cowlark.com

My Diary, 2002-11-20

I actually met some aliens!

I don't think they're the people who built this place, for obvious reasons (I'll explain later), but hot damn, aliens!

I've been in the habit of sitting on the beach for a while after breakfast before wandering round the island. I was doing that today, although seeing as there isn't much beach left, I've mostly been sitting on the rocks. Suddenly, I saw those sea creatures I spotted last night far out in the bay. The jumped and dived several times, looking more like dolphins than ever. They were the first sign of life I've seen on the island since the megastorm. (The birds haven't come back. It's been eerily silent, apart from the noise of the wind and surf.)

They were a long way out, and I stood up to get a better look. That, I think, was how they saw me; with the gleaming white Hotel at my back, I would have been a crisp siloughette by the sea. A few minutes later they abruptly stopped playing, and I saw heads poking out of the sea; and then they all dived.

At this point, of course, I had no idea that they had seen me. I thought they'd just got bored and left. So I sat down again and waited, hoping they would come back. A couple of minutes later they did, and they were only a few metres away.

This is what the citizens of this planet look like:

Large, weighing a lot more than I am. The general impression is of a dolphin crossed with a seal crossed with a sea serpent. The body is from two to three metres long, but fairly thin. The body is extremely flexible, capable of several bends in either direction. Flat fluked tail, two sets of lateral flippers, two pectoral fins, no ventral fin. The head is vaguely horse-like, but smooth and streamlined, but with a decent sized forehead, forward facing eyes and ---- get this ---- nostrils. The mouth contains a lot of small, sharp, very white teeth, and a flexible tongue. No blowhole. The skin colour varies from individual to individual from black to mottled green, tending to be paler on the underside than the back.

Of course, what I saw at first was the head. Heads, rather; about a dozen of the creatures suddenly surfaced in the deep pool next to where I was sitting and stared at me. I'm not ashamed to say that I jumped, nearly losing my balance, before scrambling to my feet and backing away a little.

Dolphins always look as if they're smiling; it's the shape of their mouths. This means they never look particularly threatening, even though the alien thoughts in that bulbous head may be centred around down horrible things to your mutilated corpse, for all you know.

These creatures' mouths were a different shape. They looked grim and serious. With their wide, dark eyes, they also looked somewhat startled. We stared at each other in what could have been mutual surprise for a few moments, and then one of tilted its head towards one of the others, without taking its eyes of me, and spoke ---- an incomprehensible chain of rattles, clicks and buzzes, but definitely speech.

The other replied briefly, and then turned around. I lost track of who said what then, but there was a general rattle of conversation and a smaller creature, handsomely marked in green and black, pushed its way to the front. It looked up at me, blinked a pale membrane across its eyes a couple of times, opened its mouth a little, and spoke to me.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand a word you're saying," I replied with a certain amount of stunned dignity.

It had said something in a hissing voice, quite unlike the rattles and clicks they used when talking among themselves. It sounded like something a human could have said, had it understood the language; I had no doubt that this was the language the builders had spoken, and what the enigmatic strings of cursive writing I had found were in. Unfortunately, I didn't speak it.

The translator blinked again, and said something else in the same language. From the way the pitch rose at the end of the sentence I guessed it might be a question. I made a theatrical shrug, slightly amazed I was being so calm, and said, "I didn't understand that, either."

I didn't understand their body language, but I got the sense of frustration. They formed a circle and conferred, and then in a swirl of water three of them darted away. The green translator and the big black creature who originally spoke to me then swam round to the shallow slope where the beach used to be, and while the rest of the school (pack?) and I watched, heaved themselves up out of the water.

The moved a bit like seals, pulling themselves along with their flippers, and a bit like caterpillars, using their sinuous bodies to hump themselves along. They made surprisingly fast progress, pulling themselves up off the beach and onto the few shreds of grass that were remaining, before I noticed just how hard they were working; they were gasping for breath, panting through their open mouths, torsos heaving.

I had a long moment of blurred thought, thinking they have lungs? and what are they doing? more or less simultaneously, before Black, taking the opportunity for a rest, stared hard at me for a moment and then reared up on its tail and peered out at sea. I recognised the gesture; it was scanning the horizon for something. Other dolphinoids, perhaps, or it could have been looking for an oncoming storm front.

