IMAGINATION'S PLACE
FICTION
JOURNEY TO THE LIGHT
By; Speaker Gerald Polley
All rights reserved.
Chapter 39
Things got hot on Earth real fast! Several of
the major countries had enough of The UN and left. After that
several other countries withdrew. The UN tried to claim that all
nations had to belong to it, that people couldn't leave. They
threatened armed intervention. Everybody said "To hell with this!" and
seized all UN troops and ordered them back to their own
countries. Republic peace keepers were doing most of the work
around the world, anyway. Finally several prominent UN leaders
were arrested and as far as anyone was concerned the organization was
done. Everybody sent a representative to The Republic's
Headquarters and from that day forth, as far as anyone was concerned
that was the world government. Earth's First Speaker spoke for
everybody. Weeks of relative quiet with just common emergencies
settled in. The balls informed them that worms had been
found. They said that the people that were here before had
relished them. They would slice them open, clean out their gut,
and roast them. At first Carol couldn't stomach the idea, but
then she just had to try some and became a fan! She thought
nothing else could happen when they started getting the distress
calls. They were very broken up, coming from the asteroid belt in
the path that would be on their way to Jupiter.
Messages went back and forth to Earth. What should
they do? Finally, Carol was told it was up to her. She could
leave a minimal crew on the planet with the asteroid ship, and head
out, if she wished. Everyone on Earth was sure the next ship
coming in ten years would find everything on Mars ready for them.
Carol pondered greatly. Finally, she told
anybody that didn't want to go to prepare to move to the planet.
She would leave the marshals on the station and take those she had
trained. The carrier would go with them. Everyone agreed
and got busy.
One morning Carol woke up and felt a strange
presence. She turned on the light. What appeared to be a
teenage girl sat on the floor by the end of their bed, shivering.
Carol stared in bewilderment. Then, she realized the girl wasn't
human, she was reptilian!
"Are you cold?" Carol asked.
The girl shook her head but did not reply.
"Do you need something?" Carol continued.
The girl hugged herself and pointed to her husband. "You need him?" Carol managed.
The girl nodded.
"What's going on?" her husband moaned.
"We've got a guest," Carol announced, "and I think
there's something wrong. She needs something. I think I'd better
go out and have you provide it. Don't worry about it. Just
do it."
"What?" her husband managed.
Carol got up and held up the sheet. The girl
rose, what she had on for clothes went to the floor, and she got in the
bed. Carol went outside. "Security!" she called.
"There's a girl in our quarters. She seems to be reptilian."
"Ah, not just your quarters, ma'am!" the officer on
duty answered. "There's one of them with every male on the
ship! Strangely their ladies aren't objecting. They say
they know the girls are desperate and are letting them have what they
need."
"Well," Carol sighed, "we've got two female doctors.
I hope none of them are with them. Please have one of them get up
here on the double and have the other one check on the male doctors."
"Yes, ma'am!" the security guard answered, "But what about the ones here with us, ma'am?"
"Take turns," Carol answered. "A couple to a time so there's still someone on duty."
"Ma'am?" the security guard stammered.
"There's something wrong," Carol snapped.
"These girls are desperate for some reason. In some species it's
mate or die! We don't have time to figure things out. I'm
sure you can handle it."
"Yes, ma'am!" security answered.
A few minutes later the doctor arrived. "Wait
'til they're done," Carol instructed, "then go in and check her out."
The doctor nodded. When her husband came out
she went right in. "Whoa!" her husband remarked. "When we got
done she went out like a light. Kind of worried me."
A while later the doctor came back. "I think she's
all right," she managed. "Her hormone levels are higher than
hell! I'm going to have to check to see if they go down. She
must've been pretty uncomfortable. If she needs it again in a
while I wouldn't withhold it."
Carol and everybody got breakfast and started
performing their duties. One of the security men came up.
"Ma'am," he snapped, "there's somethin' you've gotta see!"
Carol followed him to a viewport. Not very far away
from them, floating in space, was another ship. Except for having
another structure on the bottom it looked exactly like theirs!
