by Ross Welford
‘Internal repair under way. Please extinguish all cigarettes and thank you for shopping at Walmart.’
Above me a light blinked. I reached up and pressed the button next to it; the whited-out windows cleared in a second and I peered out. As my eyes adjusted, I saw a sky of mid-darkness and across the water in the distance a half-illuminated shoreline, which was my first experience of moonlight.
Apart from the moonlight, though, it did not look so very different from Anthalla: dark and featureless.
My head was beginning to clear from the impact.
‘Why the water landing, Philip?’ I had not practised this. Come to think of it, I had not really practised any of it.
‘Lighting conditions, Hellyann. It is not fully dark for a further hour. We left in a hurry after all. I think there may have been an error in data input, leading to an earlier arrival than initially planned—’
‘And vertical landings are not recommended in daytime?’
‘Exactly. They take much longer and consequently carry a much greater risk of detection. I may have sustained some minor damage.’
Me too, I thought.
But there was no time for further assessment. My adventure on Earth was about to begin.
I was on Earth now, and I couldn’t go home. The sensible, rational thing to do would be to find somewhere to hide the craft and figure out some kind of plan. For that to work, however, I needed Philip to be functioning properly. I tried again.
‘Philip, how long till you are finished?’
‘Internal repair under way. Duration of repair uncertain. At the roundabout take the third exit on to the A404.’
I sighed, and then was startled by a bang, seemingly on the side of the craft. Craning round to look out of the window just behind me, I gasped when I saw two Earth people in a tiny, unstable boat, about three metres away. There was something else moving in the boat as well, which looked like a bird, although it probably was not.
It seemed as though their boat had hit my craft. Could they see me? Perhaps the VI was not working after all?
I could not hear them.
‘Philip,’ I said. ‘External audio.’
‘Internal repair under way. Please hold the line. Your call is important to us.’
‘Oh, be quiet.’ Philip’s nonsense was unnerving me.
‘Please hold the line. The person you are calling knows you are waiting.’
One of the people outside began throwing things – small stones, it seemed – at the craft. I tried to turn the vehicle the old way, by expelling some compressed gas from a vent in the rear, and it worked. Slowly, my craft rotated and I was facing the two humans. They looked straight at me, but it seemed as though they could not see me.
These were the first Earth people I had ever seen, other than exhibits at the Earth Zone. They were smaller than I expected. Juveniles. Both had pale skin and hair of different shades. And those strange, tiny noses. How can they smell anything with those?
They had ‘clothes’ on. I know about clothes: human beings wear them nearly all the time. The thought of it is enough to make me itch.
I advanced the craft forward a tiny bit to look closer, but I think I alarmed them. One of them took out something which glinted in the moonlight, and I was momentarily fearful. Was it a ‘gun’? I know about these as well: little hand-held devices used to kill other humans.
Anyhow, it was not a gun, but something that he used to create a beam of light which he shone towards the craft, angling it differently, and I thought I knew what he was doing. If this was the sort of low-diffraction, amplified light source that you call ‘laser’ then he would be getting an idea of the invisible shape in front of him.
If I am honest, I was quite impressed. This was some way beyond the level of intelligence that we have come to expect from human beings.
Then something went wrong. Something frightened them. Maybe it was the movement of my craft. But one of them stood up, the other wobbled in the boat, and suddenly they were both tipped into the water and were swimming hard to get back to the shore, one of them holding something. I saw them scramble out on to the wooden deck that juts out above the water. One of them appeared to be hurt.
‘Philip? Can we move yet?’
‘Limited propulsion is now possible, Hellyann. Thank you for your patience.’
‘You’re back!’ I said, relieved.
‘System damage is significant. Internal repairs are under way.’
I risked a further tiny amount of power to follow the boys, but I could not land on the beach – it was too narrow. I stopped alongside the wooden platform.
I was quite close to them now, and I could see that:
It was definitely a bird accompanying them. It was wet, which may be why it did not fly away.
There was something … familiar about one of them, which I felt odd about, for how could that be? There was just something about this one that made me curious. He was hopping about next to the other one, who was lying on the wooden deck, crying in pain and bleeding quite heavily. I could not bear to see him in such distress and not help.
I made a fast decision. I would:
Exit my craft
Heal the injured one with my stick because I did not like him suffering, then memory-wipe them both, assuming it worked the way it should.
Return to the craft and decide on a course of action.
It would all be over quickly.
The uninjured one started shouting ‘Help!’
I did not know who was around to help him, but this was not good. If someone came, my task would become much harder.
I had to act quickly.
‘Philip? I am going to exit.’
‘Are you quite sure that is wise, Hellyann? You will exit an invisible craft and thus simply appear as if from nowhere. This will startle the Earth people.’
This turned out to be an understatement. I think they were definitely startled.
Nonetheless, I healed the injured one. That worked at least. But it was the other one that I kept looking at. It was his freckles and his big, dark eyes that were familiar. They were just like Tammy’s.
And then I learned his name. Ee-fan, he said.
Was he … could he be … her brother? Perhaps even her twin brother? Grown in the same womb at the same time and with a tendency to look alike. (That never happens at home, but then we do not reproduce quite like you.)
