The Interstellar

by David Lund

  “Friiisht delm tar groun, kalwa,” is what it sounded like.

  As soon as the alien had finished speaking, the ship hummed loudly.

  “Follow me,” the alien said to Michael. They were led straight into a small room. “This is a decontamination chamber, I am afraid it will be a bit cramped, but it is necessary for you to to do the cycle.” He started to leave, then turned back to them. “The cycle takes one of your hours. I will talk to you afterwards.”

  After he had left, Michael instructed the crew to sit on one of the chairs that were lined up against the walls. The room was bathed in a bluish light, and was uncomfortably cramped with the thirteen people in it. It was however, much warmer.

  Caitlin and Jean, who were still unconscious were set down on the floor by the people who had been carrying them. Jal had recovered from her shock and seemed okay, for now. Michael paced the small room.

  “What’s going on, Captain?” Adrian asked. “Are these different aliens to the ones who captured us?” Michael stopped and looked at him.

  “I can’t be sure, I didn’t see the first one’s face, but I would say yes. I’m also inclined to believe that these ones might be more willing to help us. The one who took me on the other ship said they knew all about us, and that we were a violent species who must either go back where we came from, or die.”

  “It spoke to you?” Marshall asked.

  “It held up a pad with the translated words on them. I told them we were stranded.”

  “And they knew all about us?” Adrian asked.

  “Yes, that is curious.”

  “It’s more than curious,” Adrian said. “It’s downright worrying. How can they know who we are?”

  Michael didn’t answer, he was lost in thought.

  The new aliens could speak English, how had they learned? Michael had heard him, (Michael was inclined to think that it was a male of his species) speak in an alien tongue, so he obviously wasn’t using some kind of communicator/translator. Why was he trying to help them whereas the others wanted them dead? Both species seemed to already know about their existence. How had humanity had an impact on them? Their technology seemed to be superior to their own: faster ships, electricity guns; was it possible that they had already visited Earth? Surely Humans would have noticed those blue creatures. Maybe they had orbited the planet a long time ago. The aliens had said they were violent, they had certainly had their fair share of bloodshed, and wars were not rare on Earth, at least they weren’t until the 2050s when they finally sorted themselves out and managed to live relatively peacefully.

  “What do we do, Captain?” Marshall asked. Michael glanced around the room again, Adrian was leaning over Lindsey, examining her leg.

  “Why fix her leg?” Michael wondered out loud, ignoring the Lieutenant’s question.

  “That is a good question,” the doctor replied, but no one seemed to be able to answer it. Michael didn’t have any answers either. He turned back to Marshall and finally answered his question.

  “We wait. I want to talk to this person, maybe he can explain a few things. How is Caitlin?” he asked Adrian.

  “She’ll live, I have her in an induced coma, she’ll heal better that way, same thing with Jean.”

  They had been put in a decontamination chamber, the alien had said, but nothing seemed to be happening, maybe it was a painless process. Michael understood the need for decontamination, they might hold pathogens fatal to the aliens. He hoped the need for safety was mutual and that the system protected them too. Michael felt that they meant them no harm, he wanted to trust them, but first he needed to talk to these aliens.

  They waited patiently for the cycle to finish, talking little, as they were all so exhausted. They hadn’t slept for nearly thirty hours. Michael saw Marshall sitting with his arms crossed and his eyes closed, but he doubted that he was asleep. The rest of the crew were in similar positions. Michael knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he knew for sure that they were safe. All of their lives depended on it. Despite that vow, he must have dozed because he started at the sound of the door opening and his eyes snapped open.

  “The cycle is complete,” said the same alien who had led them in the room in the first place. He was

  no longer wearing his space suit. He donned clothing made of a blue uniform, but that wasn’t what shocked Michael and the crew. Underneath a mop of dark green hair and beside his ears, (which were in the same place as human ears), were gills, on top of that, he wore boots that were extremely wide, making Michael wonder whether his feet were webbed. The hands, however, resembled human hands, with four fingers and a thumb “If you will follow me, I will show you to a more comfortable place.”

  They filed out – Caitlin and Jean carried by some of the crew, Lindsey could walk now – and followed the alien. The first thing they noticed, was again how cold it was. They were led to a much larger room, in which there were sofas and small tables laden with assorted food and drink, and in which the temperature was at a much more agreeable temperature. Michael recognized none of the food.

  “You may rest here, please help yourself to any food and drink you like, I realize that it doesn’t look like anything you may have had before, but I assure you, the nutritional elements are the same as what you are use to. You,” he pointed at Michael. “Are the leader?”

  “Yes, I am Captain Michael Edwards.”

  “I am Kaywal, Captain of this vessel. I will have people take care of your injured. Please,” he added when Michael opened his mouth. “We mean you no harm, we want to help you.” Michael nodded and, unsure whether or not the alien understood the gesture, said okay.

  “Now,” the alien called Kaywal said. “Captain, please follow me and we shall talk.” He walked out of the room, Michael left a second later, after a quick nod to Marshall. They walked back out into the cold corridor, and Michael shivered.

