Ocean World

image source

One of the intriguing concepts that has come from the study of exoplanets is the idea of "ocean worlds" that could be significantly more massive than Earth and without a land-atmosphere boundary... all "land" being completely covered by a thick ocean. For the Exode Saga, I've imagined that the Nereids were one of the alien species that played a role in shaping human evolution. The Nereids long ago evolved on an ocean world, probably with a body form similar to that of a dolphin, but then the pek carried genetic modifications of some Nereids, creating new creatures that had a more humanoid body structure.

Below, in part three of "Grean Fiction", the crew of the spaceship Belerephon arrives at Altair IV and discovers that there are some highly intelligent residents of the planet: what the visitors from Earth call the Alphins. 

 

Tequid and Alphin

Since Altair IV is a terrestrial planet completely covered by liquid water, it might not seem surprising if the Alphins were the most human-like creatures native to Altair IV. However, Altair is a relatively young star, it is not likely that the Alphins originally evolved on Altair IV. The location of their home planet is a mystery.

 

The crew of the Belerephon also finds a population of humanoids living in the ocean of Altair IV. These humanoids, the Tequid, are genetically related to humans, their ancestors having long ago been brought to Altair IV from Earth by the Fru'wu and genetically modified so as to adapt them to conditions on Altair IV.

 

image source

The Fru'wu are long gone from Altair IV, having prepared the planet for the eventual arrival of humans from Earth. Although the Tequids prefer to live near the surface of the ocean, they are aware of the existence of an undersea city on the sea floor beneath the shallowest part of their ocean. The Tequids occasionally visit the undersea city, treating it like a religious monument. 

 

The Tequids are also dependent on advanced Fru'wu technology that is similar to the Bimanoid Interface; what they call the Voice, a system for technology-assisted telepathy that allows the Tequids to communicate with each other. The ability of the Tequids to use the Voice depends on their brains having been adapted to allow use their femtobot endosymbionts as receivers of hierion-based signals.

_________________

Part 3 of Grean Fiction. (read part 1)(part 2)

the Belerephon at Altair IV

After its long trip to the Altair star system, the Belerephon quickly surveyed the planets and then only briefly orbited Altair IV. No islands or continents were observed, only the single vast planetary ocean. Using its anti-gravity pontoons, the Belerephon then sank down into the atmosphere and hovered above the shallowest part of the ocean, the one part of this world where Edith felt the presence of human-like minds. 

 

Altair IV had a thicker atmosphere than Earth's, but it was breathable, with oxygen from photosynthetic organisms in the ocean. The planet had two large continents, both submerged, and a large amount of sea floor volcanic activity, much of which was concentrated at a rift that was starting to split one of the continents in half.

Over their years together as a couple, Edith had come to accept it as natural that Justin could push ideas into her mind. Arriving in the Altair system, Justin had pushed Edith's brain as hard as he could in the hope that she could sense alien minds on Altai IV. In the end, he had not needed to describe Edith's telepathic abilities to the rest of the crew. They all thought it made sense to begin exploration of the planet where the ocean was shallow.

Justin was watching Edith closely during the descent of Belerephon towards the ocean's surface and trying to keep their daughter, Tara, entertained and quiet. Finally, Edith opened her eyes and said, "These minds feel human, but somehow different from any I have felt before. In any case, they are definitely living in the ocean, although they do surface to breathe."

"Then we should be able to see them." Justin brought Tara across the room and handed the little girl to Edith.

For a moment while Justin, Tara and Edith were all in physical contact, Tara had a flash-like vision of what her father was planning. She said, "Take me to see the fish people, daddy."

Edith had long been certain that her daughter could see into Justin's mind even more deeply than she could herself. Edith said nothing, but patted Tara's head gently and kissed her cheek affectionately.

Justin was not prepared to recognize his daughter's telepathic abilities. He moved to the door of their apartment and told Edith, "I'll take the HP to the surface." 

 

After Justin had departed from the room then Edith told Tara, "We'll watch the data stream. The HP is no place for sweet little girls." Tara turned on the big display and selected the correct channel. As yet there were only pre-flight diagnostics visible; Kate was running tests on the submarine's systems.

robotic submersible

Edith again closed her eyes and tried to reach out her mind into the ocean. It all felt exactly as she had experienced decades earlier when as a child she had tried to reach out on Earth and make contact with someone else who had a mind like hers. But she had only ever found Probes. She had called them Probes because they seemed to push their probing thoughts into her, invading, crushing and suffocating her own thoughts, trying to bend her to their terrible thought patterns. Feeling only loneliness and despair, Edith had learned to avoid people, particularly the menacing Probes.

