Solutions: The Dilemma of Hopelessness, James Gerard [free children's ebooks online .txt] 📗
- Author: James Gerard
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The channel was switched. “Can’t you hear me? Can’t you see me? Come on—you’re advanced intelligent life aren’t you?” he screamed.
Silence responded.
Eyes widened. Heart beat out of control. The rover was off target. The cries ceased. Only the sound of air flowing into the suit could be heard—the alien’s voice was silent.
Maybe they’re not expecting me to be out here, he thought; a flea of an object gliding to them far from where they expected. They’ll look once they reach the coordinates.
The blood drained from the face. Timothy stared aimlessly into the cold void. A gloved finger hopelessly tapped and tapped the activation button to the thrusters, but it was useless. Thoughts of an eternal drift darkened the view of heavenly stars.
The ship was ahead, but moving away. Eyes stared at the cylindrical end with a pencil shaped body jutting out. A faint reddish glow from a wrap-around window appeared as a single eye. The blurry marking he had seen turned out to be a rectangular symbol of red and white.
A misty haze clouded the eyes. “You’ve eliminated your enemy,” he whispered.
The forward module slipped by. The lanky mid module followed along. The bulge of the aft module, almost within reach, would not wait.
“Hard left!” he screamed and jerked the stick as hard as he could. The rover responded. The most beautiful sight ever seen was moments away.
“What happened?” he laughed. Hands jerked the stick back. The rover bumped and clung to the exterior of the ship.
“Oh my God—Thank you.”
The heart was beating to the rhythm of elation pulsing through the mind. If it were not for the circumstances that made it a deadly decision, he would have gotten down on hands and knees to kiss the exterior of the foreign ship. Instead, he was more than willing to freeze in position until the body and mind stopped trembling.
“The airlock? Does it have an airlock? Find the airlock.”
With hands tightly wrapped around the control stick, the rover was slowly guided to the left and forward. Eyes darted all about the exterior. Hands were prepared to shove the rover into the ship if it decided to wander from the security.
The hatch to the airlock was spotted. The rover rolled to the left and came to a sudden stop. Its power ceased as it hovered over the hatch.
The shadow of the rover hid the hatch. Timothy flipped a switch and lights beamed down upon the area. The hatch was revealed.
He tumbled upside down. Hands grabbed the supports and pulled him down to the bottom of the rover. The panel was pried open. The egress door slid open.
“Careful now,” he whispered. The airlock’s hatch popped open. He entered.
Timothy tumbled right-side up. A green button at the top of the chamber was tapped and the chamber sealed him in.
What if they don’t speak English? he wondered. It doesn’t matter. Any human voice would be a million times better than that of the friend’s.
“This one,” he whispered. A button was pushed. Air wheezed into the chamber. The spacesuit collapsed. The door popped open.
Hands grasped the helmet and started to twist it off. “No, not yet. Let’s try the headset first.”
“Hello.”
Silence.
“Hello,” he softly whispered again after switching the channel.
No response.
“Is anybody home?” he asked over a third channel.
Only sounds from within the protective shell were heard.
Quietly, he floated into the stranger’s home.
A gloved hand reached out to a thin conduit and wrapped around it. He maneuvered cautiously to the right. A pair of scooters, suspended in the air, appeared to wait for a possible glide outside.
Two on board?
A line of monitors and screens and panels and terminal stretched down the sides of gray plastic walls. Each reflected the red and green and blue lights pulsing and flooding the room with vibrant color.
Obviously, figured Timothy, they packed all of the systems’ controls in one place.
Eyes followed a trail of thin, metallic conduits running the sides of the walls. Squinting, he could see that some of them branched off into a flashing panel at the end of the corridor. Others disappeared through the rear wall.
The attention shifted to the left. There was a door at the forward end.
Cautiously, hands guided him towards the open portal. Eyes searched for the ship’s inhabitants and caught a glimpse of helmets visible above headrests.
There you guys are.
Timothy floated over to the rear of the chairs. A view of the stars, a near panoramic view of heavenly bodies, stared back.
Where is it? Eyes scanned the void. Did the friend move it away?
“There it is,” he whispered having noticed a dot of an object. “Stay right there.”
He could not be sure if they were aware of his presence or not. Slowly and carefully, wishing to avoid a hostile confrontation, Timothy floated above and in front of the fellow sojourners.
Timothy smiled and waved. “Hello.”
Closed eyes shunned his presence.
A gloved finger tapped on the visor of a silent figure.
Eyelids popped open. Dark, watery eyes reflected his image.
“What’s wrong?” he asked but immediately realized the words were unable to penetrate the helmet’s shield.
He peered over the facial expression of the silent figure and tried to detect the slightest hint of awareness in eyes or lips or facial tics.
Timothy figured both had secured themselves in their suits and helmets for a reason, but he could not be certain of the circumstances that brought about the action.
Maybe there’s something wrong with the air?
A finger tapped the visor again. The figure’s eyes responded. While the stranger looked up directly into his eyes, Timothy motioned hands towards enlarged nostrils and threw out the chest.
No response. No movement.
Yeah, thought Timothy, a good time for a game of charades.
