Alien Home

by Mark Zubro

  Several minutes later Jack asked, “When do we take off?”

  Joe said, “We just left Earth’s atmosphere. Do you want to try a new gadget I just installed? It dampens all of Earth’s radar tracking systems at once.”

  “Wouldn’t that make people suspicious?” Jack asked.

  “Yes,” Mike said.

  “It might,” Joe admitted. “It took me three years to perfect the thing. Remember when all the Chicago radio and television stations went off the air simultaneously for thirty seconds last summer?”

  “That was you?”

  “Yeah. A little glitch, quickly fixed.” He tapped a few more buttons. A portion of the wall rolled back. The vast panoply of the heavens swung into view.

  “Wow!” Jack exclaimed.

  “It’s not a screen image,” Mike said. “That’s the real thing.”

  Jack put his nose against the portal the way a little kid would against a screen door. Mike understood the desire to be as close as possible to the view of the swirling cosmos.

  “How fast are we going?” Jack asked.

  “Faster than all the racing cars you ever wanted to own,” Joe said, “or all that have ever been built on Earth put together. It’ll take us another few minutes to get far enough out of Earth’s atmosphere to engage the star drive.”

  Jack gazed in awe at the passing universe. Joe pointed out different stars and the planet Mars. Finally, Jack pulled his eyes away. He said, “That is the most fabulous thing I have ever seen.”

  “Thought you might like it,” Joe said.

  “Yeah,” Jack said, “I hate to ask, but is there anything to eat?”

  Mike smiled. “We usually don’t come out here. We haven’t provisioned the ship in years.”

  Joe said, “Even the stuff I carry for long journeys needs to be replenished. I’ve got to get that probe. We’ll eat whatever you want when we get back. I’ve got water that we can drink and some of what you would call energy bars.”

  Mike asked, “I thought you said the probe would take days to reach Earth.”

  “It will. My ship is faster than any probe.”

  Jack looked at the glob of gray matter that the alien called food. Being adventurous and hungry as only a teenager could be, he took a bite. He made a face. Joe smiled. Jack said, “I’ll stick with water.”

  After they’d all refreshed themselves, Joe turned to Mike, “We’ve got time to practice you working the controls.”

  Mike was wary but willing to give it a try.

  Using his communicator as a transmission device and standing at a small portion of the console Joe had installed six months before, Mike set to work. With only a little help from Joe, Mike felt connected to the controls. He wasn’t “as one” with them or even at ease with them. It was more as if his mind were on cruise control. He was like the sports hero in the last seconds of the game when all crowd noise fades away, and everything between him and the ball, bat, or finish line is less than a mote on the edge of consciousness. The player’s intuition and instinct tell him that which he does will cause him to be successful. Whatever this sense is, intuition magnified a thousand fold and merged with technology, Mike had it then.

  When Mike returned to himself, Jack had his butt perched on the top of the console, one leg up, foot on a mass of buttons, one leg dangling in space, an elbow on his out thrust knee, and his face cupped in his hand.

  “Where are we?” Mike asked.

  “The other side of Saturn,” Joe said. “I need full control of the ship back.” Mike stepped back.

  “How long was that?” Mike asked.

  “An hour or so,” Jack said. “I got bored. You looked out of it. Joe showed me some of the things the ship could do.”

  “You left me alone in here?” Mike asked.

  “Yep,” Joe said. “You need to have more confidence in what I’ve taught you, in my technical skills, and in yourself.”

  “I guess so.”

  “What was it like, Uncle Mike?” Jack asked.

  Mike said, “Like all my thoughts and emotions merged with the machine. Like I was inside a video game.”

  “Wow! Way cool!” Jack exclaimed. “Like the Force is with you.”

  Mike said, “I think learning this implant and communicator stuff is more a fusion of the technological and neurological than any part of the spiritual.”

  “Oh,” Jack said. He turned to Joe. “Now what?”

  “I’m going to use some of the energy from your sun to try sending a false message from the probe back to my planet as well as disarm and capture it, all simultaneously.”

  “You’re not asking for much,” Jack said.

  “It’ll be tricky,” Joe admitted. “I very badly want it to work. I want to stay here very much. I need to concentrate for a while.” His hands flew over the vast console. Mike and his nephew assumed Joe was performing functions necessary to make his menu of desires come true.

  “A while” turned into fifteen minutes then half an hour. Joe spoke seldom during all this. Mike watched with growing concern. He could feel their life together evaporating into the black depths of the universe. He wondered if the people from Joe’s planet would allow either of them to live.

  A brilliant blue and white flash flicked over the viewing portal.

  “What happened?” Mike asked.

