From Beyond the Blue Planet

by Trevor Palmer

  From beyond the blue planet

  Trevor Palmer

  Acknowledgements: Images of a blue planet and a robot used on the cover pages are from DREAMSTIME. To my wife Kathleen for proof reading – and almost being converted to Sci-fi.

  Copyright © 2014 Trevor Palmer All rights reserved

  ISBN: 1500691356

  ISBN-13: 978-1500691356

  Chapter 1

  The Visitor The outer region of the solar system was, to mankind, a cold, bleak world. Maybe that is why the few men and women who had explored its planets and moons and asteroids so many years ago were a few.

  They had followed on from the clever devices which had been sent hurtling away from Earth, devices which had spread their solar panels out like some strange butterfly eagerly sucking in the energy which powered the measuring instruments they carried. And they had found strange wonders in the outer regions and recorded them then beamed their strangeness back to Earth. Firstly, for the scientist/astronomers to mull over; then, for the media and its avid readers and viewers to gasp at before finally forgetting them. The devices had then left the solar system and sped into the unknown. Into space.

  Just one lone device remained in this bleak place. It stood now, a lone sentinel, on one of the moons of Neptune, Proteus. Proteus is not the largest of Neptune’s satellites. That distinction belongs to Triton but this huge moon had not been chosen to house the sentinel for two reasons … firstly, a lot of snow falls on Triton – the sentinel would have soon been buried. Secondly, Triton is one of the coldest places in the solar system because it reflects away what small amount of light it receives. And the light which the sentinel was ‘seeing’ when it looked into the centre of the solar system, the light from the sun, was from a bright dot in the sky. From, simply, just another star. Not that the sentinel’s circuits were stimulated by sunlight: they fed upon the controlled nuclear emissions from its batteries.

  The purpose of the sentinel was to look for intruders into the solar system be they lifeless or having some kind intelligence. It was to have been part of ring of twelve man-made observers placed at strategic sites on the edge of space but, as with many other missions – especially the manned ones – the money pot had dried up as Earth turned its resources to cultivation of crops to feed its rapidly expanding population. The sentinel was the brainchild of a group of scientists at Caltech which came under the control of the Federation of American States. Someone in this happy-go-lucky band had suggested for its name Eye-am and that had stuck. And despite the lack of funding, Eye-am had not been totally abandoned. It beamed back sightings at 3-monthly intervals and an immediate one if something triggered an emergency response.

  ………. There was no shimmering, no gathering together of transported molecules, no sudden lightening of the regions of space scanned by the sentinel Eye-am. But where at one instant it had an uninterrupted view of the heavens, now a colossal object was shutting out a large part of that view.

  Eye-am did what it had been designed to do – as far as that capability allowed it. It read the signals emanating from the object: it scanned and pictured the thing’s image: it calculated probabilities: finally it sent a complex signal back to Earth, almost at its closest at this moment in time and that being nearly 2.8 billion miles distant. In just over 4 hours an astonished and highly sceptical scientist at Caltech would read from the part of crazy symbols which had received instant translation …. Probable I-class object detection confirmed. Initial classification Spaceship.A position relative to Eye-am followed in complex astronomical jargon. But, before the scientist could reach his boss who was in a conference, Eye-am had ceased to exist. The lone sentinel could never be cross-examined.

  ………. Keelon unclenched his four hands and began to relax. He hated the whole process of transportation across space although it had been around for zan years and he had experienced its weirdness and nausea several times before. He glance across at the bulbous robot fixed to a bulkhead and was about to make some comment – after all, this was his only companion on the ship – when the master flight-data computing instrument made an announcement.

  “Alert! Triple-wave warning! This transportation vessel is being scanned …. Signal being beamed to some unknown destination. Content not …”

  “Destroy,” broke in Keelon.

  “Acknowledge destroy” answered the fdc instrument. Keelon had tensed momentarily: ‘this on top of a materialisation’ he thought sourly. Now he relaxed again, that is, as far as he could on top of his other worries.