  “Please forgive the cold, Captain, we are used to much colder temperatures than you are. Our planet is mainly made of ice.”

  “Really? And so your species evolved to deal with the cold?”

  “Yes. This way.” He opened a door and led Michael into a lift. Kaywal pressed the top button.

  “I have a lot of questions,” Michael said as they went up.

  “I am happy to answer any questions you may have, but I suggest we wait for somewhere more quiet.” There wasn’t much noise in the lift, but Michael fell silent anyway.

  They stepped out of the lift and onto what could only be the bridge of the ship. It was at least four times bigger than their own command centre and had many more stations. The walls were dark and the lighting, like the rest of the ship, was very low. Several aliens turned as they walked in, and stared openly at Michael. He sensed tension as he walked by, but maybe he was just stressed, and was imagining it. The aliens were all similar, and Michael had trouble differentiating them; they all had the same pale blue skin and gills beside their ears like Kaywal; the same bright red eyes, and the big wide boots were also the same; the uniforms were the only thing different: Kaywal had a

  blue uniform whereas the others were either wearing grey or brown.

  Michael was again astounded by how similar they were, and how different. He supposed he had expected monsters of some sort, not humanoids who walked, talked, and sat like humans did.

  Another thing occurred to him as he walked across the bridge, following Kaywal; the gravity was hardly any different to what he was used to on Earth.

  Kaywal led him to a door off the bridge and, like on his own ship, it led into an office. However, it was much larger than his own. No decorations covered the blue walls, and the desk was bare except for what seemed like a huge electronic tablet in the middle. There were two seats on one side of the desk and a big, comfortable looking one on the other side. Kaywal sat down in the latter and asked Michael to sit opposite him.

  “I must apologize for the Henfor,” Kaywal said as soon as Michael was seated.

  “The Henfor?”

&
nbsp; “Yes, the people who captured you; we call them the Henfor, they call themselves The Henfor. They are the species who live on the fourth planet, nearest the suns. My species, however, live on the fifth planet, where it is much colder. We are called the Friiist.”

  “Two different species evolved on neighbouring planets? That’s amazing.”

  “It greatly advanced our technological prowess. Upon finding out that another species lived so close to us, we did everything in our power to visit them. Sadly though, they were not pleased. They had been doing everything to stop us coming. They did not want to meet us. We are at war. It is had been this way for centuries.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Michael said. “But what have they got against us? Humans?”

  “They are xenophobic, they dislike any other species than their own.”

  “They said we were violent.”

  “They think everybody but themselves is violent, when in reality, they are as nasty as anyone else.”

  Michael was still amazed about all of this. He had so many questions, but didn’t know where to start.

  “How can you speak my language?” he asked finally.

  “Your probe of course!” he answered in what seemed to be an excited voice.

  “Probe?” Michael said, confused.

  “Yes, Humans sent a probe with information about your planet and your whereabouts, it was full of literature, star charts and many other things. Some of us taught ourselves your language in the hope of meeting you one day. Our children learn about you in schools.”

  “What? Really?” He remembered the probe. It was launched in the year 2025, it was designed to explain to any alien species where they were and welcome them to Earth. It shouldn’t have travelled this far in that amount of time however. “That’s amazing.” He felt giddy and felt he was acting

  stupidly. He realized he was nervous.

  “Yes, we were so happy to know about someone from another solar system, it answered a very old question for us, are we the only solar system with life in it? We thought you must surely be a very advanced race to be able to send a probe so far. We worked out that you were almost thirty light years away. It was impossible for us to travel that distance. We waited years for you to come, and now you have. You don’t know how exciting this is for us.”

  “Believe me,” Michael said. “It’s even more exciting for us, there is only one planet with life on it on our solar system, and we didn’t even know if any other species existed before today.” Kaywal looked confused at these words.

  “But you sent us the probe, you must have known we were here.”

  “No, we sent it on the off-chance someone was out there. I’m glad it found you,” Michael said warmly. He thought he saw a flash of anger cross Kaywal’s face, but was then sure he’d imagined it.

  “As are we,” he said, standing up. “You must be famished, I will have someone bring food.” He left the room, leaving Michael alone, feeling slightly stunned. He still had many, many questions to ask Kaywal. He was glad that at least one of the alien species they had discovered was friendly. He was still curious to see what the others might look like. He wanted to know everything about them: if they had music, or literature, sports, games, if their similarities continued. It was all so interesting.

  One thing was bothering him, Kaywal had said that they had no way of travelling thirty light years, with the technology he had witnessed so far, he had been hoping they might be able to get them home. Maybe they would agree to let them live on their planet with them until they could find a way to get back. Although, he wasn’t sure about living with the cold for too long. It couldn’t have been above 0 degrees in the office.

  Kaywal came back in, carrying a tray with food and some clear liquid that looked a lot like water.

  “Eat, please, it is different to what you are used to, but I assure, there is no danger to you. We scanned your body during the decontamination,” he added, as if he knew what Michael was thinking. Michael picked up something that looked like a cupcake made out of seaweed, and took a bite. It was strangely gluey but tasted okay, sort of like raw meat. The food felt great and seemed to warm his cold body as he ate. He realized it had been a while since he’d had anything to eat. He tried the water, and it tasted very much the same as any water he had ever had before.

