by J. Blanes
“It seems the aliens have no clue about how a cool mother ship must look like,” Albert said sarcastically. “Maybe we should show them. However, I agree with you on one thing. That ball is huge, probably more than a couple miles in diameter.”
They continued watching the ship in silence until one detail caught Keira’s attention.
“I don’t see other ships, big or small,” she remarked. This was also unexpected to all of them, although there was no real reason for it. They all shared the same vision about a mother ship escorted by other big spaceships and surrounded by hundreds of smaller ones flying around. Instead, Keira’s observation was confirmed: the area around the mother ship was completely quiet, without a single ship flying near or around it.
Dylan tried to explain the lack of escorting spaceships. “Maybe they’re all dark and we’re still too far away to see them. Or maybe they’re using that invisibility thing and we can’t see them at all.”
“Maybe,” Albert said, not at all convinced.
The ship turned to be much bigger than their initial estimates. As they approached it, the baseball-sized sphere steadily grew until everything vanished into a dark-gray shadow covering their entire field of view. At this distance, the ship appeared so featureless that it seemed as if a dark-gray curtain had spread in front of them.
“It’s kind of scary,” Keira said.
“Yes, it is,” Albert agreed. “But wait until your eyes adjust a little more. I think I can already tell apart some little cubes over there.”
Keira was about to focus on the area Albert pointed out when the ship suddenly turned off the lights, startling them.
“Is the ship helping us seeing better?” Keira asked.
“I don’t think so,” Dylan replied. He had his back toward the window, his attention focused on the secure room. “You’d better prepare yourselves. The seats are glowing blue again.”
They all knew what that meant. The ship was about to land, and it was suggesting that they sit down or suffer the consequences of a likely rough landing. They didn’t think twice about it and promptly sat down. This time the ship would not catch them unaware.
As soon as they crossed into the secure room, the walls between the rooms slid back into the closed position, isolating and sealing them inside the room. Then, once they were seated and strapped in, a heavy braking threw them forward with force, pressing the security straps against their chests and obstructing their breathing, as if they each had a heavy weight sitting on them. Luckily, their ordeal didn’t last long this time, as the ship soon stopped, changed direction, and descended vertically. After a few seconds, it stopped, the lights went on, and the walls slid back, opening the passages between the rooms again.
Albert didn’t wait long to release himself from the straps and run to the front window. The ship had landed on a platform on the mother ship’s surface, which was not as smooth as it appeared from space.
The platform where they landed was in a higher position than the rest of the surface, and they were able to see far ahead. The ship’s vast size was now more apparent than ever, with its surface extended in all directions as far as their eyes could see. The surface was uneven, completely covered with many cube-shaped structures of different heights, one adjacent to the other, like buildings without streets between them. It was like seeing a streetless city from the highest penthouse in it. The tops of some structures were visible, but others were not, the higher ones concealing the lower ones. The surface was uniformly gray, but not as dark as it seemed from space; and on top of everything, scattered all over the place, the familiar dim, blue, glowing lights offered them a contrasting, thrilling, and beautiful spectacle.
A sound coming from the secure room interrupted their reveries. They all went back to investigate and found open a compartment illuminated by the blue lights, enclosed inside the back wall. They had never seen it before. It contained several helmets resembling the ones used by jet pilots on Earth.
“Those are really creepy. They seem like trophies out of a scene from a bad horror movie,” Dylan commented when he saw the array of helmets on the wall. Then, he adopted the mysterious tone the narrators used in those same horror movies. “The severed, glowing heads just appeared out of nowhere, when a terrifying scream…”
Albert hastily interrupted Dylan’s poor impersonation. He had no patience for games now. “We should put them on,” he suggested.
“Are you crazy?” Dylan snapped. The helmets looked cool on the wall, but he didn’t intend to put one over his head at all.
“The ship is showing them to us for a reason, and the only reason I can think of is that it wants us to wear them,” Albert explained as he approached the wall to look closely at the helmets. They came in the same colors as the bodysuits, and he grabbed the one that matched his dark-blue suit.
The helmet was hard on the top and back, but extremely light. The material was not shiny, and it reminded him the carbon-fiber ones that he had seen back on Earth. It came with a pair of dark goggles, like the ones used in skiing, and a mask that covered both the nose and the mouth, with a tube coming out of the mask’s lower end that connected back to the helmet.
He put it on, and his bodysuit suddenly stretched from the neck up, blending with the helmet and its mask, covering every part of his exposed skin. In the end, not a single part of his body was visible. The bodysuit and the helmet had effectively insulated him from the environment. He could breathe and talk, but the others could not hear him. He indicated to them that he was OK with a thumbs-up sign and encouraged them to do the same as he had, waving his arm and pointing out at the helmets.
Keira went next and reluctantly put her helmet on. At first, she was a little worried, but as soon as her bodysuit connected with her helmet, she found herself able to breathe and move comfortably. She also liked that her vision was perfectly clear, as if the dark goggles were not there at all. She had to touch them to confirm their presence. After considering it for a while, Dylan also agreed to put his helmet on.
