Excerpt from Chapter 11

1954, or Just Press the I Believe Button

by Byron Grush

Alien Origins

It is from Hmnogykwaer, the rebel Grey who eventually befriended Nate, that we get the story. It is infused with legend and muddled by age, a strange brew whose factual basis may only be wondered upon, but it is all we have. The planet Klivpokla circled the sun, Twodhlog (the star we call Betelgeuse). At the time the legend begins, some 10,000,000 years ago, Twodhlog was not the red supergiant we know today. It was a runaway star, formed many hundreds of parsecs from its present location. Along the path of its journey it meandered through space, buffeted by the explosions of other stars like a giant stellar billiard ball. The stellar wind preceding the young star created a bow shock. It began to cool and expand.

It pulsed and transformed into a blue giant, then a red giant, then back again. Solar flares sent gases and star dust millions of miles into space. The fusion at its core suddenly ceased and the star began to collapse. But the huge mass of the star would not die without a struggle. Pressures at the core of Twodhlog restarted the fusion process. Its movement slowed. In the greater scheme of cosmic things, it might be said to have settled down. There had formed about it a solar system of planets and moons and fragments of space debris. Where comets collided and deposited ice, life emerged.

4,000,000 years ago the predecessors of the Ratiessrvedflynac and the Aimnegarwfuchee rose to walk the virgin soil of Klivpokla, the fourth planet of Twodhlog. There were similar stirrings of early human life on our own planet about this time but the Klivpoklaians were much advanced and would develop mathematics and scientific technology many millennia sooner than earthlings. By 3,100 BC, during the early Bronze Age on earth, near the start of the Mayan calendar and predynastic Egypt, the Klivpoklaians were learning to harness gravitational forces and to build primitive airborn vehicles. By the late Second Millennium BC, when the City of Troy fell to the Greeks, when the Chinese of the Zhou Dynasty developed the first ideograms and the Phoenician alphabet was invented, the Klivpoklaians had mastered space flight and had visited the other planets in their solar system.

The Klivpoklaians developed not only technologically but with regard to their perception of life and their place in the universe. They had learned through the practice of various formal rituals to amplify their senses, to expand and control their consciousness. They obtained the ability to sense vibrations along the entire electromagnetic spectrum (not just the visible ones) and all ranges of sound waves. With this heightened awareness of the inner and outer aspects of their environment, the Klivpoklaians experienced realms we might think of as mystical or spiritual—but to the Klivpoklaians this was only an understanding of reality that allowed them to evolve as its guardians. Guardians. A monumental arrogance, perhaps, but as they began to understand the mechanics of existence and certain inevitable hazards of the expanding cosmos, they knew that they, and only they, were positioned to preserve intelligent life everywhere. For they suspected other intelligent life existed somewhere in the galaxy, and they felt certain it was in danger of extinction.

The irony of this view was that the Klivpoklaians were, in actual fact, in danger of extinction. This was because that funny old sun of theirs was about to go supernova. Their scientists held differences of opinion about the timing of this disastrous event. Most felt the death of their star was so far into the future as to be inconsequential. There was plenty of time to arrive at the perfect solution: escape to another solar system, for example. One eminent scientist by the name of Zopthmnquiosk, urged the immediate study and planning for such an exodus, but his misgivings about the future were considered extreme and unwarranted by the established scientific community. And these were the folks who had the ears of the politicians.

Their world was populated by four different races, distinguishable by physical characteristics that had evolved from separate branches of a common tree of origin. The Aimnegarwfuchee (the “Nordics”) and the Ratiessrvedflynach (the “Greys”) were the most alike, the former being of a very pale hue and the latter a slightly darker grey. The other two races were more distinct in appearance. The Matofnblotjuupz had a light brown textured skin that made them look as if they had scales (they did not). On the rare occasions when they were seen on Earth, they were referred to (by humans) as “Reptilians.” The fourth race, the  Syktijthraxteraq were short, had very large heads, and were of a yellow-greenish coloring. They had given rise to the sightings of so called “Little Green Men” when they appeared on our Earth.

In the early years of cultural development on Klivpokla there was not universal harmony among the races. The Syktijthraxteraq, because of their diminutive stature, were considered inferior by the Aimnegarwfuchee, and for several centuries were summarily enslaved by them. The Ratiessrvedflynach, more liberal in their thinking but hesitant to take action, opposed the slavery in spite of its economic advantages. Eventually, a civil war broke out. The Matofnblotjuupz had attempted to remain neutral in the conflict but were soon dragged into the fighting on the side of the anti-segregationists.

Explosives were unknown. The Klivpoklaians fought with bladed weapons and maces. The Ratiessrvedflynach used a long, straight sword sharpened to needle sharpness at its tip and along its flattened edges which they used for jabbing and slicing. It resembled the Chinese Jian and was also useful for cutting off hands. The Aimnegarwfuchee preferred a saber, also razor sharp, and not unlike the Japanese Katana. Both wielded their weapons with the practiced routines of a dance-like martial art called Rikthijmb. The Matofnblotjuupz were less sophisticated. Their weapon of choice was an ugly mace studded with spikes.

