by S. W. Ahmed
“Where did you find it?” he asked. “Are you from the future?”
“Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr,” it said.
He shook his head in confusion.
“That is how we react to humor, Mr. Zemin,” it explained in its monotone voice. “We are not from the future.”
“Are you from the past then?”
“Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr,” it said again.
“Then where did you find it?”
“Using your metrics, 50 light years from here.”
He sat back in the chair and looked down, flabbergasted. “How is that possible?” 50 light years – the distance light could travel in 50 years. That was equivalent to about 3x1014 miles, much further than the nearest stars!
The creature was silent.
He looked up at its face. “Who are you? Where are you from?”
“We are Mendoken.”
“Mendo… who?”
“Mendoken, Mr. Zemin. We are a species that live in this galaxy.”
“A species? How many other species are there?”
“We know this is all a surprise for you. All will be revealed to you in due course.”
He smirked. “Surprise” was far too mild a word to describe how he was feeling at the moment. “What do you want from me?”
“We want to know how you sent that device into space. We want to know if anybody helped you.”
“That’s it? That’s why you came with all these huge ships to Earth, just to find me and ask me how I did my experiment?”
“Yes, Mr. Zemin.”
“Why?”
“It is of utmost importance to us, Mr. Zemin. Please state if there is anybody else on your planet who knows how to perform your experiment.”
“Anybody else? No, I don’t think so. Nobody even believed that I could do it. Besides, it didn’t work. This watch was supposed to travel to the future, not out into space in the present!”
“The future? Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Time travel is not possible.” The alien leaned forward, staring closely at him with the single eye that went all around its head. “Please confirm that there is nobody else on your planet that has this capability, Mr. Zemin.”
Marc’s fear rose as the alien’s head came close to his. “I… I’m quite certain there isn’t,” he stammered, biting his lip hard. “I definitely didn’t tell anybody. I tried to convince my advisor, but he thought it was all hogwash.”
“Hogwash?”
“You know… rubbish, nonsense.”
“Then please state if there is any other species that helped you or gave you the technology,” the alien demanded, its head now almost touching his.
He could clearly see the alien’s mouth in front of him, lighting up every time it spoke. The mouth was like a hole with a flashlight behind it. There were no lips, tongue or teeth that he could identify. The fluorescent eye was spotless, except for the black line through the middle. He guessed that the line was probably the eye’s lens.
“No, I assure you, there was nobody!” he said. “It was all my idea. But why is this so important to you? You are clearly a much more technologically advanced race than we humans are. What do you care about my measly, primitive experiments?”
The Mendoken creature didn’t respond. The door to the room suddenly opened, and another alien with a green hat floated in. To Marc’s surprise, the alien that had been interrogating him didn’t turn to greet the newcomer. Instead, its mouth simply rotated around its head to face the other alien. Their mouths lit up for a few seconds as they communicated with each other, but no sound was audible to him except for a droning hum. Then the alien with the green hat floated out of the room without turning around.
Marc deduced that these creatures could operate or move in any direction, without having to turn their bodies. That explained the single eye going all around the head, as well as the four arms facing different directions and the cylindrical shape of the body.
Almost instantly, he noticed something happening outside. The big sunflower was turning, lifting its head away from Earth. Then it began moving away into empty space with tremendous acceleration, quickly disappearing from his vision.
“What was that thing?” he asked.
“That was a planet destroyer,” the alien responded nonchalantly, its mouth rotating back to face him.
“Holy smokes! You can destroy entire planets?” His face turned ashen with horror. “You wanted to destroy Earth?”
“Not anymore. Your statements have indicated that your planet poses no threat to us.”
The rest of the ships began moving away with the same acceleration, one after the other. They quickly vanished into the dark expanse. But the ship he was on stood still.
“Not anymore!” he exclaimed. “How could we be any threat to you, if you have the ability to destroy entire planets in one swoop? Why would you end the lives of 6 billion innocent people and wipe out an entire species, just because of this pocket watch? What kind of morality is that?”
“Morality, Mr. Zemin?” the alien said, keeping a steady tone. “Such a statement from a species that routinely kills its own, dropping bombs on each other, killing thousands of innocents at a time. Where it is common for one group to invade another’s land and massacre its inhabitants. Where individuals blow themselves up in crowded locations, taking hundreds of children to their deaths. Where people sometimes kill for no reason other than greed and jealousy, and sometimes just because they can.”
Marc wondered how these aliens could possibly know so much about humans. They must have studied Earth for a long time.
“So we’re horrible beings, and you know all about us,” he admitted. “But we’re not all like that, and you’re clearly more advanced than we are. Why follow the same rules?”
“Our rules are different. We only shoot in self defense, and always ask first before shooting. Neither do we kill members of our own species.” The alien paused. “It is not about the clock, Mr. Zemin. It is about the mechanism you used to transport it into space. There is a lot more at stake here than you realize, which is why we had to be prepared.”
