“You know what’s wrong with Sci-Fi?” asked the chauffeur.
“Everyone over-explains everything?” His passenger asked sotto-voce.
“Everyone over-explains everything,” the chauffeur continued, oblivious to his passenger’s response.
“Take you and me for example. They could explain the reason that the two of us look the same with something puerile like convergent evolution. You know, the idea that there is a perfect form for every function in nature, as if opposable thumbs were required for tool use or higher brain function.”
“You do have opposable thumbs.”
“Not the point I’m trying to make. Let me put it to you a different way. Take this fine vehicle we are traveling in. You don’t need to know how to build one to be able to ride comfortably in one.”
“I have you for that.”
“I’m not even sure I know enough about the mechanics of it to build one from scratch. Sure, if I can buy the parts from my local parts shop, I could put it together, but I have no idea of the specific variances or measurements of any of the individual bobbins or widgets.”
“Don’t forget the cogs and sprockets.”
“Now you’re making fun of me.”
“Not in the slightest. I don’t even know if there are any sprockets or cogs in this vehicle. How does the steering work anyway.”
“I only understand the basics, really. Sure, I know if part A is broken, I replace part A. I know part A inserts into slot B and so on.”
“The ankle bone connected to the…”
“Basically.”
As they continued on their journey, silence lapsed for a little while. The passenger looked out the window at the stars thinking about what the chauffeur had been saying. It seemed an eternity before the driver began to talk again.
“Take fantasy for example. No one worries if the monster has a proper evolutionary history. He can have 2 heads, breathe fire, and every time you cut one head off 2 grow back and no one questions it.”
“I think that’s because it’s magic.”
“Is that really an excuse? You get right down to it and everything is ‘magic’ from far enough away. Take your television for example. You may know the principle behind it, but could you really explain it as technology to someone who had never seen anything like it before? It looks a lot like a magic mirror if you ask me, especially the flat panel models that seem to be all the rage.”
The passenger laughed at him. “Aren’t you supposed to call it a vid-screen or something if it’s sci-fi?”
“Why? Human nature rails against it. People are, by and large, creatures of habit. If you called it a TV as a kid, chances are you’ll call it a TV as an adult. Consider when we started shifting from the standard definition screens to the high-definition ones. No one started calling them HDs, as much as the media would have liked us to. No, they are HDTVs, or simply TVs. Radio is still radio how many years later?”
“That’s different.”
“How? It’s simply named after the band of the electromagnetic spectrum that it uses. Tele-vision: two words meaning far sight. Auto-mobile: self moving. It is like coming up with a different name for a home planet of an alien species. Chances are it will be something like soil, earth, ground, or any similar word for the surface that the alien creatures live on…or in. Why even invent a name for an alien race? They’re just going to be human-kind, at least they will be in their own language.”
The passenger laughed a bit at this. Before the chauffeur could continue, an alarm went off.
“What’s that?”
“Something that can’t be there…atmosphere…” Before he could elaborate the vessel shook and there was a loud boom in the relative quiet of the cockpit.
“What’s that sound? Tell me! We’re going to die, aren’t we?”
“That was the sound of something important being sheared off by the force of us skipping along the surface of a planet’s atmosphere. I need you to belt yourself in because we’re going down.”
The passenger looked out the window that, until this moment, had shown him the splendor of space, and watched as the first wisps of vapor began to stream by. The view shifted as the craft rolled, barely in the control of his chauffeur. He caught sight of some landmasses as the vessel continued to roll. They passed into the night side of the planet, and he saw the lights dotted across the landscape in a parody of the stars they were leaving behind.
“It’s inhabited,” the passenger declared, a smile splitting his features.
“Yes, there are natives. How is that a good thing? Primitives. I’m only showing rudimentary communications satellites. No inter-stellar communications array of any sort. This is a backwater, and it’s not on the maps.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that if I don’t land with enough of the ship intact enough to take off again, that we are going to be stuck here for a very long time. Let’s hope that they breathe the same air we do. Now I need to concentrate.”
The passenger could only look on in horror as the lighted landmass got closer and closer with each pass around the globe.
The driver became more and more frantic as he lost more of the control surfaces of the craft. It hadn’t been designed to enter an atmosphere, and the closer they got to the planet, the less of his ship responded.
“Pray to whatever god you believe in, because I’m about to turn on the final safety features and leave our landing in the hands of fate.”
“But…”
“There’s not enough left to fly.”
