In the Australian summer of 1958, Homer Joseph Calham, ham radio operator and enthusiastic night sky watcher, was driving home with his ten-year old son, Denver, who had earlier performed in an end of year school play.
So enthusiastic was he about astronomy that he had moved his family from the USA two years earlier to the Australian Northern Territory. After six months of exploration, they settled in a tiny but close community northwest of Renner Springs, on the Barkly Tablelands, around five hundred kilometers north of the famed Alice Springs. His family got on well with the locals, and he was fascinated with the uniqueness of the world’s flattest continent, and the land of “sprung loaded rats.”
It was a far cry from his hometown of Pasadena in Texas where he had enjoyed the northern hemisphere of stargazing; now he wanted to experience the southern. Homer’s adoring wife and mother to Denver was born into money thanks to an oil billionaire family heritage from the black gold town of Houston, Texas. That gave Homer a lot of freedom, though he was not a money orientated person by nature. Unfortunately, his beloved Mary Elizabeth Calham, at the young age of thirty-four, had died of undiagnosed breast cancer. This tragedy drew the father and son even more closely together. They both loved the dry red continent so much they decided to make it their permanent home.
It was one of those typical hot Australian evenings, with skies so clear. “You could see Jupiter’s four large Galilean moons chasing each other’s tails,” he would fondly say to his son.
A precocious Denver Calham grew up watching his father with his eye to his favorite telescope nicknamed “Gal 1609,” a replica of Galileo Galilei’s first telescope that he developed in 1609, and his ears tuned into radio frequencies.
The astronomy enthusiasm that the father possessed naturally spilled over to his son.
Homer would spend hours explaining to Denver about the eighty odd constellations that helped map out the stars, like Orion, Sagittarius, Taurus and working out the months of the year in which to best view them. Denver was proud of his dad and knew when he grew up, he wanted to be an astronomer or a scientist, as he enjoyed mathematics and had a natural aptitude for physics in general. Denver, at the tender age of ten, knew the world was his oyster.
When they reached home, Homer, as usual, ventured into his large shack at the back where his collection of eighty-five telescopes was housed, including his revered Gal 1609. Right in the middle of the shack was his crystal radio equipment where he, as he termed it, “tuned into the night sky.” So far, his only contacts were other enthusiastic night sky watchers from around the globe and at times the chatter was surprisingly audible, depending on the weather.
Denver went straight to bed, he was exhausted, and remembering lines for the play had given him a bit of a headache. He never was much into drama, but had quickly volunteered when a cute girl he had a crush on was playing opposite.
The young lad had just closed his eyes, when a flash, like lightning, burnt at his closed eyelids. Just another lightning storm, common at this time of year. Yet, there were no clouds anywhere; it must have just started gathering. He must have missed the accompanying rumble of thunder.
Too tired to think anything of it, he drifted into welcomed slumber.
He jerked awake when his father dashed into his room, shouting at him.
Homer grabbed Denver’s arm and pulled the startled lad out of bed. “Son, did you see the flash? Come quick! Come on!”
Homer held onto his son’s arm as they hurried outside. He pushed the shack’s door open and said, “Listen to this, I’m recording this now.”
He turned up his radio volume. There was an immense sound of static, and Homer nodded at it, “Hear that?”
God, it did sound weird. Denver did not have a clue, but his ears were trained enough to realize that this particular static was unusual. You got an occasional music or talk station, but mainly babbling from around the Earth’s airwaves faintly came through. This was plain weird. He could swear he could hear a pattern.
“Wait, now listen here.”
Both held their breath in anticipation. A faint beeping sound, barely audible grew louder. After sixty seconds of listening to it they realized what it was–it was Morse code, repeating over and over again, di-di-di-dah-dah-dah-di-di-di.
It was an SOS, Save Our Souls.
“Denver, listen to me. I just want you to know that I wasn’t touching the tuner; it was as if the tuner had moved itself to this particular frequency. Please don’t think I am crazy. At first, the static was incredible and getting louder. I saw or rather felt a flash like lightning. I ran outside to see if it was lightning, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I stepped back in and the tuner had moved to this frequency.”
