CHAPTER 4

CLONE OF ARIANA

THIS IS STRANGE

Ariana briefly opened her eyes again when the alien popped its small head back through the doorway. Her mind was mostly focused on taking over control of all the sensors on the eleph-ANT so she could complete her scans. Her plan was to watch a replay of the conversation with the alien back once she was done.

But she was human, and curiosity got the better of her. She left her subconscious to continue working through the hack while she put her focus on what everyone else was focused on.

She quickly replayed the last few moments before the alien arrived, checking whether she missed anything. The only item of note was that Atlas had grabbed some sort of spray device from out of the back of the eleph-ANT and had begun spraying some fine mist around the room. After watching him for a few moments, slightly confused about what that old man was up to, she returned to real time.

She heard the translator of the alien speak: “You made a mistake coming here. You shouldn’t have come.”

Ariana paused the conversation for a moment and considered what was just said. Why had this species just told them they’d made a mistake when they were the ones who’d told them to come?

Maybe that was a translation error. Maybe the aliens’ version of a universal translator—or what the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy called a babel fish—wasn’t processing the information clearly. Unlikely, since these aliens had been studying humans for longer than she’d been alive. But just in case, she wrote a quick algorithm that would record the translated and real versions of what the alien said. She would later use this information for building her own translator program. She also loaded the previous conversation with the alien into the algorithm she wrote.

Ariana studied the alien. It looked like it evolved from an animal that was oddly similar to a penguin. She figured that was a unique quirk of convergent evolution. Its legs were much longer, and its two flippers had evolved into something resembling arms. Stretched out straight, they looked exactly like flippers, but they bent in joints and at the ends forming something equivalent to hands allowing it to manipulate objects.

She then continued the conversation with the alien at a higher playback speed so she could catch up to real time.

Peter and Ange both stepped forward, designating themselves the team spokesmen. Ariana knew the de facto leader had to be one of them—they were clearly the most comfortable in that role. She knew Peter was quick on his feet and would ask the right questions. But from what she’d learned from Ange, she might actually be better suited to leading this small expedition. The technology she wielded was orders of magnitude more capable than anything Ariana had seen before. Ange was hiding a lot of the tech she had at her fingertips—and because of the security protocols she was using, Ariana hadn’t glimpsed much of it yet. Ange also had more experience exploring this galaxy than the others, so that also gave her the most credibility.

Ange spoke first. “Are you the same alien that spoke to us before?”

“Yes, I did. But …” The alien looked visibly frustrated.

At least Ariana assumed that was a look of frustration. She quickly made an update to the algorithm she was using to build a translator. She wanted it to record facial gestures and body movements, too. Hopefully she would be able to build up a better understanding of the alien’s body language.

“You told us to come here,” Peter said. “And now you’re telling us we shouldn’t have come?”

The alien looked down toward its chest. It opened its mouth to speak, but then, as if hearing something coming, it turned around and left, the door closing behind it.

“That was odd,” Ariana heard Atlas say as she closed her eyes, ignoring the conversation again.

She would rely on one of her subconscious minds to listen to the conversations between the others and alert her if she needed to tune in again. Otherwise she would watch a recording of what was discussed later.

One of Ariana’s subconsciousnesses had successfully hacked its way into the eleph-ANT’s sensors. She didn’t have control of the machine, yet, but she had enough access to start her scans of the alien vessel.

She directed the eleph-ANT to begin scanning on all communication channels. She wanted to scan the radio frequencies to see if any signals were traveling around the ship. Was there any natural chatter around the ship? It would be great if she could find an alien equivalent of a Wi-Fi signal. Then maybe she could hack into that.

It stood to reason that any ship that had sentient life on it would also have Wi-Fi or cellular connectivity for communication. Or even if she wasn’t able to detect something like that, she might be able to spot other signals in the background sounds of the ship. The hum of the engine could also give her an understanding of just how powerful they were. She wanted the eleph-ANT to begin recording anything and everything so that later she could spend time going through the data collected.

