DIMENSION LAPSE
By
Nicholas T. Davis
© Copyright 2014 By Nicholas T. Davis
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 1499366817
ISBN 13: 978-1499366815
Syracuse, NY
DEDICATION
This tale is dedicated to my two sisters
Cynthia Richman and Phyllis Antos
who shared my love for science fiction.
CHAPTER ONE
Jeff could still remember the exact date of his arrival on the peculiar world. It was December 15th, 2159 when he had left Pluto. He was investigating the possibility of an alien race when his instruments were damaged. His ship took a lot of beating as it landed on a tropical island of an uncharted planet. Upon landing there, he was greeted by amphibian-like beings, who were peaceful and very primitive, living in caves prior to his arrival. They treated his wounds and helped salvage his ship. In return, Jeff helped them build homes. Their mutual friendship, however, was only a substitute for human companionship.
The most outspoken alien, Dormiton wasn’t very large, strong or even intelligent. None of their race possessed these qualities. Even though they had human emotions, most of their decisions were logical choices. They didn’t need much sleep, only three to four hours daily. Although they were smaller than humans, they still possessed similar organs, like any other amphibian. Their lungs were a little larger in comparison due to their slightly more concentrated atmosphere, but their other organs were identical.
Jeff was assigned to the Mars base his entire life, and never saw the Rocky Mountains of Earth; or the sandy beaches of the tropics. He only saw pictures of the way Earth used to look. Mars, for the most part was flat, rocky terrain except for Olympus Mons, Arsia Mons, and the other mountains; forests, crop fields, and lakes inside the biodome vegetation complexes. The Earth stations Edronomis and Tianos were transported away from the Earth to orbit Mars. The population before Jeff’s father left the orbit of Earth had grown to 90,000 people. There were 60,000 at the Martian base where Jeff was from. He was sent on many flight missions, including retrieving ice samples from the dwarf planet Pluto.
This was his first encounter with extraterrestrials, and the last time he would see any humans for a long time. While maneuvering by Pluto, Jeff noticed a flashing light at the corner of his eye. It
disappeared rather abrupt, and then reappeared minutes later, passing right by his craft. The speed of the phenomenon was far beyond Martian technology, so Jeff decided not to pursue it.
Two hours later, he made a landing on the cold, icy plains of the barren world. The solar wind was not as calm as he hoped it would be, and touchdown was a bit turbulent, but would suffice. He shut off the power supply, suited up, turned on the button of his suit’s temperature control to 70º, grabbed his laser gun along with some soil sample containers and opened the main door lock. A sense of strange uneasiness came over his mind he never felt before, ghostly uneasiness, being exposed to the cold silent and raw elements of the hostile world.
He leaped gently onto the icy surface, his boots biting into it. Although none of several stories of ships that were attacked by aliens were officially substantiated, he was being cautious after hearing about them. He realized there wasn’t any immediate danger, fired his laser into the ground, and melted a chunk of the frozen Nitrogen-Methane ice cover that probably had been there for thousands of years, and placed a small sample inside one of the receptacles he brought.
“Major Walker to base,” he said through a transmitter in his helmet. The response was a little delayed due to the distance between worlds.
“This is Mars base,” a woman’s voice answered. It was Lori Anderson, a close friend and coworker, and Jeff had a fancy for her beautiful blue eyes, long blonde curly hair and ivory fair complexion.
“Have you received the soil samples yet? “Over.”
“Yes,” he said. “Before landing, however, I saw some kind of light in the sky. It was faster than any of our ships. I think it was a meteor, but I can’t be positive.”
“We’ll send a couple of scouts your way,” Lori answered, in a firm commanding voice. “If you’re through there, Commander Carver wants you back here.”
“Roger. Over and out.”
Jeff retrieved the rest of his samples and headed back to the ship. Pluto was at perihelion, the closest point to the sun, and the Nitrogen-Methane was melting; a good time to drill ice cores. He was almost to the door, when the light appeared again, this time not more than ten miles away from him. He barely saw the faint beacon through the foggy, snow covered atmosphere. There were three green lights on top of a red light, and it was spherical in its black, oval shape. It came in
close view, and he was convinced that it was alien. He held his laser tight, headed quick back to the ship, threw his hand held core drill into the ship, climbed in, and slammed the hatch tight behind him. He turned on the power immediately, but it went dead when the alien ship fired upon him. He tried to reach Mars base, but couldn’t establish any radio contact. Beginning to panic, he grabbed his laser pistol and some explosives and headed for the escape hatch below the ship. He heard the sound of lasers as they blazed against the main door hatch. He pushed the escape door hatch open and gently dropped to the ground below the ship.
He could see his aggressors as he peered from the corner of one of the landing pods. He saw two of them who wore suits very similar to his, and carried lasers. They couldn’t breathe the thin, poisonous atmosphere either for they also had small tanks on their back as well.
When they discovered the ship was empty, they started to turn away. Jeff jumped, floating towards them, opened fire, and shot one in the back. The blast killing him instantly, as the other leaped towards the ship, only to be killed by an explosion Jeff had thrown, and destroyed part of their craft in the process.
