2012 : ETA
Proof of Alien Contact
W. Blake Heitzman
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 W. Blake Heitzman
Smashwords Edition, License Notes.
Although this ebook is free, it is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another person, please have them go to Smashwords.com and download their own copy. If you’re reading this book and did not download it, then please go to Smashwords.com and download a copy. This helps the writer know how many readers there are.
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More about W. Blake Heitzman and stories in progress or published can be obtained at his official website: http://www.shamangene.com/
Other books by W. Blake Heitzman
are:
A Far Traveler (to be released)
Panther
Watches (drafted)
Seekers of the Scroll (drafted)
The Forceps of Sandra (in planning)
Dedications: To Sandra and her sisters, who gave their lives to turn back the annihilators and thus made all peoples of the galaxy their children. The Shaman Gene series is dedicated to the Amazonian fleet that once stood between us and eternal darkness.
Finally, I thank my family who has endured my obsession to tell of our journey to join the star-farers and become part of the galactic community.
Table of Contents
An Essay: The Math of Alien Contact
From the Agenda-A Novelette
-----Chapter 2- The Children Are Missing
------Chapter 3 Going to the Fair
------Chapter 4 Communication Begins
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Enrico Fermi responded, “Why aren’t they here yet?” when asked about extraterrestrial intelligence. Then he used the Malthusian theorem to show that an alien civilization, their population and knowledge exponentially growing, should have colonized the entire galaxy. Since they aren’t here yet, he concluded that they didn’t exist. Astronaut Story Musgrave’s statement, on “Brad Meltzer’s Decoded: UFO,” that there may be billion-year-old civilizations out there in the stars, adds validity to Dr. Fermi’s position. A billion years is plenty of time to spread over the 100,000 light-year-wide Milky Way. Even traveling at sub-light speeds, they should be here. Or as Dr. Travis Taylor suggests in Alien Invasion, they may be here soon, very soon—possibly within your lifetime.
Had von Däniken been around, he would have said, “Well, Dr. Fermi, I must inform you that they have been here,” and then referred to his book, Chariots of the Gods, as proof. The book is filled with evidence of alien contact: Nazca Lines, Egyptian and Mayan hieroglyphics, mythical and religious writings, and other evidence from all over the world.
Others, ancient alien theorists, have expanded upon von Däniken, presenting more evidence in their books and the TV series, Ancient Aliens. (You can get it on Netflix.)
However, despite the compelling evidence, you have to wonder: What happened to those ancient alien visitors? Fermi hypothesized that they would seek to colonize, but if they came as von Däniken suggests, then they didn’t stay and colonize.
When I read Chariots, one part of the Bible jumped into my mind and it wasn’t Elijah, “who never died but was taken away in a fiery chariot.” Rather, it was Moses and the burning bush. Von Däniken and the Bible taken together inspired me to write A Far Traveler. At the time, I had no idea that I was proposing an alternative to both von Däniken and Fermi. In fact, I had no idea that Fermi had even considered aliens, but of course he had, any intellectual mind would have to consider it at some point.
Neither Fermi nor von Däniken had the benefit of the Kepler space mission, a probe sent out to find planets around other suns. Its interim findings are statistically significant and, for me, seal the deal. Approximately 5% of the stars have planets in their habitable zone, and of those, 10% are Earth-like. That puts about 8.6 million habitable planets within 1,000 light-years of Earth, all in commute range, even for beginning star-farers with sub-light speeds of 0.1 light-years/year. It’s a speed we should achieve within this century.
Calculating it, you might say 10,000 years of travel time is a bit much, but 10,000 years is for the furthest star-farer traveling at the lowest speed. Even so, it is reasonable for self-sustaining flotillas of colonizers, planet hopping along the way. But long voyagers, having no intent of returning home, are the worst kind of star-farers for us. They are the subject of Dr. Taylor’s book, Alien Invasion.
Within his book, Dr. Taylor makes a science-based calculation that implies there are sufficient advanced alien civilizations within range of Earth that we should be receiving frequent visitations from random explorers. He backs off a bit, given that we have no definitive evidence of a single alien visit. However, I embrace his number because it supports the underlining premise of The Shaman Gene, a four-part series of which A Far Traveler is the first—all of it written before I knew about the Kepler mission or Dr. Taylor. Furthermore, I embrace it because I believe the premise of the series to be true, although when I wrote it, I thought it was just fiction.
When I finished A Far Traveler, I thought I would write another novel and I pondered what it would be about. I knew I wanted Henri the Fourth of France in it and I realized I liked my protagonists from Traveler, and I also had some minor characters that I wanted to learn more about. Out of Panther Watches came three characters who capture the stage and add a twist in the story line, the idea that the aliens came, and kept coming, and some never left.
And that is the answer to Fermi—they are here; and it is the answer to von Däniken—they never left; and it is the answer to Dr. Taylor—they are prohibiting others from visiting us. We are part of their empire.
Why can’t we verify it? They aren’t bungling house burglars. If they’re sophisticated enough to keep those nasty star-faring colonists from making Earth home, then they’re sophisticated enough to avoid detection until they’re ready to be found.
2012: ETA contains my mathematical proof that aliens have been here plus several short stories from The Shaman Gene world. These are just tidbits, nothing about the key characters or the main plot, but I hope you do enjoy them. Last of all, please join me at www.shamangene.com and enter your real live encounters with non-humans into the Close Encounters Database. I’ll compile them at the website. Who knows, some of your stories may end up being part of the Shaman Gene world—mine did.
Hope you enjoy the stories and provide your comments at Amazon, or wherever you picked up the book. By the way, if you bought the paperback, be sure to get the free e-book. It has hyperlinks which you might find interesting.
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Essay: The Math of Alien Contact
W. Blake Heitzman, P.E.
People tend to base their world view on their life experiences. Remember when Grandpa told you, “It’s raining more now than I’ve ever seen before. Something’s wrong with the climate.” But is it reasonable to think that anyone’s lifespan is valid litmus for 5 billion years of climatic history? People act like it is, even scientists do it, and it’s flawed. Based on their narrow view of the evidence, conventional archeologists say there is no proof of extraterrestrial contact with Earth. Perhaps if they took a galactic perspective, they would arrive at a different conclusion.
