PART III
CHAPTER – Contact with Dedov
One of the scientists had shown a couple of Artonians how to operate the now abandoned Telescope in the observatory and the Radio telescope there. They were fascinated by the optical telescope and began spending their free time searching the heavens.
March 18, 2176: One evening while they were searching for Pluto they caught a spaceship coming out of Warp and entering the solar system. Since the four Arton ships were accounted for this had to be from some unknown location. They immediately had the presence of mind to hit the record button and caught the event on video. One of them continued to monitor the ship while the other used his cell phone to call for assistance. When the scientists arrived they couldn't believe that these two little people had just made the biggest discovery in history. From that minute on every move the vassal made was caught on tape. The space ship established orbit around one planet after another working their way in toward Mercury. They would remain at a planet for a day or two then move on in to the next planet toward the sun. Eventually they reached Mars and made orbit behind the Arton Two. By the time they arrived the two space ships had been fully crewed. The Aliens apparently mistook the Arton Space craft for orbiters, they paid the ships little attention. They then launched four shuttle from their ship. The Shuttle made methodical passes over the entire surface of Mars. Seeing the few buildings on the surface and the now inactive mining operations and apparently reading the atmosphere and finding it unusable they returned to their ship. Three beings wearing space suits then boarded one of the shuttles and flew toward the Mars Orbiter. Their docking equipment was a large suction device that would match up with any object that they found in space.
Since the ship was first spotted in the solar system the communications crew in the Arton Three had been recording all their radio transmissions and feeding them into translator equipment. It was determined from the way they spoke that these were very humanoid beings. Their language was very difficult for the translator to do much with. Two of the communications crew members were Artonian. They were doing better than the electronic device. When the translator made an error in translating a word the Artonians were beginning to pick up on it and correct the translator. The crew had determined that the visitors meant them no harm and that they carried no weapons.
They were amazed when they entered the Orbiter and saw the two Fred Harley and Alvin Jones on duty. The beings acted very excited. They were definitely humanoid. They had two arms and two legs and were actually so similar to Human Beings that one of them could pass as a human but if you were to see a group of them together you would notice that their heads were a little higher in back and a little wider and the skull protruded about half an Inch further in back. Later analysis showed that their internal organs were almost identical to humans. They were on an average two Inches shorter then humans and weighed on an average seventeen pounds less. Some of them had dark blue hair that could pass for black. Their blood types and teeth were identical to humans.
Fred and Alvin had known they were coming so they showed no alarm when the aliens entered the orbiter. Fred merely looked up and nodded a greeting to them then continued with what he was working on for a minute or so. Alvin just more or less ignored them. The aliens had consulted a hand held instrument then removed their space helmets. The Earthlings noticed that the older of the three aliens had positioned himself in front of the other two. both Earth men left their work stations, moved slowly over to the one that was obviously the boss. It had earlier been discussed and decided that they should the little traditional Japanese bow rather than to offer to shake hands. Alvin, standing just slightly behind Fred held the translator in his left hand. Fred addressed the Alien first, “Welcome to Mars,” he said slowly and distInctly. The machine uttered four syllables that were Incomprehensible to Fred and Alvin but it brought a smile to the faces of the aliens. The leader then uttered three syllables and and the alien translator said “Thank you.” “The translator parroted the same three syllables that the alien had just uttered. Alvin kind of chuckled, switched his machine off and laid it on the table beside him. This could get confusing using two machines. It was obvious that both machines had the same function.
. Finally the alien holding their translator machine smiled at the others and gave the thumbs up. He must have indicated, “Got it.” The leader of the group was then handed the device by the technician, who had been working with it. The leader spoke into the machine is his native voice and the machine translated what he said into imperfect English. “We from planet #######, we come peaceful. Explore #######. What planet you from?”
