Neil A. Hogan Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer
Space Fiction Writer Author Editor
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After Karil’s suborbital descent, Jrok takes her to investigate the surface of this dwarf planet.
But what are the black pools that dot the surface?
Why have eight observation modules mysteriously disappeared?
And how can something so active be so empty of life, with not even a strand of DNA?
Find out more in Strange Lands. Science Fiction Weekly #29.
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Alien Dimensions is a science fiction short stories anthology series featuring amazing authors from around the world.
Previous issues have featured stories about extraterrestrials, clones, robots and androids, invasion and colonization, cyberpunk and space opera, first contact, genetic manipulation, starship exploration and more.
From seriousness to humorous, high octane to slow burn, from back-story heavy to present tense dialogue-driven adventures, Alien Dimensions explores the far future.
Enjoy a much more alien experience with Alien Dimensions.
In Alien Dimensions #18:
Titan’s Spores by Olga Werby
The Pride of Tau Ceti by Gustavo Bondoni
An Option to Live by David Castlewitz
Tin Man by Paula Keane
Impact by Adam S. Furman
Making Room by Kenneth W. Grant
Woman in the Moon by David B. Anderson
Flash Fiction: Gene-Reality / Controller by Neil A. Hogan
Available in Digital and in Print from Amazon
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Episode 1: The Hand Continued
Chapter 5
Heartness and the boff appeared next to a large window looking out onto a wide starscape. Resignedly, she stopped struggling and looked out. Her years in space meant she recognized the view. The constellation of Cassiopeia. It was the same image that might have been visible from her station at a point in the orbit around Saturn, but with an additional star near the middle.
Sol.
She sniffed the air and almost choked. Stale and recycled. Not a single whiff of perfume. Gravity felt slightly lighter than Earth normal. Possibly Proxibee normal. Proxibee was larger than Earth but its mass was made up with more low atomic weight elements, so there wasn’t as much gravity. But the humming below her suggested that she wasn’t on Proxibee. She was on a ship of some kind.
The boff released Heartness and stepped back, allowing her a moment. Heartness rubbed her arm but there wasn’t a mark. The robot had gripped her firmly, but gently.
Was it possible to escape? She looked about. Far away, on the other side of the room, was what looked to be the pilot’s area. A tiny flickering dot from where Heartness was standing, but filled with a massive view screen. Any pilot sitting there would think there wasn’t a ship, and that they were just in space. Heartness decided the pilot section was probably for emergencies. Still, it was an option.
While Earth council ships were quite conservative with their space, with every centimeter used and accounted for, corporations could be excessive. The room was at least a kilometer wide. Even with her augmented eyesight, she could barely make out the other side of ship in the distance. A prismatic point finished the ceiling far above her. Was the outside of the ship like a pyramid? The floor seemed to suggest it, stretching in an almost perfect square shape, apart from some exits to corridors on her right.
The entire one kilometer-edged triangular ship, the Stellar Flash, could fit inside with some room to spare. Was this a mother ship of some kind? She accessed data through her newly installed lobe system under her left ear, but expected it would be a while before it retrieved the information she wanted.
And then she remembered her date tonight, and sighed. Zhou would have simply told him she’d been called away on urgent business. At least it was better than telling him she had disappearing ring ice to watch.
“Alright, boff. You’ve brought me here. I’m sure your corporation couldn’t care less about the potential fine and jail time, if I was to complain, so now what? Champagne?”
The robot officer slowly turned its retro cube-shaped head to Admiral Victoria Heartness, then lifted up its plastic four-fingered hand. “What I’m about to show you is private and confidential.” A bluish hologram began to form above it.
Heartness glared at the image taking shape. “If you’re going to tell me I’m your only hope, I’m going to have words.”
The boff remained silent as the hologrammatic video became more defined, then began playing.
It was not what Heartness was expecting at all.
A macabre image of an indistinct human hand rotated in the air in front of her, tiny waves of electricity sparking and cascading across its surface. The skin looked alive, with faint veins swollen in mid throb near the wrist. The nails were chipped and dirty, with shadows of dust in places. Dark oil marks on the finger tips, and the general blurriness of the blue image disguised its owner.