Images from horror movies flashed through the passenger’s mind in the instants it took the driver to enter in a code on the computer panel and hit the enter key. After that he didn’t think a thing.
When you are a being with binary optics perspective rules all of your interactions with the visual world. Limit that ‘sight’ to a narrow band of the electro-magnetic spectrum and you are even more dependent upon perspective.
Take the object that is even now coming to rest upon the surface of the planet that the natives call Earth, as alluded to by the former pilot of the object.
It is strange to this world, being designed for use in a vacuum, and not in an atmosphere. Much of the portions that used to stretch out have been melted, sheared, or otherwise smoothed flat with the surface of the vessel. It glows with the heat of its passage through the atmosphere. A trail of smaller pieces is being shed even as it approaches the embrace of the planet it was never meant to meet. Most of those will burn up with their speed of entry.
And that speed is much greater than gravity itself would impart to the small bits of space rock that most planetary inhabitants call ‘shooting stars.’
Perspective tells you that the ship is graceful, and not all that large. You watch as it oh so slowly approaches the planet, almost a controlled descent.
Perspective lies to you because it knows your mind isn’t ready to handle the immensity of what you are seeing.
You get an idea of the size when the ship bounces off one of the mountains in the distance. The ship doesn’t dwarf the mountain, but for a moment, as it makes contact, perspective tells you that not only is the mountain a lot closer than you thought it was, but that it is much smaller. You thin that it might only be a hill. There is no way, perspective tells you, that the ship can really be that big.
Mountains block horizons, and this ship could easily be half the size of the mountain.
Easier, perspective tells you, to believe that the mountain is smaller.
Pieces of the ship spray out at the impact it made, and the trajectory of the ship shifts slightly as it begins to come in a little cockeyed. Even the mountain was only able to begin it moving, and not send the ship pin wheeling, as perspective tells you it really should have.
It is only a moment or two after this impact that the ship first kisses the Earth. Now it does tumble, shedding bits and pieces like clothes after one of your better dates. You know the ones I am talking about. Apparently the ship doesn’t stop there, as it is still shedding its material all over the desert basin where the Earth wants it to come to rest.
The ship continues to disintegrate, slowing as it does, until the only thing that’s left is a slightly glowing, mostly spherical object that is much smaller than the ship that it emerged from.
In fact, perspective would tell you it was only a bit of dust, but the cloud of dust that it raises tells a different story, and the enormity of the object that just tore itself to pieces aided by mother Earth and Gravity finally comes to you.
It is as if a city just crashed to the ground.
Now, if you were anything more than the lizards, birds, or rodents that really did see this now would be a great time to faint.
The thing about the so-called lower life forms is that they don’t really care about higher brain function. They are slaves to perception.
The cockpit continues to roll, shedding speed in the loose sand of the desert basin. The cloud of sand and other debris kicked up by its passage is huge. It dwarfs even the original size of the ship.
Slowly, the cockpit’s speed is reduced by friction until, finally, it comes to a halt. The dust tail still hangs in the air and points like an arrow to the final resting place of the cockpit.
Pain was the first thing. Lots of pain. It wasn’t even a thought like, ‘I’m in pain.’ No, it was just pain that seemed to be the entirety of the world. It had texture and depth and color. This pain was like a sunset mixed with a dash of gingham and sprinkled with a b-flat.
He only realized he was screaming when the rawness of his throat added it’s own demands to the rest of the pain he was feeling.
He relaxed then, because thought was once again becoming. Becoming what he had no idea, but it was becoming…something.
His laugher was hysterical, which he could tell because a small dispassionate portion of his mind was critiquing it and comparing it to other hysterical laughter he’d heard in the past, thankfully none of it his own.
He took some breaths to try and calm his hysteria, only to realize that the act of breathing actually solved some of the pain he was feeling. Apparently suffocation hurts.
He got up and began to walk a bit, trying to restore circulation to his body, and realized that his heart was now beating again. And then memories began to worm their way into his head.
George. His name was George and he was now trapped on an alien planet. At the angle that the former cockpit was leaning, he knew that there was no way the ship was in any way intact.
His former passenger hadn’t stirred yet, so he released himself from his harness and tried to check the other man’s vitals. He couldn’t detect a pulse, and he quickly looked at the computer screen to see how long it had been. The numbers counted off time, and he was amazed that it had been that short; mere moments had passed when it felt like an eternity while he was trapped by the pain.
He rushed to action. It wasn’t that he particularly like the man, but he didn’t want to be here alone. If the ship was as bad as he thought, then this would be the only familiar face that he’d ever see again.