The billions of stars in our galaxy guarantee some other Earths somewhere, but until recently, we didn’t have the means to know how many, nor how close to Earth they might be. Now information from the Kepler space mission infers that about 0.5% of planets are Earth-sized and in the habitable zone of their sun. This opens two important possibilities:
Intelligent life may be close enough to reach Earth.
Very ancient intelligent life may exist in the older parts of the galaxy. As Astronaut Story Musgrave said on Decoded, some alien civilizations may be a billion years old.
The Kepler information strengthens the argument for extraterrestrial contact with Earth, but the conventional view of antiquity explains most artifacts quite well, and as such, is a solid premise. So why would we look to change it? The problem is that a theory may be solid, but that doesn’t make it the best theory. As an analogy, Newtonian mechanics explained nearly 100% of applicable events, but Einstein’s relativity explained the few situations Newton could not, making it the better theory.
Of course, we know that ancient alien theorists, as well as other super-intelligence theorists, have written dozens upon dozens of books addressing artifacts that aren’t well explained by conventional thought. With this abundance of alternative ideas it would be useful to sift out the one that explains ancient anomalies best. This can be done through a simple ranking process.
A full study isn’t within the scope of this essay; however the example below demonstrates the potential of a rigorous examination. In the example below, four common super-intelligence theories and the conventional view are tested on a small set of ancient anomalies.
Extraterrestrial
Of the alternatives, extraterrestrial is the easiest for us to imagine. After all, we each began to march through space with our first baby steps. From there we graduated to flying in planes and watching astronauts in orbit then Star Trek prophesized that humans would overcome the problems of distance and time to travel among the stars and meet other star-farers. Maybe more importantly, about six percent of us have seen an UFO. Therefore, it’s not difficult for us to imagine extraterrestrial visitors. Even if we don’t understand the physics that they must overcome to get here, we, including many scientists, do have faith that at least a few of them will figure it out.
Time traveler
Extraterrestrials are also time travelers; however this hypothesis proposes that our descendents would come back to manipulate their past, or perhaps to prevent it from being manipulated.
We can conceptualize it. Science fiction writers have produced volumes about it, but other than astronauts who have shifted a minute or two, we’ve never done time travel. It remains a creation of the sci-fi world, but we have to assume that if our civilization lasts long enough, our descendents will figure it out.
Pre-existent human civilization
The Seven Cities of Cibola, Atlantis, the lost continent of Mu—all places of previous knowledge and wealth that left behind only memories of their greatness. Atlantis is thought to have been the Minoan capital on the Isle of Santorini. Cibola might have been cities of the Amazon. Mu might be a myth, but, what if Mu, or some other advanced human civilization, were crushed out by the last Ice Age and the associated asteroid strike? Probably the survivors would devolve back to the Stone Age, bringing forward myths of their former greatness.
Alternate universe
This is a difficult concept. While we know that stars, time, and history exist, we don’t really have proof that a parallel universe exists. On a subatomic level we know some things don’t make sense, but does that mean there is a parallel universe, or does it mean we’re just dumb?
Since our knowledge of parallel universes is sketchy, it is difficult to assess how there gets here, if there is a “there” there. Maybe creatures such as Sasquatch, having no technical knowledge, drop through “thins” à la Stephen King. Or maybe it takes extremely advanced, God-like knowledge to pry open the doors to another universe. It is all talk, pure supposition.
Test Case Anomalies
From the extensive list of anomalies in the artifact record, four have been chosen for this limited trial: The gold model “aircraft” found in Columbia, the Cyclopean walls found near Cuzco and other places, the Nazca Lines, and the practice of skull deformation. How each fits a theory is rated as follows:
0—theory fails to explain anomaly
1—theory marginally explains anomaly
2—theory embraces the anomaly
Gold model airplanes
These have been discussed in the Ancient Alien TV series, various books and papers, and most recently Legendary Times [See Reference Note 1 at the end of the essay].
The conventional explanation is that these are stylized birds, insects, or fish, or are the products of hallucinations. There are immediate problems with this.
First, these cultures produce true to form models of birds and fish. If they make model birds to look like birds, then it makes sense that they make model planes to look like planes.
A bigger problem is that the rear stabilizers of the models look like nothing found in nature, but are perfect representations of aerodynamic machines. They are so perfect that if conventional archeologists weren’t so adamant about the impossibility of super-intelligent intervention, they would have to agree that these represent aerodynamic machines. It’s that blatant.
Rankings regarding the model aircraft: The extraterrestrial theory explains the model aircraft very well. We expect aliens to arrive in aerodynamic craft, or at least to use them to move around in our atmosphere. Extraterrestrial theory rates a 2. The other super-intelligence premises would include knowledge of aerodynamics, but we wouldn’t expect these travelers to arrive in aircraft. I wouldn’t expect survivors of a pre-existing civilization to have flying machines; at best they might have cultural memories of them. As such, the three other alternatives provide marginal explanations for the aircraft models. They each get a 1. Conventional theory fails and gets a 0.
Cuzco’s Walls
The Inca walls at Sacsayhuaman, near Cuzco, have huge (cyclopean) precisely-mated stones, some weighing up to 100 tons [Note 2]. The cyclopean name comes from the stones being so large that later generations believed giant Cyclopes had moved them. The ones at Cuzco are of interest because of their size, pleasing and complex shapes, and the precision mating of the surfaces.
Conventional archeology has proposed that the placing of these stones was accomplished using only primitive devices: levers, inclined planes, and roller logs. To get the precise fit, it is thought that the upper stone was positioned on scaffolding over its lower mate, and the matching surfaces were scribed to perfection [Note 3]. This proposal suggests that the knobs and notches on the surface of many of the stones are there to facilitate the seating of scaffolding to hold the upper stone in place while the surfaces were being worked.
As an engineer, I’m concerned about the use of logs and primitive ropes to hold a 100 ton stone with precision above its mate while all matching surfaces are being honed.
