Strange Universe: The Seedlings, #2

By James Katz

Having survived their abduction from Earth and an Intergalactic war, the colonists now confront something more insidious. How they handle this new terrifying revelation may change the past and future of their universe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Katz
• Release date: Jun 8, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227074058

James Katz

The author has spent much of his time traveling and enjoying the great outdoors. His interest in Science Fiction started the first time he viewed "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

Book preview

Our First Weeks

We had been in our new habitat on Lika for about two weeks when Sarah gave birth to a boy. This child could pass for any child born on Earth, unlike my other two children, Evan and Emma, who looked alien because they were part alien. It may be my ego speaking, but David looked like me, which reminded me of my father. Thus, David's birth became a bitter-sweet moment.

The birthing procedure took place in a Likan medical center. Humanoids were there to help assist in the delivery. I was there. I had not witnessed many births, but it appeared that for this birth, Sarah didn't have much of a struggle or pain; hearing that directly from Sarah after the delivery confirmed my observation.

The medical center was an interesting place. It was quiet and administered by robots and androids, except in the delivery room where humanoids and non-humanoids could be found. Admittedly, it took a little while for me to process all the strange life forms, but once you realize you appear just as odd to others, you get over it. There was no antiseptic smell like in hospitals back on Earth, yet the hospital was spotless and quiet.

When we believed Sarah was ready to deliver, the transport arrived, and all the transports used repulsive gravity to fly. It picked us up outside our door and flew directly to the medical center, ten minutes from our habitat. Once we arrived on site, an anti-grav bed monitored by some robots whisked her to a delivery center. There, she was kept warm and comfortable. I did not see drugs administered to her, but she was oddly quiet. Perhaps she was given a sedative while moving to her room, or maybe something was in the bed itself. Regardless, the birth was smooth, and our baby was delivered safely less than two hours after arrival.

After the birth, Sarah was comfortably placed in a well-lit room with a big window and a baby at her side. Occasionally, an android would come in to check on her. It seemed like we were in an area with no one else. Later that day, Sarah and I returned home with the baby. Accompanying us with our son was a child hibernation pod and a couple of watch-like items.

Before we left, we were instructed how to use it, which was quite unbelievable. We could safely put David in the pod naked, and an AI module would monitor his bodily functions and send them our watches so we could be assured of his safety. The module could be set to let him sleep naturally at his own schedule, or we could state the number of hours within reason we wanted him to sleep comfortably. We watched a few training videos on this technology before becoming believers. This functionality would allow us to leave home in the morning for work and return before David woke. On Lika, it was an accepted method of raising your child.

About a month earlier, after accepting jobs to repair the destruction of recently war-torn planets and becoming Likan citizens, all the earthlings that had agreed to stay on Lika were transported to the smallest continent on Lika, Elorn. As we adjusted to life on Elorn, we were instructed on how to create living spaces using computer-aided design tools. All the living spaces were designed modular and were not called homes but habitats. The tools were simple, and you could easily add or remove a room to fit your habitat with the click of a device that reminded me of a computer mouse.

You created the design of your habitat using online tools that required responses about size, color, and functionality, and robotic workers delivered and installed the finished product, usually in under a day, to an area assigned to you. We ultimately chose an end unit, hoping that noise would be less of an issue. Before we moved in, we asked a member of a construction team about the neighborhood, which seemed like a normal thing to do. We were told that humanoids were grouped here regularly but nothing else.

Once we moved in, we rarely heard a peep from our neighbors or saw any of them, and we later learned that many of our former neighbors had been relocated all over the planet as an algorithm determined they were needed.

From the outside, the homes looked plain. They were off-white and set up in u-shaped designs. Every construction site had a small park-like setting with plants and trees, relieving the absence of color.

Our habitat had eight separate rooms. We gave one room each to our children Evan and Emma, one for ourselves, a living area, a kitchen/food processing area, two bathroom-like regions, and the last room for the baby. While designing our habitat, I wondered if there was a limit to the number of rooms we could have had. We decided on what we really needed and ran with that.