But it was bright silver.
"I think it's a different kind of shielding
material," the security guard muttered. Aside from that, it's eerie,
ma'am! It's like we're looking at our own ship! Scans show
everything the same, except that structure on the bottom, and we think
we know what that might be."
"What?" Carol asked.
"Launch bays, ma'am. They might have their own fighters. They look just about big enough."
Carol shook herself. "Look," she managed, "get down to
supply. They can't run around the ship in those things they're
wearing. The men would be getting nothing done. Get them shirts,
pants, shoes, socks. Their feet look pretty much like ours."
"Yes, ma'am!" the security officer managed.
Finally after the children were all gathered, the
girl came out, looked around nervously. Carol presented her with
the clothes. "Do you need help getting these on?" she asked.
The girl looked at the clothes, shook her head. "Can you speak?" Carol asked.
The girl shook her head again.
"Great!" Carol muttered.
"I don't think any of them can," the doctor remarked
coming back in the door. "They have no voice boxes, nor, ears.
But I believe they sense rudimentary sound through those patches of
darker skin where our ears would be. They respond to noise."
The girl came back out. The pants were a little
long, she'd rolled up the cuffs. The shirt was just about right, not
too loose not too tight. She went to Carol, fell to her knees,
and put her hands together.
"Now, now!" Carol snapped, "None of that! We don't do that!"
The girl took her extended hand and rose, bowing,
and looked at the children who were eating their breakfast. "Help
yourself!" Carol instructed.
The girl quickly got a muffin and some juice, and to rapidly consume them.
"Slow down!" Carol snapped, "Enjoy it!"
The girl returned her smile. The children looked on,
interested. Little Tin made hand signs. The girl looked shocked,
put down her muffin and answered. They exchanged for several
minutes.
"There's a message," Little Tin explained, "on her
ship. She wants you to come and listen. She says you are The
Mother Of Mothers. They were sent to you because you seemed to be
the best of the worlds they could reach. I don't quite understand
something she's saying. I think it's they can't go back, they can
never go back. How could they know our sign language?"
Carol went and got one of the children's books,
"Peter Rabbit" She held it out to the girl. The girl looked at it
wide eyed, and began to jiggle up and down. "What?" Carol
asked.
"She says," Little Tin explained, "this is like her
book. She's named after this! How could you have it here?"
"Your name is Peter Rabbit?" Carol asked.
The girl shook her head and pointed to the word
Rabbit on the book. "Well!" Carol sighed. "This is gettin'
weirder by the minute! O.k.!" She pointed to her husband,
"You, the ship's commander, the carrier commander, and the first
marshal. Doctor would you like to come?"
"Affirmative!" the doctor answered. "If they've got a sick bay I want to study their anatomy."
Carol nodded. They made their way to the
landing bay. It was full of shuttles. They looked almost
identical to theirs. They loaded on one and went over to the
other ship. Inside it was identical! They had no trouble
making their way to the bridge. The girl stood beside a box that
had a blinking yellow light on top, and bowed to it. Almost
instantly a holograph projector lit up and the figure of a man stood
before them.
"Thank you, ship's commander!" it remarked. "I am
joyous you have arrived! I take it these are the leaders of the
people we sent you to?"
The girl put her hands together and bowed again.
"Excellent!" He looked towards Carol. "Great mother," he began,
"we observed you from our place and sent you the last of our children,
that you might care for them. Our world was full of strife.
We could not get along with each other. There was hatred everywhere. We
were killing each other. We were engaging in all types of
perversion. The more abnormal something was, the more we enjoyed
it. Some of our religious teachers warned us, but we would not
listen. Then, everything started to die, plants, animals,
bacteria. It started with the lowest life forms and kept
going. Nothing was being born. We kept alive by
artificial means, created primitive food, but we knew it wasn't going
to last. We gathered the last of our daughters, built this ship
and looked for a place to send them, a place where there was power,
where they would be sustained. And during that journey they were
altered so they could live in that place. Our sons could not
go. There were too few of them anyway. And most of them
were quite mad. You are our last hope that something of us would
survive. Our daughters will mate, they will have to, they have
been suffering for years because they were unable to. The medicine to
help them was running out. This is not their natural
behavior. They are usually selective in their males and bond with
them for life. We hope, we pray, you will treat them
decently.
