the simpleton QUEST
An Alien Encounter: Book 2
Mark Wayne McGinnis
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 54
Acknowledgments
Other Books by MWM
Chapter 1
Deep space — present day…
Captain Cuddy Perkins sat in the near-darkness and tried to quiet his turbulent thoughts.
The surrounding modern, egg-shaped, enclosure could hold up to four individuals. Three tiny indigo emitters blinked, providing just enough light for him to make out the nearby, hovering spherical drone that went by the name of Bob.
More and more often, Cuddy found himself escaping into the Evermore’s wellness chamber. The chamber wasn’t even on. No diagnostics were taking place—no rapid infusion of healthy Pashier DNA to alter his ecumenical genome.
Cuddy waited for Bob to say something. Anything. And eventually, it did.
“There is no dispute to your logic. What you have described correlates to some of my own observations…my sensory inputs. Keep in mind, as an artificial intelligence I was not designed specifically to interpret diagnostic issues. To interpret such categorically medical matters…”
“Yeah-yeah…got it! So what did you pick up on?” Cuddy asked, referring to his and the orb’s most recent meeting on Primara with Tow, when they were informed what was causing so many beings on Primara to be sick. They’d brought the disease from Earth. Already, three of the gentle aliens had died in just as many days. God! The thought that they—humans—had something to do with that was horrifying. Cuddy squeezed his eyelids together…damn!
Bob continued, “In my evaluations of the affected, I monitored rapid fluctuations in body temperatures, telltale epidermal lesions, and constant itching. Later stages, of course, resulted in respiratory infections…and then—”
“Death.” Cuddy sighed, finality to his tone. “You too saw it, that Tow was purposely evasive. Did his best to stave-off directly blaming me…our infectious, human, crew. Simply put, the Pashier are dying because of us…because of me!”
The orb hovered quietly for several moments before replying, “More accurately, due to Kyle.”
Cuddy unconsciously tapped his foot on the deck as he contemplated the whole situation. What twenty-two-year old still gets the chicken pox, anyway? How was it Kyle hadn’t been vaccinated like every other little brat in America? Who would have guessed the Pashier would become so terribly infected by that mostly childhood human disease? With all the Pashier’s technology, they couldn’t combat such a common virus? Crap…things were so much easier, he mused, when I was incapable of thinking about anything more difficult than what was for breakfast on any given day or what I’d done with Momma’s shopping list.
“The buck stops with me. I’m responsible for this ship…her crew, Bob.” Cuddy thought about that—his own words. The simple fact he was sitting here in the near darkness within this advanced alien ship was preposterous. It was also preposterous that he, no more than the village idiot of Woodbury, Tennessee would have been the first to encounter a marooned being, Tow, of a hunted and dying out race of aliens. He looked about the surrounding enclosure. The same enclosure, mere weeks earlier, that had made him whole—had made him intelligent. The others, Kyle, Jackie, and Tony had come along out of some sense of loyalty to him. He knew that. Brian, he was here because Jackie was here. In his own way, Brian was still in love with Jackie—just as Cuddy was himself. The five of them were now a part of this—whatever this was. A mission. A mission to save a gentle people that would surely go extinct without their help.
The drone softly beeped twice, then spun several degrees on its axis.
“If Tow were here he’d …”
“But Tow is not here,” Bob replied flatly.
An image of his Pashier friend, his mentor, flashed across Cuddy’s mind. Gentle, unassuming, Tow.
Cuddy looked about the confined space, where weeks earlier he’d undergone a life-saving treatment, which not only healed his physical wounds but also vastly altered his diminished mental faculties beyond anything imaginable—changing his life, the direction of his life—forever.
“Look, Bob, you need to keep at it…keep searching Interstellar databases, seek a solution…some cure.” Cuddy’s eyes roamed the sleek-contoured bulkheads. Why couldn’t this same wellness chamber provide the cure? Be the answer they sought? But Cuddy already knew why—the embedded existing software for the amazing contraption wasn’t capable of diagnosing, let alone curing, chicken pox.
“We should be back on Primara. Doing what we can to help them,” he told the orb.
“You are helping, Captain. Retrieving heritage pods is fundamental to the survival of the Pashier race.” Bob initiated several audible clicks to emphasize the point.
“Uh huh. You know as well as me that we’re stuck here for diversion sake. Until Tow figures things out.”
“Still, it is a crucial diversion,” the orb emphasized.
Chapter 2
Alone on the bridge, Cuddy let the music sway him. With Bob’s help, Jackie had figured out the Evermore’s ship-wide entertainment system; enough to sync it to one of hundreds of playlists on her iPhone. He knew she’d selected this particular track specifically for him—to bolster his spirits. She often did things like that—was thoughtful that way. He didn’t know the song, the female artist—but he liked it.
From where he stood, he could see out the forward observation window, as well as out the starboard and portside windows. But right now, Cuddy’s attention was locked onto the emerald green world lying beyond—directly forward. Without turning around, he felt Bob’s presence as it hovered into the compartment.
