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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Science Fiction
- Subject: Creatures & Monsters
- Published: 03/03/2021
The call was unmistakable. It was the call for a gathering. Everyone came. There hadn’t been a call for a gathering a hundred years. When everyone got there…they stood agape. The Call wasn’t from the Elders. It was from a Machine. Whatever it was, it was emanating the call to gather. The Elders were as surprised as the Gathering. A meeting was held. Someone would have to ride the waves. I was selected.
Riding the waves was dangerous. Some never came back. The Elders chose me. Because I always came back. I got my Blessing. I left my Rock of Life in the hands of the Elders. If I didn’t come back. They would release my life waves to begin again. Life waves were simple. Not like the waves at the surface or out in Space. I hoped they wouldn’t need the Rock of Life.
I began the process. Then… I rode.
*****
“What do you mean the Wind Sensors are acting weird?”
“Well, they are.”
“What do you mean?”
Nisha shrugged her shoulders. She tried to follow Feynman’s rules for explaining things to people who aren’t experts in your field. She was an Engineer. Her Ph.D was in Signaling Devices. She earned fourteen patents for her Wind Sensor Design. She knew what the Sensor should be recording. How can she tell the Director what is going on with the Sensor in a way that She could understand. No Jargon. Simplest Terms. Like you were talking to a child. That is what Feynman said to do. If you can’t make it simple enough…or you start to pause, ramble or resort to technical terms…then you don’t know your subject well enough to understand it. Let alone teach it.
So she went with simple child like. She knew her Field. No pun intended.
“ I mean something is blocking the wind Sensors.”
“But there is nothing there!”
“Nothing…does not block wind. Or a signal. Nor does it stop the Sensor from rotating. Something has done all three.”
“What could possibly do that? All our Instruments respond correctly. It should be working just fine.”
Nisha thought back to Feynman’s teaching method. She knew the answer. Should she tell the Director? After a long pause…and a prompt from the Director… she told her.
“Nisha, do you know what is going on? Or at least have a plausible working theory?”
“Umm…yeah.”
“Well, spit it out!”
Nisha shrugged her shoulders again. Releasing all of her tension before she spoke in a calm measured Engineer like cadence:
“Something, or someone - is blocking our sensors. Whatever, or Whomever it is has attached something to the Signal.”
The Director thought for a second that Nisha was out of her god forsaken mind. Then she thought harder. Nisha was the smartest person the had ever met…and the Director’s Father had won the Nobel Prize. Nisha was not only smart, she wasn’t given to small talk, speculation, or hyperbole. If Nisha said something attached to the Signal…that is what she meant. The Director took a deep breath.
“What attached to the Signal?”
“I don’t know. Whatever it was rode in on the Signal. Two hours later, it rode back out again. The signals in between were ordinary routine routing. “
“You mean something came here on a beam of light, got off, wandered around, and then rode back to Mars on our signal?”
“Yes. That is what I think.”
“Jesus.”
*****
Back on Mars, the Elders handed the Rock of Life back to me. I called a Gathering. The first in almost a thousand years that wasn’t called by an Elder. Everyone came…again. I told them my story. Other Wave Riders listened intently. They knew they would be sent out too. When I finished my report The Eldest spoke to us all:
“Life? That is impossible! That planet is to hot, to heavy, to wet. The atmosphere would crush you. The Oxygen would smother you so quickly you wouldn’t even know you were dead. Not enough radiation hits that planet’s surface to support Life, even if it could figure out a way to struggle against the power of the atmosphere, or not drown in oxygen.
Water is every where on that planet. Most of it is salt water. (The entire gathering shuddered at the thought of the horrible death that would follow being dipped in corrosive salt water…some let out a shriek.) It can’t be Life. Not as we know it.”
