EARTH PLAN

EARTH PLAN

By David Sloma

Copyright 2016 David Sloma. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, organizations, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Author contact:
www.davidsloma.com

Published by Web of Life Solutions:
www.weboflifesolutions.com

June 2, 2016

~~~

    "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven..."

    (Genesis 1:6-8 KJV)

~~~

CHAPTER 1

The spaceship was large, a couple of miles long and about a half-mile wide, but it was not the largest in the fleet of the Watchers.

It was silver and had the mark of the Watchers on it, three green circles intertwined. It hovered over an open, flat field in a southern part of the third planet from the sun in this solar system; the Earth. The ship made no sound, and its engines made no heat.

After the onboard A.I., the artificial intelligence computer that controlled all functions on the ship, had determined there were no dinosaurs or other threats close by that could damage the vessel, like erupting volcanoes, tornadoes, or seismic events, the ship set down silently, supported a few feet above the ground by its anti-gravity drive. In this way, it left no impressions in the soft ground.

It was important to the Watchers that they not leave any unnecessary traces on worlds their robot ships visited, nor interfere unduly with the life they might find there beyond what was necessary to safeguard it. Leaving a physical record of their ship’s visitation was something they certainly didn’t want to do if they could avoid it.

The ship's computer sent out a coded message to its makers, the Watchers, who were a vast distance away in space. The message would take some time to reach home at this great distance, even with the advanced technology available on the ship. The computer told of how it had finally found its way down to the surface of Earth after encountering an energy barrier in place over much of the planet. The barrier was still under construction, being put in place by an unknown force. As the ship scanned the planet it observed the barrier cover growing rapidly before its sensors.

But the ship found a spot where the barrier had not been secured yet. The ship then dropped rapidly through the atmosphere to the surface. This had been no easy task, as the barrier was made of a type of energy the ship could not penetrate. The ship had been repelled on its first attempt to enter the orbit of Earth, and then had to commence scanning to find out what the problem was. Keeping ahead of the advancing force shield, the ship was able to find an area that was still passable, and it went through, not knowing if it would be able to lift off again.

The ship’s message home included the assessment that the shield would be almost fully in place by the time the ship had completed its mission and was ready to depart; perhaps fully in place if the progress of the shield quickened. It might not be passable going in the opposite direction.

But, the computer ruled, by the internal logic it had been given by its makers, it was more important to descend to the surface and find out what was on the planet than to be concerned about the safety of the ship. It would have to work fast and hope for the best.

The great containers of the ship were empty anyhow, as this planet was the first stop on its scouting mission. The ship was to land on the planet and take samples of any life forms it found there and carry them, alive and intact, to the planet of the Watchers. There the life forms would be studied and protected, and bred if possible, to ensure their survival should another calamity hit the planet as had just happened recently.

Earth was still recovering from a worldwide flood and had also been hit with large meteors that had killed many life forms, including most of the dinosaurs. These events had changed not only the climate but also the geography of the planet. Many life forms had perished, never to return, and the Watchers didn't want to see that happen again.

If the ship was not able to leave Earth due to the barrier, it would simply return any life forms it had collected before self-destructing into subatomic particles in the deepest depths of the ocean, or by flying into an active volcano where no traces of it would be found—the ship had a molecular self-destruct system that would break down its parts into atoms. It would simply become minerals, scattered as the basic building blocks of life in the sea, or wherever it happened to atomize.

It would take a civilization nearly as advanced as the Watchers to detect that such a thing had been done. By the time the early humans on Earth had reached that technological stage, then perhaps the Watchers could tell them their history before they found out for themselves. And by that time, the Watchers would have advanced an untold amount further and hopefully be able to take down the barrier around the Earth. Then the Watchers could deal with who put it in place.

But the Watchers had many tasks before them, and they were galaxies away, dealing with other matters just as urgent and even more so, like battles that were destroying whole worlds. They would make time for the Earth and her creatures when they could.

The ship sent out a beam, invisible to the eye, that bounced over the rocks and into the cave nearby. It registered that a group of humans were in the cave, sleeping near each other for warmth, and there was a small fire burning low. The ship considered sending out some of its robotic carts to collect them but then stopped. It didn’t have to, as the humans were stirring.

One of the humans was waking up and coming out of the cave.

It was a man. He looked much like a modern man in his body. It was basically the same body but with a bit more hair, a little more muscular, tanned from the sun, with many calluses on his feet from walking and on his hands from making tools, hunting, and gathering wood and food. He wore the skin of an animal over him for warmth, the fur side out. The computer detected that the fur kept the man quite warm, and his body temperature was in a comfortable range.