A Class B Planet, Captain Perkins.
The orb had spoken telepathically. Cuddy nodded, still uneasy hearing himself being addressed that way. Bob did that from time-to-time—chose telepathy over verbal communications. Cuddy looked at the Class B planet. The Pashier gave designations to planets based on their suitability for sustaining life—based on Mahli, their once beautiful, now wrecked, totally decimated, home planet. From memory, Cuddy knew the comparisons, which designated a planetary world either Class A, Class B, or Class C, were determined by the correlation of the world’s existing volume of nitrogen to oxygen. If nitrogen was between 75% and 80% of the total at
mosphere, then oxygen needed to be between 20% and 24%. The remaining percentage consisted mainly of argon. Other factors included gravitational properties; amount of water available—i.e., ice formations, lakes, and oceans—the list went on and on. Cuddy had it all stored methodically within his repaired, highly-organized, mind.
He took in the zoomed-in feed presented on the viewscape display. “Class B. Close to Class A; acceptable, but not really preferable for colonization. Or habitation, either,” he added, basically repeating the on-display—scrolling, meta-data-type—info. The planet’s temperatures were far too warm for his taste. Outside, the terrain was green and lush—jungle-like.
Bob said, “Good news. Yes…the heritage pod is indeed present and still viable.”
Relieved, Cuddy assumed the controls at the forward console. With the Evermore in descent, he scanned the fast-approaching landscape then pointed to a distant rise. “It’s over there…and that could be a suitable LZ.”
Cuddy maneuvered the Evermore toward a slightly hilly landing area—one that overlooked a particularly dense section of jungle fauna. Bringing the craft to a gentle stop, 200 feet above the clearing, Cuddy felt a short-lived sense of triumph at finding this next heritage pod relatively easy. His mind flashed back to an earlier conversation he had with Brian Horowitz, MD—self-described as the most intelligent human being in the known universe.
* * *
Just days earlier, the five teammates banded together around the main cabin of the Evermore. The only two seated were Kyle and Tony. Kyle, Cuddy’s older brother by two years, still appeared to carry burdensome guilt upon his slumped shoulders. All signs of redness and rash from his recent outbreak of chicken pox had mostly disappeared. Next to him sat Tony Bone, a well-known stoner, and hoodlum back in Woodbury, Tennessee. The town sheriff’s son, he looked like he was hitting the bong again. Somewhere along the line, Tony had replenished his stash of weed. He’d be fine, just as long as he didn’t have to return home to his oppressive, father. Tony and Kyle had been playing some kind of Pashier video game up on the Evermore’s 3D display.
“Hold up…let me get this straight. Out of the five of us, I’m the only one you’ve designated to stay back? Tell me your logic…” Brian asked Cuddy, with an accusatory stare.
Cuddy anticipated hearing those exact same words from this fifth member of their oddball, although strangely effective, team. Brian tended to say that type of crap a lot; in fact, all the time. Tell me your logic….What’s your logic…I don’t see your logic….There was nothing easy about Brian. The once-prominent New York City doctor, and Jackie’s ex-fiancé, the man radiated entitlement and privilege. Cuddy had tried to like the guy—he honestly had. But Brian made it so difficult to do so.
Jackie said, “Come on, Brian. Who saved us and the Pashier last time? Wasn’t it you who transported those Howsh ships…like…vast distances away from Primara? Far into space, with the simple wave of your hand?” Jackie gestured, making the same waving motion.
Placating Brian’s colossal ego was smart, Cuddy thought.
“And come on, I know you want to look the way…you know…the way you used to look, right? God…you were so handsome!” she added.
Brian bristled at that. Slightly raising his chin, he stared down his misshapen nose at
Jackie. He was butt-ugly now, no other way to put it. Bloated and disfigured—but it had been his own damn fault. It had taken place weeks earlier—an attempt at one-upmanship with Cuddy. He’d figured out the amazing side-effects that would result from spending time within the Evermore’s wellness chamber. The most enticing of all to him was the incredible improvements to one’s mental capabilities. As human physiology synthesized into some kind of a human-Pashier hybrid, another capacity gained in the process was telekinesis—moving objects simply through one’s mental focus and intention.
But the Evermore’s wellness chamber was created specifically for Pashier crewmembers. Its ability to heal was derived from bombarding patients with healthy Pashier DNA—deoxyribonucleic acid—the main genome constituent of chromosomes. Mostly the same self-replicating substance found in all living organisms on Earth and, apparently, throughout the universe. What was assumed to be an insubstantial and seemingly inconsequential gland within the human brain—called the para-hippocampal gyrus—remarkably comes alive when humans spend time within the chamber. While Cuddy’s wellness chamber sessions were carefully monitored and timed by the alien Tow, Brian elected to go it alone. Clandestinely extending his time in the chamber to multiple, longer sessions. Like Cuddy, Brian was now a human/Pashier hybrid being. And though Brian’s mental and telekinesis abilities were greater than Cuddy’s—even greater, possibly, than any Pashier alive—the regrettable side effects from too much time in the chamber was apparent in his monstrously misshapen physical appearance.
