”ALIEN FOREVER”
By
Andreas Ingo
Copyright Andreas Ingo 2013
Books written by Andreas Ingo can be obtained either through the author’s official blog:
The zone of free will
or through select, online book retailers.
* * *
1
THEREON
Daphne II made a braking maneuver, perhaps too late, perhaps too early, overshadowed by the enormous extent below. Thereon, the planetary base, was woven like a spider’s web of abandoned structures, connected by roads through arched cliffs.
Leonide had traveled for long through the interstellar space. She had met the silence with an attitude of dying longing and inhuman patience. Daphne II was her work horse, her spaceship and eternal companion.
Now she journeyed over the surface like a small bright spot.
Thereon was cut in a modern style, like a natural extension of the desolate landscape. It clung to the surface, like a leech. A power station that was used for replenishing energy reserves: A gateway between worlds. A power station populated by hard-line hermits, who were tired of man’s doings and decided to start anew.
Leonide found herself wandering through the main unit. She was greeted by teenagers, adorned by challenging hairstyles. The walls were curved and built in sections: You could see the characteristic signs of The Foundation.
There was a larger space, where panoramic windows cast foggy rays on the floor. Oval tables were surrounded by precision cut chairs. Leonide avoided the furniture. The majority didn’t notice the figure of the woman.
Some older teenagers saw her.
Leonide was no man. She was a hybrid of extraterrestrial life and human. Her face had human features and proportions, but she looked starved. The forehead was a little higher, the nose slightly elongated. The cracked lips brought to mind a dark past but the big eyes compensated. She was like an artist’s dream: Hardly a new age sensation, but still interesting in an unusual way.
At the bar, and through subsequent walks through the narrow corridors, she got a surprise: It turned out that the energy plant, which transformed energy from the interior of the planet, had collapsed. It was no longer possible to refill the energy reserves. She couldn’t believe it herself! She had ended up in the body of a dying predator, populated by invading bacteria, which wouldn’t survive for long.
The days passed and Leonide tried to remedy the situation. She was prepared to pay anything to escape her terrible fate. But nothing helped. She was finally forced to do something: She went to the energy plant and down the sinister steps, towards the underworld. She would discover the weak point of the predator: The heart of the body that already had stopped!
She found herself standing by a giant transformer: A crown of metallic pipe that was connected with a shiny body, reflecting a red glow from a lava flow. Leonide went back and felt the body of the transformer. It was more cold than hot; a glass casing protected the transformer from the lava flow. Leonide looked down into the lower shaft. Her face burned as illuminated by the interior of a furnace.
She thought of the mission: At the very reason why she made the trip: On the final goal. On the woman she had known: On Daphne. Everything that had happened recently was a waste of time. She hadn’t gotten anywhere. She was totally inconsolable. Instantly, she was back at Telga, nine months earlier.
2
TELGA
The interiors of the restaurant gleamed with a yellowish light. Tables, painted in a reflective material, were polished, beautiful. The mirror image of Daphne was not entirely clear: Dreamlike, hazy. Leonide was busy formulating a thought. Loud voices came from upstairs. Jealousy men appeared next.
”There’s no way to escape the persecution.” Daphne said.
No lightweight sentence! Leonide felt as if the words came from a process that had been going on for several months. There was something about the streets: With the yellow glow of the neon lights: Distant reflections from a dome of glass.
The city Copinga was no utopia.
”It’s probably not that we’re different from other people.” Leonide said, ”It’s something that occurs at a specific location: Something happens, people start talking, and lie leads to lie in a downward spiral. No one wants to know the truth.”
”That’s why ... I’ve thought a lot about this: We should leave.”
”Leave? To where?”
”To Amarosa.”
Leonide was puzzled. She had dreamt of the planet: About man’s greatest achievement: The grand utopia where hybrids could live freely.
”How?” Leonide asked, ”You know we don’t earn much.”
”I’ve thought about it.” Daphne said, ”We could start our own business. We could think of new ideas. Get better jobs. Even feed on crime.”
Leonide looked around her shoulder. The jealousy men sat quietly and listened beside. Leonide tried to hide that she’d seen them. She pressed her foot against Daphne’s shoe, blinked and waited for a reaction.
The couple got up and walked out.
Futuristic buildings loomed along Copinga’s streets, as residues. They were joined by the glass, which arched over the buildings like a roof.
”Have you noticed that we’re being followed?” Leonide said.
The pair went into the smaller alleys. Up the stairs that led to the new streets. There were luminous figures of storefronts, which illuminated the shaded pair. Soon, they found themselves standing on the steps of Daphne’s apartment. A framed staircase, built in sections. Just as Daphne took up the plastic tray to the code lock, and reached for the narrow slot, the men appeared a short distance away. One of them raised a gun, took aim and fired a shot. Daphne was hit and fell to the ground. Leonide screamed and looked at the man. She tried to run but was paralyzed. The man aimed again. Leonide waited for the shot, the world came to a halt, but nothing happened. The men disappeared and left the girls on the stairs. Leonide extended down against Daphne body. She felt her pulse. She waved her arms towards others and screamed for an ambulance.