Denver had never doubted his dad in the past and right now was no exception. “Right, Dad, what do we do?”
“Get in the truck, lad, and let’s find out what the hell that flash was all about.”
“Should we take a gun?”
“Go get some medical supplies, son, and I’ll get the shottie, just to be on the safe side.”
Three minutes later, they had loaded up the ’57 Ford F 100 truck, roared the 351 V8 Cleveland into life and headed out full song across the dirt track towards the Stuart Highway.
Denver began clutching his head in pain.
“What is it, son? You still got that headache?”
“I–I think so, but, I think I can hear something, wait!”
“I better pull over and check you.”
“No!” Denver said with such venom that made his father jump. “Keep driving this way–south. You won’t believe this, well, maybe you will, but I can hear someone talking to me in my head.”
Homer looked at his son, who seemed to be reasonably coherent, and thankfully not turning purple or foaming at the mouth.
They traveled silently, on a steady seventy-five miles per hour. Five minutes later they came to a crossroad. Homer carried on south, but Denver started screaming, “No, no! Go back, turn west.” He gripped his head. “Oh the pain!”
Homer did not question him; there was no time. He was not a religious man even though he had studied many religions. He considered himself a fair, open minded man whose personal religion was the scientific study of the night sky and that some of the damn answers lay up there.
This, however, he did not know what to think. Very few things threw Homer Denver Calham, perhaps tonight would prove to be different.
“Get off the road, head southwest!”
Homer swerved off the road and they bumped up and down over the crumbly dry ground. He began sweating.
The sky was clear and stars were visible, but only a quarter moon shone that night. Nothing extraordinary.
Homer slammed his brakes on, just in time to stop them from crashing into a wall that came from nowhere.
He turned the engine off but left the headlights on. “Stay in the truck, Denver.”
“No way, Dad. I’m with you and you won’t need the shotgun.”
Homer hesitated, then decided to leave it behind and grabbed a torch instead.
“Damn it, batteries are flat.”
The first thing they noticed was the smell of freshly turned dirt lingering in the air. They moved to the wall.
From the lights from the truck it seemed the substance was a shimmery glistening type of metal. Denver reached out to touch it.
“No!” Homer hissed and whipped the boy’s hand away. Denver lost his balance and began to fall forward. His father grabbed him and dragged him back; both fell on their behinds. Homer had seen in the nick of time that if the boy fell over, he was going to end up down a dark abyss.
Breathless, they both sat up and crawled on their bellies to the edge.
They waited a second for their eyes to adjust to the blanket of darkness to see what was before them. The abyss was more like a fifteen-foot drop, big enough to cause problems depending what you landed on.
This was not here yesterday, and no ea
rthmovers were in the area. Their eyes focused on what was positioned at the far end of the crater, some seventy-five yards away. Something massive. Could it be some sort of meteorite? There was a glowing light pulsating from a large body mass. They let their eyes become more accustomed and had to wait for their brains to take in the scope of something that would change their lives forever.
What they saw took their breath away, again. They spent another minute taking the spectacular sight in, and Denver stated, “We have to help.”
Homer could not tear his eyes away. “Yes, wait, I’ll get the rope and supplies.”
He threw the backpack with the medical supplies on and tied the rope to the front of the truck, came back and glanced at his son. His young face was calm, almost serene, and peaceful.
He looped the rope around himself, then Denver. “Come on, son, keep close to me.”
They made their way down. It took several minutes to reach the bottom, untie the rope, and cross over to the glowing mass.
About fifteen feet away, they stopped and took in the scene.
“Dad, I know what this is.”
With such an impact, they expected to see pieces of the shimmering metal material strewn all over. However, on closer inspection, it seemed relatively intact, though the middle portion was buried, and they could not be too sure of the damage. It looked roughly cylindrical in its overall shape. Judging by the way the ground had been shoved aside, its touchdown began from where they almost hit that wall of metal shimmering material, which was, they assumed its tail, and the sheer impact and weight of the vessel pushed it into its resting place. Dirt would have been flung aside and over the top.
“It’s a spaceship, isn’t it, Dad?” Homer didn’t answer. He looked at his son and they both ran to the protruding portion.