As a child, she'd fallen in love with the voices of the past, particularly the ancient movies about alien invaders. Edith had sometimes imagined that she was an alien, lost on Earth, endlessly seeking others of her kind. 

Then, among all those ancient stories, finally, in the end, it had been Fateful Planet that had provided the key to alien contact. The video feed from the HP began and Tara came to sit in Edith's lap. Tara, sensing something of Edith's thoughts said, "Tell me about Mars, mommy."

Fateful Planet DVD cover

Stories about Mars fascinated Tara. Edith began telling the story of how she had gone from Earth to Mars, dreaming of finding alien artifacts, just as had been depicted in Fateful Planet. 

 

Tara and Edith watched as the HP dropped towards the heaving waves at the surface of the ocean. A storm system was not too far away to the east and it was roiling the surface of the ocean. A flock of birds passed in the distance, flying in a near perfect v-formation.

 

Edith recalled how it had all happened when the first H-tag was found on Mars exactly where foretold in Fateful Planet, Edith had become a believer in time travel. How else could-

Tara asked, "Can you see the future, mommy?"

Edith giggled and replied, "I wish I could." Then a strange thought came. "What about you, my love?"

Tara had always known that in the far future both she and Edith would live in a magical place called Talya. When Tara thought of Talya she always imagined a great city seen from for away, across the expanse of a blue lake, but that was not what Edith wanted to know about now. 

 

Tara began to reply, "I see a round room-" But then she pointed to the screen and called out, "Fish people!" Tara pointed at the display where dozens of dolphin-like sea creatures were rising from the waves and flashing briefly through the air before plunging back into the water. For a time the HP followed the pod, then it slowed and settled down into the waves.

Justin's voice finally came, "Sonar is seeing a big school of fish here. I'm launching the submersibles." Suddenly a half dozen under-water cameras activated and those sub-images filled the left and right margins of the video display.

negative mass hierions

Another voice said, "They look like dolphins... hunting the fish." That was Kate, the marine biologist. Kate was not speaking very much. Mostly she was using her complax link to communicate to the other scientists of Belerephon and the artificial intelligence system of the spaceship that was called Daisy.

Justin said, "Let's call them Alphins."

Tara pointed at one of the underwater images and said, "Another fish person!"

This time, Edith saw what her daughter meant by "fish person". Clinging to the back of one of the Alphins was what looked like a human being. Had Justin or Kate noticed? 

 

Hierion Domain

Edith began trying to activate her microphone and use the special audio linkup to Justin in the HP, but then the sharp-eyed Kate noticed and said, "Justin! I just saw-"

Justin said, "I see it, too."

Kate wondered, "How is it possible?"

Justin chuckled and replied, "I told you that the Fru'wu sent Australopiths to this world."

Kate complained, "But they live in the ocean..."

"What else? There was never any land here." He suggested, "It appears that the primates brought in from Earth were genetically engineered by the Fru'wu for survival in this ocean."

Edith forced herself to stop looking for more flashed images of the humanoids and she closed here eyes. She told herself: I must go down there in the HP and get closer to the-

image source

Edith began think of the aquatic humanoids as Tequids. She felt certain that that was a close match to what they called themselves, as close as English could come for the name of an ape that communicated telepathically and could not speak. 

 

Tara said, "Patyqu wants to play."

Edith opened her eyes and saw that a young Tequid was peering into one of the cameras. Then the creature swam away from the submersible and out of view of the camera. A shoal of fish swam into view, nearly blocking out the sunlight. 

 

Edith thought: how strange it all is. In Fateful Planet, the ancient remains of Neanderthals had been found in the sandy wastes of Altair IV. That movie had been so wrong, and yet close enough to the truth. Molecular analysis was needed to confirm, but that one brief close-up view of a Tequid had told Edith that these creatures were too human-like for comfort. She told herself: They must be descended from Earthly apes.

 

________________________

 

After the great excitement among the Belerephon crew from the first contact experience had faded and the molecular data had confirmed that the Alphins were not from Earth while the Tequids were, Edith had finally been given the chance to go to the surface in the HP. She had wanted to go down alone, but other members of the crew were desperate to visit the surface after the four-year-long trip from Earth. The biologists were still arguing about the source of the fish and the Alphins and even the oxygen producing algae. Surely Altair IV was too young a planet for such life-forms to have evolved there. And the Tequid genome contained some gene patterns unlike any known on Earth. Even the ship's geologist was complaining that the plate tectonics of Altair IV did not seem natural.