Habitats came furnished. The living room furniture was similar to bean bag chairs in that it was soft and pliable. The habitat creators must have thought humanoids liked soft, mushy furniture; maybe some did.

The entire habitat was voice-controlled. You could ask questions about anything, set temperatures up or down, and change the lighting with a command. When in doubt, you could query what I assumed were databanks that were publically accessible. We were denied access to that information whenever we asked questions about the Earth.

In the center of our habitat, we had a large view screen similar to a television. It allowed us to watch locations in near real-time around the galaxy and was also attached to a library containing knowledge of the known universe. There was nothing like human sports or comedy; the entertainment choices were quite dry, and we needed help understanding some of them. When queried, the responses were not always self-explanatory.

Music was also available, but finding something you liked to hear was difficult. Although exposure to different cultures was sometimes enlightening and other times just strange.

On day one of our move into our new home, we started our new lives by understanding our habitat's controls. We found that our clothes automatically adjusted to whatever temperature we felt comfortable at. Each garment was connected to a central area where our vital statistics could be monitored. It was a thing of beauty. I wanted my clothes to feel cool, while Sarah liked hers warmer, and setting that up was simple. Cleaning clothes required us to place them in a small box-like device. There, magic happened in under a minute. The clothes always smelled fresh, and there were never any stains. Each of us had two sets of similar clothes and moccasin-like shoes that molded comfortably around our feet.

The process of shopping for food was a different story; it was not an option. A food processing system was built into all habitats to provide the correct daily nutrition for our species, but the default food looked different from Earth's food. Its consistency was of a soft yogurt, and the taste varied. We had a lot of choices, though.

Once we learned how to use the food menu, we went a bit crazy. One night, we tried Likan food for fun and almost threw up just from the smell. Rigelan food was barely tolerable. Since the Earth was under the control of another species, we had no access to anything found there. Items like alcohol were not an option unless you could provide the exact formula, and we never could find something we liked.

I believed there must be cultures with some food similar to the Earth's, but our chances of stumbling across it were small unless we knew what to look for. You couldn't successfully search for a cheeseburger and fries. Nor was spaghetti on any menu.

As new Likan citizens, we were required to take courses to help us understand Likan history, society, laws, and the standard technology that now surrounds us. We sometimes felt like cavemen that had been thrust a thousand years forward in history, but we struggled onward, one day at a time. Slowly, Sarah and I adapted to our new home world, while our children, Evan and Emma, had no trouble adjusting. Their P'kai enlarged brains made our technology child's play to them.

We had previously learned that creatures from the star Rigel were the civilization responsible for creating Homo Sapiens. Their civilization was thousands of years ahead of Earth's, and they were considered humanoids. By tampering with humanity's DNA thousands of years ago, they allowed our brains to take the steps required to process reason and logic. DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Most DNA is in the cell nucleus. Nearly every cell in a person's body has the same DNA. Without the Rigelians tampering with our DNA, mankind would probably still look like it did hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Not too surprisingly, Rigelians looked something like us, and although they were about seven feet tall when you saw one of them, you could see a resemblance with humans. They had eyes, a nose, and a mouth like ours. What differentiated them besides their height was their large heads and protruding ears. The digits on our hands and feet were the same. Internally, they had four lungs and a heart structure that was similar to that of humans. Less oxygen and more nitrogen on Rigel were given as reasons for the two other lungs. Their blood was red, like humans, too.

The atmosphere of their home planet, known as Proxima b to Earthlings, was not as kind as Earth's. The temperatures there varied depending on where Proxima b was in its travels around its sun. It also had a very rugged terrain, which may have accounted for the remarkable climbing abilities of the Rigelians. On our viewer, we watched and saw that many could climb better than goats.

Baratu was a Rigelian by birth. He had overseen the wedding ceremony between Sarah and me on Lika then and had graciously extended an invitation to visit with him and his family. We had decided that once Sarah had some time to recover from David's birth, we would meet our Rigelan neighbors.