“What is it?” asked Heartness, fascinated, as the hand continued to turn. “A piece of artwork?” For a moment, she had thought it had simply been cut off by the edge of the visual reference. But then the wrist had faced her, showing a cross section of the marrow in both the radius and ulna, surrounded by muscles, veins and skin perfectly sliced through as though separated from the rest of the body at the molecular level. There was also a flickering field right at the edge, suggesting that whatever the hand was attached to, was accessing some other dimension.
“A human hand,” answered the boff, anticlimactically.
Heartness sighed, her curiosity changing back to annoyance with the robot. “I can see that,” she growled. “What happened to it? Who’s it from?”
The boff pointed at the hand above his hand. “This was found at the Proxima Centauri B Frequency Research Center, inside hexicle 18.” It turned the image off and the bright light of the field faded away, revealing the expansive room once again.
“My leasor has not informed the interstellar military yet,” the boff continued. “She wants this to be discrete. She sent me as soon as she realized some delicacy was required.”
“And so, you decided to strongly encourage me to come.” While she hadn’t taken any private gigs for some time, thanks to her work with Earth Council and the Interdimensional Coalition, she knew from experience that initially, most private organizations and government parties required some secrecy before announcing the solved problem to the world.
“We have sealed hexicle 18 until you are able to have a close look at it.”
Heartness had no idea how getting closer to the floating hand would help her be any the wiser. “Any other records? What about others on the base? Do you have any other evidence of the missing 27?”
“Updates received. The hand is the only living thing that has been found so far. Though, our benefactor is not sure about something else nearby, which she plans to show you. However, only 17 of the 54 hexicles have been explored. Investigation has now been paused while we await your response.”
“The hand is alive?”
“Still. It hangs there, not dying. The hand could not be shown to you on your station. Now that you have seen it, you are free to decide. You have your flash band and can leave from this point in space at any time. Please let me repeat that 27 scientists have disappeared, and your presence is required.”
Heartness knew this was her field. She was contacted when there was anything the bot officers, A.I. detectives, or government organizations couldn’t solve. With her extensive experience in multiple dimensions and realities, there weren’t that many in humanity’s sectors that could do what she did. She smiled ruefully. She would be happy to give them a hand. “You know my price.”
“Yes, Admiral Heartness. Labor credits are ready to transfer to your charity the moment you sign.”
Heartness moved some hair out of the way, and touched her implant. It was still searching for information on the ship, but the work contract had already been transmitted directly to her. It displayed in front of her eyes. Her analysis software did not detect anything unusual, so she sent a simple thought, and her brain wave vibration signature was transmitted via flash communication to the authorization department in the main brokerage on a satellite orbiting Proxima Centauri C. Within a couple of seconds she received the confirmation back via flash satellite relay that the first 100,000 credits had been transferred to her charity. “Boff. As you can now independently confirm, the contract is signed, and I will help the F.R.I find a solution. Please advise Space Station X-1a that I am fine and that everything is under control.”
“I’m sorry, Admiral Victoria Heartness,” said a voice in the air near her. “We must keep this a secret for now.”
“Have you been standing there invisible the whole time?” Heartness asked the air.
“The boff alerted me that you have signed, so I drifted over.” Then there was a click, and a woman phase-shifted into reality next to them, taking a couple of steps to reorient herself with the floor. She looked at Heartness seriously. “The hand you saw isn’t the only problem we have. We moved to an outer orbit to collect you more safely. The moment you arrived, the ship began moving back to the closest point we can get. We can’t flash jump closer due to the disturbances, but we’re only a few million kilometers from Proxibee.”
Heartness was unfazed by the woman’s phase-in, and briefly noted the boff had shut down as she appeared. But she had to know more. “What sort of disturbances?”
“It’s better that I show you,” replied the woman. She walked towards an exit in the distance, expecting her to follow.
Heartness sighed to herself. Well, if the woman wasn’t going to go through the introduction niceties, or at the very least say her name, Heartness would look it up herself. These outerworlders assumed everyone used facial recognition as a normal part of socializing and business, but Heartness was still a bit old school.
Her lobe storage unit had finished downloading anything related to Proxima Centauri, decades of data, and had accessed the most relevant information, predicting Heartness’ needs. The woman was Doctor Vilanna Szuki, born on one of the envirostations circling Proxima Centauri D. 37 years old. Seven PhDs. Her father was from Japan and her mother from Ghana, so her features were almost movie-star like. High cheek bones, blue eyes, mocha skin, and a lithe movement that could probably break a few hearts.
