…
“I would really like to know why the beacon stopped after we entered the main dome,” Kristy said.
“The beacon has obviously served its purpose,” said Albert. “It was calling out for someone to find this site and now that we have found it and entered the dome, it’s no longer needed.”
“There are probably operational sensors in there that detected us or our movement,” Jason added. “Or, it could be as simple as a relay that turned it off when the inner door opened.”
“I don’t like it,” said Kristy.
“I disagree with you, Kristy,” said Albert. “We have encountered nothing that indicates any malevolent intent by the aliens that built this place. Their thought and design processes have been shown to be remarkably similar to our own. They have solved problems and built things the same as we would. They may build them slightly different, or with more advanced materials, but they have the same purpose. Their tools, vehicles, doors, all of it. Any of it could have been designed and built by humans.”
Frederick, who rarely spoke up at these discussions, added his thoughts. “If I had designed this place, and wanted it to be found, I wouldn’t have done things any different from what we have seen so far. The builders were technologically developed. I bet that there is a computer that controls many of the systems in the site. If we assume that there is a computer, and it’s at least as capable as our own, then it detected our presence and turned off the beacon. My gut feeling is that these creatures may be slightly more advanced than we are. The metal alloys we have seen and those solar cells are more advanced than what we have, but not terribly so. The manufacturing machine in the second dome and the space ship are good examples. The technology isn’t so advanced that we don’t recognize the function of the various things we see. It’s just a little more advanced and refined. I would venture to guess that any computer that they built would be about the same.”
“Well put,” said Albert
“I agree,” said Master Chief. “If the aliens or their computer wanted to harm us, we would already be dead. It could have gassed or zapped us in the air lock.”
“I don’t necessarily think that they mean us harm,” said Kristy. “I’m concerned that we may miss something important and endanger ourselves.”
“Welcome to the joys and risks of exploration,” laughed Albert.
Kristy frowned at him. “Ok, we’re going back in, the same team as before. Jason, I want you to stay outside in case something happens.”
Jason looked like a scolded puppy and started to object.
“You’ll be in charge if something happens to me or the rest of the team,” said Kristy. “You know that.”
He sighed and nodded.
The four original entry team members walked back over the airlock on the main dome. They entered and went back into the suit room. There was an iris door in the left and right walls. They went over to the left one. The door opened by itself when they approached it. Shrugging, the Master Chief went through and entered the passage way on the other side. The others followed and they walked in a big loop all the way back to a door that opened on its own into the suit room from the other side. They had passed three doors on the inner side of the circular passage way. They reversed their tracks and stopped in front of the first two doors. Neither one opened automatically nor did there appear to be a manual mechanism for opening them. They went back to the first door in the circular passageway that they had encountered and stood in front of it. The door opened and revealed a small room roughly three meters deep and five meters long. Inside the small room on the inner wall were four small platforms. The surfaces of the platforms were about four feet high.
They slowly entered the room. Brianna went up to one of the platforms. When she touched it, the surface lit up. A single black dot was pulsing in the middle of the display. On one side of the display was a circle with a single dot that was also pulsing. They all studied the display curiously.
“I think it’s some sort of input device,” ventured Kristy.
“But what is it for and what does it do?” asked Master Chief.
“David, make sure you’re recording all this,” said Kristy.
Brianna reached out and touched the flashing circle with the dot on it. The flashing dot was replaced with two flashing dots and the circle now had two dots. When Brianna touched the circle, three dots appeared, and the circle now had three dots. She continued doing this until there were six dots. The flashing circle now had a line. She pressed that and was rewarded with seven dots and a circle with a line and one dot. The next sequence was a line and two dots.
“If I didn’t know better, it’s trying to teach me their numbering system,” exclaimed Brianna. “See, a dot is one. When we got to six, instead of six dots it used a line for the number six. Then, for the number seven, a line and a dot. A line means six and a dot is one. Watch, when we get to twelve, there will be two lines.”
She kept pressing until there were twelve dots on the screen. She was perplexed when instead of two lines the symbol in the circle turned into a two segmented line. The rest of the group was watching with interest. She kept pressing and was rewarded with more dots. For thirteen dots on the main display the button now had the segmented line and one dot.
“There are two lines but I don’t quite understand,” she said. She kept pressing the button. When the number of dots reached eighteen the segmented line changed to a three segmented line. Brianna studied it a moment. “I get it now. Watch this, she said.” She kept pressing. As the count reached multiples of six, another line segment was added. At a count of thirty six the segments formed a hexagon. At thirty seven, there was the hexagon and dot. Brianna started rapidly pressing the button. The count proceeded until they reached seventy one dots. “Anyone want to guess what seventy two will be?” she grinned.
“Two hexagons,” said Albert.
