Thomas Aquinas, Explorer of the galaxy (Thomas Aquinas series)

by Rico, J. Luis

  When the aliens rest period ends, Tommaso and Azire do not have long to wait. Hundreds of aliens converge on their lander. Not only do they converge, they crawl over the top and around it. They peer in the windows with their limited vision. They crawl underneath and crawl around the drive train mechanisms. They crawl over the large cross that Azire has planted outside the lander. It is almost comical watching these extremely bright inquisitive aliens explore the lander.

  Tommaso announces to the aliens over his external communicator. “We are coming out. Please step back from the vehicle.” The AI translator converts his speech into the squeaks and clicks the aliens understand. They all scamper away from the vehicle.

  The landers cargo bay door opens and Azire and Tommaso step out. Within moments they are covered in inquisitive Clevern exploring their large alien bodies and their EV suits. Clevern scamper into the cargo bay and over and under everything inside. Tommaso laughs out loud. “They fear nothing evidently.” After a brief burst of activity, the Clevern settle down and begin a long question and answer period. The AI translates the language and the two cultures begin to learn about each other. By the end of the day, the aliens seem completely at ease with their new partners and have completely accepted the idea of the universe above them. As they leave to return to their warren for their rest period one of the leaders asks Azire what they will do for the night if the Misri come?

  The AI is unsure what Misri is or what it means in this context so there is some confusion. The aliens leave.

  That night the Misri come.

  The first indication of danger comes from the trees. The glow of light from the ends of the trees becomes so bright so quickly that both Azire and Tommaso are awoken from their slumber. They scramble to identify the reason for the trees sudden change. Tommaso notes an increase in background temperature around the lander of eighteen degrees. Azire notices the trees are all pointing the same direction.

  Azire announces to his partner, “I am powering up the lander in case we have to move suddenly.”

  “Good idea.” Tommaso quietly notes. “Please spin up the gimbals and the ion drives as well. We may need to leave the surface.”

  Azire grunts his concurrence. All of the nearby trees begins to move their ends to the left. Then they all come back to the right. It is disconcerting to watch all of the alien trees, with their tips bright as the surface of the sun leans back and forth in unison.

  “The Misri. The alien asked us about the Misri.” Tommaso barks at the AI.

  “AI, given the assumption that the Misri is a threat, how do we respond?”

  “There is insufficient data at this point.” The AI monotones back on the internal speaker.

  The trees all lean back and forth together in unison even faster. Left then right, higher, then lower. All at once. Even trees hundreds of yards away are behaving the same.

  Azire says, “Whatever the Misri are we are about to meet them.” The tress furthest from the lander all discharge their potential energy at once. The sudden thunderclap of acoustic noise shakes the lander back and forth. The level of heat outside the lander rises again by over forty degrees.

  “The background heat is rising rapidly, brother,” Tommaso announces. “The energy from the alien trees went somewhere. Where did it go?” Suddenly hundreds of airborne creatures arrive.

  They are almost but not completely dark. They look like smudges of dark against the bright light of the trees as they zip past the lander. Most of the trees are flaccid now and dim, but some are not. They fire at the passing shapes, knocking several down. The downed creatures fall into the sand and earth in smoking smoldering heaps of meat. Several of the Misri land outside the lander and hop around on what looks like large talons on their extremities. The creatures have long skinny bodies similar in size to the friendly Clevern people. The similarity ends there, however. These aliens have long leathery wings and a large central multifaceted eye on the middle top of their heads. They have a long skinny mouth with bony ridges instead of teeth. The three creatures on the ground hop towards the lander and give it a good hard looking over. One of the creatures approaches and mounts the top of the lander in a quick leathery jump. The AI brings up a display of the top of the lander where the alien is visible. The creature traces the contours of the metal back and forth with his talon. A long hard scratch is visible, though the lander as the creature uses his talon to try to find a way inside.

  Some red indicators light on the cabs warning displays “The creature has managed to pry open a heat shield.” The AI announces..

  The other two creatures join the one on top of the lander and they all three begin to work with their talons. Within moments, three heat shields are pried open. More Misri arrive. They begin to work on the outside walls of the lander. The AI announces “We are taking damage from these creatures. They are surprisingly nimble and capable with their talons. We should resist them.”

  “How do you propose to resist them?” Azire grumbles from his command seat in the cab.

  “We should launch and gain altitude and speed.” the AI replies. “And quickly. The damage is cumulative, and these creatures are getting better at taking the lander apart.”

  “Launching in 11..7..5..35C..2..1” As is his custom Azire counts backward and only in primes. Azire adds thrust to the ion drives and the lander begins to roll forward. He steps on the accelerator and adds the forward momentum from the motorized wheels. The lander quickly is up to 120 kilometers per hour speed. The much more powerful side thrusters, which are chemical rockets, highly efficient chemical rockets, fire and the stubby flight wings pop into their fully deployed state. The lander leaps into the atmosphere and screams to its maximum sub sonic speed of 1,220 kilometers per hour. The creatures on the exterior of the craft hang on tightly in the newly created overpressure and drag created by the landers speed in the planetoids thick atmosphere. Their talons continue to bite and scrape and are still audible inside the lander.

