Chapter
3: First Contact
Jack looked down the corridor as it curved away into the distance.
It was bright and well-lit, and like the outside of the spaceship it
was silver-looking, without any recognisable panels, buttons, or
instruments of any kind. Indeed, he couldn’t even see where the
light was coming from. There were no light bulbs, filaments, or even
switches in the ceilings or walls. It seemed to come from everywhere
at once.
The whole ship was absolutely silent. No engine purred and roared. No
machinery whooshed and rattled. Not even his footsteps made a sound
on the soft, shiny floor. All he could hear was the sound of his
chest rapidly sucking in and out lungfuls of air.
Jack looked around frantically as he felt the fear rise in his chest.
He reached out and touched one of the walls. Like the floor, it was
hard and smooth, and yet it seemed softer than metal. When he ran his
fingers over it, he could press the material down by about half an
inch. The whole corridor seemed to be covered in this strange
sponge-like material.
He stood there for a few minutes not knowing what to do. The whole
ship seemed deserted. Not for the first time tonight he was alone and
frightened. What had happened? How had he got inside? Would he ever
be able to get out?
He turned around and tried desperately to find a way out - anything
that he could open and escape through. He couldn't find anything. He
attempted to grip the smooth silk-like walls, trying to prise open a
non-existent door or hatch, but his hands just kept slipping off.
Then his fear and frustration began to boil over, his screwed-up
fists pummeling the walls.
“WHO ARE YOU?” he shouted out to whoever might be listening “WHAT
AM I DOING HERE? LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!”
But there was no answer, only the echo of his own trembling voice.
Then suddenly, as if he'd pressed some hidden switch, a huge portion
of the wall vanished.
Before him appeared a giant image of the Earth.
He jumped back, expecting to be sucked out into the vacuum of space
at any moment. But nothing happened.
Then he reached out, his hands shaking. The image of the Earth
rippled under his touch like a reflection on water. The wall was
still there however, but it now seemed to be some kind of transparent
window.
Looking down he was now high above Africa, with the pale yellow sands
of the Sahara desert clearly visible next to the lush, green
rainforests of Western and Central Africa. White and grey bands of
clouds were drifting over South Africa and parts of Eurasia, and
around all this was the bluest ocean Jack had ever seen.
When the spaceship had taken off he'd no idea. He hadn’t felt any
acceleration, or heard the rush and boom of any rockets. It was like
it had magically disappeared in one place and then re-appeared in
another.
Not only was he the first boy to go on board an alien spaceship, but
he had now become the first to fly into space too.
Then almost as quickly as the Earth appeared it dissolved into
nothing, leaving Jack alone in the corridor once more.
Still too afraid to move, he sat in the corridor for a long time not
knowing what to do.
After a while boredom and curiosity got the better of him and he
decided to explore further down the corridor, turning around every
now and again just to make sure he wasn’t being followed by some
hairy, ugly space critter.
Where was everybody? Why weren't there any aliens or robots to greet
him? That was what happened in the movies, right?
The corridor seemed endless. Every now and again he would pass some
brightly-lit rooms that like the corridor were lit by a non-existent
light source. On each of these there were no doors of any kind, nor
no windows either. He could only guess as to what they were used for.
He thought about going into some of them to explore, but thought
better of it.
As far as he could make out there were no other levels to the ship.
He saw no elevators, escalators, or stairs that led anywhere else. He
saw no signs either. The only things he did see were some 3-D
pictures of what looked like the Milky Way galaxy set against an even
larger star. They seemed to be part of the wall itself. When Jack
touched one it came alive, the shimmering stars revolving around the
sun in the centre. He could even put his hand into the picture and
feel the glow of the stars tingling on his fingertips.
He kept on walking for well over an hour but he couldn’t find a way
out.
Then he saw something brown on the floor in front of him. He bent
over to have a look. It was dirt – his own. He'd gone round in a
circle. He must have brought it onto the spaceship when he came
aboard.
Not only was he on an alien spaceship thousands of miles above the
Earth with no way to get off, but he was also lost on this spaceship
without the faintest idea where to go next.
Panicking, he began to run frantically around the spaceship; in the
hope that he had missed something, or perhaps had taken a wrong
turning. He hadn’t. About forty five minutes later he found himself
back where he had started, next to several crumbs of dry mud and a
few twisted blades of grass.
He slumped to the floor dejected, ran his hands through his clammy
hair, and wondered what he could do next.
He was just about to go and explore one of the larger rooms when
something large and heavy fell on top of him.
He crashed to his knees and fell over, his right cheek bouncing off
the soft, spongy, floor.