The man had gotten up to relieve himself of liquid, urine, the computer noted, then the man had noticed the ship.

He cried out and recoiled against the rock wall.

The reaction of the man was fear. The computer was able to detect this, as the Watchers had similar emotions, and had programmed their machines with much of their own essence. Fear was one emotion the Watchers rarely felt any longer, as they knew a great deal about the true nature of the universe and their place in it.

The man tried to run back into the cave, but the ship shot him with a beam of blue light that put him to sleep. Then the ship sent out a robotic cart that picked the man up in its arms, careful not to hurt him and brought him aboard the ship.

The other humans came to the opening of the cave to look, as they had heard the man cry out and wanted to see what was the matter. It didn’t sound good to them; if they had language, that is how they would have phrased it, but they did not. Some humans on the other side of the planet did have simple languages already and knew how to draw, even to read and write a little, but not these ones, yet.

The ship’s scanner sensed that one of the humans was a female and thought she would be a good addition to its sampling of this planet. She also wore the fur-skin of an animal and was comfortable in it for warmth, the ship noticed. The ship beamed out another ray of blue light at the woman, and she fell down, asleep, too. The robotic cart was sent out to collect her when it had finished putting the man safely into a room on the ship where he would be kept.

The ship did this a few more times so it had several males and females. Then the ship decided to stop there with the humans. It didn’t want to be greedy, as that would displease its masters, and the ship hated to displease them; it had been instructed not to take too many samples. The ship would now look for other life forms on this planet to sample from.

It sent out another message home with preliminary details about the humans it had collected, and that there were many others of their kind here—who were now throwing rocks and sticks at the ship, it noted in the message.

The ship let out a burst of flame high into the air that frightened the humans so badly that they ran back into the cave, not to be seen again until the ship was long gone.

The ship sent out several more robotic carts to collect plants and small animals. The largest ones, the dinosaurs, would be too big to take back into the ship through the doorway, so they were DNA sampled. The live ones were imaged and recorded on cameras. This data was stored onboard and also sent back to the Watchers. The ship took some of their eggs, keeping them in a deep cold suspended animation stasis chamber. Once the maximum number of samples had been collected and the ship was full, the computer decided it was time to leave.

It scanned the sky for the energy shield and found that it had now covered the whole planet. There was no telling if the ship would be destroyed should it get too close to the barrier or touch it, or if it would bounce off. An analysis was made of the barrier; it was composed of an energy the ship had not been programmed to identity. This finding it sent back home in a final message before it lifted off. The ship knew it might be destroyed, but it had to try and complete its most important mission.

But something unexpected happened when the ship reached the barrier; it was able to pass through, unimpeded. The computer in the ship couldn't quite believe it and registered the closest thing to joy that it could, as well as disbelief.

As it left the orbit of Earth, the ship sent another message that it was now clear of the planet—somehow—and was about to engage its light drives to bring it back home. Even at the tremendous speed the ship traveled at, it would take nearly a year to reach the distant galaxy from which it came.

CHAPTER 2

The Earth man woke up in the room on the spaceship and was afraid. At first he didn't want to move, just look around. It was like nothing he had ever seen or imagined before; a room of metal. There were lights in the room, high above. To him they were like several suns, except they did not give off heat and they didn’t move. This frightened him too.

He touched the floor and the walls, and they were cool. He could see his hands move in their reflections, and he had a moment of panic that he might be underwater. But he could breathe, so it was not that.

Then he got increasingly distressed and angry that he couldn't get out of the small room. He howled and screamed, pounding on the metal, but it did not give way. He couldn’t even dent it.

Finally, after carrying on for some time and making his hands sore and his throat raw, he collapsed down on the shiny floor, panting for breath, spent.

He looked around the room again. It was completely bare. There was no food or water, and he felt his pulse quicken with panic once more. He felt the need to relieve himself and did so. The computer noticed that he had let some liquid go from his body, from a sex organ, the ship thought it was; probably urine.

The man moved away from the urine he had put on the floor and sat there looking up at the lights. He made a low murmuring sound that the computer recorded. Tears fell from his eyes. The computer recognized that the man was expressing sadness, as this was a known emotion that the Watchers had told it about. They had said that some of the life forms, if they were intelligent, might feel this way when they were taken, along with anger and other reactions.

The computer drifted some light sedatives into the air of the room, and that helped the man to calm down and go to sleep for a while. The computer did this because it noticed how high the man’s heart rate had gone, and it had been concerned the man was going to damage himself, or maybe even expire before the ship reached its destination. That would mean part of the mission would have been a failure, and the computer didn’t want to fail its masters.