  “Jesus Christ!” Azire yells from his horror of a mouth.

  The clicks and grunts are translated instantaneously for Tommaso. “Do not blaspheme, brother!” He replies. “Take us above the speed of sound, maybe the shockwave will knock these creatures off. Azire does just that. The lander wings sweep back into their hardened latches. The lander leaps past 1400 kilometers per hour and the sound of the shockwave are audible throughout the lander and can be heard a hundred kilometers distant. The Misri fall off at last when the lander passes 1,840 kilometers per hour.

  Azire maintains speed and varies the landers altitude periodically to pass the time while they wait for the Misri to clear their landing zone. It takes eight full hours. The Misri finally disappear.

  The lander makes an uneventful parachute assisted landing. The landing zone has been changed significantly. Numerous trees have been cut down and are missing. Upon close inspection, hundreds of individual trees are missing. They are completely gone, roots and all.

  Within another hour the Clevern people again gather by the hundreds at the lander site. The drag and landing chutes are quickly discovered, and the Clevern people pull them this way and that playing with them. Within a few minutes, there is a single Clevern on the fabric and a hundred gather around the edges of the largest parachute and they throw the person into the air and catch them repeatedly in the fabric. They are all screaming and laughing in delight. They take turns being thrown by the fabric.

  Tommaso and Azire laugh and notice that hundreds of billions of people all over the galaxy are watching their live video feed. The Clevern make for good television.

  A few of the Clevern make their way to the lander and inspect the damage done by the Misri. Azire exits the lander to inspect the damage himself. He makes a quick report to Tommaso. “Brother, the damage the creatures have done is extensive. We will have to make repairs before we can chance an ascent through the atmosphere to the landing ship. We may need to have supplies and tools sent down from orbit to make these repairs.”

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p; “Roger that, brother. I will join you.” Tommaso climbs out of the cab and exits through the cargo bay. The two take a seat on the ground and allow the Clevern people to scamper over and around them while they talk.

  The Clevern tend to speak of themselves in the third person. And it is difficult to associate an individual Clevern to a previous discussion. Often a Clevern that was obviously not engaged in a previous conversation will speak like they were. A clearly new Clevern with a long gray stripe of hair on one side scampers over the top of Azire’s helmet and sits atop his shoulder and continues the conversation about the Misri from last night.

  “Where did you go last night leather man? The Misri were thicker than previous. They have made away with many of the dukma trees.”

  Azire glares at the creature by stretching his head far to the left. Their eyes are no more than a few centimeters apart, separated by the polished lens of the helmet Azire is wearing.

  “We were forced into the air to shake the Misri off.” Azire clicks and grunts his reply which is translated into the clicks and squeaks of the Clevern as well as English for Tommaso. “Our craft was damaged and will require repair. We did not expect any danger. The Misri were a surprise.”

  The Clevern looks long and hard at Azire’s eyes before replying. “The Misri have always been. They come only during the rest period. They will kill and take away any Clevern they discover. They feed mostly off the dukma. The dukma will destroy some of the Misri, but there are too many of them. The Misri will cut the thick branches of the dukma with talons. You must make your way into a cavern or warren out of sight of the Misri. You can mask your scent with a thick musk from your scent glands. The Misri are attracted to smell. The smell of your lander vehicle is harsh and artificial. The Misri will be attracted to it greatly.”

  The Clevern scampers down off of Azire and across the sand to the lander where it scampers up the side to inspect the damage. Azire and Tommaso sit and rest and watch the tiny Clevern scamper around and play with the parachutes. Occasionally, one of the little aliens will scamper across their laps or over the top of their helmeted heads, look around and chatter then run off. They behave very nearly like a ferret would, but ferrets don’t speak to you. Ferrets aren’t smarter than you.

  Tommaso and Azire take their ease with the aliens for an hour or more. When they return to the lander they discover a toolbox is opened and tools are missing. The Clevern have discovered how to open and take their tools. Tommaso asks the nearest Clevern where the tools are. He chitters and coughs for a long moment before the AI can catch up and translate.

  “They are using these tools to effect repairs.” The speaker translates the alien speech.

  “What?” Tommaso asks and begins to look around. On the top of the lander there are a dozen Clevern working away on the heat shields. Before he can voice any objection, the strangeness overwhelms him and he just stands and watches for a long moment. The aliens have quickly deduced how to operate many of the tools and are in fact busy fixing the detached and damaged heat shields.

  Watching the small aliens scamper with tools that weigh as much as they do is impressive. A heat gun and a combination spanner and glue gun are handled by a team of nine Clevern. They carefully apply the straightened heat shield panel using the glue and the heat gun.

  Tommaso is completely dumbstruck. “How did you learn to use these tools?” The nearest Clevern answers while still holding the middle part of the spanner.

  “The AI and the technical manuals are excellent learning resources.” The Clevern replies via the AI translator and speaker.