For perspective, think of a stone as heavy as two Abrams tanks being positioned in mid-air exactly over its mate so that workers can crawl underneath this giant deadfall to smooth the surfaces above, below and around until they match. Even conventionalists admit that the builders had only one chance to do it right. Once the upper stone was dropped into position there was no do over.
The static problem of suspending the stone is less baffling than the dynamic problem of moving the stone off the ground and into a precise spot in the air. This hoist would have to be sturdy enough to raise a two-tank stone up and down, right and left, back and forth, until it was exactly where it should be, without shifting, or twisting.
This might be possible, but I need to see it.
Rankings regarding the cyclopean matched stones: The super-intelligence concepts, except pre-existing civilization, should have the technology to handle the issues of stone movement, honing, and placement. They each get a 2. Although an ancient civilization may have residual knowledge regarding the stonework, I expect their descendents would not have the tools to accomplish it. With primitive tools, this idea is no more compelling than the conventional one.
Since the conventional approach has a proposal, which has been partially tested on smaller stones [Note 4], I give it and the ancient civilization idea a 1.
Nazca Lines and Cahuachi Culture
Associated at least somewhat regionally with Cuzco are the Nazca Lines, one of von Däniken’s first and strongest arguments for ancient extraterrestrial contact. This plus the more recent and eerie discovery of Cahuachi burials with elongated skulls makes the region a prime candidate for alien contact.
Much effort has gone into discrediting the extraterrestrial theory for the Nazca Lines. Some argue that the lines could have been constructed without guidance from above. Another argument says that the soil under the lines is more compacted than the surrounding soil, an indication that the natives used the lines for religious processionals. How either of these arguments discredits an ancient alien theory is beyond me. Clearly the lines were constructed to be seen by sky gods, not ocean gods, nor earth gods. Processionals over them would imply an attempt to influence these sky gods, something quite believable since the desert environment has clear skies, making it possible to see the geoglyphs from space more than 300 days per year.
Self-mutilation has been a cultural practice in many parts of the world: Tattooing, neck stretching, lip stretching, piercing, and skull deformation. Self-mutilation is generally believed to elevate the individual’s status in some fashion.
Skull deformation was practiced several other places; some of these are also believed to have been centers of alien influence. Egyptian relief carvings, statues, and paintings depict Pharaohs and gods as having elongated heads [Note 5]. What could elevate one’s status more than having the cranial characteristics of a god, or magical being?
Rankings regarding the lines and skull elongations
These rankings will be taken together for each theory. The conventional explanation is feasible, but not comprehensive since it doesn’t provide a source of inspiration for the lines nor the skull mutilation. It gets a 1 on both.
Head elongations are compatible with both alternative universes and extraterrestrials, i.e., influence from non-human beings. Those theories get a 2 for that anomaly. However, the alternate universe idea doesn’t provide a good reason for the lines. Parallel universe travelers might just as well pop out of the side of a mountain, or suddenly materialize in an open field. They would not be expected to descend from the sky. Therefore a parallel universe idea is no better than the conventional belief on the geoglyphs and gets a 1. The extraterrestrial theory embraces the lines as signals to the sky gods and gets a 2.
Time travelers and ancient human civilizations offer no addition explanations for the geoglyphs or the skulls, and get a 1 on both.
Table
1 shows the ratings of the five theories with respect to the four
anomalies.
Extraterrestrial ranks well above the others, but before choosing, we should compare the plausibility of each premise. If the assumptions behind a theory are weak, then it must be discarded, even if it has a high ranking.
Let’s review the key assumptions we must make in each case.
The time traveler idea assumes that (1) controlled time travel is possible, but we have no indication that it is, (2) human civilization will continue far enough into the future to master it, but we don’t know that, and (3) our descendents will want to travel back and influence their ancestors, but we don’t have a compelling reason to believe they would. All three are iffy.
Ancient civilization assumes that (1) a previously advanced civilization collapsed, but we don’t have strong evidence of this, plus there is a time constraint in that homo sapiens are thought to have been as we are for only the last 50,000 years, and (2) the civilization’s advanced metal and written artifacts were ALL destroyed, or we have somehow failed to find them, but this seems implausible. An advanced civilization would have prepared a time capsule and placed it such that future civilizations, or galactic explorers, would find it. Also the ancient civilization idea doesn’t offer much of an advantage over the conventional theory.
The biggest problem with parallel universes is that they are more proposed than proven. Cosmologists Paul Davies and George Ellis [Note 6] argue that multi-verse theories lack testability, therefore are currently unconfirmed. We have to make a leap of faith that an alternative universe even exists, which puts it on a shaky foundation.
On the other hand, extraterrestrial theory has a solid basis. Even at our crude level of space exploration, we already have evidence that our galaxy has millions of planets capable of supporting intelligent life. To make extraterrestrial theory plausible we only need to show that some are close enough to visit us, and that isn’t difficult to do.
The average star density in the galaxy is 51 stars per square light-year [Note 7]. That puts 160 million stars within 1,000 light-years of Earth [Note 8]. Based on initial Kepler mission findings, 5.4% of all stars have planets in the habitable zone, and 10% of those are Earth-like. This yields 8.6 million and 800,000 planets, respectively.
These numbers compare well with Dr. Travis Taylor’s estimate in the first 16 pages of his book, Alien Invasion, a book built on the theme that it is not whether we will face an extraterrestrial invasion, but when. Dr. Taylor is well qualified to make this calculation, having three Masters and a Ph.D. in related fields. Using his calculation that 201,062 star-faring civilizations are within striking distance, he estimates that Earth could be discovered by twenty different random explorers per year. He then backs off, saying, “Twenty visits per year seem much too fantastic to be readily believed.” But with thousands of UFO sightings reported annually, why should it seem fantastic that 20 of them might be real? In addition, up to 20% of the Project Blue Book sightings are unexplained, particularly many well-documented ones.
However, Dr. Taylor does reduce his original estimate, dividing by 100 to get 1 visit per five years, and dividing by 1,000 to get one visit per fifty years. Even these huge reductions have major implications for ancient alien theory. Using the two reduced numbers as 95% confidence intervals, we project between 60 to 600 visits to Earth from different extraterrestrial civilizations during the last 3,000 years.