“So what the fuck am I supposed to do here? There’s absolutely nothing on this plebeian world that interests me. Nothing! And everyone’s getting sick…all that scratching and hacking. I don’t want to be around any of that,” Brian said.
Cuddy said, “Come on, Brian, you’re a doctor, for God’s sakes. And Primara is beautiful. There’re lakes and forests and pristine oceans. It’s like Earth. You know…the way it used to be, before mankind tainted it. Look, Brian I’ve already spoken to Tow. You will stay with him and Soweng…both are still healthy. It’s all been worked out.”
Jackie said, “Only you can do this, Brian. You do realize, the wellbeing of an entire race of people rests in your hands. You can protect them…in case the Howsh return. That has to mean something to you.”
“Well…actually, no,” Brian replied. “These people creep me out…they fucking glow in the dark. And would it kill them to throw on a stitch of clothing once in a while?”
“If you haven’t noticed, Brian, so do you! Both you and Cuddy kinda glow,” Jackie said exasperated, looking at Brian then Cuddy. “Come on Brian…you’re just being obstinate.”
Brian shrugged and feigned boredom. Jackie stepped in closer to Brian. She placed an open palm on his chest and looked up at him with tenderness in her eyes. Once again, Cuddy was reminded that the two of them had once been engaged to be married.
She said, “One more thing…during your stay here, you’ll be tended to by empath elders, Pashier healers. They’re not like the wellness chamber that got you into this state, but not as fast-working either. They’ll help restore your physical appearance. I’m told they’ll help your body accept, you know…better assimilate, your new Pashier DNA integration.”
Jackie gave Brian’s chest a few affectionate pats and turned away as he absorbed her words. She glanced at Cuddy and gave him a nearly imperceptible wink.
Over past weeks, while out on numerous missions, Cuddy communicated over the vast distances of space indirectly with Tow on an almost daily basis, via a nearly identical drone orb to Bob, only this orb, back on Primara, went by the name Rob. Something like orb walkie-talkies. All agreed that the crew of the Evermore—on their ongoing mission to retrieve other heritage pods from within the system—would return them to the new home world, Primara. That, and the Evermore would act as an early warning system; feeding long-distance scan information back to Rob and ultimately to Tow, relaying if any enemy Howsh vessels had been sighted.
“Fine…I’ll stay for a while,” Brian agreed reluctantly.
Apparently, Jackie still had a captivating effect on him. That was something Cuddy could certainly relate to. Cuddy thought about this amazing, beautiful woman—how they’d been thrown back into each other’s lives, after a number of years apart. Now, they were at the precipice of a different kind of relationship. Though there’d been only one quasi-intimate moment between them some weeks earlier, even now it was all he could do not to think about it. Her lips on his…her hands on him. He didn’t know what she wanted long-term—or, for that matter, what he wanted for himself. Only that he was a more than willing participant in their unpredictable, early relationship dance.
“What is it?” Brian asked, his patience clearly being tested.
“Watch Rufus for me? I don’t think he’s a big fan of space travel.”
Cuddy gave the yellow Lab, sitting at his side, a few pats on his flank. He and Rufus had been through a lot together and Cuddy suddenly wondered if leaving him there was such a good idea.
* * *
Back in the present moment, standing at the controls of the Evermore and appreciative of the fact that Brian was light years distance away, Cuddy activated the vessel’s landing struts and eased the Evermore lower into the surrounding dense foliage of the Class B planet. A thick flock of birds, or whatever the weird-looking flying organisms were referred to here, took to the air—screeching in protest as they flew upward and out of sight.
As the spacecraft came to rest upon firm ground, he shut down the ship’s propulsion system.
“Atmosphere?” Cuddy asked.
“You’ll find it a bit heavy…but certainly breathable,” Bob said.
With the AI orb close on his heels, they exited the small bridge. The others were already assembled within the main cabin—close to the portside hatch. They’d all been through this same routine a number of times before. Cuddy made eye contact with his brother Kyle, then Tony. There was nervous anticipation on their faces. He felt it too. Jackie, as she always did prior to these excursions, had pulled her long hair back into a high ponytail. She wore snug-fitting jeans that accentuated her long legs and a pink tank top. Strapped over one shoulder was her tattered army-green satchel. Designated as the group’s medic, now that Brian wasn’t a part of the team. Brian was a licensed physician—unlike her, who’d been a pre-med student still in college—she carried an assortment of medical supplies as well as an assortment of other useful items in her satchel.
Making eye-contact with Cuddy, she asked, “Are we going to do this thing or not?”
“Let’s rock and roll,” Cuddy said.
* * *
Bob led the way deep into the jungle. With both articulating arms extended, the orb emitted white-hot plasma bursts—hanging vines and thick leafy foliage disintegrated into a misty black haze—Bob’s own version of a jungle machete. Careful not to breathe in too deeply, Cuddy did his best to spare his lungs the lingering God-awful stench.
The Simpleton QUEST Page 1