 

When Edith had mentioned that she planned to leave the HP and swim in the ocean, then the arguments with Justin had begun in earnest. These were not just theoretical arguments. Justin was incredulous, "Your first duty is to Tara as her mother. You can't use yourself as a bioprobe in this alien sea!"

Edith had retorted, "Don't be a fool, Justin. I'll be wearing an anti-contamination suit."

image source

"Which could leak."

"There's nothing dangerous here."

"How do you know?"

Edith wanted to say that she knew because hundreds of years ago Ariel Adler had been shown the future, but she knew that Justin would think her insane if she admitted to any such belief. Edith could barely believe it herself. Yet, she did feel that there was no danger to her -or to Tara- were she to leave the HP and seek close physical contact with the Tequids.

Ultimately, Justin informed Edith that the hatch controls of the HP would be locked during her trip down to the surface of the ocean. And the trip would still have a scientific purpose. The submersibles would try to reach the shallow sea floor, which was only about three hundred meters below the surface at this point on Altair IV. Radar scans indicated that there were artificial structures on the sea floor.

At the last minute, when Edith had left the apartment to go to the HP, Tara had insisted on going along. In all the excitement and during the long arguments with Justin, Edith had not even given a stray thought to the idea of taking Tara to the surface. But now she realized that this was the only viable alternative to direct contact with a Tequid. Somehow, Tara was able to function as a kind of bridge or amplifier that extended Edith's telepathic abilities. 

Edith Morbius in Greenland

Of course, Justin objected. "You can't be serious? You insist on putting Tara in danger?"

"We've been through this before. She's part of this mission now, a member of the crew just like me. You can't deny her the right to see this world, the only world she had ever known."

In the end, Edith did take Tara down to the surface. Ilania Drakan, the physicist of the crew, went down on the same mission in the HP. After learning that Tara would be inside the HP with Edith, Ilania decided to bring along her young son Billy who was about a year younger than Tara.

 

Rather afraid of deep water, Edith looked upwards and watched the Belerephon from below as the HP drifted slowly down towards the waves. She was awed by the great bulk of the Belerephon as it hung there floating peacefully in the sky.

 

Tara was trying to locate Alphins and Tequids. The sea was quite calm and featureless. Tara whispered to herself, "Patty will be here soon."

 

Edith helped launch the submersibles and then make sure they were dropping on their programmed paths towards the sea floor, then she went to stand with Tara at the observation window, now half under the surface of the nearly flat surface of the sea. Slow swells rocked the HP gently side-to-side. Tara placed her hands on the window and Edith put her hands on her daughter's shoulders. Closing her eyes, Edith could sense the presence of a Tequid, rapidly approaching on the back of an Alphin mount. Tara said, "I want to ride, mommy."

"Some day soon, my angel." 

 

Tara said, "Look!"

 

There was a Tequid, just outside the HP, who pressed her webbed hand to the hierion-composite of the perfectly transparent window. Edith closed her eyes and... first there was a confusing jumble of sensations and half-images then they synced, their minds both focused on the issue of the artificial structures on the sea floor.

image source

The Tequid broke the telepathic contact and swam to its Alphin mount who waited nearby. Now Edith noticed that the Alphin had something tied to its sleek body. The Tequid pulled something away from the Alphin and strapped it to her own slender shoulders. "Scuba equipment?"

Ilania looked up from the video stream that was coming from the submersibles as they sank into the ocean depths. "Scuba?"

"This Tequid just strapped on what looks like an oxygen tank."

Ilania laughed. "What the hell?"

The Tequid looked at Edith and pointed down, then got on the Alphin and attached a second air tank to the Alphin's air hole on the top of its neck. Then the Alphin dove and quickly sank out of sight. Justin's voice came over the radio, "Did I just see what I think I saw?"

Edith laughed then tried to speak calmly, as if she was not surprised. "Obviously the Tequids have access to advanced technology." She turned to Ilania and suggested, "Try to intercept them with one of the submersibles."

see

After a minute at the computer workstation, Ilania said, "I've got a radar track on them, S3 is holding at -200 meters and moving northeast to intercept."

Edith asked, "Can you extrapolate where the Tequid is going?"

"There's a kind of tower at the east end of the ocean floor complex. That seems to be-" There was a brief flash from the S3 camera. "The Alphin went right past S3." A trail of rising bubbles was all that remained in the beam of the S3 floodlight.

Edith asked, "What depth is that tower?"

"It rises to about 250 meters below the ocean surface."

"Can a scuba diver go that deep?"

