glenn84
08-13-2013, 11:12 PM
The Long Way Home
By Glenn R.
David Kincaid awoke in the stasis chamber of the ship, light-headed and convinced he had been suffocating. His eyes felt like they were being deep-fried in their sockets as the pod lights flashed on. Once they adjusted, he could see the row of pods through the misty glass, their inhabitants coming back to life after three years of deep sleep.
A screen popped up, notifying him of their successful arrival to their destination. Then the ship’s computer began giving instructions on what to do after waking from stasis sleep: drink lots and lots of water, eat a balanced meal, exercise. Things he already knew from hours upon hours of space training exercises back on Earth. So he bypassed the instructions and asked the computer to open the pod.
He fell face-first onto the rubber-matted floor, legs and arms failing him horribly. The room started to spin. There was a vomit container inches away from his head. He grabbed it and unloaded his guts into it, woefully and shamelessly. No amount of training could prepare you for this, he thought. When he came to, he noticed the others ejecting from their own pods, doing the same.
Nobody spoke as they filed into the mess hall. Food had been prepared hours before, still warm. David grabbed a little of everything and piled it onto his plate. Then he picked a spot in the far corner, close to the window, and took a seat. He gazed out the window. His heart sank in his chest at what he saw: black nothingness as far as the eye could see. Some of the others had been on exploratory flights before, so they knew what to expect. But this was David’s first mission. He felt alone, even with ten other crew members sitting a few feet away from him. Some of them had said that it was like being out in the middle of the ocean. But they lied. It was nothing like that. The truth was much scarier.
Then he saw the blue ball hovering in the distance, sparkling under the sun’s rays like a diamond in a cave, and he remembered why he’d joined this mission in the first place.
David was startled by a plate dropping at the seat across from him. “Is this seat taken?” He brought his eyes up to find Claire leaning over the table, her long black hair tied into a bun. She was the geographer assigned to the mission. Her job was to map out the land, determine if it was ideal for growing crops, and if it was enough for the two billion people back on Earth.
His mouth trembled. “Umm, no…go right ahead.”
She sat down and started digging into her food. David did the same, peeking out the window in between bites, as the ship inched its way closer and closer to the planet that might save the human race. “Exciting, isn’t it?” she said after a moment. “How we can just wake up and poof, we’re on the other side of the galaxy, getting ready to land on an alien planet we know absolutely nothing about.” Her reason and David’s reason for joining this mission were clearly not the same. David never liked ships, even the ones back home. He could never get used to being trapped in a steel container, flying thousands of feet above land, much less light years away from Earth. He was there for his family, to find a new home so they could have a future. Claire on the other hand joined up for the thrill of it. She had no family. They all died during the Great Famine, along with seven billion other people.
Before departing for this mission, New York City was put under state of emergency. People were being wheeled into hospitals by the second. His wife, being a prominent doctor, had been put on a twenty-four hour mandatory shift. When the government called David to ask him to partake in an exploratory mission, along with twenty-five other ships, he tried to get her to come with him. But she decided to stay behind. She even told him to leave without her, that her place was there, helping the sick, and his place was on the ship, to find a new home for everybody. She even slapped him when he tried to convince her that she couldn't do anything more for them, that they would eventually die like everyone else.
So he granted her wish and left. That didn’t change the way he felt about her. She was always committed to her work, as was he. But it seemed her first love was always her work. Whereas that changed for David the moment he met her.
After eating he made his way into his quarters, the lights automatically turned on as the door slid open. He forced himself to do some push-ups and pull-ups. Then he hopped into the shower. He heard the ship’s captain, Skipper, over the speakers, announcing that they were an hour away from making landfall. He stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. Then he sat at his workstation. He grabbed the memory chip that read HOME and inserted it into the computer’s drive, then he sat back in his chair as his wife greeted him onscreen. Just the sound of her voice was enough to unclench his muscles.