I have emphasized different because once an alien society has discovered us, it seems reasonable that they would start making scheduled visits. These would be in addition to the random visits.
But let’s take the position of conventionalists and suggest that somehow we have completely avoided contact with extraterrestrials over the last 3,000 years. Using the lowest number from above, one visit per 50 years, we can calculate the odds of that happening. If the resulting probability is diminutive, then extraterrestrial influence should be found in the human record.
The chance of absolutely no alien contact can be calculated using the binomial distribution. It’s the same formula you would use to determine the chances of flipping heads 5 times in a row. It can be applied to any “is it” or “is it not” situation.
One visit per fifty years is a 0.02 probability of alien contact in any year and a 0.98 probability of no contact in any year. The probability of no contact in each of 3,000 years is 0.98 raised to the 3,000th power. This is an extremely small fraction, about 5 divided by 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That’s close enough to zero to be called zero, making it a certainty that Earth has been visited by at least one alien civilization during the last 3,000 years.
Placing these numbers on a normal curve (Figure 1), we could say we are 95% confident that from 60 to 600 different alien societies have visited Earth during the last 3,000 years IF, and this is a huge IF, alien societies are able to travel unimpeded through our part of the galaxy.
This begs Enrico Fermi’s question, “Then why aren’t they here?” Or put another way, “Why aren’t there 60 or more alien embassies on Earth?”
I believe the answer is very simple: The galaxy contains political entities with associated borders. Long ago, Earth was likely discovered and absorbed into one of those political states. That first state allowed Earth-alien contact, hence the existence of the evidence cited by ancient alien theorists.
However, ancient scriptures tell of at least one galactic war, therefore it is possible that Earth was won by a second political entity. This second entity seems to forbid formal Earth-alien contact; hence we have no recent proof of alien involvement here. The reason for this behavior lies in the realm of speculation until they decide to come forward, something I believe they someday will do. Until then we should continue to develop our knowledge and hope that no malevolent society defeats our current protectors.
End of Essay
Reference Notes:
Note 1– Dr. Algund Eenboom, ‘Gold Planes, Cargo Cults, and the “Flying Shamans” Mystery’, Legendary Times, Volume 10, No. 1 & 2
Note 2 – John Hemming and Edward Ranney, Monuments of the Incas (1982)
Note 3 – NOVA: Inca, PBS. 1995.
Note 4 – ibid., NOVA: Inca
Note 5 – Klaus de Laak, ‘An Egyptian Mystery about Skull Anomalies’, Legendary Times, Volume 10, No. 1 & 2
Note 6 – Paul Davies, "A Brief History of the Multiverse", The New York Times, 12 April 2003. < http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/12/opinion/a-brief-history-of-the-multiverse.html?pagewanted=all>
Note 7 – the calculation for approximating average star density within the Milky Way —the radius of the galaxy is roughly 50,000 light-years, square that and take it times Pi then divide the result into 400 billion stars. This assumes a flat plate-like galaxy.
Note 8 – the calculation for stars within 1,000 light-years of Earth is 1,000 squared taken times Pi, then times 51, yielding roughly 160 million stars.
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Section Two : Short Stories
**
The observation deck was deserted, as desolate and dark as the void above it. Bujitor sipped his drink and cast an apprehensive gaze up into the blackness, a blackness speckled by infrequent stars, their sparkle lost in emptiness; an emptiness so foreboding that he was alone, always alone on the observation deck.
He thought of the home planet, its night thick with stars—blues, reds, yellows, and whites—strung like lights overhead, declaring a perpetual raucous party. Home was up there now in the meandering galactic arm, so distant its cornucopia of stars faded into a wisp as ephemeral as a morning haze hanging low, shifting, thinning, disappearing; the disbelieving eye wondering if it were ever there. Home, a haze so thin it might not be there, too unsettling to contemplate, but Bujitor tried.
He gulped down the last half of his drink, one long swallow, the vanquished glass coming to the table with a loud clang. He stared at his hand, ghostly in the dark, wondering if he were becoming inebriated, misjudging distance and speed, or was it the blackness itself that made judgment difficult?
“Paying my dues,” he said, his voice cutting against the silence. “To be captain of a cruiser, one must pay his dues on the fringe.”
The intercom beeped, followed by First Officer Kale’s cheery voice: “Good morning, Captain.”
Counting, “Three, two, one,” came from someone in the background.
Then Kale continued, “We have just entered the Shaman System, Galactic Societies Patent Gimish One. Gimish’s only patent for that matter, hopefully a good one for the sake of his descendents and for us having to be here.”
“Now, now,” Bujitor teased back, “Mr. Gimish has provided us with an opportunity to serve Galactic Societies, plus GS will compensate our families handsomely while-”
Kale interrupted, breaking protocol. “Sorry Captain,” he apologized. “The sniffer just sensed an ion trail.” In the background Bujitor heard the staccato of voices barking commands and exchanging data as the crew mobilized to high alert.
“Ah,” Kale started, then paused. Bujitor could hear Herm, their intelligence seraph, speaking in the background. Although Bujitor was curious, he didn’t interrupt, not wanting to distract the seraph’s computers.
“Yep,” Kale said, again speaking to Bujitor. “Sure enough, its trail vectors to the third planet, the one with the sentient beings we’re to protect. Shall we wait for you to join us?”
“No, put it on the screen; I’ll work here,” Bujitor replied.
“Yes sir,” Kale snapped, and the dark void of the observation deck burst bright with pulsing reds and oranges as the view turned inward onto the Shaman sun, its brilliance wincing Bujitor’s eyes into slits.
“Got him,” Kale called out. “He’s flying beaconless.”
The blinding light dissipated as the view shifted to the third planet. Bujitor studied the scene and affirmed, “He hasn’t seen us yet.”
“Well he knows that he shouldn’t be here. We’ve got markers throughout this solar system saying it’s quarantined from interference,” Kale noted.
“Aren’t we lucky,” Herm quipped. “Only moments ago, we were going to sit here for sixty years, our brains fossilizing, now we got action.”