At the hospital, Daphne was very weak. She was in a critical condition. Leonide sat beside her mistress and tried to keep the mood up. The room was drenched in the yellow glow from the windows. The blue light from the ceiling created a peculiar contrast.
”You know there won’t be a trip.” Daphne said.
”We don’t know.”
”You need to get to Amarosa by yourself. You need to fulfill our dream. The dream we always had, but didn’t dare to admit.”
”I’ll stay as long as I have to.” Leonide said, ”Until you become healthy again. Then we go.”
”You can’t. My time’s running out.”
Leonide looked at Daphne and it was like the girl became weaker every second. Eventually it became too much and Leonide walked over to the windows and out on the balcony.
Outside the yellow light had an almost hallucinatory effect. The siren from a police car could be heard in the distance. Leonide had been born adult. She’d never had a childhood like ordinary people. Constructed in a lab, she was placed in a dystopia, just to live her life and serve humanity. But she’d never fit on Telga. She didn’t want to be a servant.
Sounds could be heard from the bed. Leonide walked in.
”My time’s running out,” Daphne said. ”But I don’t want this to be a sad moment. I want you to forget all that has been. I want you to raise money and travel to Amarosa. Ignore the impossibility of the mission. Don’t think about what you have. You have nothing. When it comes down to it, you are a born loser. You do whatever it takes to win.”
”I can’t.”
”You can.”
Leonide looked at Daphne. The Mistress’s face was not shaped like her own. She had more o
f a girl’s face: Softer forms. Fuller Lips: An unconditional thirst for life: A hair that stuck out in all directions, and edges.
”The only important thing is your word.” Leonide said.
Daphne looked at Leonide. Her life-force sank. Finally, there was the familiar sound of beeping.
3
ALDANTE
Leonide detached herself from her memories, and joined with the glow from the lava flow. She staggered awkwardly out into the center and stood there. Thereon’s interior appeared in all its futuristic glory, like a return to the dark ages: To medieval times. Everything was worn, plagued, as a prehistoric mine. It was forms that suggested forms: Something more than actually existed. Sounds of footsteps could be heard.
The man who made Leonide company did not say hello. He was extremely cautious. He walked like a living skeleton: Relatively young and very skinny, with blue sprawling hair. His forehead was high as Leonide’s: Cheekbones were clearly marked. The chin was crimped. He watched the lava flow as a prince of darkness.
Finally Leonide walked up to him.
”Who are you?” She asked.
Aldante viewed Leonide as a ghost. He regarded her with the eyes of an adventurer. Light blue eyes with a searcher’s attitude.
”Where do you come from?” Leonide asked.
”Who and what I am, isn’t that interesting.” He said, ”The interesting thing is rather that we’re stuck here both: On a desert planet without energy reserves.”
”In hell.”
Aldante walked up to the glass and looked down into the lava bed. Leonide got the impression that Aldante was a silent man. She didn’t attempt to continue the conversation, but removed herself from the space and returned to the bar.
It was much later and the delicate light disappeared as the day turned into night. Leonide went out on the plateau adjacent to the power station. The other shards from the planet were still illuminated by the star. They were cracked at the edges, like a huge explosion had torn them apart. Or was it rather that a celestial body had collided?
Leonide went over dunes of gray gravel. She drowned in the wondrous mystery that Thereon harbored life: It felt so unreal. At the same time, Leonide knew it was all about the practical value: The planet was to no other use than being the only celestial body within astronomical distances. It was used as a gateway to other planets.
Leonide got tired and went towards the spaceship to sleep. But just before she opened the hatch, she heard someone shout: Aldante came running across the dunes, out of breath and stopped in front of Leonide.
”I have heard your story.” He said, ”I’m also a hybrid. I understand the implications of what you’ve experienced. I’m just the opposite. I came from Amarosa and would go to Telga. But something happened on the way.”
”What then?”
”Let me in and I’ll tell you.”
”It’s too late.”
”It’s always too late. We’re late. But some things are too important to sleep on. Let me tell.”
Leonide opened the hatch and let Aldante in.
4
THE ICE PLANET
The planet was like a marbled stone, white with dark veining. But it wasn’t smooth, rather rough. Ridges formed terrible patterns on the surface: Cool and original, preserved for millions of years. The comet, which was soon to enter the planet’s atmosphere, was traveling in front of the spacecraft Surveyor.
There was a strained anticipation inside the spacecraft. The crew had been sent into outer space, in order to map new terrain. Aldante was just one of them. The others were also hybrids. They were more than young adults: Adults who refused to grow older.
”We follow the comet to the crash site.” The Hybrid said, ”It will be spectacular.”
Desideria was a woman with dyed pink hair. In a way, she reminded of Aldante, in other ways, she had a sensual form. Her clothes were typical of The Foundation: Stitched in a practical way, but with a fit that marked the human form.
The comet burst into flames and crashed down on the planet’s surface. The comet tail made the course blurry. It was like a hazy filter between the Surveyor and the planet’s surface. At this distance, you could detect larger fragments of ice and rock, but on the whole the phenomenon resembled an illuminated fog.