Up close, the part they stood against towered at least two or three stories above their heads, though they could not be sure of its real height, as some of it could be buried underground. The outside surface was smooth and liquid looking, shimmering like thousands of stars. Homer cautiously touched it—it was smooth and cool, almost felt like a liquid.
“How the hell do we open it?” ventured Homer, after examining it for a doorway of some description.
“Wait,” Denver said, holding his hand up. “Okay, got it.”
“Got what?” asked his confused father.
“The voice in my head, it is telling me what to do. Don’t be afraid. They are friendly, and they know all about us.”
Oh shit, they can’t call me eccentric now, Homer thought. He had spent years studying the galaxies with his telescopes and had always held on to the belief of extraterrestrial life. He was a well known personality in the region for his enthusiasm towards astronomy. People, who were just plain ignorant of astronomy classed him as harmless, but he hated being called eccentric.
He observed Denver trying to reach a panel a foot above his head. “Dad, help me.”
His father rushed over. “What are you doing?”
“I can’t reach it. I will have to tell you what to do to open the hatch.”
Homer put aside all his thoughts and fears that become associated with parenthood and said, “Okay, tell me.”
“Press the small black knob on the side once, a panel will open up.”
Homer saw the tiny black knob and pressed it. A small square panel rose up from under the crystal like skin of the hull.
“Now, there are six symbols there, you must press them in a sequence.”
The symbols looked like geometric shapes interlaced with lines, dots, and curves.
“No, I’m sorry. I won’t be able to explain that to my father, I’ll do it.”
Homer stared at him. “Who were you talking to?”
“There is a creature inside, and he is talking to me, telling me how to free him. I can’t pronounce or explain what to do, but if you hoist me on your shoulders, I will do it. I can see it imprinted in my mind.”
Without a word, Homer bent down, dropped the torch, placed his son on his shoulders, and stood up again.
Denver pressed in the sequence as he saw it appear in his mind.
Nothing happened.
Denver waited, then, replied to the voice in his head, “Okay, I’ll try again.”
He repeated the process, and thumped the hull with the side of his fist. This time a sharp hissing sound greeted their ears as a hatch beside the panel opened, lifting upward, and a ramp dropped down revealing a dim interior. To Homer it looked like a shark with its mouth gaping open in a bid to swallow them.
Denver jumped off his father’s shoulders onto the ramp and scurried up toward the entrance. “Slow down,” Homer yelled, hoisted himself up, and went running after him.
Inside the craft, it was warm, breathable, and no expected acrid smells or signs of fire were detectable. “This way,” said Denver excitedly. “He’s over here.”
Denver ran down a short corridor and found it blocked by debris as a result of the crash.
“Quick!” yelled Denver as he began to remove the blockage from the path.
They both cleared enough room to get through the rest of the corridor and ended up in a wide, circular room. The walls were covered in shimmering metal just like the outside. A quick survey revealed uniformed rows of benches with smooth flat screen devices. Small colorful buttons were strewn over the benches. It reminded Homer of a sci-fi flick he saw at a movie house. But this was real, happening right now!
Perhaps this was a control room for the ship. Where was the engine room? Was this craft guided by computers or engines of sorts?
There was one chair in the middle of the floor facing the nose of the ship. Everything looked smoothly moulded, as if all furnishings and equipment was structurally part of the ship and not bolted on. A quick surveillance of the structure showed no obvious damage, as far as one could tell being the first time aboard an extraterrestrial craft. Homer concluded the reason why the ship was hardly damaged was because everything contained in this expansive room was amassed as one big body. Purposefully built to withstand assaults or crashes, Homer thought.
That is correct, Homer.
Homer jumped! A voice had spoken to him–well, a voice had definitely spoken, but it was in his head. Was it the same one that had talked to his son?
He observed Denver on the far side of the room reaching into a hole where the wall and floor met. “Here, Dad, help me.”
Homer ran up to him and saw Denver’s hand reaching out to another hand that had four fingers and a stub for a thumb. The fingers were long, thin, and graceful. He bent down and helped Denver pull out a creature that was the strangest thing to look at. It looked humanoid, had hands, feet, torso, etc. The head was large, bald, and oval, and dark wide eyes peered up at them. They helped the creature to his feet. He stood just less than five foot tall. A simple jerkin was wrapped around his body. The most unusual thing was the orange tinge to the skin.