An idea began to form in my mind. Perhaps my situation was improving. After all, humans were better liars. Perhaps this was what humans, in their irrational way, called ‘luck’ or ‘fate’: that I should take Ethan back home with me, to save his sister.
That was how the whole adventure began. That was how I met Ethan, and Iggy, and his chicken.
When I said that thing about ‘Or you will never see your sister again’, I was guessing. But I knew he was her brother when Ethan gave a little gasp and his eyes widened.
But to explain why I was there in the first place, I will have to go back, back to when I first saw a human being.
The story of how I came to be on Earth, alone, freezing half to death in your extraordinary ‘snow’, began four years ago, when I was nearly eight. As I have explained, I was already nearing the end of my period of formal education. ‘School’, you would call it.
There were maybe twenty of us visiting the Earth Zone, led by our ‘teacher’, Mr Park, who, at thirty, was one of the oldest people I knew. Of course, I had no idea then that I would be back in Earth Zone a few years later, not as a visitor but as a liberator, freeing an exhibit from this prison.
We walked in silence on the enclosed walkway several metres above the ground, viewing with astonishment the landscape below us. The grass and bushes were untamed and shaggy; pale, fluffy animals with four legs and dark faces ate the grass! That was most interesting.
There were no real birds. The Earth Zone is entirely enclosed by an unseen quantoplasmic force field: real birds would simply fly into the force field and be killed. Instead mechan
ical birds flitted here and there, and even made high-pitched noises just like, it is said, their counterparts on the real Earth.
My companion Av nudged me and pointed to another, smaller animal that was coming towards us beneath the walkway, waving its tail. ‘Dog,’ she said, trying her hardest to speak English, the most popular language on Earth.
I was transfixed as it got nearer. Some of my classmates shrank away even though we were well shielded from it by the height of the walkway.
‘Dangerous creatures … the same as wolves … they do not clear up their own bodily waste … they are kept in human homes …’ said Mr Park, and everybody around me tutted and shook their heads at the strange and filthy habits that the Earth people had.
‘In homes!’ muttered Av disapprovingly.
Perhaps it was just me? It seemed like it might be rather nice to share your home with one of these friendly-looking creatures with the waving tails. But I said nothing, of course.
‘This is the Northern Zone,’ said Mr Park. ‘It is a recreation of parts of Earth common north of their equator, especially the landmasses they call Europe and North America …’
As Mr Park droned on, we carried on walking and the dog followed below us. Av and I were at the back of our line and nobody else was looking.
‘See, Hellyann, it likes you,’ said Av quietly so that Mr Park would not hear. The dog came closer. Its tail was much hairier and longer than mine, and it waved from side to side quickly.
The line of students stopped while Mr Park pointed to some clumps of twigs in the trees that the robotic birds had put there to ‘sleep’ in and lay eggs – fake, naturally.
‘We shall now proceed through to the Human Being Area, where right now it is winter. You may experience sensations of considerable cold. Do not be alarmed – it is not dangerous. Can anybody tell me what happens in winter?’
Av put her hand up. ‘Water freezes, sir?’
‘Very good. Anything else? What falls from the sky?’
‘Birds, sir?’
‘No, Av, not birds, but frozen …?’ He left the question hanging. ‘Hellyann?’
‘Water, sir? Snow, sir!’
‘Indeed. Snow. Not seen naturally on our planet since the last Frozen Period. Here, it is recreated artificially. Stay in your pairs. We will be encountering human beings. They are quite safe. Do not approach them, however, and in the unlikely event that they approach you, simply walk away. Is that understood?’
We all murmured, ‘Yes, sir’, and followed Mr Park to the edge of the Northern Zone and through the tunnel to the Human Being Area.
This is where I had an encounter that – four years later – led to me being on Earth.
The Human Being Area made us all fall quiet. We were given ‘coats’ and ‘hats’ to protect us from the cold, but my feet still hurt even though, at that time, there was no snow on the ground. We were allowed to walk among the humans, who seemed to speak a basic form of our language, although we were discouraged from touching them. We marvelled at the tall houses where they lived, and their strange, noisy vehicles.
‘Motorcars,’ said Mr Park as one growled past us, controlled by a human. ‘These are recreations, modified with sensors, but be cautious: they can still hit you. If you ever wondered just how primitive human creatures are, remember: they eat other living creatures and they still burn fuels for heat and for transport.’
Next to me, Av shook her head and said, ‘Unbelievable!’
The human exhibits were free to move around, to interact with one another. They ate and slept when they felt like it and so on. They seemed to be unwashed, they smelled strange and there was something disturbing about how they looked that I could not quite work out. I fell into silence thinking about it as we moved among them and walked beneath a sign saying Welcome To New Earth.
Mr Park kept up his commentary. ‘… the exhibits occasionally fight, just like they do in the wild, but it is seldom serious. There have been only three deaths in the last ten or so years … Troublemakers are gently put to sleep …’
I kept looking at the humans and wondering …
‘Mr Park?’ I said. ‘Why are they all different? No two look the same.’