Something was on top of him holding him down.
Whatever it was it was alive. He could feel its hot breath on the
back of his neck and what felt like sharp claws or fingernails
digging between his shoulder blades, ripping and tearing at his skin.
He managed to squeeze one of his arms out from under his body. He
flapped and flailed at whatever was on top of him, grasping nothing
but air. Eventually, he managed to grab what felt like tough dry
leather and wrenched-off whatever was holding him down.
Jack gasped. Facing him was a pair of big, round black eyes
surrounded by a pale, milky head, and a mouthful of sharp, white
teeth.
He barely had time to breathe but what the creature attacked him
again, its sharp fingernails poking and jabbing at his eyes as its
small nose twitched and prodded as it sucked in his scent. Within
moments it was on top of him again, its gleaming teeth locked in an
angry grimace as it tried to strangle him.
Then he heard the sound of laughter from the other end of the
corridor. He turned around instantly.
Before him was what looked like a young teenage girl.
The first thing that he noticed was how red she was. She had bright
red hair and eyes, crimson lips, light-red, pinkish skin, and she was
even dressed in red, wearing a tight-fitting red suit that stretched
all the way from her neck to her feet.
“Is that how you practice first contact on your planets?” she
chuckled.
Jack laid there quietly not knowing what to say as the jawstrocity
on top of him glared at her with its tar-like eyes.
Then suddenly it opened its mouth, snarling back at her, “No, of
course not, I was just …I was just…”
It glared in the direction of Jack again, “I was just protecting
myself. I thought that HE was going to attack ME!”
“No I wasn’t.” Jack yelled, still gripping its arms. “He
attacked me, I did nothing to him, I swear.”
“I don't care, you can believe what you like,” it said as it
thrust him once more to the floor.
Then it got to its feet and walked quickly over to the red girl.
“Where did you learn my language?” It demanded, the dark green
veins in its skin almost popping out of its forehead.
“What do you mean? I was going to ask you the same thing. Where did
you learn Rennish?”
“Very amusing,” it said, “Stop messing around and tell me where
you learnt Asvari. Your accent is perfect.”
“Look,” she continued in a slightly arrogant tone “If you want
to believe that I am speaking Asvari or Astar or whatever you want to
call it then fine, but you might want to ask your friend over there
how he can understand the both of us too!”
For the first time it looked flustered, green canals popping-up all
over its skin. Then it glared at Jack again, who was still lying on
the floor in a heap. “He’s NOT my friend!” it spat “I ...”
Then it abruptly stopped. “What language are you speaking?” it
demanded of Jack.
“What do you mean?” asked Jack a little flustered.
“L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E!” It spelled out sarcastically. “What language
are you speaking?”
“English, of course!” Jack replied, getting to his feet.
“See, I told you!” said the red girl triumphantly, her cheeks
glowing.
“But how? It doesn’t make sense,” it said, looking confused.
Now it was her turn to spell it out, “We aren’t speaking each
other’s languages, but we are hearing them! That’s what I’ve
been trying to tell you. Somehow in this spaceship we are able to
understand what other people say.”
“But that’s impossible!” said Jack. “How…”
“I don’t know how,” interrupted the red girl. “All I know is
that it IS happening. Perhaps there’s something on board the
spaceship that makes it possible. Maybe it’s the spaceship itself,
or maybe our brains have been re-programmed in some way.”
Upon hearing that Jack immediately touched his head, worried that it
might explode at any moment.
“Don't worry,” Vyleria continued “I'm sure it's fine. By the
look if it this spaceship is very advanced, so I'm sure it can handle
a teeny-weeny bit of brain surgery.” “By the way what happened to
your t-shirt? It looks like he's hurt you.”
“I didn't do anything to him!” protested the mouthful of teeth,
its silver-grey spacesuit shimmering as his arms danced about in
protest.
“No, it wasn't him,” Jack said, looking down at his blood-soaked
t-shirt. “It was … it was … I fell.”
“You fell?” asked the red girl, not quite believing him.
“Yeah, I was playing football and I tripped and I fell and I hurt
my lip.”
“And your cheeks and your nose and your forehead too?” she
chuckled.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Jack replied, shuffling his feet and
fidgeting.
“See, I told you!” barked the mouthful of teeth “What do you
take me for – some kind of monster?”
“No, of course not what do you take me for some kind of
narrow-minded speciesist?”
“How did you both get here?” Jack asked, seizing a chance to
change the subject and to stop them from arguing “I’ve been
walking around this corridor for ages but I didn’t see either of
you.”
