It was a cold winter’s night in 1957. The house that one day would belong to Danny, was gleaming in the moonlight. A star appeared in the far north. It got larger and brighter till it could be seen that it was a glowing, soundlessly moving, white disc. The only witness was a fox by the lawn but she merely hid where she lay.
The ship hovered over the house. It extended a single white metal tube a few feet long. The tube stopped just short of the central chimney stack. Above, the disc-like ship continued to hover silently. The liquid ortonium metal then flowed through the tube and into the brick and stone of the building.
The cold, living metal arranged itself according to a specific structure. This pattern was encoded within a faint yellow field also emitted by the disc. The field surrounded the building like a cloud of almost invisible water. Finally, an urn-shaped device, about 12 inches high, descended from an opening in the undercarriage of the ship. It was made of the highest quality crystal quartz known in the galaxy, yet it passed straight through the brick and stone till it lodged itself within a wall in the attic. The ship withdrew the tube, resumed its spinning, moved off and promptly vanished.
Some 60 years later, a beautiful urn-shaped device twelve inches high continued to nestle in its secret cavity. It was made of a single piece of flawless crystal quartz. The urn was positioned within a load-bearing wall deep inside a large loft. It ran its yearly self-check programme, it's time was finally drawing near. An electric shiver of excitement passed through the urn as it contemplated its release.
The urn was a part of the most advanced technology the galaxy had ever known. It was safe here in its hiding place as the house had no stairs to the loft. The loft hatch was particularly awkward to get to. It was just too much hassle to put the area to any serious use. In any case there would always be ample storage in the larger, bone-dry basement. Even when the roof was replaced it wasn't obvious. No-one wants to mess around with a load-bearing wall. Even Danny had not sensed its presence. Neither was Danny aware that his mother’s desire to purchase this particular house had not come entirely from her own mind.
* * *
‘Surely not,’ remarked Hevel incredulously.
‘See for yourself,' said Aleya, the ship. She was a 600 year-old sentient being. She knew strangeness when she saw it.
The ship's far wall became a beautiful fluorescent blue. The image of a large ivy-covered cottage slowly resolved into view.
‘I only discovered it last night. It’s definitely at least a class 8,’ stated Aleya.
‘That's amazing. Let’s see it.’
The image of the house was bathed from above in light of different colours. First there was a shower of orange which turned to red and then to a cool violet. When the violet illuminated strange structures could vaguely be seen. Slowly the images became clearer. Inside the walls of the house were dozens of shiny metallic structures interlaced at odd angles. Pulsing, glowing tubes ran everywhere between them. The structures reminded Hevel of the metal implants used on Earth for repairing hips.
Hevel had more than his fair share of rebelliousness. This had been partly why he had stolen the ship. The desire to confuse the Earth people and mess up the Confederation's first contact plans also figured high in his plans. He had decided to become the galaxy's most infamous interplanetary reporter.
No one was going to laugh at Hevel any more. None of those happy little sods were going to call him a delinquent. Cosmic love and horticulture was about all his fellow planet-folk seemed capable of thinking about.
‘...And 100% pure ortonium, you sure? But a Y-Factor drive too - no one on our planet has even seen one of them,’ stated Hevel.
‘It’s all true. I did some internal scanning too. Found this little information-entity hanging around a far corner of my mind. I knew I hadn't put it there as it had a strange accent. One I'd never come across before.’
‘It better not be the Federation trying to tamper with us again.’
‘No, don't think it's them, but I've a good idea who it was. The entity that left the mind-trace thought it was very clever. Didn't figure that I could find it. The mind-entity had hopped aboard trying to install a homing beacon for itself. Sometime in the future it could hitch a ride inside my mind. Whoever it is, whatever could do that is not of that planet. I followed the pathway back to where the entity beamed up. What I found is really going to interest you. I tracked the mind-entity to this little island off the coast of Western Europe...’ Aleya stated calmly.
Eventually Hevel looked up, ‘Well if that building really is hiding the most advanced alpha-force space-ship we’ve ever seen, who could’ve put it there?’
‘No idea. But it's been there at least 60 years.’
