“Systems check complete and all are green,” Tommaso replies after a moment. “Excellent landing brother.”
Azire makes his spooky version of a smile. Flattened but numerous brown teeth are visible on the top of his chest under his two suits. “I am retrieving the chutes. Be back in a moment.” Azire unbuckles and raises his crash bar and exits the lander from the cargo door on the rear of the craft. The lander chutes are in a tight ball a few meters from the lander. He drags them back towards the lander and winces under the bright glare of the luminescence of the vegetation.
“Brother, it is bright for me out here. You will have to use all of the built-in sun screen and filtering capability of the EV suit to see anything.”
“Roger that. Brother. I am dialing it in now. I’ll step out and join you for a moment and check visibility.”
Tommaso limps his way out of the lander and joins Azure on the alien surface. The nearest vegetation is physically turned towards them now. Pointing their luminescent light energy towards the two and their lander.
Azire walks several meters away from the lander and the nearest vegetation stalks follow him. Their single long thin stalks curve to point towards him as he opens the distance from the lander and Tommaso. The ends of the stalks brighten substantially the nearer he gets to them. He stops and stands still. After a few moments, the vegetation straightens out and point back the way they were originally pointing. The cane poles are very flexible it appears.
“These “trees” are reacting to our presence clearly. They have a short memory, however.” Azire announces on his communicator. Tommaso does the same thing and walks a short distance from the “trees”. They follow his movement. The thin stalks brighten at the tip and they bend to point towards him.
“Let’s return to the lander brother. The reaction of these trees is bothersome.”
The two quickly return to the lander via the cargo bay door. Azire helps Tommaso make the step up into the bay.
Captain Helms is pacing back and forth in his command and control station. The entangled communicator breaks its silence. “The AI we have on the planet monitoring and learning the local’s languages did not show us the way these trees would react. This is unexpected. You two exercise extreme caution. The heat sensors on the lander picked up the change in intensity of those plants, of those trees. The area around the lander increased temperature by several degrees after you landed, as a result of the trees luminescence. Proceed when you are ready.”
Azire acknowledges the Captain and climbs back into the cab of the lander. Tommaso right behind him. Tommaso dials up the intensity of the shading on the windshield. The glare if anything is even brighter now. Azire places the lander into gear and they begin the several kilometers drive to the planned meeting site.
The lander rolls downhill gathering speed. The large rubbery tires make an excellent purchase in the loose sand and earth. The trees on either side notice the movement and brighten and lean towards the motion. It is a bit surreal. The solid amber color of the sky, with its continuous storms raging in the upper atmosphere completely block the stars and planets from view. These aliens would never have thought to leave the planet's surface Tommaso thinks to himself. Above them is only amber and lightning, how could you ever dream of crossing that?
The lander reaches a speed of eighty kilometers per hour on the flat terrain. The loose sandy soil often is kicked into the air by the rapidly spinning tires. The eight-wheeled lander is capable of sharing propulsion power to any of the eight wheels as needed. On a straight and level surface with excellent purchase for the tires, the vehicle is powered exclusively by the front two wheels. Once a large, boxy vehicle like the lander, front wheel drive is advantageous. If the two front wheels have difficulty with the sandy soil, as is often the case today, then other wheels will be powered by the intelligent differential and mechanical power is shared with the other wheels as needed. At times, all eight wheels are powered to maintain purchase in the loose sandy soil. Azire powers through the loose patches and, after a few minutes driving, learns to recognize and avoid them.
The numbers of alien trees grow larger, and their population is denser the closer they get to their destination at the location of the previously placed AI monitors.
The lander is performing superbly. Azire smiles the whole time as he drives, his mouth a horror of filed down brown teeth. Tommaso passes his time examining science instruments as they travel. He has confirmed that the brightness from the alien tress is, in fact, raising the heat levels enough to be measured. The outside of the lander is several degrees centigrade warmer now because of the attention of the alien plants. The increase of tree density and the increase of temperature map closely together.
The lander finally nears the location of the AI devices placed years ago by the first research ships to visit the planetoid.
The AI devices were manufactured to burrow into the sand and hide. They managed to image and record the environment via the use of telescoping fiber optic receivers that can poke out of the sand and monitor the environment unnoticed. Two of the AI devices have been monitoring the small aliens for nearly a decade.
The lander stops a kilometer from the AI devices and the alien colony.
The aliens call themselves “The People” and they have a rich vocabulary of over 50,000 words. They communicate in similar fashion to Lecatians and humans, via the exercising of vocal muscles and exhalation of air over them as they vibrate. The sound acoustic energy is received by the same muscles and decoded into speech. The aliens differ from humans and Lecatians in that respect. The aliens have no dedicated hearing only sensory organs. Their speech and hearing organs are the same things. Their hearing is in a very specific high-frequency band. Below 4 kilohertz, they are unable to hear anything. If an alien is trying to listen attentively, they will open their mouths all the way and face their mouth towards the sound. The audial range of human speech and alien speech frequencies do not overlap. We will never be able to directly communicate. An AI translator will be needed.