“Can you hold onto me for a second?” said the creature, in clear English through a hole that had to be a mouth. It had two dark pools for eyes above the mouth and nostrils. Both father and son held him under the arms; they felt a vibration go through the creature’s body and were too fascinated to be scared.
After a few seconds he said, “I have just checked out my body and my lower spine was twisted. Thanks for your help, it was good of you to rescue me.”
“You must be in great pain,” said Homer in concern.
“Not anymore, I just couldn’t move, now I am fine.” He smiled. Or they thought he did.
They let him go, and the creature seemed to float over to the chair in the middle of the craft and sat down. He pressed his fingers on a desk and a slim grey box slid up from the surface. They silently watched him as he touched the screen and turned back to them as the box disappeared back into the desk, leaving no telltale seam.
“Excuse me, I had to check out any damage to my craft. It is minimal, seems I was the only victi
m!”
He laughed, well they assumed he did, but it sounded more like nails sliding on a blackboard.
“Please permit me to introduce myself. My name is Scaba, I am a Septen from the planet Sanah in the Omicron Galaxy, which is about two hundred and fifty million light years from your Earth, give or take.”
They stared at him. That’s, er, a damn long way, thought Homer.
Homer piped up, “Umm, my name is—”
“Homer and your son Denver from Australia, Earth,” Scaba said and smiled again. “My race knows quite a bit about humans. We have been watching you for many centuries, observing your many stages of revolution and evolution developing. You are very unique and have a diverse range of cultures and languages for one planet, compared to most other civilizations that we have come across. You see, we are explorers by nature. That is primarily our culture. We possess what you would term a photographic mind and some telepathy skills, and we can speak most universal languages and learn as we go.”
“Wow,” contributed Homer, totally fixated. “This is incredible. What caused you to crash? Why here?”
“Let me give you a brief background. We are a peaceful, curious race and as I said, our mission is to explore. We would have loved to contact you centuries ago, but you were not, shall we say, ready. However, we were interested in seeing your individual progress with space exploration and growth of technology over time. Suffice to say you don’t have very advanced or sound technology to even get you through the radiation fields surrounding your planet. But, you humans, though you are persistent, intelligent, and clever, are generally unpredictable. We decided to keep studying you from a distance.
However, our suspicions have come true over your ingrained and obsessive need to create havoc and war for the sake of land, power, ethnicity, or religion. We had decided to only observe and not to ever contact or interfere.” He lifted his slim arms up in the air. “Now that has come to an end with my crash. The reason I am in the immediate vicinity of your planet is because I am looking for a new place for my people to live. There has been a mysterious, evil race that has spread out across the universe like a virus. It took several centuries for us to even hear of them, as they are believed to have emerged from unchartered regions of the universe we had not even considered exploring. But now they are upon us. Their speed, sheer numbers, and weaponry overwhelmed us at a rate that has almost wiped us out of existence. They ravaged our land and its natural resources–our mining and raw materials, stole technology, and enslaved or killed our people. Even now as I speak, they are destroying our once beautiful home to change it to suit them.
My mission was to take a select few of my race and find a place to settle. I know we will never be able to return while this vile pestilence exists on our world. However, I have recently located a place that would be perfect.”
“Where?” asked a fascinated Denver.
“Your planet’s own natural satellite.”
“You mean the Moon?”
The Septen nodded.
Homer frowned. “But there is no atmosphere, only vacuum and the surface temperatures would be unbearable, I mean you are looking at one hundred degrees Celsius during the daytime and around minus one hundred and seventy-three degrees at night.”
Denver interrupted, “Scaba, why are you, er, orange?”