We used our view screen to learn Rigel had a societal system like humans. Adults there mated for life and had children like humans. Their natural life spans were more prolonged than humans by approximately eighty years. With medical intervention, though, many lived longer than five hundred years.

There were creatures in the universe that we learned were over twenty thousand years old. It was hard to believe, but we had no reason to doubt what we had learned. Most superior societies offered their inhabitants the ability to extend life. And when you took into account years spent in deep hibernation, it was no surprise that creatures outlived their expected lifespans.

Since moving into our habitat, Evan and Emma have gone to school daily. There were no weekends like on Earth, and the calendar here was longer, too. Each year was about 512 days in length. The two suns rose and set at different times, making for more daylight hours. People chose what part of the day they wanted to be active. Most people, including us, decided on the Nearl or early day. Others prefer to be active during the Veral or last day.

The children would be transported to an educational facility outside our entrance daily. Then, six to eight hours later, they would return. They spent most of their free time using the viewer to understand complex equations. Sarah and I would watch symbols appear on the screen as the kids worked on answering questions associated with them.

Work, as it was known on Earth, did not exist here. Thousands of years ago, artificial intelligence was put in place to perform almost all the jobs society needed to do. At that point, there was a period of uncertainty as the Likan civilization transitioned into a leisure culture where population control was strictly observed so as not to overpopulate the planet. Once free to do what they wanted with their lives, most Likans moved into the sciences. For creatures that could travel galaxies, it was the next logical step in their development.

After our children left home each day, we went to work repairing structures alongside robots and androids; our newborn was safely ensconced in a child hibernation pod. Oddly, it reminded me of something created on Earth in 1944. The psychologist B.F. Skinner. After raising one baby with his wife, Skinner felt he could simplify the process for parents and improve the experience for children. Through some tinkering, he created the air crib, a climate-controlled environment for an infant. That a similar device was developed and used millions of miles away from Earth in the future was a fantastic coincidence.

When you have access to much of the stored information in the universe, you find out a lot that will blow your mind. For instance, the Likans were descendants of a race called the Vinitwo. They were hippie-like nomads that traveled the galaxy looking for signs of a being called Serva, who they believed started their universe and still lived in it. I had mixed feelings regarding the Vinitwo. They could travel to the stars, yet unlike the Likans, they thought a god-like being existed somewhere, and they could find it. If you tried, you could still find pockets of the Vinitwo living on many planets. I hoped someday to meet them as they had a fascinating history.

Likans came in all different looks and shapes. Most had large bodies resembling a sea lion; however, their faces were as diverse as the days. Each Likan had two arms and feet like humanoids, but their eight fingers and toes were weblike. The Likans acknowledged their paternity from the Vinitwo, but their belief system now differed significantly due to a planetary civil war thousands of years ago. Unlike the Vinitwo creation story, the Likans knew precisely how the universe began and shared that information readily.

The aliens that had abducted us from Earth and the Likans had recently fought a short but vicious interplanetary war where the Likans were victorious. That war transferred some of the planets previously under P'kai's control to Lika. We were initially placed on that planet, planet X as we called it, after being abducted from Earth by the P'kai. After the war, some of us stayed there while others joined the military or became builders of war-torn worlds.

Gender and life form understanding were much more complex here. Some beings on Lika were male or female. Some beings had no gender. You had to be careful not to assume gender or what was a proper life form; otherwise, you could look foolish. Some androids looked like humanoid men or women, while others did not. Some life forms were small, and others, like the Rigelians, were tall. From watching the viewer, we knew thousands of other civilizations existed, but little about them. I found the experience enjoyable to the point where it almost became overwhelming. Having come from the Earth, where people hoped other intelligent creatures were alive in the universe, knowing that thousands of them existed was very stimulating. Some nights, the thoughts of what they looked like and believed kept me awake.

Early on, I learned that almost every civilization had practiced some form of religion. As they progressed, they moved beyond believing in the supernatural to believing in what science could prove. Many cultures still worshipped deities, but they were a small percentage of the known universe.

