The Room

This story began as a dream I had while camping in Agassiz, BC a couple years ago.  Gina and I were looking for the place we would move to when she retired the next year.  The dream was of having encounters with various characters in a mysterious room.  The dream stuck with me so I began writing.  With the writing, the story evolved through several iterations before this version emerged.

Anyway, I had fun writing this so have a read and feel free to leave comments.

Enjoy.

Ron

.

The Room

When Jeremy first entered the room it was empty; a rectangular space the size of a small conference room.  Its austere emptiness was broken only by a mirror-like black panel on the opposite wall.  He stepped in carefully and looked around.  Unlike the rough-hewn passage outside the door, this room had smooth gray floor, walls, and ceiling.  Why would the old Australian General Asteroid Mining Corporation (GAMC) miners, who built this outpost on Asteroid Matilda, have put this uncharacteristic room here deep under their mining outpost?

His first thought was to call to his companions when he heard their distant voices as they argued from the far end of the passage outside the door.  The tension between Ceres Mining Consortium (CMC) people and the SETI Ministry personnel was palpable.  CMC, who Jeremy worked for, wanted to mine this rock, but the SETI Ministry had to confirm that an anomalous signal picked up near Matilda was not from an alien source before they would grant CMC’s mining certificate.  It didn’t help that Symone, who was the CMC’s lead on this survey mission, and Miguel, who was her counterpart from the SETI Ministry did not personally like each other.  Having worked under Symone for the last 7 months, Jeremy felt sorry for Miguel.  The problem was Jeremy couldn’t accumulate the money he needed to pay his debts back on Earth until they started mining.

He took a couple more steps into the curiously clean and empty room.  The walls, floor, and ceiling appeared to all be made of the same smooth gray stone.  He hesitated and glanced around to make sure the door was still open.  It was.

He knew he should call Miguel and Symone to see this room so for a moment he considered going back for them, until he heard Miguel angrily reply to Symone about something.  She answered back just as angrily.  That decided it.  He didn’t want to be around them right now, so he took a few more steps further into the room.  They didn’t need to come into this sanctum of peace he had found.

He walked to the centre of the room.

A small light appeared on the panel and he heard a sliding sound behind him followed immediately by a soft click.  He whirled around.  The door had closed!  “Hey!” he yelled as a cold shiver ran through his body.  What kind of trap had he fallen into?

He was tensing to run back to the door when the lights went out and he was plunged into complete blackness.  He froze and dropped his spacesuit helmet and gloves as he heard a whooshing sound.  A moment later his body was surrounded by an opaque green light.  There was no particular sensation.  The green light disappeared as quickly as it had surrounded him.  It was no longer completely dark.  He could sense more than see a faint light emanating from behind. He whirled back around to face whatever danger this might portend.  A faint golden glow hovered where the panel had been.

“Miguel!  Symone!” he called loudly over his shoulder.  “Come quick!”

No answer.  He could no longer hear their bickering.

Maybe they had stopped and were coming to rescue him … he hoped.  He felt alone and trapped in this chamber and couldn’t think of anything he should do next so he stood there watching.

He took a step back from the faint golden light as it gradually grew more intense.  He noticed the floor now had a textured appearance and a darker colour than it had before.  His helmet and gloves appeared to be laying IN the floor texture as if on a lawn that needed cutting.  Looking around he could not see the walls and had the impression he was in a large open space and felt a gentle movement of the air on his face.  Was he still in the room?  He hadn’t bargained for this and wished he’d gone back to the others when he’d had the chance.  Think, he told himself.  His panic made thinking very difficult.

He glanced around again.  He could make out no detail anywhere in the distance despite the golden light in front of him was much brighter.  It shimmered.  Jeremy could make out a translucent shape within it.  The orb of light suddenly expanded and dissipated.  The space in front of him remained illuminated in white light from an unseen source above.  The shape became a simple reclining couch on which rested a humanoid shape, but this was no human Jeremy had ever seen.  Its legs and arms were too long, its body was too short and its head was too flat and broad.  Its face had no nose, a small mouth, a high forehead that rose to a bald flattened dome, and two large eyes that were closed.  It wasn’t a human face.

At first Jeremy wondered if the creature was dead or sleeping because it didn’t move.  After a moment he considered quietly trying to work his way back into the shadows so maybe it wouldn’t notice him if it woke.  He waited a little and when the humanoid still did not move, Jeremy took a small hesitant step backward.

Immediately one of the humanoid’s eyes opened, then the other.  They were an intense purple colour with small round pupils.  Jeremy felt another chill run through his body as the humanoid fixed him in its gaze.  Although Jeremy wanted to run, his feet refused to move.  He didn’t know where he could run to anyway and that non-human gaze held him.  Somewhere in the back of his mind Jeremy realized he was meeting an alien species for the first time.  He was not ready for this. He was just a miner, not a first contact expert.  Oh where are the SETI Ministry people when you need them?

His next thought was Oh, what do I do?

As if in answer the creature rose fluidly from the couch and took one long step toward him.  Jeremy backed up as he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.  The alien was head and shoulders taller than him.  It looked briefly at his helmet lying on the turf and then returned its intense gaze back to him.   They both waited a moment.  Then the alien began to make clicking, hissing, and whistling sounds while using its long arms and hands to gesticulate vehemently causing the sky blue tunic it wore to ripple and flow with the motion.  This performance went on for several minutes and would have been comical if Jeremy hadn’t been so certain he was about to die.

The alien paused, Jeremy blinked, and said with a quaver in his voice, “Um … hi?”

The alien vocalized and gesticulated anew as if it hadn’t heard.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” Jeremy’s voice shook.

More vocalization and gesticulation.

“If you let me go, I’ll bring Dr Welland.  She might know how to understand you …” he said hopefully as he pointed over his shoulder.  Dr Welland was with the SETI Ministry and the expedition leader.

More vocalization and gesticulation.  Jeremy didn’t move.  This wasn’t going anywhere.  What should I do?  In spite of his fear, his frustration with the situation grew.

“What do you want?” this time his voice didn’t shake quite as much.

Finally, not knowing what else to do, Jeremy raised his hand in a Vulcan salute he’d seen in an old TV series and said, “We come in peace. …? umm … Live long and prosper?”

To his surprise this did get a response, although not the one he had hoped for.  The vocalizations increased in volume and rapidity and the gesticulation became more pronounced and frenzied.

“OK, so you don’t like Vulcans …” he mumbled to himself.  This wasn’t going well he was sure.  His fear was being eclipsed by frustration.

“I don’t know what you want,” he finally said forcefully stamping his foot.

The alien stopped suddenly, and glared hard at him with its intense purple eyes.  Jeremy noticed the alien’s pupils expand and contract several times.  Then it kicked his helmet toward him and turned.  Jeremy’s helmet rolled slowly past his foot.  The alien returned to the reclining couch where it lay down and closed its eyes in one fluid motion.  Moments later the golden light surrounded the alien again and the chair, with its humanoid alien occupant, became translucent and faded at the same time as the golden light surrounding it became dimmer and dimmer and eventually disappeared.  Jeremy’s mouth was hanging open as the opaque green light again surrounded him momentarily and left him in complete darkness again.  Then the room lights came back on and the door slid open.  He could now hear Miguel and Symone still bickering out in the passageway.

“Symone, Miguel!  I’m OK” he called.  Retrieving his gloves and then his helmet from its new location on the smooth floor, he started for the door calling, “Miguel.  Symone.  …  I’m back.”

The bickering stopped, “What do you mean you’re back?” Symone called with annoyance.  This wasn’t the response Jeremy had expected.

“Didn’t you notice that this door closed while I was in that room?” he pointed to the open doorway he’d just emerged from.

“No,” Symone said as she peered down the passageway at Jeremy.  “Why did you close the door?”

“I didn’t close it.  It closed by itself.”

Now both of them were coming down the passageway toward him with annoyed looks on their faces.  Maybe I interrupted a particularly good argument he thought sarcastically.

“So what happened?” Miguel said gruffly.

“I walked into that room,” Jeremy pointed, “and the door closed.  …  It was like I had been teleported somewhere else and this alien started talking to me and …”

“Alien?” Miguel looked into the room with interest.  “It’s completely empty now.”  He entered the room.

While Miguel was not looking, Symone punched Jeremy’s arm and soundlessly mouthed at him, “Idiot!  What are you doing?”

“I see nothing alien in here,” Miguel looked out at them from the doorway.

As Jeremy opened his mouth to answer, Symone stepped on his foot.  It was obvious she didn’t want him to speak.  “Let me look,” She pushed past Miguel into the room.  Miguel followed her back into the room.

Jeremy hung back by the open door.  He noticed the black glass panel was completely dark now.

“There’s absolutely nothing in here” was Symone’s annoyed verdict.

Miguel walked around the edge of the room checking the readings on his suit’s sensors.  He touched the black glass panel and nothing happened.  “I can’t find anything,” he announced after a couple minutes.

Both Miguel and Symone looked at Jeremy.  Symone squeezed her lips and then her expression softened a little, “You had us going there,” she laughed.

“You think I’m making it up?” Jeremy asked.  It had never occurred to him that they wouldn’t believe his story.

“What evidence do you have?” Symone wanted to know as she came back toward the doorway and eyed Jeremy.

“Um … none …”

“You know macroscopic teleportation is impossible” Miguel added.

“I don’t know … I mean I know, but …,” Symone’s look stopped him.

“You are the practical joker,” she said and forced a laugh.  Jeremy wondered when he had gotten that reputation.

“I see nothing alien in here,” Miguel concluded and he looked intensely at Jeremy.  “You DO know that if I found anything alien in here, it would be far more valuable than this asteroid’s minerals and I would have to disallow CMC’s mining certificate.”

“Yes, but …,” Jeremy started.

“But there isn’t anything in here,” Symone added quickly.

Miguel looked around one more time as if he was still puzzling over Jeremy’s mention of aliens.  Then he left the room saying, “But since there is no evidence of alien artifacts in here, I can’t disallow the certificate now, can I?  Let’s get out of here.  I’m starved.”

Jeremy saw Symone let out a breath silently from her position in the room where Miguel couldn’t see her.  She followed Miguel out of the room.

Even though Jeremy knew he should stick to his story, it was obvious these two did not want to hear it, so he turned and followed them.

On their way back up to the mining outpost’s operation centre they both began teasing him about making up a story and before long fell back to bickering with each other again.

Miguel entered the operation centre first and headed for the cafeteria.  Just before they entered Symone grabbed Jeremy and shoved him out of sight against a wall.  “Are you losing it?!” she hissed.  “You want to ruin our chance to mine this rock?”

“No, I was surprised by …”

“You saw nothing.  And if I hear any more about it from you, you’ll be paying your own way back to Earth!”  She glared at him again.  “Do you understand?”