Ilania replied, "According to Daisy, with special scuba equipment and gas mixtures, yes, it is possible. That Tequid seems to know what she's doing." A minute later Ilania said, "I've got S4 positioned at the top of the tower. It looks like there is some kind of entry port..."

_______________________

ancient science fiction (source)

The HP had been designed as an accessory for the Belerephon after the decision was made to visit Altair IV. "HP" stood for high-pressure. Suspecting that Altair IV was covered by an endless ocean, robotic submersibles had been placed in cargo, but the decision had been made to also send a submarine with passenger space. Now the question was, who would make the trip down to the underwater complex.

Justin kept viewing the video from S1, the submersible that had found a second way to get inside the underwater complex: a kind of airlock that might be large enough to accommodate the HP. This second airlock was much bigger than the one used by the Tequids, but was it big enough for the bulk of the HP craft? After careful study of the range-finder scan data, he finally concluded, "It just won't fit. It is close, but the answer is no."

 

Edith said, "Then we'll just have to make an adapter that can link from the HP's hatch to their airlock entrance."

"Even with an adapter we'd have no way of getting in! I see nothing that looks like a manual switch to open the airlock from outside. We have no means to cut through that hierocomposite material. There's no indication that anyone lives down there and can open the airlock from inside. Maybe there was a million years ago, but not any more. So... we could dock to the airlock, but how could you get inside?"

the tryp'At

"Obviously, we need help from the Tequids. They can get in through the chimney."

 

Justin sighed. When he'd been briefed in advance of this mission by his mother, she'd provided no details about how to actually gain access to the Fru'wu technology of Altair IV. As a tryp'At, she had her own mysterious sources of information, but apparently not detailed information about the underwater cities of Altair IV. She'd told him, "Well, my boy, you'll have to figure it out when you get there."

 

And now, it was Edith who had her own special source of information. Justin had been trained to use his own tryp'At abilities to influence Edith's mind and guide her actions. That part of his mission had been particularly successful in getting Edith to fall in love with him.

And then Tara had appeared and provided a kind of amplification to Edith's telepathic abilities. Justin could not stop imagining that he had been a dupe, sent on this mission for one real purpose: to bring Tara into existence. He sighed. Having collaborated to make the miraculous Tara, was his part in the Altair mission complete?

Now, Justin had a dozen serious objections to Edith's plan, but he knew there was no better option than the crazy strategy that Edith wanted to pursue. And all contact with the Tequids funneled through Edith. And Tara. He gazed at their daughter, wondering what went on in her young mind.

Tara turned and looked at Justin and asked, "What is bothering you, daddy?"

Tara was wise beyond her years, apparently from being able to access the minds of everyone around her, two dozen scientists who had been her universe since the day she was born. Justin kneeled down on the floor and placed a hand on the girl's slim back. "Tell me, sweetie, can a fish person walk around inside the underwater city?"

the Fru'wu

"Fish don't walk silly!" She giggled at her father's 'joke'. "They swim."

Edith was sitting on the floor beside Tara. They had built a model of the underwater city, or complex of domed compartment or whatever it was. Maybe only the long-gone Fru'wu knew. Edith touched Tara's arm and closed her eyes. She told Justin, "Beyond the airlock in the chimney there is dense air, so when the Tequids pass inside the city, they keep swimming. They float in the dense air."

"Swimming in the air?" Justin realized that such air swimming might be possible if the air inside the city was highly pressurized. Of course! The Fru'wu home planet was rumored to have been large and blanketed in a dense atmosphere. The Fru'wu could fly in that thick atmosphere. He and Edith locked their gazes. "The question becomes, can we survive inside such a high pressure atmosphere. We'll need a gas analysis. The submersibles can..."

Daisy, the AI of the Belerephon was always listening and now it said, "Humans can survive at 50 atmospheres of pressure if the gas mixture is correct. But the higher the pressure, the longer the period of transition to and from the elevated pressure. Humans can't just cycle through an airlock and step from one atmosphere of pressure into 50 atmospheres... not without damage to critical tissues."

Edith asked Justin, "What do you think is down there, inside...?"

He shrugged. "And why wouldn't the Fru'wu tell us what to expect?" Before the departure of Belerephon for Altair, the Fru'wu visitors to Earth had been questioned, but they seemed to know nothing about Altair. Justine had never believed that the Fru'wu were being truthful.

Edith replied, "Oh, I believed the Fru'wu visitors to Earth, that they didn't know anything useful about Altair IV. The Fru'wu of three million years ago were quite different from the Fru'wu who we've know in modern times. This is like the legend of Atlantis... a lost civilization..."

