The Alien's Discovery

The sky was totally clear. No evidence of clouds, for they did not exist anymore. The air was very hot. It was 85 degrees Celsius. The ground was barren. Nothing was in it but rocks and soil. It was a place renounced by living creatures. Nothing was animated. It was a remote point. There was total silence that was deafening. The sun could burn humans who had lived five millennia ago. The place was planet Earth. Destructed… ruined… and lifeless.

Orakne stepped down from his ship. There was a feeling of weight gain. His planet has a low gravitational pull. Yet Earth's gravity has not changed, its natural way of creating life had ceased. Orakne walked a few steps. He looked around. He did not see anything except rocks on the surface and an empty sky above. He stooped to pick up a small rock. Then he analyzed it using his intellectual ability. The small rock could still support living matter. But it would take a long time to evolve because organisms must first adapt to the high solar radiation of the planet. He dropped the rock from his smooth and translucent palm.

Orakne is an inhabitant of Genebiev, a planet located in Magellanic Galaxy. Fond of space travel and discovering life in any part of the cosmos, he intentionally went to the Milky Way Galaxy and visited a planet that is known to him. He had thought of it as a mysterious planet when his grandfather had talked about it. His grandfather would say, "Orakne, my great-grandfather knows planet Earth. His ancestors told him about the planet. It is a better planet for everyone. It is a dream to live there for every cosmic race." Orakne was just a kid at that time. Now that Orakne was already on Earth, he was disappointed to see the place. His imagination of it, which was nurtured by his grandfather, is totally different from the scene he was seeing now. Earth was lifeless and inhabitable. Yet he could survive because, in Genebiev, solar radiation is almost similar to that of Earth now.

Orakne's structure is akin to humans. He stands almost as tall as the famous human basketball player of the 20th century Dennis Rodman. His skin is translucent closely alike with that of a jellyfish. His torso is cylindrical, from his waist up to his chest. He has slender legs and arms that have smooth yet firm muscles on his calves. He has no hair on his body. It is the smoothness and slipperiness of his skin that protects from and adapts to high solar radiation. His face: he has bulging eyes, a flat nose, and a mouth without lips. He has ears like a piggybank's hole.

He could see things in the past by holding an unnatural subject and concentrating on it. He could recall the past except on his own planet since he has been exposed to the things there almost half of his life. Every member of his race can do it. They consider it as a natural gift from their planet. But the irony is that they could not use it on their own planet. They could not recall the past of their planet. They use that talent when they visit other planets. But only a few of them could visit planets, and one of them is Orakne.

Orakne has never seen a human. His grandfather had never seen one too. His grandfather's great grandfather had pictured a human. Then his grandfather had passed the idea to him. He had visualized it.

Orakne roved the lifeless place to look for something useful for his discovering, something human-made that would enable him to learn the past of the place. For an hour, he did not see any. After a few hours of wandering, he became tired. The infirmity might be due to the high solar radiation of the place. He took a rest for a while. He saw a rock, which was formed by time, like a table without legs. He sat on the rock. Then Orakne fell asleep.

Orakne's being asleep is a good way to learn the past of the place. One thing Orakne never discovered about his talent is that, when he sleeps in a place he has visited, he will dream about the past of that place. He had gone to only a few planets. He had orbited other planets and had taken a peek from his spaceship, but this was the first time Orakne had experienced his hidden ability of dreaming of the past.

Orakne would never touch down on a planet if he feels it's detrimental. "Orakne, don't ever land in planets you feel are dangerous," his father Olduruk would always warn him. But his grandfather's description of Earth gave Orakne a challenge and excitement to see for himself the planet. He did not bother to think about his father's warning. Besides, he felt something different on Earth. There was that feeling of connection between him and the planet.

Orakne had a dream of Earth while asleep. It was staggering. That was the time when he first saw humans. He also spotted the events that had occurred millennia ago. The dream was a nightmare for humans but for Orakne it was simply just a dream. He saw destruction clearly. He was not used to those images because on his planet there are none of those. He did not even understand what the dream is all about.