“So if I tell you how I did it, will you let me go?”
The alien was silent.
“You won’t let me go?” he asked anxiously.
“We need your help. But we will not hold you against your will.”
He thought for a bit. “Will you at least tell me why you need my help?”
“There is a major war going on between us and another species in the galaxy, a war which we are losing. They have the ability to create consars, dimensional rifts in space.”
“You mean wormholes?”
“Wormholes, as you humans define them, do not really exist. Consars, however, are the closest thing to your definition of wormholes.
“Our enemy sends ships that appear in the middle of our territory, destroy our worlds, and then disappear again before we can pursue them. We have been trying to come up with the same technology, but so far have failed.
“When your clock appeared in the Mendo-Kiertal system, it exhibited the same consar patterns that we observe whenever our enemy’s ships appear. But, in contrast to their consars, your clock’s consar stayed open. We were able to trace the path of your consar back to your planet, right down to your laboratory. That is how we found you.”
“So you thought I was a part of the enemy?”
“We were prepared for that option.”
“Hence the planet destroyer,” he thought. Now at least some of this mystery was beginning to make sense.
“As unlikely an option as it was,” the Mendoken creature continued. “We know your planet and your species quite well. It is not logical that the Volona would want to partner with you. We have not observed any Volonan activity in this area, and after hearing your statements, can safely confirm that the Volona were never here.”
Marc assumed the Volona were the enemy. What an astounding tale! But how could he know if this alien was telling the truth? After all, how could such an adv
anced civilization not be able to create its own consars or wormholes or whatever they were called, when he as a human had been able to?
The alien must have been reading his mind. “There is a treaty between the major civilizations in the galaxy that prohibits the exploration of other dimensions. We therefore have no research in this area. But as we have discovered the hard way, the Volona broke this treaty and developed consar capability in secret. They are masters of the art of deception, and have betrayed us time and again. We need your help, Mr. Zemin. We need you to come with us to our central star system, and show us how you opened the consar.”
“To your central star system? How far away is that?”
“3048 light years, in your units of measurement. It will take us 2 Earth days to get there.”
“Just 2 days?” Marc was astonished. Some engines these ships obviously had! “What if I refuse? Will you just let me go home?”
“We will not hold you against your will, Mr. Zemin. But you may only go under the condition that you never tell anyone on your planet about our meeting.”
“But our radar and satellites have surely picked up your presence by now. People on Earth are probably frantically trying to contact you already!”
“Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. No, Mr. Zemin. We are invisible to everybody and everything on your planet. We chose to expose ourselves to you alone.”
He whistled in amazement.
“If you come with us,” the alien continued, “you will see a lot more that your species has never seen or even imagined before. Many of the scientific puzzles that your people have grappled with for centuries will be explained and many mysteries uncovered. For a scientifically minded person like you, for someone whose intelligence clearly exceeds that of most other people on your planet, this is a unique opportunity.”
The alien, probably sensing his perplexity, added, “You should also realize that the fate of your planet and your entire species depends on your decision.”
“What! How?”
“Your star system falls in our section of the galaxy, and is under our protection. Should we lose the war against the Volona, your world may well be destroyed. The Volona are not known for taking prisoners, Mr. Zemin.”
Marc was suddenly reminded of his dream the previous night, where he had seen Earth completely destroyed in a gigantic explosion. Were humans really that vulnerable? Had he finally understood the cause of that horrible nightmare? Or was this just another nightmare itself? He hoped to high heaven that it was.
“But how can I trust you?” he asked. “How do I know you’re not making this all up?”
“We just took your word, Mr. Zemin. Now it is your turn to take ours. We do not have much time. You have 15 minutes to decide.” With that, the alien began moving towards the door.
“Wait! Gosh, 15 minutes! Who are you anyway? What’s your name?”
“My name is Maginder Kloiden 52110984,” the alien said, floating out the door. “I am the commander of this armada of ships that came to meet you.”
The door shut behind the alien before Marc could open his mouth again. Alone in the room, he tried to collect his thoughts. More had happened to him in the last hour than had ever happened to him before in his entire life.
Aliens! He had been picked up by aliens! It was inconceivable. He had never taken the existence of aliens seriously. Sure, given the vastness of the cosmos, the likelihood was high that somewhere out there other forms of life did exist. But the chances of them being both intelligent and near enough to make contact with humans seemed to be close to null. He had considered it a waste of time to read science fiction stories or watch movies about creatures from outer space with ugly, drooling, insect-like faces and slimy tentacles.
Yet here they were, without any tentacles or any drool. They looked strange, no doubt, but by no means ugly or scary. They seemed nice and polite too, not the evil monsters bent on destroying mankind that people usually imagined aliens to be. Very serious, highly disciplined, focused and efficient – they were almost like machines, actually, in their conduct as well as their physical composition. Even their names apparently contained numbers.
