The Good Reaper (6 page)

I remembered skimming through a medical journal article
about the Earthly science of acupuncture. It seemed that somewhere along the
way, the human race had scratched the surface of Ranjisan’s newer forms of
Tseen Ke. I thought it was odd that Earth had apparently been using this
ancient Asian science while on Ranjisan it was relatively new. The closest
thing to Tseen Ke puncture needles I would find on Earth would be acupuncture
needles. But as I thought about it more I realized it wouldn’t be practical.
The first problem was that on Earth you can’t just walk into a drug store and
buy acupuncture needles. You need to be a licensed practitioner. The other
problem would be the procedure itself. If it worked on humans the same as on
Ranjisi, the procedure would take about an hour. It would be almost impossible
to be alone with Eli for an hour at the hospital. Also, people would see me
coming and going from his room and most likely someone would recognize me.

It was a dilemma. I knew it was time. Eli knew it was time.
He had been ready for a long time. I would need to find another solution. The
best solution would be getting a Tseen Ke kit from Ranjisan. The kit consisted
of three drugs administered in three simultaneous injections. I couldn’t do it
with Earthly medicines. I didn’t know enough about them and if I did learn of
something that could produce a quick and painless death, the drug would
undoubtedly be securely locked up in a drug pantry.

The best solution would be the smuggling of Tseen Ke kits
from Ranjisan but that was also impossible.
My only Earthly
contact was Frank and I couldn’t talk to him about it.
He didn’t have
the same kind of intimate contact that I had with humans. I knew he would not
be able to feel or understand my feelings about how the human death experience
was a devastating period of needless suffering.

It appeared I would not be able to help the only friend I
had on planet Earth. Instead of spending his final days in comfort and with
dignity, the final two months of Eli’s life consisted of pain, fever and life
support systems. It was all wrong. I knew it in my mind and heart. But there
was nothing I could do.

I had attended funerals on Ranjisan before but there were
several things that made Eli’s funeral one of the saddest experiences in my
life. First of all, the funerals I attended on Ranjisan were all funerals for
people who lived to their natural old age. Eli didn’t need or deserve to die so
young and with such little dignity. He could have been cured with Ranjisi
medical advancements. But most of all, I was being selfish. Eli was my only
human friend. I felt alone again. My eyes felt watery and I wished I could cry.
The melancholy seemed to weigh me down physically. My legs felt like tree
stumps when I tried to walk. I didn’t bother saying goodbye to Eli’s parents. I
just quietly left the funeral.

But like humans, Ranjisi are resilient. Time was my cure.
After a while I went back to just feeling alone and numb.

The months went by and I came in contact with many humans at
the hospital. Some of the stories had happy endings and some did not. Although
Eli’s prolonged suffering and death affected me greatly, there were others that
were just as heartbreaking. I eventually understood that my own emotions about
dying patients generally depended on their age. The younger the patient, the
worse it was.

After six months I had not made any real friends outside of
the hospital to socialize with. Sometimes I ate lunch with two lab technicians
from India but we weren’t really friends. We were acquaintances or colleagues.
We didn’t hang out after work. I hadn’t met anyone I really had anything in
common with since Eli died. But I was too busy to be lonely. In addition to the
work I did at the hospital, there was still the real reason I had come to P3.
Discovery reports were due at the end of each month. They had to be written in
our Earth language and they had to be written in a way that if they were
somehow found by humans there would be nothing in the wording that indicated
that the report writer was a researcher from a distant planet. The text of the
reports consisted of dry, boring facts and statistics. Wherever possible, I
attempted to highlight Earthly illnesses that I knew could easily be cured by
Ranjisi medicine. The plan as I knew it was that we would continue to study the
human race for at least another five to ten years before another assessment was
made as to whether or not the human race was ready for contact. Once contact
was made, we could begin sharing our advances in medicine and space travel, but
that day was a long way off.