While that was happening, she focused the eleph-ANT’s sensors on the large device on the ceiling of the room. She confirmed it was in fact a hapticgraphic projector.

She was about to review the data collected by the eleph-ANT so far when one of her subconsciousnesses interrupted her with news that the aliens’ door was opening again.

Arian opened her eyes just in time to see the alien penguin-looking thing standing in the doorway, the door now fully open. The alien stood tall, despite looking so tiny.

It took several steps forward through the door and stood in front of everyone, flippers behind its back. Ariana assumed it was projecting confidence and control.

It looked like the same alien as the one that had just poked its head through the doorway a moment ago. But the way it carried itself looked completely different. Where the last one felt a little afraid of them, this one felt like they were beneath it.

Ariana quickly pulled together a facial-recognition algorithm. It compared the three different faces of the alien they had seen and concluded with 97 percent confidence that they were all the same alien.

Hmm, that’s strange, she thought. Unless they’re clones.

Clones could make more sense, since all of them would look exactly the same, but presumably there would be personality drift between the different copies. So it stood to reason that they could all look the same but be different individuals.

Ariana quickly updated her algorithm to include body language. The probability they were all the same being reduced dramatically. She made a mental note to tell the others that differentiating these aliens from one another would be hard.

The alien stepped forward, exuding confidence and control. It stood right in between Ange and Peter. It was truly tiny. Its head barely came up to Peter’s waist.

But you wouldn’t have thought it was the smallest creature in the room. It acted as if everyone was there to serve the alien. The way it carried itself, Ariana thought it was telling the team that talking to them was a waste of time.

Ariana wondered why she had that feeling from the way it was acting. Then she remembered it had spent a lot of time studying human behaviors. It knew them. And it knew exactly how to portray itself as being in charge of everyone—despite being less than a meter tall.

It didn’t look up toward any of them as it spoke. It looked straight ahead, guttural sounds coming out of its beak before a translator kicked in. “Welcome. You may ask three questions before we begin the negotiations.”

Peter and Ange looked at each other before nodding. It was Peter who asked the question. “What do we call you?”

“You call yourself humans, but the word we call you is—” A scratching sound was heard out of the translator. “That roughly translates to ‘sentience with no heart.’ We have deliberated for some time on what you should call us if we ever met. We know human egos will take some time before you are comfortable calling us your god. So in the meantime you can call us Atua.”

Ariana liked that this Atua creature was quite elaborate with its answer. It told them more than she’d expected. There was meaning in what it called them. Did no heart mean humans were heartless, ruthless? Or was there another meaning in that sentence?

Ariana received another notification from another subconscious. This one was monitoring changes in centrifugal force, essentially monitoring to see if the momentum of the spacecraft changed in any way. The subconscious node told her they were beginning to accelerate away from her ship. This was something she needed to tell the others.

In an instant she pulled the others out of their bodies and into a white room. She also adjusted their playback speed so the alien wouldn’t notice anything happening. The team could now have a five-minute conversation in subjective time—but it would only register one second in reality.

Ariana spoke as everyone winked into existence. “We’re starting to move.”

“Moving? Where?” Peter paused for a moment. “Let’s tackle the movement piece in a moment. But first we should figure out what to ask next.”

Unity fixed a curl in her big afro. “Should we ask them where they’re taking us?”

Ange shook her head. “That’s good information to know. But if we only have three, it’s not going to help us with the negotiations. What if we ask why the Atua believes it owns this solar system?” She almost spat out the word Atua. “Did anyone else catch that reference? Atua is simply another word for god. I believe in New Zealand that’s the word for god. If that’s the reference, then they have a massive god complex.”

Peter offered up a slight change in the wording. “I agree with the question. But let’s expand it a little. Why do they believe they own all these solar systems—including ours?”

The team agreed. And depending on the answer, they all decided to come back into this room again to coordinate on the final question.