Tara asked, "The underwater city is Atlantis?"

"No, honey... Atlantis is a myth." But from that day on, first Tara then the rest of the crew adopted 'Atlantis' as the name of the undersea complex.

________________________________

original art work by Paul Alexander

Almost a year later, the adapter for linking the HP to the Atlantis airlock was finally ready. Its construction and installation on the side of the HP had strained the manufacturing capabilities of the Belerephon.

 

The Belerephon had long been resting a mere 50 meters above the ocean, directly above the location of the chimney that gave Tequids access to the interior of Atlantis. A nogee pole connected from Belerephon to a small floating deck on the ocean's surface. On days that were not stormy, Edith and Tara often swam in the ocean, sometimes with Tara's friend, Patty the Tequid. No toxins or pathogens had been found on Altair IV.

 

During that past year, Atlantis had been carefully probed and studied. The atmosphere inside Atlantis was automatically maintained at 26 Earth atmospheres of pressure and had an artificial composition of 99% argon and 0.5% water and 0.5% oxygen.

Most of the crew members of the Belerephon had been tested at high pressure and the two who showed the least deleterious effects of prolonged exposure were Tara and Billy, the other child who like Tara had been born during the journey to Altair IV. Billy was a normal 4 year old, but now at 5 years of age, Tara was highly astute and articulate. She'd proclaimed to her parents, "This is my world. I'll go inside Atlantis."

 

Tara had reached the age when most children received their complax implant, but like her parents she was averse to the idea of having a bioelectric device grafted into her brain. Tara, Edith and Justin were looked upon with some suspicion by the other crew members. They rarely socialized with the others and had a strong family life with many little traditions shared only by the three of them. One such tradition was their earnest discussions during meals that ranged from complex scientific matters to art history to abstruse philosophy.

 

In the Ekcolir Reality
original cover art by Edmund Emshwiller

After discovering that she was again pregnant, Edith had not been subjected to the high atmospheric pressure testing. She was happy to be expecting another child, but annoyed that she could not plan to go inside Atlantis.

Much of the interior of Atlantis had been explored by drones. Several drones had been taken through the small airlock in the chimney by Patty. From the perspective of the Tequids, the chimney was a kind of temple. A place to pay respects to the never-forgotten Masters, their term for the long-departed Fru'wu. The Tequids could obtain filled oxygen tanks inside the chimney and that allowed them to fulfill their obligation to make pilgrimages to Atlantis. Patty had trained as one of the monk-like Tequids who specialized in bringing oxygen tanks up to the surface for use by the pilgrims.

The drones discovered how to open the second, large airlock from inside Atlantis. A radio-link was installed that would allow crew members inside HP to open the airlock.

Edith had strongly argued the case for allowing Tara to explore Atlantis. "Yes, she is a child, but she knows what she is doing. Her young body is best able to deal with the stress of 25 atmospheres." As the time approached when the HP would be ready to dock to the Altantis airlock, nobody but Edith and Tara thought it was sensible to send a child into the undersea city.

In an attempt to make the interior of Atlantis more hospitable, they had tried releasing gas into the sea through the airlock, but when the pressure had been reduced to 25 atmospheres, the domes of Atlantis had begun to buckle under the pressure of the ocean. They dared lower the pressure inside Atlantis no further than 25 atmospheres. Somewhere in the vast labyrinth of domes that comprised Atlantis, an automated system kept trying to bring the air pressure back up to 26 Earth atmospheres of pressure.

For several months, nobody but Edith and Tara had taken seriously the idea that Tara should be the first human sent inside Atlantis, but Tara was confident that some day she would be allowed to fulfill her destiny on the sea floor. She kept working with Patty to explore the many domes of Atlantis. 

 

Then one morning, when Edith lay on top of Justin, still breathing hard from the exertion of their rambunctious love making, Tara had rushed into their room and jumped on their bed. She understood perfectly that her parents needed time alone together, but she had been monitoring one of the drones which was following the Tequid known as "Patty".

image source

Patty was the Tequid who had first shown the crew of the Belerephon that it was possible to enter Atlantis. Patty and Tara shared a strong telepathic connection and were now close friends. Patty had taken it upon herself to explore the interior of Atlantis, venturing beyond the confines of the "temple" in the high chimney. Many of the older Tequids considered her actions a kind a desecration of Atlantis and the spirit of the Ancient Masters.

