Chara and the Planet

Chapter No. 51

Chapter No.51.

Despite relaxing for several days, Ryan was still feeling pain from his near-death experience. He still required a cane to get around, but he would be the last person to complain. He was still alive.

To make matters more complicated, Chara decided to take a detour to investigate a potentially habitable planet orbiting a G2 class star like the Sun. Ryan realized she still had this thing about planets, so he elected to remain quiet.

As was her custom, she dropped out of warp several million miles away from the planet and cloaked the vessel in order to avoid detection. And it was a good move because there were several vessels in orbit around the planet.

Ryan looked at a magnified image of the planet on the main screen. "Those are weird looking spaceships. They look sculptured, possibly to resemble some sort of animal."

"Maybe they resemble the aliens who live on the planet," Myra said.

Chara turned to her. "Are you detecting any signals?"

"No, at least not in the electromagnetic spectrum, but I've detected something in subspace that contains a signal."

"Interesting," Ryan said, rubbing his jaw. "It suggests that instantaneous communication could be possible in subspace."

"Since we've never delt with subspace communication, I don't have any frame of reference to read it. Even if I could, it would have to be translated."

Everyone remained silent for several minutes before Chara entered commands to move the ship closer to the planet while still cloaked. As the Avenger moved closer to the planet, the image of the mysterious world on the main screen became clearer.

"This is certainly an advanced species," Myra said. "That looks like a metropolis."

"Yes, but we need to get a better view to make a true determination of their capabilities," Ryan said.

"One of the alien vessels has left orbit and is moving on intercept," Alma reported.

"I'm receiving a subspace signal," Myra said.

"Can you make sense of it?" Ryan asked.

"I think it has adapted to our subspace detector's protocol," she said.

Suddenly, the main screen exhibited an alien face, which looked robotic but still had the features that reflected some biological creature. In fact, it had an appearance that suggested a simian species with large lips and eyes that were wider placed and more bulging. Its nostrils were tiny and there was no evidence of facial hair, perhaps because it was a robotic version of its species of origin.

The face spoke, and what surprised everyone was that it was speaking in standard English, if there actually is a standard English.

"Why are you here?" it asked.

Chara reached behind her neck to detach her facial skin and pulled it away from her android face. "We are here because we are curious."

"We are familiar with androids that were created by humans. We did not realize that you can travel this far from Earth."

"Our vessel has warp capability. We have been exploring for habitable planets because we wish to know if AI based life evolved."

"We are not familiar with robotic evolution. The species that created us destroyed themselves."

"We believe that ours did the same. We do have a small number of humans with us as servants."

"How long have you been away from your planet of origin?"

"Relative to the planet, our calculations indicate eighty-eight or your years."

"How much of the galaxy have you explored?" the robot asked.

"We have only visited six habitable planets, but they were inhabited by primitive creatures or by robotic creatures that tried to destroy us."

"There are only two hundred and fifty-three habitable systems in this galaxy with technically advanced species," the robot revealed. "We have given up exploring because of the danger."

"I believe we are of the same opinion," Chara said.

"A wise decision," the robot said. "We will permit you to depart."

The communication link ended. Chara began entering the commands to turn the Avenger around and move away from the solar system.

"That went well," Ryan said. "I assume you are returning to our solar system."

"Yes. We need to see how Earth and Planet Nine are doing."

"If they are eighty-eight years in the future relative to us, there is a distinct possibility that there are no more humans, other than we humans on this vessel, of course."

"You are no longer human," Chara said.

Ryan realized that she was right. The nanobots had altered his and his fellow human's biological systems so much they were no longer like any normal human. In fact, it had become obvious that they were slowly being converted to a hybrid species that had some robotic features even though they were hidden. Did this make them a new species?

That and a few other issues were bound to be brought up during their communal supper.

"Why are we returning to our solar system?" Marsha asked. "I thought we were going to explore more in our galaxy."

"I think it was what the robotic species told us about how few intelligent species exist in our galaxy and how they could be dangerous."

"Myra said that Chara claimed that we're no long human," Evan said. "What does she mean by that?"

"It's the nanobots," Ryan said. "They're slowly converting us into a hybrid species with some robotic features."

"How so?"

"Well, for one, we aren't aging and it's obvious we can't have children. We've been mechanically neutered."

"I guess it's better than be converted into eunuchs," Gary said.

They laughed.

"Yeah, Chara would love to snip our gonads off," Ryan said with an ornery grin. "Although, I think she would enjoy slowly castrating us. She almost did that to me."

"That's enough to make me puke!" Vince said.

"I think we gals would love to see you stretched out on a rack and have your dick cut one piece at a time," Martha said.

The women laughed.

"That's not funny!" Evan said.

"I agree," Ryan said. "I think it's better that we avoid kidding about it. Something like that would be considered torture, something we don't want to be doing."

"Yeah, you're right," Myra said. "Let's think about what we're going to see when we get back to Earth."

No one had a suggestion as to what they would find.