Fred did not have a chance to respond, a small intercom speaker affixed to the wall of the orbiter came on. “This Captain Cummings of the space ship Arton Four.” The alien machine did not translate this but all three aliens looked up at the box on the wall, indicating they had heard the noise but their translator couldn't handle the translation. Alvin retrieved his translator and repeated, “This Captain Cummings of the space ship Arton Four.” Alvin's machine translated that immediately. The alien continued, “Thank You, we need new planet, our planet break up, loose orbit looking for home for our people.” “Any other planet this system make home for many people?” “No, Fred answered these planets all dead we use for mining operation.” “You have room on your planet for more people?” “No, too many people now,” said Fred” hungry people we need more planet also. “OK we ask other ship visit your planet soon? Maybe we can help you people. If we find more good planet than we need we tell you people. Our ship very fast, go warp 4.” The alien turned to leave, “Wait, how many people you have need home for?” “Our planet now has four million people and it is no bigger than this dead planet here.” Fred pulled out a copy of a chart of planets that had been discovered from the observatory on Arton that showed the 105 other planets worth exploring someday. “Is your planet on this chart?” The alien studied the chart for a minute. “Yes, Yes, Our planet circle this sun right here, that our planet see.” The alien pointed to a planet six or so light years from Mars. “Fred thought these poor guys are a year and a half from home already at warp 4.
Fred also noticed that the quality of output from their translator had suddenly improved. Fred had started to say “Sorry I can't help you when the intercom from Arton Four kicked in. “This is Captain Cummings again, you did a wonderful job ensign Jones now please direct these people over to the Four. Tell them I will have the door open for them to fly their Shuttle right on board and tell them I will be expecting them. “What was that noise?” The Alien asked. “That was the intercom from the second ship behind us in orbit. My Captain is on that ship and wants to talk to you.” The alien thanked Fred, disappeared through the air lock broke connection. As the alien shuttle approached the Four a gaping hole appeared as the boarding lock opened. The alien commander never hesitated, he flew his craft right into the Arton Four. Captain Cummings had rigged his office so that everything said on the ship was being transmitted to the planet.
Cummings started out by saying that he did not have a translation machine so they would have to use the one the alien had. Actually Cummings did have one that had become programmed to the alien's language during the last five hours. Cummings figured that two translation machines in operation would just confuse matters. The alien's machine said “Greetings, my name is ##### #########, of the planet ########## (that is the way Cummings translator worked also, if there was no word for what was being said it would just beep, this one clicked.) We are unarmed and come in peace, Our ship carries no weapons not even for our defense.” “I know said Cummings that is why I am talking with you. We have already scanned your ship and found it clean.” “We scanned your ships and the mining colony down there and found them clean also. Where do your miners stay, underground? If you can breath the atmosphere on this ship you sure couldn't breath the air on that planet.” “Yes the miners are housed in an underground airtight cavern.” “Did you listen in on my conversation with ensign Fred? If you did then you know why we are here. We are disparate people, we have more people than we can feed, many are dying from starvation. We are not and never have been aggressive people. We are what you would call pacifists. The only way that I have of proving this to you is our literature which you can't read at the moment and our videos. You can watch thousands of hours of our videos and never see a weapon of any kind.” About that time a shuttle from the planet flew into the landing bay. “Please come with me gentlemen, we are going to take a little trip to the planet. If you have any others you would like to bring along we can pick them up at your ship on the way down.” “How many more does your shuttle carry?” Each shuttle holds sixty passengers how many shuttles do you require?” “First lets just us go to your planet then we can send for others.” After boarding the shuttle the two other aliens handed their translators to the leader who plugged them into his and pressed a button on his. All three translators began to hum. In less a minute the leader had apparently updated the other two translators.
CHAPTER – Dedovians visit Mars March 2176
“I never expected anything like this the alien said when he stepped out of the elevator in the Utility cavern and onto the waiting bus. They were whisk away through the Ocean cavern, then a slight detour through the vineyards in the Hour Glass cavern to New Phoenix. When they got off at the old Federal building in New Phoenix all of the leaders of Mars were waiting for them. They had all either heard or been briefed on what the alien had to say. “If what you have to say is true and so far we have every reason to believe that it is perhaps we can help you. Here is our situation.” He described the destruction of Earth, and the loss of their nine billion people. He explained that the population of Mars had been depleted to help with the re population of our home planet. He told them that either Mars, Earth or Arton could accommodate their entire population. Our question for you is how fast you could move people to Arton and how fast could those people learn our language.”