Tara could telepathically link to Patty most strongly by touching both her parents. Somehow, that allowed Tara to best "hear" the Voice, the Tequid method of communicating. Now, Tara paced a hand on each of her parents while showing Edith a replay of the video feed from the drone that had been following Patty. Tara told her mother, "Patty found some kind of control room. There is alien writing on the controls..."

Previously, they had seen many short strings of symbols on various doors and passages in Atlantis, but the strings of text seen in the control room were the first long, systematic arrays of alien symbols found on Altair IV. Edith saw that at the center of the control room was a circular platform. Around the circular wall were bank after bank of neatly sculpted control panels, each with a long line of the alien script running along side a complex set of toggles and thumb-wheels. Tara said, "Watch this!"

Patty moved into contact with one of the control panels and flipped a toggle. A display lit up, showing a similar room, with similar control panels, but with somewhat different shape and coloring. Edith pulled herself away from Justin and jumped out of the bed. She pulled on a skirt and sat on the edge of the bed. She replayed the video sequence of Patty activating the control panel.

source

Justin watched over Edith's shoulder. Tara again grabbed hold of both her parents and said to her mother, "Listen to Patty. She knows what this is, but I don't understand."

Edith closed her eyes and imagined that she could slip into the Tequid's mind. Patty was fiddling with the controls on the panel in front of her. Slowly, with the feel of a slow motion scene, an idea came to Edith. She opened her eyes and looked at Justin. "Is that display screen providing a view of another underwater city... or-"

Justin knew what Edith was wondering. He had long suspected that with Tara's help he could transmit ideas telepathically to Patty. Now he tried to ask the Tequid: is that a view of someplace on this planet or is it a view of another world?

Edith closed her eyes again. The answer was there in Patty's mind... there was only one undersea city of Altair IV. But there was another question. She muttered, "So why is there a platform at the center of this control room?"

A moment later Edith opened her eyes and told Justin, "I think it is..." She fell silent, doubting her own knowledge. "... is such a thing possible?"

Justin hung eagerly on Edith's words. "What?"

"Teleportation."

Justin's eyes widened. "Interstellar teleportation?"

"Those rows of alien text on the control panels... it looks like the Fru'wu notation system for stellar coordinates."

Tara was still monitoring the live video feed from the drone inside the control room. She shouted, "Patty, no!"

Edith turned to look at the live video  from inside Atlantis. Patty had gone to the platform at the center of the room, but now she was gone. Edith blinked. "Where did Patty-"

Tara wailed, "Patty disappeared!"

______________________________

Teleportation

The arguments raged and the days went by. Patty did not return to Altair IV. Eventually it was decided that Justin and Ilania would go inside Atlantis and test the suspected teleportation equipment in the control room. Experiments with the robot drones had failed to achieve anything. The robots could not even activate the display screens that were built into the control panels.

It took two weeks for Justin and Ilania to gradually undergo pressurization to 25 atmospheres. Then finally, upon entering the control room, Justin quickly discovered that he was able to activate the displays on the control panels. When Ilania flipped the same toggles, the displays would not activate for her. 

 

Justin joked, "I have the magic touch." He was certain that the technology-assisted telepathy equipment that he had been equipped with by his mother was they key to activating the ancient Fru'wu technology.

 

Several of the video displays activated by Justin showed Fru'wu going about their business in their own distant control rooms. However, when Justin and Justin and Ilania tried putting various test objects on the platform at the center of the room, nothing happened.

From inside the safe confines of Belerephon, Edith and Tara were watching the video feed that was being transmitted from the control room inside Atlantis. Justin was becoming increasingly frustrated by his inability to fully activate the teleporter. Edith said to Tara, "Tell me baby... why could Patty activate the teleporter, but daddy can't?"

The child explained, "Daddy isn't a two way."

"Two way?"

Tera struggled to find words to explain telepathy to her mother. "The Tequids talk to each other with their thoughts. They send, they receive, they cooperate with each other. Daddy only pushes with his mind."

Edith had long thought of Justin as a Probe. Upon meeting him in Greenland, she had quickly become infatuated by the feel of Justin's mind pushing at her, a sensation as sweet as the feel of his hands on her skin. "Could I do it right?"

"No. You only take thoughts. But I could do it, I betcha!"

Edit asked her daughter, "Could you send Ilania through the teleporter?"

"Yes, I think I know how... I watched Patty do it. But Ilania is afraid. She does not want to go. Daddy will do it."

 

Edith did not want to make Justin disappear like Patty had, possibly sent off into deep space by teleportation equipment that had not been calibrated in ages. No, they would try sending a message first. She laughed and started trying to write, using the Fru'wu script, a message to send through the teleporter.

