Loner in Space

by Steve Simons

  Paul turns his attention back to the alien, smiles and signs that he should not have been watching. Daphne suggests that Paul speaks what he is saying, as he signs it, she says it helps the rest of the group and also Paul himself, as he is composing what he is saying. Paul can't see what difference it should make to him, but can see that it must be pretty boring for the others in the group watching in silence. Paul starts relaying the speech, whilst the alien writes it down in his own language. As Paul gets stuck, Daphne steps in to help him out with new signs. The whole exercise takes ages; at the conclusion of which, the alien suggests he re-read what he has written, then shape it up, so that it will make sense to his people.

  The Professor decides that this will be a good opportunity to take a meal break and he arranges for some food to be brought in. He also gives the alien some fresh water. Daphne and Paul strike up a conversation about sign language and Daphne is fascinated how Paul had learned sign language and why he had decided to use it, when he had met the aliens. The conversation moves onto what the alien's world is like.

  ~~ Later ~~

  The transmission seemed to go well, despite the alien's nerves beforehand, it seemed to flow seamlessly, he even told Paul afterwards that he felt it had gone well. Although the real test would be when and if they get a reply back, so far there had been none.

  It was like waiting to be called into the dentists surgery when you know you have to have a lot of work done and you are really nervous about it. The whole team were on tenterhooks, waiting for news, any news, even if it was bad.

  The phone in the corner of the room rings and they all jump in shock, especially the alien, as he had never heard a telephone before. The Professor picks it up and after a few moments, he returns to the group and announces, Well looks like we are getting a reply now, they are going to relay it to us shortly. Paul can you tell our friend so he is prepared to translate for us?

  Paul signs to the eagerly waiting alien, who is much relieved.

  A speaker in the alien's tent comes to life and relays the alien's reply. The group eagerly await the translation. As the message is quite long they have a while to wait. The alien scribbles away as he notes the message's content. When silence again befalls the speaker, the alien looks up at Paul, who eagerly asks if it is good news. The alien signs back, that they are prepared to collect him, but have specified conditions. There is much backwards and forwards discussion between Paul the alien and Daphne; as between them they try and make sense of the conditions. At the conclusion of the discussions, Paul relays their interpretation of the conditions to the Professor and Paul's father, who has also been eagerly watching and waiting, wanting to know what is going on.

  The Professor leaves the room and marches off to his people. He returns some minutes later and announces, we have a deal, but with some conditions on our side.

  The group discusses how best to communicate the new conditions. The alien makes a fresh broadcast and once again they wait for a response. Thankfully they do not have long to wait, the aliens agree to the conditions.

  At the duly appointed time the alien is transferred to a specially adapted vehicle with a tent in it similar to the one he has been in. The group, keen to see this thing through, also travel in the same vehicle, to the arranged meeting place.

  The journey does not take long, they end up at the top of a hill, well away from any houses and similar buildings.

  Apart from the alien, who is still protected by his tent, they all pile out of the vehicle and are quite surprised that it is raining, raining hard. The vehicle had been inside a building when they entered it, so no-one had any idea that it was raining. As the vehicle's door is left open wide, the alien can see the rain lashing down, the dark cloud ridden sky and the group of previously confident and reasonably happy people, cowering under some sort of covering that some military personnel are holding up to protect them. The alien wonders what it is about this stuff coming out of the skies that has caused the changes in the people. He wonders if this stuff is harmful, as they are clearly trying to avoid it. He signs to Paul, desperate to get some answers to his question, but Paul is not paying attention, instead he appears to be listening to the rather impressive individual standing upright before the group.

  The man that Paul is listening to, is in fact the commander, in charge of the ground operations of this exercise. Paul can tell that he is not happy about the rain. When he talks to the Professor, he confirms that the rain is 'hampering things'; he adds that it is advantageous from the viewpoint that it will obscure the view of 'the locals', but it also means that the military will not have clear view of the craft's approach, they will be reliant on radar and sightings from their aircraft. The commander goes on to apologise to the assembled group for the wait, he says that there had been no point in specifying a particular time as the aliens have no time reference to judge the time by, so it had been decided that the meeting would be vaguely specified as sometime during early dark time on this sector of the planet.

  The small group huddled under the canvas is just hoping that the aliens interpret 'sometime' as shortly after the onset of darkness, otherwise this waiting around is going to get really miserable.

  Paul glances round to see if his alien friend is OK and he spots that he is signing. Paul can't make out what the alien is saying, due to the distance and persistent rain. Paul decides to go back to the vehicle, he is watched with concern by his Dad.