Humans living in different countries all over the world are in strife. They kill each other through weapons. There occurs the First World War, and then the Second World War. Carnage pervades. Millions of humans are exterminated. After the two world wars, the planet's atmosphere starts to be damaged due to the irresponsibleness of mankind. Factories, vehicles, garbage, pollution are ruining the atmosphere. The temperature gradually becomes high as the malevolent deeds continue, provoking weather changes causing floods, drought, and typhoons.

Millions of humans die. Inhabitable places widen due to sudden increases in temperature.

The atmosphere continues to be ruined, which resulted in the escape of hydrogen gas into space. Strife from countries to countries continues as the effect of unending discrepancies of ideologies, religions, and principles. Afterward, another world war occurs. World War III. It causes the planet to lose forty percent of its population. Following the war, which uses nuclear weapons of mass destruction, nuclear virus, and other biological armaments, unproductive areas extends and the numbers of fauna and flora species decline.

Water becomes less because of the incessant escape of hydrogen and oxygen into space. The ruining of the atmosphere becomes inevitable. As a result, high solar radiation becomes a dilemma for every human being. In this case, humans resort to hiding in underground constructed places. However, they are unable to survive because of food and water scarcity.

The last human on ruined Earth gives away. Mankind's existence ceases.

The spaceship's alarm suddenly woke Orakne up. He found himself lying over the rock. He got up and ran to the spaceship. As he climbed inside his ship, he learned that an alarm had sounded because of the solar radiation of the planet's surface. The radiation was close to the limited temperature his body can resist. He then maneuvered the ship and orbited the planet once.

After one orbit, Orakne landed in the darkest part of Earth. It was part of Asia. Nothing bright was discernible for a human eye except the cosmic bodies in space. The place was in total silence. The natural sound of cicadas at night when the earth was still alive was lost.

Orakne stepped outside his ship. The air that encompassed the surrounding was in so much low temperature that he chilled. It was as cold as the north and south polar caps during Earth times. Yet there was no snow or water only rocks and barren soil. Earth had become a picture of its moon. Orakne went back to his ship and wore his suit to protect his body from the cold temperature.

Orakne's sense of sight is thrice as clear as a normal human so he sees anything that surrounds him during the night. There was only the silhouette of rocks, bulging in the grounds. He trod the nearby place. While walking, his thought was into remembering the things he had seen in his dream lately. In a moment, he accidentally fell into a vacated gorge that had been covered by foot-thick soil. His simple step eroded the soil sliding him into the gorge.

The gorge was almost ten meters deep. Its width is a meter wide. Orakne got cuts on his back and calves. He stood up and started to examine the dark hollow place. Beside his right foot, there was something bright that grabbed his attention. It was ingrained. He tried to pick the thing but he could not. It was fixed in a rock like a fossil. He hunkered to hold the rock then compressed it and concentrated to break it. Afterward, the rock broke. He picked up the item. It was a gold wristwatch. It was still clicking. He could hear it.

Orakne climbed up, going outside of the gorge. He went to his ship and entered to heal the cuts.

The golden wristwatch amazed Orakne. It was not found on his planet so he had no idea what it was. He looked at it now and then. He pondered. His curiosity about the thing spurred him to see its past. He closed his eyes and began to concentrate while holding the golden wristwatch.

Humans are busy working in a place with machines. It is a factory of wrist-watches. The finished products are put in small boxes and are distributed to another place.

"How much is this?" asks the bald man who is holding the watch.

"That's Rolex, Sir. It's gold. It is 5,000 dollars." says the vendor.

"I'll buy this," the man offers a small suitcase. The vendor opens it and counts the money inside. "Is that fine?" asks the bald man.

"Absolutely, Sir," says the vendor.

Then the bald man goes away with the small box.

The bald man arrives in a building's facade. He gets out of the car, enters the building, and takes the lift. He pushes the number 25 button inside the lift which then ascends. When the lift halts and opens, the bald man walks heading to a huge room. It is a laboratory. He takes off his black leather coat and wears a white-below-the-knee coat. He is a scientist.