 

One day while they were eating dinner, Edith casually mentioned an ancient science fiction story about time travel and then Tara said to her father, "I'm glad I can see you, safe in the future, otherwise I'd be afraid to send you through the teleporter." This was during the time when Justin and Ilania were together inside Atlantis.

 

Justin was communicating with Edith and Tara by radio. His voice sounded odd and was being modulated electronically to adjust for atmospheric effects. He laughed uneasily, producing a strange warbling sound. "What do you see in my future?"

 

Tara shared her vision. "A great adventure on the world of the Fru'wu. But you will come back to mommy and I. And Brad."

Justin asked, "Who is Brad?"

Tara placed a hand on Edith's big abdomen. "That's the name that mommy is going to give to my brother."

Edith said, "Well, now that you discovered my secret, I might just have to change that part of the future."

Tara shook her head gravely. "I don't think we can change the future."

 

____________________

source

After a delay, a message came back through the teleporter in response to the written message from Edith. For a time, Edith stared at the reply in dismay. Nothing made sense. 

 

As the target for the attempted communication with a distant world, they had selected one of the control panels that showed images of many Fru'wu busily making use of the teleportation terminal at their end. Watching them and seeing how they reacted to Edith's message, it was clear that they were surprised to receive a message from Altair IV. 

 

Upon getting inside Atlantis and inside the control room, Tara had been able to activate the teleporter and transmit the written message. Apparently, Tara was the only human on Altair IV with the correct telepathic powers that were needed to activate some safety lock on the teleportation equipment. 

 

see

Working with Daisy the AI onboard Belerephon, Edith tried dozens of methods to decode and translate the alien message which had materialized on the teleportation platform. Finally, after hours of work, she looked up from her analysis of the written reply and Edith said to Justin, "This is like a completely different language from what was long ago used on Earth. I can't read it."

 

Justin shrugged. "Okay, so we will try again... with a different destination."

Just then, the telportation platform began to glow and there was a loud POP. Standing on the platform was a Fru'wu.

Edith was glad that Tara had gone out of the control room to take a nap. The Fru'wu was rather hideous, significantly different in appearance from the Fru'wu known in the Solar System and he had arrived encased inside a bulky transparent pressure suit. The alien croaked at Justin. The sounds emanating from the Fru'wu were strange, but Edith imagined that two words he was saying repeatedly were, "Earthling. How?"

______________________

the Fru'wu in fiction

The arguments began all over again. Justin insisted that it should be he who would be teleported first. "I'll go through the teleporter to Joe's world." They had taken to calling their Fru'wu visitor Joe.

 

The combined effect of Patty's disappearance and the arrival of Joe the Master was unsettling for the Tequids. The Tequids flocked to Joe, almost preventing the Fru'wu from being able to interact with Edith while she tried to learn his harsh sounding language.

Eventually, the crew of the Belerephon realized that despite Joe's prominent penis, "he" was actually an hermaphrodite. Joe was eager to pass back through the teleporter and return to his own world. He could speak broken English because he carried in his body a nanoscopic prosthetic device (a snyxbyff) that functioned as an artificial speech generator. The device had its own limited artificial intelligence and was also able to communicate to the distant Fru'wu planet where Joe lived. Joe seemed unable to explain how the snyxbyff worked and how information could be sent instantaneously over vast interstellar distances.

Joe had offered assurances that the teleporter equipment on Altair IV was perfectly functional, even if it had not been used in millennia. All of Atlantis was tended to by automated repair systems. 

 

The atmosphere on Joe's home planet was only about half the density of the air inside Atlantis. Joe worked with Justin to design and prepare a pressure suit that would allow Justin to survive the sudden pressure drop that would occur upon teleportation to Joe's world.

Edith had questioned Joe about Patty, but Joe refused to discuss the matter. Edith was left suspecting that Patty was dead, a victim of a teleportation accident.

Justin had cycled back to regular Earth pressure to complete work on the Belerephon manufacturing and fitting his pressure suit.

The night before his scheduled departure in the HP and the slow repressurization process, Edith made frantic love with Justin and then, laying in his embrace, she said, "I have the feeling that I'll never see you again." Her love for Justin, which, in Greenland, had struck her originally like a whirlwind, had only intensified through the years.

He had his own doubts about the future. "Whatever happens to me, take care of Tara." Edith's swollen abdomen pressed against Justin. "And Brad. If I don't return soon, try the other control panels, communicate with the other worlds. You'll figure it out... you're the linguist."