“David,” she said. Her smile made him forget about all their worries. “You’ll have awakened by now. I hear it can be pretty grueling, especially for your first time. Remember to drink plenty of water, and eat…eat a good meal.” Tears started forming in her eyes, she took a finger and wiped them away before they rolled down her soft, pink cheeks. Then she looked away for a second. Someone else was in her office. “I’ve got to go now, more patients just arrived. Remember, when you come back, try not to take the long way home. I love you.”
He rewound the video and paused on her smile, just before the real world came to take it away from him. He leaned forward and passed his fingers over the screen. While he was asleep, he must have had a hundred dreams of just the two of them; while working on projects, vacations, even their wedding night. They had met in graduate school in Columbia, the two of them taking two completely different paths. She chose to go the medical school route, while he continued on to get his PhD in biology.
To this day I still don’t know which one of us got the shorter end of the stick.
He was still touching the screen when Skipper’s face came up. “Dr. Kincaid,” he said, making believe he didn’t see what he just saw. “We’re about to make our descent. Better head on over.”
When he was inside the bridge, everyone was already seated. Through the cockpit window he could see the planet in all its glory. Zion. Water covered most of it, much like how Earth used to be, and pockets of land were scattered all over. Skipper set a course for the biggest one as David strapped himself into his seat.
The thrusters shot on as the ship positioned itself for atmospheric entry. He had gone over this part in training exercise at least a hundred times, but the reality of it was much more jarring. The ship bobbed and weaved through the clouds, descending at a speed of Mach twenty-five, as they made their way through the intricate layers of the atmosphere.
When it was over he realized his eyes were closed, and his hands were throbbing from gripping the handles on the seat. “You can open your eyes now, David,” said Claire, with a chuckle. When he did, the first thing he noticed was the majestic sky. It was daytime, but the stars and the planet’s three moons could be seen in the distance, sharing the horizon with the blazing sun. The result was a purple-orange sky that looked more like a painting than anything else.
He removed the strap and made his way closer to the window, to get a better look. The others did the same, as the ship coasted over the blue-green ocean, towards land.
“Long range scans are confirmed,” said John, a British atmospheric scientist. “The planet has all the gases necessary to harbor human life.” A loud beeping noise suddenly came from his computer. He started punching buttons like a madman, jerking his head side to side as he did. “Wait a minute. I’m picking up a new reading.”
“What is it?” asked David.
John turned to him, shaking his head. “I have no idea.”
“Hey guys,” said Claire, pointing to the window. “What the hell is that?” In the distance something was shining magnificently under the sun. If someone told David to take a guess of what it might be, his first answer would probably be a mountain of jewels.
“Computer,” said Skipper. “Zoom in to sector one-two-seven, and hold.”
Everyone held their breath as the window zoomed in on the anomaly.
Buildings.
One hundred space expeditions and no sign of intelligent life, yet here he was, on his first mission, and they find buildings.
“Scan for life forms,” David told John.
He nodded, forcing himself to look away. “Scanning.” He went to work on the computer. If David had known his way around the ship’s computer half as good as John did, he would have told him to get up. But since this was his first time on the ship, and they were on a tight schedule, he let him handle it.
After a moment he turned back to David. “Scan came back negative.”
“Well,” said Skipper, “looks like we’re doing it the old-fashioned way.” He looked up at Claire from his chair and grinned. “Suit up.”
There was a smile on Claire’s face as David made his way towards the door. “You don’t have to say that twice, Skip.”
When they were inside the transport, Skipper popped up on the heads-up display of the helmet. “We’re about to land. Brace yourselves.” After a minute the transport jolted back and forth as the ship finally touched down on solid ground, David let go a sigh of relief, his hot breath fogging up the glass inside his helmet. “Oh. My. God.”
“What, what is it?” asked John.
“See for yourself,” said Skipper. “Opening up the cargo bay door now. Godspeed.”