“Easy for you to say,” Kale jibed and chuckled at Herm, a synthetic being, complaining about boredom. “Probably could sit contently spinning scenarios for centuries. Maybe even create your own galaxy if we gave you enough power,” Kale said.
Everyone chuckled, even Herm, although his sounded hollow.
“The ship could be a primitive. Maybe he’s not advanced enough to read our markers,” Bujitor suggested, not believing it.
“No,” Herm retorted, “I’ve already run the analysis, no habitable planets are close enough for a primitive to get here.”
“So that leaves what we’re all thinking,” Kale said. “It’s a Schat. Perfect set-up for him, a remote inhabited planet, just needs to grab some slaves to set up a stripping operation. He’s beaconless so he can skedaddle if enforcement shows up.”
“Looks like we’re going to wreck his party,” Bujitor joked, then ordered, “Seer, energize. When you confirm that it’s a Schat, take out his generators.”
“Captain Bujitor, I am operational now,” the armaments seraph replied as he slid into his station, his internal computers linking between the ship’s sensors and its weapons, putting him in charge of all combat systems.
“Kale, let’s jump down there and join that Schat. Use Planet Shaman as a shield; I want it to be a surprise,” Bujitor quipped.
An instant later they sat in ambush, hiding in the shadow of the planet as the unsuspecting vessel slowly emerged from the far side of the moon. It was a medium-size transport, the type preferred by Schats for capacity, weapons, and durability.
Bujitor waited, and when the ship was in the open and vulnerable, he broadcasted his demand, “Flagless transport, you are in violation of a GS demarcation. Make ready for a security inspection.”
The vessel surged in a dash to hide behind the planet. That move was one bit of data among hundreds funneling from the ship’s sensors to Seer’s decision matrix, but it was the last one he needed, and as the transport accelerated, he struck its main generator, sending it wobbling out of control.
The Schat’s response was seamless, kicking in his auxiliary unit as he continued the desperate drive to hide.
If nothing else, Bujitor thought, Schats are excellent pilots, and as he thought about it, there was nothing else good about them.
“Pursue,” Bujitor ordered dryly and unnecessarily.
Everyone knew what was next. With the planet as a shield, the pirates would shove their slaves into garbage containers and jettison them into the sun. They would destroy the evidence of exploitation by eliminating the exploited. If successful, Bujitor could do nothing more than escort the ship from the quarantine zone.
**
The Schat pirates were taking them to the game room: the woman, the teenage girl, and the female child of four. The woman had known that the girl was coming of age and had been preparing her for months.
“Vicky, they will do things that are disgusting and sometimes hurt.” Then she would explain so Vicky would know what to expect. When Vicky said she would rather be a laborer, the woman reminded her that the pirates could still do those same things, but common slaves got less food and no health care.
“Vicky, they keep their women healthy and pretty. They don’t want sex with a toothless hag.”
Vicky said, “I’d rather die.”
The women replied, “But the longer you live, the more chances of escape, the more chances for revenge.”
Vicky understood vengeance; the women of her planet were famous for it; they were feared for it.
Still the woman knew that Vicky could well go crazy when the pirates molested her. She told Vicky, “It is important for you to endure, to live, and to learn.”
Yes, learning was part of revenge, learning and sharing the knowledge with a compiler. The woman was a compiler. All the compilers were women from Vicky’s planet.
Most of the slaves had given up. For them life and death were blurred, one occasionally more preferable than the other. However, some slaves hoped to live, live a real life again somehow, and if not, then they lived for revenge.
When they worked, they watched and they listened. They watched the pirates operate the controls, remembering the sequence of buttons and levers. They remembered conversations, orders, comments, even jokes. Then, as best they could, they told it all to the compilers.
For instance, a slave might report, “Woman, today I saw the mechanic inspect the chute.” In her mind, she would see the chute door as if she were standing before it.
Then the slave might say, “I saw Drake press the keypad with his finger, up, across, down and left, and there twice,” and her mind would see Drake, how he moves with all his idiosyncrasies. To this she would add all previous information given to her about the chute, visualizing it as clearly as puzzle pieces on a table. She played with it, testing and fitting, making a movie of it, and eventually she would know everything needed to open the panel, or to operate an engine, or do anything, and finally, to do everything on the ship.
That eventuality had come.
Just yesterday a kitchen slave had told her that a Schat had said, “The capt’n blown a marker an’ we’ll all be wipin’ clean if it’s more’n a slug spinnin’ the orbs.”
The woman knew it meant that the captain had entered controlled territory, probably Galactic Societies’, and if the patrol boat were fast and big, then the crew would dump the slaves before they could be boarded. She knew how that would be done. The pirates had run evac drills where they herded the slaves toward the garbage ejectors.
If the kitchen slave was right, then their time was short.
She lowered her hand, letting the little one grasp her finger as the dark pirate eyed her, slowly, lasciviously, and said to his stringy-haired accomplice, “Aye Curly, we ought warm us wit the old one, she’s still got looks un what knows she’ll not last forever.”
He grinned at her, his eyes cold.
Curly thrust his face at her and cackled, “You ought now be sayin’ ya wants it, thinks ya so? Or want ya the missy bein’ scared and makin’ fits, gettin’ herselfs hurt without need be, thinks ya, eh?”
The woman smiled seductively. “Oh, yeah, me first would be pleasin’.” Then she turned to Vicky and reassured, “That way you’ll see what be funnin’ for ‘em, and knows goot behavin’.”
She worked hard to keep herself pretty and to not be returned to the work pool. She did it to keep the girls’ hopes alive, and she did it for one more day, because the next day may be the day.
“Why brung her the teeny one?” Curly asked.
“Not wanted to leave it with the rabble,” said the dark one. “God know their men be vile wit’ the chillins.”
“Un ya let her hab her way ‘cause she be whinin’ a bit at ya,” Curly lambasted.
“Yeah, me thinks it a goot way fer the young one to learn, so’s when her day come, it ain’t bein’ no surprise.”
“Uh,” Curly grunted unconvinced. “Surprise be goot. Makes ‘em frantic not knowin’ what be next.”