She pressed the button. They were rewarded with a hexagon with a dot in it. “That means two hexagons or seventy two,” she said victoriously.
The screen went blank. Then, one hundred and eight dots appeared. It took them several minutes to count them. They had to count them all several times to ensure they had the count right. On the side of the panel were four buttons. One of them was hexagon with two dots in it. She pressed that one. Then a sequence of different numbers of dots was flashed on the screen with four possible options of buttons for each.
Kristy laughed. “I think you’re taking a test,” she said.
After a few minutes of problems and answers the screen went blank. Then, a colored button that was a very faint yellow appeared on screen. Brianna pressed it. The buttons kept appearing in lower wave length colors until they were black. Brianna pressed the buttons as they appeared.
Again the screen went blank. The screen turned white and a single black pulsing button appeared. A tone was emitted from the platform. Brianna pressed the button and the tone went down in frequency. She pressed the button again. The tone kept changing until the frequency was so low that she could not hear it. Then, the sequence started up the frequency scale with her pressing the button each time. She stopped when the frequency went up until so high she could no longer hear it.
The screen went blank. A rough outline of her hand appeared on the screen. They all stared it in wonder. Brianna laid her hand on the outline and it changed to conform exactly to her hand. Another hand appeared on the screen. The fingers of that hand spread and went back together. Brianna copied the movement with the hand she had on the screen. A three dimensional image of her hand appeared. The fingers flexed and curled. Brianna again imitated the image. The other hand went flat. Brianna laid hers flat. Suddenly, the screen was scorching hot. She jerked her hand away. Cautiously, she laid her hand back down. After a moment the screen turned ice cold and she pulled her hand away again. She repeated the process and this time the machine rewarded her with an electrical shock.
“Damn, that hurt,” she exclaimed.
“I t
hink that the machine is learning what senses you possess. It’s testing your visible spectrum, how your hand works, your auditory sense, as well as your sense of touch, heat, and cold,” said Kristy.
“That makes sense,” grinned Brianna. “No pun intended.”
She laid her hand back on the top of the pedestal. At first nothing happened. After about fifteen seconds, an image appeared on the display. It showed what appeared to be an icy landscape. The picture panned around. They could see the two small alien domes, the alien ship, and the excavator on the ice. Then, the picture moved to the sky. Stars in the black of an airless sky could be seen there. The image then shifted to a brighter star and zoomed in to show a yellow sun. The image moved to the right and stopped on a bright dot near the star. It zoomed in to show a blue planet with green and brown continents. The atmosphere was dotted with white clouds.
“That’s not Earth,” stated Kristy. “Are you recording all this David?”
“I have it all so far,” he replied.
The image zoomed in on the planet. A city appeared and then wide open streets between strangely designed buildings. Then, suddenly, there were images of creatures walking between the buildings. They walked on four legs and had two arms with three fingered hands in front of an upright torso. The beings had short stubby snouts and two eyes on the front of their face. There were thousands of them walking up and down the streets. They wore no clothes except for a type of harness that had pouches on it. The picture then shifted to a view of wide open vistas with odd looking plants and grasses. Tall rugged mountains could be seen in the background.
The picture zoomed back out again and swung around to space. It centered on a faint object in the black sky. The object starting growing, becoming larger and larger. It was dark, and emitted a faint greyish purple light. The screen showed it passing and the image turned to follow it. They all gave a gasp. It was heading right for the beautiful blue and green planet. The object was massive when seen in comparison to the planet. They seemed to merge and when the faint larger object moved on, the blue planet was gone and only the object remained. The image backed out and showed the yellow sun diminishing in to the black of space. The screen then went dark.
They all stood in silence, but Brianna. She was sobbing uncontrollably.
“That was their home planet,” she cried. “The brown dwarf destroyed their home planet. All those beings were just wiped out. A whole planet gone. Did you see them all? Did you see the young ones? All of them were wiped out.”
“This complex must have been an observation or scientific post on an outer planet in their star system. The dwarf captured this planet and it tagged along until it was captured by our sun. Now, we know why they left the ship here. There was nowhere for them to go to. Their home planet was destroyed,” said Kristy.
The screen remained blank so they left and went back outside.
“David, we need to upload that video and transmit it to Earth,” Kristy ordered.
Chapter 38
May 11th, 2047
Elpis
The computer intelligence analyzed all the data it had accumulated on the biological species that had discovered the site. One of the smaller specimens had activated and quickly deducted the purpose of the learning station. The biological had quickly mastered the hexadecimal number system that the creators used. Then, it had cooperated as its sensory functions had been assessed. The species had very similar sensory organs to the computer’s creators. The new biological species didn’t have as wide of an auditory range as the creators, but visual and touch senses were comparable.