The aliens resemble most closely small mammals like the mink or, perhaps, a mongoose. Long and slender with four legs for locomotion, and to interact with their tools and the environment. Their four feet contain seven digits each, which in turn led the aliens to use both a base seven and base fourteen numbering system. They are equally comfortable using math in either base systems.
The AI has recorded several complete life cycles of the aliens. Their life span is much shorter than ours. “Clevern” is the sound that most closely approximate their use of “the people” in their language will live an average of three Sol years. The young are born with the ability to speak and have advanced knowledge somehow passed down from the mother, or via some other yet to be identified or understood mechanism. Unlike most species, the aliens are born capable of defending themselves and able to contribute immediately to the colony as a worker.
The aliens live underground in large warrens. Each family occupies their own small cave within the larger structure of the colony. A family consists of a breeding pair, think of them as male and female and one or more non-breeding partners. The largest families will have either seven or fourteen members. They eat long thin worms they harvest from the soil and roots of the trees that are numerous on the surface.
The long thin, waxy, hair-covered aliens have not mastered any advanced sciences. Their technology is relegated to what humans would have achieved by the year 1200 A.D. minus the ability to mine and smith metals. The planetoid the aliens reside on is very poor in mineable ores. Since they have limited quantities of iron, they never learned to mine or refine it into finished products.
The aliens do have a rich tradition. They have large volumes of passed down knowledge from previous generations. An individual alien can, and often does recite their lineage of ancestors back for dozens or hundreds of generations. There is significance in class and social status based on the closeness of relationship to ruling class members. The Clevern adorn the ins
ide of their warrens with rich art. Multicolored art created from the mixing of sand and water with extracted oil from the roots of trees. The AI’s have learned a tremendous amount about the Clevern people.
The lander powers down its main power source and Azire and Tommaso make quick work of unpacking some of their supplies. Azire opens the cargo door and the two climbs down out of the cargo bay into the alien desert with an armload of supplies. The kilometer walk across the soft alien soil is refreshing after being cooped up in the drop ship and then the lander for the past few weeks. Azire runs back and forth exercising his leg muscles. He is about to begin a new molt and his muscles are entering a growth spurt. They often cramp and will continue to do so for the next several weeks as his body goes through a renewal phase. Exercising the muscles helps with the cramps. Tommaso, on the other hand, is having increasing difficulties walking. His age is becoming a severely limiting factor. They take two breaks on the brief walk so that Tommaso may rest. Within an hour, they arrive at the alien colony.
The entrance to the alien colony most closely can be described as a warren or tunnel for rabbits. The hole is rather plain and is disguised by a few rocks and some partially dried out cane poles from the alien trees. The aliens are in a rest period. All the members of the colony are currently asleep. The entrance is completely blocked off by a flat rock and there are a series of clever traps immediately behind the rock. The AI has been able to visualize the entrance tunnel to the warren previously.
Azire unpacks their boxes and begins to organize them on the ground. The boxes contain small polished stones, similar in size and type to the ones used by the aliens as jewelry and currency. The stones are poured into a very large polished glass bowl with a panel on the front. The panel is a display. Purposely a low resolution and high visibility display to better match the alien’s primitive visual ability. The whole mechanism is affixed by Nano glue to a large boulder so it cannot be easily moved by the Clevern. Azire and Tommaso double check their work and head back to the lander, Azire runs most of the way. By the end, Tommaso is clearly winded and has over exerted himself.
In four hours’ time, the first of the aliens emerge from their warren and notice the alien device. It is several times larger than any of the aliens. It is completely unnatural. They run around it and over it and examine it in detail. Several rub their scent glands against it to mark it.
Azire and Tommaso monitor the aliens from the entangled communicators on the device they left behind. The aliens are confused and excited. More are arriving all the time. There are now over a hundred aliens present. Tommaso asks Azire,
“Run the program please,” Azire grunts his acknowledgment and punches the command circuit button and launches the program to run on the primitive monitor and speaker.
The device comes to life. The aliens jump and run.
The monitor lights up and begins to count in the alien's language. The sharp squeaks and clicks are amplified enough to be heard by all of the aliens within a hundred meters range. The monitor shows the alien representation of the spoken numerals. The device counts to seventy. It repeats itself and counts to seventy.
The aliens return. Within minutes they surround the device again.
The device begins to count primes in base seven to seventy.
2,3,5,10,14,16,23,25,41,43,52,56,61,65,74,83,85,94
It repeats.
2,3,5,10,14,16,23,25,41,43,52,56,61,65,74,83,85,94
It repeats.