So as it turned out, the exciting life I expected to have on
P3 turned out to be less interesting than I thought it would be. I needed to
find a way to meet people. I considered volunteer work or maybe joining some
kind of political organization. I did follow through on my desire to learn to
play the guitar. I bought a used practice amplifier and a used Fender
Stratocaster. It was fairly easy to look up chord fingering videos online so I
was able to make quick progress.

Aside from work and learning to play the guitar, I did have
something else to look forward to. Frank contacted me and asked me to meet him
at a diner not far from where I live. I was happy to have another Ranjisi to
talk to, even if we had to speak English. The purpose of our meeting was for
Frank to tell me about the secret conference that CIPE held once a year on
Easter Island. Each CIPE cadet would receive detailed instructions explaining
what to do when we arrived at the airport on Easter Island. In order to
transport Ranjisi from the airport to the base, each member had to be
transported separately and uniquely. My instructions were simple. I would pick
up my one travel bag and look for a newsstand in the main terminal where I
would purchase a paperback book titled
Shanachie
by
William Burke. I would then tear a half inch piece off the corner of the back
cover and sit anywhere near the newsstand reading. They would somehow know I
was there. We were required to make our own travel arrangements so I made sure
I arrived as early as possible. I hoped it would be more fun than when I did my
training there before starting my assignment in New York.

The possibility of traveling with other Ranjisi didn’t occur
to me until I boarded the flight from Miami to Santiago. I looked around at all
the people as they boarded the plane after me. I picked out three people who I
suspected to be Ranjisi but when we exited the plane at the Arturo Merino
Benítez
International Airport I realized I was wrong.
Everyone seemed to walk quickly and no one appeared to be weak in the legs. It
made perfect sense since Santiago is a large cosmopolitan city. The plane was
full of tourists and families traveling to and from vacations and typical
family gatherings. I figured if I was going to see other Ranjisi I would see
them on the plane to Easter Island.

After spending the night in Santiago I arrived early at the
airport the next day. My flight to Mataveri International Airport on Easter
Island didn’t leave for several hours but I was bored and restless at the same
time. The departing gate check-in desk was dark and empty. I was the only one
sitting there near gate 17 when I arrived so I just sat and looked out at the
mountains surrounding the beautiful city. Chile was so different than Ranjisan
but I imagined that millions of years ago, some areas of Ranjisan probably
looked similar to Chile. Even though the gravitational pull on Ranjisan was
much lower than on Earth, so many years had passed that the Ranjisan
mountains
became rounder and flatter. Ranjisan mountainous
areas were beautiful but they weren’t as striking or breathtaking as the rugged
mountains of Chile.

One by one the passengers bound for the island appeared in
the boarding area. I tried not to be too obvious but I looked closely at each
passenger and tried to figure out who was Ranjisi. It helped to pass the time
during the long wait.

Easter Island was the perfect place for a secret base. Since
it was a tourist destination and an area of study for various scientists and
anthropologists, there was always a steady stream of people arriving there.
When we finally boarded, there were eight people on the flight to the island
and I suspected that two of them were Ranjisi.

Upon my arrival on the island, I followed my instructions
and went back to the main terminal. An English version of William Burke’s
paperback was on display near the newsstand cash register. It was a collection
of stories about a fictional character’s adventures while walking from Belfast
to Cork in the country of Ireland. I got about halfway through the second
chapter when two feminine arms reached over my shoulders from behind. As I
looked up over my left shoulder I was greeted with a kiss and a warm welcome
from someone I had never seen before. I realized immediately it was all part of
the CIPE methodology to make arriving Ranjisi appear as normal travelers. I
glanced over at a middle aged woman who was watching us. She was smiling as she
watched us. She assumed we were a husband and wife reunited or perhaps a
brother and sister. The one thing I was sure of was that in her wildest dreams
she would never suspect us of being aliens from another planet.