Heartness guessed her model looks might be one of the reasons why the woman was hiding away on a massive ship in another star system. Every media outlet from here to Sirius would want a piece of her. Though, if she ever got her back to the space station, that moodhair would have to go.
“I hope you don’t mind if I ask a lot of questions,” said Heartness.
“Of course.” Szuki smiled demurely as Heartness caught up to her. “But there are some things that can’t be explained and will need to be shown.”
“But what about this space? Why so large?”
Szuki laughed, her frizzy hair flickering with gold highlights. “Oh, daddy had this built for me for my 16th. You know, on Earth, parents used to give their children houses or cars. My daddy gave me this spaceship. Big enough to enjoy an almost infinite number of worlds in. I call it the Traverse.”
“Isn’t that a verb?”
Szuki touched her flashband, and the room was transformed into a mountainous terrain with a corral of horses. One of them whinnied and came over to her. She stroked it affectionately, though to Heartness it looked like she wasn’t quite touching it. “Hello stony. See you again soon.”
Szuki clicked her band again, and the entire paddock and animals disappeared, replaced by towering fluid rocks, three suns, and a group of large spikey aliens gathered around an upturned-mushroom-shaped table. “Hey, Sharpie, congratulations on your new spores!”
A slapping sound came from one of the spiny aliens, which was quickly translated to “Hello Vilanna. Thank you. Good to see you again.”
“You too!” Szuki smiled and clicked her band again, and the tableaux disappeared, revealing the empty space once more.
“So, it’s a hologram room. A gaming place,” said Heartness.
Szuki pursed her lips and her hair changed to a light green. “Not exactly. Follow me. I’ll tell you on the way.”
Heartness frowned. Getting information out of people here was going to be harder than she thought.
Temporal Incursion. Stellar Flash Book Three. By Neil A. Hogan
Available in Digital and in Print Formats from Amazon
This is the last of the preview chapters. I hope you enjoyed them. Thank you very much for reading.
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Temporal Incursion. Stellar Flash Book Three. By Neil A. Hogan
Available in Digital and in Print Formats from Amazon
Episode 1: The Hand Continued
Chapter 2
Admiral Victoria Heartness got up from her desk at the darkening interior of her space station office and scratched at her newly extended long brown hair. Something was wrong, if the raised hair on the back of her neck was any indication. The shadows in the room were lengthening, and it had nothing to do with the reflected light from Saturn just beyond her window.
Unless it was more to do with science, she thought. Static electricity? An increase in electrons causing eyes to perceive a slight darkening of the environment?
She looked down at her arms and could see the hair on the backs of them rising as well. What could cause that? She walked around the room. Was it getting lighter in the center?
The only thing possible was the controlled formation of an isolation field of a personal flash jump. And the slow speed suggested a longer jump
Then everything became clear to her.
Someone was about to flash jump into her secure office, from outside the Solar System, illegally!
Florans coming back to get revenge?
Higher frequency aliens not realizing there are laws in Frequency Zero?
Doctor John Patel forgetting to forewarn?
Who or what else could it be?
Even her date had to meet her at the bar, and no one else was scheduled.
She went back to her monitor and quickly closed the file she had been working on, a secret services logo appearing on it before it disappeared. She briefly imagined white noise across her thoughts to erase anything related to the file, then she got up from her desk and walked around the room.
“Alright. Where are you? It doesn’t usually take this long to materialize. What are you waiting for?”
There was only one group that might be able slow the manifestation this much. The Frequency Research Institute. Those corporation types were highly likely to send a representative to beg. Nice of them to ring a doorbell first, she thought. She wondered who they would send. She hoped, if it was a he, then he’d be handsome.
She shielded her eyes as a bright oval of white light wiped the color from the room for a moment, and a chunky, one-meter-tall blue robot appeared.
To be more precise, a corporation’s leased robot officer.
She looked at it with dismay. Talk about a disappointment. “You sent a boff?” she said to whoever might be listening. “I guess you need to learn a thing or two about impressing someone.”
The robot swiveled its round eyes and cube head towards her. “Admiral Victoria Heartness identified. Your presence is required.”
