The Search

by Jim Laughter

  “I…” Pete tried to answer but couldn’t form the words.

  “Or how about the diversities of languages on this planet? Do you really believe living south of the Rio Grande River would cause a whole population to speak Spanish? Or that people living in China speak Chinese instead of any other language just because they live on that particular piece of land?”

  Pete didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

  “Surely you don’t believe that Earth is the only planet in the universe populated by sentient beings, do you?” Yohan asked. “And if not, can’t you accept the possibility that there could be other planets where civilization has advanced many thousands of years beyond yours and have developed technology that allows them to travel between planets and star systems, even to other galaxies? And on the flipside of that, there are planets out there with civilizations that are still pre-industrial. Some still use animal-drawn carts and ride domesticated beasts as their primary mode of transportation, while there are others still living in caves and primitive huts made of animal skins. Surely you can see that.”

  “I… I guess so,” Pete stuttered. “But why Earth? Why us?”

  “There was a time in the Axia’s past when everything was in turmoil,” Yohan answered. “Crime was rampant and civil unrest was tearing our society apart. The Axia did away with the death penalty many millennia ago. We needed a place to exile our criminals and malcontents. This planet was uninhabited, and was within reach of our technology at the time, so we exiled them here.”

  "You're saying I am descended from criminals and nutcases dumped here way back when?” Pete asked.

  "Crudely put, but essentially correct,” Yohan answered. "We watch over the closed planets and protect them from harm or interference. If later on the descendants of the original populations outgrow their barbarism and develop the means to enter space, they are opened up and invited to join the galactic community. Many make it. Earth hasn't yet."

  "What do you mean?" Pete asked indignantly. "We're in space now."

  "Technologically you are closer to ox carts than you are to us,” Yohan answered. "We regularly travel at multiple powers of speeds of light and have weaponry that would enable a simple scout ship to destroy this planet."

  "Science fiction writers have been writing about that for years,” Pete said. "How does your Axia do this? Do you warp space or something?"

  "No,” Yohan answered. "That’s science fiction and way too crude and inefficient. We use a method that is much better and faster than warp drive ever could be."

  "It sounds too dangerous to me," Pete said. “You wouldn’t get me up in one of those things.”

  "There’s an element of danger in everything. But why not use what works? We've been doing it for thousands of years. Besides, you might enjoy a quick trip around your solar system. Wouldn’t you like to see Earth from the dark side of the moon instead of just the pilot seat of your biplane or passenger liner?”

  “Go on,” Pete chided.

  “I’m serious,” answered Yohan. “I’ve been there, done that. I’ve been to places that would stagger your imagination.”

  “And I’ll bet you even have the T-shirt,” Pete finished Yohan’s sentence. “If all of this is true, why don't you come down and help us? Your technology would advance us hundreds of years."

  “It could have disastrous results,” Yohan answered. “We’ve learned it is better for you to solve your own problems first. Then they stay solved. You’ve got to evolve past your petty phobias and biases and religious intolerances. This planet is on the verge of self-destruction militarily and ecologically, not to mention ideologically. You claim to believe in a supreme creator, then you kill each other over a strip of land. You bomb embassies, fly airplanes into buildings, and cut the heads off of children over what name to call your God. Can you imagine what impact importing the hatred of your religions would have on the galaxy? It could set the Axia back ten thousand years.”

  Pete hung his head in shame.”

  “Earth isn’t anywhere near ready to enter into the galactic community."

  Pete looked dubious, so Yohan continued.

  "There is also the factor that you might come up with a better solution to a problem than we would have. This has proven to be the best course in hundreds of cases."

  "So we have to attain your level of technology and social civility before you let us out of the playpen,” Pete said after a moment.

  "Basically,” Yohan agreed. "The few times it was tried otherwise resulted in the destruction of entire planets and populations. Believe me, I've seen the remains."