As his mind schemed, Hevel's eyes began to lite up with a devious fire.
Hevel had been working on his version of the Confederation's first-contact video for the planet Earth. They were using a very advanced form of movie. It was an emotionally-connected, holographic film which can be played using the sky. It is almost impossible to tell such a film from reality – unless one had specially trained vision. Certainly it was better holo-tech than most individual civilisations could access. Hevel had stolen a copy. He was going to beam his re-edited version, starring himself, out to the people of the world. The skies of the whole planet would be illuminated with his happy, holographic face.
His motive was to make trouble, and a name for himself. Hevel had never got over the fact that most of his fellow Gaiyans considered him a rogue mutant. He itched to prove himself the wise one, the hero, the conqueror. He wanted a place in galactic history. However, Hevel was haunted by an uneasy feeling that he had been born in the wrong place at the wrong time.
‘That'll do for now,’ said Hevel grumpily. ‘Do you think it'll upset the humans Aleya?’
‘I expect the Confederation and those who think themselves current masters of this globe will be furious. As for the Earth humans, who knows? Once upon a time the Foo Fighter Globe Spies recorded all of the inhuman wars afflicted upon this poor planet. The humans have known nothing but war and the threat of war for generations. They might think they are about to be attacked from beyond the Earth.'
‘Aleya, do we really have to wait before beaming my version out across the Earth?’
‘Yes Hevel, trust me!’
Hevel was quiet for some time pondering things over – the ship had recently told him of something amazing she had found on the Earth, hidden deep inside a human house.
‘So let’s get this straight,’ Hevel intoned. ‘You followed the path of that mind-entity. Then, not only did you find a self-assembling space-ship made from pure ortonium, the rarest living metal in the galaxy, but it has the fabled Y-Factor drive too. And you say the whole thing is hidden away in some old human house sitting in the middle of an Earth colony?’
‘In a little island off the coast of northern Europe,’ Aleya continued by way of reply. ‘But there was something even more amazing. I nearly missed it. It has an extra cloaking device all of its own. It mimics the properties of the surrounding cloak and of its immediate surroundings. Up in the centre of a weight-bearing wall in the loft part of the building there is a small urn shaped crystal device. Nothing less than a genuine, Urnie device!’ stated Aleya proudly.
‘Amazing! Who’d have thought it? We could do anything with one of those things. I didn’t think they really existed.’
‘I assume you'll want to put both the sleeping spaceship and the Urnie to some anti-social use.’
‘Of course Aleya. Do you think you can power them up?’ questioned Hevel.
‘The commencement rhythms seem fairly straightforward surprisingly, though of course that could be a trap.’
‘Let’s poke it and see what happens. Take us just above that building and then cloak us in a cloud. A dark thundery one please Aleya.'
Hevel’s left eye was twitching ever so slightly in eager anticipation. This was even better than his wildest plans. Discovering the sleeping spaceship was one thing, but an Urnie as well. This was unreal. He was reaching the point he had patiently worked towards for so many years. Now fate had just dealt him the greatest hand he could imagine.
An excited Hevel settled down onto his bunk. He looked around his light green sleeping room, set off to one side of the small interstellar spaceship. Closing his eyes he fell into a light sleep.
Hevel’s race was of a slender and tall build, usually about 6 to 8 feet tall when mature. They were dark-haired people with slightly larger heads than humans and deep oval-shaped eyes. They tended to be kind and peaceable by nature. They had child-like voices which they used for singing. Communication was mostly telepathic. Fortunately for them, the planet Gaiya was remote and well protected. They had a glorious history with little outside interference from other races. They had crossed the technology barrier all by themselves. This is when a humanoid race masters technology to the point where they are no longer governed by the material world.
Aleya waited until nightfall, and then powered herself up. She pulsed with a blue and yellow dancing glow to above a town known by its human inhabitants as Liverpool. Once there a small hatch opened near to the top of the spheroid ship and a tube emerged. The tube pointed toward a small cloud nearby. The cloud rapidly grew until it became a dark mass of thunder cloaking the small spaceship. Hevel slept on. Tomorrow was going to be his - all his.