“Yes, I want to get mining too, but …”

“No buts.  Keep your mouth shut.”

“OK,” he said meekly.

Jeremy knew if CMC’s upper management and the SETI Ministry ever found out that they had withheld information about alien activity, he would be reprimanded at the very least, but Symone and Miguel obviously did not want to hear it.  He understood why Symone might take that position, but Miguel was harder to figure.  He was with the SETI Ministry and it was his job to make sure alien artifacts would not be compromised, so why did he not want to take what Jeremy said more seriously?

If he had proof, Jeremy could go over their heads to Dr. Welland.  Without clear proof he would only make Symone and CMC angry with him, it would probably cost his job, and he needed the pay to clear his debts on Earth.  For now it seemed his best course was to keep quiet.

He followed Symone into the operations centre and headed for the cafeteria.

….

In spite of having to walk past the room, Jeremy avoided it the next two times he visited the lower rough-hewn passage as they explored beyond the airlock at its end. They found nothing in the airless passage beyond, except some old mining equipment left behind by the original GAMC miners.  They did take numerous ore samples.

He was carefully avoiding the room the third time when he found himself the last to leave the passage.  As he passed the room the open door seemed to beckon him.  Looking up the passage after his retreating companions he decided to duck into the room for another look.

This time when Jeremy entered the room he did so cautiously and scanned the room for any differences.  There were none.  It was still empty except for the black glass panel and that was dark. He slid one of the sample boxes he was carrying into the doorway to keep the door from closing.  He set the other sample boxes immediately inside the door along with his helmet and walked slowly to the middle of the room.  Nothing happened.  He stood there for a minute and still nothing happened.  Maybe he had imagined it all before and it was time he asked for some leave back on Earth.

Sighing, he was about to turn and go when from the corner of his eye he saw the same light appear in the panel.  He heard the sliding sound, a loud snap, and lights went out.  He stiffened and looked hard in the direction of the panel.  That faint light appeared so innocent.

He was again surrounded by the opaque green light, he heard the whooshing sound, and the green light disappeared abruptly.  Again he could see the extremely faint golden glow hovering in the centre of the room that gradually brightened.  As it became brighter it shimmered as before.  Now Jeremy could make out translucent shapes within the glowing golden orb of light.  Again it suddenly expanded and disappeared leaving the area in front of where the black panel had been illuminated from above.  Only this time there was no reclining couch or alien.  Instead three men were standing before him.  Their hair was short and they were clean shaven.  One looked familiar, wore a yellowish shirt, and stood slightly in front of the other 2.  The other 2 wore red shirts and stood to either side of the yellow shirted man.  All had a stylized inverted ‘V’ insignia on the left breast of their shirts.  The red-shirted men each had a small rectangular object in their right hands which they appeared to be pointing toward Jeremy.

Jeremy was taken aback and took a half step backward. “Um … hi?”  He hadn’t expected to see humans.  This was not as frightening as the alien had been.  “How did you get here?”

The yellow shirted man spoke eloquently with exaggerated gestures, “They were humanitarians and statesmen, and they had a dream…”

Jeremy blinked, “What? Who had a dream?

The man ignored him and continued, “… a dream that became a reality and spread throughout the stars.” The man stopped speaking.

This made little sense to Jeremy and didn’t answer his question.  He tried again, “OK … but who had a dream … and who are you?”

“Captain to crew. Those of you who have served for long on this vessel have encountered alien life-forms. …”

“Yeah, the last time I was here there was …,” Jeremy started.

The man kept talking ignoring Jeremy, “… You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. But there’s no such thing as the unknown …”

“Eh?  Yeah there is …”

“… only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood. …”

“Ok, if you put it that way …”

“… In most cases we have found that intelligence capable of a civilization is capable of understanding peaceful gestures. …”

“I’m peaceful …” Jeremy was hopeful as he eyed the objects the two red shirted men were still pointing his direction.

“… Surely a life-form advanced enough for space travel is advanced enough to eventually understand our motives,” the man stopped speaking and gesticulating.

Jeremy stood blinking.  Once this guy started talking he didn’t seem to want to stop and Jeremy’s responses made little difference.  He thinks he’s a Captain.  That much at least is clear.

After a moment Jeremy tried again.  “My leader is Dr Welland and I’m sure she would be happy to speak to you.”

“They used to say if man could fly, he’d have wings. …”

“What?”

“… But he did … fly. He discovered he had to. …”

“He did?”

“Do you wish that the first Apollo mission hadn’t reached the moon, or that we hadn’t gone on to Mars …”

“’Course not …”

“… and then to the nearest star? …”

“Huh?  But we haven’t gone to the nearest star yet…”

“… That’s like saying that you wished you still operated with scalpels and sewed your patients up with catgut like your great, great, great, great grandfather used to. …”

“I didn’t say that!”

“… I’m in command. I could order this. …”

“You’re in command?”

“… But I’m not because the Doctor is right in pointing out the enormous danger potential in any contact with life and intelligence as fantastically advanced as this. …”

Jeremy just blinked with his mouth hanging open.

“… But I must point out that the possibilities, the potential for knowledge and advancement is equally great. …”

Jeremy began to think that perhaps this was a recording of sorts instead of a real situation.  Instead he said, “Of course it’s risky, but …”

“… Risk!  Risk is our business.  That’s what this starship is all about. …”

Jeremy blinked.  It had responded to him.  “Starship?  What starship?”

“… That’s why we’re aboard her.”  And the yellow shirted man stopped.

Jeremy wasn’t sure what to make of this guy.  Although he still looked familiar, Jeremy couldn’t quite place him yet.  And what was he babbling on about?  He decided to try to communicate again, “OK, so you’re in command of this asteroid … or … starship?  …”

Yellow shirt began speaking and gesticulating again, “A star captain’s most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive.”

This did ring a bell.  The ‘Prime Directive’ was out of that old video program Jeremy had watched as a kid.  It had been old then.

“Where did you hear about the prime directive?” Jeremy asked.

Yellow shirt spoke again, “And you’ll learn something about men and women– the way they’re supposed to be. Caring for each other, being happy with each other, being good to each other. That’s what we call… love. You’ll like that, too, a lot.”

“You make no sense!”

“Sometimes a feeling is all we humans have to go on.”

“Are you sure you ARE human?”

“Conquest is easy. Control is not.”

“Are you threatening me now?”

“All your people must learn before you can reach for the stars.”

“Learn what?”

“Mankind has no need of gods…we find the one quite adequate.”

“That’s a contradiction.”

“Too much of anything, Lieutenant, even love, isn’t necessarily a good thing.”

“Wha’? …”  Jeremy was not in the military and had no rank.

“I’m not sure, but I think we’ve just been insulted.”

“I’m not insulting you!” Jeremy said hastily.

A taller man wearing a blue shirt stepped forward from behind, leaned over, and whispered something in yellow shirt’s ear.  Jeremy hadn’t noticed him before.  Then blue shirt rose to his full height and took a step toward Jeremy.  He raised his hand in a Vulcan salute and said, “Go in peace.  Live long and prosper.”

Jeremy was so surprised he found himself returning the Vulcan salute and mumbling, “Live long and prosper,” as well.

As blue shirt turned to go Jeremy noticed he had pointed ears.  “But that was only an old video show from the last century,” he mumbled more to himself than to anyone else.  The red-shirted men holstered their phasors and turned as well.  Then yellow shirt, Captain Kirk, turned and began speaking as he too left, “Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

At the same time the golden light surrounded the four men, they became translucent, and faded at the same time as the golden light surrounding them became dimmer and dimmer and eventually disappeared.  Jeremy’s mouth was still hanging open as the opaque green light again surrounded him momentarily and left him in the complete darkness again.  Then the lights came back on and the door slid open.

The sample box he’d placed in the doorway to keep the door from closing was completely severed and the ore sample was laying on the floor.  That was going to be hard to explain without telling the fantastical story about Captain Kirk, Spock, and the crew of the Enterprise.  No one would ever believe him.  He knew there were numerous sample boxes so he put the pieces of the broken sample box along with its ore sample inside the door where they couldn’t be seen from the passage.  He retrieved the remaining sample boxes and his helmet and left the room.  Maybe no one would ask about it.

He did not know what to make of this last apparition.  How did the frightening alien and the crew of the Enterprise relate to one another?  Why were they appearing in that smooth walled room off a rough-hewn passage?  While the alien had been terrifying, this last incident was almost comical.  It all scared him.  However, his curiosity was piqued now.  In spite of his fear, he now wanted to return to the room as soon as he could to see if he could learn anything new.

He had an awkward conversation with Symone when she asked about the ore samples, but he was able to convince her he had put all the ore samples in the lab for analysis.  He wasn’t sure she believed him.  Nevertheless, she didn’t pursue it any further.  She only looked at him oddly and he walked away as quickly as he dared so as not to arouse any further suspicion.

It was a couple days before he got another chance to return.  He definitely did not want Miguel or Symone or anyone else with him when he went back to the room.  They’d found a vein of cometary ice at the far end of the tunnel on the other side of the airlock and were taking samples to assess its purity.  During their afternoon break on the pressurized side of the airlock, Symone and Miguel had begun bickering as usual and Jeremy saw his chance.  They were so focused on their argument, it was easy for him to nonchalantly amble back up the rough-hewn passage as if stretching his legs until he was out of their sight.  Then he walked purposefully to the room.

As he entered, it still looked empty, except for the severed sample box along with its ore sample inside the door.  The enigmatic black glass panel was still on the other side of the room beckoning him.  Jeremy slowly walked toward the panel.  As he approached it the dim light appeared in the panel, the door slid shut, the lights went out, the opaque green light surrounded him, he heard the whooshing sound, the green light disappeared, and he saw the now familiar faint golden glow hovering in front of the panel.  As before it became brighter, shimmered, and Jeremy could make out a translucent shape within golden orb of light.  This time when it suddenly expanded and disappeared, it left the same reclining couch he’d seen the first time.  Instead of the frightening alien, this time the creature reclining on the couch looked like a woman, an alien woman.

She was illuminated from above.  Somewhere in the back of his mind Jeremy knew it was not a good idea to anthropomorphize this alien, but from his human male point of view this creature looked very feminine.  Somehow he couldn’t think of her as an ‘it’.  Similar to the alien he’d seen before, her legs and arms were too long and her body was too short.   She had the same flat broad head, nose-less face, small mouth, high forehead, and bald flattened dome as the larger alien he’d seen before.  However, her features were somehow softer and less frightening.  She opened large aquamarine eyes, fixed him with her gaze, rose gracefully from the couch, and practically slinked toward him.  In spite of her alien features, Jeremy gasped at her beauty.