The alien replied in a similar detailed fashion. “We have been exploring this region of space for many centuries now. When we first took pictures of your planet, you’d claimed it. We have a culture of ownership. The first of our kinds to discover something owns it. We know you have a different culture. We know you probably believe your planet is yours. But that’s not our culture.” The alien spoke with menace. “We are not willing to change for you. But …” The alien paused for a moment, and Ariana thought she detected the translator voice had a smile in it. “We might be willing to sell it to you. With some conditions, of course.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“You said it yourself,” Peter said. “Our ancestors were on the planet before you even visited us.”

“That is a follow-up query. Is this your final question, or do you want to have another private discussion first?” Without waiting for the answer, the Atua continued. “Regardless I will allow this piece of clarification. You are correct, those were your ancestors. Your ancestors owned the planet before us. But when they died, their ownership passed onto me. I am the rightful owner now.” Then the alien anticipated their next objection: Why did this alien become the rightful owner of the planet and not them? “Ownership does not pass onto someone simply because of the lottery of birth. You surely wouldn’t be happy with nepotism. It passes onto the next person to put in a genuine claim. That next person was me. You have no real translation for my name. But you may call me—”

The Atua made a show of scratching its chin in thoughtful contemplation. Surely that was not a gesture that came natural to it; it was putting on a show for their sake. “Pale Blue Dot. In reference to Carl Sagan, who called your planet a pale blue dot to signify the irrelevance of your planet in the cosmos, and since I’m the owner of that blue dot. PBD for short.”

PBD was doing its best to shame everyone in the room. But for whatever reason, Ariana found she liked its approach. She found it charming on some level. And slightly funny. Almost like a comedy routine. She wondered whether that was on purpose.

The team reentered the white room where only they could talk to one another.

“I like his cockiness,” Unity said as everyone appeared.

“Don’t get me started on how cute it is.” Ange smiled. “It’s like a small child telling us it’s the king of our planet. I can’t get that image out of my head.”

Atlas, who had been deep in contemplation, and possibly a bit in awe of what was going on, finally spoke for the first time in a long while. “So what do we ask next?”

“Let’s ask them what they want?” Hezekiah said. “What can we offer them in exchange for continuing to do what we want to do?”

Both Peter and Ange shook their heads at the same time. Ange gestured for Peter to explain why. “That last line from PBD was a trap. It was designed to get us to ask that question. If we ask it what it wants for Earth or any of the other solar systems we’ve already visited, then we’re implicitly saying that we agree to their rules. And we agree that we are in one of their solar systems.”

“Exactly.” Ange added. “It won’t be long before we’re haggling over the price for a solar system we already own.” Ange paused for a moment. “Why don’t we ignore that trap and gain some other insights? Do they know of any other sentience in the solar system? Or how many planets in the Milky Way have they visited?”

“I’m interested in knowing whether they’ve met any other smart aliens—like us.” Atlas bit his lower lip. “And with the way it answers questions, asking that question might also shed light on which other stars they’ve visited.”

“PBD is unlikely to answer that,” Ange said after thinking about her original question for a bit. “I wouldn’t answer how many stars I control, nor would I tell it if I’d met any other aliens because then it might be able to piece that information together to guess which star systems my people are in.”

Peter scratched his chin thoughtfully. “What if we ask it about Earth? What it did to humanity back on Earth. Why did it push us all down the path of entering the metaverse?”

The team agreed to that, and within a moment they were all standing back in front of the alien.

Ariana could tell the Atua wasn’t expecting that question because it took a while to respond. It also made eye contact with Ange for half a second, which was the first time it had made eye contact with anyone. Ariana thought she registered a moment of fluster because the alien regained its composure and started to look straight ahead again. Maybe its models for what they would ask were wrong. Maybe they weren’t as accurate at predicting what the team would do.

Or maybe this was just an elaborate act by this Atua creature. Because there was no way its body language would be recognizable to humans with so little exposure. So maybe they had asked exactly what it wanted them to ask. And maybe this was just a charade that was all planned in advance.

Ariana noted to find answers to this later.

