e-Ghosts of Rogue Planet

Chapter 13

James’s eyes grew larger than mine. “Holy shit! Those are aliens.”

I stared at the three individuals as if they were animals in a zoo. “Fascinating.”

“What do we do now?” Alisha asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “We weren’t trained to make first contact.”

James waved his hand. “Habla Ingleés?”

“They’re not Mexicans for cryin’ out loud,” I said.

“That’s for sure,” Marie said.

And, they weren’t. They were roughly grey skinned hominids with some unusual features such as a gourd-shaped skull that curved down to a point in back. Their round faces had round eyes with reticulated eyelids, small fluted noses and a round lipless mouth. Their hands were more like claws and their feet were in the form of round pods.

They were wearing crude black one-piece garments that covered everything but their head, hands and feet.

“How are we going to communicate with them?” Marie asked.

I tried to use sign language, but they simply stood their gawking at us.

“Do you live down here?” I asked.

One of them came closer. I watched his mouth move but the words came from somewhere else. I assumed that it was from the e-ghosts.

“Yes.” The voice sounded as if it were being digitally created. “Our people have been here for a million cycles of this planet around the star.”

“We are from the planet that circles the star on the other side,” I said. “This planet’s atmosphere had little oxygen, yet there is oxygen down here. How is that possible?”

“Come,” the alien said. “We will show you.”

We followed them into a huge cavern where many large plants that resembled ferns grew. The ceiling of the cavern glowed with a bright white light, simulating sunlight. Obviously, these plants provide the oxygen from photosynthesis.

“I am Mohe,” the alien said.

I assumed that he was a male; although, I wasn’t sure.

He raised his claw to gesture to the other two. “This is Eha, my mate, and this is my offspring, Moha.”

“You say that you have been here for a million cycles,” I said. “How did you get here?”

“This planet orbited our star, which is nearby this star. Our ancestors came to the planet to explore and were unable to return home.”

I swallowed hard. This could easily end up being our fate. “Did you see the species that created the city on the surface?”

“The mechanical people that created the city became extinct ten thousand cycles ago, but their programming remains.”

“Who created the mechanical people?” I asked.

“We are not certain. Our ancestors were unable to discern the creators. We believe that they were scaled creatures.”

“That sounds as if they were reptilian,” I told my crew. I turned back to Mohe. “You say that this planet orbited your star. How did it get here?”

“An opening appeared in space and the planet was sucked into it. This is the legend that we were told by our ancestors.”

I turned to my crew. “That sounds like a wormhole. If that’s the case the genesis species was truly advanced.”

“That’s for sure,” James said. “And, we could end up going into a wormhole to who knows where.”

“That’s a possibility, but something doesn’t jive here. When did this planet get here?”

“It must have been a million years ago,” Marie said.

“And yet, no one noticed it,” I said.

“A million years ago, no one cared,” James said.

“True, but why did it come here?”

“That’s a very good question?”

“Are you the only intelligent species on this planet?” I asked Mohe.

“There is another, but they live in water.”

“They’re aquatic. Interesting.”

More of the aliens came out to see the strange new visitors. It was difficult to discern the gender. They all looked the same.”

“How many are you?” I asked Mohe.

“We are one hundred and fifty three.”

That didn’t sound good; although, living underground probably wasn’t conducive to producing a large population. However, it means that they were in jeopardy of becoming extinct.

“What do you eat?”

“We grow several plants that nurture us,” he said. “Some are soft and are sweet and others are hard and provide meat.”

I assumed that ‘meat’ was some sort of protein because I hadn’t noticed any animals. I turned to Marie. “Do you have enough scans and images to send back to Earth Control?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation.

“I think that we should go back to the ship. We can come back and explore more thoroughly once we’ve reported what we’ve seen down here.”

The crewmembers nodded their affirmation. I turned to Mohe. “We will return soon.”

He didn’t react to my promise.

We went back the way we came and climbed up the stairs. Surprisingly, the chalk-like stone moved away when we got to the top of the staircase and we were able to hike back to the shuttle unopposed. I opened the shuttle’s hatch and climbed in, but when I tried to power up, nothing happened.

“Uh Oh!” I said.

“What’s wrong?” Marie asked, her face twisted with fear.

“The shuttle won’t power up. I suspect that the e-ghosts have disabled it.”

James threw his arms up. “That figures. We’re being taken captive like the aliens back there.”

“For what purpose?” Alisha asked.

“They evidently move their planet around to habitable star systems to collect samples of intelligent life,” James said.

“That would make sense if they were still around,” I said. “They’ve evidently become extinct, whatever that entails with a robotic society.”

“If they are robotic, they evidently were run by programming,” Alisha said. “Machines don’t possess souls, and their programming could still be operating all of the technology to keep on doing what they were doing before they became extinct.”

“Machines may not possess souls like us, but they evidently have digital spirits. Maybe that’s what our souls really are: our thought processes living on after our deaths.”

James huffed. “That sounds like a simple explanation for something much more complicated.”

“Agreed, but right now we had better get this problem fixed. If we don’t report back to Earth Control within a reasonable period, they’ll simply make the ship return to Earth and send another crew.”

“That’s assuming that the e-ghosts didn’t take over the ship’s computer,” James said.

That was an ugly thought. I didn’t like the idea of being a zoo animal to a bunch of electronic circuits. There has to be a way around this problem, and I was determined to find it.