The smoke cleared, and Jeff saw the inside of the black craft through the hole the explosive had made. He approached the ship, careful to make sure there weren’t any other aliens to retaliate against him. The writing on the side appeared to be hieroglyphics, but it was not from Earth or displayed Earth-like origins. When Jeff entered, he noticed there was seating for two pilots only, even though the ship was a great deal larger than his own, approximately one hundred and fifty feet wide to be exact.
The control panel was similar to his, but he was unable to decipher the writing. He noticed a flashing red light on the panel was activated, but wasn’t sure if it was a rescue beacon or a self destruct mechanism and didn’t want to stick around to find out. He opened the compartment located next to the escape hatch, and took two extra laser guns and two small black spherical objects which he didn't know the use of. He jumped from the craft and approached the alien closest to his ship. Jeff pulled his helmet off, and stared in disbelief. The creature was simian in appearance, with one eye in the middle of its grotesque head which was covered with thick, black fur. He photographed the alien with a device about the size of a flash drive, and jumped back into his ship. He shut the main door lock, and replaced his power supply cartridge with the only one of his own left, and switched on the
control panel.
The ship’s sensors indicated that there were two crafts moving at a high velocity towards the surface. He fired the main thruster rockets and escaped as fast as he could, but not before being struck broadside by their photonic weapons. His control panel shorted out just after he escaped the atmosphere, leaving him weaponless, motionless, and floating through empty space. During this time, a piece of metal fell from the ceiling and knocked him unconscious.
When he finally awoke,
he found that somehow he was spared. He laid on a beach of an uncharted planet trillions of miles from Pluto he thought, unaware of how he got there or how to return home. Fortunately his ship was also spared, which he found miraculous in itself, but it was still in pretty rough shape. When he rose to his feet, he was greeted by the amphibian beings who called themselves lingworts.
It was now two and a half years from that day and an especially hot August afternoon on the tropical island, close to 105º. There weren’t any clouds to shelter the heat, and Jeff sweated fiercely as he worked on repairing his ship. He kept a jug of fresh water next to him, in case he needed it. Dormiton, his closest friend among the tribe approached him from the far end of the beach.
“What are you doing?” he asked, scratching his smooth, slender head, as he entered the spaceship.
“Trying to repair my control panel,”. Jeff answered. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get this thing off the ground.”
“Is it that bad?” Dormiton asked, not understanding even what a control panel was.
“If I don’t repair it, I’ll be stuck here forever. Besides, we need lasers in case aliens show up. I won’t be able to fix the ship for space travel, however. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repair the shields.”
“Lasers?” he asked.
“Weapons.”
“Oh. I doubt that you’ll ever need them here, "Dormiton stated, as he sat in the extra pilot seat.
“Better safe than sorry,” Jeff said as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“Why would anyone want to attack us, Jeff? It doesn’t help to gather food or please the gods. Besides, we have nothing anyone would want other than the island itself.”
“It may sound senseless to you, but you’d be surprised. They may want your people as a slave race. You have to fight to protect your
people. There will come a day when you have enemies, and you must defeat them to survive. You can’t depend on me forever.”
“What enemies could we possibly have here?” the green, slender, spotted amphibian jested, and threw his thin arms in the air.
“Your own gods can be your enemies, “Jeff answered. “When I first came here, you thought I was a god. If I came from the stars, there could be others. They may not be as peaceful as I am, and you need to be prepared.”
“Are you saying that our gods are really star people like you? You are speaking bad tongue, and could be killed for saying such!” His tone was serious, and reminded him of the ancient customs that they swore to uphold as a race.
“No, I’m not saying that at all. What I am saying, is that you shouldn’t trust every god that falls from the sky. If I wasn’t peaceful, I could have easily killed your small community. What you need is something to protect you, like gunpowder.”
“What’s gunpowder?”
“It’s a type of powder that can be lit by a fire, but it goes out quickly. It helps project an object, such as a rock, through a cylinder of some kind. My only regret is that if I show you how to use it, I might change your entire future.”
“In what way?”
“I’d rather not discuss it now,” Jeff said, as he finished soldering some wires shut the control panel faceplate, and smiled. “Besides that, Buddy, we have to see if this beast will run.” Dormiton shut the main door lock and they put their helmets and safety belts on.
“Is Milgic meeting us at the village later?” Jeff asked, and switched on the main power supply and fired the ion propulsion rockets. Dormiton nodded instead of talking over the noise of the engine.
The craft rose slow above the white beach and Jeff switched on the main rockets, which elevated the craft over the ocean higher and faster. He reached an elevation of about eight thousand feet, when he suddenly noticed a light on his right side. It looked like a spaceship, but was too far away to determine if it was of the same nature as the ones he saw on Pluto.
When it came closer, he knew his intuition had been correct. The craft was similar to the one he had seen two years before, spherical in shape and black in color. Jeff navigated his ship closer, moved up to about mock eight, when the craft made a direct curve to his left. The
Martian’s ship imitated its movements exactly, as it plunged towards the ocean. Dormiton swallowed in fear, afraid they would meet a fiery, watery death.