Sarah and I tried to understand if all humanoids were related. To us primitives, the obvious answer was yes. We looked the same; we must be connected somehow. However, some groups believed they were the beginning seeds of the humanoid universe or that some humanoids were superior to others. Not that it mattered to us, but for them, wars had been fought over that issue. We learned quickly that having superior technology did not guarantee a holistic approach to living with your space neighbors.

I remember being back on Earth and watching movies and television shows about how wars and stupidity would eventually become outdated. The more you read or witnessed history on Lika, the more you understood that stupidity was universal and had no time limits. All it took was one individual or society to wreak havoc.

The Time Window

One of the more exciting pieces of technology we learned about was the Likans, which had developed a time window thousands of years earlier. They were an old civilization but younger than their enemy, the P'kai. The time window allowed users to specify a location in time and space and then view that location without sound. For example, if I knew where the Earth was positioned on September 17, 1787. I could narrow my scope, find Philadelphia, and see the building and setting surrounding the signing of the Constitution. Evan and Emma said that the time window would not allow views inside structures for reasons I could not understand, something about atomic structures and classical mechanics, but anything happening outside you could see.

The time window answered the question millions of science fiction fans on Earth had struggled with; could you go back in time? The answer was yes, you could, but you could not change the past or even hear it. Some might argue that viewing was changing the past. I didn't think that argument was worth considering.

Evan explained that analyzing exactly where anything was at a given time in the universe took much computing power. However, the process of viewing locations in time sounded simple to me. First, you needed a beginning reference point. For most analyses, that point was Lika. Then, the computer had to determine where the reference point you wanted to view was on a given day and time compared to your original point. That was the hard part due to gravitational flux and planetary or galaxial rotations, or a giant meteor would hit a planet and knock it out of its standard orbit. A comet would often pass by a planet, altering its course and the orbital body near it.

That shock, or near miss, would also affect other nearby planets, causing a chain reaction. To find a specific world, you needed to find a set of coordinates that pinpointed its star's orbit. Those points are equivalent to latitude and longitude on the Earth. For astronomers or supercomputers, what was required was a star's right ascension and declination.

There was so much math involved I asked Evan to stop talking about it. Think of it this way, the Earth travels around the sun at about 67000 mph. It rotates about 1000 mph at its equator but at different speeds the closer you get to the poles. Factor in that the computer uses quantum particles traveling through the fabric of space and time to arrive at whatever destination/date/time was chosen to be viewed. If you could do all that, which the Likans could, you'd have a window to any place and time anywhere in the universe.

The Likans witnessed the universe's birth using that window, as did we. The Big Bang theory was correct as it was known on Earth. The universe started with a gigantic explosion initially formalized by a professor of physics. Georges Lemaître. Hubble's Law of the universe's expansion supported the theory. But if we really want to give credit where credit is due, in his 1225 treatise De Luce (On Light), English theologian Robert Grosseteste explored the nature of matter and the cosmos. He described the universe's birth in an explosion and the crystallization of matter to form stars and planets in a set of nested spheres around Earth. How could someone theorize that in 1225? It made me wonder if aliens landed on Earth and masqueraded as humans. Despite my many searches, there was no proof that De Luce or Einstein were aliens or had ever had contact with them.

I submitted a request to view some of Earth's history but was denied. I was later told that the technology was limited to scientists or persons with a real need. It's a shame because, given a chance, I would have gone back to a sad day in 1963 and witnessed the Kennedy shooting, watching the grassy knoll for any signs of a second shooter. I was a decent marksman, and I don't think Oswald acted alone. That would be one less conspiracy to worry about if I had proof.

I need to explain something about information exchanges here. Everyone on Lika has a device to contact others here and on other planets. The devices come in different shapes and sizes, as do the various aliens that used them. For us humans, our devices look like bracelets. They are small and unobtrusive but allow similar functions to what a cell phone provides, like a calculator, email, text, phone, television, and search engines. Information like text outputs could be made visible in 3D projections or kept to a minimum. The basic concepts were the same. It was the underlying technology that advanced.