Even with adjusting gravity the sudden swerve threw them all off balance. The dark one stumbled against the wall, bracing himself as he searched frantically for the declaration board.
“Damn,” he spat, as he spotted the announcement. “Fuckin’ patrol be lockin’ us.”
The ship shuddered and sirens shrieked. The pirates’ faces went glum; game room wasn’t going to happen.
Time slowed down for the woman; she focused on every twitch of their lips, the erratic jerks of their eyes.
“Haps, it be a slug,” Curly offered and they waited for the sirens to desist.
The girls glanced at each other, then to the woman, their eyes hopeful. She blinked, and in response they flicked their eyes about as if confused, then turned their heads down, portraying fright.
The escape chute, Vicky thought. On the map in her head it was just around the corner, a few steps away. Both the woman and Vicky knew the access code. They only needed a minute to get to it, to launch, to escape.
The siren pattern began to cycle short-long, over and over.
“No gamin’,” the dark one whined, “Ain’t no slug, got to be wipin’.”
They had already gotten themselves hot thinking about their play time and it affected their minds. They ogled Vicky, their minds whirling for a way to get a fast one and mixing in contrived scenarios where the alarm was just a practice drill. Lusting so, they hesitated, hoping play time might still occur in some form.
The lights flickered, went dim, then dead, as the whine of the main generator fell silent. The auxiliaries kicked in, lighting the space in a ghostly haze. Curly nodded toward the garbage dump.
The dark one raised his hand, shaking it vigorously, signaling, “Let’s wait a bit.” Curly nodded in quick agreement, and they both stared up at the lights, waiting, hoping for a change.
Seeing their indecision amid the chaos, the woman schemed to leverage it. Cat-like, she slid toward the pirates, her motion slow and imperceptible. Her eyes flicked toward the chute sending the girls inching in that direction.
As she prepared to spring, a mechanic’s wagon raced up the pathway toward them. Her mind flashed to the tool tray that they all carried and the large wrench that invariably lay beside it.
He was ten yards away when the lighting went dark again, but she already had locked in his route and speed. As the driver toggled his lamps on, he turned to look back, curious about the scrape of metal that came from his tool box. The wrench, at full swing, crushed his temple, and his body collapsed limp to the floorboards.
The fading light of the passing wagon jolted the pirates into full panic. Thinking it may be their last light, they raced to the chute, desperate to escape before darkness imprisoned them forever in the doomed hull.
The wagon continued to roll, leaving only the weak luminescence of its taillights for the men to punch in the code. Stuttering out the sequence, the dark one gripped the escape lever as he watched his partner’s fingers fumble over the dim keypad.
She slipped in behind them, measuring the distance as the chute door clicked. Nearby, the driverless wagon slammed into the pathway wall, causing a shower of sparks as it lurched to a stop. Its rumble spiked the pirate’s fear and they began to flail, trying to force their way into the escape module.
Her downward swing cracked Curly’s skull with a hollow thud. The upward return caught the dark one’s jaw, sending him limp against the wall. She finished each with a vengeful swing to the temple, their heads banging against the deck with rubbery thumps.
Gloom smothered the remaining light, light she didn’t need to open the basket lid.
“Get in,” she said.
The little one understood and resisted. “Mother,” it was the name given to all the older women of her race, “please come.”
“No, there’s only air for two,” she replied.
“Mommy, I’m afraid. You come,” the little one repeated.
The mother grabbed the child, caressing her between arms and bosom. “Vicky will protect you. All will be well.”
Then, embracing Vicky, she explained, “The planet below is inhabited, it’s a good chance. At the end, the ride will be rough, but that’s the atmosphere. Soon you’ll be breathing real air again.”
**
The Schat robots were ancient, no match for the warrior seraphim, and within minutes the Schat vessel was secure, but then the surprise came. The seraphim reported that the ship’s atmosphere had been vented. All of the mortals were dead—pirates and slaves. This upset Bujitor. The hit to the generators should not have done that, so he sent Herm in to sort it out.
It took him several hours, but Herm’s report was certain: The slaves fought back rather than be herded into the garbage ejectors. Somehow they worked their way through service ducts to the atmospheric compressor and bled it to space, suffocating the pirates and themselves.
**
The escape basket hurled down, bouncing through the atmosphere like a careening sled, finally coming to rest in a desert valley. Vicky and the little one indulged for a moment, taking deep breaths of the night air and squatting to run the sand through their fingers. Then Vicky took the child’s hand and pointed to the distant shimmering strip where shiny objects zoomed back and forth. An hour later, she and her sister wandered into an interstate rest stop.
A woman, on her way to Las Vegas, spied them sitting at a picnic table. They wore simple, dirty smocks, and glanced about, seemingly disorientated. She noticed that they cringed away from men, but when their eyes met hers, they smiled. She tried English and Spanish, her poor Italian, then her horrid Russian; nothing worked. However, they willingly got into her car, so she took them to protective services in Las Vegas, where they were registered as “origins unknown.”
____
The neon tube, pencil thin and twisted, spelled “Open” in flickering pink by the windowless door in the cinder brick wall. Its placement at the end of the old strip mall, facing the side, avoided embarrassment to the storefronts—the aquarium shop, the pet groomer, and the discount grocery—and announced it was a bar or a brothel.
Brad usually went by it without a thought, but this evening his curiosity sent him cruising past the shops to park in the dirt side lot used by locals. He stood by his car, shook his legs and stretched, acting busy while he considered going in.
Opposite him, a cottonwood stood, its leaves shimmering and softening the hard edges of the cityscape, its shadow crawling across the ground, staking nature’s claim on the hardened earth, a claim that would inevitably be consummated.
Being new in town, he needed an alternative to watching TV alone, yet he still debated entering the gray world beyond the windowless wall. As he stood undecided, a car rolled past the tree and up to a spot nearby. The occupant eyed him, probably wondering whether to tuck a revolver into a pants pocket. The bellicose stare forced Brad’s hand and sent him toward the door.