2,3,5,10,14,16,23,25,41,43,52,56,61,65,74,83,85,94
Several of the aliens begin to slow the chatter and discussion and study the device and its monitor. The countdown and the numbers are purposeful.
The monitor and counting stop and are replaced by an alien word on the monitor for “next?”
The counting sequence repeats.
2,3,5,10,14,16,23,25,41,43,52,56,61,65,74,83,85,94
Then again.
2,3,5,10,14,16,23,25,41,43,52,56,61,65,74,83,85,94
Then again.
2,3,5,10,14,16,23,25,41,43,52,56,61,65,74,83,85,94
The alien word for next appears again on the monitor. An individual alien stands on his/her hind legs and answers “101” in their rapid click and squeak language. This is, of course, correct as it is base seven for seventy-one or “71” decimal. The device dispenses a polished stone. It rolls near the feet of the alien that answered the riddle. He/she grabs it and scampers away holding it high and screaming in delight. The scent glands of the Clevern with the polished stone prize reek with chemical delight.
In short order, the rest of the aliens understand the game. Whoever answers the riddle gets a valuable polished stone prize. They spend the rest of the day answering mathematical puzzles.
The aliens have a keen mind. They can calculate primes in base seven or fourteen numbering systems as high as the built-in puzzle routine would take them. Out to eleven digits anyway. Counting in base ten and base two numbering systems they started slow but quickly grasped the concepts and mastered them. They were answering the same mathematical questions in a new numbering system within minutes of understanding the new base concept.
Azire changes the puzzle routine to include different types of primes. Additive primes, Bell primes, Chen primes, and more, the aliens are sometimes slow to grasp the series, but quickly master the prime numbering system once they have it in hand and understand it. The crowd of alien’s numbers in the hundreds. The device dispenses polished stone after polished stone for hours. The Clevern are by far more intelligent than the typical human. Their grasp of mathematics is beyond the level of a human genius intellect.
The aliens enter their next rest period, and they all reluctantly leave the device for their warren.
Azire and Tommaso reload the device with polished stones while the aliens sleep. The return trip to the lander is uneventful. It takes Tommaso two hours to walk the kilometer distance though. The alien trees continue their strange behavior, brightening substantially and pointing towards the duo as they pass close by. Tommaso picks up a rock and throws it at a nearby tree to pass the time as he walks. The rock arcs into the air and reaches a height of maybe ten meters and disappears in a flash of light. A “Boom!” Echoes around the alien valley. Azire and Tommaso both drop and scramble behind cover instinctively.
When they raise their head, the alien plants still are pointed towards them and still are unusually bright at the tips. Azire stands and waves his arm. The pointed ends of the trees noticeably follow his movement. Tommaso stands and picks up a rock. With Azire’s concurrence, he tosses it as he did the previous one. It arcs to a height of around ten meters and “Boom!” it disappears in a flash of energy. This time they manage to see the tree that did it. It is now listless and dim. All the bright potential energy is gone.
Azire and Tommaso spend the next several minutes figuring out the height at which the alien trees attack. And at what distance they will attack. Any alien tree will attack anything they see above a height of nine meters at a distance of twenty-one meters. “This is an amazing evolutionary defense capability obviously.” Azire appears to admire the alien trees. “Such an adaptation is only driven by a need, however. These trees are not engineered to protect themselves from the small alien people here. There is something else in the environment we haven’t seen yet that has driven this adaptation.” They return to the lander; the next alien day will begin soon enough and it will be a busy one.
The new alien day begins all at once. A hundred or more aliens scamper out of their warren into the glare of alien light produced by the numerous trees. They are eager to begin the puzzles and earn more polished stones evidently. Tommaso begins the pre-programmed sequences. No more math puzzles. Today the puzzles are related to their language. The AI routines use the input from the aliens to fill in some missing gaps in the knowledge base the AI has built over the last decade. As individual Clevern answer questions, they are rewarded with the polished stones. There is no lack for alien volunteers.
Toward th
e end of the days, the AI routines are more certain in their language and are better able to use diagrams to ask the aliens questions. They have no concept of space at all. Their entire universe is the sandy and earthy warrens they call home. They do understand that there are other warrens all over the surface of their world. And apparently, they have some infrequent contact with the other warrens over the years. All in all, they are quite bright but completely isolated from the rest of their kind and the universe at large. Trapped under an impenetrable wall of wind and lightning above them, they have never even imagined there was anything else in the world beyond their tunnels and their warren.
By the end of the first week, Tommaso and Azire are both comfortable that they know enough of the alien culture to plan their face to face meeting. The AI routines have finished up the last of the missing gaps in their understanding of the aliens spoken and written language.
During the next Clevern rest period Tommaso and Azire remove the device the aliens have been interacting with. They leave in its place a written invitation for the aliens to come meet them at their lander. The message includes directions and a brief prayer dictated by the Pope.
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.
Thomas Aquinas, Explorer of the galaxy Page 17