It was a particularly bloody war lasting many years. This was the first great war of such a magnitude that the planet had experienced. When it was over, millions had been killed, the Syktijthraxteraq were freed, and a resolution was adopted to end war permanently on Klivpokla. This marked the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment.

Zopthmnquiosk, the scientist who had warned against the coming supernova, began to attract followers. These came for the most part from the Ratiessrvedflynach, his own race, but soon factions who favored the exodus developed among all four races. The wheels of industry were oiled, aligned and set in motion, and within five rotations of Klivpokla around its sun, a fleet of intergalactic ships had been produced, enough to carry away around one tenth of the population of the planet: nearly one million souls.

It was decided that lots would be drawn. Equal numbers representing all four races would go with the first fleet. Those who stayed behind would construct more ships and follow when they were able. An equal number of male and female sexes were chosen. Children made up a sizable proportion of the lucky ones. Lucky, because one month after the last ship left the solar system, Twodhlog belched out an angry tongue of gas and cosmic rays that incinerated every living thing on the side of the planet facing the sun, and doomed the rest to a slow death.

The exodus took place in the early 13th Century AD (as the date would be counted on Earth). On Earth, Boniface I had just led his Crusaders in the Sack of Constantinople, marking the end of the Byzantine Empire. The Mongols had invaded Northern China; the Chinese had tried to fight them off with gunpowder-propelled rockets. English barons forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, severely limiting the power of his monarchy. Jamal ud-Din, a Persian-speaking Muslim astronomer  in the service of Kublai Khan, presented the emperor with an astrolabe and a globe; Europeans were still convinced the earth was flat.

Fifteen “mother ships” led the exodus. These were very large, egg-shaped ships that were constructed to carry farms where plants and animals⁶ could be raised. A population of one hundred thousand rode on each—small cities with schools and libraries and governmental offices. A fleet of saucer-shaped ships followed. These varied in size and purpose, some being used to ferry officials between the mother ships, others to collect and distribute resources.

Two years out (years measured according the rotation of Klivpokla around Twodhlog—approximately ten times our own year) a meeting took place on one of the mother ships. Khfezfleyomoniu, leader of the Greys, and Wsofekbullhmj, leader of the Nordics, sat as Grand Arbitrators at a table on the top level of a tiered auditorium. Scientists testified. The search for an inhabitable planet was the goal. The location of one was a mystery. Zopthmnquiosk suggested splitting the fleet into five groups, each with three mother ships. These separate fleets would head in five different directions, toward likely solar systems where planets might exist. It was a gamble. It might result in dooming four fifths of the population.

Of the fate of the other four groups there is no record. Our narrator, Hmnogykwaer, knew only the legend passed down through generations who lived and died on the mother ship called the Uoigykwosp (after an ancient Klivpoklaian astronomer). Many light years were to pass before a planet was to be found. Fortuitously, the Uoigykwosp and its sister ships were headed for our solar system.

Propulsion of the fleet was not by chemical means in the manner that our own earth rockets work. The Klivpoklaian technology involved the harnessing of gravitational forces, in particular, using the effects of anti-gravity on gravity. Velocities very close to the speed of light were able to be sustained, even without the proximity of a large mass such as a planet or a star. Hmnogykwaer was unable to explain exactly how this worked to Nate, who wouldn’t have understood it anyway. But it worked.

“How did you have enough air to last all that time? And water?” Nate wanted to know. It was the only half-way intelligent question he had thought to ask. The answer was simple. They brought it with them, in the form of comets⁷. They could generate a gravitational field to surround the entire fleet which could capture a comet. The saucers would then mine it for its ice and minerals—hence, oxygen and water and other useful substances. When they used up one comet, they would look for others. They might, at times, have three or four of the cosmic snowballs circling them.

Still one hundred light years from their goal, tragedy struck in the form of one such comet. It was an unusually large comet, and it had no magnetic field, a circumstance which confused the astronomers on the mother ships. They failed to calculate its orbit correctly. One of the mother ships collided with the comet, splitting it into fragments. The ship was destroyed along with several dozen of the saucers which were struck by bits of the exploding core of the comet. The two surviving mother ships were greatly damaged. It was necessary to cannibalize one of the ships in order to repair the other. Thus, the Uoigykwosp, now crowded with double its capacity, limped on toward its goal accompanied by several hundred saucers—now the only known survivors of the death of the planet Klivpokla.

Overcrowding took its toll. There were shortages. The animals had been transferred from the scuttled ship but there was not sufficient space to expand the vegetable farms. Without enough feed, many of the animals died or became sick. Fighting broke out…not just racial conflicts or politically motivated quarrels, but strife born of frustration and hunger and fear. Some advocated throwing the Syktijthraxteraq overboard, illogically blaming them for their own dire circumstances. Martial law was declared. It looked like a new Dark Age was beginning.

