Earth to Centauri: The First Journey (Captain Anara - Antariksh Book 1)

by Kumar L

  The sight which greeted them inside was one of hostility but it seemed to be between the two groups of Kifrwss who stood opposite each other across a rough table in the middle of the hall. They were exchanging what she assumed were angry words in low voices. A few of the humans from Huzryss stood around observing them while Earth security kept a sharp eye on them.

  Anara opened comm to her ship and confirmed that the Major was able to see and hear all that was going on and was on recording mode. The devices on her team's EVA suits were interconnected to provide him a three dimensional view of the room.

  Anara waited at a side for the Kifrwss to finish their discussions. They finally noticed her and the two groups separated to allow her to come in between. She asked them to sit down while she faced RyHiza.

  ‘I think all the interested parties are in the hall. Why don’t we start from the beginning, RyHiza? You answered the call from my planet and your people have attacked us at every turn. You have damaged our ship and rejected our hand of friendship. On my planet, this would make you our enemy.’

  She turned to face the other faction. ‘However, as you have seen by now, we do not give in to threats. We will fight if required to defend ourselves and we fight hard.’

  She stopped giving time for the translators to complete the job and the message to sink in.

  ‘Now, it’s up to you to tell your story. Who are these humans on this planet and what do the people of Kifrwss want - peace or war?’ she finished rather dramatically.

  ‘This will take some time, Captain Anara,’ started RyHiza. ‘We know your planet because your people sent a message in a .. probe .. a long time back. We found it in one of our first expeditions into space and brought it back to our planet. Till that time we had believed we were the only inhabited planet in the known Universe. Like you we have been observing for signs that life existed on other planets and when the probe was found, there was great joy on our planet.’ He seemed to smile but it was difficult for the Earth people to read it.

  ‘Our scientists worked hard to understand the symbols. There was a plate which gave good information but it took us some years before we could hear the voices and then more time for us to understand what was being said. We did this in secret and slowly revealed to our people what we learnt. There was much discussion about what to do. Many were fearful because we did not know about you. The Discat decided to wait while we learned more from the probe before deciding what way to go.’

  Another person from RyHiza’s group took up the narrative at this point. ‘The probe was taken to a secret location. We studied everything on the probe and realised it was from someone who was at least as advanced as us. It took us much time to understand how to read the plate. Imagine our surprise when we finally managed to read the plate and understood that the symbols were in ..what is that you say ..?’

  ‘Mathematics,’ replied Anara automatically. It had worked! The whole premise of math being the universal language had actually worked! Hats off to the people who worked that into the record, she thought, impressed. ‘And you finally managed to learn about Earth and its people.’

  ‘It was not so simple still. We could .. see and .. hear but did not understand what it all meant. Then came the next breakthrough,’ said RyHiza, ‘we recognized one sound.’

  ‘This is like thriller novel,’ whispered Ryan to Anara. ‘ I almost want to tell him to skip directly to the last page.’

  ‘Shh..’ Anara whispered back at RyHiza looked at them. They were so close to learning the truth. ‘Sorry, RyHiza, please continue.’

  ‘Yes, the sound. It was what we call h’y’mugh .. you call it heartbeat, I think. A repeating sound - bup bup bup. After that more words and characters were understood and we slowly learned your language. The messages were played for the whole planet as ordered by the Discat, messages of peace as we understood. Still some were not convinced. They said this is a .. trick.. and Earth people will come to destroy us. Anyway, we kept learning more and more like your one zero sequence and code. A team was formed to build a translator and they learn the language. There were some gaps but the information was very good.’

  ‘You betrayed all of Kifrwss, Hiza!,’ shouted one of the Others. ‘Now see what these Earthmen had brought with them. Death and destruction. They are not peaceful. They never wanted peace!’

  RyHiza looked at them fiercely. ‘Where is this destruction you talk about? Do we not have all ships and all people safe? Are not the humans of Huzryss safe? Is there any destruction on the planet? No! You are the betrayers! You attacked them. Don’t talk anymore. The Discat will now decide your fate.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Anara. ‘What or who is this Discat you keep talking about, RyHiza?’

  ‘The Discat, Captain is our seat of leaders for my .. continent. We have separate for all other continents, three in all. They guide and direct our planet. You must understand Captain, we live on one planet but we have different people in different areas. For many years in the past we lived simply and yet there were many .. tribes and lot of fighting. It’s only some time back that we have found some measure of peace. We are hunters by birth, Captain as I think you now suspect, do you not?’

  ‘I think you found something else on the probe and the images also resembled some living organisms on your planet.’

  ‘You’re right. We have creatures on our planet who look like you little. But there was another surprise we found on the probe. Inside the probe was a hidden chamber.’

  “Hidden chamber?’ repeated Anara. Her briefing and the database had not indicated anything like this. Maybe they had just mistakenly identified one of the components.

  ‘Yes. Hidden deep inside the probe. There we found some containers. They were .. frozen? Very cold. We believe the cold in space kept them .. frozen. These were sent to our science station and examined closely.’

  ‘And what was in these containers?’ prompted Ryan.