“Keira? Can you hear me?” It was Dylan’s voice directly into Keira’s ears. She could hear him perfectly, “Loud and clear,” she replied.
“Me too.” Albert was also participating in the conversation.
“And I’m also able to hear everything from the outside perfectly clearly,” Keira said. The helmet not only transmitted their voices but also the sounds coming from the environment, like their own steps. “If it weren’t for the mask, I’d swear I wasn’t wearing anything on my head.”
Then, the ship’s ramp started to lower, and they all turned around to look at it. “Oh, my God! They’re here!” Keira announced, scared and excited at the same time. Dylan shared her feelings and remained motionless, but Albert’s concern was of a completely different nature.
“I hope these bodysuits can double as spacesuits,” he said, looking at the ramp with increasing anxiety, concerned because they were about to become astronauts exposed to the unforgiving nature of the empty space.
The ramp finally touched the mother ship’s surface floor. They waited for the aliens to come and greet them, but nobody came, and after a couple of minutes Albert decided it was enough waiting. Without consulting the others and convinced that the suits were awesome spacesuits, he ventured outside to explore the mother ship closely.
Viewing the mother ship directly in person provided a magnificent spectacle. The narrow view the window provided extended now in all directions. Space was filled with stars, much more brilliant than from Earth, but lacking that twinkling rhythm that made them so alive.
He looked at the floor. It was metallic, but rough and matte, not shiny at all. He squatted down to touch it until he remembered that he had the suit covering his hands.
“What are you doing?” It was Keira’s voice coming from behind him.
“Nothing, I was curious about the floor,” he replied.
“It’s beautiful outside here,” she said, looking around. “But it’s also so lifeless and…I don’t know…cold.”
“It is cold and in more ways than one. We could be several hundred degrees Fahrenheit below zero. I believe our alien spacesuits are extremely effective in keeping us warm.”
“Really? Several hundred degrees?” Keira found it hard to believe they could walk outside at this temperature only wearing bodysuits.
“Space temperatures are so cold we’d die almost instantly if we were exposed to them,” Albert insisted. “The fact that you and I are here means that the suits are doing a remarkable job.”
“What nice weather!” It was Dylan’s voice this time. He had just joined them and heard about the incredible low temperatures in space. “The sun, the warm temperatures, it all makes me think we’re in the tropics,” he joked.
“You could be right,” Albert said. “Perhaps it’s warmer here, maybe because this ship is rotating.”
“And how…?” Dylan stopped himself. Those enigmatic, inscrutable observations Albert constantly made had been one of the main things Dylan hated about him, but not anymore. He was extremely annoyed, but he assured himself that he would not care about that from now on. To hell with his stupid remarks.
“This ship is clearly rotating,” Albert went on, realizing Dylan’s frustration. “Pick a star just peering over the horizon, and use it as a reference. You’ll notice the rotation, and thanks to it, every part of this ship will face the heating sun sooner or later.”
“Great, the sunrise,” Dylan said. “Now we’ll be able to enjoy a nice summer day in space.”
“There’s nobody here,” Keira said. “It’s been a long time since we landed. Why is nobody coming to receive us?” This was the question everybody had in mind. They hadn’t seen any movement on the mother ship’s surface since they had landed on it. Why were the aliens hiding from them? Why bother to abduct them only to leave them alone?
“You’re right,” Albert agreed. “It’s strange and makes no sense.”
“Any suggestion about what we should do next?”
“No idea,” Albert shook his head. “It’s obvious that the ship has given us the helmets and opened the ramp because it wanted us outside, but I don’t know why.”
“We should explore the surrounding areas a little more,” Keira proposed. “Hopefully, we’ll find something, a sign or a clue that will point us in the right direction.”
“That’s a good idea,” Albert assented. “But what if they come to the ship while we’re away?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll stay,” Dylan offered. “I have no intention of wandering around, and anyway, I have to go to the bathroom,” he added as he put his hand on his belly, “urgently.”
“OK, let’s not dawdle anymore,” Keira said hurriedly.
Dylan went back to the ship while Albert and Keira combed the platform edges for anything that could help them climb them down, which they found in the very unexpected but useful shape of a ladder.
“This is good,” Albert said. The presence of the ladder encouraged him. “Clearly this ladder doesn’t belong here; it’s for humans. It has been put here on purpose, and it’s showing us the way to go.”
“Dylan!” Keira got Dylan’s attention through the suit. “We’ve found a ladder, and we’ll follow through. We’ll let you know if it’s something important.”
“OK,” Dylan answered from inside the ship. “I’m now going into the bathroom. I think you understand if I don’t answer for a while.” Dylan couldn’t take off his helmet because the ramp was still open.
“Yeah, you’d better do that,” she replied, smiling.
They descended the ladder and found themselves on another, smaller platform. As well as the previous one, it had a ladder on one of its sides. This pattern of platform-ladder-platform repeated itself several times; sometimes they went down, and sometimes they had to climb up. Albert’s out-of-shape condition manifested itself when he had to take a break, out of breath. They were on a high platform, and Keira looked back to see how far they had gone from the ship.