Her large intense aquamarine eyes never left his as she began making the clicking, hissing, and whistling sounds that her predecessor had made.  As she vocalized she gesticulated with her long arms and hands in a way that was as energetic as the original alien. In her case it was more of a dance.  Her motions caused the pale green tunic she wore to ripple and flow accentuating her bosom and hips.  Jeremy found himself sighing at the sight of her.  Part of his mind couldn’t believe his own reaction to this elegant creature and he just stared wide eyed.

When she took another step toward him, he was startled into saying hopefully, “Ah … hi.”

The alien woman stopped, looked at him momentarily, and then repeated, “Ah … hi.”

Jeremy wasn’t sure he heard right.  He blinked and said, “You speak English?”

A moment later the alien blinked her large eyes and said, “You speak English?”

“Of course I do.”

A moment later, “Of course I do.”  Her voice had an odd timbre and was rich and sultry.  She formed her words precisely making her speech easy to understand.

“Oh, that’s good. … We come in peace.”

She repeated, “Oh, that’s good. … We come in peace.”

She looked at him with her big eyes in a way that made him want to take her in his arms.  He didn’t act on that impulse.  She was still a head taller than him in spite of being smaller than the scary alien, and could probably hurt him if he did anything stupid.

“My name is Jeremy.” He pointed to himself.

She pointed to herself and said, “My name is Jeremy.”

“No it’s not.”

A moment later, “No it’s not.”

“Wait a minute, you’re repeating everything I say,” he pointed at her when he said this.

“Wait a minute, you’re repeating everything I say,” she repeated and pointed at him.

Jeremy began feeling frustrated.  How was he going to learn anything from someone who only repeated what he said like an impudent child?  Even her inflections and gestures were copies of his own.

“Even if you are very attractive, we aren’t going to get very far this way,” he told her.

“Even if you are very attractive, we aren’t going to get very far this way,” she repeated to him.

Jeremy put his hands on his hips and sighed looking at her.  She did the same, sighed, and looked at him.  When she moved he couldn’t help but see the shape of her body under that flimsy tunic.  “Oh my,” he mumbled and sighed again.  He must have been in the asteroid belt far too long to have this kind of a reaction to an alien even if she looked female.

“Oh my,” she said raising her chest in another sigh.  Jeremy could feel his body responding to this sensuous alien.  He knew he should be thinking of something else, although the sight of her made that difficult.  To try and get his mind off the way she looked he started talking.

“You must be trying to learn from me by copying what I say and do,” he realized.

She repeated that.

“OK, so what do I have to do to get us past this stage?”

Again she repeated.

“You know my mission commander would like to meet you,” he said and she repeated.

“But I can’t tell Symone and Miguel or they’ll just laugh at me.” He explained.

She repeated.

“Unless you could come with me to meet them.”

She repeated.

“I’d love to see their faces when they see you,” he laughed.

She repeated that and ended with her own musical laugh.

This went on for a bit and he told her of his journey to Ceres to work for CMC and how an anomalous signal had been observed in the vicinity of Matilda.  He told her of the SETI Ministry’s insistence that they not commence mining until the anomalous signal had been investigated and shown to not be of alien origin.  He also mentioned his first encounter with the large scary alien and then with the crew of the Enterprise.

She repeated everything he said.  He loved the way she moved so he gestured more than he would normally simply to watch the way she repeated his gestures.

“And then I came back to this room and found you,” Jeremy finished.  He waited a moment before continuing.  To his surprise she stopped mimicking him, gave him a Vulcan salute, and said, “Live long and prosper.”

Jeremy’s mouth dropped open and he managed to get his own Vulcan salute up and stammer, “Live long and prosper,” when she turned, walked lithely back to the couch, and fluidly laid on it.  Jeremy took a step to follow and sighed.

Before he could take a second step the golden light surrounded the alien woman and her couch, she became translucent, and faded as the golden light surrounding her dimmed and disappeared.  Jeremy was disappointed as the opaque green light surrounded him for a moment leaving him in the complete darkness.  The lights re-illuminated and the door slid open.

Symone was standing there looking at him through the doorway.  “What are you up to?” she asked intensely.

“Ah … nothing?”  Jeremy didn’t know what he was going to say if Symone pursued her question.

“Are you planning to come back to work or is ‘nothing’ more important?”

Jeremy looked at his suit timepiece and realized he must have been in the room about 15 minutes longer than he expected.  “Sorry, I lost track of the time,” he mumbled.  He also realized he couldn’t have gotten out of the room sooner if he had wanted to.

“What’s so interesting in this room that you have to close the door?” Symone asked.

“The door closed by itself.”

Then she noticed the severed sample box.  “You said you delivered all the samples to the lab,” she accused, “… and wow!  How did you cut that sample box in half?”

“Um … you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“You won’t like it.”

“I already don’t like it so telling me isn’t going to make it any worse.”

Jeremy saw Miguel come up behind her. “You won’t believe me.”

Symone’s face began to turn red.  Jeremy really did not want to do this now, but he didn’t seem to have much choice.

“OK, I put the sample box to keep the door from closing.  The door closed anyway and sliced the sample box in half.”

Miguel was watching with interest.  Symone didn’t seem to be aware of him.  “Why did you close the door?  What are you hiding?” She asked icily.

“I didn’t close the door.  There’s no way to close or open it.”  Jeremy gestured to the wall beside the door inside the room.

Symone glanced around the door outside the room and then pushed her way in to make the same inspection inside the room.

Miguel followed her in.  “So how do you close the door?” he asked.

Symone spun around and looked at him, “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough,” Miguel answered coolly.   Then to Jeremy, “How do you close the door?”

“I don’t,” Jeremy stated.  “It closes by itself.  I don’t know if it will work with you both in here, because it didn’t work the last time you were both in here.”

“You are hiding something,” Symone accused.

“When I told you, you didn’t want me to speak of it again,” Jeremy said.

“Not the alien story again.  I’ll have your job if you’re going to play at that again,” she said coldly.

“Then I’m going to stop talking now,” Jeremy folded his arms across his chest and glared at her.

“What are you hiding?” Miguel demanded.

“My boss has forbidden me to speak, so ask her,” Jeremy stood his ground.

Miguel looked at Symone, “Is this true?”  He raised his eyebrow.

“It’s that stupid story he told last time we were here,” she explained.  “You know it was a practical joke.”

“So you said,” Miguel looked at her.  Jeremy was glad to be out of the line of fire for the moment.  He knew it wouldn’t last so he maintained his silence.

“You don’t believe me now?”  Symone looked concerned now. “You checked this room yourself.  Check it again.”

Jeremy wished the large scary alien would return right now.  Then he had an idea.  He walked over to where he had stood during his encounters and stared at the black glass panel.

Meanwhile Miguel began checking the room again walking around the edges.  Symone came over and faced Jeremy.  “If we lose our mining certificate, you are going to pay,” she fumed.

“And you know that withholding evidence of alien activity would not go well for you,” Miguel reminded her.

Jeremy did not respond.  Instead he looked around her at the panel.  Nothing was happening.  Miguel continued his inspection of the room.

Symone looked at the panel.  She looked at Jeremy and then back at the panel.  Nothing happened.

Miguel looked at them and then he walked over to the panel.  Looking at his suit sensor readout, “There seems to be a weak radio frequency signal over here … .”  He looked back at them.

Symone shrugged and Jeremy continued to stare intently at the panel.  Miguel came over and stood beside them and then he too turned to look at the panel as well.

The dim light appeared in the panel, the door slid shut, the lights went out, and the opaque green light surrounded all three of them.

“How did you do that?” Symone glared at Jeremy.

At the same time Miguel exclaimed, “What the fuck!?”

Jeremy smirked to himself as he heard the whooshing sound and the green light disappeared.  “Shut up and watch,” he told them quietly.

They must have heard him because they both stood there with their mouths hanging open as the now familiar faint golden glow started hovering in front of the panel.  It became brighter, shimmered, and Jeremy could make out two translucent shapes within golden orb of light this time.  When it suddenly expanded and disappeared, two couches were before them.  On one was the original large scary alien. On the other, to his joy, was the beautiful alien woman.  Both opened their eyes and fluidly rose from their couches.  Jeremy was feeling much more confident now so he did not step back.  Instead he looked up at the two aliens and said, “Hi.”

“Greetings,” the tall scary alien said in a deep melodious voice that sounded nothing like the whistles, clicks, and hisses he used on their first meeting.  His gesticulations were just as vehement as before.  Jeremy was aware of both Symone and Miguel taking a step back.

“Hi Jeremy,” the female said in her own rich voice and her more elegant gestures.

“You know my name?”

“You told me when we first met,” she explained.  “I am …,” she made a clicking and hissing sound that Jeremy could not repeat.

“Ten-nah-all-lath-aaa,” Jeremy tried.

She laughed musically, “Tenalatha will be fine.”

“I am …,” and the large alien made whistling and clicking sounds.

Jeremy looked at him, “That doesn’t work in my mouth.”

The large alien repeated the sounds.

Jeremy tried, “Ssst-k-all-arrr?”

“Stekalar is close enough,” Stekalar agreed.

“Who are your companions?” Tenalatha asked.

Jeremy looked at Symone and Miguel and thoroughly enjoyed the slack jawed frightened looks on their faces.  “This is my boss, Symone,” Jeremy indicated.

“Greetings Boss Symone,” Stekalar said.

“Aaa … hi,” Symone managed to mumbled.

“…. and this is Miguel from the SETI Ministry,” Jeremy finished.

“Hello Miguel from the SETI Ministry,” Tenalatha intoned.

Miguel attempted a little more dignity than Symone, “Um … Greetings visiters?”

“You scared me half to death when we first met,” Jeremy told Stekalar.

“Apologies for that.  I am much larger than you and you had no idea what I was trying to say,” Stekalar said.

“I did not have that same effect on you when we met.  Why not?” Tenalatha asked.

That set Jeremy back.  How was he going to describe the carnal emotions she had brought out in him without committing some kind of insult and letting Miguel and Symone know about it?  This had to be delicate.  “Um …,” Jeremy hesitated, “I found you … ah … very beautiful.”  He cringed inwardly and felt his face turn red.  He knew Symone was looking at him, but didn’t give her the satisfaction of seeing his face.

“Interesting,” was Tenalatha’s reply as she looked at him with her intense aquamarine eyes.

This didn’t make Jeremy feel any more comfortable so he quickly changed the subject with, “How did you get Captain Kirk and Spock to appear here?”

“Who?” Symone asked.

“On my second visit characters from an old space opera appeared,” Jeremy explained.

Stekalar answered, “Those images were among many we intercepted a long time ago. At the end of our first encounter you made the hand sign that they made in those transmissions so we thought using them might provide an aid to learning to communicate with you.”

“I couldn’t figure that one out, but it did make me feel less frightened,” Jeremy laughed.