  ………. The transportation vessel had its own scanners of course. These automatically switched on the second that materialisation was complete. They instantly detected Eye-am’s scan and pinpointed its source location on a rare flat plain of Proteus. The two systems scanned each other but Eye-am had no built-in protection other than against the extreme cold and hits from the smaller meteorites. The scanners aboard the alien ship had Keelon’s protection, however, and they were now linked by his command to the vessel’s hostile response unit, its weaponry. Whatever, it would have been no contest. Not because of the tremendous disparity in size of the two scanning devices but the just as great disparity in technological development of the two. The alien ship’s armament focused on the doomed Eye-am. There was no projectile fired. No laser-like beam sliced through dark cold. Very sophisticated Earth instruments – had they been present – may have detected a wave-like ripple join the hundreds of miles between weapon and Eye-am. And then the temperature of the lone sentinel rose in an instant from approximately -200 degrees to nearly 5,000 degrees Celsius. Eye-am was no more!

  ……….

  “Status?” queried Keelon of the ship’s computer. “Alien scanning device obliterated,” answered the fdc instrument.

  Keelon nodded. He had expected nothing less. “And the signal that was beamed away?”

  The reply was instantaneous. “Direction and destination uncertain. Possibly one of the inner planets. Content unknown but unsophisticated system of device suggests the message was a simple, un-detailed sighting report. Our records have no information about this planetary system and its civilisations if any. Therefore, calculation of probable response impossible.”

  Keelon nodded his large, dark head slowly to himself. He knew something the master fdc instrument did not … and he did not want it to know, either, so he masked his brain-waves.

  Now he reached for the pad on one arm and his long, tapering finger pressed a button. The robot left the wall and glided silkily over to him awaiting his response. First he leisurely raised a glass of blue liquid to his lips and sipped at it steadily. This would help with his nausea he knew. He then pushed a loose cap onto his bald head and plugged a lead from it into the side of the robot.

  “There, Keelotron, my friend,” he thought. “Now we can communicate without the master fdc instrument picking up our vibes. What I communicate is for your computing-units alone.” He took another sip of his drink and scuffled into a more comfortable position on his seat. He nodded. “I’m not too optimistic that we won’t be found here, Kee. How do you estimate our chances?”

  The speed of response was an instant. “They have the technology now to find you, Master-friend. And if they come here, they also have the technology … which our early-model transporter doesn’t have a defence against … to board us. My powers of protection are much too limited to help and you seem fated to face extermination. Will you fight them before the end, Master-friend?”

  Keelon grunted. “Little point in that. I bear them no ill-will … you understand that term, Kee? I will try to save you though. Although not a life-form, you are as close as a ReeRee unit can be to that state and I know they would take you home as a pla
ything. I will do what I can to prevent that, old friend. I have carried out some extensive changes to your construction to which you have no knowledge and I will do more. We will see how they work.” He finished off his drink with a noisy slup, slup sound and then set to work. He knew he had but little time left.

  Chapter 2

  Message received General Algernon Ceri-Baker was annoyed that the meeting had to be adjourned. He had nearly finished all the points on the agenda and was looking forward to settling the final issue. Looking forward because he didn’t like the young upstart whose brilliant mind – not the general’s classification – had propelled him into the position of Group Leader of the small bunch of scientist-astronomers at Caltech … and this final item would crush the young pup.

  “How long?” he asked curtly, reaching for his nearempty glass of water. His hard, grey eyes stared down the long, slightly crooked nose at his adversary across the table.

  Seth Hellman met the eyes and held them with his own: a strange greeny-brown but just as hard.

  “Give me half-an-hour … If it takes longer I’ll let you know and we’ll take an early lunch.”

  “Can you give me some idea what can be so durned urgent that we have to stop with only one item remaining?” The general forced himself not to sneer.

  Seth was collecting his loose papers. He glanced down at his tablet. “Something about an alien spaceship near Neptune,” he said casually, then he was up and gone.