Some of the crew were suggesting that the Belerephon should return to Earth so that they could report discovery of the teleportation equipment. The radio transmissions that they had sent to Earth would take 16 years to arrive. However, nobody volunteered to take the Belerephon to Earth. Daisy claimed that she could take the Belerephon to Earth without any human crew, but nobody wanted to spend time stripping down the spaceship and constructing a new living space for the crew that could remain on Altair IV.

 

Edith was committed to trying to communicate with the Fru'wu but she feared sending Justin to another world via the teleporter. She knew that there was no point in trying to make Justin adopt a cautious approach and Tara insisted that there was no danger to her father. Edith clutched at Justin's strong arms and said, "It bothers me that Joe knows nothing about recent Earth history."

source

Justin sighed. He had grown weary trying to push Edith towards acceptance of his need to explore worlds that were on the other side of the teleportation beam. "Obviously, there are different factions of Fru'wu scattered around the galaxy. Just think how many worlds you've seen so far."

By modifying the settings on the teleportation control panels, many different worlds could be selected and viewed. Before Justin had left Atlantis and returned to Belerephon, they had cataloged over one hundred worlds that could be viewed from the control room. Tara and Ilania continued their work in the control room and now that count was up to over three thousand, but most of those worlds showed no signs of life. "Only 48 of the three thousand show Fru'wu operators in their control rooms."

"I suppose there could be millions of Fru'wu planets in the galaxy." Justin was ready to go find out.

Edith put the tip of a finger on the tip of his nose. "I know you. You'll start on Joe's world, then teleport to another planet... and another... and you'll never return to me."

"Don't be silly. I'll be back. When I return, I'll bounce Brad on my knee and I'll bounce you around this bed... we'll make another baby...."

Throwing all caution to the wind, Edith asked, "What's your real mission, Justin? Why did your mother send you here?"

After a stunned silence, Justin asked, "What are you talking about?"

source

Edith asked the question she had long wanted to ask him. "What is a tryp'At?"

Again he answered with a question of his own, "Who told you about the tryp'At?"

"I first saw them mentioned in some ancient science fiction stories. But then I also saw it in your thoughts. You always think about the tryp'At. Your mother..."

Justin admitted, "Yes, my mother is tryp'At."

Fearing the worst, Edith whispered, "Then you are... some kind of alien?"

"I'm as human as you are, Edith. How else could we have created Tara and Brad?"

Edith ran her hands over his muscular chest and began to play with his stiff nipples. "Well, Tara's not a normal human. It is almost as if she was -designed- to be able to activate the Fru'wu teleportation equipment. How is that possible?"

technology-assisted telepathy

"I don't know." Justin had long wondered if Tara had been designed, crafted and readied for Altair even before he'd first met Edith. Such things were possible for the tryp'At.

Edith asked, "And what you do know, you can't share with me?"

Justin was unable to speak of the tryp'At to anyone who did not already know about them. Even now, he was compelled to say no more to Edith than she had already figured out on her own. He could not tell Edith that the Belerephon was equipped with a tryp'At device that had made it possible for Tara to have telepathic contact with Patty and also allowed him to influence and guide Edith's thought processes. 

 

image source

Finally Justin discovered something that he could tell Edith: "The tyrp'At are no different from anyone else... worried about the consequences of Fru'wu technology. Think about it Edith. Yes, it is amazing... teleport across the galaxy. Woosh! But couldn't you also use this alien technology to duplicate a person?"

Edith sat up straight, still holding Justin's firm penis inside her. "So, that's how it is, the tryp'At are some kind of technology police? They'll decide if Earth should get teleporter technology from the Fru'wu? You'll decide?"

"You know Earth's history... the catastrophic ruin already arising from Earth's adoption of Fru'wu technology. You want more of that?" Justin gently caressed Edith's bulging abdomen; the new baby was now growing rapidly. He knew he could please Edith by staying there onboard the Belerephon until the baby was born, but Joe was impatient to return to his home world...

Global Warming

Edith sighed and shook her head. "Of course not." She felt that there was a strengthening telepathic connection between herself and the fetus inside her and it was her hope that with the help of her son she might now achieve a greater ability look into Justin's thoughts. So far, that process had not reached the point where she could pull all Justin knew about the tryp'At from his memory. "But I wish you could explain how you know that teleportation technology will be bad for Earth."

Justin shared that wish, but he could not over-ride the behavioral control nanites that were inside his brain. And besides, he really needed to gain some experience with this amazing Fru'wu technology before making up his own mind about it.

 

Next: part 4 of "Grean Fiction". 

visit the Gallery of Movies, Book and Magazine Covers