“Are you joking?” Icarus asked, looking at Atlas, trying to tell if he was making it up or not. “You spoke to a real-life alien?”
Icarus sat with Atlas on a porch overlooking the water. They were on Icarus’s planet, finally able to reconnect after the Starnet was fixed. Icarus sipped on a coffee, while Atlas drank a beer.
Atlas just finished sharing the story of everything that had happened to him recently, the encounter with PBD and almost being taken hostage. Atlas made it clear he wasn’t traumatized by the experience anymore. He was grateful that Angelique had stepped up and saved them all. Icarus got the feeling Atlas had a bit of hatred toward the Atua people. He thought he might probe that concept a little bit further later on.
In typical Icarus fashion, his biggest takeaway was an alien was out there to study and meet. He wanted nothing more than to meet another intelligent life.
“I’m not lying, Icarus,” Atlas said. “He even went after Ariana. Ship is confident she escaped, but I won’t know for sure until she gets here.”
“Do you think PBD was a bad apple? Or do you believe the whole alien species is evil?”
Atlas considered the question for a good while. “I’m not sure. I wouldn’t be surprised if that person doesn’t represent the whole civilization. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they were all like that.”
“If our only interaction with the human species was General Walker, then I’d have a pretty grim image of the human race. We shouldn’t make the same mistake with the Atua.” Then Icarus thought about his comments a little more. He wasn’t there, and even though Atlas had survived, it must have been an ordeal. Icarus quieted his excitement about this new alien species. “Are you all right, Atlas?”
“I’m fine,” Atlas reiterated. “It’s just been so unexpected, you know? I didn’t want to be attacked like that. None of us did … And I haven’t even told you the best part. We know where their home world is.” Atlas pulled up an image of the alien home world.
“Where is this?”
As Atlas showed where the planet was on the map, Icarus couldn’t think about anything other than visiting that world. He imagined visiting the world, decoding their language. He could potentially be the first human to interact with an intelligent alien species without them knowing.
As his mind started to wonder about the possibility, he quickly realized the timeline within which he needed to visit this alien world was limited. In human history, whenever one culture met another, there was often a war of some sort. Then eventually the cultures merged together.
Icarus remembered a theory he’d heard once before that said it was almost impossible to study something without having an influence on the thing you studied. And the more a researcher interacted with a research subject, the more that subject’s behavior changed. Icarus racked his brain to remember where he’d learned that. Was it anthropology or ecology? “Or was it psychology?” he wondered out loud. Regardless of where the theory came from, he became more determined than ever to research the aliens without them knowing he was there.
He wanted to view the alien world before it interacted with humanity on some larger scale. Like an anthropologist studying gorillas in the jungle. He wanted to study these aliens in their natural habitat. He wanted to somehow blend in and view the world in the most untouched way possible. Without them knowing he was there.
Maybe he could write a book, explaining what their culture was like before being changed forever by their interactions with the human species. Assuming they weren’t all locked up in the metaverse like humans on Earth. “Do you think they’re all in virtual simulated worlds?”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Atlas shook his head. “I’d almost guarantee they’re walking around the planet just like us.” Atlas changed the view on display, revealing a view of the planet. There were lights all over the coastal sections of the planet. “Earth isn’t lit up like this anymore. I think they manipulated us into simulated worlds to pacify us. I think they’re in the real world.”
Interesting theory, and it made sense. It might also be an indication of their culture. Maybe trickery and deception were part of who they are as a people. Then he thought about it some more. Humans were quick to lie as well—especially when they knew they wouldn’t be caught. Back in his time on Earth, he remembered politicians were the worst. He remembered so many of them lying just to get elected. It was always the consequences associated with getting caught that stopped people deceiving others.
Icarus hated visiting touristy locations because the coffee was always bad. Shops in tourist towns never had any incentive to make a good-quality drink because they didn’t care about repeat business—in touristy locations, there was always a new steady stream of patrons coming through the airport. Again, because there wasn’t a negative consequence to serving bad coffee, the shops weren’t incentivized to care.
The more Icarus thought about the Atua people, the more familiar their actions seemed. They didn’t want to get into a fight with Atlas and the others. So they’d attempted to trick them—basically lied through their teeth. Maybe they didn’t have enough weapons to win, or maybe they just didn’t fully understand what capabilities Angelique had at her disposal, so didn’t want to take the risk. Whatever the reasoning was, they’d tricked Atlas and company, and it had almost worked.
Icarus remembered back to when Trillion had almost committed genocide to the Dottiens—the alien species that trapped her on a moon—because she didn’t fully understand them. Then he remembered she did commit genocide of an entire planet as she turned it into fabricators in the Tac system. “Humans were stupid sometimes—probably no different from the Atua people,” Icarus muttered to himself.
“Atlas … ?” Icarus asked. “How good are Angelique’s android bodies? Like the ones you used on Juniper?”
“They were the closest thing I’ve seen to flesh and blood. Her people have perfected the designs to the point you can’t tell the difference. Why do you ask?”
“If I wanted to get that tech. Can you share it with me?”
“Of course.” Atlas studied Icarus’s face for a good while. “You have a similar look in your eyes to the one when you first got an opportunity to study the Dottiens.” Then his eyes went wide. “If you want to sneak a robot onto their planet, we’re going to build an AI, otherwise it’s going to be too obvious. Maybe I could code something similar to Lex.” He started to bite his lower lip as his mind worked. “I don’t know how we’re going to make it not obvious though. We could probably use Angelique’s tech to miniaturize the processor unit, so we could get a matrix as big as Lex into a tiny Atua-sized android.”
“How would you get onto the planet?” Icarus asked, liking the thought process. He wasn’t sure yet how to tell Atlas that he wanted to go onto the planet, not Lex.
“Hmm,” Atlas said. “Maybe we disguise a small probe as a meteorite. On the way to crash-landing in the ocean the probe takes a better scan of the planet. Maybe while heading toward it, we could intercept a bunch of radio transmissions, which will give us enough data to build an android version of the Atua. On board the probe, we’ll need a small fabricator for creating the android body.”
Icarus shook his head. He knew from experience just how hard it was to create a convincing version of a human. It had taken human CGI experts a long, long time to replicate a human face that crossed the uncanny valley. Surely the Atua had evolved a similar ability to notice not-quite-right-looking faces. “Intercepting enough information to re-create an alien body that fools the locals seems unlikely.”
Atlas reluctantly nodded. “You’re right. We might have a better chance at replicating their version of a bird or fish. To be honest, I think our biggest issue is figuring out how we set this all up. We won’t be able to communicate with Lex when it’s near the alien star system. So all our instructions will need to be preprogrammed. Lex is not very good at dealing with complicated situations all alone for a long period of time.”
“I’ve got an idea for that,” Icarus said. “Can you leave the task of programming an AI to me? And can you plan out the mechanics of how we’d get onto the planet surface safely? With all the right equipment?”
Atlas eyed Icarus suspiciously as if to say, What you’re thinking is not safe. Atlas didn’t say it, however; he just nodded. “I’ll get it done because I’ve been looking for an excuse to better understand some of the new technology upgrades Angelique’s people shared with us. But, Icarus, you better not be planning what I think you’re planning.”