Under lighting dimmed to hide the dirt-stained carpet, tables, dark Formica squares atop black pipe pedestals, were scattered about as left by earlier patrons. This disarray remained uncorrected by the bartender although his idle time had been plenty. Two old-timers huddled at the back, heads hunched toward each other, their conversation a faint murmur drowned by a barking TV bolted to the wall behind the bar.
She sat on a stool, her cigarette smoke drawn to him like a magnet as she peered at the news broadcast while seeming to not notice him. But he knew she had.
He went to the opposite end, putting five empty spots between them, smoke being the key reason he avoided bars. Then with a mumble he conceded to endure it.
The bartender arrived to collect his order, a request for bottled beer, the traffic being insufficient to support draft, but Brad liked that the cooler was right there and the bottle cap popped off in full view.
She remained locked on the screen, cigarette burning forgotten in her hand. He took the opportunity, knowing she intended it, to check her out.
She looked thirties, maybe early forties, the depredations of a decadent life still slight and her body showing a nurtured femininity. Blonde hair, matted and streaked, was pulled back and bundled with a ribbon revealing a broad face, possibly once seductive—still pleasant. Light wrinkles sketched the corners of her eyes, announcing, like a merit badge of life, that the silly delusions of youth had been transformed into experience.
Her timing seemed practiced. As his eyes came to her legs, she swiveled toward him and crossed them, bringing her skirt up to mid-thigh and above, a fisher flashing a lure onto the lily pads, stirring a surge of testosterone in her prey. And true to Brad’s axiom that every woman had at least one superb asset, her legs were gorgeous.
“Bullshit,” she said, speaking to the TV and somehow twisting her hips to send the skirt crawling higher. She followed with a long drag on the cigarette, casting her eyes at him, soliciting a comment while exhaling politely toward the TV.
He figured she shouldn’t have attracted his attention, but he was new in town, struggling with loneliness, and tonight he wasn’t ready to put her aside. Nor she him.
Exuding sexuality like a small town girl, unsophisticated and lusty, she tapped her cigarette against the ashtray. Again, inviting a response, she nodded her head toward the TV and repeated, “It’s bullshit.”
He had blocked the TV news out as background chatter but he knew that the High Five news team was deconstructing a flying saucer video which, only a week before, they had touted as irrefutable.
“What people will do to get attention,” he decried. “In the end, they’re all exposed as pranks.”
Her eyes flashed and locked on his. She drew hard on the cigarette and spewed the smoke out, not at him, but just to his left. She turned her head down to flick the ash into the tray then brought the cigarette back to her mouth. Glaring up at the TV, she announced, “This one’s real. I was there.”
The words tarred her as a kook. Good reason to move on, but he didn’t.
“Marg, you having another?” the barkeep asked. He glanced at Brad, his accusing eyes implying that a gentleman would buy the lady a drink.
Brad wouldn’t take a loony home, but he vowed to get something for his time, if nothing more than the perverse delight of baiting her into an exposé on extraterrestrials. Meanwhile the view of her legs held his interest.
“What are you having?” he asked, not listening, knowing it was one of those fruit punch and liquor chick drinks. This one smelled of apricot. She smiled, appreciative to have landed a drink.
“Double us up,” he ordered, “and make mine whiskey and water.”
After three rounds she’ll be drawing sketches and explaining how saucers use crystals to fly, he wagered himself.
“Go on, you’ve hooked me,” he quipped and nodded his head toward the TV.
Her eyes twinkled, showing that she hadn’t missed the innuendo. Then she crushed her cigarette into the tray, preparing for a lengthy response.
“I don’t want to yell, so I’ll meet you halfway,” she offered as she slid off her stool, pushing her hem shamelessly high. Her feet hit the floor with surprising agility, and with a graceful sweep of her arm, she dragged her drinks and the ashtray two stools closer.
He obliged the same, leaving one spot between them. He took a swig as she settled back in, her dress engaging in a delicious encore. This time her legs were close enough to touch and so enticing that his groin twitched as if triggered by pheromones as pungent as her apricot drink.
A booming voice beckoned from the TV, a voice they both knew to be Ron Rodriquez, the commentator who, a week before, had interviewed Wendell Lee Boyd at the site where Boyd claimed to have made the saucer film.
While she sipped her drink and he chugged his, Rodriquez began the broadcast of Science and Society, a program funded by Haines Corporation, the company whose property had been the site of the saucer filming and the follow-up investigation.
The screen panned to a side by side comparison of Boyd’s blurred flying saucer video and a sharper reenactment done in a Haines aircraft hangar by High Five. However, the High Five film featured an experimental Haines hovercraft, one which the company claimed to have tested the night of the saucer video.
Rodriquez’s voice purred with deep throated authority as highlighted circles appeared on both videos, showing five key points that were identical, evidencing that they were, indeed, the same.
She was glued to the screen, mumbling and hissing. Gaining fury with each defamation, she swigged harder and harder, and as the second drink diminished to a trickle, Brad signaled the bartender for two more.
The newscast began to repeat the same clips over and over, promising its listeners that the culminating disclosure would come “just after the hour,” a promise they seemed to forget in the next segment and wouldn’t likely remember for two hours more, and one that wouldn’t likely divulge anything new when it came.
She de-mesmerized. Sighing as if emotionally drained, she grasped the cigarette pack, tapped it in rapid staccato, sliding one out between her shaky fingers. She hesitated on hearing his groan and, with a coy smile, pushed it away, reaching instead for her last drink, already nearly depleted. Then she rotated toward him, crossing her legs high, vanquishing all further reason for modesty.
“I’m so pissed, I don’t know where to start,” she said and nodded her head toward the TV where Rodriquez was cooing again. “Him,” she continued, “all of them were gaga over it when Wendell took it to them. They said it was the most convincing flying saucer video ever and it was the first to show aliens walking on the ground. They begged him for the TV rights, suckering him with stories of money and fame.
“It hadn’t aired ten minutes when Haines Company was on the phone to High Five.” She halted, thwarted by his skeptical stare, like a kid caught sneaking a cookie. “They say it happened,” she qualified, her voice tinged with innocence.