Resuscitation took moments, as the man’s body ached to live, it had just forgotten how. George collapsed in relief. Without proper preparation, the chances of surviving the stasis system were one in eight. With two people that made the approximate odds of survival about one in four. Or is that one in five. George knew how to pilot a star ship, but that didn’t mean he was any good at math.
George left the passenger to awake to his surroundings as he went to survey the damage. He had to use the secondary emergency exit, as the other two were at the bottom of the cockpit, and were likely flush, or close to it, with the ground.
The only things still connected to the cockpit had been inside the stasis field. The damage was about as bad as it was possible to get. He looked at the miles-long debris field, and felt a stab of fear. He noticed the telltale signs of investigation already at the site. Contrails attached to jet aircraft traveled across the sky. It would be a little longer before anyone on the ground could get there, especially with the technological advancement that he’d noticed coming in. They were still using fossil fuels if the smog clouds over their major cities were any indication.
That would limit their ground speed to somewhere between…
He began to laugh at himself a little bit. It wasn’t like he knew exactly where the nearest military base would be, or research station, or whatever group they sent when there was an ‘extra-terrestrial’ incident just like the one his ship had created.
It was funny to think that he was the alien in this encounter.
“You opened the cockpit. What it we’d been unable to breathe their air?”
“Then we’d be dead. I don’t know how to convert non-breathable air into a nice N2/O2 atmosphere.”
“But you’re a pilot.”
“And the movies have told you that all pilots are special ops geniuses who can make a spacecraft out of duck tape and bailing wire? Let’s examine this another way: You’re a what?”
“Accountant.”
“Okay mister accountant. I assume that you use a computer to keep the books? And you have an accounting program on that?”
“Sure.”
“Are you good with this accounting program?”
“I’m considered a wizard around the office. I can do things with numbers…”
“So, you could program the software you use into the guidance computer.”
“What?”
“Should be simple if you’re so familiar with the use. Just right here.”
“But I’m only an accountant.”
“Exactly. Anyway, we’re wasting time. We need to move away from here. The natives noticed our crash landing.”
“But don’t we want to interact with them. They might…”
“Be a super advanced race that chooses not to interact with the galaxy at large and will just give us a ship and send us on our way?”
“When you put it that way.”
George grabbed the two survival packs from their storage container behind the pilot’s seat and handed one of them to the Accountant. At some point he needed to learn the man’s name, but now wasn’t the time. Now was the time to run.
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Comments
Okay, I'm hooked
A pilot and an accountant? I wonder if he's anything like our pilots? Is he military or ex-military? Does he have survival training?
How hard will it be for our accountant/computer wizard to access and use our computers?
We also don't know where they are. Iran? US? India? It may make a great deal of difference.
I like this. I want to read more!
Wren
From what I gathered, they
From what I gathered, they could be on _another_ planet, but be from _our_ Earth.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Where they are,
The clues are there as to which of these two is the correct answer. The main one I am thinking of is really short and easily overlooked.
He entered the hall to get warm. She left it two hundred years later.
Faeriemage
Well, there are lots of
Well, there are lots of clues, but those could be discarded because of using familiar terms to describe alien things. the pilot being named george is the only one I can think of :)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
What I was mentioning
"“Take you and me for example. They could explain the reason that the two of us look the same with something puerile like convergent evolution. You know, the idea that there is a perfect form for every function in nature, as if opposable thumbs were required for tool use or higher brain function.â€
“You do have opposable thumbs.â€"
He entered the hall to get warm. She left it two hundred years later.
Faeriemage
On the gripping hand, some
On the gripping hand, some sort of bracing mechanism is necessary for grip, i.e. tool users. Thus, an opposable digit, or digits.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
While true...
...not what I was referring to.
You are supporting the argument for convergent evolution, but to be convergent, it requires that there be a separation of species. You can't say that humanity itself is convergent, because of the limit in gene pool.
There is less genetic variation in the entirety of the human race than in a single pod(family, whatever) of baboons.
Regardless. The point is that it is being suggested that the Driver and his passenger (the Accountant) are in separate gene pools, and therefore not the same species.
That being said, however, I personally disagree with the entire concept that tool users need to have an opposing digit, thumb for ease of reference. There are birds who are tool users. They use their mouths (beak) for the job. A properly articulated lip and teeth assembly could even be better. That has the added benefit of putting your eyes on what you are working on. A prehensile limb (tail, tentacle, whatever) could also be good for this.