  ‘It was life!’ You must understand we procreate from eggs but what we found were similar to eggs but ready to hatch. We were surprised and tested them. There was no doubt, this was life.’

  Anara and Ryan looked at each other meaningfully. Looks like the database had missed out that somehow the scientists behind Voyager had added a secret cargo of human fertilized eggs on the probe. That did not make any sense. Why would anyone do something like this?

  ‘We did not know what to do. This was more than we scientists could deal with. The decision was finally left to the Discat. They debated for many days. We had new life in our hand but we did not know if this was the same life you had drawn on the plate on the probe, though the scientists believed so. Also we tested deep inside the eggs. I don’t know if you are aware that all life requires something we call k’shaya. Our scientists had always believed that any outlanders we find from other planets, we all will share the k’shaya.’

  ‘DNA,’ said the Captain. ‘We call it DNA. Strands of proteins which define who we are and what we become.’

  ‘Yes, k’shaya. Yours was similar to .. animals we call ‘h’jura. Tree living and docile creatures we keep as pets.’

  ‘So, you found human eggs and you found DNA similar to yours. You know we also believed the same as you, that all life is one, but you have proven it before us. It’s been generations that we held that belief and it’s uncanny that we find the same life source on two planets billions and billions of kilometers away.’

  ‘It does seem as you say Captain, we are all one, Captain. Anyway, Discat decided we should try and hatch the eggs. It took us time to determine the correct conditions and method I am afraid we lost some eggs but our scientists hatched the rest and those are the one’s standing in this room,’ said RyHiza pointing to the Huzryss humans.

  The Captain and her team members had listened to the whole narrative and there were a few wet eyes in the group. It seemed these humans were someone’s sons and daughters back on Earth.

  ‘That is bloody amazing!’ burst out Ryan. ‘We had been prepare
d for many surprises but this takes the cake.’

  26th June 2117

  Stories

  ‘So what do you think of the story, Ryan?’ asked Anara. They had taken a small break to allow the Kifrwss to get some sunlight under the watchful eye of security officers. The three of them were seated in the shelter.

  Dr Lian shrugged. ‘It sounds quite probable but I am not able to understand who put those human zygotes in Voyager and more importantly - why?’

  ‘The way the thing was described to us, I believe this must have been a part of the design. Someone decided to send human DNA into space. You know, worst come, even if the probe was not captured by intelligent species, these DNA strands could have potentially landed on a habitable planet and given rise to new life - though it may seem far-fetched. I wonder if this is the way we evolved on Earth - someone sent DNA into space and some of it reached Earth?’

  ‘But you have to admire their guts in deciding to allow the zygotes to mature into adult human beings, not even knowing what they would eat!’ said Ryan.

  ‘That’s true and we must realise this whole mission has been based on a number of improbabilities. The chance of receiving a signal on Earth after we spent a hundred years looking for it, the chance of recognizing it, finding a probe in the vast reaches of space, raising human children - it all sounds too good to be true. All said, this is a scientist’s dream!’ said Dr Lian.

  ‘Let’s see what else they have to say. Ready to go?’

  They went back into the hall donning their suits. The Kifrwss also come in after a few minutes.

  ‘Everything you’ve told us so far has been amazing, RyHiza,’ started Anara. ‘When did you decide to try and contact again?’

  ‘You see, Captain, we also realised that this may not be the only probe there and the originator must be sending other signals as well. We decided to focus our efforts to locate the signals. There was a team set up to find those signals. That .. telescope you see on this planet was built by us. My own planet system cannot send signals very far because of the electromagnetic rays which don’t allow very long range communication.’

  He stopped to collect his thoughts. ‘You see, we knew about this planet - Huzryss but this was not suitable for us to live on. The air is dry, the warmth is less and the water is not enough for our needs. Since it was also closer to Earth we set up a station here and started listening. It took many years but we found another signal. We understood the message and using the data on the probe and the signals we tried to find your planet. We had looked at your solar system many times but never found any planets which could be habitable - only one large planet mostly composed of gases. We suspected there might be others but did not find any proof.’

  ‘So same problem, different solar system,’ remarked Dr Lian.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked RyHiza.

  ‘It’s the same problem we faced on Earth while looking for planets in far off solar systems. You cannot see them directly, only postulate based on movements and impacts on the main star. This planet, Proxima B, needed many decades for us to locate and identify as suitable for life. It’s just too small. Even now, we believe Alpha Centauri double star system also has some planets. I was hoping to locate them in this journey but just did not get time to analyse the data we have collected so far.’

  ‘You are talking about our star system RyK’ya. That is where our home planet, Kifrwss is. Two suns and five planets, that is where we come from.’

  ‘And the increased electromagnetism creating problems for communication is because of the two suns,’ concluded Ryan.

  ‘Two inhabited planets in one mission!’ exclaimed Dr Lian. ‘This is unbelievable.’

  Anara acknowledged Dr Lian’s enthusiasm but there was one more explanation required from RyHiza.

  ‘Why did you send these humans to this planet, RyHiza? It almost looks like an exile to me.’

