Fear and Aggression (16 page)

The door opened and the men ran with what
strength they had left. They entered the empty air lock and placed
the creature in its own isolated chamber. The doors closed, and the
ship zipped back into 3D orbit around the planet.

“
Tammy, you look
exhausted,” Kenny commented as she walked into the mess hall.
Steve, Mike, and James were sitting at the table with Kenny as
Tammy walked in.

Tammy rolled her eyes, and murmured, “I’m
more hungry than tired right now.”

“
Bob and Danny are
watching guard?” Steve asked as he got up to give her his
seat.

“
Yeah, I think they’ll be
fine,” she said as she sat down. She slunk into the chair, like she
hadn’t been off of her feet in ages. “The creature has come to. It
is stable, and seems to have recovered fine from the tranquilizer.
It doesn’t seem to be aggressive at all.”

“
From what we’ve seen,
this ‘creature’ looks very
human
,” interjected Mike.
“What
are
its
alien characteristics?”

Tammy shrugged. She was feeling exhausted
and hungry, so she was a bit snippy. But Mike had verbalized the
thing that she was most frustrated about. “So far, I have not found
a single characteristic about this creature that would make it
distinguishable from a human.”

“
You’ve given her a full
body examination?” asked James.

“
Every square inch. I’ve
done full body MRI’s, too. Simple blood tests also reveal normal
human levels on everything. Under the microscope, the histology is
as human as it gets—even forty-six chromosomes. I keep looking at
it from a distance, to see if I can detect something about its
facial characteristics that indicate alien, but I can’t see a
thing. If this creature were walking down the street in New York
City, it would blend in perfectly. There is nothing about this
creature that would stand out—that would give anyone pause.” She
betrayed a little of her disappointment with this final
statement.

“
I beg to differ,” said
Mike. “If I saw her walking down the street, she would give me
pause. She is gorgeous.”

“
Seriously, she is
super-model material,” said James with a smile.

An exhausted smile crept over Tammy’s face.
Steve returned to the table with a generous helping of the meal for
Tammy. “Typical. I ask you guys to fetch me a fascinating alien
creature for me to study, and you come back with a super-model!”
She directed her glare and words at Steve. He shrugged sheepishly,
and everyone gave a good chuckle.

“
So, I’m finding this
aspect interesting,” Kenny began. “On earth, we have multiple races
of people. If we compared European descendants to African, Asian,
or islanders, we would find an extremely wide range of appearances.
There are humans—earthlings—that look more alien to me than she
does. We travel several hundred miles on earth, and humans have a
wide range of looks and appearances. We travel across the universe
and the first alien we meet looks like a European descended
super-model. Even if the creature is humanoid, shouldn’t there be
some variation?”

Kenny had just verbalized
the concern that everyone was feeling. Nods could be seen around
the table. “Is it possible, that we just traveled across space to
discover and abduct a human—an earthling,
a woman
?” asked James.

Tammy shrugged once again. “Her language,
which I’ve recorded a bit of, is not from the earth. I’ve run it
against every language we know, and it is one hundred percent
isolated.”

“
You said that she has
forty-six chromosomes. Is it DNA?” asked James.

“
Yeah, it’s DNA, all
right. I don’t have the genetic map yet. That will still be several
hours. But, it is
definitely
DNA.”

“
What are the
possibilities?” asked Steve.

“
Clearly, it is possible
for humans—earthlings—to travel through space and get from earth to
here; we have just done that. So, though we have no records of this
technology being known of or used before, it is possible that at
some time in the past humans left and settled this world here,”
explained Kenny.

“
The language that she
speaks requires that it must have been a very long time ago. This
world has civilizations all over it. It appears ancient, not
recently settled,” said James. “But the lack of variation in
features would indicate a more recent settlement. Could it be that
humans advanced a long time ago and then left the earth to the less
advanced civilizations?”

“
What about the opposite?
Why couldn’t it be this world that produced the humans, and then
sent some to earth to settle it? Maybe this is where life began,”
said Mike.

“
Why would they seem so
much more primitive than us? We only found one small area with
electricity. It appears recent. The rest of the world seems to be
living in the before electricity phase. If they were advanced
enough to travel, either to the earth, or from the earth, why do
they seem to be just figuring out the light bulb?” asked
Steve.

“
We now know of two
inhabited planets, this one and earth. Who’s to say that this is
it? There may be many inhabited planets out there. Perhaps both of
our worlds were populated from some third source. Maybe, it was an
Australian type of thing. Send in criminals, or uncivilized, or
uneducated people, and let them figure technology out, over a
period of thousands of years. Maybe we just got there first, a few
hundred years before this colonization,” Kenny
explained.

“
Maybe earth got the smart
ones, and this planet got the hot ones,” Mike quipped, and everyone
laughed.

***

“
She looks scared. I feel
bad for her,” said Bob. Bob and Danny were standing guard in their
black space suits, in full helmet. “We must look very scary to
her.” The creature looked in their direction, and Bob waved to her.
The creature, who was sitting in her cell, in her dress that she
had been captured in, looked away and down at her feet. She was
wearing an olive green dress that went down nearly to her ankles.
She sat on the examining table in her room with her left side
facing them. Her legs were bent up at the knees and she had her
arms around her shins.

“
She is the most beautiful
woman that I have ever seen,” muttered Danny.

“
I know. That’s why I
couldn’t shoot her with the tranquilizer. I had a clear shot, but
then as she was coming up, she looked like a gorgeous woman. And I
thought, ‘I can’t shoot a beautiful woman.’ Man, I completely
froze. I was both scared to death, and mesmerized by her. It was
surreal—the strangest feeling I have ever had before.”