The Alien studied the chart, did some computations then announced, “I make it to be a little under one light year from ####### to Arton. We have thirty ships, capable of Warp speeds They can each transport 864 passengers. With no cargo and over crowing we could maybe take 2,000 per trip. A round trip would take by your calender, about five of your months. That would only be 60,000 of our people in one of your years. By making new ship production our only priority, we could possibly move a little over one million of our people to Arton, and then if our planet remains viable for another fifteen of your years.” You must understand that we never entertained any hope of getting all of our people off of Our planet. Our aim was to establish a significant presence on some other planet in order to preserve our race.”
Captain Cummings put in, “the people that you transport will not be able to remain on Arton indefinitely, but Arton is still closer to your home planet than it is to our home planet of Earth. Arton would be just a temporary place for your people to wait for transportation to Earth. There is someone here that I want you to meet. Gil come up here.” A little Artonian stepped forward and held out his hand to the alien. “These people have said much but let me be the first to say “Welcome to Mars.” A dead silence fell over the crowed. Gil had just addressed the alien in his native tung. “Captain Cummings stammered “Where and how did you learn their language, Gil?” “Oh, I am not yet proficient in their language yet but I have been listening to every word that has they have said since they arrived and I have picked up enough to say a few simple things, it would probably take me more than a week to become proficient. How did you think that all of us learned your language as quickly as we did? There are some things that Artonians are better at than humans are . Language just happens to be one of them. You might just say that Artonians have a faculty for languages.”
Gil then addressed the alien “ You have probably guessed that I am a native of the planet Arton. There are about as many humans on Arton as there natives. Soon I will be able to speak your language fluently. Our brains are arranged differently than the human brain. The temporal lobe of our brains is almost three times the size of the temporal lobe in the human brain. The Frontal Lobe however is half the size of the frontal lobe of the human brain. In a nutshell this means that humans are better than us at reasoning and problem solving and we are better at languages and speech. Humans show more individuality.” Gil spoke his later words in English and they went through the translator machine.
Captain Horn of Arton Three spoke into the translator. “ We only have four craft capable of Warp speed but they can carry up to five thousand people at a time if we carry no cargo and put atmosphere into the cargo holds. Our ships are larger than yours and are capable of speeds up to Warp eleven. How long do you have before your planet is no longer habitable?” “Perhaps at least ten but not more than 20 of your years. I am just not comfortable yet in converting time to your years.” “I am sorry for that but it is the only way any of us have ever thought about time Increments. One year is how long it takes our home planet to make one complete orbit of our sun, for example a man can generally live for about eighty years.” “In that case we may have from 15 to thirty years. Where is your home planet, Captain?” “It would have been the next planet you would have come to in your search of our solar system. Had you not found us on Mars you would be on Earth by now. Earth is six times the size of Mars and was overpopulated by twelve billion people when war destroyed almost every living thing on the planet. That was only about fifty years ago. People from this colony on Mars have repopulated the Earth but with only about two hundred thousand people. The infrastructure was only damaged and has been found to be ninety percent usable. It was the animals that all died from radiation poisoning. We believe that the war came about from a lack of our ability to really communicate with one another. There were over three hundred languages on Earth at the time of the destruction and more than 150 separate nations. Most of them possessed nuclear weapons so when the first one went off everyone else launched all they had at the nation they perceived to be their arch enemy. In two hours the atmosphere became lethal. Within a few days all the land creatures on earth, Including man became extInct. Twelve Billion was far too many people, a large number of those people were starving to death every year. Now there are too few people. We feel that the right number of people for Earth would be from one to five billion. We made a vow that from now on we would only allow one language to be spoken on Earth. All of us who survived on Arton, Mars and in space spoke only the English language so it is only logical that in the future all people living on the Earth must speak English fluently. All of the people on Arton and on Mars speak only English.”