  “Again, I am sorry for the cold, but I am afraid it is easier for you to handle the cold than it is for me to handle the warmth. The maximum temperature on our world is about 5 degrees in the summer.”

  “Yes, I see, that is cold. Listen,” Michael said, changing the subject. “We are very pleased to meet you, it is a wonderful discovery, but we are here by accident. Our mission was supposed to take us

  only to a neighbouring planet in our solar system. Your technology is so advanced compared to ours, we were hoping you would know of a way for us to get home.”

  “I do not see how someone who can travel twenty seven light years could be less technologically advanced than ourselves,” Kaywal said slowly, his alien faced seemed sceptical.

  “That’s the thing, we hit a spacial anomaly and were transported to your system. You have ships larger and a lot faster than ours, and by the look of your guns, a lot better fire power.” Michael wondered if he was talking too much, saying things he shouldn’t, he shrugged off the feeling, they could trust these aliens, couldn’t they? They really didn’t know much about them, but they had saved them, and looked forward to meeting them, but something was still nagging at the back of his mind. He vowed to talk less about how much weaker they were than their new friends.

  “A special anomaly? We have not seen anything of the sort here.”

  “I’ve got some more questions, my ship -” Michael said.

  “Of course,” the alien interrupted. “But I suggest you save some for later, you must be eager to get warm and rejoin your crew. I must speak to my government and let them know we have you, and that you are coming.” Kaywal stood and Michael reluctantly did the same.

  “Are you taking us to your world?” he asked. After a slight hesitation, during which Kaywal stared straight into Michael’s eyes, he spoke.

  “We are taking you to our world,” he said, his tone rather icy. The change in tone made Michael uneasy, but he said nothing.

  The chief alien called to one of his guards, who escorted Michael back down to the room where his crew were relaxing in the warmth. The guard did not speak English, and did not communicate with him.

  “Captain,” Marshall said as soon as he entered. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, are Caitlin and Jean back yet?” Michael answered, looking around and appreciating the sudden heat of the room.

  “No,” Marshall replied. “What’s been going on?” A lot of the crew were asleep on comfortable looking sofas, others were laughing and joking, sampling the food, they seemed to be in good spirits. Michael was happy about this, they needed to relax after everything that had happened over the past month. However, he himself could not relax, something was bothering him, and, until he could figure out what it was, he couldn’t calm down.

  “We talked, they seem like a friendly species.” Michael explained about the probe and everything that Kaywal and himself had talked about.

  “They learn English in schools?” Lindsey said in awe. She was sitting on one of the sofas not far from them. She looked better than she did the last time he had seen her. The bruises on her face had subsided and her leg seemed to be fine. “One of the aliens passed some kind of healing device over

  my face,” she said to Michael’s quizzical look. “It doesn’t hurt at all any more.”

  Michael was glad she was okay, these aliens, the Friiist, Michael recalled, were helping them, but something was still nagging at the back of his mind, something seemed odd. He could not pinpoint it. Once again, he shrugged it off.

  He decided to find out what was happening with his two injured crewmen. He walked towards the door which had opened as he came in, not five minutes earli
er, only to find that it was locked. It didn’t open as he approached, and there weren’t any handles. He knocked on it a few times. After a moment, it opened. One of the aliens, wearing a grey uniform opened the door and looked at Michael.

  “Krrrau bbiiens krrraft,” it said incomprehensibly.

  “I want to see my injured crewmen,” Michael said slowly and clearly.

  “Proun,” came the answer. Michael frustrated, attempted to mime what he wanted but the alien looked even more confused than before.

  “Kaywal,” Michael said. “I want to see Kaywal.”

  “Proun,” he said again and closed the door. Michael turned back into the room.

  “Anybody understand that?” he asked the room.

  “I think he was saying ‘no’, Captain,” Lindsey said, “Did you notice the jerk of his left arm?”

  “Can’t say I did.”

  “Well,” she said impatiently, as though he was being slow. “He was moving it back and forth, like we do with our head when we say no. Also, the way he said it was short and to the point; ‘proun’ I think means ‘no’.”

  “Okay, so why refuse?”

  “Maybe they aren’t finished healing them?” Marshall offered.

  “Captain,” Jal yelled suddenly from over by the window. “You’ve got to see this!” She seemed extremely excited.

  Michael ran over to the window and gasped. Before them was a planet, it shone a brilliant whitish colour, with nuances of blue and green. They could make out continents on the surface and large areas covered with big stretches of water. Oceans, Michael thought. It was a beautiful sight.

  This must be the Friiist’s home world, the fifth planet.

  People who had been awoken by Jal’s cry, were now looking out of the windows themselves, admiring this beautiful view. Even though he knew, now, that there was a planet with life on it besides Earth, he still hadn’t imagined what a sight it would be. The reality of it stunned him. He almost wanted to weep from the sheer power of seeing such a thing. It made him sad that he wasn’t able to share this with the rest of humanity.