“Anyways, Haines made it real easy for High Five. They could continue to play the video and be investigated by the Department of Defense, or with Haines’s help, they could prove Wendell had filmed the test plane, not a flying saucer. Haines tossed in funding for the Science and Society programming to sweeten the pot.” She shook the ice and sipped on her drink, while studying his reaction.
Brad wondered why Haines would reveal a top secret aircraft to discredit a dubious flying saucer video, one which would slip into the netherworld of kookism on its own. But he wasn’t going to antagonize her by asking.
“Next thing, government agents are in Wendell’s apartment confiscating all copies of his video.” She snapped her fingers. “His fame and fortune gone in a flash just like that. Not a dime of compensation, only threats if he should so much as squeak about it.”
Again, her drink was gone. Brad gulped his down to catch up and raised two fingers toward the barkeep. She giggled and leaned forward, letting gravity billow her blouse outward as she grasped his fingers, turning one of them down.
“One, honey, just one,” she cooed, the apricot odor tolerably coupled to the visage of her breasts.
“Come on, I’m nervous,” she complained, girly-like. “Come on, let me smoke one, so I can focus and tell the story. I promise I’ll blow it that way.” She nodded toward the tables. Her eyes danced and flirted while she twisted, back and forth, like a youngster. Of course the hemline went up and down with every jiggle, and of course he acquiesced.
She lit it, and as promised, turned her head to exhale. As she did, a big Indian lumbered through the door. Her face hardened as if she were on hyper-alert, like a cat sizing up a potential threat.
The Indian reacted, too. When his eyes met hers, he tucked his head down and veered away. Her eyes followed, stalking him, weighing him, now a cat waiting for a cue to pounce.
Brad was sure they knew each other. For good or bad, he was unclear, but he feared he might lose his quarry to the bigger man. Then the Indian sat, laid his hands on the table as if in prayer and kept his head and eyes down. He froze like that, never looking toward them again.
Her body relaxed. For a moment more, her eyes held to the Indian, glaring down onto the top of his hat as her legs slowly began to rotate back toward Brad. At last, her eyes turned and she was giddy again.
“When I said ‘I was there,’ I really meant that I was the first person to see Wendell’s video,” she explained, sitting the cigarette to burn like incense on the ashtray as she studied his face. Then she began her story:
I came out early, wearing just a robe. You know, a scamper to grab the newspaper before anyone saw me. There was Wendell, up on the balcony, leaning against the railing. I thought it would break. He was all excited, kind of jittery. Weird, since he just came off the night shift and usually was a slug until afternoon.
Anyways he yells down at me, “Marg, come up here. I got the damnedest thing to show ya.”
He’s bouncing against that cheap wrought iron rail, making it rattle against its rusty anchors. I was still bent over, froze like that, staring up at him, worrying that those bolts would pop and send the whole fucking mess, him and the railing, down on my head. I’m sure my tits was hanging out plain as day, but I cared less at the time.
“Hon,” I shouted back, “I got to get some clothes on before anybody sees me.”
“No one ain’t gonna see ya. Come on up. If things work the way I’m thinkin’, I’ll buy ya all new clothes.”
Well, that maybe sounded good to him, but I knew sooner or later, most likely when everybody’s busting ass to get to work, I’d be coming down the stairwell in nothing but a bathrobe. So with him fuming, I run back into my apartment and grabbed some clothes to take with me.
When I got up there, he’s on his knees all blurry-eyed and stubble faced, cursing and fumbling, trying to hook his camcorder to the TV.
“I done hit the lotto, Marg. You won’t believe the shit that happened to me last night,” he says without even looking up.
So he tests the hook-up, turning on the camcorder, and sure enough, on the TV comes his face stretched long and pale blue against the night sky, like he’d shined the camcorder up at himself. Real quick he cuts it off and says he got to tell me about it first.
So there I am, sitting on the sofa in my little bathrobe, squirming around, trying not show nothing, ‘cause, you know, Wendell’s just a friend. We got nothing going and he don’t attract me anyways. So I’m turning myself sideways…
She demonstrated on the barstool and her skirt crept up with such mastery as to suggest she had psychic power over it. She smiled bashfully and struggled with both hands to wiggle it back down, saying, “Well, I was trying to keep it down, then.” With that she continued her story:
So Wendell’s not looking up my ass or nothing. He’s nervous, wound up about what he’s going to tell me. I think maybe he was a little scared ‘cause he’s all wild-eyed and can’t sit still, just jumping up and down, from couch to window and back, pacing all over as if he’s expecting someone or something.
Finally he says, “I worked late last night; got off bout 1:30, really tired, beat, you know. So I figure I’m gonna take the short cut that runs between the Indian reservation and the Haines land. It’s dirt, but hard packed, so I can make good time without worryin’ about cops. I got my gun, so I ain’t too concerned ‘bout drug runners neither.
“Anyways, I come down through a long valley between ridges. It’s always a bit spooky there. Kinda swallows you when the hills rise up high, pitch-black on both sides. So I’m relieved when the road finally starts to come out the other end. That’s when I seen this strange glow castin’ out purple from the hills on my right.
“Now I’m wonderin’ ‘what’s that’, and it comes to my mind that it’s Haines’s land over there, and it’s all posted, up and down, sayin’ they give rewards for reportin’ tresspassin’, and I’m thinkin’ that somebody pulled their camper in there. I got my gun and I got the camcorder that I always carry, so I figure I can sneak in there and film their license plate ‘cause that camcorder got night vision. That way I can get me some easy reward money. So I let off on the gas and find a nice flat piece against the hill and ease in there.
“So I jus’ sit there, wonderin’ if it’s a good idea or not. They could be in there makin’ meth or some shit. In which case, there’d be guns and probly lookouts. I sat there consternatin’ ‘til, after awhile, I kick myself in the butt and say don’t be such a wussy.
“So I get my ass in gear and I strap on my pistol, grab the camcorder and flashlight and I start climbin’ that hill.”
He squirms, turns his head side to side as if avoiding a slap, then owns up, “I ain’t gonna deny it, it was spooky. At the time, I thought it was the idea of meth that made it scary, but now, lookin’ back, I know that weren’t it ‘cause I ain’t smelled no meth.
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