Imagine seeing and speaking with beings in galaxies far away at almost real-time speeds. That was possible. There was technology to do that, but not always. Sometimes, planets or suns block signals. Other times, the distances involved made direct communication impossible. When that happened, messages were relayed, like streaming services on Earth. This guaranteed the delivery of the message but not the arrival time.

Having centralized artificial intelligence everywhere made the universe work for most beings. Wherever you went on, Lika, you had the processing power of thousands of years on your arm. However, the devices might not work if you were off the planet, as being near a communications point was vital for clear reception and or speed of delivery. Artificial intelligence everywhere has made the universe work efficiently for most beings. Most of them never thought twice about what they could do as they had never known what it meant to be without it.

One night, we watched the birth of the universe in slow motion on our viewscreen because we thought it would be cool, and it was. Everything ever recorded on the time window was available for playback. To imagine the universe's birth, think about a July fourth night on Earth, which was only a million times better; that's how incredible the Big Bang was.

We also witnessed comets destroy planets, which was scary because it was real. One second, a world or worlds were there; the next, in pieces. Then, those pieces became asteroids. The asteroids would fly off into space or get stuck by gravitational fields. It was highly logical, though; everything happened for a reason, or so it appeared.

As we learned about Lika and its technology, we realized how far we would have to come to be true equals to our Likan neighbors. For now, we were like children sent to NASA and told to develop differential equations to explain celestial motion.

Education

As mentioned earlier , Sarah and I had decided to become builders as a condition of residency on Lika. A month after the birth of David, we started our training in earnest. We'd leave the kids early in the morning. David would lie safely in his sleep pod while the other two kids would go to study, as it was called here. The sleep pod would keep David dry and warm and feed him automatically, entertaining and educating him. We could also watch David remotely, which was something we regularly did. All his vital signs were constantly updated and available to us. Should something go wrong, the AI modules would react quickly. The funny thing was we trusted AI to do the right thing quickly. AI has been used for thousands of years on Lika to keep people safe and run the world, so why wouldn't we trust it?

Sarah and I would take a pre-arranged transport to the construction learning facility, where we were taught to use tools previously foreign to us. The ride in the transport was almost magical. It was quiet, quick, and comfortable while floating above the streets.

Lasers and lifters were commonly used to repair sites damaged by the recent war. The lasers were instrumental in splitting beams apart so they could be easily removed, and the lifters lifted things that weighed great weights. The rest of the toolset were like items you'd find on Earth: levelers, measuring tools, hammers, and screwdrivers. They were tools used primarily by robots, not us because our job was more as managers.

Robotic programming was an important skill we were learning. The Likans had inserted artificial intelligence into every part of their civilization. Everywhere you went, there was a master AI controller and sub-controllers, similar in design to simple computer systems. We spent our first weeks learning robotic control step by step. The instructions had been translated from Likan into English by someone or something not very familiar with the English language structure. Within days, though, we could safely make robots perform just about any maneuver. It made no difference what size or shape they were. We moved them forward, backward, up, or down if they had an anti-grav capability.

Try as I might, I still did not understand how anti-gravity worked. Evan and Emma had no trouble grasping the mathematics behind it, but I finally accepted that it worked without understanding why.

The later weeks of our training were devoted to getting robots to do more of what we wanted them to do safely. Lifting, drilling, using lasers, and moving in different directions were all part of the curriculum. This may sound simple, but using anti-grav settings on robots added a new dimension to our mathematics. AI modules were always there to check the programs we created programs and assist us should we need help. Before our code was released, we'd watch a simulation on a viewscreen to ensure it was doing what we expected.

Training took about six hours a day. It allowed us to come and go at will as long as we closely followed the learning module schedules. Timekeeping here was different than on Earth. Learning and work units were broken down into microseconds, which bothered the heck out of us. It was so anal, but the Likans felt the more exact they were, the better off the universe was. I found out later that robots were regularly updated to perform more work in fewer microseconds.