  ………. In his younger days Seth Hellman had seemed to float through life. Just into his early career at Caltech he had floated into the heady orbit of one Ginny Schroeder and somehow she had found his cocky, assured wit a bigger attraction than the good-looking, almost flawless, attendant bunch of jocks who tried just that little bit too hard to get into her panties – the favoured expression at Caltech. Seth had an arrogance it was true but it was accompanied by humour and he never used it to push himself on. Looks? Certainly not the ‘factory manufactured’ kind of the main bunch … his good looks came because his own strong and pleasant personality was stamped onto the even and well-set bone structure of his face! His height was average and his body mass was nicely proportioned. He could just about have made ‘athlete’ but his brain was always too busy buzzing with fresh scientific ideas. His career would soon take off and he knew it!

  The attendant crowd that always seemed to hang around Ginny almost put him off until one day, in passing, he observed her shake off one of the mob in a tactful but firm manner … somehow their eyes met and the book she had dropped became the key to the door. He scooped it up, glanced at it and handed it back to her observing, “Routledge? Try Feynman.” But then walked off. Whichever bit of that did the trick they were to meet more and more regularly until they married.

  As Seth matured and prospered however, the pressures of his job gradually eroded his carefree outlook on life. By his early thirties creases permanently wrinkled his brow and the dark brown hair began to gather the odd grey hair or two. When he was promoted to Group Leader he acquired Worldfoods Production Scan to add to his own ‘baby’, the edge of space scanner Eye-am. The former, abbreviated in the usual style to Wofops, brought him under the control of General Ceri-Baker and his military group whose top priority was guarding various important worldwide food production centres. The general had little time for the money and hours demanded by the Eye-am project. He could not believe it served any useful purpose. He was no fool, though, and he epitomised single-minded purpose and Seth knew it was only a matter of time before he lost the edge-ofspace project and the sentinel which he had designed. But he determined to not go down without a fight.

  ………. Ginny looked down at the curly head of her son and her eyes moistened. “Is it that same gang again?” she asked softly.

  Kevin nodded. He had regained his composure now and the tears had dried. “Yep,” he nodded. “I don’t know why they keep pickin’ on me, mom. I don’t do anything to them.” He thought for a minute. “What I need is a bodyguard. You know like Keith has. They leave him alone now.”

  “Keith’s dad is a rich businessman, Kev. He can afford protection.”

  “I thought we are rich. Pop has a top job … you told me that once. Can’t he afford some muscle?”

  Ginny put more food on the table for her son. He always came home hungry. There was a clacking sound from under his chair. “Your leg hurtin’ again? Did they chase you?” She left his question unanswered.

  Kevin finished his milk shake first before replying, then he nodded, his mop of curls shaking. “Sure. They know an easy target. A kid with an artificial leg. Easy to catch.” He reached down to ease its position. “Yeah, it is a bit sore.” His square jaw – just like his father’s she thought – tightened. “If I ever got one of ‘em down on the ground I’d stomp all over his face with my leg.”

  “Kevin!” she chided. But she understood. She hoped he had forgotten his question about a bodyguard but should have known better …

  “And you didn’t say, mom: what about some muscle like Keith has? I need protection too.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll go to the school and see about things. The reason there will be no muscle as you call it is that that would get us into a lot of trouble …” she held up her hand flat to stop him interrupting. “Keith’s dad has a lot of power in this neighbourhood. He can get away with it. We couldn’t.”

  “Hasn’t pop got a lot of power? I thought he controlled rockets and stuff.”

  Your dad hasn’t that sort of power. And listen in … he was bullied at school just like you when he was your age.” She added softly … “And from what he says, he still does at work. Sometimes you just have to take it; tough it out. They’ll get fed up sooner than you think. They’ll look for someone else. Someone weaker.”

  ………. Seth sat looking at the screen. Five others of his team, an assortment of fat and thin, balding and with long hair, unbelievably young and running to middle-age, stared with him and awaited his comments.