  The alien waits until Paul is in the dry environment of the vehicle again, before asking his questions. Paul explains that the rain is safe, but humans just don't like getting wet when they have their clothes on. Now clothes, was another concept that the aliens find difficult to understand, but then coming from a planet almost continuously bathed in sunlight and being between warm and hot in terms of temperature, they do not need clothes. As the environment in the alien's tent is kept warm, he cannot feel the slight chill of the night air. Paul wishes that the alien could feel the rain and also appreciate the drop in temperature. He will when it gets to the time for the transfer. Whilst the alien does not understand the concepts that Paul has tried to explain, he is satisfied that essentially this rain is harmless, so turns his attention to glancing skywards, whilst the sky is mostly covered in cloud, far out to the right, there is a patch of clear sky and the stars can be seen.

  Paul sees that the alien's interest has been diverted and he also turns his attention to looking at the stars peeping through the general cloud cover. Soon Paul engages the alien in conversation about the two groups of stars in view, luckily he remembers the names that humans have given them. Paul sketches the star patterns out on a pad and points out the actual stars, then signs the names to the alien, who is most enthralled by this new knowledge. Both are glad to have the diversion to take their minds off of the impending meeting.

  As Paul looks back up towards one star, he suddenly notices movement. He checks again, just to make sure that what he thinks he is seeing, is actually so. When the alien gets excited, it confirms that they are both seeing the same thing. Paul dashes over to the Professor and tells him what he has seen. The commander, jumps into action, glad that at last something was about to happen and that the waiting was all over; he issues orders to his troops, then gets on his radio to other surrounding units. Paul rejoins the alien and his Dad, who has now moved over to the vehicle. They all look skyward and sure enough the approaching craft is much larger now, then disappears behind the cloud cover.

  ~~ Later ~~

  Chapter 22  Friends Stick Together

  The feeling of anticipation amongst the group on top of this hill, is almost electric. Which makes it even more of a shock when the hill is suddenly bathed in light, strong lights pointing straight up into the sky. It is just as much of a shock when the lights go out again. The group collectively wondering why the lights have gone out, thinking that something must have gone wrong. There is a long pause before they come
on again. This time they all look skywards and see that there is an inflatable craft high above them and the lights' sole purpose is to light up that craft, so this was the light that the aliens were supposed to look out for. The message did not seem that helpful regards this bit. Paul and the others just hope that in all the cloudy gloom out there, that the aliens actually see this beacon. Thus far there is no sign that the craft is heading this way, since it disappeared behind the cloud cover, there has been no sign of it.

  Strain as he might, Paul cannot hear the noise of the craft's engines. The alien signs his feelings of concern at the disappearance of the rescue craft, he asks if they will be able to see through the cloud. Paul explains as best he can, that clouds can be variable in thickness and that they may be able to see some of the light through the cloud. But both boy and alien actually fear the worst, that the alien craft has missed the sign altogether and is heading in the wrong direction and is by by now far away.

  Paul hears the rumble sound of a jet. He smiles and looks back at the alien, who has also heard the noise, furthermore he is pointing in the direction that he thinks the noise is coming from. As Paul turns his head, in the direction that the alien is pointing, he too detects that the volume is increasing. Paul tries to explain as best he can what the noise is likely to be. At the same time, he is hoping that the aliens are not misinterpreting the jet's intention, to direct them onto the correct path. The noise of the jet increases and there's suddenly a brief flash of light as the jet flies over the area of the balloon and its fuselage and wings reflect back the light.

  There is further excitement over the commander's radio. The commander announces that the craft has now been directed successfully towards them and is on its way. Paul relays the message to his alien friend who is quite excitedly scanning the skies now to see if he can see the incoming craft.

  The noise of a further aircraft can be heard heading this way. This time the aircraft sounds a lot different. Paul's Dad says that it is a propeller craft, capable of going at a much more steady and slower rate.

  There is a brief but distant flash of light from the clouds in front of the hill, followed by two flashing lights off to the right. The latter remain in view. Paul's Dad pronounces that what they can see there is the aircraft that is accompanying the alien craft. Paul thinks to himself, that the alien craft must think this kind of transport as very slow, considering what their craft is capable of doing.

  The aircraft drones on getting ever louder as it approaches the hill, then there's a flash of light again to the left of those steady flashing lights.

  The aircraft eventually flies overhead, turning as it passes over the balloon. It heads back the way it had come. Shortly afterwards, the familiar noise of the alien craft can be heard and a few moments later, the craft itself can be seen emerging from the clouds. It approaches the hill and slows up as it gets closer. The lights above start to dim and a new light shines from the balloon down to a spot on the ground. The alien craft immediately takes its cue and heads down towards the spot on the ground.

  The commander can be heard speaking to a couple of his men, he is concerned as to whether the ground is even enough, the commander adds that he did not know that the craft was going to be this big. He need not have worried though, the craft settles quite happily onto the selected site, light shinning out of its windows and lighting up small shafts of ground around the circular craft. The engines die and there is suddenly complete silence, broken every so often by short bursts of speech over the commander's radio.