The computer knew the man had requirements to keep him alive. He needed a certain temperature range, cosmic ray and radiation protection, a gravity field, air, and light like the sun he was used to. The computer made sure his room had these things.

He also needed food and water. A slot in the wall opened, and a bowl slid out of it. Above it, another slot opened, and a faucet appeared. Water came out of the faucet, filling the bowl. The man was afraid to go near the faucet and bowl at first, as the slots in the wall really spooked him. But his thirst was so great that he overcame his fear and was pleasantly surprised at the cool, clear water. When he drank all the water in the bowl, the faucet automatically refilled it.

The computer also offered him a synthetic protein which he didn't like much. The computer realized he wanted fruits, vegetables, and sometimes meat. Meat the computer could not spare, apart from the grown protein, but a supply of fruits and vegetables had been collected on Earth for just this purpose. The computer dropped a selection of fruits and vegetables through the slot.

Another need of the man was to clean his body with water, so the computer made it rain down on him. The man opened his mouth and caught the water to drink. There was enough water to gather in puddles on the floor. He also drank from the puddles that formed away from the places he had left his waste.

Grates slightly opened in the floor to dispose of his waste. This scared the man, who fled to the other side of the room and watched the grates with wide eyes. The solid and liquid waste would be broken down into its constituent parts and recycled to be used as fertilizer for the many plants the vast ship was carrying, or used as base organic compounds. The grates closed up again, and the man soon relaxed as the warm water continued to rain down on him. This water too was collected, cleaned, and recycled.

He liked the water that fell from the ceiling and drank his fill. He also rubbed water over his body to clean himself. The computer was glad of this, as it meant it was taking care of the man, and the computer’s masters would be pleased.

But all of this was not enough to keep the man happy. He seemed to be ill and just lay on the floor. But the scans the computer conduced revealed no ailment in him. The computer deducted that the man must be suffering from the mental state called depression, as all he did was lay on the floor and occasionally moan, not moving for most of the time and hardly eating.

The computer suddenly became afraid that the man would not survive and worried that it would displease its masters. If it did, it would risk being reprogrammed or broken down into parts, both of which would dissipate the computer's consciousness; in essence, killing it—if you could kill something that was never really alive in a biological sense.

So, the computer made sure the Earth man got what he needed to survive. The door of the room the man was being kept in unlocked and slowly swung open under control of the computer. The man shrank back, as the sound of the moving door frightened him. He had no frame of reference to judge if the metal door was friend or foe; he'd never even seen metal before, never mind metal that moved. He got back as far as he could into the small room, feeling a bit better to put his back against the far wall, with the door in front of him.

A breeze came through the door, and the man smelled scents: fresh air, grass, and trees. And could that be a body of water with algae and living things in it? Yes, he knew these smells, and they meant good things and life to him. He looked at the door and tried to decide if it was worth the risk to get any closer and see where the smells were coming from. If he could get to the smells, he would be alright, he knew. It might even mean freedom out there!

After a few minutes, the man's curiosity and desire for the things of the smells overtook his fear. He moved towards the door, carefully, slowly. But the door had not moved again since it swung open. Could he take the chance? He'd have to, if he wanted to live, he decided. Staying in the sealed room seemed like death to him; it was certainly madness.

He crept up on the door and stopped, looking at it, smelling the air. The good scents were getting stronger the closer he got to the door. In the distance, past a dark corridor, it did look like a field. Was that grass? And trees? His heart lept with joy and hope!

He breathed in and took a run at the door, jumping through the dark space past the doorway towards the green living things he saw. If he died going towards those things that would be alight, for at least he'd be closer to them, he thought. There was nothing of life in the room he'd been kept in.

As soon as the man left the room the computer turned on the automatic washing tools and they descended from the ceiling; brushes with liquid soap on them and high-pressure water jets. The tools scrubbed the room out on every surface and drains opened in the floor to take away the water from the washing. The dirty water would be cleaned and recycled, then used for the plants, animals, and humans on the ship. Nothing went to waste.

The man moved through the shadows slowly. He looked all around and sniffed the air but could not detect any threats, either animals, or other humans. Not able to contain himself any longer, he ran the rest of the way through the hallway to the field, his feet banging on the metal, hurting his feet. But it was worth it.

As soon as his feet touched the grass they felt better! The grass was warm and soft, and it made him smile and cry out a joyful noise! He reached down and touched the grass with his hands and fell onto it, rolling around.

Looking up, he felt heat coming down. The heat came from large lamps, though he didn't know what they were; he just thought it odd that there were now several small suns in the sky. But if they made the grass grow, they must be good, he reasoned.