  “I used power from your sun. That’s what took so long. We’re awfully far away, and I needed more solar energy than I thought. With any luck, I was successful in doing everything right. At least my results all read accurately.” He pointed to several thin display lines imbedded in the panels. “They say I did what I wanted to.” Mike saw minute lines and squiggles, which he’d come to recognize as the alien’s written language. He could recognize about a hundred simple words in the alien tongue but none of those.

  Jack glanced around the control room. “Those aren’t very big displays.”

  “I get most of the results directly into my neural system. Those displays you see are simply confirmations.”

  “I’m tired of saying ‘cool’ and ‘wow,’” Jack said.

  “Oohing and aahing at the tricks of advanced technology is not a requirement,” Joe said.

  Jack was silent a moment. He said to Mike, “I can never tell anyone about this. Until now, you couldn’t tell anybody.”

  Mike said, “It’s a strange experience, no matter which way you look at it. I did tell my friend, Darryl, before he died.”

  “I’ve heard you talk about him. Did he believe you?”

  “I don’t know. He died soon after. I wish he was still alive.”

  Joe patted his shoulder. “Give me a few minutes to get that thing on board, and then we’ll get out of here.”

  Mike said, “I thought you used the power of the sun.”

  “I did, but I only disabled it, turned it off. I’d like to get information from it.”

  “You gonna beam it up?” Jack asked.

  Joe smiled. “No one in the galaxy can do matter transfer, at least not yet. I’m using the equivalent of what you would call a tractor beam. The only thing that takes a little time is setting the coordinates. I don’t have to do that slow, laborious stuff that Earth astronauts have to with mechanical arms. I’d let you watch, but the cargo hold is on the bottom of the ship.” In only a little more time than it took to explain, the capture of the probe was accomplished. Joe turned the ship for home.

  “We’ve got a few hours,” Joe said, “why don’t you guys try to get some sleep.”

  “I’m too excited,” Jack said. “I’ve got a million questions.”

  They retired to a lounge area and sat on chairs that automatically conformed to the contours of their bodies. Mike found them the most satisfying seats he’d ever occupied.

  Jack’s first questions was, “How did you guys wind up falling in love?” It was also his last. In five minutes he was fast asleep.

  “Poor kid,” Mike said. “He barely had time to celebrate his wrestling championship. Althoug
h taking a space ride out among the planets has to rank up there as an unusual way to celebrate. I wish I could have kept his dad away from him.”

  They tucked a blanket around the boy. Mike lifted his head gently to place a pillow under it. Jack hardly stirred at the movement. Joe and Mike stood with their arms around each other, looking down at the sleeping teen. Joe rested his head on Mike’s shoulder.

  “You were great today,” Joe said.

  “I was scared,” Mike said.

  “You managed an energy field by yourself.”

  “Barely.”

  “By yourself is by yourself. Things might have turned out a lot different if you hadn’t been able to. Thank you.” They turned and embraced. Mike enjoyed the feel of Joe’s chin on his shoulder, their cheeks touching, their chests, matching six-pack abs, and legs leaning into each other. Mike shut his eyes and let the comfort of their closeness linger.

  After several minutes of bliss, he whispered, “What are we going to do? I don’t think we can trust to disinterest on the part of your planet anymore. Your need to beat this probe worries me. I’m afraid one of these things might kill you. Your defenses failing is scary. What happens when someone from your planet shows up?”

  Still embracing, they leaned a few inches away from each other. Joe looked Mike in the eyes and said, “I don’t know.”

  This time their embrace was fueled by fear and loss and concern for the unknown.

  Mike whispered, “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” Joe responded. Love, it turned out, was a universal concept.

  They kissed. Several minutes later Mike said, “I don’t want to wake up the kid.” They moved to a separate compartment where cuddling and tenderness and nearness became more intense, spilling into passion. For a little while they were able to enjoy the closeness which they were both afraid might not last. Mike felt great comfort after they finished. After uncounted minutes of sharing closeness, exhaustion overcame his fears. He slept for most of the rest of the flight back.

  When Mike awoke, Joe was not in the room. He checked on Jack who was still asleep. Mike found Joe in the control room.

  “Where are we?” Mike asked.

  “Under the lake. I just shut off the engines.”

  “I thought of this as I woke up.” He hesitated. Joe looked at him. “Should we maybe just run, take your ship and head to the other side of the galaxy, get away.”

  “I think we’ve got time, and my supply of fuel is not infinite. With luck we’ll have time to figure out what to do and what actions to take that will keep us safe and left alone on Earth.”

  Jack, hair awry, clothes disheveled, stumbled in a few moments later.

  “We’re home,” Mike said.

  “Are evil aliens going to come and take you guys away?”

  Joe and Mike exchanged a glance. “We don’t know,” Mike said. “We don’t think so. We hope not.”