Captain Cummings added, “Once we get the course down pat from your planet to Arton our four ships should be able to transport about four hundred thousand of your people in one years time. I am sure that all four of our ships will be at your service but at the end of one year our ships are going to have to start moving the people that you have on Arton to Earth. We still have three ships that are capable of speeds just under Warp that can take of the run from Mars to Earth. Two of these ships have been decommissioned for many years but they are still in a parking orbit around Earth and could be put back in service.”
The alien said I can not believe our good fortune I will radio home as soon as I return to my ship and give them all this good news.” “What do you mean radio home, our ships will be there long before a radio signal could reach your planet.” “Then perhaps, my friend we have something we can give you. Many years ago we developed hyper space radio. When I talk to my home planet they hear what I am saying as though I was only next door.” “I always hoped that something like that would come along, for us our radio signals are limited to travel at the speed of light.” “We have at least six spare radios on board. We will rig Mars with one, leave one here for your interplanetary ship to take back to Earth and fit each of your space craft with one. I will have one of our other ships drop one off on Arton, on their first trip there. I am going to recall all of our space craft to ######### as soon as I return to my ship. They could begin the evacuation before we get there. When the first of them makes Arton orbit they can shuttle the planet leaders to the ship and you Captain Cummings and You Captain Horn and Gil of course, can explain what is happening.
That evening a special communication was sent to Earth and to A1and Arton Two telling them what was happening. A communication shot back within 24 minutes asking them to confirm on the other channel. The other channel was the voice channel and was seldom used. Once a link was established Captain Cummings gave a verbal description of the events followed by Gil giving a verbal account in the Artonian language then by a “COME BACK” 26 Minutes later an Artonian voice came on the line speaking in Artonian. It requested that another Artonian send the same description of events in the same language. After four hours of verification Admiral Carter was finally convInced that this was the real thing and that Mars was not being held hostage by these aliens. The Admiral told them to go back to the text channel and send him all the details they could think of. Within an hour Mars was transmitting everything they had learned so far. “Gil who had been talking with the Alien all this time had told him to go ahead and shuttle his people down for a visit and a Tour of Mars. The Alien said that their shuttles were too small so Ben asked the Council Chairman to dispatch one shuttle to the Alien ship to bring down passengers. Ben then ask for fifty or so videos that the alien had referred to in an earlier conversation. Ben also requested a grammar book if they had one and a couple novels. By this time there were fifteen Artonians listening to every word that was spoken and learning the new language.
In their conversation Gil finally learned the Alien's name and the name of his planet. The planet was called Dedov, the Alien was Captain Eurokoma. Ben passed this along to the Radio Room to be Included in the next transmission to Earth.
The shuttle landed and a bus picked up the crew members. There thirty seven crew members on the shuttle five more had stayed behind to maintain the ship. Twelve of the crew members were female, the rest male. The bus driver took them on a driving tour of Mars, all of the developed caverns and even some that had been pressurized but had little development. The driver ended the tour by dropping his passengers off in downtown New Phoenix. Gil welcomed them in their language. He asked if they had brought the books and videos that he had requested, they had and they handed them to him. All of them were a little taken aback by this strange little hairy man that spoke their language, but not very well. They just couldn't believe that he had learned it in a few hours. One of the council members brought a clipboard with a lined tablet on it and asked Gil to get everyones name they it would sound out in English and write the names on the tablet along with their rank or job or some other identifying characteristic. Gil started gathering the requested information. When he was done the councilman took the clipboard and ran off with it. The crew members found seats at the tables in the town square. Each of them had an empty bag that he used to put his space suit in. Gil then started describing to them what all had taken place. By the time he finished the councilman had returned with name tags for each of them. Gil explained that they should affix these to their jumpsuits above their vest pockets. They willingly complied.