‘It is generally how they tell one another apart,’ said Mr Park. ‘We, of course, tend to distinguish one another by our smell.’
He was right. Most of us look very similar. Av is the only one I know who looks slightly different: she has a streak of much darker hair that runs from her head and down her back. It is unusual, and she dislikes it, I think.
Humans, however, have skins that are different shades, their faces are arranged differently, some of them have light eyes, or dark eyes, and different-shaped (and very small) noses.
Mr Park stretched out his arms. ‘Look at how different they are! And there is even more variety in the wild. These exhibits – humans, animals – have all been cloned from originals captured on Earth and brought back to our planet by brave Collectors.’
Beside me, Av uttered an admiring ‘Hooo!’
A little while later, after walking around some more, I was still thinking about this.
I felt someone nudge me. ‘Come,’ said an older classmate, Kallan, taking me by the hand. ‘It is time to see a “movie”.’
We followed some other visitors into a large, darkened room with chairs and a screen at one end, showing a 2D moving picture.
‘Behold!’ said Mr Park. ‘You are about to witness one of the primary pastimes of the creatures on Earth. It is possibly this that most distinguishes these creatures from more advanced life forms such as us. They spend astonishing amounts of time reading about things that are not true, or watching them on a screen.’
Around us there was a small gasp of astonishment and Av looked at me with an expression that said, Is that not strange?
Mr Park continued. ‘They enjoy watching their fellow creatures hurt themselves, and often find this “funny”. They will open their mouths and emit a sound like this: ha-ha-ha, to indicate their amusement.’
Av raised her hand. ‘Will we witness this today?’
Mr Park shook his head. ‘It is unlikely. The practice of “laughing”, as they call it, is seldom seen in captivity. This “movie” or “film” was collected during the Great Exploration. There is no dialogue.’
The film started. In it, a man was run over by a car then got up again. Then he fell down a hole in the ground and his hat was squashed by a car. He climbed out of the hole and dodged another car, but jumped straight into the path of another one, which ran him over. Again, he appeared unharmed, which struck me as highly unlikely. It was all accompanied by a jangling soundtrack of ‘music’.
A murmur went around our group. ‘This is all untrue!’ said Av, sounding annoyed.
‘Indeed,’ said Mr Park. ‘Human beings have – it would appear – an almost unlimited capacity for lying. For telling untruths. For telling only part of the truth. For making things up. Day after day after day, they tell one another stories. Their leaders lie to them, and then lie about lying to them. Parents lie to their children; children lie back to them and then laugh about it.’
‘Why does lying make them laugh?’ I asked.
Mr Park threw his hands up. ‘I do not know, Hellyann. It just does, sometimes. They say something that is untrue, then the human being who hears it pretends to think that it is true and then one or both parties do their ha-ha-ha-ha thing. They call it “joking”. They have an entire industry producing books made of paper which tell untrue stories. They even have stories which deliberately make them sad.’
I had heard about this. We have books, of course, but they tell us useful things: things that we should learn, and remember, about true things. The idea of filling a book with lies is, quite simply, ridiculous.
Mr Park clicked at the screen again, and the ‘movie’ continued. It looked very painful and both Av and I were wincing as we watched this poor person hurt himself.
Av said, ‘Does this make them sad? See
ing this person get hurt?’
‘No!’ said Mr Park, clicking to stop it again. ‘They laugh. This is what they do. That man is not really hurting himself. He is called Buster Keaton. He is lying, and the human beings think he is funny. He probably has lots of money if he is still alive. Kallan – you remember what “money” is …?’
While he was talking, the man on the screen fell over again and something strange happened in my stomach. It twitched. It was not the fact that he fell over – it was how he did it. He fell flat on his bottom, then sort of bounced up again, which was very acrobatic. Then we saw a close-up of his face, which had a very peculiar expression, and my stomach twitched again, and I snuffled out of my nose. The more I tried to stop it, the more it happened – until Av nudged me. She looked horrified.
‘Are you laughing, Hellyann?’ She said it loud enough for others to hear and everybody turned around in alarm. ‘Look – Hellyann is laughing,’ Av said again.
I quickly recovered my composure and I heard a strange sound behind us, like this: Bwa-ha. Bwa-ha, bwa-ha. I turned. A human was sitting in a seat right behind us, and making this strange noise as it watched the screen.
‘No,’ I said, seeing a chance to deflect attention. ‘It was this one here.’
Laughing and lying. What is wrong with me? I caught Kallan’s eye: he alone was looking at me not with contempt, but with something more like interest.
Everyone turned and watched the human. It was a male. Dark skin, dark hair.
Bwa-ha, it went again. It shook its head.
We had noticed that most of the other exhibits did not mind being looked at. They looked back when they were being observed, evenly, expressionlessly, and did not talk to us.
This male, though. His little nostrils flared, and his eyes narrowed. Liquid leaked from his eyes and dribbled down his face.
Av nudged me. ‘Look at his chin,’ she said. ‘It’s all wobbly. How interesting.’
Everyone in our group was fascinated. One or two were trying themselves to recreate the facial contortions of the male exhibit.