The other creatures in the school had remained motionless in the pool, and were watching Green and Black on the shore. I thought I could read concern in them, but that could have been those big, black eyes. I hadn't moved from my rock.

Black collapsed down onto the ground and caught its breath, and then looked round at me, moved its head in a follow me gesture so human that it must have been learnt, and started humping off across the mud. Green watched until I started to follow, and then headed after Black.

More confused thought: this time what are they doing? shared top billing with finally, someone who knows what they're doing and they're really not happy to see me.

Once off the beach they seemed to be able to make easier progress, sliding across the mud. I followed at a safe distance, keeping to the grass. They headed in a straight line towards a building half a kilometre away, a low, round, five-sided structure with a concave roof. It had no windows, but did have a door, which I hadn't been able to open.

When we finally got there, the creatures moving considerably more slowly than they were when they had got out of the water, they couldn't open it either.

They wanted in the same posture I unconsciously adopted: focus intently on the door, concentrate, will the door to be open. Black tried first, and failed, and then Green tried. Black rattled furiously at Green, who replied much more calmly, and they tried again. Still no success.

Then Black looked round and stared at me, and gesture with its head at the door. I was standing a fair distance off. I knew that if the crunch came I could probably run faster than they could, but they were bigger than I was, probably stronger, and certainly had more teeth.

What Black wanted was obvious. I was not at all sure that I wanted to get any closer to them.

Black made the same gesture again, faster and more jerkily, and began to twitch its tail. Green nudged Black with its nose, rattled at it, and Black seemed to calm down; they both heaved themselves to a reasonable distance from the door, and looked at me expectantly.

I walked slowly over to the door, not taking my eyes off them. Unfortunately, I wasn't that good at opening doors, and had to turn and face it; I focused, concentrated, wanted, all while being very aware of the two creatures not far behind me. The door didn't open.

Turning around to face them again, I shrugged apologetically. Black twitched, rattled angrily at Green and possibly me at length, and then slammed its tail into the ground in frustration, sending mud flying everywhere. I got the impression that Black had a fairly short fuse.

While Black stared furiously off into the distance, Green looked at me thoughtfully, and then started humping slowly towards me. I held my ground. When Green was a couple of metres away, it looked me up and down carefully. It seemed particularly interested in my shoes. I, in turn, admired the black and green marks on its head and back; they seemed random at first, but they were completely symmetrical and formed short stripes running along its body. I thought about tigers.

After a while Black came out of its sulk and said something to Green. Green looked me in the face, said something incomprehensible in the human language, and then they both turned round and began the long, slow journey back to the water, where the rest of the school was waiting. When they slithered down the beach into the sea there was a tremendous burst of agitated chatter.

After a few moments Green pulled itself up out of the waves. It pointed at me with its snout, then at the suns, high in the sky, then described a wide circle, from the suns down to the horizon, around into the ground, back to the horizon, up and over, and back to the suns again.

Of course. I repeated the gesture: I will be here one day from now.

Green nodded, headed back into the sea, and the entire school left without ceremony. Only one green head, far out to sea, peered back at me thoughtfully before heading on.

Analysis:

These creatures ---- dolphinoids? dolphinseals? doleals? Ah: sealin ---- live here. They may have evolved here, they may not have. They did not build the base on the island, but they know the people who did quite well.

They know the island is supposed to be abandoned. When they found me here, they were startled and shocked. Black, in particular, was angry. From the way Green spoke to me they expected me to speak the same language the builders did. They immediately took me to the Pentagon and were even more shocked and angry when the door didn't open.

Two species, sharing a planet. Sharing resources. I don't know about how the sealin think, but if they were human, I'd expect conflict.

The megastorm. Nothing natural I know can cause anything like that. What about something unnatural?

That planet: Gurglecough. No traffic control. A scorched rock.

I'm thinking that I've landed in the middle of a war. The megastorm is caused by some kind of weapon. The builders didn't evacuate the base because of a natural disaster, they were forced to abandon it as some kind of settlement? The sealin were angry because the builders were supposed to have all gone? They were certainly even more angry when they found that the Pentagon ---- a command centre? ---- was closed to them.

Perhaps it's the sealin versus the builders; Calvin and friends. Perhaps Gurglecough got torched as part of this war.

That is not a comforting thought.

But hell, aliens! Wow.

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