In appearance they were quite similar to Captain Eurokoma, similar enough to tell that they were all of the same race. All of them possessed slight variations in appearance just as Artonians and Earth people did. Gil asked, at the suggestion of the Council Chairman, if any of them were hungry or wanted a beverage. That set off a round of conversations that Gil could not follow. Then a lieutenant Soravov asked “What do you people eat and drink?” Gil explained human food to them then he explained Artonian food to them. He told them that we all drink fruit juice from many kinds of fruit combined in many different ways. It is a the most popular drink on Mars, but everyone has their own favorite concoctions. I will just have a variety set out and you can taste several. I will also have them set out a buffet of human food and Artonian food for you to sample.” Within minutes there were a dozen pitchers of Juice set out and one of plain water. There was a stack or reusable plastic cups. Within an hour there was a makeshift buffet set out on several of the empty tables shoved together. There were trays, silverware and napkins as well. One of the councilmen was getting all this on video. The juice was sampled with about the same reaction you would expect from a group of humans trying a new product for the first time. Some of the Dedovians had two glasses of the same juice, several went for water and had several glasses of that. More water was summoned. Some tried a little of several juices then settled for a full glass of the one they liked best.
When they took a tray they knew what it was for. They knew what the napkins were but examined the silverware closely before attempting to use it. They exhibited little skill in handling the silverware. One of them fished around in his pocket and came up with a pair of tongs. He used the knife he had been furnished and proceeded to eat contentedly. The others just did the best they could with a fork and a spoon. The food item that was most popular with them were the cooked vegetables, none of them took any meat but the boiled potatoes went well. None of them took any of the raw vegetables from the Arton food selection but they all took raw fruit and fruit salad. Gil had a brief conversation with lieutenant Soravov then explained to the servers “These people from Dedov are vegetarians though they are familiar with cheese, they would like to try our cheese and they wondered if we had any nuts. They customarily eat with a small pair of tongs and a sharp knife. They also like bread. They drink milk from dairy animals. They also drink wine and they like a product that sounds a lot like beer. Could you kitchen folks see if you could find some of the foods they like but that you do not have out.
Soon trays of cheese and crackers and bread and pitchers of wine appeared. Several pitchers of milk were brought out and a large bowl of nuts. “That is wonderful” said lieutenant Soravov, “You have all the foods we like.”
The fifteen other Artonians that had been learning the language appeared and helped themselves to a tray of raw fruits and vegetables and glasses of juice. They seated themselves with the crew wherever there was an empty seat and struck up small conversations. Lieutenant Soravov asked Gil “How is it that you people speak our language?” “Gil started to reply but then realized that Lieutenant Soravov had asked the question in English! Gil replied in English “We learned your language since you have been here, apparently you have learned English since you have been here also.” “Not so much, we are not as quick as your people are.”
Admiral Carter had said in his latest communication that he was willing to take the gamble. I just finished watching the video of the crew having lunch and we all came to the conclusion that these are sincere people of good intentions. We are convInced that their planet is in a disintegrating orbit and we are going to help save as many of them as we can. I will see you on Arton in about six months Captain Cummings. Make sure that you have that radio for us when we get there. Beyond that continue sending all the information that you are able to gather on these people. I would be especially interested in hearing what our Artonians discover from their videos and books. We will outfit our ships for maximum passenger accommodations and plan to depart Earth for Arton within one week unless we hear from you otherwise.
CHAPTER – Earth and Mars help Dedov
July 28, 2176: One by one the space fleet of Dedov began to return to their home planet. One ship had stopped at Arton and installed the hyperspace radio equipment in the Arton orbiter. The men working in the orbiter had no idea they were coming. They just didn't know what to make of having Alien technicians board their orbiter and start installing radio equipment. The technicians did not seem threatening and seemed to be doing what they had been told to do so the two men on the orbiter did not interfere. In the Mars communications center the radio message from Arton came in loud and clear. The speaker on Arton was speaking in the language of Dedov. Someone at Mars communications called Gil. Gil was nearby and was there almost immediately. Gil listened to the brief message for a moment then began to speak into the microphone on the desk. Gil conversed back and forth with the speaker on the other end for about five minutes. Then Gil began to speak in English, addressing the men in the Arton orbiter and the men in the Mars communications center at the same time. “This is Gil on Mars, the technicians who are in your orbiter are from the planet Dedov. We are already quite familiar with this race on Mars. The people there have just finished installing a hyperspace radio in your orbiter. They are leaving another radio with you that you will have to figure out how to install on Arton. I suggest that you install it where my people live on the upper class island. Artonians are more adroit at communications than Earthlings are. One of the men working in the orbiter came back in English with one question after another. Within the next hour Gil had brought them up to date on the entire situation. The radio had already been installed on Mars Runner and on the Earth orbiter. Arton now had instant communications with the star fleet Mars and Earth. Gil told them that the four Arton ships were en route to Arton and should arrive in about two months to assist with the evacuation of refugees from Dedov. Gil asked them to try as best they could to prepare islands on the planet to receive up to one million refugees over the next several years. Gil explained that this would be temporary until the bulk of the refugees could be transported to Mars and Earth.