  ‘Exile?’ repeated RyHiza while waiting for a translation. ‘No this was for their own safety. As we learned more and more and realised we are so close to Earth, the opposition to the project also grew. There was a group of people who called themselves TrueKif’s. They started violent protest against seeking contact with .. aliens. They attacked the facility where the humans were kept and destroyed it. It was then decided to shift the humans to Huzryss to keep them safe and allow them to live naturally.’

  ‘But the TrueKif’s found them,’ said Anara.

  ‘Yes, but they did not have a ship to reach and harm them on Huzryss.’

  ‘Until now.’ finished Anara.

  ‘Until now,’ acknowledged RyHiza. ‘They stole one of our three ships and came here to intercept you. We had already sent one ship to Huzryss for the humans to bring you here and our last ship brought me here.’

  The Captain was lost in thought after the explanations were done with. She had the power in her hand now - all three ships were in her control. She needed to proceed further very carefully.

  ‘So what are you proposing we do now, RyHiza?’ she asked.

  ‘This is a great moment for the people on my planet. I was sent here this time to prevent the TrueKif’s from harming you and to bring you to our home to become part of a bigger civilization.’

  ‘That will indeed be our honour. Just imagine, one small corner of the Universe and two civilizations have thrived so close to each other. But there are still issues we need to resolve. What do we do about the Others who are here now? We cannot leave anyone here while we go gallivanting to Kifrwss.’

  ‘The TrueKif’s will come with us to face trial, Captain. They have to face punishment for what they have done. We still do not know who their leaders are and these people may be able to tell us. I leave it to you to decide how to do this.’

  Anara looked at Ryan and motioned for him to follow her. They went to their shelter and connected with the ship.

  ‘You heard it all, Major. What do you think?’

  ‘We don’t have much choice Captain. We are but one ship. I think we should go with RyHiza’s suggestion. But instead of all of us going, you and I make that trip. Antariksh remains here and keeps an eye on things. We also keep the other two ships in our control and grounded as guarantee for our safe return.’

  ‘We are assuming he is telling the truth about them having only three ships. What if they have more and another is headed towards us full of soldiers?’

  ‘A chance we have to take. What I would consider is - what do they have to gain by holding us here or attacking us again?’ asked the Major.

  ‘Ryan?’

  ‘I agree. Though I would have loved to see their planet, this is the safe course of action,’ he replied simply.

  ‘Captain, you must take me with you!’ interjected Dr Lian. We may never get this opportunity again to see that planet. Even if I cannot take my instruments, I can observe and report.’

  Anara nodded - Lian was important. ‘So, it’s decided. We take up his invitation and go. Madhavan, I hope the ship will be ready by the time we get back? It’s time we started preparing for our journey back.’

  ‘I have completed most of the tasks Captain. We should be ready in two to three days maximum.’

  ‘Let’s get this over with people and go home to Earth. And Major, can you see to the disarming of the nuclear device please? I don’t want to come back and see the planet blown up by someone tripping over the circuit!’

  1st July 2117

  Twin Suns

  The journey to Kifrwss had been surprisingly short after the months they had earlier spent in space to reach Huzryss. The distance was short and even though the Kifrwyss did not have the FTL technology as Antariksh, the ship was fast enough at sub light speeds.

  Anara was completely entranced by the vista which has presented itself when they had entered the Alpha Centauri system for the first time. The twin suns presented a majestic view she had never seen before.

  The planet of Kifrwss was another wonder in itself with much more blue than Earth with deep shades of
green. It was like a tropical paradise clearly suitable for reptilian life. She could understand now what living on Huzryss was a problem for these people.

  Their ship approached the planet at low speed giving them a glimpse of cities with low buildings and different shapes with more waterways than roads. She had not seen anything so peaceful in a long time. In the last few days aboard the ship, they had cemented their friendship with the Kifrwss on board.

  The government was a typical hierarchy with one leader but the one finding which had fascinated the team was that there was no gender differentiation among these people. They were hermaphrodites. That had been a big surprise for Dr Lian. She had spent countless hours researching the phenomenon and had pads full of her notes. She had also been provided access to a display port to observe the space around her.

  The landing was uneventful but the journey to the Seat of the Discat made them feel like celebrities. The waterways were crowded on both sides with millions of people cheering them on or simple awed to look at the first outlanders on their planet.

  The Seat was a large dark building just a few meters above the water line. The party moved inside and reached a central atrium where there were hundreds of delegates in the middle of pools of water while a single seat was empty on a high dais in the centre. This was a strange sight for the Earth people who had been expecting a grand palatial interior.

  They were conducted to their place by RyHiza and he left them with two aides. Anara was amazed to see RyHiza actually climb the dais and take the highest seat in the house. This guy was the supreme leader on Kifrwss! No wonder everyone else deferred to him and he had done most of the talking.

  RyHiza started speaking, his voice resounding in the hall and coming through their translator patch.

  ‘First, let me welcome the people from Earth on behalf of the people of Kifrwss. Today a dream has been fulfilled for us and we have found friends so close to our planet. We all know the story of their journey and I want to apologise for the hardship caused to them by a misguided few.’ This was a true politician speaking, thought Anara, not much different from those on Earth.