Scaba grinned, this time they were sure it was a grin. “Our primary color under your light spectrum is orange, but we can change at will. Now Homer, yes, what you say is true but not below the surface on what you term the dark side of the moon. We have checked it out, and it is fine. We use crystal energy to cut into surfaces. The crystal is called Crytaalic, quite rare and only found on Sanah and one other planet called Ahmadeus in the Quelain Galaxy. Your galaxy is so far away from most intelligent life, this should give us protection from predators, and I’m sorry to say, you humans. As I had been to your planet years ago, I knew the moon would be perfect. Unfortunately, one of our enemies’ ships gave chase and just as the computer was engaging the hyper beam to hasten my escape, they shot at the ship. The ship was going into a sub interstellar curve, and the impact of their energy weapon distorted the gap in space that I was just about to go through. I entered your solar system much faster than I thought, and a fraction off course, winding up on Earth and, er, hence the dent in the ground. I’m very sorry. This–our computer system couldn’t compensate in time to land properly.”
Denver cheerfully spoke up, “I’m sure no one will notice!”
Scaba made the nails on the blackboard noise again.
Homer, struggling to take it all in, blurted out, “What! You mean, you. Aliens, will live beneath the moon’s surface?”
“Of course, we are equipped with enough technology that can provide us with life support, food, and medicinal supplies—everything we need to keep our species alive and keep up our exploration missions too. There are two hundred of us aboard this ship in collective molecular stasis dilation, a type of sleep, where time does not significantly alter the duration of the body or mind. And for storage reasons, the physical body is stored in its basic form inside a sealed vacuum chamber. I do not want to reveal too much to you, it may be a little beyond your understanding. When I wake my people, it will seem like no time has passed for them at all.”
“This sounds like a fantastic science fiction movie,” Homer commented.
“Oh, it is far from fictional. In fact, it is a shame Earth’s sciences and physics are so comparatively primitive and limited due to such slow gain in your technological abilities. I guess that is one disadvantage being so far away from other intelligent life.”
Homer frowned, trying his best to take it all in. To save face he reiterated, “So you come from two hundred and fifty million light years away and had an enemy ship chasing you? But, two hundred and fifty million light years, how can anyone or anything travel that distance so fast? I mean, we can look through our telescopes and see the past by studying galaxies outside our own. Like the Andromeda Galaxy, relatively close to Earth at a mere two million light years away. It is the factor of the speed of light which takes so long to reach Earth.”
“Homer, your Earth astronomy and physics are, well, sufficient for your race, for now. Please realize that most humans are not quite ready to understand there are other intelligent life forms that exist in different dimensions as well as your own.”
Scaba saw the look of disappointment in Homer’s eyes.
“As I said, most humans, there are exceptions like you and your son of course. With my presence, at least you now know there is life out there. You are right, they cannot call you eccentric. Sorry, I should not read your mind without your consent. I could spend a lot of time explaining to you the mathematical principles and technological advances we Septens have made, but I don’t have time. Even Septens can’t quite control time on a full time scale.” He made a mix of scratching nails and a popping noise that Homer took for chuckling. “As I have said, we and many other races have technology that goes beyond anything that you are capable of even dreaming about. To keep it simple and relevant to your Earth terms, utilizing this ship’s crystal drive took us only eight days to reach here, though because of the attack, for all I know it took but a blink of an eye. Our computer got a little…”
“Frazzled?” offered Denver.
“Yes, frazzled, good word, Denver. I do need to make some repairs, before your law enforcers investigate.”
Denver, eager to keep the conversation flowing with their new friend said, “I heard you speak to me when we were rescuing you, but it hurt when we were driving here.”
“Yes, I’m sorry about that, the pain I was in leached into the mind telepathy I used. If it is not controlled, it can hurt and even kill. My judgment was not very sound due to my condition, so when I sensed you moving away from the ship, I became concerned. I knew you would understand the SOS signal I sent through.”
“We sure did, and here we are,” Homer said. “What about t
his plague, this enemy, why did they attack you and will they ever track you here?”