  Yohan fell silent and tried to gauge his friend's reaction to all this. As far as he could tell, Pete seemed able to accept this revelation about the Axia.

  "So what's all this got to do with you,” Pete finally asked. "And why have you been hiding here at home for the last week?"

  "That's the hard part to explain.”

  "Hard part!" Pete exclaimed. "So far you've asked me to believe that, number one, there is some sort of space empire out there, number two, they can travel at multiple speeds of light, which by the way is pretty cotton-picking fast, three, that they planted a bunch of criminals and nut-jobs here, which by-the-way are my ancestors, and finally that you are a little green man from outer space. And now you say you're going to tell me the hard part?"

  "I know that's a lot to swallow in one bite,” Yohan said quietly. Privately, he was beginning to wonder if he had made a serious mistake telling Pete any of this.

  "Ok, ok. I'll buy what you've told me for the moment,” Pete finally said. "Go ahead and tell me the rest. It can't be any worse."

  "For me it is,” Yohan said heavily.

  The somber tone of his voice set Pete back a little. He had never before heard Yohan sound so serious.

  "Fifteen years ago I was part of a team of fifty Watchers stationed here to evaluate your planet,” Yohan began. "We’d hoped it might be making progress toward being opened."

  “That was only a few years after the twin towers in New York was attacked,” Pete said. Yohan nodded.

  “I guess we didn’t make the grade?"

  "I don't know,” Yohan answered truthfully. "The team was landed on different parts of the planet and we all blended in with the population for over a year. That's how I got my background in linguistics. I was posing as an exchange professor from Denmark.”

  Pete nodded.

  “Anyway, the day came for us to be picked up by a shuttle. Something went wrong and your radar was able to spot it. I was the last scheduled pickup and was at my rendezvous point in a wilderness area not far from here. The shuttle was just coming in to pick me up when jet fighters from your military attacked it.”

  “Attacked it?”

  “That’s right. Rockets, machine guns, you name it.”

  “I see. Go on.”

  Normally, the repulsion field of the shuttle would have easily protected it from anything they could throw at it, but something went terribly wrong. It was hit several times by missiles and crashed into a hillside almost immediately afterwards."

  Pete pondered on all this for a moment. How can I be so stupid?

  “Now I know you’re pulling my leg,” Pete said, laughing at his friend for trying to pull such an elaborate joke on him.

  "I saw that old UFO film clip on TV the other night? You really had me going there for a while."

  Tears welled up in Yohan’s eyes. Pete knew something was wrong.

  "That was my shuttle. And those…those were my friends that were killed. I had put it in the back of my mind. But seeing that film brought it all back."

  Pete studied Yohan for a moment then realized he was telling the truth. His friend really was a little green man from outer space.

  "So what did you do?" Pete asked. "Did the government come looking for you?"

  "At first, I feared they would,” Yohan answered. "I ditched everything that might identify me as being related to the shuttle or its occupan
ts. I managed to get back to town where I again resumed my cover as an exchange professor. I lived in fear they'd come looking, but they never did. It was only when I saw the film that I figured out a possible explanation. The shuttle must have crashed on a hapless hiker. You can barely see him just before the impact.”

  “But what about your people? Didn’t they come looking for you?”

  “All I can figure is that they monitored your military reports and compared the number of bodies to the number of operatives on the mission roster. They probably concluded that all were accounted for. We were still wearing civilian clothes instead of our uniforms, so even your own people wouldn’t know the difference."

  "So you were left stranded here and presumed dead,” Pete concluded. Yohan nodded.

  "I know it sounds too far-fetched to be true,” Pete said. “But you’re my friend, and I’ve never known you to deliberately lie to me. I believe you. I don't know why, but I know you're telling me the truth."

  Chapter Ten

  "What are you going to do with me?" Darrel asked in a frightened squeak. All around him, he could see black-uniformed people monitoring banks of equipment.

  "I told you you're safe,” Keith said.