After standing up and hugging and kissing some more, I
followed my new best friend out into the parking lot. As we drove off, she
introduced herself. “Welcome back to Easter Island Luke. My name is Rachel,”
she said as she extended her hand for a traditional American handshake.

“I guess we don’t really need to shake hands since we’ve
already kissed,” I said while extending my hand.

Rachel laughed a little and then replied, “We can’t be too
careful.” Rachel looked the part of an Earthly businesswoman, complete with a
conservative dress and mid-sized heels and just a touch of make-up. She was
pretty, bordering on beautiful and I kept looking over at her lips thinking I
wouldn’t mind kissing them again.

“So, will I always get that kind of welcome when I come
here?
If so, I intend to come more often.”

Rachel laughed again and flipped her reddish brown hair over
her right shoulder. I could tell she was used to compliments and flattery. “No.
The arrival plan is customized for each person. It’s a lot of work to make it
all seem inconspicuous and natural.”

“So I lucked out then. I kind of liked my welcome.” Rachel
was also used to men flirting with her and laughed my comments off.

“After you finish flirting, you will probably want to know
if we can drive right into the base,” Rachel said as she turned and winked at
me with a big smile. It was her professional way of telling me she didn’t mind
the flirting but eventually we would have to talk about more serious things.

“I see you’ve done this before. Although it would seem
easier to drive right in, I’m guessing we are eventually going to enter by
sea.”

“Correct. There actually is no way to drive right in. The only
entry is hidden deep below the sea. It’s about a six hour drive to the
rendezvous which changes constantly. It’s always in the middle of nowhere.
There are plenty of secluded places here on the island so it’s easy to change
the meeting place frequently. From there we take a small craft to the sea
entry.”

“But with all this coming and going, haven’t you ever been
seen? I know the shuttles are mirror cloaked but now that everyone has video
cameras on their phones isn’t there more danger of being photographed in the
air?”

“The sea craft is quiet, small and fast and it is only a few
miles from the shore. If we were seen they would only see a ship rising about
fifty feet in the air. They would never be able to see the ship entering the
water. We fly out a few miles before dropping under.” Rachel was quietly
thoughtful for a moment and continued, “I suppose there have been hikers from
Europe or America who have seen us. They probably even know we are, you know,
aliens, but no one would believe them. If they did believe them, they probably
wouldn’t care. The entire question of the existence of aliens really depends on
us. When the time comes that we introduce ourselves, they probably still won’t
believe it. This is due to a kind of denial. Humans don’t want to believe that
there are beings that are superior to them.”

Rachel paused for another moment and continued, “I should
rephrase that. We aren’t superior to them. We have just been around much longer
and we are technologically superior to them. Eventually they will evolve
spiritually too. I guess you can say that I do like them.”

“How long have you been here Rachel?”

“I’ve been at the base for four years. Unfortunately that
means I don’t get to meet many humans. The humans I have met I liked very
much.”

As we drove north along the western coast it didn’t take
long to reach the outskirts of the capital of
Hanga
Roa
, the main town, harbor and capital of the Chilean
province of Easter Island. The flat lowlands of
Hanga
Roa
gradually gave way to rolling hills which gave
way to mountains off to the east. It was an amazing, desolate and breathtaking
area, unlike anything back on Ranjisan.

Rachel passed the time by talking about the mysteries of the
island which rival some of the greatest mysteries of planet Earth like the
Egyptian Pyramids, Angkor
Wat
and Machu Picchu.
Rachel had a passionate tone as she spoke about the gigantic
Moai
statues and the different theories about how they were
carved and for what purpose as well as how they were transported and
positioned. Rachel rambled on for a long time about the great wall at
Ahu
Vinapu
which some people
believe was built by the Incas. Rachel spent the rest of the trip talking about
the Incas. It was fascinating listening to her. I liked the sound of her voice
and by the time we approached the meeting place for the sea craft I decided I
was definitely attracted to her. She was smart and beautiful and passionate. I
liked her.