“Relax,” Jeff told his friend as he smiled. “It’s only a test run.” Jeff closed in on the craft and reached for his laser controls. Upon firing, the panel short-circuited again.
“Damn it,” he hissed, and tried to retreat, only to be struck from behind. The ship spiraled out of control towards the sea below them. Smoke billowed from the tail section, and Jeff in haste reached for the ejection lever. Upon pulling it, the escape pod piloted the two safely from the craft, which now struck the ocean in a blazing inferno. Fortunately they landed in water near the shoreline.
It had been a rough landing, but neither one of them were hurt. They climbed from what was left of the ship and waded towards the shore. When they reached the beach, Jeff slammed his helmet in the sand in anger. “I’m never going home now,” he snapped, peering out at the sinking wreckage of the ship.
“Can you build a new one?” his friend asked, unaware of the magnitude of the situation.
“It’s not that simple,” Jeff laughed. “I need materials and processes that don’t exist here, such as metal and fabrication of the metal.”
“What does it look like?”
“It’s silver colored and shiny!” Jeff said, annoyed by his ignorance. “Just forget it! I’m stranded here and there’s nothing anyone can do about it!”
“I’ve seen what you seek,” Dormiton told him.
Jeff who was surprised, and quite interested, asked, “Where?”
“Behind that cove over there.” He pointed to the ridge that overlooked the ocean at the opposite end of the beach, about three miles away. “Every morning when the sun rises, three lights fly from the water where this ‘metal’ you speak of is. They vanish into the sky, almost as if they’re there and then gone.”
“The lights have to be spaceships. An alien race could have a base here. We’ll climb that ridge tomorrow to get a better look. In the meantime, we need to go back to the village and get everyone to a safe place, like the caves on the other side of the island. Tell them a storm is coming. We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet, and we don’t want anyone to be alarmed.”
Learning from past cultures helped Jeff to understand his new
companions. From many civilizations in Earth’s past, he learned to deal with more primitive people, assisting them in development, and protecting their vulnerability to their enemies: especially themselves. Earthlings almost made themselves extinct, along with other species of animals that were killed off. It took three global wars for man to realize there would never be a victor. The third war happened at a time when peace had almost been achieved. He hadn’t only confined his studies to Earth or Mars however. Their probes traveled throughout their galaxy collecting information on intelligent life. He never actually met an alien face to face however; until that cold stormy day on Pluto.
Jeff showed the Lingwort community how to construct huts from straw, wood, and clay, and how to seal them so they would be waterproof. He had learned how to do this in the tropical biodome on Mars during his survival training in the academy. The village consisted of thirty lingworts, mostly males. The rest of their clan was supposed to arrive in three lunar cycles. They were migrating from a smaller island in search of food. Scouts had already been sent back when Jeff arrived at the island.
The sun set on the small village, which was at the edge of the jungle. The village was lit rather well that night because of their precautions to depart to the caverns. Dinner consisted of the usual vegetables, herbs, and fruit, except for a small goose that Jeff captured earlier and ate. Eating meat or killing animals was sacrilege to the Lingworts, but they made an exception for small insects and fish that they could swallow whole. Even thoug
h they didn’t believe in this, they were tolerant of their new friend’s cuisine. Game was plentiful on the island, and he didn’t miss an opportunity.
After dinner, the townspeople gathered their gear and placed it on their backs. Dormiton and Jeff led them into the jungle, followed by their trustworthy friend, Milgic. Milgic was probably the most influential of all the villagers, and the most curious. He was slightly more outspoken than Dormiton and quite a bit more pessimistic, which led Jeff to wonder how they ever became such close friends.
Lingworts were like four feet salamanders to him, but no, a little bit of a frog too. He couldn’t explain how they were able to talk, but somehow they did. Even before he taught them English, they had spoken in their own native tongue. Jeff knew they had vocal cords, and small blunt teeth, but couldn’t explain how they developed a language. Their race reminded him of ancient tribesmen on Earth. It was plain to
see why they were gatherers and hadn’t learned to kill yet. This presented its own share of problems when other wild animals attacked. They would mostly run to wherever they could find refuge. Jeff wanted to keep violence out of their lives, but he also knew it was a necessary evil sometimes. The troop dressed in thick clothing to avoid being bit by mosquitoes which were two inches long and deadly. In addition to Malaria, one also expected to get nasty skin infection that permanently scarred for life, considering you’re still alive to begin with. They carried the serum with them at all times, made of some roots on the island. Jeff was not allowed to know what they were, it was sacred and used only by their “Hodiku," or “medicine chief.” Jeff showed them how he made his own medicines from roots and herbs as well, something he had been taught in his early academy days. Jeff carried a dagger with him, as well as a laser gun in case they were attacked.
About three hours passed when they came to a clearing to rest. There was considerably less humidity in the air then there was the previous evening, but it was still a hot evening. Jeff handed Dormition a canteen, and gestured for him to pass it to Milgic, who dropped his pack to the ground.
Dimension Lapse (Dimension Lapse Series Book 1) Page 1