Chapter 1.21: Sixam

 <-- Previous Chapter

Dear diary, today I have to open on a happy note. More or less. It's my birthday again, and I'm about to blow out a ton of candles on top of this fabulous cake. 

My poor back... I definitively can't deny my age anymore, I have to accept I'm an old man now.

Luna is putting in a lot of effort for helping me learn more about aliens like her. So that I could not bring her with me to our lab, we have replicated the main equipment in our basement. Some of the largest machines are still missing, but this should be enough for our current purposes.

So far we have learned that the aliens' disguise, the one they use to copy our external appearance, is not a simple hologram but a real reconstruction process their skin is capable of. They can therefore change details such as their skin colour, the shape of a few extremities such as ears or the hair, but they cannot change their number of limbs, their posture or their body mass.

The only weak point of their disguise seems to be the slight glow that the aliens emit when they experience some strong emotion, a glow that also seems to change its colour according to the emotion they are feeling.

We have also realized that telepathy is fundamental to them, much more than we initially thought. They use it to get information from others in a short time, but also to share the emotions they feel without needing to translate them into words. 

The aliens who control our laboratory also say they can alter and erase memories, but Luna says she is unsure about how to do it. She could try to learn by exercising on me, but we both agree that it would be too risky to play with memories just for this.

Luna: It's school time, can we return back on this later?

Stuart: Okay, I was about to go to work anyway.

Lately, I worked non-stop to improve my lab coat. I'm sure a lot of the answers we are looking for are waiting for me just on the other side of that black holes generator, and I can't accept being stuck in here just because my equipment is unable to sustain those temperatures and pressure levels!

I've just finished testing the hidden air supply system, at this point my lab coat should be equivalent to one of those hyper-technologic space suits the aliens in the lab are often wearing around this lab. Or, at least, I'm reasonably sure it is. 

And there is just one way for being sure about it...

My dear diary, you are probably wondering why I'm willing to reach an unknown planet, with a hostile nature and teeming with aliens, isn't it? 

But if you could visit a new world, a world that you have studied for so long with so much effort, wouldn't you risk everything to be able to see it firsthand? And, knowing that by solving the mysteries hidden over there you could save your planet from those aliens, wouldn't you be ready to face some risk?

It may be a gamble, but I have to try!

The journey was more comfortable than expected, I just had to close my eyes and make a step forward through that portal for reaching a completely unknown new planet.

The travel was so smooth I almost didn't notice.

Outside the docking area for the materials we are sending them every day through that portal, the place seems almost empty.

The local vegetation appears extremely scarce and used to the lack of light. The bioluminescence exhibited by some of these species is peculiar, who knows what made them evolve like this...

I spent several hours collecting all the samples and specimens I could fit in my backpack, even the minerals and rocks appear to be different from the ones we are used to encountering on Earth.

Those aliens appeared to be mostly busy around the docking area, I was lucky not to be seen by them upon my arrival. The rest of the surrounding area appeared to be safe, I could explore it without seeing any of them for hours. 

When my backpack and notepad had been filled, I did my best to return back to the portal and to the lab without being noticed by them.

For that day, I had seen enough.

Back home, I was about to tell about that space adventure and my discoveries to everyone else, but I was greeted by a greater surprise just in the midst of our kitchen, where Milo and Sylvia welcomed me by saying:

Milo: Dad, come to see this! Mango has...

That's right, Mango had a kitten too, we named her Daisy. Nacho's legacy continues, it is now the fourth generation of felines in this house...

Sylvia: Where is Luna? 

Milo: I don't know, she was here until a few minutes ago...

From Luna's diary

Dear diary, today I was walking down the stairs to dad's secret lab in the basement, as I usually do when he is about to return back home from work. We are making progress, I'm finally learning more about myself and I couldn't wait to learn something new.

I was thinking about what we could analyse today, when I was distracted by a strange signal coming from the black hole generator. It was like a high-frequency buzz, annoying as hell, how was it possible that no one else was hearing it?

I just walked a few steps towards the black hole generator to check what was going on, when I suddenly felt dragged towards it. I don't remember well what happened, but probably I fell right through it, because in an instant I was on the other side. I felt clearly that I had travelled to some very different place, but where was I?

It took me a few moments to realize that my disguise was gone, out of the blue I was back in my green skin, pointy ears, spacesuit and all. And it wasn't just me, the whole place looked so, undoubtedly... alien!

Dad had once hinted that this portal was used by older aliens to move materials over large distances, probably to their home planet or some other planet colonized by them. Was it possible that I had ended on some other planet?

The portal was just behind me, I could have returned back home immediately if I wanted. But I was also so curious, what if that was my home planet? How many other opportunities would I have had to visit it?

I began to explore that place, it seemed so desolate and empty... There were very few plants among those dark rocks, and didn't those buildings at the horizon look like an abandoned city? 

The more I explored that place, the more I felt the sadness growing inside me: there were no other people around me, yet I still felt the imprint of what the last ones who had crossed those places before me had felt. They were scared, they were sad, and they ran away because their home was no longer a place to live.

What if they were forced to look for another planet to live on? What if there were no suitable uninhabited planets, but only planets like Earth? What should they have done?

???: Oh, here you are! We weren't expecting you to explore so far away, everyone is waiting at the docking point.

Luna: (intimidated)... Who are you? Is this about that message on the TV the other day?

???: I was given the task of educating the young recruits for preparing you for phase 3. Follow me, we are grouping in there.

She spoke with a completely flat voice. At a first sight she appeared very calm, but the more I spoke to her, the more I felt that a more fitting description of her could actually have been emotionless instead.

The situation didn't sound promising, but I still had to ask:

Luna: Where are we?

???: Haven't you figured it out yet? This is the home planet of our species, we call it Sixam. I don't know if you've noticed, but ...

Luna: ... the star we're orbiting around,  it's fading.

That woman explained to me how they had used our black hole generator to drag me on that planet, Sixam, so that she and the rest of the older aliens could teach me our history, how to really use my telepathic abilities and the details regarding the Earth colonization plan. 

From what we had heard from the latest news we heard on TV, we were expecting some move on their side, but we were not expecting them to act so soon. Colonization was officially entering phase 3, what should we have done?

She kept me there for several hours to explain me everything, I struggled to evaluate for how long because the star and satellites in the sky never seemed to move.

Then she finally sent me back home, telling me to wait for new instructions.

My family is surely worrying about me at this point, I have to hurry to reach them, and also to explain to them what I discovered today. 

We might have even less time to act than we anticipated, we must hurry up!

Next Chapter -->