The Warmth of Alien Suns

SM: Malthus, you got your ears on?

CM: You know, if you were older, I would suspect that was an intentional reference. But yes, I do in fact have ‘my ears’ on. I’m glad you chose to talk, Miss Marshall.

SM: Yeah, well. Look, I’m gonna shoot straight with you right now. Like straighter than an arrow. Think you can handle that?

CM: I suppose. And I will try to do so as well. You sound… perturbed. Something the matter?

SM: You don’t sound like a military man.

CM: I only served briefly, actually. I was a rebellious young man trying to get out from under the shadow of a rich father and I thought that roughing it with the common man overseas would be the best way both to get back at him and to improve myself. I was wrong on the second count, and unfortunately right on the first. I hurt a good man with my foolishness and got nothing but sorrow for all of my trouble. Is that what was on your mind?

SM: No.

CM: Ah.

SM: Did you leave me supplies last night? Or were you around here at all, really?

CM: No? I did not. I spent the night before sleeping recovering my strength. The Gate left me a little worn, to be honest. Did… Have you had a visit from our uninvited guest?

SM: No, I ain’t seen him because I definitely would have called you. I… okay, give me a second here.

Two minutes of silence.

SM: Okay. I’m going to tell you something, and you are going to help me figure out how to deal with it because this is big and you’re as a part of it as I am.

CM: You’re beginning to worry me.

SM: Good! Good, be worried! Because I’m both excited and scared as hell. I’m confused as a cat that just stepped out of a dryer! I’m laughing and freaking out and… Jesus. When I left my camp this morning, I found a basket. It’s woven from like… wood, I guess? I don’t know. Basket stuff. Whatever the hell you weave baskets out of, I didn’t care because it was full of food. And I tested everything and it was good. The waterfruit I was eating? It’s worthless. This stuff? I could live off of it. Fruits and roots, berries… all kinds of stuff. A whole forest of different kinds, and there was a scroll at the bottom with weird writing.

CM: I…

SM: Okay, rich guy, use that college education you got where the lights come on and you can drink out of the tap! I know you can. Two and two together. Because then you’ll know why I’m really friggin’ perturbed.

Five minutes of silence.

CM: My god.

SM: First contact.

CM: My god! And you saw no one?

SM: No. Didn’t set off my alarms either.

CM: I managed to get around your perimeter more or less by luck. I noticed one of them and then the rest were easier to find. I just followed about what I would have done, but…

SM: It placed the basket just out of range.

CM: So it knows about your perimeter, or it didn’t want to intrude.

SM: It’s a gift, right? I mean, that’s a good thing.

CM: It certainly seems that way, yes.

SM: Holy shit, man. Just…

CM: Yes, I thought the same.

SM: I don’t know where to start. First contact with actual honest to god, slap your momma if you’re lying friggin’ aliens? Or with the fact that the aliens have at least three of us here and one of us is a psychotic fascist with a penchant for extreme violence and the other two are well armed? Or maybe the really, really good chance that they don’t have anywhere near our level of technology? Hell, they might be building castles still.

CM: We so often imagined our neighbors as vastly beyond us that we forget the opposite may indeed be true. You’re right. The relative primitive state of the basket may be anything, but it would seem to suggest a low level of technology. It could also be cultural. Or even a ruse to see if our intentions change. Anything.

SM: We need to get serious about this. I’ve wasted way too much damn time. We need to meet. And this time, on our own terms. None of this hiding and cloak and dagger. We need to see them.

CM: Agreed.

SM: Because I don’t think I want to go back and explain that I know there are aliens, but no I never saw one.

CM: It also happens to be an official part of your mission, and mine as well. What do you propose?

SM: We branch out. We both have basecamps that are secure. Do you know how to get back?

CM: Yes, I have a private band beacon.

SM: Nice. I had one too but I didn’t grab it. I bet you have an automapper too, you rich son of a bitch. Neither here or there. We go in seperate directions without stopping for a whole day, and then we turn around and go home after lunch on the second day. I’ll keep a log to catalogue things, you can map. We go in two different directions. Cardinal compass directions. Assuming the sun rises and falls like it does on Earth…

CM: A suggestion. We should not be too far apart. I worry about our mutual friend.

SM: Yeah, I get it. I was thinking about that too. We can’t let that guy corner us with the other one too far away. He shot something big a few days ago and I didn’t hear the shots, which makes me think that he or they or whatever has a silencer to boot. No going north and south. I’ll go… south. You go eastt. We keep in touch periodically until we fall out of range.

CM: When we fall out of range, we adjust and try to get back into range, I assume.

SM: Yeah. If the other doesn’t answer within a few hours, we go back and we try one more time the next day and then I’ll assume he got you, old man.

CM: So sure that it will be me. I agree. Any confrontation must happen away from indigenous life. We do not need them deciding that we’ve come to destroy, and we certainly don’t need them picking the wrong side.

SM: Got it. Got it… Jesus, what a day.

CM: I can only imagine.