He got up from the chair and looked out the transparent wall. The view was stunning. The lower section of this colossal ship jutted out for several miles at least. Beyond was dark space, full of twinkling stars. To the right, he could see the Sun glowing brightly with its splendor, providing the necessary radiance to sustain life for billions of people, animals and plants on Earth below. How oblivious they all were to their vulnerability, the same oblivion he had lived with for his whole life.
How arrogant people were, to think they were so superior and technologically advanced compared to all other living things. How narrow minded so many world leaders were, thinking they had all this sophisticated weaponry with which they could control the world and the fate of mankind. Here was this far more advanced species, ready to wipe out Earth altogether in one instant. All those politicians and generals, all their big words and fancy artillery, all shattered in the blink of an eye. Human fragility finally revealed to its fullest.
With his tiny little experiment, Marc Zemin, an unimportant nobody struggling to complete his PhD at a university in a small town in the middle of nowhere, had brought on this spectacular threat that could have ended the human race. But with a few simple words, that same nobody had abated the threat. And now that same nobody was being asked to journey into deep space, to help a sophisticated alien civilization in a battle for their survival, a battle whose victory would ultimately save his own people as well. Was he up to this enormous challenge?
He didn’t know. What if he couldn’t reproduce the experiments? As it was, he had stumbled upon this result by accident, not by intention. What would these aliens do to him then? Would they kill him and dump him in space? Or would they just be heavily disappointed?
So many other questions were still unanswered. How did these Mendoken aliens know so much about humans, when humans had never even seen them? How come they spoke such good English? And how had they found out so much about him, his background and his interests? Why had they been protecting Earth, and from whom? What would happen to him if he went with them? Would he be able to eat their food? Would he ever come back home alive? What about his studies at Cornell, his advisor, his friends? What about Cheryl, or Iman? Would he ever see any of them again? Wouldn’t they wonder what had happened to him?
Perhaps they wouldn’t. None of them cared about him anyway. Graham wanted him gone from Cornell, things were over with Cheryl, and Iman had left him years ago. Friends? He didn’t really have any good friends left. Family? Neither of his parents was alive, and he had no other family he was close to. Moreover, if the Mendoken lost the war against the Volona, there evidently wouldn’t be any home to come back to either.
All his research and experiments with time travel had clearly failed, and he didn’t have any new ideas on how to make it work. Maginder had also mentioned that time travel was not possible. What had he meant, and what were these “consars” that Marc’s experiment had unveiled? Above all, how did Marc know that Maginder was telling the truth? He could ask for evidence, but the evidence could easily be fabricated – clearly these aliens would have the technology to do that in a heartbeat. No, in the end, he had no assurance other than Maginder’s word. But perhaps that was enough. There was something peculiarly trustworthy and comforting about these creatures.
The 15 minutes passed by in a flash. On the dot, the door opened and Maginder floated in.
“Your decision, Mr. Zemin?”
Marc looked at the alien. “Do you promise to return me to Earth, after I have shown you my research?”
“Yes, if that is your wish.”
“What if I really am not able to help you?”
“You did not volunteer or claim to have the answer to our problem. We are the ones taking the risk by coming to you for help. You need have no fear – one way or the other, we will return you to your home.”
“Your decision, Mr. Zemin?” Maginder asked again.
Marc was silent for a few seconds. Then he said, “I’m coming with you.”
“Very good,” Maginder said, with no change in his tone of voice. “We will arrange to have your research materials transported to the ship. Please provide a list of the things you need.”
A 3D screen suddenly appeared on top of the table. It displayed a complete, miniaturized rendering of Marc’s lab, with all the equipment clearly visible and laid out just the way he had left it.
“You can use your fingers to touch the objects you need inside the screen. Like this.” Maginder proceeded to demonstrate, using one of his four hands. The hand slipped effortlessly into the screen, and one of its seven long, metallic fingers touched the model depiction of a measuring instrument in the lab. As soon as the instrument was touched, it disappeared from that screen, simultaneously appearing on a second, empty screen that had just opened up beside the first screen.
Marc caught on to the technology with delight, moving his hand into the first screen. He carefully touched each item in the lab that he needed, and it showed up right away on the second screen. He had to be careful to choose only a select few of the most critical items, such as the energy emitters, a couple of his measuring instruments, his laptop, data CD’s and notepads. That way, Graham wouldn’t notice anything unusual the next time he walked into the lab, something he had the habit of doing every now and then. Luckily Graham didn’t know the details of how many different instruments there were and what each of them did.
Once Marc was done, Maginder said, “The items will be transported shortly with the last of our troops who are still on the surface of your planet. Once they arrive, we will be ready to leave.”
Marc asked Maginder to have the troops take snapshots of all his scribbles on the lab’s whiteboards, as well as to leave a note in Graham’s office from Marc saying that he had to leave town for a few days due to urgent family matters.