PBD began speaking in its usual clicky tone before the translator kicked in. “Your question is an important one. Why did we decide to limit your technological progress, rather than see you continue to grow as you had been? The answer is simple. We didn’t want ants in our backyard. We’ve watched you for quite some time, and we noticed you liked to fight with one another. Right up until the period of time you called the eighteen hundreds, our models of human psychology predicted you would be at war with one another. But you posed no risk to anyone outside of your planet. We watched as countries in Europe jostled for power. We watched and left you alone. It wasn’t until the country you call the United States started to flourish. Our models started to predict a time when you would develop technology that might threaten us.

“So we intervened. We picked a tiny country and gave it technology. We gave it an AI. And with that AI, it overtook the US as the dominant power on your planet. It did what we had instructed it to do. It guided humanity toward the metaverse.”

“Are you talking about New Zealand?” Unity asked.

“Yes,” PBD replied. “And I will allow follow-up questions to what I said. But only on this topic.”

Once again Ariana started to ignore the conversation. She could replay it later if she missed anything. What held her interest was a change in the magnetic fields within the chamber. They weren’t coming from the eleph-ANT. There was another hapticgraphic projector active in the room.

Ariana scanned the room for any other projections. The only other thing in the room besides them was the Atua. Then it occurred to her what this might mean. That Atua wasn’t actually standing there. The hapticgraphic projector was currently being used to project this creature right in front of them.

But why? she wondered. Why go through all the trouble to pretend like it was really there when it wasn’t? It made more sense that the alien wouldn’t actually be in front of them. That was a serious game of trust. The eleph-ANT could easily be used as a weapon and shred the little life-form. But then why not just project itself in the room? Why go through the trouble of pretending like it was actually standing in front of them?

Unless this was a test. To see what they would do. This alien had studied human psychology for many years. Ariana guessed that they had AIs trained on human behavior, so they had a very good prediction model of what they would have done. This was clearly all rehearsed, and the decisions it made today were well thought-out. She decided to mentally file that information for later.

Ariana’s subconscious pulled her back into the conversation with the alien. Something was happening.

The Atua turned around away from the team. It faced the door once more. It oozed smugness. Ariana replayed the conversation that had just unfolded and knew it wasn’t coming to an end. Unity had just asked a question. But instead of responding, the Atua decided to turn around as if to go. But it didn’t leave. It just stood there with its flipper-hands behind its back.

“I misled you all. We are not negotiating here. We are not negotiating at all. We are headed back to Earth. Before we drop you off on the planet to stay there.” It paused, and Ariana thought she saw a smile cross the alien’s beak. “I suggest you all power down. I don’t believe your eleph-ANT has enough power to last the journey running that mobile hapticgraphic engine. Power down now and I will come wake you when we’ve arrived.” Then a slight pause before the alien continued. “Be grateful that we’re keeping you alive. If you attempt to interfere with us, we will kill you.”

And with that, PBD began to walk back through the door. Everyone was frozen in a sense of shock. And the little Atua was using that moment to slip out and close the door behind it.

The next few moments happened in a blur. Ariana had to replay the whole scene again just to understand what occurred as the alien attempted to close the door.

In slow motion she saw everyone in the team standing there watching the alien leave except for Ange.

Ange’s body began to grow in size, and quickly she took three large steps forward, diving toward the alien, her hand reaching for PBD’s neck.

Ariana was impressed, while everyone else was still in shock. Ange was taking action. Ange saw that they were about to be locked in a room with no way out, so she quickly made moves to stop that.

Ariana knew the alien was just a projection. And so she found herself crossing her fingers hoping Ange also did the right thing and stopped the door from closing.

Ange continued forward and grabbed hold of PBD’s neck. She picked it right off the ground, and her momentum continued her forward. She then reached out one arm and grabbed hold of the door, preventing it from closing.

With the door in one hand and the little alien in the other, she stared straight into its eyes.

It was a sight to see. One moment the alien was threatening them. The next it was being tossed around by its neck.

Ange poked her head through the doorway, one hand still around PBD’s neck. “It’s just an empty room like this one. There’s no way out.”