  "But I know what aliens do to people!" Darrel screeched. "Anyway, your disguises don't fool me! I know you’re all green and sticky under that body suit! Do you have antennae?"

  "Look,” Keith said as he removed his sweater and sat down on the edge of a table. "We don't mean you any harm. Would you rather we turn you over to those government goons upstairs?"

  Darrel shook his head.

  "Keith, you better come take a look at this,” one of the Troopers watching a monitor called. Keith pushed up from his perch. Looking down at an optical monitor, he grunted.

  “They sure are persistent.”

  Returning to their frightened guest, he sat back down. "Seems your friends upstairs are giving those workers a rough time."

  "They’re not my friends!"

  "Look,” Keith said. "Why don't you sit down, relax, and think about it for a while? I know you're frightened but it's not anything like you think it is."

  Darrel sat down hesitantly in a nearby chair, his briefcase still clutched in his white-knuckled hand.

  "Then how come I can understand you if you're aliens?" he asked. "Are you using some sort of mind control on me?"

  "No, we're just speaking your language to keep in the habit,” Keith said with a smile. "We've been here a long time and have grown quite fond of your quaint patterns of speech. So listen closely. I’m going to tell you something that we usually don’t tell people on the planets we’re watching. OK?”

  “Yeah. Sure,” Darrel answered. “I’m all ears.” He then glanced at Keith’s ears to see if they were pointed. Keith chuckled at the reference to Darrel being all ears. He loved the odd expressions these natives used to express themselves.

  Darrel placed his briefcase on the table and stared at Keith in disbelief.

  “You’re kidding, right?” he asked. “I think you just untied my shoe so you can pull my leg.”

  Keith didn’t understand Darrel’s reference to his shoes, but he figured it was just another colloquialism.

  “Just let me finish, ok?” Keith said.

  “Sure, go ahead,” Darrel answered. “I’m in up to my elbows in alligators already anyway.”

  Another colloquialism, Keith thought.

  “We’re only here to observe and evaluate? Nothing more.”

  "Are you going to do experiments on me?"

  “Experiments?”

  “Yeah, sexual experimentation? Plant some kind of implant under my skin so you can monitor me from outer space?”

  Keith laughed. "Why would we do that?"

  "To find out about us,” Darrel offered. "Everyone knows that's what happens to people who've been abducted. You take people up in your spaceships and do all sorts of crazy experiments on them."

  Just then a Trooper walked in with a coffee pot and two cups. After setting them down, he filled both cups, turned and left.

  "Well, if you really want to be part of a dangerous experiment, try the coffee,” Keith said, picking up his cup and taking a sip.

  "Why?"

  "Because,” Keith said as he made a sour face. "No one around here can make a decent pot. If this stuff doesn’t send you into orbit, nothing will."

  ∞∞∞

  "Sure you don't need anything else, Robert?" the hardware proprietor asked from back among the burgeoning shelves.

  "No. I think that about does it, Harry,” Robert answered from the front counter. "I just need a few odds and ends to finish a project or two before Agnes gets home."

  "Well, here you go,” Harry said as he brought the hinge assemblies forward and set them on the counter. "But if I recollect correctly, you bought the same set the last time your wife was out of town.”

  Robert looked wounded.

  "Are you implying I'm an old coot?" he said with mock defensiveness.

  "Don't think I could do that," Harry said. "After all, I'm a wee bit older than you!"

  Robert laughed.

  "You just remember that!" he said to Harry. "And put these on my account.”.

  "Sure you don't want to pay cash so there's not a paper trail?" Harry asked. "That way Agnes won't find out that you bought them twice."

  "I'm not worried,” Robert said with a chuckle. "And if I did already buy some, I'll have a spare set in case the price goes up again."

  "Suit yourself,” Harry answered. He filled out the bill and slid a copy across the counter to Robert.