“You know these .. um ..people?” Miguel queried.  “Why did you not tell me about them?”

“Ask Symone,” Jeremy told him.

“You didn’t tell me about all this,” Symone complained.

“I believe you said something like, if I said any more about it you’d have my job.”

“Is this true?” Miguel wanted to know.

“I thought he was playing practical jokes to kibosh our mining operation,” Symone explained.

“Why would I do that?” Jeremy asked.

“We have a proposal,” Stekalar said.

“You are an idiot,” Miguel pointed at Symone ignoring the alien.

“And you are a pompous bureaucrat!” Symone fired back.

“I’ll listen to your proposal,” Jeremy said stepping closer to the aliens so he could hear them.  Meanwhile Symone and Miguel continued to call each other choice names as each accused the other of various improprieties.

“You deliberately tried to hide alien activity,” Miguel accused.

“Is your culture always this contentious?” Tenalatha asked.

“Sometimes, but these two dislike each other more than usual,” Jeremy explained.

“Then who speaks for your civilization?” Stekalar asked.

“You’d have to speak to someone on Earth for that, but I could bring our mission commander to meet you if you like,” Jeremy suggested.  “She commands both of these people and can get a message back to Earth for you.”

“That would probably be better than these people,” Tenalatha suggested.

Symone and Miguel looked at the aliens in consternation.

“We will come back when you and your mission commander are here,” Stekalar said.  The aliens started to turn.

“Just a minute,” Jeremy said.

“Yes?” Tenalatha turned back.

“Two things.  First could you let me know the nature of your proposal so I can tell Dr Welland?” Jeremy asked.

Stekalar turned back to Jeremy, “We are purveyors of interstellar communications.  We offer to represent your species to others in the galaxy.  In return for putting your species in touch with others our service will vastly increase your knowledge as well as that of our other clients and our own.”

“And your other query?” Tenalatha asked.

“Can we still mine this asteroid for its minerals?”

The two aliens looked at each other.  “That is up to your people, but if you remove too much material near this node, you will damage it making further communication impossible,” Tenalatha explained.

Jeremy knew this ended his hope riches from mining Matilda, but he was also aware that the communications they offered was far more important.  So he sighed, gave the Vulcan salute, and said, “Thank you. Live long and prosper.”

The aliens returned the Vulcan salute, “Live long and prosper,” in unison.  Then Tenalatha added, “And don’t bring these two again.”

“Wait a minute,” Miguel started.

The aliens ignored him and returned to their couches.  The light show sequence reversed itself and they were gone leaving the humans in darkness.  The room lights came back on and the door opened.

Quickly, Jeremy grabbed his helmet and left Symone and Miguel — speechless for once — standing in the room.   Outside the door he hesitated in indecision.  It only took a moment for the rising excitement to win out and he strode up the rough-hewn passageway to report Matilda’s real wealth to Dr. Welland.

 

<<<<<<< END >>>>>>>

.

Note – (Spoiler Alert, don’t read this until you’ve read the story 😉 ) — During the second encounter in the room, Jeremy meets Captain Kirk and some of the crew of the Enterprise from the original TV series.  This occurred in my dream, but when writing, I made sure Kirk’s words came from transcripts of the actual TV shows with one exception.  I didn’t want to give away that the character speaking was Kirk right away so I changed “Dr. McCoy” to “the doctor” in one place.  All Credit for Kirk’s words go to the writers of the original Star Trek series, though I’ve taken them out of context here.  This was the TV series that started the whole Star Trek universe and had a significant influence on me and many others of my generation.

Sanctuary

Here’s a little story that could be part of a much larger tale.  Have a look and see what you think.  Comments are welcome.  Enjoy!

Ron

.

Sanctuary

Selena was breathing hard from running uphill.  She stopped to rest for a moment by a tree at the edge of the wood.  She’d only been standing for a moment when the leaves and branches immediately over her head were ripped to shreds.  She looked up startled and heard the report of an automatic weapon from down the hill where she’d been moments ago.

The soldiers had seen her!

The leaves to her right exploded as bullets tore through them.  Without looking back, she dove into the underbrush, rolled, sprang to her feet, and began running up the hill into the forest.  Leaves and branches to her left burst as bullets shredded them.

She ran.

Dodging around a tree she felt a sudden burn on her left shoulder and ignored it.  That was too close.  Soon she was well into the forest’s foliage.  Here she didn’t think they could see her, but if they kept shooting they might get lucky and she would be dead.  She dodged behind a large tree, stopped for a moment to catch her breath, and listened.  The tree would only protect her temporarily, so she knew she couldn’t stay.  The bullets were still tearing through the foliage on either side of her and she could hear the automatic weapons firing.

They were getting closer.

She heard a shout not far from her left side and the weapons fire stopped.   They intended to kill her, but she wasn’t entirely sure why.  No time for that now, she glanced quickly around and saw a largish rock in front of some thick underbrush just over two metres from her position.

She heard a shout from right behind her tree.

She dove for the rock.

As she tumbled down behind it she heard a curse and the weapons began firing again.  She hugged the ground and began to slide backward.  She could hear the bullets bouncing off the rock as the foliage right over her body was ripped apart.

This was it.  She knew she was going to die any moment.

Her feet slid into a hole and the next thing she knew she was hanging on a root with only her head above the ground and stone pressing onto her from both sides.  Looking up she saw a soldier jump onto the rock that had protected her and bring his weapon up.

She let go, heard her shirt tear, and was falling into darkness.

She didn’t fall far.  She felt a pain in her left ankle when she hit bottom.  She fell that direction.  Selena began scramble-crawling further to the left and heard more automatic weapons fire.  Bullets rained down where she’d just been, and the sound of the weapons’ report echoed around her.  She kept crawling until her hand came upon an unseen rock in front of her.  Feeling around she moved around it.

As she settled behind the rock she heard something metal hit the ground back where she’d fallen into the hole.

She saw a flash of light and heard a deafening roar.  In that brief flash of light she could see that she was in a natural cavern.  The next sound was the sound of rocks falling behind her.

Then everything was quiet except for the ringing of her ears.  It was very dark.

Well she wasn’t dead after all, at least not yet.  She lay there on the cold damp stone panting.  As her ears gradually stopped ringing she was aware of a profound quietness all around her.  Her breathing slowed.  Somewhere water was dripping.

…..

Time passed.

….

Selena woke feeling cold, stiff, and shivering.  Her body ached, her shoulder burned, and her ankle was throbbing.  When she opened her eyes it was so dark she might as well have kept them closed.  She sat up gingerly.

Listening she could hear nothing except the constant drip of water.

Her memory of what had brought her to this dark, cold, cavern returned and she felt panic for a moment.  Looking over the rock behind her revealed nothing.  Did she dare go back and try to get out the way she’d come.  Then she remembered the sound of falling rock and wondered if she could go back that way even if it were safe.

More panic.  Perhaps it would have been better if the soldiers had killed her.  Then she wouldn’t starve to death in this hole.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she remembered her mother saying, “Where there’s life, there’s hope.”

This calmed her panicking mind a little and she was able to force the panic down.  What did she have with her?  Her shirt was torn all up one side where she had caught it as she slid down into the hole.  Her fingers also found a hole where the bullet had grazed her left shoulder and the scab on her shoulder.  It was only luck that she didn’t have a shattered shoulder or worse to deal with.  She felt her jeans pockets.  There was some tissue, money, a granola bar, and … oh yes, her keys!  She remembered the small LED light on the key chain!

Quickly she pulled out the keys and fumbled with the key chain.  Finding the little light she pushed its tab.  The faint light appeared very bright in the complete darkness until she tried to look around.  She could see the rough cavern floor by her side, but the little light could not penetrate the darkness before her.  Well that was something anyway.  At least she wouldn’t fall into a chasm or something because she couldn’t see it … until the battery died.  She released the tab and the light went out.

Looking back over the rock she’d been leaning against and flashing her light, she saw a pile of rock that had fallen from the ceiling when the grenade had exploded.  At least she assumed it had been a grenade.  That meant the soldiers probably thought she was dead and wouldn’t bother looking for her.  That was good.  The rock pile reached up toward the ceiling.  Selena tried standing.  Her ankle hurt and didn’t want to support her weight.  It was swollen.  She touched it and wiggled it slightly.  She didn’t think it was broken.  It felt like a bad sprain.  She would have to stay off it as much as possible.

So she crawled up the pile of rock to see if getting out that way was an option.  When she neared the top she could feel a slight breeze on her face.  Looking more closely she realized there was no way she would be able to move the large rocks that blocked her way out.  It must be night or she would be able to see light from up here unless the hole was entirely blocked.  The breeze suggested it was not.

OK, escape that way was not a probable option, at least not one she could take without help from outside.  Her experience earlier indicated that would not be a wise course of action anyway, except as a last resort.

Thinking back on the afternoon’s events she wondered what she had done that so angered the soldiers that they wanted to kill her instead of giving her a stern talking too and sending her on her way.  She’d come to the clearing at the bottom of the hill often, although she hadn’t been here for more than a year now.  It had been one of her favourite walks before she’d moved away.  Things had changed in her absence.  Thinking back … oh yes, she HAD ignored the government no trespassing signs.  They’d never been there before.  Then the razor wire fence had indicated she probably shouldn’t proceed.  But this was one of her favourite places so when she found the fallen tree that breached the fence making a convenient bridge she took it as a sign that the universe wanted her to proceed in spite of the regime’s wishes.  Perhaps she should have been a little less outraged at the regime who were keeping her from one of her favourite walks and turned back then.  She hadn’t.

Then she’d seen those strange structures in HER clearing and curiosity had gotten the better of her.  It appeared no one was around, so she’d climbed up on one and had a look through a window.  She’d been trying to figure out what she was seeing when something had pinged off the metal structure above her head.  She had looked up and then heard the report of a weapon and a shout.  She’d looked back to see a half dozen soldiers entering the clearing brandishing their weapons.  She panicked.  Jumping down behind a large metal pipe, she’d skirted around the structure keeping it between her and her pursuers until she could dash up into the forest nearby.  Then the chase through the forest and across the field that eventually landed her into this predicament had begun.  She wondered what she had seen that was so important.  She’d probably never know now.

Sighing, Selena made her way back down to her hiding place behind the rock in the dark.

OK what next?  She hadn’t told Crystha, her sister, where she was going so no one knew where she was and with the soldiers outside no one was likely to come looking for her.  She couldn’t stay here.  She was already thirsty and hungry.

She nibbled a tiny piece of her granola bar.  Obviously the air was good or she wouldn’t be conscious enough to think straight.  The granola bar was a very inadequate food supply, but would have to do for now.  She could still hear the drip of water.  Water would be her next priority.