A whirring sound filled the cargo bay as the door opened. Fingers of sunlight entered through to illuminate the gloominess of the transport. Once it was opened completely the Special Forces soldier, Michael, gunned the transport from out of the belly of the ship.
The warm sun was on top of them now, and David could see the city up ahead. The architecture was intriguing. Instead of rectangular buildings, they were circular in shape. Vehicles were all over the place, but nobody was driving them. The whole place looked deserted.
“Wonder what happened here,” said Claire.
John shrugged. “Maybe they’re on vacation.”
The squad leader of the Special Forces team, Sgt. Carlos Martinez, pulled out his binoculars and pointed it towards the city. “There’s no movement,” he said. “Place is a ghost town. Even so, I want eyes peeled at all times. We knew this day would eventually come. Friendly or not, I’m not taking any chances.” He turned to everyone sitting in the back. “You got that?” Everyone nodded except for Claire. “Once we touch ground, my team will set up a perimeter. I don’t want any of you to move a muscle until I give the all clear.”
The transport hummed its way over the red dirt, leaving a dust cloud in its wake. David looked out the window as they entered the alien city, a shiver ran up his back. What he thought to be the sun glaring off windows back on the ship was actually the buildings themselves. The material they were made from gave the city a reflective effect that reminded him of a…mirror. The vehicles were oddly shaped as well, appearing like bugs, with six extensions that came out from the bottom, settling on the ground below it. There were no traffic lights, signs, or even sidewalks. It was just one road that ran straight through the city, with buildings, big and small, lining up on either side for as far as the eye could see.
After about fifteen minutes of driving through the barren city, the transport finally came to a stop. They all exited the vehicle, taking everything they would need to conduct their experiments. David took his own bioscanner with him. Just by pointing it at something with a biological makeup, he was able to gain important information that would help him determine the kinds of things that lived on the planet—plant and animal alike—and compare them to those found on Earth.
“Stay by the transport,” instructed Sgt. Martinez. “We’re going to make a quick sweep.” The four soldiers took their guns and split up; two went to the west part of the city, the other two took the east.
Claire bent down and took a sample of the red dirt while they waited. “Just as I thought, the soil isn’t arable.” She turned to John. “You got anything on that reading you picked up back on the ship?”
John held up his atmospheric scanner into the air. “Nope. But whatever it is, it isn’t natural, or else it would have shown up on our long range scans back on Earth.”
David looked around. He noticed there were no trees anywhere, no birds or animals of any kind either. Nothing he can use his scanner on. It reminded him of his home, in New York City, and not in a good way either.
“What do you make of this, David?” asked Claire.
He turned to face her, the way she said his name reminded him of his wife. “I honestly have no clue.”
“Take a wild guess.”
He turned back and pointed to the vehicles. “Looks like whoever lived here, left in a real hurry. There’s no signs of life, no trees, and then there’s the anomaly showing up in John’s scan. If I were a betting man, and I’m not, I’d bet the planet’s inhabitants were forced out of here.”
“By what?”
He shrugged. “No idea.”
Sgt. Martinez and his team were back after ten minutes, guns at their sides. “Ok, area’s clear.” He paused and pointed down the street. “We checked all the way up to that building there, so that’s our imaginary line. Nobody goes past that point.”
Claire leaned and whispered into David’s ear, “This is why scientists and muscle don’t mix.”
“I heard that.”
“Well, I’m glad you did sergeant, because there’s no way in hell we’re going to be able to do our jobs right if we’re stuck on a leash.”
Sgt. Martinez walked up to Claire with a menacing gaze. “If you have a problem with the way I’m doing my job, doctor, you’re more than welcome to take it up with my commanding officer. Oh, wait, I forgot, we’re fifteen light years away from the nearest command post. Good luck with that!”
There was silence for a moment.
John was the first to speak. “If we’re done bickering here, might I suggest we get a move on?” He brought his wrist up to look at his watch. “Sundown is in two hours, I would very much like to be back on the ship before then.”