Ange squeezed her hand that was around the alien’s neck. Moments later, PBD’s neck was crushed.

Oh my god, she is ruthless, Ariana thought. She wasn’t sure whether Ange knew whether the alien was a hapticgram or not. But if she didn’t, then she’d just tried to kill PBD. This battle, if anyone would call it that, was over in less than a fraction of a second. As soon as Ange had realized they weren’t getting out, she’d reacted instantly to the situation. And she’d acted with decisive force. What was more impressive was just how fast she took control of the situation. Everyone else in the room was still in shock at what had just happened. Everyone was still processing what the alien had said. In dangerous situations like this, most people believed that the natural human response was to run or fight—the fight-or-flight reflex. But Ariana knew that was a myth. The majority of humans froze. Even people who ran or fought took a moment to break out of the freeze mindset. The body pulled energy away from the muscles to the brain in order to process what had just happened. So the speed at which Ange acted was impressive. If she hadn’t acted that quickly, they might have been stuck in that room for good.

PBD faded away as the hapticgraphic engine controlling the avatar disappeared.

“This was a trap the whole time; they’re not even here.” Ange began to bark out orders as she floated up into the corner of the room and ripped out the cameras and hapticgraphic projectors in the room. “Ship, can you reconfigure the eleph-ANT to use the tractor beam and blow a hole through that air lock door?”

Within moments her Ship had reconfigured the eleph-ANT. A large metal device was now poking out of its trunk. It pointed that device at the air lock door they had entered through. Then the hapticgraphic projector on the eleph-ANT switched off as it pulled power from all unnecessary processes. The eleph-ANT anchored its legs into the ground.

“Three. Two. One,” Ship said before the tractor beam was switched on.

The door right in front of it disintegrated, imploding on itself. A massive hole was left where the device was pointed.

Then for some strange reason, as the eleph-ANT’s cameras looked down through the hole it had just made, everyone saw there was another wall several meters farther down.

Confusion raced through Ariana’s head. Why was there another wall where there should have been open space?

She mentally closed her eyes and started to scan through the data she was collecting before being shut out of the eleph-ANT.

She noticed something odd. The number of high-energy particles reaching them had steadily decreased over time since the air lock door had closed behind them. Deep space was bathed in a constant wash of these particles. It’s like a fast-moving river. Everywhere you were out in space was flooded with these particles.

On Earth, the magnetosphere of the planet and the heliosphere of the sun stopped most incoming particles so humans weren’t constantly bathed in radiation. Even still, particles like neutrinos make it to the surface.

If you wanted to achieve similar shielding from radiation out in space, you needed a lot of mass in between you and the outside world. Even using meter-thick plating won’t have much of an effect. The level of radiation hitting them right now suggested they were near the very center of this rocket ship. If that was the case, they would need to bust through a lot of doors until they reached the outside. She wasn’t sure the power reserves of the eleph-ANTs were big enough to tunnel their way out.

As if predicting what the team was thinking, PBD came through the speakers on the ship. Its voice reverberating all around them: “Do not bother fighting. You are trapped. Conserve your power reserves or you won’t make it back to Earth.” Then the alien made several guttural sounds. Ariana thought it might be trying to emulate a laugh, but the translator wasn’t picking up on any of it. “If you continue to cut holes through this ship, we will be forced to send in drones to contain you.”

At that very moment Ariana felt a deep embolizing fear. She’d experienced fear before, once when she picked up a pair of her running shoes. She was moments away from putting them on when she noticed an old black sock on the inside of it. She put her hand in her shoe to pull it out, but when she did, she discovered it was a giant spider. When she realized she had a giant spider in her hand, she’d screamed in fear so loudly that the neighbors called the police.

The fear she was feeling right now was bigger than she’d ever experienced before. It was so encompassing, so big, and so frightening, the kind of fear that only comes from years of movies that told her being abducted by an alien meant being subjected to millions of probing tests. Fear that came with not knowing what they would do with her.

For a brief moment, she became unable to act. Unable to think. She had to shut down that part of her mind, the part of her that felt fear.