Carefully following the dripping sound she worked her way down further into the cavern.  She would shine her light briefly ahead, let it go off and then feel her way forward until she became unsure of what was in front of her.  Crawling this way she managed to avoid banging her head on low hanging rocks and come to a small rivulet of water.  It was dripping from the wall of the cavern into a small puddle a few centimetres deep.  It looked clear and didn’t have any small creatures swimming in it that she could see, so she decided it was probably safe.  She drank.

She could probably find her way back to her hiding place and the remains of the hole she’d entered by from here.  The small rivulet flowing from the puddle would give her an obvious path to follow so she decided to follow the trickle of water to see where it led.  Maybe it would lead under the hill and out into a surface stream.  She knew that was more wishful thinking than a good plan, but it was the only plan she had.

Selena spent the next hour or so flashing her light ahead then crawling forward in the dark, flashing her light ahead then crawling forward in the dark repeatedly.  This way she hoped to preserve the little LED light’s battery and avoid injuring herself further.  Crawling also gave her ankle a chance to heal a little.  It was hard on her knees.  When flashing her light she became aware that the cavern had narrowed to a low ceilinged tunnel that she couldn’t have stood up in if she’d been able.  After a while she began hearing significantly more running water ahead.  The sound grew as she advanced.  Then she rounded a bend in the tunnel and came upon an underground creek.  Her little rivulet disappeared into the creek and the tunnel she’d been following joined a somewhat larger one.

She considered following the creek uphill to its source in search of a way out.  A quick flash of her light in that direction revealed this cavern was blocked by a solid rock wall.  The creek tumbled out of a small crack up near the ceiling that was too small for her to enter.  She could not escape that way.

She crossed the creek and started following it downhill, then stopped.  What if she needed to find her way back to her hiding place?  She went back to the point opposite to where the rivulet tumbled into the creek and, using loose rocks that lay around, built a small cairn.  Then she used her car keys to scrape an arrow pointing to where the small rivulet entered the creek from the smaller tunnel.  Now she’d be able to get back if she had to.

Selena had another nibble of her granola bar and began following the creek down through the cavern.  At one point the tunnel widened and she thought she felt a slight breeze on her face.  After stopping for a moment she decided it had been her imagination.  It wasn’t long after this that when her light was off she could see a faint light up ahead.  Wow, already!  Maybe she’d be able to get out of this after all, started forward, and then stopped.  Wait a minute, it can’t be morning yet … unless she’d spent more time sleeping in her hiding place than she thought.  She didn’t think so.  Whatever.  Light was good.  She moved on.

After rounding a couple more bends the light had become bright enough that she no longer needed to use her little LED light.  However, her hope of the light leading to a way out was dashed when she realized that the light was coming from something that coated the surface of the cavern.  It was not as bright as her little light, although it did give enough light that she could make out the shape of the rocks and walls around her and could keep from falling into a crevasse or hitting her head on low hanging rocks.

The creek she was following passed through a narrow part of the passage and then descended a steep slope that she navigated carefully because the rocks had become slippery.  When she looked at her hands they also glowed with a coating of the slime she’d picked up from the floor.  “Nice,” she said, “Now I have a glowing personality,” and smirked at her little joke.  Her voice sounded loud here even if she had spoken softly.

She came to a pool that blocked the cavern from side to side. The glowing slime grew on the ceiling and walls.  In places slime grew a little ways out onto the surface of the water around the edges where it formed a kind of floating weak rubbery mat.  It didn’t appear to grow down into the water.

She had to wade around the edge to continue.  The water was very cold and not deep at the edge.  It only came up just past her knees at the deepest spot.  To avoid placing her full weight on her hurt ankle she leaned against the wall as she worked her way around the edge.  This meant she dislodged pieces of the floating slime mat and it floated out onto the pool like glowing lily pads.  A slight current tugged at her legs, but it was not dangerous.  Finally she came to a ledge and crawled up onto it shivering from the cold.

A small ridge of rock blocked her progress ahead and she couldn’t make out where the creek left the pool.  She shone her light back at the pool and saw an eddy in the water next to what appeared to be a narrow crack in the floor.  The outlet from the pool must be below the level of the water she thought.  She climbed up on the little ridge.  When she placed her left hand on a rock near the top, it suddenly gave way.  She fell onto her chest with her head hanging over a precipice.  It was a couple seconds until she heard the sound of the rock she’d dislodged strike bottom.  That was close!

Selena’s jaw dropped open.  This cavern was huge.  Far below she could see the glowing slime undulate over the form of the cavern floor.  It extended up all the walls and faint traceries of slime arced over the ceiling.  As she looked out from her purchase on the cliff, she saw a large roughly elliptical glowing mass far out on the cavern floor.  She could not make out the far side of the cavern.

Selena took a deep breath.  This was beautiful.  She’d never imagined that such a place could exist on Earth or anywhere else for that matter except in fantasy worlds.  What had she discovered?

After gazing for a while, she pushed herself back up on her hands and knees and retreated from the precipice.  Looking around she couldn’t see any path for her to follow that didn’t lead back into the dark the way she’d come or over the precipice.  Around her the slime was glowing and appeared to be everywhere including on the water’s surface around the edge of the pool.  She felt tired from her exertions during the day and over the last several hours so she sat against the wall to rest.  Cleaning her hands on her jeans as best she could she unwrapped and ate half of her remaining granola bar.  As she re-wrapped the granola bar she noticed the glow of the slime on the remainder of the bar.  Had she eaten any?  That was probable since everything was glowing with the slime; her jeans, the back of her hands, her chest and belly where they had contacted the ridge through her torn shirt when the rock had dislodged under her hand, and even her shoulder wound where she’d touched it gingerly.  She didn’t remember doing that.  Hopefully this slime was not harmful to humans.  She took consolation in something she’d read somewhere that said 99.9% of all bacteria was not harmful.  Was this slime the same as bacteria?  And besides, she thought, that’s what immune systems were for.  She could do nothing about it anyway.  She drank from the pool from a place that was devoid of the glowing slime mat, she hoped, and sat back against the wall again to consider her predicament.

…

Selena woke and to her surprise she felt refreshed.  She was not cold anymore.  She moved her hand and noticed that it stuck slightly to the rock on which it lay. Interesting.  In fact everywhere her body had been in contact with the glowing surface as she slept it adhered to that surface.  It didn’t prevent her from moving.  It only resisted slightly.  She thought it curious that this didn’t alarm her.  Oh well she couldn’t do much about it anyway.

She sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.  As she moved her hand away, she noticed that the backs of her hands were glowing with the slime.  Was it her imagination or slime on the backs of her hands more extensive than before she slept?  She guessed she probably had glowing eyelids now.

Moving to the pool side her hand dislodged a stone that rolled down and landed on a piece of the floating slime.  It sank.  As she watched the slime’s glow dimmed.  She quickly reached in and freed the slime so that it floated back to the surface.  With satisfaction she noted its glow soon resumed its former brightness.

Pushing the floating slime away, she drank and then washed her face and hands.  The slime on her hands would not wash off completely even when she scrubbed it as best she could with a bit of sand from the pool bottom.  It was in her pores.  Oh for a nice hot shower!

She ate the remainder of her granola bar and realized how hungry she had become.  Oh for a good breakfast!  She had to get out of here today.  Should she try back up the tunnel or try to find a way down into the cavern without killing herself.  Neither option appeared to have any more promise than the other.  She climbed up on the small ridge and, being careful not to slip off, looked across the cavern.  The glowing orb out in the centre of the cavern attracted her.  If she could find her way down into the cavern possibly she could find another tunnel going up.  The trouble was, she didn’t have days to explore and figure that out before she would become desperate.

Looking back up the way she’d come she knew that if by some miracle she were able to dislodge the rocks that blocked her way out where she’d fallen in she might be able to get out.  Then she’d be back near the soldiers who wanted her dead.  That was not appealing.  She figured with water, she had several hours before she became desperate so she’d try to find a way out through the cavern below, before retracing her crawl back to her point of entry.  As long as she was careful to not lose her way that was possible.

Not thinking about it she stood up.  To her surprise, while her ankle still hurt it did support her weight.  As long as she was careful not to twist or sprain it again she could walk slowly now.

Selena worked her way along the ridge, stepped over a narrow crack that was the outlet from the pool, and saw a low place where the barrier met the opposite wall.  Further investigation showed a steep way down the cavern wall.  Although it was not wide, if she was careful she should be able to work her way down the slippery path safely.

It was slow going.  Finally Selena stood on the cavern floor.  Looking up she could barely make out the narrow way she’d descended moments ago.  She had to mark this spot somehow so she could find her way back if necessary.  She dislodged several small rocks near the bottom of the path up and built a small cairn being careful not to damage the slime.

Looking around the glowing slime mat coated everything on the floor of the vast cavern.  The rocks and other structures were rounded by it so that it looked as if she were seeing a pale green glowing marshmallow landscape.  It was much thicker out toward the centre of the cavern, but at the base of the cliff she could still make out the occasional bare rock.  Avoiding the glowing mat as much as possible she made her way along the base of the cliff.  She came to a place where a small creek fell from the cliff above.  This was probably the outlet from the pool she’d slept by.  Where the water ran the slime did not grow, so Selena followed the water course out into the cavern getting her feet wet.  It led toward the glowing ellipsoid.  Around her the soft marshmallow landscape became smoother and the cavern floor became a smooth undulating surface.

Eventually the creek wound around the large glowing ellipsoid that appeared to be made of the same glowing slime that coated the rest of the cavern.  The little creek emptied into a pool at the ellipsoid’s base.  She looked along the pool’s shoreline and couldn’t see a water course exiting.  She didn’t expect one as the ground appeared to rise in all directions from the part of the pool she could see.  She expected only small creeks could enter the pool.  However, from her position she couldn’t see these.

Not wanting to walk on the mat, Selena placed a foot into the pool and the bottom was soft and mushy and her foot sunk into the sediment far more than she expected.  It was alarming that it continued to sink slowly the longer she kept her weight on her foot.  When she tried to withdraw the ooze sucked at her foot.  With a little effort it finally gave way and her foot came out suddenly causing her to lose her balance and sit down hard into the creek.

“Uck!”  Now she was wet up to her waist.

Gingerly she stood up and surveyed her situation.  Maybe she could get around the shore if she kept to the edge of the pool.  The ellipsoid glowed invitingly.  It was beside her just out of reach now.  She carefully placed her foot right at the edge of the pool.  The rock underneath was slippery.  She managed to stay standing and her foot didn’t sink.  She took a couple more careful steps right at the water’s edge.  So far so good she thought.  She took another step and as soon as she placed her weight on that foot it slipped out from under her pitching her full length onto the glowing slime mat with her legs in the water.  Her face stopped before making contact with the slime.  It felt like she’d landed on foam so she wasn’t hurt.