Walking down the alien street was an eerie affair. Every now and then David would peek into the vehicles they passed, looking for anything with some sort of biomarker. Even a dead body would be useful. He could find out how long it had been dead, and what killed it. But they found nothing. The entire city had been abandoned, everything dropped and left behind.
After about an hour of roaming the street, they came upon a rather peculiar looking structure, not like any of the other buildings they’d passed weren’t odd in their own right. But this one was different. It was a triangular shaped building, and there was a sign outside, written in what David believed to be the native’s language.
They only had about another hour or so until nightfall. So they decided to go in and take a look.
It was pitch black inside, the sensors on the helmet picked up on it immediately and the lights came on. There were desks everywhere. The first thing that came to David’s mind was an office building of some kind. The seats looked like they were made for humanoids to sit in, so he sat down on one of them to test it out. He had to jump up, it was so high.
David heard Sgt. Martinez struggling with something behind him. “John, give me a hand with this, will ya?” After a moment, there was a loud crackling sound and then the lights came on. The desk David was sitting at revealed a 3D recording. Everyone came over to watch.
When he saw them he almost screamed.
They were tall and lanky, bald, with slits for mouths, and black, billiard-ball sized eyes. They moved fast, as if they were preparing for something…something big. But what?
Suddenly one of them spoke, and David could have sworn his eardrums had shattered as a result. “Turn it off!” he shouted. But they didn’t have to, the recording stopped after a few seconds. A blinking green light had taken the place of the aliens.
“What in the bloody hell was that?” John nervously asked.
“Sounded to me like some kind of warning cry,” Sgt. Martinez replied.
“I’m uploading it to the ship’s computer now,” said Skipper. “It’s going to take a couple hours, but I think we might be able to get an approximate date on when it was recorded.”
They searched around for another half-hour, but eventually decided to call it quits, taking back with them some souvenirs of their trip to the alien city.
The sun was starting to disappear in the distance as they made their way back to the ship. A blue-black sky took the place of the orange-purple one, and the three moons had ballooned in size.
Once inside they all met up on the bridge, to decide on their next move. Claire wanted to give it another go in the morning, but John had objected, citing the anomaly he picked up on his scanner as the reason.
That left David. He went over every possible scenario, the fact that there were no trees or animals of any kind did not help Claire’s position any. They still had three more planets to visit on their list, and any time they wasted here was time that could be spent traveling to the next one.
Though deep down he'd hoped they didn’t have to leave, because it meant a longer trip back to Earth, back to his wife. Personal attachments, however, had gone out the window when he decided to join up for the expedition; he knew that and his wife knew that. There was always the strong possibility that he might not make it back. And even if he did, she would be in her fifties, while he would have gone virtually ageless throughout the entire trip. Who knows if he would even recognize her anymore, or if she had gone ahead and met someone else while he was away…or worse. He had to think like a scientist, as did everyone else on this mission, if mankind was going to have any chance of surviving.
His decision was made that much easier when the ship’s computer had finally completed analyzing the recording. The computer had assured them it was recorded fifty years ago, right around the time the Great Famine had started on Earth, in the year 2060.
So in the end, he—and the rest of the crew—had agreed to go with leave. Even Claire couldn’t argue against the compelling evidence, saying that it reminded her too much of their own situation.
As Skipper set the course for their next destination, David sat back down at his workstation. He played back the recording of his wife over and over again, until Skipper’s voice came up on the speakers and ordered the crew to their stasis chamber.
He played it a couple more times and then made himself get up from his seat.
After putting on his stasis suit, he walked over to his chamber. He pressed the button for the lid to open and stepped inside, the lid closed. He kept replaying the recording in his head, of her smile, as the ship rocketed through space, taking the long way home…
When it hit him, the reason for her tears, for her sadness. This was a one way trip all along. There was never any going back to Earth. Tears came streaming down his cheeks. Then he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
END.