“The ship!” she shouted. “The ship is gone!” She pointed at the direction where the ship should have been standing.
Albert also looked back, but he seemed not to be worried about it. “It must have activated the invisibility feature. It’s not a big deal.”
Keira calmed herself; she had forgotten about that. She felt like a fool and blushed. Luckily, the helmet hid this little embarrassing fact. “Yeah, that’s what I meant,” she lied. “Let’s go on.”
They went on to the next platform, the one that finally broke the tiresome pattern. It was near a deep pit, about the size of half a basketball court and with no visible end at the bottom. It had a ladder that went all the way down, broken at several intervals by some resting landings, a welcome feature that made it somewhat less intimidating.
“OK, I think this is it,” Albert said with his heart pounding fast from the exercise and the emotion. “Let’s go down.”
“Dylan, did you hear this?” Keira tried to communicate with Dylan. “Do you hear me? Dylan?” She got no reply from him.
“He must be still in the bathroom,” Albert said impatiently. “He’s one of those who like to take his time. Let’s go down, and if we find something interesting, we’ll go back to get him.”
“OK,” she agreed. “You go first.”
Albert started his descent, followed by Keira, and it felt like an endless journey. Albert counted fifteen ladders before reaching the bottom. When they looked up, the pit opening was just a small square the size of a little fingernail.
“Wow! It was really a deep one!” he exclaimed.
“And everything’s turned into a funny color,” Keira said, looking at the strange color her hands and the walls had turned into.
“That’s very cool!” Albert exclaimed. “Don’t you see?”
“See what?”
“The suit goggles are more than simple goggles; they’re like computer displays. It must be very dark down here and they automatically changed frequencies to infrared light. That’s why we see everything like this.”
“Really? They looked like simple plastic goggles to me.” Those aliens never ceased to amaze her. For once, she agreed with Albert about something being cool, like the goggles.
They walked the perimeter wall several times looking for a way to enter the big ship, and they also carefully examined the floor, but they had to give up after an exhaustive search. If there was an entrance to the ship, they couldn’t find it.
“I don’t see a way inside the ship,” Keira said finally. Albert shook his head.
The conclusion was inescapable: the bottom of this pit was a dead end. The same solid walls encircled them without any doors or passageways. They felt frustrated—all that climbing up and down just to reach this dead end.
“All those ladders led us here,” Albert said. He was puzzled. “I don’t understand. There should be an entrance down here.”
“I don’t understand it either, but the fact is that we’re stuck down here. We better go back and wait inside the ship. Let’s them do the work from now on.”
“Yes, let’s go; this time I really feel like they’re playing with us. Let’s wait there; sooner or later they have to show their faces or let us go.” Albert showed his disappointment in his voice.
They climbed up the ladders again, with a stop on every landing for Albert to catch his breath. Then, they resumed their way back to the ship.
“That invisibility thing is really remarkable,” Keira mentioned, looking ahead at the empty platform where the ship was supposed to be standing.
“It’s an incredible technology, like everything here,” Albert agreed. “It’s a pity that on Earth we cannot even dream about attaining one of these technologies in our lifetimes.” Albert would have given anythin
g for just a simple understanding of the principles behind some of those technologies. In fact, getting that knowledge and helping his friends get out of there alive were the only motivations that kept him going on.
They finally climbed up the last ladder to the landing platform. The ship’s invisibility was so perfect they could have sworn it was not there. They carefully approached it, remembering Dylan’s unfortunate encounter with the ship’s invisible surface back on Earth.
“Dylan!” Keira called him as she approached. “Can you hear us?” He didn’t answer back. “It’s weird. He should be out of the bathroom by now. Dylan!” she called again, louder this time, but with the same negative result.
They continued their approach until Albert noticed, to his surprise, that they had gone on too far. They should have run into the ship already. “It can’t be! The ship’s not invisible; it’s not here!” he exclaimed with his hands on his helmet.
“What are you talking about? Where could it be?” Keira knew he was right, and her heart rate accelerated by the second. “Dylan! Dylan!” she shouted in desperation. She never received a response from him.
They both lost their composure and fell into a fit of panic, roaming frantically all over the platform, looking for the ship, hoping that they were wrong.
Albert was the first to stop and calm himself down, trying to think about this new chain of events. He initially forced himself to accept the fact that the ship was gone and there was nothing they could do about it. Then, he thought about their survival options. He hoped—no, he knew that the aliens would not let them die after all their trouble bringing them there. He also realized that the small ship had wanted them outside of it, so probably the one in danger was Dylan, who had stayed inside, not them. The fact that the ship was gone was probably the reason it had wanted them out. They were exactly where the aliens wanted them, on the mother ship, and that was a good thing. They only had to wait for them or find another way in. He felt very sad and sorry for Dylan, who was probably scared to death, flying alone in the small ship toward an unknown destination.