Looking under her torso quickly, the slime mat was still glowing as it had before she’d landed on it.  At least it hadn’t been damaged.  Actually, it was rather comfortable to lay on, if a little sticky to her bare skin.  She rolled over onto her back and let her head lay back onto the slime mat.  Looking up she could see the glowing ellipsoid above her.  She relaxed.  It wouldn’t hurt to rest for a few minutes.

Selena wasn’t sure how long she’d laid there when she became aware of a tingling sensation where her bare skin touched the slime.  This sensation was strongest on the back of her neck just below the base of her skull.

…

A blue cloudless sky was over her head and she was lying back on the gentle slope of a field of intensely green grass.  The grass was soft and spongy against her back. Where had the cave gone?  She didn’t remember moving, yet here she was.  The landscape around her was familiar.  Nonetheless, she couldn’t quite place it.  She looked around not moving.  In the distance something was approaching.  As the figure came closer, she saw it was a very old man dressed in a loose fitting pair of off-white pants and shirt.  He was walking slowly.  After a few minutes he stopped before her.

She blinked. “Aaa … hi.”

The old man looked at her and then glanced around for a few moments.  Then his gaze returned to her, “Hi.”  His voice sounded old, but was pleasant.

They looked at each other a while longer until finally Selena asked, “Who are you?”

The old man looked at her.  Then he looked away as if he was confused by the question.  “Um …,” he said quietly, “I am …,” he looked around more as if the answer was somewhere around him.  He looked frustrated as if the question were extremely difficult and finally settled on, “Um … call me Mycel.”

That was a strange name.  She said, “OK. …  I’m Selena.  Do you know where we are, Mycel?”

Again the old man looked around as if the question confused him.  Then, “We’re … um … here.  Don’t you know?”

“I know we’re here, but I don’t know where here is,” Selena said carefully.

Mycel looked puzzled by her response.  He frowned and said, “You should.”

In spite of the familiarity of the landscape around her, Selena could not place it.  What did Mycel mean, she should know where she was?

“Hmm…” Selena thought for a moment and said, “Do you have any idea how I got here?”

Again he hesitated as if looking for the words in the grass around them and then replied, “Don’t you know? … um … You walked.”

Selena couldn’t remember walking.  Moments ago she’d been in a cavern dimly lit by bioluminescent slime.  Something wasn’t right.

“Why do you keep looking around?  What are you hiding?” she eyed him suspiciously.

“Um… I’m looking for the words.”  As if to demonstrate he looked around again. “I’m not hiding anything.  This is all there is.”

“Then why won’t you tell me where we are?”

Again the old man looked around, “This is all there is.  This is your place.  … Why don’t YOU know where it is?”

This frustrated Selena.  Of course she didn’t know this place even if it did look somehow familiar.  She decided to try another line of questioning.

“How did you get here?” she asked him.

“Umm … I’ve always been here. … You came to me.”

“No, you clearly walked across the field to me.  Now you’re here with me.”

“I did?”  He considered this for a moment, then, “I guess it must appear that I came to you, but you did come to me.”

This made no sense to Selena.  No matter which of them came to the other they were both clearly here now.

After considering, “So what do you want?” she asked him.

“Want? … um … I don’t want anything. … What do you want?

“I just want to go back to my sister’s place.”  Selena tried to move her hand to point.  The grass resisted her attempt so she left it at her side.  ‘Interesting,’ was all she thought, and was not alarmed by this.

Mycel stood there awkwardly for a moment.  “You could stay here and … converse with me,” he stated.

That felt like a comfortable idea.  Something nagged at the back of her mind.  You can’t be one place and then suddenly be another place without traveling somehow she told herself.  She was surprised.  This bothered her logically, but not emotionally.  I must be hallucinating or something, she thought.  She needed more information, so perhaps she should try to keep Mycel talking.

“Hmmm, OK, what do you want to talk about?” She hoped he would make a slip which would give her the information she needed to understand where she was and how she’d arrived here. It WAS good to be out of the cave in such a beautiful open meadow.

The old man looked around again and then, “Ummm … what do you want to talk about?”  He looked around again and, “Let’s talk about you.  I enjoy listening.”

OK, that didn’t work.  She’d have to get him talking about himself somehow.  Well, she could start.  Maybe he would tell her something of use afterward.

Selena told Mycel about her adventure of the day before, how the soldiers had chased her, how she’d ended up in the cave and followed the caverns to the large cavern.  “But I have no idea how I came to be in this field with you.  Can you explain that?”

While she’d been talking Mycel had listened intently.  Her last question appeared to startle him.  “What? … You just told me. You’re still here with me.”

Something occurred to her, “Are you telling me I’m still in the cave?”

“Umm, … Yes.  We’re here together and you’re safe here.  I will never harm you like those soldiers.”

Somehow that didn’t reassure Selena logically, but emotionally she felt that she couldn’t be safer.

“If we’re still in the cavern, then why do I see a sunny day in a meadow?”

“I don’t know. … This is your place and I’m here to converse with you.”  The old man didn’t hesitate this time.

“Oh!”  Selena let the implications of that sink in.  Was Mycel part of her subconscious mind?  Was she hallucinating this whole scene?  Why didn’t she feel frightened when logically she should be terrified?  She must be dreaming.  However, it was a very realistic dream if that were the case.

As she pondered this, Selena became aware of the hunger gnawing at her belly.  “I have to find food,” she told the old man.

Mycel hesitated. “I could find you some.  You’re safe here,” he told her.

“Honestly, I do have to eat,” she said emphatically.

“But I would like you to stay so I can keep you safe,” the old man told her.  Now Selena finally began to feel frightened.  Somehow this old man was holding her here and did not want to let her go.

“Sorry, I can’t stay,” as she opened her eyes.  The sunny meadow dissolved and she was back in the cavern laying on the glowing slime.  Somehow Mycel’s image persisted hovering before her eyes.  He was now transparent and looking very sad.

“Please stay. … You don’t know the way from here and you’re safe here.”

“I can’t stay or I’ll die.  Do you know the way out?”

The apparition Mycel said sadly, “You have to stay or I won’t be able to converse with you anymore.”

Selena did feel sorry for him.  Nevertheless, she knew she had to go.  “I’ll come back to see you then.”

Mycel was obviously reluctant, but eventually gave in.  “Alright … go that way.”  He pointed back the way she’d come.  “Follow the other.”

Selena tried to move her right arm again.  The slime resisted.  She insisted and tried again. The slime let go.  Mycel looked at her sadly.

Her head and torso were glued to the slime mat under her.  She looked at her free hand and forearm.  Glowing slime hung from it and appeared to ooze from her pores.

“I really must go!” Selena yanked her left arm free.  Then as an afterthought, “I am really pleased to meet you,” and she meant it.

“Will you come back to me?”

“Yes, if you let me go I will come back and visit.”

She noticed a lessening of the adhesion to her head.  She now knew the way out, and she knew she must keep this place secret.

Selena blinked, “OK, I agree with that.  I really don’t want anything to hurt you.”

Although the mat still clung to her the adhesion didn’t seem to be as great and she was able to sit up. Mycel vanished.

The back of her neck itched and when she scratched she found more slime adhering there than other places on her body.  She let it be for the moment.

Selena stood up and worked her way back to the water course.  She followed it back to the cliff base and walked along it looking for her little cairn.  Eventually she noticed a small thin straight stick leaning against the wall.  It looked very old because it was covered in the glowing slime that made it almost blended in with its surroundings.  That was probably why she hadn’t seen it before.  This was not something that had originated in the cavern.  Someone had to have brought it here!  That meant she was not the first to come this way.  Then she remembered Mycel’s words, “Follow the other.”

She smiled, “OK, I will.”

Immediately beyond the slimed stick she saw her little cairn marking the path back to the pool above.

She retraced her steps back up to the pool where she’d slept.  Pausing she had another drink of the water there.  She waded back around the pond and climbed back up the tunnel, up the steep slope through the narrow place and to the point where she’d first seen the bioluminescent glow of the slime for the first time. Now she saw something she hadn’t seen on her way down.  She saw a fine tracery of very faintly glowing slime tendrils in the cracks and little crevasses of the cave wall and ceiling.

She pulled her little LED light out and was about to flash it ahead when realized that if she used it her eyes would not be able to see tracery.  Putting the LED light back in her pocket she walked slowly keeping her hand in front of her so she wouldn’t hit her head on an unseen low hanging rock.  Each step was a study in using her foot to feel the floor before she advanced.  She’d been crawling when she came this way before.  In this way she came to a place where the ceiling hung low so she was forced to crawl again for a while.  Then she came to the wider place where she’d thought she might have felt a slight breeze on her face.  She didn’t feel that now, but the slime tracery finally ended here.

OK, now what?

Obviously nothing more could be seen in the dark, so she flashed her light ahead.  The light from her small LED almost blinded her, and she was able to see the creek coming from the way she had originally come.  That didn’t help much.

Crawling forward a couple metres, she flashed her light again.  This time she noticed a straight line of rocks laid on the floor that lead to a larger boulder next to the left wall.  She’d missed those on her way down when she’d been closer to the little creek and looking the other direction.  Had whoever left that straight stick at the foot of the precipice in the large cavern also left this line of rocks to show the way out?  Selena held her light on and went to the boulder.  Looking behind it she saw a small opening and she definitely felt a slight breeze on her face now.

This was the way out.  Her escape route!

She had been so close on her way down and missed it.

To enter the small opening she had to crawl on her belly.  Wriggling forward she followed the narrow passage around several twists and turns.  It gave the impression of going generally up.  That was hopeful.

Finally she came to a small chamber where she could finally sit up.  Looking around she noticed the bones of some unfortunate little animal.  She had to be near the surface now, or these bones would not be here.  The only problem was there were 3 possible ways she could go now.  She’d used her LED light extensively while crawling through the passage and its light was much weaker than it had been so she knew the battery would soon die entirely.  Looking at the 3 ways out she realized if she chose wrong she might join the little animal here in the dark forever.

What to do?

Selena checked the left way, it appeared a little broader and seemed to go up.  The centre way was about the same size as the passage she’d recently exited and seemed to proceed on the level.  The right hand path was narrower and appeared to go down.  Going up felt like a good idea so she favored the broader left hand passage.  As she was about to turn from the right hand way she again felt the breeze on her face.  Licking her finger and holding it near each tunnel entrance she found that the breeze was coming from the small right hand path that appeared to lead down.

“Oh, just let me out!” she mumbled to herself.  She wanted to be done with crawling and was about to turn to the left hand way again when she thought better of it.  Sighing, “OK down it is,” she said with disappointment.