“No. I already turned your request down. I have much more important things to do right now. There are plenty of other people in the System who can h…”
A piercing alarm began to sound across Space Station X-1a, and probably soon on the nearby bases on some of Saturn’s moons. Heartness swore as she remembered this kind of incursion would immediately activate any number of potential anti-foothold strategies. She quickly ran back to her desk and swiped her finger on the panel inset, canceling them. Then she spoke to the ceiling. “A.I. Broadcast the false-alarm message.” As she stomped angrily back over to the robot, she barely heard the placating message of the A.I. echoing throughout the station.
“Why are you here?” She faced down the placid face of the boff with her hands on her hips. “What possible situation could have occurred just over four light years away that needs my personal attention right now? You’ve broken quite a number of laws coming here already.”
The boff stared impassively forward. Like an ancient robot toy for children, its cube-shaped head with round metal eyes, a wide mouth with painted teeth, and even white marks on the side to indicate ears, suggested something that no one could take too seriously.
A spring of antennae stretched across the top of its head, and its head sat atop a rectangular body with additional oversized buttons and dials. When everything the boff needed to be able to function could fit into a few thin cylinders on stilts, this bulky dysfunctional throwback was almost laughable. Despite herself, Heartness marveled at the retro construction, and especially liked the large off-switch on the back.
The boff’s simplistic communications system began to explain in a tenor lilt, even echoing apologetically. Heartness frowned at the program’s attempt to appeal to her emotional side.
“I apologize, Admiral Victoria Heartness, ma’am. But my licensor says that it is urgent. 27 scientists have disappeared from our base on Proxima Centauri B. Your presence is required.”
Heartness looked at it, exasperatedly. She was tired of corporations leasing robot officers, then not programming them correctly. “Find the answers. Fix the problem. That’s what you’re programmed for. You don’t need me.”
The boff stood silent. It had delivered its message and now it was waiting on a response to that message. Nothing else.
A simple machine.
Heartness hmphed, then walked around it, while she thought. What was she going to do with it? Would it leave when she said no? Would it hang around until she said yes? Maybe she could get Watanabe in to look at its programming. Was there anything special about it? No weapons. That was a good sign. Soft plastic, though it looked metal. She could see the slots where its arms and legs were connected, and easily detachable.
Everything was easily replaceable, and some of the parts could even operate by themselves in an emergency. Heartness knew the boff also contained some organic components to ensure that at some point it would have to break down. All robots had these fail-safes to make sure there was no chance of a permanent robot takeover. Even so, it was likely an army of these mechs might just temporarily win, as everyone attempting to fight them would be doubled over with laughter.
There wasn’t enough memory or software for the boff to become sentient, and it just did what it had to do. She stared thoughtfully at the off-switch on the back. Should she…?
No.
“Go back to where you came from, and tell the F.R.I that I’m responsible for over 1000 beings and their families here. I can’t leave every time you can’t do your jobs.”
“This is your final answer?” asked the boff.
“Yes. Tell your people…”
Like lightning, the boff’s right hand snapped out and grabbed Heartness’ arm, then its left slapped an override on Heartness’ flash band.
“What?” she yelled. “You can’t do this.” She smashed her fist down on the arm, but it just bounced back.
She tried to pull the arm off from its side, but the boff was already activating the return journey.
“No!” Heartness yelled, as the flash field enveloped them, and they disappeared.
Temporal Incursion. Stellar Flash Book Three. By Neil A. Hogan
Available in Digital and in Print Formats from Amazon
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With movies like Arrival getting a lot of attention in the mainstream press, many would like to know, myself included, what the official protocols are for first alien contact. After much searching I’ve come to the conclusion that we don’t have anything in place.
Yes, seriously! (Well, officially!)
No government agency has a formal step by step system in place. The main reason for this is that no government agency actually expects it to happen for at least another twenty years. (Best to leave it for the next generation?)
I find this very strange, as we have detailed step-by-step plans for all government officials, members of royalty and civilians for just about any eventually. Why we don’t have official protocols for first alien contact is beyond me.
After all, if the government of your country wants to make sure that you as a citizen are safe, no matter what the eventuality, pamphlets, leaflets, websites, social media, video sharing sites and more should have some easily found list of protocols for the eventuality of running into an alien at some point.
If I was Prime Minister of my country, I certainly wouldn’t want a teenage kid stumbling onto a UFO in a field somewhere, hooking up with the aliens, then going for a joyride, teaching them how cool it is to troll people, or encouraging them to blast a bully at their school. I’d prefer there to be strict rules in place, much like the safety demonstrations on air flights.