I did not interrupt. Nobody interrupts an Elder. Besides, before I rode the Waves…I had exactly the same thoughts. Not now. I spoke again:
“They aren’t like us at all. They are fat columns of stacked water. Filled with salt water and organic chemicals…just like the Water on the planet! Except they call the water they carry around- blood. And they don’t drown in Oxygen…they breathe it to live!”
This time the entire Gathering shrieked.
It was decided to send more Wave Riders. In fact, all of us. We turned over our Rocks of Life to the Elders for safekeeping.
Then we rode the Waves.
*****
It was Nisha who discovered the Wave Riders. All of them. She couldn’t believe how many were attached to the signals from Perseverance. They were attached to every possible signal sending device on the Vehicle. It was Nisha, her friend from Russia, and that new girl in Programming from Indiana that found out how to send a signal back with the signals attached to the original signals.
It was difficult to not fry any of the attachments with the enhanced power that it took to send a bit stronger signal back. Nisha, Alexander and Jenny figured out how to route a signal along a different wave length. One that would the attached signals should be able to figure out. If you read about that first contact in books or Articles, then you know that trio of geniuses is simply called: The Three.
It made sense after the Wave Rider revealed to Earth that there was Life on Mars. That the Three would be the first to meet with them…in Space. Neither Planet was hospitable to the other Life Form. It was Nisha who inadvertently named the Martians. It was the Wave Rider who figured out how to reduce radiation to their visible spectrum.
It made the Wave Rider look like a Shadow with just enough substance to be seen, even touched and felt. It was a fragile looking construct. Like if you brushed your hand through it…it would break, shatter, or splinter. Nisha said out loud:
“They look so flimsy. Like they were hastily built.”
Flimsies stuck.
It was only years later that we learned their nickname for us Humans:
Water Stacks. Shortened over time to just : “Stacks.”
Flimsies and Stacks began to build a future together.
Looking for Life.
Flimsies.(Kevin Hughes)
The call was unmistakable. It was the call for a gathering. Everyone came. There hadn’t been a call for a gathering a hundred years. When everyone got there…they stood agape. The Call wasn’t from the Elders. It was from a Machine. Whatever it was, it was emanating the call to gather. The Elders were as surprised as the Gathering. A meeting was held. Someone would have to ride the waves. I was selected.
Riding the waves was dangerous. Some never came back. The Elders chose me. Because I always came back. I got my Blessing. I left my Rock of Life in the hands of the Elders. If I didn’t come back. They would release my life waves to begin again. Life waves were simple. Not like the waves at the surface or out in Space. I hoped they wouldn’t need the Rock of Life.
I began the process. Then… I rode.
*****
“What do you mean the Wind Sensors are acting weird?”
“Well, they are.”
“What do you mean?”
Nisha shrugged her shoulders. She tried to follow Feynman’s rules for explaining things to people who aren’t experts in your field. She was an Engineer. Her Ph.D was in Signaling Devices. She earned fourteen patents for her Wind Sensor Design. She knew what the Sensor should be recording. How can she tell the Director what is going on with the Sensor in a way that She could understand. No Jargon. Simplest Terms. Like you were talking to a child. That is what Feynman said to do. If you can’t make it simple enough…or you start to pause, ramble or resort to technical terms…then you don’t know your subject well enough to understand it. Let alone teach it.
So she went with simple child like. She knew her Field. No pun intended.
“ I mean something is blocking the wind Sensors.”
“But there is nothing there!”
“Nothing…does not block wind. Or a signal. Nor does it stop the Sensor from rotating. Something has done all three.”
“What could possibly do that? All our Instruments respond correctly. It should be working just fine.”
Nisha thought back to Feynman’s teaching method. She knew the answer. Should she tell the Director? After a long pause…and a prompt from the Director… she told her.
“Nisha, do you know what is going on? Or at least have a plausible working theory?”
“Umm…yeah.”
“Well, spit it out!”