  The jet screeches across the sky, presumably checking that the alien craft is OK.

  The door on the side of the craft opens, showing the light within the craft. The silhouette of an alien can be seen in the doorway. As the ground is some way below the floor level of the craft, some sort of slope emerges from the underside of the craft

  Paul looks around at the ground between his little group and the alien craft. He can see several earth soldiers, knelt, lying or crouching behind bushes, all with guns aimed at the alien standing in the doorway. Paul just hopes that none of these soldiers get either nervous or trigger happy and this whole thing end in disaster. The commander has seen Paul's face and reassures him, by telling Paul not to worry as his men are highly trained professionals, they will not fire unless they are under threat or they see anything underhand going on. He adds that as the alien is unarmed there is no threat. As the commander finishes his speech, the alien can be seen to advance slowly and cautiously down the slope. It is wearing one of the space suits like the ones that Paul had seen hanging up in the craft that he had explored.

  The Professor tells Paul that it is time for their own alien friend to suit up and that a space suit had been recovered from his craft. Paul is somewhat relieved as he was wondering how they were going to affect a comfortable transfer from their vehicle to the awaiting craft. He has been trying to imagine every way in which the tent could be transported across the gap between the two vehicles.

  Paul's alien friend is at the same time quite excited that he will be heading home and also nervous. Paul tries his best to convey the fact that he will need to suit up. This is helped as the Professor and one of the soldiers produce the space suit that he is to wear. The alien signs that he understands. The suit is passed to him by an airlock and soon he is suiting up. It doesn't take long. He checks the seals and indicates that he is ready to come out. The alien steps through the first door way and is about to close it, the Professor indicates that is not necessary. Soon the alien is standing between Paul and the Professor.

  The fact that Paul's alien friend is about to leave him and that he may never see the aliens again dawns upon Paul, he feels quite sad about this. Paul asks the Professor if he can walk across with his friend to the craft, to say goodbye properly. The Professor in turn discusses this with the commander. The commander is against this and says it is too dangerous and an unacceptable risk to the mission. To Paul's surprise, the Professor comes to Paul's defence saying pointing out that Paul had travelled all the way to their planet and they had not harmed him then. The commander counters the argument, saying that the aliens had nothing to gain then, however now they may take Paul as hostage, to gain advantage. To Paul's surprise the Professor and even his Dad come to Paul's defence and both say that Paul's alien friend would not allow any harm to come to him.

  The alien beside Paul, is concerned about the argument that is taking place. Paul breaks off listening to the discussion and explains as best he can, what the discussion is all about. The alien seems to understand what the problem is. At first he indicates that Paul stay here with the others. Then Paul argues that he has to make this stand otherwise there will never be trust between the two species. Paul says that he has to demonstrate that he trusts the aliens fully. He adds that in so doing he risks losing everything that is important to him, like his father, but it is important that the aliens understand that true friendship is based on standing together and trusting in each other and working together. The alien seems to be truly impressed at Paul's faith in him and his kind and also in Paul's courage to make such a stand and sacrifice. The alien signs that he will support Paul in his wishes, further that if things get tricky, he will defend Paul.

  Daphne has caught and followed the conversation of Paul and the alien. She interrupts the debate between the commander, the Professor and Paul's Dad and she relays what Paul has said to the alien and then the agreement that the alien in turn has given to Paul.

  The Professor says to the commander, I think that is the final argument in this debate, this boy has far more courage than any of us and I think we should respect this.

  The commander looks at Paul's dad and he can see see the tears of pride rolling down his face. For him, this is the final argument to accept the situation and support Paul in his task. The commander raises his radio and instructs his troops accordingly.

  The alien at the craft, has stopped, it has
heard the commander's broadcast and is wondering what is going on, fearing the worst, thinking that it is about to be shot at. After all the trust it has placed in these earthlings, things are about to end like this, surely not. It is relieved to see that its fellow alien is heading out towards the craft, it's path lit by a strong beam of light, coming from that thing up there above them all. The light is moving at the same pace as the advancing comrade, but what is that beside his comrade, somewhat shorter and wearing a dark suit, is this some sort of trick, is this being supposed to be unseen? Yet whatever it is, its face is uncovered and can be clearly seen. The alien tenses up expecting the worst. He is probably too far away from his craft to be able to safely run back up to the entrance, all he can do is wait, wait and see what the outcome will be. He just hopes that his comrade hiding up at the craft's entrance will be able to pick off enough of these beings to make his own death worthwhile. Maybe they can teach these beings that it does not pay to mess with his kind.

  Both alien and boy walk at a painfully slow rate, in the direction of the craft. The incessant rain making it difficult to clearly see the ground and avoid the dips, making their progress somewhat jerky as they both repeatedly almost fall flat on their faces.

  Both sides waiting for something, anything to happen.