Only specimen ‘A’ had actually activated a learning station. The others had merely watched it. One of the other specimens that the computer labeled as specimen ‘B’ had made communication sounds and the others had responded to it thus indicating that it had a leadership role. Since the Specimen A and B were similar, but different than the others, the computer deducted that they were the equivalent of Ranor. The others must still be Sabba. It would have to be determined if the Sabba had the same intelligence level as the creator’s Sabba had been.
Now that the biological specimen’s sensory inputs had been roughly approximated, the computer intelligence could start trying to attempt to communicate at a higher level. This was an urgent necessity due to the priority programming directives it had been given by the creators.
…
Brianna had impatiently waited her turn to get back on one of the alien machines. The so called “experts” back on Earth had agreed that the machine was attempting to teach the humans to communicate. Brianna was also convinced that the teaching was as much an intelligence test as a teaching tool. Regardless, the video images depicting the destruction of the alien world had been profoundly disturbing. She wanted to know more about these creatures and what they had been like. She and Beatrice were supposed to start planting in the green houses in two days but Kristy had excused her from duty until then to concentrate on learning to use the alien learning machine.
Everyone on the expedition crew had taken a turn on the machines. The machines stubbornly refused to let anyone skip a step. Completing the math lessons and successfully completing the sensory tests would reward the user with the video of the alien planets destruction by the Brown Dwarf. The machines somehow could detect who was using it, and always took the user back to where they had previously left off.
Brianna had asked Jason to drag an empty box into the small room with the alien teaching machines for her to sit on. At the moment, she was perched on her box seat and was the only one present in the room. The other team members were either out doing surveys, getting mineral samples, or working at other tasks. The last time she had gone outside for a break the men were trying to help the Master Chief put the large scraping blade on the front of the alien excavator.
She laid her hand on the machine and the screen lit up and formed an outline around her hand. Nothing happened for perhaps a minute. Then, an outline of a human female appeared on the screen and a sound came from the machine. Brianna shook her head. She did not understand what the machine was doing. It repeated the process three times. Brianna was still stumped and she was getting frustrated.
The image changed to show an image of a man. A different sound emitted from the machine. It repeated the image and sound three times. Suddenly, Brianna had a thought. When the image changed back to that of a woman and the first sound was made again, Brianna touched the image and said “woman”. An image of the man appeared. Brianna touched it and said “man”.
The woman’s outline reappeared and the machine said “woman” with Brianna’s voice. It then did the same thing with the man’s outline, saying “man”.
“Yes,” said Brianna.
The machine showed an image of one of their greenhouses outside.
“Greenhouse,” said Brianna
“Greenhouse,” said the machine.
An outline of her hand appeared.
“Hand,” she said
“Hand,” it said.
One of the fingers was highlighted.
“Finger,” Brianna said.
The process continued at an increasing pace. It showed an image of her face. “Face” she said. The machine said “Face”. After her face, arms, legs, and fingers were named. Then, the display showed the outline of a woman and showed the image of clothes coming off the woman. Brianna grinned. It wanted to see all of her. She looked around but she didn’t see any type of camera. She was curious as to how it could see her but she shrugged and stripped her clothes off. The image on the screen rotated and she slowly turned in a circle. It showed the woman’s outline raising its arms and then spreading its legs. Brianna was mimicking the woman’s outline on the screen and naming her body parts when the door opened. Brianna spun around and saw Jason was standing in the doorway.
“What the hell are you doing?” he grinned as he looked at her lithe figure.
She blushed and said, “I’m teaching the machine to talk”.
He looked at her with a funny expression. “You teach better with your clothes off?”
She scowled at him and re-dressed.
The machine blinked an outline of a man and said “man.”
Jason looked at it in surprise.
“Say, man, Jason,” Brianna instructed him.
The image of a man was blinking.
“Man,” Jason agreed.
The machine then went through the bodily parts until it came to an image showing a man removing his clothes.
“I am not stripping for some voyeuristic machine,” Jason said.
“Take your clothes off, Jason,” Brianna ordered.
“No way,” said Jason
“Just do it, Jason, pretend you’re doing it for me,” Brianna chided.
He reluctantly stripped down and mimicked the machine.
Looking at the display he rolled his eyes and said “Penis”.
“Penis,” the machine agreed.
“Testicles,” Jason said and the machine agreed as it repeated after him.
After he had named all his external parts, Jason got dressed again and stood beside Brianna.
The machine was quiet. Then it showed an image of the clothes they had taken off. Brianna named them as they flashed and soon the machine knew how to say boots, shorts, shirt, etc.
The woman’s outline showed a woman sitting and Brianna sat down. “Sit” she confirmed.
She stood up and said “stand”.
Blue Planet Rising (Pebbles in the Sky Book 2) Page 23