Sure, on our planet these are considered to be a lesser version when compared to a thumb, but that doesn't mean that given enough design iterations that something else would not be equally as viable.
He entered the hall to get warm. She left it two hundred years later.
Faeriemage
You're just making my point
You're just making my point for me. A beak would be an opposing digit - one side opposing another. Or, in the case of a tri-beak, three points. Two is easier to use.
A claw is more of an opposing force gripper than, say, a chicken's foot. Just because you can hang on doesn't mean you have leverage. It's all about the lever. (Right, Archimedes?)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Bah
Fine, I concede. It does not require 'hands' per se, but it requires some sort of opposing or encompassing force. However, the idea that it requires 'hands' and so you would end up with a bunch of humanoids is a major factor that Star Trek bases it's cosmology upon, and that is more what I was talking against, and should have been more clear.
He entered the hall to get warm. She left it two hundred years later.
Faeriemage
I was thinking more James
I was thinking more James White's "Sector General" series than Star Trek.
Hey! I can think of at least one non-humanoid intelligent species from Star Trek - the silicon 'pizza' life form. :) (of course, any tools it uses are underneath the fringe, where it excretes acid, so I don't think I'd want to check)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Horta
Per the Star Trek cosmology, the Horta was not a tool user, but was sentient. If you remember the episode, however, it's not clear how intelligent the creature was. Sure, it had at least Dolphin level intelligence, but is it really a higher life form is a question for debate, which I doubt here is a good place to get into it.
He entered the hall to get warm. She left it two hundred years later.
Faeriemage
"Now was the time to run."
very good beginning.
How About:
The crash-landed beings are alien and they are on our Earth; (since you implied that there are only two choices; either the planet is our Earth or the crash-landers are Earth people).
The spacers are looking for a O2/CO2 atmosphere. Earth has an O2/N2 atmosphere where CO2 is only 350 PPM.
Now other questions: the spaceship entered the atmosphere at a speed greater than meteors and meteorites. The ship is very large, implying great mass; the ship quickly loses any aero lifting or braking devices. With great mass, the atmosphere doesn't reduce it's speed that much. How does the ship not vaporize the planetary surface and leave a large impact crater that the ship could not bounce out of? If the ship were very large, but less dense than sea level air, I suppose it could lose enough speed in the atmosphere to not act like a meteorite (asteroid, maybe) of similar mass. OTOH, maybe it did leave an impact crater, but did move out of it because of something about the ship and survival capsule construction.
Interesting story, thanks!
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
Density of objects
Hadn't considered that, but I like your explanation (about the atmosphere.) And actually, we have a nitrogen rich atmosphere (Almost 80% Nitrogen vs ~20% oxygen) so it would more correctly be termed a N2-O2 atmosphere. Basically a being from an oxygen rich atmosphere would be more resistant to surface corrosion and likely have thicker skin. However, I was more thinking of active components of the atmosphere and less about all of it's normal components. On second thought, I need to change the statement above. Not that you're wrong, but I meant it to be Nitrogen-Oxygen and I was a bit wasted (sick) when I wrote that.
Side track over.
An asteroid is a mostly solid piece of rock, often with a nickel alloy core. A space ship, on the other hand, is comprised of lots of little spaces with conduits and wires and tubes and liquids. Because of this, while an asteroid will plow into the earth and leave a nice large hole, a space ship would be more likely to expend most of it's impetus in collapsing in upon itself.
Also, I never said there wasn't a crater.
The main thing with the ship was that George was trying to bring it into a landing before he lost all control. They were in more of a decaying orbit than a standard Impact path, which is what let the military of the entire world know that this was a manned craft of some sort. It took 100-200 circumnavigations of the globe before it finally touched down. Air traffic was moved out of the flight path as much as possible.
Even so, it left a twenty mile debris trail before the cockpit went on its own solo journey, including multiple "divots" where it impacted leaving a crater.
The debris covers more than two hundred square miles. That is about fifty miles away from the cockpit, which came to rest at the base of some mountains in the midst of the trees.
A sphere is a Horribly non-aerodynamic shape...unless it has back spin. As it was rolling forward, the front spin actually enhanced the sphere's braking capability. It was only traveling at about 200 mph when it hit the first trees.
He entered the hall to get warm. She left it two hundred years later.
Faeriemage
Thought it was a Firefly
Thought it was a Firefly episode with a twist for TG. Hmmm, interesting though.
Objects in Space - Space Junk
They could be humans from the future
May Your Light Forever Shine