She had to squeeze herself into that small tunnel.  Pretty soon it turned steeply down and she wished she’d gone in feet first instead of head first.  That couldn’t be helped now.  The passage took a sharp twist to the left and she was suddenly hanging from the upper wall of a small chamber and her eyes were dazzled by bright light streaming from a crack in the opposite wall.

“Yeah!!” she shouted hoarsely.  This was definitely sunlight.  Getting out of her small hole into the chamber was tricky and she fell the short distance to the floor.  That left her with a few more scrapes and bruises but she didn’t break anything.

Several sticks leaned against the wall here.  Old furs and other paraphernalia were also laying around this chamber.  She realized whoever had left the stick back in the cavern had expected to come this way again.  Interesting.  These sticks and old furs had been here for a long while.  This place must have been a refuge for others a long time ago.  She wondered if they or their descendants were still around somewhere.

Selena had to scale a small cliff to get to the bright hole and outside.  She found herself on a narrow ledge looking out from several metres up on a cliff in the forest.  The setting sun was shining into her eyes.

Selena took a deep breath.  It was so good to breath fresh air again after the closeness of the cavern.  Looking around she was able to determine her approximate location and knew she couldn’t be more than a couple of kilometres from where she’d left her car.  After taking a short break she worked her way down to the foot of the precipice before the sun set.  She was able to locate a path and began following it.  It led to a gravel road as night finally fell and walked uphill to the place where her car was parked.  She hid in the bush in the dark wondering if the soldiers were anywhere around.

Hearing no movement she approached her car from the bush and inspected it carefully using the last of her LED light’s battery.  It seemed to be just as she’d left it.

Pulling her keys out she got in and heaved a big sigh of relief.  Not only did she escape the soldiers, she had found a place where others had found sanctuary and she knew she could too.  No matter what life threw at her in spite of the dangers of the cavern she could come here and be safe.  Oddly she also felt that she’d made a new, if very strange, friend in Mycel.  Had he only been a figment of her own imagination?  Or was he something else?  She didn’t know the answer but this was not the time to ponder it.

“I’m so hungry.”

Starting her car, she drove toward Crystha’s place imagining food and a hot shower.

<<<<<<< END >>>>>>>

 

 

Some Speculation about the Genesis of Life on Earth

Gina and I have been kicking this idea around for a while now, so I thought it might be worth a blog post.  The eventual discovery of another life genesis event (life on another planet) is one of the underlying goals of space exploration (among others).  What if Earth had experienced multiple life genesis events?  Then maybe we could learn some of the general principles that might apply everywhere in the universe, by studying life here on Earth.  At least until we have life on another planet to study.  At first that idea does not seem to be supported by the evidence we have, but let’s look a little closer at the idea.

We know that conditions on Earth supported the genesis of life at least once because we’re here.[1]  Although it’s possible, it would seem very peculiar if these conditions required for life to start[2] only existed once at a specific location over a relatively short period of time.  Our experience with the universe shows that it just doesn’t work that way.[3] If these conditions existed at one place on Earth, it seems highly likely that these same conditions would have existed many places on Earth and probably over some geologic period of time.  If this is the case then it would seem highly unlikely that life would have started at only one specific time and place.  It would seem more reasonable that life genesis events occurred in multiple locations and over some extended time duration.  So if this were the case, why don’t we see life from multiple genesis events on Earth today?

Perhaps the chemical reactions that make life only occur with a limited set of organic molecules.  And perhaps DNA and RNA are the only molecules that lend themselves to coding for living systems.  That being the case, wouldn’t life from one genesis event look a lot like life from other genesis events?  Granted, we only know of one instance of life and it is carbon based and uses DNA and RNA to encode for living systems.  We have a sample size one, so we don’t have enough information to make those assumptions without more data from other places in the universe.  However, we are not likely to have this information for quite some time yet, so we’re left with speculation.

We do know that if something can occur in one place and time in the universe then it is likely to occur in other places and times given the same conditions.  This is an underlying precept of our science, which allows us to observe something locally and expect it to occur elsewhere in the universe given the same conditions.

So the question then becomes, if there were multiple life genesis events on Earth why do we observe only one today?  There are at least three possible scenarios to explain what we observe today:

1. Early life competed and our kind survived.  Life from other genesis events would have been overwhelmed and driven extinct.  Since we are talking about early microbes, the fossil record for such a contest is likely to be very sparse if it exists at all.  In this case we may never know.
2. Life from different genesis events could be so closely related that we have not distinguished between them yet and they may coexist with us even today.  If this were the case perhaps a careful study of various genomes might allow us to distinguish the subtle differences between the life from different genesis events.
3. Life from different genesis events might have been so alike that it actually blended to form the type of terrestrial life we observe today, which only appears to be from a single genesis event because, well life is life no matter where it started.  If this is the case, the differences between life from different genesis events would be very subtle and they could all exist within our modern global genome undetected.  Studying the various species genomes that exist today may or may not allow us to distinguish which parts of a species genome came from different genesis events.

So where does that leave us?  Well these are intriguing scenarios, and it does leave us open to speculate about other forms of life without ever leaving Earth, although it will still take life from another planet for us to begin seeing the overall guiding principles of life.  In fact it may take knowledge of life from somewhere else in the universe to help us understand which of the three scenarios above may have occurred on Earth.

I find the second and third scenarios particularly intriguing.  When designing a science fiction world it would be fun to explore these on a fictitious planet where the differences between the life resulting from various life genesis events are a little more accentuated than they are on Earth.

What do you think?

— Ron Evans (Dec 2015)

 —————————————-

[1] For the moment I’m ignoring the various panspermia proposals and assuming our form of life DID originate on Earth.  So far, the evidence shows that ballistic panspermia might be plausible, but to my knowledge no evidence has been found to support that it actually happened.

[2] We don’t know exactly what the conditions required for life to start are, but whatever they are, they had to have existed on Earth at least at some point in the early history of our planet.

[3] If one star can form, this happens everywhere and trillions are formed.  If organic molecules can form in one molecular cloud, they form in all molecular clouds that have similar conditions.  If the proteins that are essential for life form in one tide pool, then they form in many tide pools under similar conditions.

 

A Book Review – Sort of

Book: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Gina and I are over half way through this book. It’s a space opera that takes a refreshingly different look at how it might be to live and work aboard a future interstellar spacecraft in a time when humanity (and many other sapient species) can travel around the galaxy at will. As the author says in her promotional material, she is interested in the perspective of the non-heroes in the story. The characters including the aliens are well thought out as are the various alien cultures.

In this blog I have written a lot about keeping the science and technology in a science fiction story as real as possible. With small things, like the principles on which she suggests her interstellar spacecraft would work, the author does some ‘hand waving’ and gets on with the story. I don’t think any of us can do a lot better so I’m willing to suspend my disbelief so the story can proceed. However, on ‘bigger issues’, she is very astute. There are several examples, but I’ll focus on the one that made us sit up and take notice.

I was a little ‘ho-hum’ about the book until we got to the section where the character Rosemary Harper is reading a document entitled ‘Thoughts on the Galaxy – Chapter Three’. Here the author (I assume) describes her thoughts on life in the universe. The passage I am referring to is toward the end of Day 180, GC Standard 306 and begins with “For my part, I think the best explanation is the simplest one [1]. The galaxy is a place of laws. …” and goes on to the end of the chapter suggesting that life is governed by certain as yet undefined laws. In the book she is speaking from the future perspective of her story where life from other parts of the galaxy has already been discovered, studied, and interacted with so she can use fictitious examples to make her point. Since it is a science fiction story that is not a problem, but what she actually does is describe her perspective on what we will eventually find when we DO discover life elsewhere. This is well thought out and consistent with ideas that have been discussed here in our blog.

What makes Ms. Chambers’ assertion profound is that she essentially says that the same laws that govern life on Earth also apply throughout our galaxy. I would say the same thing something like, “There are universal laws (as yet undiscovered) that govern the genesis and evolution of life in the universe.” We may not discover them until we DO find one or more non-terrestrial instances of life.

I do differ with Ms. Chambers when she says we may never be able to discover the laws of life because they can’t be experimented on directly due to the long time frames required to see results. I believe that given enough instances of life we will begin to see the patterns and be able to piece these laws together, much as we have been able to piece together successful theories of stellar or geological evolution. These are also processes that require far more than a human life span to unfold and cannot be tested in a laboratory. The very fact that we have a concept of the evolution of life shows that we have already begun piecing this together even though we currently have only our terrestrial instance of life to study. Discovering universal laws of evolution would remove evolution theory’s dependence on ‘random mutations’ in the genetic code [2].

If evolution is governed by laws, as the author and we have suggested, then what results will be some level of predictability of where life will emerge, how it will evolve, and the general forms it can take. Ms. Chambers hints at this as well. As I noted in my May 15^th and June 15^th posts, since we have observed the emergence of life on Earth and seen that it evolves over time, using the Cosmological Principle we can expect that these same processes are occurring elsewhere in the universe given appropriate conditions. In fact I proposed that one principle of evolution would be a drive to more complexity (including sapience) given ‘proper conditions’.

Be all that as it may, I’ve belabored this particular point that the author makes because it resonates with ideas we have been considering, but The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet takes on other big questions as well as some very everyday questions and handles them very well. The ideas discussed, as well as the story and the unique point of view make this an interesting book to read and think about and I can’t wait to finish it. Way to go Becky Chambers! 🙂

— Ron Evans (November 2015)

——————————————————————————————————————–

[1] The idea that the simplest explanation is often the correct explanation fits well with basic principles of scientific thought. We humans are very clever and often create overly complex constructs to explain our observations. (For instance Kepler’s explanation that planets move in heliocentric elliptical orbits is far simpler and more elegant than the system of circular orbits with epicycles upon epicycles proposed by earlier scholars to support a geocentric universe. Another example is Einstein’s concept that the speed of light is constant in all inertial reference frames. This is far simpler and more elegant than the ideas put forward earlier to support the ether theory that was popular through the 1800s. There are many other examples in the history of science.) To discover the simple elegant explanation seems to require some special insight that occurs only occasionally in our history. I can’t say it for a fact, but I’m beginning to suspect the current search for dark matter might be one of these mysteries that will require some fresh insight to find the simple elegant explanation. (But that’s a topic for another day’s blog post, so back to the book.) 😉

[2] While it’s been shown that random mutations do occur and do affect evolution, the vast majority of these mutations are detrimental to the organism and are probably not the overall drivers of evolution. In fact natural selection would probably remove most of these mutations from the gene pool.

KIC 8462852 – Alien Mega-Project?

Credit NASA: Kepler Field of View

The star KIC 8462852 has been in the news lately because of the odd brightness fluctuations that the Kepler Mission observed for this star.  There are a number of explanations being considered, but so far none of the explanations quite explains what is being observed.  Everyone expects that in the end there will be a logical and most likely ‘natural’ explanation, but this leaves lots of room for speculation right now.