  Robert soon found himself whistling as he drove his ground car through the light traffic of Keeler. It had been a while since he had felt this good. Agnes was not only doing better now, but she was off enjoying her unit's reunion with Sherry. Delmar was home and looking good and might even have a girlfriend.

  “Yes, life is good,” he said aloud to himself. “Nothing can go wrong now.”

  ∞∞∞

  "How's that boy of yours?" someone asked from behind Agnes.

  She’d been talking to Sherry and another old friend, and the reunion was going full bore around them. The sound of old musical favorites played in the background while the attendees snacked from the loaded tables and mingled during the opening reception. Agnes turned and found herself staring into a familiar face.

  "Chessie!" Agnes exclaimed. "How are you?"

  "Doing just great,” Chessie answered. "Still pushing paper for the Service."

  "Aren't you ever going to call it quits?" Sherry asked.

  "Someone needs to keep the universe in order,” Chessie said. "These young pups just can't seem to keep track of anything."

  "That's one thing you were always good at,” Agnes said with a laugh.

  "Which brings me back to that boy of yours,” Chessie said, returning to her earlier subject. "From what my sources tell me, Delmar is still single. Tell me it isn't so."

  "’Fraid so,” Agnes answered truthfully. "But we think he may have found a girl to steal his heart."

  "Well, that's good to hear,” Chessie said. "Otherwise, I was afraid I'd have to turn it over to the unit's matchmakers!"

  They all laughed.

  "Any idea of when it might finally happen?"

  "Nothing firm yet,” Agnes admitted. "She's on a closed planet. But she’s under the tutelage of a Watcher. From what Delmar says, she's making good progress."

  "Think he'll get clearance to bring her out?"

  "I don't think it'll be a problem,” Sherry offered. "Jake and I have already been laying the groundwork."

  "Keep me updated,” Chessie said with a smile. "I just love to help. It gives me something interesting to do. Keeps an old girl young! Besides, I’ve got a daughter just about his age. You never know, we might be related someday."

  ∞∞∞

  Dusk was just starting to settle when Robert pulled into the driveway. It puzzled him that the house was still dark. He had expe
cted Delmar to find his note, take something out of the freezer, and heat it up for dinner. Figuring he might be in the barn, Robert pulled the ground car around back and shut it down. Silence greeted his ears and he noticed the barn and shop were also dark. With a sense of unease, he got out of the ground car and entered the house through the back door.

  "Delmar?" he called as he turned on the kitchen light. No one answered. Robert saw his note still on the table where he had propped it up against a coffee cup. Thinking Delmar might be asleep upstairs, he turned on the stairway light.

  "Delmar?" he called out with growing concern. Still silence. He climbed the stairs and knocked on Delmar's bedroom door, but noticed it was ajar. After not receiving an answer, he opened the door and turned on the light.

  The bed was still as Delmar had left it that morning. Glancing around, he saw the diaries on top of the dresser but nothing else was amiss. He made his way back downstairs and turned the burner on under the coffeepot and then walked over and picked up the phone. Consulting the directory, he punched in a number. He waited with growing impatience while the phone on the other end rang and rang. Finally, someone picked it up.

  "Jasper Station. How may I help you?"

  "Give me the dock working on the ship Cabbage Patch, please.”

  "That would be dock twenty-seven,” the voice said. "May I verify whose calling?"

  "This is retired Trooper Major Robert Hassel,” Robert said firmly. "I am trying to contact Captain Delmar Eagleman."

  "Just a moment, sir.”

  Robert heard the clicks of the call being transferred.

  "Dock twenty-seven," a gruff voice said. "Foreman Beeman speaking."

  "This is Major Robert Hassel,” Robert began. "I am trying to contact my son, Captain Delmar Eagleman."

  "Yes sir, I saw him earlier today,” Beeman said.

  "Is he still there?"

  "Just a minute, I'll check.”

  Robert heard Beeman cover the phone and call out to someone else. All he could hear were muffled replies.