He paused. “One day, perhaps. One of their fleet contacted us stating they were peaceful explorers and wanted to share geographical information regarding our planet.” Scaba’s voice took on a bitter tone. “We welcomed them, and they in turn violently turned on us. Right now they are stripping our homeworld of its resources. They knew we were a passive race and did not have any real means to defend ourselves against their assault. When they discovered we were all telepathic, which they saw as a possible weapon against them, they began to systematically execute us. That was why I had to save some of my people. One of my friends, though he was being savagely tortured, managed to telepathically pass on information about them before he died. We discovered this scourge had invaded your planet, but, it was just under six thousand years ago in your Northern hemisphere. From what we could ascertain, they set up mining colonies and their leader, rumored to be immortal, had a fascination regarding some sort of power he wanted to get his hands on. They left soon after, and I’m not sure if they got what they wanted. I do not think they have returned. Well, the human race is, thank goodness, obviously thriving. They are hard to infiltrate, secretive and very technologically superior. What we do know is they are a hybrid race, a large, muscular human like body, with an energy force that survives inside the body, giving the host amazing strength and longevity.” Scaba looked at the two humans staring intently at him.
“They call themselves the Trimadians. And I hope you never encounter them in your lifetime.”
Homer felt sorry for Scaba and what he had experienced. But at the same time he could not speak–he was too caught up in the moment.
Aliens have been here, long ago. An alien is standing talking to me right now!
“That’s a cool name,” commented Denver.
“I’m sure you won’t want to meet them, young one,” said Scaba solemnly.
“How old are you, you know, in Earth years?”
“Ah, a child’s curiosity. Don’t ever change, Denver. I am three hundred of your Earth years. We are a small population, but we live a long time.”
“What was that huge bright flash? I know it was your ship but what caused it?”
“This ship, which is relatively quite an old model, has a hull based on the same crystal that powers the engine, Crytaalic. Though, there is a new manufactured extract from the Zymergillian crystal, called Zymergy, which, without going into detail, has more efficient properties than Crytaalic. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, Zymergillian is found only on one planet, which is the Trimadians’ home world. Therefore, it is difficult to obtain, and we are not sure how Zymergillian is technologically adapted.
“Anyhow, to give you a simple answer to your question—when the ship’s hull skimmed the atmosphere, air pressure reacting upon the hull caused intense friction and the resulting super flash was simply the reaction of the crystals contacting the hydrogen/oxygen molecules prevalent in your atmosphere.”
“And the ground broke your fall,’ stated Denver with a grin.
“You could say that young human!” chuckled Scaba.
Scaba paused for a moment as if making up his mind. “I feel I should tell you that this ship does not belong to me. Most of our ships were destroyed but I managed to, err, borrow this one from the Trimadians. It was risky, but we were getting to the point of total annihilation. I had to take it for our race’s very survival. As it is one of their less efficient, older models, I doubt they will put much effort into tracking it this far. Crytaalic is considered old fashioned to them, nowhere near as fast, efficient, or durable for space travel compared to Zymergy. We adapted the life support to our needs, but it didn’t take long for the Trimadians to find us. They were not pleased, hence the attack. They more than likely believe we are dead.”
“Can you fix your ship and go to the moon without being detected?” Homer enquired.
“Yes, I know enough about the ship to fix what is necessary. Luckily for me this ship may be old by the Trimadians’ standards, but it is the most wondrous I have ever seen. Admittedly, the Trimadians have amazing skills creating hardy ships. My immediate concern is cleaning up the dent we have made in the ground, which I can rectify. But I must do so before any of your military forces investigate. They may have tracked the ship in your atmosphere, and I will take no chances. When I do leave, I have a device that can hide or cloak the ship for the time I am journeying to your moon. This should only take a couple of Earth minutes, but I need to check all the systems before I lift off again.”
Homer and Denver looked at each other. “I gather you will not want us to breathe a word of this, would you?” Homer ventured.
“You are correct. Our nature is not to interfere with another planet’s evolutionary phases, simply to observe. The consequences for your people could be quite disastrous, and I must look after my race. One day maybe we will be able to return to Sanah, but not for a long time.”
Homer’s mind geared into overdrive.
So what if everyone thinks I’m a crackpot, I know the truth and it is a small price to pay with so much to gain.
He made a decision. This was a chance of a lifetime. He had lots of bizarre ideas over time and several years ago he had a daydream (while on the toilet) about a scenario similar to this. No, Scaba was right, the world was not quite ready for the truth, but he knew what he could do.
“What if we came to an agreement that would help each of us?”
“What do you mean, Homer?”
