Chapter 5

Jacoby gathered his thoughts for a moment, then began, “We’re standing inside a pod that was placed here a little over sixty-five years ago by these beings.”

Placed here? I interrupted, “Wait! We must be at least two hundred feet underground. How could they get it down this deep without everybody within a ten-mile radius knowing about it?”

“By employing technologies they have and we don’t. Essentially, what they did was rest the pod on the surface, then liquify the soil beneath it with some sort of energy wave, allowing the pod to sink into the earth however far they wanted it to go. Suffice to say, they did it, and here we are. Now, please don’t interrupt while I’m trying to explain!”

“Sorry.”

He nodded and continued, “Now, that isn’t when I first made contact with them. My first encounter was in the spring of 1863, when I was twenty years old. It was late evening, and I’d left the cave to hunt a deer. I had to be very careful and quiet, because the smell of gun powder in the air told me Union and Confederate forces were in the area, and that a battle had probably taken place. I knew from the odors that the air was dangerous for me to breath, and that I would have to get back to the cave as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, our need for food took me to the top of the hill following a trail. When I got near the top, I climbed a tree and looked for fires indicating a military encampment. I saw something glowing softly, and at first, I thought it was a campfire, but the light didn’t flicker like flames and it was the wrong color.

“I climbed down and crept closer to get a better look, and that’s when I saw the ship. It was pentagonal in shape, about thirty feet across. The glow was coming from underneath it, sort of a pulsing amber light. I moved even closer, knowing even as I did so that I might be committing a foolish act. When I got to within a few feet, I heard a noise behind me. As I spun and brought up my bow to target the source, there was a blinding flash. The next thing I knew, I was waking up inside their vessel.

“I was lying on a table or a bed, unable to move, even though I wasn’t physically strapped down. There were four of these beings standing around me, apparently involved in a conversation. Of course, their language was meaningless to me. It sounded like a combination of chitters, clicks, grunts and sighs. They were gesticulating with their hands and pointing to me. I truly thought my end had come, but one of them, the one that appeared to be in charge, walked over to stand by my side when they saw I was awake. She placed pads over my ears, then spoke into some sort of device she held to her mouth. The effect was that I heard what she said in English. The device translated her language into mine. The first thing she said was, ‘You must not fear that we intend you harm.’

“I asked where I was, but she waved her hands and handed me a device like hers to speak into. It apparently translated my words into their language. I held it to my lips and asked again.

“She answered, ‘You are aboard a scout ship, and as you can see, we are not of your world. We wish to learn from you about your people. Will you answer our questions?’”

I answered, “If I can. If you’re not from my world, what world are you from?”

“You will learn that in time. My first question: We have been watching this war between your people for two cycles. Will you tell us why it is being waged?”

It wasn’t an easy question and I had to give it a lot of thought. “There are probably as many reasons as there are people involved. In general, it has to do with the rights of the state rule versus national rule. There are many facets to both sides, including the slavery of a whole race of people. There are many areas of disagreement that are so contentious that the opposing parties are unable to resolve their issues peacefully. Typical of human societies, when their elder spokespersons fail to affect a resolution to their differences, they often resort to killing each other.”

“She turned to speak to her companions. They had a short discussion, then she turned back to me and said, ‘You say typical of human societies as if you were not included. Are you neutral in this conflict?’

“I’m not just neutral, I’m not even one of their kind. I and my people have been driven underground into caves to survive. Over the years, the people you’ve been monitoring have fowled the air to the point that we die if we are exposed to it for too long. And we’re not the only ones who suffer. Wherever men go, other human and animal populations are often left dying in their wake.”

The story was so fantastic that, had I not known Jakoby as well as I did, I would have taken it as pure fiction. I couldn’t help myself, and interrupted again. “So, you’re saying you were abducted by aliens and taken aboard their ship. Does that mean all the crackpot abduction stories that have hit the papers over the last sixty or seventy years actually happened?”

“No, Jesse, I’m not saying that. I don’t doubt most of them are just as you described, crackpot. I can’t say how many, if any of them are valid, only that mine is real, and you only have to look around you to see that. Now, please, will you hold your questions until I’ve finished?”

I nodded, chastened again.

He continued, “Whatever force was restraining me was released, and I was allowed to sit up. I went on to explain that we were a separate branch of the human species, and that we were rapidly dying out because we couldn’t survive in the industrial world being built up around us. My interrogator asked how long I thought we could survive under the present conditions. It was my opinion that, unless whole nations enacted laws to clean the air and find ways to end the pollution, I didn’t think we’d last another two hundred years, even hiding underground as we were.

“She asked why my people didn’t negotiate for a territory of our own where we’d be safe from the industrialization. I explained that, as far as the dominant society was concerned, nothing stood in the way of expansion and profit. It was concept they called ‘Manifest Destiny’, employed to justify any and all aggressive actions. One need only observe what had happened to the native peoples to appreciate what that implied.

“To make a long story shorter, Jesse, after hours of being questioned and undergoing a meticulous physical examination, I was released, but on the condition that I would meet with them on a regular basis to report on our status. They implanted a small device in my neck to keep track of my location.” He turned his head and lifted his hair to show me a small lump behind his left ear.

“Since that night in 1863, I met with them on an average of about every ten years. In the summer of 1950, the same being with whom I’d first met told me she and her sisters had come to an agreement that, if my people so wished, we could be relocated to a planet many light years distant that they had already explored. Apparently, their measurements of the growing pollution in Earth’s atmosphere confirmed what I told them. They said the new planet was Earth-like in many respects, although fully sentient life hadn’t yet evolved.

“I arranged conferences with clan leaders from around the world, and after hours and days of debate, most agreed it was our only real chance of long-term survival. It was unlikely humanity would find a solution to the problem of rampant pollution in time to save us. Many of our people were and are loathe to abandon their home, and choose to remain, but more than half of us voted to leave Earth.

“Our benefactors said it would take until the year 2022 for them to complete their current mission and prepare their ship to accommodate us. We’ll be transported in a suspended state, just like the ones you see here. The reason these four were left behind is to prepare us. When their primary ship is ready to approach Earth, they’ll send a signal to awaken these four, and I’ll begin notifying the other clans. There are four sites located around the world where we’ll convene. This is one of them. Clans will be coming here from all over North America to be prepped for transport.”

I raised my hand. “Can I ask about a couple of things you said?”

“Now you can ask.”

“Well, you mentioned a primary ship. Does that mean the one you saw was just one of many scout ships? And you said something about when the primary ship was ready to approach Earth. Um, where is it?”

“I’ll tell you what they told me, Jesse. These beings are a space-faring people ... no, they’re more than that. They are born, live, and die on board their ship. The distances they traverse are so vast that it’s impractical for them to even have a home world.