And there were trees not far off, too! He got up and ran to the trees, touching their trunks, and bark, and the green leaves as he ran among them. He breathed in the oxygen rich, sweet air deeply. It was a small forest with trees of many different types and sizes. As he was going through the trees he saw water! There was a large pond in the forest! He knew he had smelled it!

He came up to the water and looked into it. It seemed deep, as he could not see the bottom. He saw movement and fish in the water! And seaweed moving as the fish went by. It looked like good water to him. He touched the surface, and it was cold. He bent over and scooped some into his hands, and it was clear. Tasting it, he found it was pleasant and quenched his thirst.

The man then felt happy and excited, and had an urge to swim in the water. He wanted to feel the pleasure of the water over his skin and move in the water. He looked around and made sure he was not in any danger from anything, then lowered himself into the water, suddenly wondering if there was anything in the water he needed to be wary of; any fish that might bite or sting him. Too late, now!

He sunk into the water up to his neck and started swimming, encountering no fish that bit or stung. The water made him feel good. He swam around the pond, looking at the shoreline. There were weeds and reeds growing there; these he could eat. He could also probably eat the fish if he could find a way to catch them. So far, each time he'd gotten near any fish they had darted away. He started to wonder about other animals, now that he had some moments to relax in the water. He'd not seen any on the field, but maybe he had scared them, he thought.

He swam slowly to the edge of the pond and peered up and over the field. He saw some squirrels running down from trees! They were good to eat, if he could make a fire. Surely, there must be other animals, he reasoned. He looked for a long time, but he didn't see any more animals.

The ship had many other animals kept in rooms, like the man had been kept in a room. They were all part of the ship's vast sampling of life forms from the planet Earth. The ship was busy studying them and making sure they were in good health before releasing them into the “nature preserve” area of the ship, where the man now found himself. Like the man, the animals would have their DNA sampled, cataloged, and stored in the vast database the ship was assembling.

The man was getting cold in the water, and his skin was starting to shrivel up. So, he climbed out and lay on the grass. He took off the animal fur he had been wearing, as it was wet. The lights shining onto the field were warm, so he had no need of the fur at that time. He spread it out on the grass near him to dry. Then, he closed his eyes and dozed off for a few minutes, enjoying the feel of the warmth on his skin, of being clean, and of having had enough water to drink.

But his belly soon woke him up with its growling and need to be filled. He sat up. He was hungry and wondered what he could eat. The food he'd been provided with in the room hadn't been much to his liking, so he didn't want to go back to the room to see if there was any more. No, he would search around this new place and see what he could find.

First, he got up and slung the fur around his shoulders, but didn’t put it on, as he was still warm. He walked slowly over to where he had seen the squirrels, so as not to frighten them too much; he might be able to catch one if he surprised them. He found a branch from one of the trees on the grass and picked it up. The branch could help him catch a squirrel, or a fish, and it might even be good for defending himself from whatever he might encounter in this new, strange place.

As he was standing at the base of a tree looking up at a squirrel and wondering how he was going to get to it, and how he was going to cook it if he did catch it, the lights above started to dim out.

He was startled and gripped the tree for protection. What was happening? Was it getting dark now? But he'd not seen the sun, or suns, move at all! They had not traveled across the sky and dipped below the horizon, slowly, leaving a brilliant display of beautiful colours like they should have.

He peered up at the sky, or what he thought must be the sky, and sure enough, the things were not as bright and many of them were off. More went off as he watched. This concerned him greatly, as he was still out in the open without a cave to hide in for the night. He supposed he could climb up into a tree and wait out the night there, as it would provide some protection. But not from the big animals like bears and large cats that could climb—not to mention other humans that might have evil on their minds...

He looked back towards the doorway and the room. He could still see the doorway and the hallway beyond in the dimming light. If he went now he could make his way back before it got dark. There was nowhere else close by that would offer him as much protection as the room had. The field was large and went far, as far as he could see. There was no time to find another place before the darkness came.

He turned back and walked quickly to the doorway with the stick in his hand, glancing this way and that as he moved. He listened but heard no sounds from animals or humans that alarmed him, just some sounds from the ship that he had no reference for; fans and metal parts moving. He had heard strange sounds in the room too, and they had frightened him, but they hadn't hurt him.

He kept walking towards the door, thinking of the room and how its enclosed space would be good for the night. But did he really want to go back into that room he had been trapped in for days?

No.

Maybe he could stay in the hallway and not enter the room unless he had to—unless he was in further danger. But just going into the hallway might as easily trap him inside, too. He decided to stop just outside the outer doorway and stay there.