“Good morning citizens. Welcome to protocol 47. Our friendly team will demonstrate the correct way to approach a space alien, if one happens to land in your back yard…”
Of course, there are plenty of citizen plans out there. SETI has one, other organizations, too. But major governments? Nope. Rumor has it that the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs is planning to draft a protocol soon. Nothing on their website yet. (UNOOSA)
And so, of course, if aliens are out there waiting for us to make contact, they need to make a few more cups of tea before we get our act together.
But, assuming aliens are waiting for us to give them an official invitation, the first thing we need to do is get organized about sending a message. When famous scientists like Stephen Hawking have said it’s dangerous, and we shouldn’t contact aliens, you’ll understand why we haven’t done even that yet.
And I don’t mean a gold disk on the side of a piece of equipment thrown into space. Or a signal sent into space in ’74 by Carl Sagan, purported to have been replied to via crop circle a few years ago, and dismissed. I mean a real, comprehensive, contact message signed by leaders of all the nations of the world.
When that happens THAT will really be the first step. Any alien race will be far more advanced than us and would probably be simply getting on with their lives, waiting for us to grow up and actually want to contact them. So, we need to send that official message on behalf of the entire human race. All countries need to get on board and agree to it.
Okay, now we can get to step two, the most popular area of making first contact with aliens, but one which leaves me cold.
The International Academy of Astronautics has created the “Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence.” This was with the support of the International Institute of Space Law, according to Wikipedia. This declaration includes what to do in the event of the detection of an alien race, what level of acceptance society is at, and other factors relating to whether the message can be understood, or even revealed.
The problem with this is that it assumes that there would be a natural order or progression for this situation, and that governments would be the ones to announce it. It also assumes a detection event like a signal or even a single ship, invisible to almost everyone in orbit. Neither of these are likely. It’s far more likely we’ll get a very noticeable appearance with no regard to red tape or official procedure.
My personal feeling is that we’ll get the ‘official’ announcement quickly through Facebook and YouTube, followed by news reports as cameras arrive on the scene.
It may take weeks before world governments get their act together and make an official announcement. And by then, the aliens would have already been having a coffee with us.
Certainly, there would be a huge number of people, myself included, who would travel to the site to make contact, without going through officials, without considering it to be a momentous occasion, without once thinking that the first person to meet the aliens would somehow be recorded in history. (Why would it matter? Aliens!)
Of course, if you want to follow strict procedure, if you’re in a country that is part of the Commonwealth, the only logical person to be flown over to meet the aliens first would be the Queen (or King) of England! That would not be considered safe, nor would it be acceptable. Like Arrival, it would be far more likely that only the military would be involved. This would certainly cause problems if the aliens decide a shopping mall in the middle of a CBD would be the ideal place to land.
If we were to assume the aliens wouldn’t want to disrupt government procedures (really?) then they would simply appear above all the major government buildings, and ask to speak to the leaders.
A very advanced alien race, with more spaceships than Earth has cars, would simply position them all above the local councils as well, creating an atmosphere of ships. There would be no need for any leaders to come out and say anything.
“Thank you for your call. If you are calling about the spaceships in the sky…Yes, they are alien. No, we don’t know anything yet. No, there’s nothing you can do. Just continue with your lives until you hear an announcement from the Queen/President/Prime Minister in your area.”
SETI have their own alien contact guide which can be found here. It really does work from a perspective of detecting a signal, though.
But, many SF fans aren’t interested in boring signals. We want real solid, chunky space craft, and shaking hands (or some other protuberance) with aliens in a first contact situation.
So, while the SETI plan for signal detection would be useful for a slow dissemination of information, it doesn’t really deal with the mass landing scenario.
Of course, science fiction writers have come up with many types of protocols over the decades, and you’ll find them in all sorts of stories. But an actual official protocol set that covers a mass landing? Nope. Nowhere.
Perhaps it is hidden in the CIA or FBI files, or maybe Mulder and Scully have it. In any case, the governments of the world are saying that humanity is not yet ready for alien contact.
Oh, aliens landing? Hang on. We haven’t done the paperwork on that. Can you ask them to come back later? Can we get an extension of time? Yeah, I know you first asked in 1947, but, just a bit longer. Hello? Hello?