  Tommaso quietly asks the AI to report. “The Clevern have been asking very pointed questions and making some very clever leaps of intuition. They are impressive. They are also busy teaching themselves to read English using nothing but the technical manuals from the toolbox. Tommaso notices now that the technical manuals printed on stiff paper are also missing. As are a few portable tablet computers. “Please continue to watch them closely, and if they get into anything that could cause them harm alert me and Azire.”

  “Certainly sir.” The AI signs off.

  Tommaso continues to watch the aliens work. For another long hour, they make excellent progress on the lander. Reseating all the damaged heat shield panels and setting them in place with Nano glue using the correct tools and the correct procedure.

  Azire joins Tomasso and quickly catches up to speed on the alien’s activities. “This is quite amazing.” He stoically states at long last. “These people will be an incredible ally to humanity and Lecasians as we expand known space and explore the void. Imagine an ally as smart as these people, as small and as nimble as these people. As talented and dexterous as these people. It is Incredible!”

  The assimilation of the Clevern people into the modern Galactic civilization is speedy, and they add tremendous value. Mankind has a new and important ally. One that understands advanced mathematics and can figure out and fix virtually anything, especially things in inaccessible voids and spaces that a human or Lecasian could never fit.

  From that moment on Tommaso and Azire are joined by an entire colony of Clevern peoples. Seven hundred and eighty Clevern people join the pair on their journeys. Other Clevern colonies join other colony ships. Entire Clevern colonies attend advanced training at technical colleges and engineering schools. Within a decade there are Clevern peoples on hundreds of ships and hundreds of planets, planetoids, moons and asteroids all over the known galaxy. They travel as a colony. There are always hundreds of Clevern on any individual ship. Humanity discovered the Clevern people at a very fortuitous time.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Pope Anacletus the Third

  The Year 2639, CS Brian Neil

  All men answer the Popes request. Regardless of conviction, or age, or color, or vocation, all men answer the Popes request.

  Tommaso stares at the handwritten scroll. The parchment is hand made as well. Made from the pulp of trees. Made in a labor-intensive process. Real paper. Paper from the Pope. From Mars. A fast scout ship spent a week in side space to deliver this parchment.

  Tommaso stares at the words on the paper now. He unrolls the parchment fully. “Dearest Tommaso Aquinas, I command your presence at my Papal apartments on Mars at your earliest opportunity. Signed Pope Anacletus the Third.”

  The Papal seal is attached. In melted wax. The seal made with the pinky ring that the Pope wears.

  Tommaso kneels and prays for strength. His aged knees barely cooperate. He meditates and prays for thirty minutes before alerting Azire and the Clevern colony. He needs the assistance of the room AI robot to rise to his feet when he is done. Azire and sixteen Clevern arrive within minutes of being summoned. Azire takes the parchment and reads it then hands it to two of the Clevern colony. After a moment, they click and squeak their excitement to meet to meet the Pope.

  Azire is as excited as the smaller aliens too. “This is a surprise, brother. But a welcome one. To meet the Pope is a great honor. To be asked to meet the Pope is a higher honor.”

  “Command,” Tommaso interjects. “The word is command. Not ask.” he smiles nevertheless. “We will take the whole ship and crew. Let’s visit Sol system and meet the Pope!” Azire and the Clevern squeak and click and chitter their excitement.

  Tommaso rings the bridge and the Captain and makes his request. The CS Brian Neil immediately begins to accelerate towards the systems entrance bubble. The bubble is a day’s journey at current speed, the Captain believes he can shorten it by a few hours. Within a few moments, the Captain announces on the ship wide circuit his intention to make the week long side space jump to Sol system within the next twenty hours. The crew race to their procedures and makes ready for the jump.

  The Clevern colony aboard the CS Brian Neil has been a blessing. They have made themselves indispensable over the few years since their discovery. Tommaso and Azire could not imagine a starship voyage without them now. They are agile and adaptable to an unlimited degree. They behave well i
n any adverse conditions you can imagine. They perform well in extra vehicular situations, scampering in the specially manufactured space suits bouncing from point to point along the hull in acrobatic grace. They are fearless as well. They will run through a hail of arrows and rocks without a second thought.

  One sixteenth of the ship’s volume has been converted for Clevern atmosphere so they can get by without breathing apparatus. They are quite adept with breathing apparatus though. They struggled for weeks when they first moved into the ship using the cumbersome breathing apparatus designed by a human engineer for them. Within short order, the colony had learned as much as the human engineer about the technologies and engineering involved and built their own breathing apparatus. A far superior apparatus. The same human engineer worked with the Clevern and redesigned human extra vehicular suits using new insight from her diminutive partners.

  Any time there is a shipboard casualty, the first on the scene are the Clevern. They scamper along the floor, the walls and the roof with wild abandon at times, but are extremely capable and adaptable and all around just indispensable to space ships. The Clevern colony manages their own food production and atmosphere. They manage their own colony business. They live, they love, and they die. Their short life spans mean that every last living Clevern on the ship today was born on the ship. They are all at least four generations separated from their home planetoid.