One of the hypothesis being floated is that the odd light curve could be caused by a Dyson Swarm or more correctly a partial Dyson Swarm since the star’s light is not completely cut off.  This would be a loose very large array of artificially constructed satellites orbiting the star in various orbits so as not to collide with each other.  With many of these passing in front of the star its light would be significantly dimmed at times causing something like the variations in light intensity observed.

Like I said, no one really knows yet, but it has caught the interest of the SETI Institute.  They have begun studying KIC 8462852 to see if there are any peculiar radio transmissions that would be consistent with an extraterrestrial civilization.  They just started, but it will be interesting to see what their results are when they are done.  So stay tuned.  🙂

By the way, you can help sift through the Kepler data at Planet Hunters on Zooniverse.  Zooniverse has many projects they need lots of people to look at so have a gander that way.

— Ron Evans (October 2015)

The Location of Human Habitats in Space

Note to Science Fiction Authors: If your world building is completely imaginary you don’t need to read this. However if you want your fictitious world to be at least plausible you’ll want to keep the science plausible and you might want to read further; particularly if you are writing a space opera and need to describe a plausible spacecraft or space colony. 😉

After writing my September 30th blog post, Liquid Water (… er … Brine) Discovered on Mars and a Future Martian Colony, it occurred to me that it might be informative and even fun if I were to post about some of the things that will need to be considered when we eventually do create a human extraterrestrial civilization. Understanding these things is also important if you are writing fiction and want to keep your story and world plausible. Considering all of the requirements of a space faring civilization would be a huge multidisciplinary undertaking so I don’t propose to tackle it all in a single blog post or even in many blog posts. Instead, from time to time, I will choose a specific topic relating to how we will one day live beyond Earth and discuss them here. I’ll stick to topics that I find interesting or to answer questions I receive from you.

In the Sept 30th post I mentioned that the 0.38 G Martian surface gravity could be a significant issue if we ever intend to establish more than simple temporarily crewed research outposts on Mars. As I mentioned in that post, we evolved in a one G environment from long before we were even human so all of our bodily systems are designed to work in one gravity. We already know that a free fall environment, such as on board the International Space Station (ISS), weakens the human body in a myriad of ways and that the more time we spend in free fall the more our bodies’ systems become compromised. Astronauts have to engage in a rigorous exercise regime to minimize these effects and if they spend more than a few days or weeks in free fall the resulting health issues require months to recover from and some of those effects may not be entirely reversible. To my knowledge, there has been no research into the effects of low gravity environments on the human body at all.

As I mentioned in the Sept 30th post, if we are going to create a space-faring civilization then we are going to want to be able to ‘live, work, and play in space’ (to borrow the old L5 Society slogan) and as part of living we are going to need to procreate and raise healthy children in that environment. Obviously a free fall environment is not the place we want to raise children because we don’t know if they can grow properly without gravitational stresses on their skeletal, cardiovascular, and other bodily systems. Even if they could grow to live healthy lives in free fall they probably would never be able to visit a planetary surface without significant complications and possibly even death. So on a permanent basis, what is the minimum (and maximum) gravitational environment we need to inhabit to perform all of our life functions including child rearing and remain healthy? No one knows yet. The 0.38 G environment of Mars might be adequate, but I question that. What about the 0.17 G environment of the lunar surface? Discovering the lower limits of our gravitational tolerance for permanent residence in space will be a major area of research (and ethical debate) in the coming decades.

When most people think about a future human space faring civilization they think in terms of humans living on other planetary surfaces. While this will probably happen once we’ve attained the ability to travel between stars and have found other truly Earth-like planets, I suggest that this will not be the rule within the Solar System other than in temporarily crewed research outposts*. The only terrestrial planet that has approximately the same gravitational environment as Earth is Venus (0.90 G) but the searing surface temperatures and sulfuric acid clouds present other major obstacles**. All indications are that there is no solid surface on the gas giant planets. All the various moons, asteroids, and comets have low gravity environments.

A favorite science fiction fix for this issue is something like Star Trek’s ‘gravity plating’. I don’t know of any theory in physics that even hints at such a technology being possible. So if we are considering permanent residence beyond Earth, but within the Solar System, that leaves us with the necessity of spinning our habitats, spacecraft, and space colonies to keep our inhabitants healthy and allow them to raise healthy children.

While rotation does not provide true gravity, it does provide us with the necessary acceleration environment required to remain healthy and raise healthy children. The only side effect I have come across, is that rotating environments induce Coriolis forces that affect the inner ear resulting in dizziness and motion sickness.  These effects are greatly reduced with lower rotation rates and increased rotational radius. Early studies suggested an upper limit of one rpm would be required to effectively mitigate this side effect. If we are restricted to a maximum of one rpm then the rotation radius must be almost a kilometre to achieve a one G acceleration within the colony. However, recent work by Al Globus and Theodore Hall (2015) suggest higher rotation rates might be acceptable. If this turns out to be true, it would greatly reduce the size and mass of a spacecraft or space colony. With higher rotation rates the rotational radius could be significantly reduced. (If you are designing a spacecraft for your space opera you can easily calculate the rotational radius required using the equation I provide below***.)

Although at first rotating space colonies would probably be smallish, there is no reason why they couldn’t eventually become very large habitats. The necessary resources to build large space structures exist within the various asteroids, comets, and small moons. Hence, I think we’ll eventually see space habitats that will be very large. Some could even become population centres in their own right.

So what do you think? Please feel free to leave a comment or ask a question.

–Ron Evans (October 2015)

————————————————————————————————————–

*I am assuming we won’t be using genetic manipulation to create new bodies that can remain healthy in low gravity or even free fall environments. If this happens then my discussion here is moot. 😉

** We could construct colonies that float in the Venusian atmosphere at an altitude where the temperature and pressure are not too great. These colonies would need to be coated by a substance (glass or other ceramic?) that can resist corrosion from the sulfuric acid clouds. We could also construct floating colonies in gas giant atmospheres but the fact that gas giant atmospheres are composed primarily of hydrogen (and some helium and other ‘impurities’) would require our ‘balloon’ to be ‘hard shelled’ and filled with a relative vacuum or we wouldn’t get a lot of buoyancy. This is probably not an insurmountable issue and except for Jupiter (~2.5 G) the gravitational environments of the other gas giants would be comparable to Earth’s, so maybe. The issues here are more the depth of the gravity wells and the availability of the resources required for life. These are topics for another time.

*** [Warning the following contains MATH!]  😉

Good luck.

Liquid Water (… er … Brine) Discovered on Mars and a Future Martian Colony

If you listened to the news on Monday (2015/09/28), you probably heard that NASA scientists (using Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) data as well as data from other spacecraft) have found very strong evidence that for short periods during warmer seasons liquid water can exist and flow on the surface of Mars after all.  Well, that would be a very dense liquid brine, sort of like what you see along the highway in below freezing temperatures when the road has been heavily salted.  This brine contains high concentrations mineral salts (like magnesium perchlorate, magnesium chlorate and sodium perchlorate) so you’re not going to want to drink that stuff … at least not until you’ve removed the mineral salts and other potential impurities.

The discovery of flowing liquid water on the surface of Mars is very exciting news for the search for Martian life.  It means that even if life doesn’t exist on the surface there are probably underground environments that might be conducive to the survival of living organisms not far below the surface.

However, the newly discovered surface brine won’t significantly change what we need to do for future explorers from Earth to survive on Mars.  We’ve known for some time that there is water on or near the surface on Mars.  The Phoenix lander exposed some subsurface ice with its landing rockets and the polar caps are are composed of water ice and frozen carbon dioxide.  There are also surface features that resemble permafrost features in the arctic on Earth to mention a few.  Whether future explorers use the recently discovered brine or other sources of water, they are going to have to purify that water before it can be used for drinking, growing plants in green houses, or even doing their dishes.

Mars is still far dryer than any place on Earth, it still has a carbon dioxide atmosphere that is far thinner than the air on top of Mount Everest, it is still bathed in solar UV radiation and particle radiation from the solar wind and cosmic rays, and it still has average temperatures that are well below zero degrees Celsius to mention a few of the challenges we must face to live on Mars.  I don’t believe any of these issues will prevent us from eventually landing on Mars and establishing research outposts there.  We can develop technologies to overcome all of these.

However, there is one concern we will not be able to mitigate so easily if we intend to establish more than small outposts on Mars.  Mars colonization enthusiasts often seem to overlook this one.  We know that the free-fall environment aboard the International Space Station (ISS) is extremely hard on the human body over long periods of time and Mars’ surface gravity is only 38% that of Earth’s.  This may or may not be a major problem for long term habitation on Mars’ surface.  We evolved in a one G gravitational environment and our entire biology depends on that gravity.  Can we conceive, gestate, and raise healthy children in a 0.38 G gravitational field?  To my knowledge there is no data on this yet.  There may not be any until we begin living in space more extensively than we do today.  We’ll need to determine what minimum gravitational acceleration is required to maintain a healthy human as well as to raise one from conception to adulthood.  Until we can deal with that issue there will be no large scale Mars colonies.

Granted the discovery of liquid water on the surface of Mars is very exciting news and it is a step in the right direction, but I doubt this brine will make much difference to our eventual ability to establish a Martian civilization.

— Ron Evans (September 2015)

I have foreseen a time …

I have foreseen a time when we humans will travel between the planets and later the stars, when we will make our homes in these realms and build our lives, raise our children, and do all the other things that make us human, sentient, sapient, and alive.

 

The reasons we will travel and move beyond the comfortable confines of Earth are the same as have caused us to migrate from place to place on Earth, to travel out of Africa, across the continents, across the ancient land bridge, and across the oceans taking our chances with uncertain weather and new climates we did not evolve to live in.  We will go for adventure, profit, freedom (personal, political and religious), love, and survival (personal and of our species).

 

…

 

As I enter a new phase of my life, wishing it had been possible for me to be one of those future adventurers, I will explore in fiction what these various permutations of the future might be like.  Living in the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries as I do, I must extrapolate from what we know today to what we might know in the futures I will suppose.  I do know that we will still be human (more on evolution and genetic engineering later) with all the assets and foibles humans have always had.  We will take our prejudices, misconceptions, courage, fears, great questions, and loves with us.  They will grow and change in that new environment.  I also know that even though our current understanding of our universe may be incomplete and even out right wrong at times, it will be our science and its child technology that will make this all possible.  So even though I may extrapolate from our current understanding, that extrapolation will be based in science.

 

In making these explorations of the future I do not go alone.  I am very lucky to have my close partner who will join me as I explore and I hope to bring you, as my reader, along as well.

 

Let the explorations begin!!!  🙂

 

 

Ron Evans 2014/03/07 – edited 2015/01/15