Trouble in Orion's Belt; A Stellar Journey

Dave had carefully maneuvered the helicopter down to the bottom of the cubicle. At this moment they were not surprised to see a welcoming committee awaiting their arrival. The surprise was that there were only four of them and all were at the greeting stance.

Dave, not sure of the Moirae code of ethics went passed them nodding his head as one would passing a group of people in Japan.

Donna merely went passed waving and smiling.

Richard had the unfortunate experience of slapping one on the back and got jabbed by the prickly tuft of fur. Thankfully the creature didn’t seem to notice and the leader of this group gestured for them to proceed down a corridor which looked like a large tunnel leading further down.

“Now I know why these creatures live underground,” Donna remarked, “it’s noticeably much cooler down here.”

“Yes well I’m wondering how far down they’re going to take us,” Dave suggested.

Dave was carrying a canvas bag that held the instruments he planned to use to illustrate the fundamentals of aerodynamic design to the creatures. He was delighted to find that they were only traveling a short distance to a chamber which held a circular table. In the middle of the ceiling of the room was a circular device that had tube-like appendages jutting out of it.

The leader of the group of creatures went through an opening in the table formation and stopped at what must have been a control panel. The tube-like appendages turned out to be a holographic projection center. Reveal by the fact that they now formed a globe of light in the center of the circle.

The creature motioned Dave to a hole in the table which was an adjustable opening; for which Dave had not yet determined a purpose.

After Dave had removed the holographic projection devices from the canvas bag he was carrying; at which time the creature retrieved the device and placed it into the adjustable hole and adjusted it accordingly.

“Hmmm? These creatures are pretty observant,” Dave remarked. “This apparently is an adapter which will feed my projections into their own projector and making the imagery much larger.”

Dave tested his theory by turning his projector on and momentarily images appeared in the space surrounded by the table.”

The creatures relaxed off to the side waiting for the demonstration to begin. Dave got the remote control from the bag and began working the controls.

The first images to appear were flocks of birds; fading in and out with various types of flying animals. At first it was the flights of Doves which turned into Eagles and Hawks. Eventually it showed the flights of bats.

With each change of imagery the creatures seemed to ebb and flow with excitement making humming noises and moving the appendages in different gestural patterns.

Finally the projections turned to wing designs and other aerodynamic devices; showing Leonardo de Vinci’s wing drawings and eventually aircraft schematics.

There was a brief flash of the Wright brothers and of course Charles Lindberg and even of Howard Hughs.

“Well, isn’t this getting a little too involved for the creatures,” Donna remarked.

“Evidently these tutorials were not intended for extraterrestrials,” Richard somewhat agreed. “But I have a feeling that these creatures have the ability to translate the abilities for their own purposes; also from their reactions I’d say that they are appreciative for the information. The real trick here would be for them to articulate these into actual working models that will transport them safely from here to Lachesis.”

“Richard, there is a possibility that the Lachesans will be able to build a ship before them. If I got my guess right they have been exchanging ideas for sometime now. Logically I would assume that the Lachesans could build a ship using less material because of their size difference,” Donna suggested.

“Hmmm? There’s a thought,” he agreed. “Dave, do you suppose there is a way to suggest this to them.”

“I would assume that they have already surmised that possibility,” Dave responded. “After-all both of these communities have the same desire to make physical contact.”

“Speaking of which I think we need to start teaching these guys a more hands on aerodynamic design.”

“Well they seem pretty excited already,” Dave said, “and it’s like they learn rather quickly.”

“Let me try something,” Richard suggested as he approached the huddle of creatures.

Richard took an electronic measuring device from his backpack and made sure the creatures could see what it was. He measured an area on an 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper and then drew some intersecting lines and folded the paper to the lines until it formed a paper airplane and threw it forward. All of them including the creatures watched the plane fly around the chamber.

The four of then seemed to have a discussion amongst themselves moving their upper appendages in a multitude of gestures. They kept up this behavior for about a minute when one of the creatures quickly left the room. He returned shortly with a fairly large device.

This Richard soon realized was and electronic micrometer with a clear digital screen. The creature worked a dial which shortly produced an image on the screen of a rectangle with intersecting lines. The rectangle folded itself on its intersecting lines until it produced an image which looked like the paper airplane he showed them; which rotated and flipped a certain angles giving it a 3-D appearance.

The creature turned another dial and the image seemed to fly around inside the screen.”

“Well, if I may say so myself I think they might have caught on,” Dave suggested.

“Would say they have the idea; now all we need to do is show them schematics of working spacecraft and allow them to figure out the proportions,” Richard said.

“Yes, but what about propulsion?” Donna inquired. “Would they need to figure out thrust ratios as per payload differentials?”

“They would,” Dave responded, “but we have two days to get to that. And they’ve figured out a lot in the short time we’ve been here. I would estimate in approximately two Earth years they will have made the journey.”

“Considering that the materials needed to complete the task have already been developed; and if not I’s add about ten years to that equation,” Richard supposed further. “In any case by the time we leave on Saturday we will have given then a head start.”

“From the look of their excitement,” Donna said, “I would say they realize it.”

The creatures were making grunting noises and making obvious gestures with their limbs.

Their excitement increased when Dave moved the machine forward to rocketry and space shuttle technologies.

“They know what they’re looking for,” he remarked. I think that tomorrow we can show them schematics of ship designs. With their design capabilities and their capacity to learn it should take them no time to figure out trajectories and telemetries; then we can go back and tell Aumrill we accomplished the task.”

Later when the group was leaving the creatures showed an almost sad expression. The communication was somewhat lost.

The next day Dave showed then the design schematics for which they repeated on their holographic design monitor.

Saturday evening the creatures gathered around outside the compound in a farewell gesture in gratitude; they instinctively knew that their new friends were leaving.

“I have retrieved videos of their sign movements in order to study their language,” Julia said. “That should keep me busy for a while.”

“And I think we can give Aumrill a full report when we return,” Dave remarked.

“I am going to give her more than a remark,” Richard said, “I’m having a complete discussion with her.”

“Let’s just go home,” Donna remarked. “I’m ready to go back and spend time in my garden.”

“Amen,” Dana replied, “I was homesick when I came here.”

“Come-on Dana,” Bob countered. “If we hadn’t come along we’d be somewhere between Jupiter and Mars.”

“Well the portal is here,” Brad announced, “and it’s time to go home.”