Undeniable Offer
Daily maintenance finished, Albert and Liraz headed out to explore. "Ok, we sent a message back about you. Our leaders will know about you but the public won't for a while. Either way we will keep working together." Albert explained.
"Thank you, I just need to collect my items. I was in a deep slumber to conserve energy on the way here and lost some of my memories, they should slowly return and I can update you soon sir." said Liraz.
They both walked with purpose, in a skipping-like motion due to the weaker gravity, back to where Liraz left his belongings.
"What did you bring with you? Will we manage to carry it all back?" asked Albert.
"Yes, I didn't bring much. Just enough to set up a cover. I can enter a deep sleep and my body allows me to gather energy from any kind of radiation, so to survive I do not need much. I can stockpile extra radiation for emergencies if needed. A thin atmosphere like here is perfect for me since very little radiation is scattered or absorbed. Mars may even make a better habitat than my home." replied Liraz.
Albert raised an eyebrow and smiled. He was amazed, something that looked so similar could have a completely different way of survival. Both Liraz and Albert had similar body shapes, even the skeletal structure seemed similar which seemed impossible given that humans have evolved and fine tuned for many years. He ignored it for now and stored the strange coincidence in the back of his mind for later.
Was there more to Liraz than they were admitting to?
After their long footslog, they arrived at a cramped cave - it looked chiseled and hollowed out. Sharp corners and edges, unlike something that could naturally form from years of beating from harsh weather. "This is where I can first remember being." said Liraz with an emotionless, monotonously tone that seemed robotic rather than from something living. "Just wait here and I'll quickly crawl to get my items."
Albert waited, taking a seat on a flattened section of the cave tunnel entrance. He spent the time imagining what kind of world Liraz could have been from but was eventually interrupted.
"There we go, I retrieved everything. All remained undisturbed, obviously. It's only us here" said Liraz, whilst holding a disc shaped device.
"I can now send messages back to my home using this, we call it a 'mob-com'. There was some exciting news about portal development, apparently some visitors can hopefully travel here soon using that new technology to update me on more private matters. Of course, I can even bring you and your crew with me to my home and back here depending on how well that technology works."
"That would be interesting, there will be periods of low activity here for us. We can definitely visit during those times. If we turn off all the reactors then no maintenance checks would be needed for a while and it would be safe to go, how invited are we?" asked Albert, his tone growing in formality as he spoke.
"There will be a grand celebration for your arrival, however there may be small conflicts in some regions during your stay. We may need your advice on a resolution but that is not too important to think of currently, enough talking, we should probably just head back."
A month passed. Liraz sat with Asher, looking into the distance with a device: Mob-com a disc shaped with a circular hole cut of the centre. It shone in the sunlight spectacularly but it attracted gazes to its unusual proportion of being more empty space than material.
"Ah! I just received an update on the portal!" gasped Liraz. Asher grew curious, would he really travel to another civilization's planet, he thought.
"It seems to be a success. Soon, some others from my home shall visit. If we want, we can all come back with me. I'm sure taking a break from all your efforts can give you some time to relax." offered Liraz.
Asher's curiosity swelled up, he couldn't turn down this offer, the whole crew grew tired of the monotonous, never ending schedule. This seemed to be an undeniable offer but the crew could not forsee what they were getting into.