After work, we would go straight home. Our school-age children would usually be there by the time we arrived. Then, Sarah and I would spend time with David, who was awake and chat with Evan and Emma about their day. Those discussions usually took about two seconds because they never were chatty. Yes, no, OK was usually the extent of their contact. Noise was the one thing that startled the two older kids. I found that exciting for some odd reason and filed it away for later usage. One day, I tried playing alien music and had to turn it off because Evan said he could not think anymore.

Sarah and I had our most challenging times finding suitable foods. We'd all eat at the table together for our meals. Evan and Emma liked P'kai food, especially glob, so that was easy for us because glob was a universally recognized food. Meat eating was not an option for me or anyone on Lika.

The idea of eating another creature was seen as the ultimate act of a barbarian. We learned that one day after Sarah requested a hamburger and couldn't get it. She spent twenty minutes trying to find a substitute before asking our manager about it. Our manager could hardly look her in the eye. Once again, Earth and its denizens had hit the bottom of the barrel.

Our habitat manager was a creature from the galaxy HD1, as it was known on Earth. It's about 13.5 billion lightyears away from Earth. It had been assigned to assist us in our transition. We called it Homer because it reminded us of the cartoon character Homer Simpson. It had the same body shape and hairline. Homer tried to befriend us, but asking about eating meat made its job harder. We often kidded that Homer was assigned his job because of something he did wrong.

Well-deserved or not, Earth was labeled a backward place where no civilized being would be found. We knew that because upon moving into our habitat, we quickly viewed the little information about Earth that was available. We saw and heard that it's not a five-star establishment.

Compared to most planets, it was in the sticks and had no meaningful society. It was also under the control of the P'kai. As such, they could do whatever they wanted to the planet without fear of recrimination. The Earth was given to the P'kai as part of a planetary settlement thousands of years earlier. Sarah and I wondered if getting the Earth was deemed positive or negative? The idea that some society wanted it seemed to mean it had some value.

Pantone Red

After many message exchanges, Sarah and I finally visited Baratu and his family. I wondered what to expect, and being humanoid, I hoped we might share experiences. I was wrong.

We were able to get to Baratu's habitat quickly from our own. It was a ten-minute transport. Upon arriving at his residence, we noticed nothing out of the ordinary. His habitat looked like any other from the outside. We approached his door and were met by a robot or android. At this time, I was still determining if there was a way to differentiate between the two by sight alone. Most people would assume the difference was evident, and they would be wrong. Later on, I would learn how to differentiate between the two.

The thing that met us at the door welcomed us in and said we had been expected. What floored us was the interior, which was all Pantone red. I knew that color because Katy and I had looked at variations of red paint while on Earth. Amaranth and Cadmium were similar in color. As humans, it was harsh on our eyes.

I looked at Sarah; she just shrugged her shoulders and smiled as we followed the thing to an outside area where Baratu and his family were assembled. Baratu wore a dark blue tunic, and his wife introduced to us as Sharatu, wrote a yellow corn-colored tunic. Their children, male and female, dressed similarly to their parents. Upon seeing us, Baratu rose and greeted us. The family spoke to us in almost perfect English using vocal translators, something we had applied for but could not get.

Baratu and his wife sent their children inside, then steered us to a covered table and soft reclining chairs. It looked like our chairs were made especially for us as the Baratu family sat in larger, oversized chairs due to their height. We talked briefly for about twenty minutes and discovered that the couple had lived on Lika for about five years after marriage. He had a role with the Rigel government, and it was something about interplanetary transportation. His wife worked in a support role while their two children attended study on Lika, similar to what Emma and Evan did.

After the second Likan sun rose, we moved indoors and were served some Rigelan delicacies there. Some were tasty, while others could have been more delicious. Baratu served us a drink that reminded me of moonshine. It was that strong. However, he and his wife had no trouble