By Glenn R.
David Kincaid awoke in the stasis chamber of the ship, light-headed and convinced he had been suffocating. His eyes felt like they were being deep-fried in their sockets as the pod lights flashed on. Once they adjusted, he could see the row of pods through the misty glass, their inhabitants coming back to life after three years of deep sleep.
A screen popped up, notifying him of their successful arrival to their destination. Then the ship’s computer began giving instructions on what to do after waking from stasis sleep: drink lots and lots of water, eat a balanced meal, exercise. Things he already knew from hours upon hours of space training exercises back on Earth. So he bypassed the instructions and asked the computer to open the pod.
He fell face-first onto the rubber-matted floor, legs and arms failing him horribly. The room started to spin. There was a vomit container inches away from his head. He grabbed it and unloaded his guts into it, woefully and shamelessly. No amount of training could prepare you for this, he thought. When he came to, he noticed the others ejecting from their own pods, doing the same.
Nobody spoke as they filed into the mess hall. Food had been prepared hours before, still warm. David grabbed a little of everything and piled it onto his plate. Then he picked a spot in the far corner, close to the window, and took a seat. He gazed out the window. His heart sank in his chest at what he saw: black nothingness as far as the eye could see. Some of the others had been on exploratory flights before, so they knew what to expect. But this was David’s first mission. He felt alone, even with ten other crew members sitting a few feet away from him. Some of them had said that it was like being out in the middle of the ocean. But they lied. It was nothing like that. The truth was much scarier.
Then he saw the blue ball hovering in the distance, sparkling under the sun’s rays like a diamond in a cave, and he remembered why he’d joined this mission in the first place.
David was startled by a plate dropping at the seat across from him. “Is this seat taken?” He brought his eyes up to find Claire leaning over the table, her long black hair tied into a bun. She was the geographer assigned to the mission. Her job was to map out the land, determine if it was ideal for growing crops, and if it was enough for the two billion people back on Earth.
His mouth trembled. “Umm, no…go right ahead.”
She sat down and started digging into her food. David did the same, peeking out the window in between bites, as the ship inched its way closer and closer to the planet that might save the human race. “Exciting, isn’t it?” she said after a moment. “How we can just wake up and poof, we’re on the other side of the galaxy, getting ready to land on an alien planet we know absolutely nothing about.” Her reason and David’s reason for joining this mission were clearly not the same. David never liked ships, even the ones back home. He could never get used to being trapped in a steel container, flying thousands of feet above land, much less light years away from Earth. He was there for his family, to find a new home so they could have a future. Claire on the other hand joined up for the thrill of it. She had no family. They all died during the Great Famine, along with seven billion other people.
Before departing for this mission, New York City was put under state of emergency. People were being wheeled into hospitals by the second. His wife, being a prominent doctor, had been put on a twenty-four hour mandatory shift. When the government called David to ask him to partake in an exploratory mission, along with twenty-five other ships, he tried to get her to come with him. But she decided to stay behind. She even told him to leave without her, that her place was there, helping the sick, and his place was on the ship, to find a new home for everybody. She even slapped him when he tried to convince her that she couldn't do anything more for them, that they would eventually die like everyone else.
So he granted her wish and left. That didn’t change the way he felt about her. She was always committed to her work, as was he. But it seemed her first love was always her work. Whereas that changed for David the moment he met her.
After eating he made his way into his quarters, the lights automatically turned on as the door slid open. He forced himself to do some push-ups and pull-ups. Then he hopped into the shower. He heard the ship’s captain, Skipper, over the speakers, announcing that they were an hour away from making landfall. He stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. Then he sat at his workstation. He grabbed the memory chip that read HOME and inserted it into the computer’s drive, then he sat back in his chair as his wife greeted him onscreen. Just the sound of her voice was enough to unclench his muscles.