“
I couldn’t have shot her,
either. I feel like we’ve kidnapped her. Tammy says that she can’t
find anything alien about her at all. This is weird.”

“
Does she look hungry to
you?” asked Bob.

“
I can’t tell.”

“
Tammy said that it looks
like she can eat human food. She said we could give her some, if
she looked like she was hungry. What’s for grub right
now?”

“
Chicken, mashed potatoes
and gravy, and carrots.”

“
Let’s give her a plate.
If she’s hungry then eating will help her to feel better. At least,
maybe, she won’t be so scared of us after that.” Food always made
Bob feel better.

The men in space suits got the food, and put
it into the creatures’ cell. Bob motioned with his hand that it was
to eat by pointing to it and putting his hand up to his face shield
where his mouth would be. The creature coiled as the men
approached, but then relaxed as she saw that they were bringing her
something. She did not move at first, but looked down at the plate.
After a few moments, she cautiously got off the table, and reached
down to pick up the plate and utensils.

“
I told you she was
hungry,” said Bob.

The creature sat back on her table, and held
her plate. She was examining it visually first. She then leaned
over to sniff the food. Bob was smiling widely, though no one could
have seen it inside his space helmet. He enjoyed watching someone
else enjoy a meal, as much as he enjoyed a meal himself; feeding
this beautiful creature made him feel very happy inside, indeed.
She sniffed the chicken first and then the potatoes. She glanced
back over at the men in space suits, and then back at the plate.
She didn’t seem to move for a while. Then she cautiously sniffed
the carrots. She leaned back quickly and put her hand over her
mouth. She looked like she was gagging.

“
I don’t think she likes
the carrots,” said Danny. Bob was just a tad bit offended, but it
only lasted a moment.

The creature picked up the knife and then
the spoon. She used the spoon to hold the chicken down, as she cut
the chicken into pieces. She did so slowly and methodically,
periodically leaned down to inspect and smell. Once the chicken had
been carved into small bite-size pieces, she put the utensils down
and stared at the men. Bob motioned with his hand to his helmet,
trying to tell her it was food. The creature looked away again and
back at her food. She picked up a small piece of chicken with her
fingers, and lifted it up to smell. She looked at it again, and
then put it in her mouth. There was a slight grimace as she began
to chew. After chewing for what seemed like a long time, she
swallowed. She put her plate down, just past her feet, and then
turned her body around on the table to face the men. She allowed
her feet to hang down over the edge of the table. She motioned
towards Bob, and then lifted up both hands to her mouth in a
cupping fashion, and lifted up her head.

Bob, who was once again mesmerized by this
creature, had no idea what she was doing—nor did he care. He was
just glad that she was looking in his direction. “I think she wants
something to drink,” said Danny.

Bob, snapping back to reality, practically
jumped into action to get her a glass of water. The sudden movement
caused the creature to recoil again, but once she saw Bob filling a
glass with water, she seemed to relax. This time as he approached
with the glass, the creature stood up to meet him. He reached the
cup through her cell, and she reached to grab it. “Careful,” said
Danny as he saw that the creature was reaching towards Bob. But the
creature grasped the glass, and then headed back towards the table.
She smelled the water, and then took a careful sip. After a couple
more careful sips, she began to drink it down. She finished the
glass, and looked over at Bob. She smiled very gently, and got back
up and walked over to him. Bob had not moved from his place near
her cell. “Careful,” said Danny again. The creature gently reached
the glass to him, and Bob grabbed it. The creature, motioned again
that she wanted to drink. Bob just stood there and didn’t move. He
was looking the creature in the eyes, though the creature could
only see his silver helmet. “I think she wants another drink,
Bob.”

“
Oh—yeah.” Bob filled up
the glass and brought it back to the cell. The creature was still
standing there, and the exchange went much more comfortably this
time. She also uttered some expression in her language with a sweet
smile. She headed back to her table, and continued to eat each
piece of chicken one at a time, by picking it up with her fingers
and putting them in her mouth. She did require one more glass of
water, about the time that she finished her chicken. She went back
to her plate and sniffed the potatoes again. She picked up her
spoon, and put a small amount in her mouth. She grimaced more with
the potatoes than she did with the chicken. Slowly, she spooned off
the gravy and ate the gravy. She seemed to like the gravy very
much. She then worked on the mashed potatoes slowly, and swallowing
hard with each bit. She seemed to rely on the water, to get the
potatoes down at first. Little by little, she seemed to become more
comfortable with the taste.

Once the potatoes were finished, and she had
finished her third cup of water, she turned to look at the men
again. She stood up to give the men the plate, glass, and utensils.
She didn’t attempt to eat the carrots. Bob came up again, and Danny
stayed back. She uttered something in her tongue, pointed to the
carrots, and shook her head and then smiled. She seemed to be
apologizing that she wouldn’t eat the carrots.

No sooner had Bob taken her plate, than
Tammy could be heard in the Helmets. “Danny, Bob, I’m going to
sleep, is everything alright?”

“
Hey Tammy, we just fed
the alien,” said Bob with delight.

“
Did
you
feed it, or did
it
feed
itself?”

“
Well, we gave her the
food, and she fed herself.”

“
How is it
doing?”

“
Great! She loved the
chicken, and the gravy. I don’t know if she really liked the
potatoes, but she ate them. I can tell you this much, she wouldn’t
even try the carrots.”

“
Yeah, she gagged when she
smelled them. I thought she was going to puke,” informed
Danny.

“
Is it OK?—is it acting
sick?”

“
No, I think that she’s
fine. She doesn’t seem so scared of us anymore and she seems better
after eating,” said Bob.