out several mountain ranges scattered about the continents.
Rolf stood up and announced, “We have to remain up here while we all get reacclimatized to the atmosphere and gravity on Velador. You will feel an increase in your weight and a slight increase in your energy as we slowly increase the oxygen levels in the air. Velador has twelve percent more mass than Earth and our oxygen level is seventeen percent higher than Earth so the energy boost you will feel will partially offset your increase in weight.”
Stella again took over. “It will be about an hour before our bodies adjust and we can descend, so we might as well continue with our question and answer period.”
I jumped in because my curiosity was going wild. “What was that ‘click and whoosh’ gun Rolf used when he rescued us?”
Rolf decided to answer this question. “Bill even though I told the men on my team when I used it the first time that it was a state of the art invention from Earth, it is an adaptation of a device we invented here on Velador. It temporarily shuts down a person’s brain wave pattern and immobilizes them. It is a non-lethal way to subdue someone. Only our police have this device here and use it very infrequently. The only side effect is a major headache when the person who receives the wave wakes up.”
“Next question,” I asked. “How did we get to the jump zone?”
“That may be a question for our scientists,” Stella answered. “But the short version is that when we are inside solar systems or near large celestial objects we use our anti-
gravity propulsion to in effect push off from these objects. When we are in deep space, we use a huge array of ion generators to create propulsion. The entire system is powered by a fusion reactor. For the rest of you, fusion is the process used by your sun and other stars to generate heat and light. Anti-gravity gives us an ability to contain the materials and use the reactor safely. It is quite small considering the power it produces.”
“Since our maximum speed is still the speed of light, and the distances are so great between systems, we then have to use the jump zone time concept we explained earlier to shorten the distances,” Stella added.
“How is Velador organized politically?” Joanna asked.
“Like Earth,” Stella answered, “we have self governing areas all over the planet we call States. There is a world organization that provides for two things; Planetary Defense and Space Exploration and a Planetary Supreme Court to decide disputes between the states. The States are independent and have their own laws, but have chosen to abide by our planetary principles.”
“And what are those principles?” Joanna asked.
“That is a very complicated question Joanna,” answered Stella. “Individual freedom is our most fundamental concept. We have discovered, and it is taught to us from a young age, that being independent, resourceful and hard working will provide the most joyful life and benefit to society.”
“We encourage our people to try to discover how they would like to live out their lives at an early age. For instance, Rolf and I chose to be in Alien Service as children. Others may go into our defense force or technical service or simply become writers or shop keepers. No occupation is considered better or worse than any other.”
“Another guiding principle on Velador concerns government. Their duties are primarily administrative. They are not allowed to pass laws, only to suggest them. The people must vote on and pass laws and we do that annually. That’s when we also eliminate old or obsolete laws. In a typical election, we will eliminate two laws for every one we pass. And one overriding concept is that people who work for the government, either elected or hired, are considered to be no smarter than the people who elect them and are not allowed to exert any kind of undue power over them,” Stella added.