“David,” she said. Her smile made him forget about all their worries. “You’ll have awakened by now. I hear it can be pretty grueling, especially for your first time. Remember to drink plenty of water, and eat…eat a good meal.” Tears started forming in her eyes, she took a finger and wiped them away before they rolled down her soft, pink cheeks. Then she looked away for a second. Someone else was in her office. “I’ve got to go now, more patients just arrived. Remember, when you come back, try not to take the long way home. I love you.”
He rewound the video and paused on her smile, just before the real world came to take it away from him. He leaned forward and passed his fingers over the screen. While he was asleep, he must have had a hundred dreams of just the two of them; while working on projects, vacations, even their wedding night. They had met in graduate school in Columbia, the two of them taking two completely different paths. She chose to go the medical school route, while he continued on to get his PhD in biology.
To this day I still don’t know which one of us got the shorter end of the stick.
He was still touching the screen when Skipper’s face came up. “Dr. Kincaid,” he said, making believe he didn’t see what he just saw. “We’re about to make our descent. Better head on over.”
When he was inside the bridge, everyone was already seated. Through the cockpit window he could see the planet in all its glory. Zion. Water covered most of it, much like how Earth used to be, and pockets of land were scattered all over. Skipper set a course for the biggest one as David strapped himself into his seat.
The thrusters shot on as the ship positioned itself for atmospheric entry. He had gone over this part in training exercise at least a hundred times, but the reality of it was much more jarring. The ship bobbed and weaved through the clouds, descending at a speed of Mach twenty-five, as they made their way through the intricate layers of the atmosphere.
When it was over he realized his eyes were closed, and his hands were throbbing from gripping the handles on the seat. “You can open your eyes now, David,” said Claire, with a chuckle. When he did, the first thing he noticed was the majestic sky. It was daytime, but the stars and the planet’s three moons could be seen in the distance, sharing the horizon with the blazing sun. The result was a purple-orange sky that looked more like a painting than anything else.
He removed the strap and made his way closer to the window, to get a better look. The others did the same, as the ship coasted over the blue-green ocean, towards land.
“Long range scans are confirmed,” said John, a British atmospheric scientist. “The planet has all the gases necessary to harbor human life.” A loud beeping noise suddenly came from his computer. He started punching buttons like a madman, jerking his head side to side as he did. “Wait a minute. I’m picking up a new reading.”
“What is it?” asked David.
John turned to him, shaking his head. “I have no idea.”
“Hey guys,” said Claire, pointing to the window. “What the hell is that?” In the distance something was shining magnificently under the sun. If someone told David to take a guess of what it might be, his first answer would probably be a mountain of jewels.
“Computer,” said Skipper. “Zoom in to sector one-two-seven, and hold.”
Everyone held their breath as the window zoomed in on the anomaly.
Buildings.
One hundred space expeditions and no sign of intelligent life, yet here he was, on his first mission, and they find buildings.
“Scan for life forms,” David told John.
He nodded, forcing himself to look away. “Scanning.” He went to work on the computer. If David had known his way around the ship’s computer half as good as John did, he would have told him to get up. But since this was his first time on the ship, and they were on a tight schedule, he let him handle it.
After a moment he turned back to David. “Scan came back negative.”
“Well,” said Skipper, “looks like we’re doing it the old-fashioned way.” He looked up at Claire from his chair and grinned. “Suit up.”
There was a smile on Claire’s face as David made his way towards the door. “You don’t have to say that twice, Skip.”
When they were inside the transport, Skipper popped up on the heads-up display of the helmet. “We’re about to land. Brace yourselves.” After a minute the transport jolted back and forth as the ship finally touched down on solid ground, David let go a sigh of relief, his hot breath fogging up the glass inside his helmet. “Oh. My. God.”
“What, what is it?” asked John.
“See for yourself,” said Skipper. “Opening up the cargo bay door now. Godspeed.”