I would not suggest that when their children grow up
they mate with their own kind. They should mate with your people for
five or six generations before they mate with anyone that has their
ancestry just to make sure that their offspring will be able to survive
in your world. This is a good ship. It's comparable to what
you have. I think our daughters can quickly adjust to your
equipment, and would be of benefit to you. There are riches in
the treasure vault. Gold, jewelry. The ship is filled with our
artistry, all valuable trade goods. From what we have seen you
are a woman of honor. We do not think you will take advantage of our
children. We entrust them to you.
We have sent no records of our culture,
nothing that tells about our way. It destroyed us. It
brought us down." He looked to the young woman. "Good bye,
daughter! Be good. Obey your leader and I think you will do
well!"
The girl put her hands together and bowed, and the
hologram disappeared. "Well!" Carol managed, "We've heard of it,
we've been warned of it, now we see the results of it, what we came so
close to. Well, commander, you have a beautiful ship! I
would suggest this. We swap crews, bring some of our men over
here, put some of your ladies on our ship. There's also people on
the ground and the asteroid. We'll spread you out. We'll be
leaving soon. We're going out to start new colonies on Jupiter's
moons. On the way we've got to see if we can find some people in
the asteroid belt. You can stay here and support the people on
the ground."
The girl began to violently shake her head.
She pointed to herself, pointed to Carol, and pointed out to
space.
Her ship's commander spoke up. "I think it's
probably best, ma'am, maybe we should move them away from Earth for a
while. I think they'd be more comfortable. Anyway, I like
the idea of two ships. Just a little bit more security. I
wonder if they've got fighters?"
The girl looked at him as he spoke and clapped her
hands, went to a console and brought up some images. Just as they
suspected the extra section of the bottom of the ship were fighter
bays. There were 40 of them!
"You have 40 pilots?" Carol asked.
The girl nodded. "Well! I've got
an offer to make them!" Carol remarked. "But we've got to find
some way so you can communicate. You can't use sign language in a
fighter!"
One of the balls came over. "There's something
on that counter," he remarked. "It seems to be a neck band with
some kind of device on it."
The girl looked to where he pointed, smiled, and
went over. She put the neck band on, turned to Carol and remarked
"Sorry, commander! We got a little disoriented during the passage
and when we got here had only one thought in our mind. I will
gather up everyone's communications modules and get them to them.
We have limited communications at short range without them. But
we will have to have them among you. Probably most of the others
have forgotten about them. We only practiced with them. Are we
accepted?"
"Of course you're accepted!" Carol answered. "What do you
think we're going to do, tell you to take off? Fortunately our
people believe in multiple marriages. I think all of our ladies will
understand. But separate rooms!"
Carol twinged and put her hand on her stomach.
"Damn! The months are going too fast!" she moaned, "Way too fast! Our
departure's gonna have to wait."
The doctor came over. "Something's wrong!" she
muttered. "Your pants are wet. It's way too early. You
should have another three months."
"Oh, crap!" Carol moaned. "I think we better get back to our ship." She began to stagger.
"I don't think we're gonna make it!" the doctor snapped. "Their hospital! Now!"
Carol's husband swept her up and headed off.
The ship's commander took off her neck band and put it on another
girl. "I'm a doctor!" the girl announced. "Let us not
panic, please instruct your ship to transmit your birthing information
to our computer. We've already interfaced with yours. That's how
we got on your ship."
Carol's ship commander was on his
communicator. They got Carol on a birthing bed. It was exactly
like their own. The doctors chased everyone out but Carol's
husband, made him put on a gown and mask. After that things got a
little blurry. Carol tried to keep it clear but she couldn't.
After a time everything went dark.
Page 39