  “This is incredible. And you say Eye-am is giving no response now?”

  The eldest-looking chewed a pencil tip and nodded. “Stone dead. Not a peep.”

  “Mmmh! Well I trust its scan computer. I reckon something with intelligent life aboard came by and … yeah … maybe, just maybe, put our friend out there out of business. The scan computes an outline that isn’t asteroidal either. It has a preformed shape, although we only have a pretty blurred picture.”

  “I s’pose we can blame the cold on that,” a young voice chimed in. “Question is, has the cold affected its scan read also?”

  “What to do, though? That’s the question. How do you read it, Wal?” Seth asked the pencil-chewer. While he waited for the answer – Wal was always slow and thoughtful; he never rushed an opinion – his mind drifted back over the years…

  ………. It was just before he started his relationship with Ginny. That day he had driven out into the woods alone to savour the peace and quiet. Maybe find some interesting creepy-crawly – his hobby. He left his battered wreck of a car and, not thinking about bears which might just happen along, strolled on, his mind a million miles away.

  It was when he stumbled into the hidden little grotto that he was suddenly, unexpectedly and for a second, frighteningly, face to face with a dark-skinned giant of a man. Or … was it a man? Must be. They studied each other wordlessly. Then he realised the giant had a square, metallic box in front of him and had been quietly poking at its interior with some sort of longhandled tool.

  Recovering himself somewhat Seth said, “Need any help, stranger?”

  Thick lips peeled back to reveal brown-stained fangs, whether in a smile or snarl it was hard to say. “Me speak little your words. My ReeRee unit … not function. This its, er, drive. I make … try to make … better.” The big, hooded eyes gazed out from under the dark, hairless brows at Seth. He was silent then after what had seemed a struggle to make himself understood but he somehow seemed poised for action if Seth made the
wrong move.

  “Can I take a look?” asked Seth.

  The giant was silent and still. He was somehow assessing this reply. Perhaps even working out what it meant. Was he foreign? Then, with a curious quirk of the thick lips, he gestured towards the box with the tool he was holding – an obvious indication to have a look. Seth stepped forward cautiously and peered over the metal edge into the box. It was a totally meaningless jumble of wires and tiny misshaped boxes, cylinders and small round bulbs which could have been made from glass or plastic. He was at a total loss. Seth had tinkered about with cars as well as electronic circuitry. This didn’t belong in any car, he was sure of that. But if it was electronics, it was like nothing he had ever seen before. He knew he couldn’t help – but was not sorry about that: this weird giant somehow intimidated him. Then his quick eyes, trying to make sense of what he saw in the box, noticed something … all the interconnecting wires were neatly bundled together or strapped to a framework of metal. But just one, almost hidden near the bottom of the device, seemed rather loose and was quite near to the side of the container box. A wild thought occurred to Seth and he said …

  “Can you switch it on?” The giant looked blank. The words meant nothing to him.

  “Er … make work?” tried Seth. This still meant nothing to the giant.

  Seth puzzled about this impasse but by good fortune he had, clipped to his belt, a torch, useful if he found bugs under a fallen tree or the like. Now he reached for it, noticing as he did so how the dark face before him tightened and the large frame seemed to hold itself ready for action. He fought to ignore this and held out the torch, being careful not to point it directly at the giant.

  “Not work,” he said carefully. Then he switched it on. “Make work,” he said, now his whole expression pleading to be understood. “You make that work …” and he pointed at the box. “Switch on,” he added for good luck.

  The swarthy face seemed to take on a new expression. The giant leaned forward and, amazingly, a third arm appeared from behind its back. The huge hand with long, tapering fingers held a small, flat box with a narrow slit along the front and one of the fingers depressed a button on the box. It’s like a TV controller, thought Seth. He switched his gaze into the big box with its jumble of components but his eyes saw only the loose wire. Sure enough a slight glow flickered between the wire and the side of the box. His pulse raced. Yes, an electrical leakage between wire and box. Not a healthy sign in any electronic device.