Chapter No.155 Oddity

Somethings just don't make sense.

While on the engineering deck trying to help Alex with the Dyson Sphere project, I was summoned to go to the command deck.

"What's up?" I asked Alexa as soon as I appeared in the Captain's chair.

"Alicia has picked up a signal."

"I've detected a weak radio signal in the megahertz range from a system a thousand lightyears from our current location," Alicia said.

"Is it from a system in our registry?"

"That's the problem. It's not. I think it's because it's behind a nebula in relation to Earth."

"Have you been able to discern any information in the signal?"

"Not yet. It's too weak."

I turned to Alexa. "Maybe we should go check it out."

"That's what we're out here for," she said. I sensed dismay with my wanting to waste time building a Dyson sphere.

"Take us to the other side of the nebula, Judy."

We went to warp along with two Explorer-1 ships, three Myst and two Scath vessels.

"Could you determine what sort of signal it was?" I asked Alicia.

"I think it resembles old television signals," she replied. "The frequency modulation is in the right range for that."

"That suggests that it came from an intelligent species. Unfortunately, it's a thousand years old."

"This star system is two thousand light years from Earth. It's no wonder they didn't detect this signal," Alexa said.

"Yes, that makes sense. I guess it doesn't matter now. We'll investigate it to determine who sent it."

It took us an hour to get to the other side of the nebula. I didn't want to waste the spin drive on this curious mission.

"The signal is much stronger," Alicia said. "I should be able to delineate it soon."

Soon required a half hour, but it was worth it.

"Good grief!" I said, staring intently at the images on the main screen. "They look like humans."

"What the hell are they doing?" Marie asked as the screen displayed human males attired in white suits jumping and running around.

"Must be some sort of dance," I said. "It's hard to tell what we're looking at. Their language is definitely alien."

"The universal translator is working on it," Molly said.

"I thought we had located all of the humans in this galaxy," Margaret said.

"Apparently not," I said. "I hope this isn't a Tyco trick."

"We should be able to detect any of his monkey business when we get there," Alexa said.

"Take us to the system, Judy. Keep us in stealth mode."

The journey at maximum warp took less than an hour. We dropped out of warp at a million kilometers from an Earth-like planet orbiting a G-3 class dwarf star.

"That planet has two moons," Molly said. "One of them is about half the size of our moon. The other one is smaller.

"There are several satellites in orbit around the planet," Marie said. "They appear to be mostly communication types. There is a very large telescope in a LaGrange point with the star.
A large vessel is in orbit around the planet. The energy readings on it suggest that it has warp capability."

I turned to Alexa. "Seems that the humans on this planet have advanced to where Earth was before the extinction event."

"In a thousand years, they should have been much further than that," she replied.

"Maybe it's not that long when you take time dilation into consideration," I said.

"The communications feed is quantum," Alicia said. "I should be able to get a fix on it."

"Keep us at a five hundred thousand kilometers, Judy. If this is a Tyco trick, we don't want too near it."

"I'm not detecting any large energy sources that are in the correct range for shielding," Molly said. "This appears to be real, not generated."

"How's the universal translator doing with their language?"

"It has an adequate translation. The language is a lot like Spanish."

"Interesting." I turned to Alicia. "Do you have any new video feeds."

"Yes, and they're somewhat confusing."

When she displayed the video on the main screen It was obvious why she said that.

"That's weird," I said. "The males are white, and the females are dark skinned."

"I'm not sure how that could have evolved," Onuki said. "It has to be some sort of genetic modification."

"Maybe they consider darker skin to be beauty process like tanning," Uma said.

"Well," I said, rubbing my jaw. "I think that Alexa and I should go down and pay them a visit."

Alexa gave me a smirk. She knew why I wanted her to go along,

"I think that the main government compound is in that geodesic domed structure," Molly said after displaying it on the main screen.

I stood up and glanced at Alexa. "Let's go do our thing."

Alexa and I teleported to the domed structure. When we appeared out of thin air, the humans became alarmed. Armed males came forward with their weapons pointed at us. I held up my arm and they froze in place and I made their weapons vanish.

I turned to a female dressed in a white gown like garment. "Your weapons are useless against us. I would advise you not to attempt any violence against us. We can make you vanish."

"Who are you?" the female asked, her face twisted with concern.

I gesture to Alexa. "Alexa and I are in charge of a large collective of artificial life forms. We were once human like you, but a large rock decide that it wanted to wipe out all life on our home world. Our memories and personality profiles had been recorded and then inserted into artificial bodies, which we call android."

"Why are you here?" the female asked.

"We are here to warn you that there is an evil one of our kind that is out to destroy all biological life in this universe and all of the universes in the multiverse. We see that you have warp capability. I don't know how far you've explored but I would suggest being careful to not make contact with other species, especially ones that look like us."

"We have only explored star systems within a hundred light years of our system. None of them contained intelligent life."

I realized that our universal translator had translated her light years to ours.

"What is your origin on this planet?" Alexa asked.

"Our progenitors have written that we are from the stars, but we don't understand what that means."

"All human life was introduced on planets by a proto-human species that was created by the originator. We are not certain about the nature of this originator, but religions have identified it as God. God, or originator, created the multiverse and everything in it."

"You talk of a multiverse. What does that mean?"

"Our universe is only a tiny particle in a huge structure. A robotic species that we call Roamers are currently exploring and mapping this structure. Their projections indicate that it is a human pregnant woman. We have no idea what its purpose is. As we accumulate more data from the Roamers, we might be able to come to some conclusion."

The woman smiled. "A human pregnant woman. How interesting."

"I agree." I looked at Alexa. "I think we've learned enough."

She nodded.

I turned to the female. "We will insert a cloaked signal device in your system that will warn us if you become attacked by our enemy. It will allow us to save you. I implore you to not disturb it."

"We understand."

Alexa and I teleported back to our ship.

"We saw everything," Molly said. "They seemed to be impressed."

"It doesn't matter what they think about us. We are committed to saving them if at all possible."

"We have deployed the signal probe," Judy said.

"Good. Let's get back to our Dyson sphere project."

The trip took a couple of hours at maximum warp, but what we saw there surprised all of us.