“My late wife left me a lot of money most of which is invested. It all goes to Denver no matter what. I am involved with a small group of fellow astronomers who all share similar beliefs, especially the search for extraterrestrial life. I can use this money to raise more funds to invest in developing technologies and communications. These gentlemen are all on the same side as I am, to search, learn, and improve technologies. If you are only based on the moon, we can easily communicate. I am very passionate about astronomy and so is young Denver. Meeting you is, well, fate. The membership of my group is deliberately small, private but powerful, and I have contacts in different countries. I know from the outside I look like your average bloke. But I think my organization can help you. The members who are scattered throughout do not believe in power or money gain. They simply want to learn more about our universe and exploring it. We too do not believe in exposing our world to extraterrestrials when they are not ready to. We would run what I would term, a tight ship.”
Denver looked up at his father with wide eyed wonder—yes, he was aware his father had contacts about his favorite hobby, but not at all to this degree.
Scaba smiled. “I have picked up your radio signals before. You would be amazed just how far they can travel. Several years earlier, we have closely visited your planet, especially the land units you call your United States, Russia, and this huge warm continent, Australia.”
Scaba looked at Homer intently. “You seem to be a man of honor, Homer. When I corresponded telepathically with you and Denver, I sensed you were genuine and kind in your hearts and I know you are a man of your word. Perhaps I can help you by sharing a little of our technology with you, like developing a ship. I can sense you enjoy science and engineering, especially you, Denver, though you may not realize just how insightful you are. But ultimately, my people’s existence has to be secret. If it gets out about our agreement together, what is your Earth saying? All hell will break loose. You humans do tend to blow things up and then ask questions.”
Homer was trembling with excitement. He would agree to anything.
“I agree, and we will help with whatever we can do. Can you contact me later, and I will arrange a meeting with some of my colleagues?”
“Affirmative. However, there is not much you can do here now. I would suggest you leave and get to your vehicle, as I need to cover up the damage I created to your terra firma. Retreat a good distance for safety.” He winked at Denver
. “I am sure we will meet many times in the future, Denver.”
“How will we make contact, Scaba?”
“The same way I first contacted you, so stay by your radio and don’t worry. No one else will be able to pick up on the frequency I will use. Now you must go, my friends.”
Homer and Denver reluctantly left the ship, but when they got outside, they raced up as fast as they could to the truck, backed it up almost to the road, and stopped. They got out, climbed up on the roof, and waited.
They felt the earth tremble as a deep rumble built up, and the ship slowly ascended and hovered over the hole in the ground. What a sight to behold. The ship looked as good as new as far as they could tell. Indeed, the tail part they had first made contact with, was connected to the main body, just simply buried deep in the ground.
A wavy distortion field emanated from the ship; everything around them took on a hazy intense heat. They broke out in to a sweat and it was hard to focus. The ship hovered a few seconds more, turned one hundred and eighty degrees, and slowly drifted over to the truck. Through a slit in the front, they could see Scaba had raised the protection plate from the window and waved at them. In a blink, he shot upward. They could just see it, and it soared into the night sky and disappeared.
“Shit, that was freaky. Is this happening, son?”
“Oh Dad, we aren’t dreaming, if that’s what you mean.”
“So many questions I have–just think: a whole new race right on our galactic doorstep. Life will not be the same, ever, well at least for us.”
They got in the truck and drove back to the crash site. There was no cliff face, no crater, no debris, and no sign to show that anything had crashed. The dirt was all compacted, and the temperature seemed back to normal. Even a couple of trees were standing there as if nothing had happened.
“This is history, son. Don’t you ever forget this moment.”
Existence in different dimensions, Crytaalic drives, Zymergillian crystals. This is mind blowing stuff.
Scaba did contact Homer back, five days later. He had settled his people and were building their world within the cold, unforgiving atmosphere of Earth’s moon using their strange crystal technology. Scaba was grateful for Homer’s discretion and was happy to help the friendly humans–his first real physical encounter!
The first meeting that was set up consisted of four of Homer’s most trusted colleagues. Three hours later, the Secret United Earth Powers or S.U.E.P. was born.
Homer had learnt a lot from his alien friend throughout his life. In fact, the two remained life long friends.