A whirring sound filled the cargo bay as the door opened. Fingers of sunlight entered through to illuminate the gloominess of the transport. Once it was opened completely the Special Forces soldier, Michael, gunned the transport from out of the belly of the ship.
The warm sun was on top of them now, and David could see the city up ahead. The architecture was intriguing. Instead of rectangular buildings, they were circular in shape. Vehicles were all over the place, but nobody was driving them. The whole place looked deserted.
“Wonder what happened here,” said Claire.
John shrugged. “Maybe they’re on vacation.”
The squad leader of the Special Forces team, Sgt. Carlos Martinez, pulled out his binoculars and pointed it towards the city. “There’s no movement,” he said. “Place is a ghost town. Even so, I want eyes peeled at all times. We knew this day would eventually come. Friendly or not, I’m not taking any chances.” He turned to everyone sitting in the back. “You got that?” Everyone nodded except for Claire. “Once we touch ground, my team will set up a perimeter. I don’t want any of you to move a muscle until I give the all clear.”
The transport hummed its way over the red dirt, leaving a dust cloud in its wake. David looked out the window as they entered the alien city, a shiver ran up his back. What he thought to be the sun glaring off windows back on the ship was actually the buildings themselves. The material they were made from gave the city a reflective effect that reminded him of a…mirror. The vehicles were oddly shaped as well, appearing like bugs, with six extensions that came out from the bottom, settling on the ground below it. There were no traffic lights, signs, or even sidewalks. It was just one road that ran straight through the city, with buildings, big and small, lining up on either side for as far as the eye could see.
After about fifteen minutes of driving through the barren city, the transport finally came to a stop. They all exited the vehicle, taking everything they would need to conduct their experiments. David took his own bioscanner with him. Just by pointing it at something with a biological makeup, he was able to gain important information that would help him determine the kinds of things that lived on the planet—plant and animal alike—and compare them to those found on Earth.
“Stay by the transport,” instructed Sgt. Martinez. “We’re going to make a quick sweep.” The four soldiers took their guns and split up; two went to the west part of the city, the other two took the east.
Claire bent down and took a sample of the red dirt while they waited. “Just as I thought, the soil isn’t arable.” She turned to John. “You got anything on that reading you picked up back on the ship?”
John held up his atmospheric scanner into the air. “Nope. But whatever it is, it isn’t natural, or else it would have shown up on our long range scans back on Earth.”
David looked around. He noticed there were no trees anywhere, no birds or animals of any kind either. Nothing he can use his scanner on. It reminded him of his home, in New York City, and not in a good way either.
“What do you make of this, David?” asked Claire.
He turned to face her, the way she said his name reminded him of his wife. “I honestly have no clue.”
“Take a wild guess.”
He turned back and pointed to the vehicles. “Looks like whoever lived here, left in a real hurry. There’s no signs of life, no trees, and then there’s the anomaly showing up in John’s scan. If I were a betting man, and I’m not, I’d bet the planet’s inhabitants were forced out of here.”
“By what?”
He shrugged. “No idea.”
Sgt. Martinez and his team were back after ten minutes, guns at their sides. “Ok, area’s clear.” He paused and pointed down the street. “We checked all the way up to that building there, so that’s our imaginary line. Nobody goes past that point.”
Claire leaned and whispered into David’s ear, “This is why scientists and muscle don’t mix.”
“I heard that.”
“Well, I’m glad you did sergeant, because there’s no way in hell we’re going to be able to do our jobs right if we’re stuck on a leash.”
Sgt. Martinez walked up to Claire with a menacing gaze. “If you have a problem with the way I’m doing my job, doctor, you’re more than welcome to take it up with my commanding officer. Oh, wait, I forgot, we’re fifteen light years away from the nearest command post. Good luck with that!”
There was silence for a moment.
John was the first to speak. “If we’re done bickering here, might I suggest we get a move on?” He brought his wrist up to look at his watch. “Sundown is in two hours, I would very much like to be back on the ship before then.”