The ship slowed down and the crew watched the spectacular impact. The crater that formed was a hundred meters in diameter.
Half an hour later the Surveyor had landed and the crew went out. They walked around the crash site, which now was a steaming inferno. Ice and snow had turned into water vapor, and this heated the atmosphere, which normally had a temperature below zero.
To his amazement one of the hybrids discovered strange traces in the ice. It wasn’t just a couple, but many. He looked around carefully and noticed that the tracks led from the crash site to many different directions. There were no human traces. These tracks rather resembled a predator’s, a four-legged creature that no one had seen before. They cut one of the footprints from the ice and went back to the Surveyor to analyze.
They found out that the footprints didn’t come from any known life form. It was probably a kind of predator, but how this one survived inside the comet, in compact cold, traveling for thousands of years, was inconceivable. The crew decided to continue the search. The creatures were of interest to the hybrids, from an adventurous perspective.
Aldante protested and said he was going to wait in the spaceship. If the others were killed, he would be the one who would return and inform The Foundation.
No one listened.
Hours went by, and the late afternoon turned into night. The crew arrived at a ridge and an amazing cave system. Once inside the tracks disappeared. Aldante did well using a spotlight. They had weapons in the form of needle-sharp picks: Useful for getting up the mountain slopes, but hardly effective against a bloodthirsty carnivore.
”Let’s split up and follow the paths wherever they lead.” Desideria said. ”You know why we’re here. Life is no longer about survival: About practical things that lead to boredom and sadness.”
Aldante was thinking similar thoughts. Not that he wanted to throw himself off a cliff, but he didn’t want to live without danger. Yet he felt that Desideria went too far in her madness. She seemed indifferent: Too drastic. And she didn’t build up the excitement in the right way. Aldante said he wanted to return and resume the search the next day.
”You do what you want.” Desideria said, ”The rest of us will remain here this night.” The hybrid went silent as if to highlight the last sentence: ”It’s what we’ve waited for since we were born.”
”I have no memories of birth.” Aldante said. He only remembered the walk from the biolab of The Foundation, and he remembered that it felt easy.
Aldante returned to the Surveyor a few hours later. He fell asleep pretty soon and was awakened by the morning light.
The following day was a terrible awakening: He found the caves. But the crew couldn’t be detected. He had to turn on the searchlight. He walked through the cave system, which at times was punctuated by open spots, where the morning light shone on the rocks. He thought he heard noises: He ran towards the sounds, glimpsed dark shapes. But no crew was seen. No corpses. No blood.
He wandered through the cave system throughout the whole day. Finally, he realized that the search was futile, and had to stop.
He returned to the ship, perhaps with the intention to meet his friends again, but he didn’t. After a week of futile waiting, he had to leave the planet.
The hybrids were gone.
5
THE DIALOGUE
Leonide didn’t accept the newcomer completely, but he was too outspoken. He began to tell stories about life on Amarosa: About the dream planet, the place where Leonide would go. He told her about the good planetary conditions: The bright settlements, the open countryside, the blue sea...
”So what is it?” Leonide wondered.
”Follow me and I’ll tell you.”
&nbs
p; They went out of the spaceship and walked over the gray dunes. They continued past the main unit with the dark corridors and the bar. Soon, they found themselves in a rocky recess. There was a plateau and a flowing river bed in the recess: A river bed of glowing lava. Leonide viewed Aldante who hesitated. He gathered himself: He took up a gray stone which he threw in the riverbed. It was consumed by the lava. And it went ablaze with the glowing mass, melted and disappeared in seconds.
”The thing is that we’re total opposites.” Aldante said. ”You come from Telga, a dystopia in every way. A world where hybrids are treated as the artificial constructs they really are, but everything has been distorted into something else.”
Aldante watched the lava flow, dreamily.
”You’ve lived a life as a slave and nurtured a dream of the opposite. I, on the other hand, come from the world that you’ve been dreaming about. And the world is as good as you’ve been thinking.”
Leonide viewed Aldante with a depressed facial expression. Not that she thought of Amarosa, the story of Daphne, or even on Aldante’s remarkable adventures. She imagined that nothing revolutionary would be said. At the same time, there was a certain recognition in the way Aldante presented his words: As if she could follow the logic: As if she thought so herself.
”I’ve searched for your opposite.” Aldante said, ”I was born on Amarosa. I’ve cultivated a dream that I one day would meet endless struggle and lose my soul. It’s not that I want to remain in that state! I want to experience how it is to be treated as something else than a human.”
Leonide heard the words but wasn’t exactly surprised. She knew that the hybrids were thinking this way. Everything was totally calculated and clear. There was no shadow of a doubt in Aldante’s conviction.
”That’s what’s strange.” Aldante continued, ”It’s incredibly strange that an artificial construct would develop willfulness. It’s contrary to the very concept. Hybrids on Telga would serve people in practical affairs. Hybrids on Amarosa would prepare the landscape for the colonists to come.”