Then the plague came. Before dead animal carcasses could be jettisoned into space they were stolen…and eaten. There were just enough bacteria still in the air…some exotic strains that hadn’t been filtered out by the ship’s air cleansing systems…that the carcasses became tainted and the people who ate from them were infected. Soon even those who only ate healthy meat caught it. The lessons of the old planet about cleanliness had been forgotten. They sneezed on each other, drank from common glasses, ate before washing their hands. And they caught it. Living in the supposedly sterile environment of the mother ship had slackened caution. Now even a kiss could be deadly.

But the plague solved one problem: overcrowding. In one month’s time, the population of Uoigykwosp had dropped 25%.  In another month, in spite of health officials’ (a newly created bureaucracy) efforts to curb the sickness, the death toll, especially among those weakened from hunger…and children, had brought the population to under 60,000: well below the original number that had left on the mother ship—and this number included those on the saucers. To add to the devastation was a terrifying fact: around 50% of the females and 75% of the males who had survived the plague were now sterile.

The narrator of our story, Hmnogykwaer, was born (to a female Ratiessrvedflynachian who had not yet been infected) on Uoigykwosp, the mother ship, thirty earth years before it landed on Xmkitosp (their name for our moon). Since Xmkitosp orbited the planet Sjilgezhm (Earth), and kept one side always facing away from this inhabited planet, it was a logical choice for a temporary home. Since Sjilgezhm was populated by 2,700,000,000 Sjilgezhmians, it seemed like a good idea to hide from them. And there was the problem of the diminishing birth rate to be solved.

The great scientists had long ago died. No one had the intellectual capacity for creative thinking anymore, or so it seemed. Hmnogykwaer had enrolled in the Science Academy and had graduated with honors. His contemporaries specialized in astrophysics or gravity science but few had thought to explore the field of biology. But Hmnogykwaer was not swayed by convention. He located an aging mentor, a male named Klmneezji-aldu who had been a biologist. He was, at the time of the landing, 175 years old—elderly even for a Ratiessrvedflynachian.

Together they worked on cloning as a solution to the growing sterility of the female and the male population. They harvested as many viable eggs as they could and froze these as well as sperm from the males. Their success rate was dismal. About this same time the aliens began sending some of the smaller saucers to Sjilgezhm. Some of the first explorers crashed, alerting the Sjilgezhmians to their existence. It was too soon to reveal themselves, but the Klivpoklaians realized that contact would need to be made with an important Sjilgezhm leader. Plans were set in motion.

 Now Klmneezji-aldu, proposed a plan: why not bring some specimens back from Sjilgezhm? They appeared to be carbon-based creatures with a similar metabolism as the Klivpoklaians. And they reproduced with the same system of zygotes from ovum and spermatozoa as they did. They should be studied closely. A program was initiated with Klmneezji-aldu at its head and Hmnogykwaer as his chief assistant.

Klmneezji-aldu and Hmnogykwaer, experimenting with specimens brought back to Xmkitosp, found they could clone the Sjilgezhms with much less difficulty than their own species. They learned many new techniques but still could not achieve a practical success rate to reverse the decline of their exiled brothers and sisters. Then Klmneezji-aldu had a bizarre, but brilliant idea: why not create a hybrid?

The experiments intensified and the need for more subjects from the planet below grew. There were a few successes. Their very first success, the hybrid named Hziulquoigmnzhah, was taken down to Sjilgezhm to act as a spy, a recruiter, and a gatherer of information. They had not been able to achieve the semblance of an adult with the cloning of Hziulquoigmnzhah. It was just as well. He would be perceived as being a nine year-old boy by the planet’s inhabitants. All the better to move among them unnoticed. But there was more work to be done. Much more.

⁶ The Klivpoklaians were meat-eaters and raised an animal called an Ahtejiq that, like our earth-bound cow, gave not only different cuts of meat but a nourishing liquid substance, the equivalent of our milk. The Ahtejiq was covered with a thick, wiry hair and sported a nose horn, much like our rhinoceros. The males also had short, stubby horns on the sides of their heads. Another domestic animal raised by the Klivpoklaians was the Fwilhog, a flightless bird not quite half the size of our ostrich. This was kept for its eggs but its meat was inedible. Also on the mother ship was a smaller animal kept as a pet, the Plablikz. It provided companionship for the aliens much as our pet dogs and cats do for us. It was known as Klivpokla’s best friend. It was covered with a soft, curly fur and had six legs.

⁷ Comets are mostly composed of ice, dust and frozen gases. They may have a core of rock or an amalgamation of rock and other substances. Their tails are composed of dust and gas. They have eccentric elliptical orbits, usually around a star such as our sun, and this orbit may extend as much as a million miles into space. Comets that have visited our solar system include Halley’s Comet and Comet Belize. Belize is thought to have split into two because of some cosmic collision or other catastrophe, perhaps in a similar manner as the comet that was struck by the Klivpoklaian fleet.

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