  Jack nodded.

  Mike asked, “Are we staying here or going back to the apartment?”

  “I don’t think we need to run. I used every power this ship has to search the solar system and several light years beyond. I detected nothing else from my planet. I’ve got to examine the probe thoroughly, but I can do that from the laboratory.”

  To avoid constant visits to the ship to use its technology, but mostly to foil any attempts at detection, they’d set up a lab in a discreet warehouse near the Chicago River and Irving Park Boulevard. When his first lover had died four years ago, Mike had inherited Darryl’s car and enough money to afford the down payment on the building. The lab was tied in to the ship’s electronic system. Joe used a lot of material from the criminal scientist’s lab to increase his ability to perform experiments and do analysis. It was by far the most advanced scientific lab on Earth.

  Joe returned from the bowels of the ship carrying a gray, metallic sphere the size of a basketball.

  “What’s that?” Jack asked.

  Joe slapped the surface. “It’s the probe.”

  “That’s it?” Mike asked. “That thing is capable of raining down death over millions of miles of space eternal?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Up close Mike saw numerous one or two-inch high bumps and sharply cut ridges and valleys. “I am disappointed.”

  “You were expecting maybe The Borg?” Joe asked.

  “At least.”

  Joe’s knowledge of popular culture was spotty, but he tended to know a lot of science fiction from reading, watching movies, and the memories of humans.

  They returned to the surface. It was deep night. They stepped onto the transportation device and sent the ship back down. The ride back to the shore was made into the teeth of a northwest wind. The air was clear, and, as after most significant winter storms in Chicago, the temperature was plummeting. Because of Jack’s father’s appearance at their departure point, they landed in a secluded area off the Northwestern campus in Evanston. The snow was deep and untrodden. As long as there was a possibility of being observed, and it wasn’t necessary, they didn’t want to risk using the energy field to light their way or melt the snow. The trek through the drifts to Sheridan Road proved to be the most arduous part of the past thirty-six hours.

  It was three on Monday morning when the bus let them off at Sheridan and Belmont. Much of Sunday had been spent in space. The streets were deserted except for an occasional plow or a random bus as empty of humanity as was their own.

  They walked to where they had left the car. The ramp had been plowed, and snow was piled high around the car. As they neared it, they surveyed the area for Jack’s father’s possible presence.

  Through chattering teeth Mike said, “It’s good to know he’s not an all-powerful Earthling capable of standing in the cold for hours on end waiting for us.”

  Joe said, “Maybe all-powerful isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.”

  They saw neither pedestrians nor other traffic. Lights in the Lake Shore Drive high rises and the slow flicking of the stop-and-go lights were the only other indications of humanity.

  They used scrapers, brushes, and the car’s defroster on high to get the snow off the car. Joe used the briefest and most minimum flash from his communicator to free the tires and undercarriage and then make a path so they could move the car onto the street.

  They drove home over the snow-encrusted pavement. They didn’t use the blue aura because they didn’t want to attract attention. They saw only one bundled-up pedestrian walking in the middle of the street as most of the sidewalks were knee deep in snow, and traffic was mostly nonexistent. Their alley was unplowed and impassable. Joe activated the energy field. This time Joe made sure heavy swirls of snow covered the path the energy field made to the garage. Behind them their path was almost completely erased, and there was no suspicious route to follow. Mike pulled into the spacious, two-car garage.

  As he opened the car door, Mike realized every bone in his body felt exhausted. He would need more than the few hours of sleep he’d had on the ship to feel better. Jack seemed subdued. His usual teenage bounce and vigor were missing.

  Mike turned off the car engine and pressed the button to shut the garage door. They heard it thump as it touched the ground. No one moved to get out. They listened to the engine tick softly.

  After Jack sat forward and spread his elbows over the front headrests, laced his hands together, and leaned his chin on them, he asked, “What happens to me if you guys are taken?”

  Joe said, “Most likely they would only take me. My training is such that I cannot let harm come to an Earthling. They will never harm either of you while I draw breath.”

  “And if they kill you?” Jack asked.

  “Then their job is done. You would be safe.”

  Jack asked, “They wouldn’t need to kill us for knowing your identity and for knowing about your technology and knowing how to use it?”

  “We didn’t tell you all this stuff to get you killed,” Mike said.

  “I know that, Un
cle Mike. I’m not trying to blame anybody. I just want to understand.”

  Joe said, “You would not be perceived as a threat to us. Your planet is not advanced enough. Even with all you know added to your current science, you’d be lucky to be able to fly efficiently and effectively beyond your own solar system any time in the next couple thousand years, if then.”

  “And when we can?” Mike asked.

  “We’ll all be long dead,” Joe said.

  Jack said, “I’m worried about you guys leaving.”