Walking down the alien street was an eerie affair. Every now and then David would peek into the vehicles they passed, looking for anything with some sort of biomarker. Even a dead body would be useful. He could find out how long it had been dead, and what killed it. But they found nothing. The entire city had been abandoned, everything dropped and left behind.
After about an hour of roaming the street, they came upon a rather peculiar looking structure, not like any of the other buildings they’d passed weren’t odd in their own right. But this one was different. It was a triangular shaped building, and there was a sign outside, written in what David believed to be the native’s language.
They only had about another hour or so until nightfall. So they decided to go in and take a look.
It was pitch black inside, the sensors on the helmet picked up on it immediately and the lights came on. There were desks everywhere. The first thing that came to David’s mind was an office building of some kind. The seats looked like they were made for humanoids to sit in, so he sat down on one of them to test it out. He had to jump up, it was so high.
David heard Sgt. Martinez struggling with something behind him. “John, give me a hand with this, will ya?” After a moment, there was a loud crackling sound and then the lights came on. The desk David was sitting at revealed a 3D recording. Everyone came over to watch.
When he saw them he almost screamed.
They were tall and lanky, bald, with slits for mouths, and black, billiard-ball sized eyes. They moved fast, as if they were preparing for something…something big. But what?
Suddenly one of them spoke, and David could have sworn his eardrums had shattered as a result. “Turn it off!” he shouted. But they didn’t have to, the recording stopped after a few seconds. A blinking green light had taken the place of the aliens.
“What in the bloody hell was that?” John nervously asked.
“Sounded to me like some kind of warning cry,” Sgt. Martinez replied.
“I’m uploading it to the ship’s computer now,” said Skipper. “It’s going to take a couple hours, but I think we might be able to get an approximate date on when it was recorded.”
They searched around for another half-hour, but eventually decided to call it quits, taking back with them some souvenirs of their trip to the alien city.
The sun was starting to disappear in the distance as they made their way back to the ship. A blue-black sky took the place of the orange-purple one, and the three moons had ballooned in size.
Once inside they all met up on the bridge, to decide on their next move. Claire wanted to give it another go in the morning, but John had objected, citing the anomaly he picked up on his scanner as the reason.
That left David. He went over every possible scenario, the fact that there were no trees or animals of any kind did not help Claire’s position any. They still had three more planets to visit on their list, and any time they wasted here was time that could be spent traveling to the next one.
Though deep down he'd hoped they didn’t have to leave, because it meant a longer trip back to Earth, back to his wife. Personal attachments, however, had gone out the window when he decided to join up for the expedition; he knew that and his wife knew that. There was always the strong possibility that he might not make it back. And even if he did, she would be in her fifties, while he would have gone virtually ageless throughout the entire trip. Who knows if he would even recognize her anymore, or if she had gone ahead and met someone else while he was away…or worse. He had to think like a scientist, as did everyone else on this mission, if mankind was going to have any chance of surviving.
His decision was made that much easier when the ship’s computer had finally completed analyzing the recording. The computer had assured them it was recorded fifty years ago, right around the time the Great Famine had started on Earth, in the year 2060.
So in the end, he—and the rest of the crew—had agreed to go with leave. Even Claire couldn’t argue against the compelling evidence, saying that it reminded her too much of their own situation.
As Skipper set the course for their next destination, David sat back down at his workstation. He played back the recording of his wife over and over again, until Skipper’s voice came up on the speakers and ordered the crew to their stasis chamber.
He played it a couple more times and then made himself get up from his seat.
After putting on his stasis suit, he walked over to his chamber. He pressed the button for the lid to open and stepped inside, the lid closed. He kept replaying the recording in his head, of her smile, as the ship rocketed through space, taking the long way home…
When it hit him, the reason for her tears, for her sadness. This was a one way trip all along. There was never any going back to Earth. Tears came streaming down his cheeks. Then he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
END.