Nisha shrugged her shoulders again. Releasing all of her tension before she spoke in a calm measured Engineer like cadence:
“Something, or someone - is blocking our sensors. Whatever, or Whomever it is has attached something to the Signal.”
The Director thought for a second that Nisha was out of her god forsaken mind. Then she thought harder. Nisha was the smartest person the had ever met…and the Director’s Father had won the Nobel Prize. Nisha was not only smart, she wasn’t given to small talk, speculation, or hyperbole. If Nisha said something attached to the Signal…that is what she meant. The Director took a deep breath.
“What attached to the Signal?”
“I don’t know. Whatever it was rode in on the Signal. Two hours later, it rode back out again. The signals in between were ordinary routine routing. “
“You mean something came here on a beam of light, got off, wandered around, and then rode back to Mars on our signal?”
“Yes. That is what I think.”
“Jesus.”
*****
Back on Mars, the Elders handed the Rock of Life back to me. I called a Gathering. The first in almost a thousand years that wasn’t called by an Elder. Everyone came…again. I told them my story. Other Wave Riders listened intently. They knew they would be sent out too. When I finished my report The Eldest spoke to us all:
“Life? That is impossible! That planet is to hot, to heavy, to wet. The atmosphere would crush you. The Oxygen would smother you so quickly you wouldn’t even know you were dead. Not enough radiation hits that planet’s surface to support Life, even if it could figure out a way to struggle against the power of the atmosphere, or not drown in oxygen.
Water is every where on that planet. Most of it is salt water. (The entire gathering shuddered at the thought of the horrible death that would follow being dipped in corrosive salt water…some let out a shriek.) It can’t be Life. Not as we know it.”
I did not interrupt. Nobody interrupts an Elder. Besides, before I rode the Waves…I had exactly the same thoughts. Not now. I spoke again:
“They aren’t like us at all. They are fat columns of stacked water. Filled with salt water and organic chemicals…just like the Water on the planet! Except they call the water they carry around- blood. And they don’t drown in Oxygen…they breathe it to live!”
This time the entire Gathering shrieked.
It was decided to send more Wave Riders. In fact, all of us. We turned over our Rocks of Life to the Elders for safekeeping.
Then we rode the Waves.
*****
It was Nisha who discovered the Wave Riders. All of them. She couldn’t believe how many were attached to the signals from Perseverance. They were attached to every possible signal sending device on the Vehicle. It was Nisha, her friend from Russia, and that new girl in Programming from Indiana that found out how to send a signal back with the signals attached to the original signals.
It was difficult to not fry any of the attachments with the enhanced power that it took to send a bit stronger signal back. Nisha, Alexander and Jenny figured out how to route a signal along a different wave length. One that would the attached signals should be able to figure out. If you read about that first contact in books or Articles, then you know that trio of geniuses is simply called: The Three.
It made sense after the Wave Rider revealed to Earth that there was Life on Mars. That the Three would be the first to meet with them…in Space. Neither Planet was hospitable to the other Life Form. It was Nisha who inadvertently named the Martians. It was the Wave Rider who figured out how to reduce radiation to their visible spectrum.
It made the Wave Rider look like a Shadow with just enough substance to be seen, even touched and felt. It was a fragile looking construct. Like if you brushed your hand through it…it would break, shatter, or splinter. Nisha said out loud:
“They look so flimsy. Like they were hastily built.”
Flimsies stuck.
It was only years later that we learned their nickname for us Humans:
Water Stacks. Shortened over time to just : “Stacks.”
Flimsies and Stacks began to build a future together.
Looking for Life.
Gail Moore
03/04/2021A fantastic story, what an imagination you have. Loved it. :-)
Today has been a very strange day in NZ Tsunami alerts, text from Civil defence, earthquakes and lockdowns.
Forget any lockdown and get to higher ground they said. Doesn't sound too good when you live very close to several beaches.
I am very glad today is nearly over. Only one of the kids are still at work but she should be home soon.
Sending happy faces. :-)
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