April 22, 2178: All four of the Arton Ships had been to Dedov and had transported 40,000 refugees to Arton. The Dedov fleet had transported 60,000 more so now there were almost as many people from Dedov living on Arton as there were humans and Artonians. The natives of Arton no longer seemed as oblivious to the affairs of their planet and the other beings on it as they had once seemed. The assignment that they had received to teach English to the people of Dedov had caught their interest. The island of elders had sent boats to the islands where the Artonian natives resided and transported a representative group of natives to each of the islands now populated by refugees. Even the disinterested Earthlings on the planet had taken up the cause and were using their boats to transport what surplus they had or could produce to help feed, clothe and otherwise assist the newcomers. Despite the best efforts of the Earthlings and Natives of Arton the conditions in the refugee camps was appalling and still deteriorating. Yet more new refugees arrived almost daily. When they arrived they each had a small valise of their personal belongings and nothing else. They had been told that there was plenty of food on Arton and there was. Plenty of food to prevent starvation but not the food that they were accustomed to eating. They had taken up fishing and were developing a taste for the abundant seafood of Arton, that resource that had never before been harvested, was abundant and easy to gather. No one starved or even went without enough to eat but they had to improvise beds from plants, occupy caves when available, do without toiletries and all the conveniences that they had enjoyed on Dedov.
May 17, 2180: Conditions on Dedov had worsened much sooner than had been anticipated. The planet's orbit had rapidly become more eccentric. The rescue effort knew that they would be lucky if it held together for another six months. The efforts of the combined space fleet had succeed in removing another 150,000 refugees but conditions on Arton had also deteriorated. Disease and hunger for their customary foods were taking it's toll. CHAPTER – Hopeless Rescue – Miraculous Save
May 25, 2180: All was turning to despair then out of nowhere a space ship materialized into Dedov orbit. It dwarfed the pitiful ships being used by the space fleet of Earth and Dedov. Minutes later another of an entirely different design materialized, followed by another and another. Within one day there were a total of 75 ships in orbit around Dedov. All of these ships were basically saucer shaped but they each followed a different design concept. Arton Three was just approaching Dedov and had come out of Warp drive when their radio boomed on.
“Attention Arton Three,” the voice said in English, my name is Funutuoie, I am the commander of a fleet of ships from what would translate in English to “The Intergalactic Association of Civilized Planets.” We have been Monitoring the events of Earth, Mars, Arton and Dedov for a long time. None of your planets have ever attracted us to make contact with you. None of you have ever met the minimum qualifications for Inclusion into our society. Frankly until Earth suffered its catastrophe, Earth worried us a great deal. Since the holocaust on Earth we have been very pleased to see the change in the Earth, and the attitude of the people now living there. We have been sending ships to patrol Earth for the last four hundred of your years. The only reason that we have now chosen to intercede is a charitable interest in rescuing the people remaining on Dedov. We have dispatched an adequate number of ships to remove the remaining population i during the next 26 Earth days, four hours and 42 minutes to be exact. That is that is precisely the time remaining before Dedov will loose orbital stability and plunge into it's sun. Don't worry before that happens all of the people will be safely on Earth. Please communicate this message to all the other ships in your a