Terry Neale - Jo-el

I liked to walk. The air was cool and crisp that afternoon, the sun was fading in the western sky, sinking slowly into the bank of dense, grey clouds over the ocean. Spring was just around the corner, when the Bay Area would blossom with tourists. The house that Mary and I had scrimped and saved to buy twenty-seven years ago was now free and clear and worth more than a million dollars. A paltry amount in comparison to the multimillion-dollar homes that were the norm in San Francisco. But I was content with what we had achieved, we’d never considered moving and now, alone, I was a hapless individual, devoid of any desire to move somewhere more exotic. I went through the side-door in the garage and walked towards Golden Gate Park, just a couple of blocks away, my hands tucked deep into the pockets of my old gabardine coat as the cold wind swirled down my familiar little street. My collar was pinned tightly around my neck, I kept my eyes down on the sidewalk, ignoring any passersby. My mind was fixed firmly on the words spoken to me by the man who called himself Ka-el. I reached Lincoln Way, the main thoroughfare I had to cross to reach the park. A young woman came up alongside of me, her black leggings exaggerating her perfect shape. She jogged up and down as we waited for the lights to change. I glanced sideways at her, nodded hello and allowed a faint smile to cross my mouth.

“Who the hell are you looking at?” she spat out, her eyes glaring at me.

I was dumbfounded and embarrassed. This wasn’t New York! Did I look like a damn rapist? I wanted to say something rude back at her, but my brain just froze. Cross her off the list when I save the world. The lights changed, she took off. I paused for a moment, cursing her perfect, tight ass wobbling neatly from side to side. Okay, so I liked to look, no harm in that. I didn’t cross the road; instead, I turned around and hurried back to my home. I know it was crazy but I had to see Ka-el again and find out what he wanted from me and I needed to put that woman on the no-go list. Stupid bitch!

I moved the computer to the kitchen table and flung open the lid. Ka-el’s motionless face stared back at me. I used alt-tab to see what else I had open, nothing. Just Ka-el, the old troll. I touched the screen and a little white arrow, pointing to the right appeared, indicating I was playing a video. I paused a second then touched the arrow.

Ka-el’s face jumped to life. “I’m from a world we call, Cirion. Your astronomers on earth have not discovered us; Cirion is one hundred and three million light years away. Our sun is visible in earth’s Western sky.”

I pushed the pause button, bit far-fetched I thought. Did whoever write this script think anyone would believe it? The urge to close the computer was strong, but I was amused and fascinated enough to see where this crazy story was going. It was totally ridiculous, but sort of fun. It seems silly but I wanted to believe him. I guess my boredom was affecting my judgement. Dave Murphy, simple guy from the old country, nothing special to look at, so Mary pointed out too often, but with potential and such a nice (don’t you hate that word) guy. Older than he wanted to be, too short to scare kids, oh, and balding. Yes, folks your true and original world saver. I laughed and threw my coat over the chair next to me. It missed and fell on the floor. I sighed, picked it up, and hung it in the coat closet. Gingerly I reached out and continued the video.

Ka-el continued. “I realize that what I’ve just told you is very difficult to believe. I would ask you to try to be patient. This recording is more than eighteen hours long; I believe that you will trust what I’m saying by the end.”

Whoa! Eighteen hours! Couldn’t imagine for one second I’d get to the end of eighteen hours. Then I wondered how such a large file had got onto my computer and what had started it off? This whole thing felt less like a hack. Surely, a hacker wouldn’t send eighteen hours of video and go to all this trouble? Shit! Maybe he knew I was well-off? That made me feel a little hot under the collar. But I wasn’t that rich, not if you read Forbes magazine.

“We will never meet. Our technology has not conquered the ability for living creatures to travel faster than the speed of light. Our people are similar to the people on earth, but we have developed further. We estimate our technology is two hundred million years ahead of your planet. Our history indicates that we reached your level of technology almost four hundred and fifty million years ago, but there have been long periods of little or no advancement on Cirion.”

I was enjoying the story, even though I wasn’t buying into any of it. I remember being hooked on Sci-fi as a kid, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, but had read very few novels of that kind in the last few years. This could make a great novel.

Ka-el continued. “We went through long periods of contentment; life was easy and we became lethargic about intellectual growth. Every man and women on Cirion could have just about anything they desired; our medical knowledge had solved almost all illnesses. There appeared to be nothing new for us to learn or explore. Things changed maybe two million years ago, when a catastrophe threatened our world. We solved our problem and became less prosaic. We began to search the universe more deeply and found greater fulfillment in our lives. We also resurrected projects that our ancestors had initiated. Monitoring the development on Earth was one of those projects. Let me show you our world.”

Ka-el face disappeared and a planet, seen from space, filled the screen. Like Google Earth. But even from space I could see it was not earth. There were none of the familiar outlines of the continents in the shapes that I knew. The land masses were different and at first glance there was less ocean. Then the picture zoomed in, picking a land mass close to an ocean, arching down until buildings were visible. I guessed they were buildings. Vastly different from our cityscapes. Multi-colored, mostly pastels, but some frighteningly bright, with smooth edges and corners and no windows. None that I could see. Between the buildings were what looked like walkways? Multi-colored vegetation lined the edges with trees of a kind that I had never seen before. I searched for streets and vehicles, but could not see any. The picture moved in closer, people were walking between the buildings in multi-colored clothes, strange outfits with unique designs. I sat back suddenly when I saw that the people were all different colors, some bright, others red or green or blue. Their shapes were human, two arms and two legs and they walked just like us, maybe a lighter step, more bounce. Most wore hats but of those I could see that did not, that lump on the back of their heads was distinctly visible, as if their skulls had swollen. A childlike figure skipped past, much faster, almost springing, chasing a small animal that scampered like a dog on four legs. I guess it was a dog, I’d never seen anything like it before.

I leaned back in my chair, mesmerized by the scene, trying to take it all in. I could only believe that this was an elaborate depiction of someone’s imagination. A Hollywood Sci-fi movie. If it was, it was very good. The camera panned to an odd creature, dark blue with patches of silver but no mouth or nose to speak of. Just a hint of a human face. Where its legs should be, was a circular base that appeared to hover above the ground. It carried items that looked edible in a tray of some sort. It stopped and two of the green people took what must have been food from the tray. They took bites from their purchase and grinned at each other. I say purchase, but I did not see a financial transaction of any kind.

“This is a small city on Cirion, called Lomasir.” Ka-el voice came from my speakers. “That blue and silver droid is what you would call a robot. It is supplying snacks for whoever wants them. You will notice that there are no vehicles, that mode of transport died out hundreds of millions of years ago. We discovered anti-gravity a long time ago and moving by personal flight is typical for us. This particular area of the city is for walking, a popular pastime, we are very aware of the need to exercise. Our life span is one hundred and fifty to a little more than two hundred of your years, substantially longer than your life expectancy due to our medical technology. It is possible on Cirion to keep a brain alive forever and replant it in an artificial body, however we have rules to control our population and anyone who wishes to live past a specified age in that mode must move off-world. We’ve found that most of our people become bored with life eventually and voluntarily terminate.”