“I..I..” started the creature with the milky, green face, but
again the red girl interrupted him, “I’ve been exploring some of
the other levels. There’s some amazing stuff down there, you should
check it out. I got around by using one of the transportation rooms.
I found it by accident actually.”
“What do you mean the transportation rooms?” Jack asked.
“You know the transportation rooms!”
Jack looked at her blankly.
“Oh,” she said, reading his expression “You mean you haven't
found them yet? What have you been doing you two? Come on, I’ll
show you,” she said, chuckling to herself.
They followed her down the corridor and into one of the rooms that
Jack had passed before. It didn’t look like anything special - just
white and empty.
“What do you do?” Jack asked, staring at it as a monkey might do
a computer “How does it work?”
“Here, I’ll show you;” she said confidently “First you step
inside and then think of wherever you want to go on the space ship.
Wherever you think of, it sends you there.”
Then with that she stepped inside, turned round, closed her eyes and
promptly vanished.
Jack was searching the room for her when suddenly he heard a voice
behind him.
“Hi there!” said Vyleria, tapping him on the shoulder.
He jumped about a foot in the air.
“Where did you come from?” he asked, gasping for breath.
“I simply thought of the next room along this corridor and it sent
me there. You should try it; I've been having so much fun!”
Jack stepped forward, only for the other creature to elbow him out of
the way. Then it stepped inside the room, closed its eyes, and
vanished, before re-appearing moments later.
When Jack stepped inside the room but he found he couldn’t
concentrate. His head was a whirl of thoughts and feelings. He
thought of the room next door, then the long corridor, Gaz Finch, the
football pitch, arguing with his parents, the pen fight, the
spaceship, seeing Planet Earth, how to get out, and then and then …
He found himself close to the ceiling.
He fell down immediately, bouncing lightly off the soft floor.
Then he heard the sound of laughter.
“Stop laughing at me!” he shouted.
“Sorry Jack,” said the red girl “I can’t help it. I never
thought that you’d be so funny!”
“I did,” snarled the mouthful of teeth, its green veins almost
poking out of its cheeks.
I’m not going to be laughed at here as well as school, Jack
thought to himself, so picking himself up he went back into the
transportation room, closed his eyes, thought of the room next door
and vanished again.
He opened his eyes on a large white room. “Yes, I’ve done it!”
he shouted, but when he went out into the corridor he realised
that instead of re-appearing next door he had in fact ended-up in an
identical room more than a hundred feet away.
He trudged back to yet more howls of laughter. It WAS like school all
over again!
It took Jack five more attempts to get it right. Each time he got
closer and closer, though once he ended-up in a room so far away it
took him almost thirty minutes to walk back!
Eventually he got it right, though they still sniggered at him.
“Where should we go to?” the other creature asked the red girl,
ignoring Jack completely. “Where haven’t you been to on the
ship?”
“I came on board several floors down so I’ve been making my way
up ever since trying to see if anyone else was here,” she said.
“I’m not even sure how many levels there are, let alone how many
remain up or down. We could always keep going up I suppose. Maybe we
will find others too. By the way my name is Vyleria. Vyleria Romen.”
“I’m Jack … Jack Strong,” Jack stammered.
“Number six hundred and thirty four, Alpha wing, Andromeda sphere,”
replied the other creature, matter-of-factly.
“That sounds more like a room in a space hotel than a name,”
Vyleria chuckled, “What can we call you for short?”
“You can call me Six hundred and thirty four, alpha wing, Andromeda
sphere,” it replied, glaring at them both with those big, black
eyes of his, “That's my name!”
“Yes, you're right,” said Vyleria with a hint of sarcasm in her
voice. “I didn't mean to laugh at you. I just thought that if for
example we are fleeing from an exploding supernova (Jack didn't like
the thought of this) or are caught up in a solar hurricane (or this)
for the sake of simplicity calling out Number Six Hundred and Thirty
Four, Alpha Wing, Andromeda Sphere, might be a bit too long and
complicated, and perhaps even a tad dangerous. Do you have a nickname
(Jack thought of a few at this point); something that we can call you
for short?
For a moment Jack didn't think it was going to work, but then after a
few seconds the jawstrocity stopped glaring at them. “Call me Ros,”
it said.
“Ros?” asked Vyleria.
“Yes, Ros.” it punched back “There do you like it? Can we move
on now?”
“Okay, Ros it is then” said Vyleria, smiling “Let’s go up to
the next level and see what we can find. Try to concentrate Jack; you
don’t want to end up in outer space!”
With that they stepped into the transportation room, vanishing one by
one. Vyleria first, then Ros, and then finally a worried-looking
Jack.
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