Realizing that any kind of communication probably was hopeless, Timothy took hold of one of the figure’s gloved hands and freed the arm from the grip of the armrest. The figure did not resist.
Something is definitely wrong here.
Eyes looked around the module, to the terminals that flashed and emitted a somber reddish tone within the room.
Maybe one of them is a doctor? Timothy scanned the machines in hopes of spotting a familiar configuration, but none was apparent. Foreign symbols and characters also held a doctor’s identity secret. Even if one of them is a doctor, he reasoned, I won’t be able to operate it. I can’t do anything for them here. I have to take them home.
Timothy extended an arm to the window and tapped a finger on the dot that was his home. “That’s my ship. I need to take you there.”
Hands gently removed the restraints off the figure’s shielded torso and legs, and then pulled the figure up into the air.
“Why don’t you struggle?” he whispered. “Are you dying?”
While the one figure hovered in the air, the attention turned to the other sitting motionless. A gloved finger tapped the visor.
Eyes slowly rose and revealed little life stirring within the protective shell.
Restraints were gently removed. He pulled the figure up into a suspended position next to the other.
Eyes locked on what looked like a holster on the hip of the figure’s suit. Timothy pulled the object out of the pouch. “Wow,” he whispered staring into the huge barrel. “Is this a pistol or a rocket launcher?” But fearing that time was running out for the strangers, the weapon was crammed into a pouch to be examined later.
One at a time, he towed each to the airlock.
“It’s going to be a bit cramped in here.” The door closed; the suits puffed up.
Timothy wiggled an arm free within the cramped chamber. A gloved finger managed to reach the egress button. The hatch opened. Hands pulled him up to just beneath the rover, and once anchored in position, pulled the figures up and into the cabin.
The thrusters ignited. A gloved hand made its way to the stick and the nose of the rover responded. It was aimed at the distant ship.
“Oh God,” whispered Timothy. He sucked in a deep breath. The heart raced. “Think. If the same thing happens again, then I need to set the guidance system to the nose—no! To the rear of the ship.” Pulses of fear flashed in unison with the indicator lights of the rover.
“Think! If I aim at the nose, the thrusters don’t reach the exact speed to hit it, the rover will travel slower and hopefully will near the aft module of the ship.”
He screamed. Confusion set in. “But what if the ship is travelling slower? Does the guidance system account for speed?” he uttered as a gloved hand choked the stick. “If my ship is travelling slower and I aim for the nose then the rover will shoot ahead of it.”
Screams echoed within the helmet. “It was all so damn easy at the station. Just let the rover know where you want to go and boom, you’re there.” But now Timothy realized it was not as simple as that, for he had not understood that when the rover was activated for manual control, it was assumed the pilot knew what he was doing.
Eyes focused on the distant ship. “Assuming the guidance system had aimed for the mid-section of this ship, and regardless of the speed the rover ended up at the rear of the ship, and then aim the guidance system to my ship’s nose. No! The thrusters didn’t fire long enough. That’s why I ended up near the back.”
Timothy understood they could not sit there forever. He also figured they could not go back into a ship that may have poisoned its inhabitants. And if they died, leaving him alone, certain death was sure to follow in a home he had no knowledge of. No matter, he thought, decision time.
“Forget it,” he whispered. A gloved finger flipped a switch. A slight twitch of the stick to the right pinpointed the blip to the center of the monitor. “Now!”
The thrusters fired. Timothy jammed the stick forward. The rover sped ahead.
Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three—the thrusters ceased.
“Oh please!” Heart thumped harder and beat faster. A gloved finger tapped and tapped and continued to tap the button to ignite the thrusters. “Come on, just get me close.”
The ship loomed larger. Its familiar shape began to form a clear outline as the rover raced to his home.
“That’s it. Closer, closer, closer, keep going.” Timothy gasped for air. “Come on, come on, come on.”
The thrusters suddenly ignited. In an instant the control stick was snapped back. The rover kissed the ship.
Like a hawk pouncing on its prey, fingers took hold of a switch below and snapped it in the off position. The rover was silent.
“Let’s get out of here,” uttered Timothy.
The thrusters ignited. The control stick turned the rover towards the direction of the docking rails. The thrusters fired, but the rover would not react to the control stick’s command to move to the position above the hatch.
“What’s going on? Move!”
Thinking he would tow the rover back to the rails by sheer force, eyes scanned the exterior for hand supports, but none could be seen.
He then realized, “I do work from the rover—I work from the rover.” He smiled. “I was sent out here to inspect the damaged spot. The friend has been waiting for a report.”
The stick eased to the left, turning the rover towards and to the spot to the side. With a flip of a switch beaming rays revealed a slight slit. Another switch activated waves into the area.
Stand by, the friend flashed on the screen. Analysis complete. Insignificant damage. No repair needed. Returning rover to docking rails.
Timothy laughed. “I could have told you that.”
With the friend’s guidance, the rover returned to the dock. The hatch popped open.
The figures offered no resistance as various hoses from their suits were detached. The strangers were escorted to the living room where he secured their boots under footholds. The helmets were removed. Upon removing his helmet he could hear the friend screaming.
“Shut up and do something already.”
No response.
The attention turned to one of the figures. “Oh my
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