In the laboratory, a woman who also has the same coat meets him. "Harry, we have a problem," says the woman in a worried tone.

"What is it, Sarah?" asks the bald man, who seemed calm.

"The pig sample we injected with JF-31 bloated and exploded inside the compartment."

"What? It can't be?" Harry's expression turns into disappointment.

Harry has been working on a substance called JF-31 cells for five years. He has been aiming to create biotechnology that can prolong human life on earth employing jellyfish cells. Jellyfishes have the longest life span on earth.

Using his electrical microscope, Harry observes the cell of the pig sample duplicates as soon as the JF-31 cell combines with it. It shows that JF-31 would enable to prolong of the life of the pig cell. However, when he tests it again to the pig's whole body, after a day the pig bloats and explodes. It is not able to resist the duplication of JF-31 cells. It seems his calculation of the JF-31 cell's formula using other compounds exceeds the tolerable state of the pig cells.

Harry with his assistant Sarah resumes working hard to achieve fauna life-prolonging. His golden wristwatch is the witness of that endeavor. In the end, Harry and Sarah make it.

"Sarah, I think I made the right substance composition for JF-31," he says to his assistant. "We need to test it again from animals with a short lifespan," he adds.

They get the butterfly sample since it's an insect with a short span of life, only two to three days. Five days have passed but the butterfly is still alive and active. They are confident that they've got the right formula. They again test the cell on five mice. It succeeds. The mice's lives are prolonged to five years. They test JF-31 on other mammals and it is effective. By then, Harry and Sarah are in their late forties.

"At last, we made it Sarah!" He hugs and kisses her.

Harry decides to apply it to humans. And his specimen is none other than himself. He injects himself with the help of his lover Sarah. In a few weeks, Harry does not feel any changes in his body neither he has body system failure. He is so sure that JF-31 would prolong his life. So he asks Sarah to be injected with JF-31 too so that the two would be together for the rest of their lives, or even forever. It is assumed 'forever' since the butterfly sample is still alive for more than a decade.

A year passes by; Harry and Sarah become stronger and youthful. They become younger than a 40-year old human being. Their colleagues become old and others die but they still live a youthful life.

Out of curiosity, Harry and Sarah plan to inject JF-31 into a test tube baby. They want to know if the baby would still grow old or would remain a baby. They inject it into the baby's right thigh. As time goes on, the baby grows but his aging pauses when he reaches the age of 30. That time, Harry's and Sarah's built seems to be they are still in their forties. Their success remains secret until the world changed.

It is 2121 when the greenhouse effect becomes worse. A year later, the Third World War occurs. Harry and Sarah have no choice but to disclose their discovery to the United States of America's government to use it in prolonging the lives of the soldiers. Yes, the cell could prolong the lives of the soldier except if they are hit by bullets and then bleed to death. The US government uses the cell for its greatest combatants. Because of this, they defeat Russia, South Korea, China, and other Asian countries, which are not members of their allied forces.

The operation of injecting the soldiers with JF-31 is only known to a few people. The head of the US Armed Forces, FBI, CIA, and the US President are the people who are informed about it. But the soldiers have no idea what has been injected into them.

A decade overtakes time. Some 20,000 U.S. and European soldiers stay younger. Because of this, the opportunity to do anything criminal has increased. They become abusive.

Harry and Sarah are very disappointed with the situation. They think of researching to stop JF-31 cells from prolonging the lives of the soldiers but they fail.

Following the bad condition of the world, the atmosphere has become worse than ever. There is a great flood as north and south polar caps have melted. Many humans have been drowned including some soldiers carrying JF-31 cells. Then, after months of continuous floods, many places on earth are unable to sustain life. Solar radiation has increased. The water on the planet has gradually depleted. Hydrogen has been going out of the planet. Scarcity of food and water results in strife between the remaining people on earth, which is estimated at a thousand.

Another century comes, human existence ceases.

Millennia after, all living organisms have been wiped out on the surface of the planet.

Orakne's consciousness came back. He was sitting in front of the console of his ship. He could not believe what he saw. The strife, war, unending greediness, selfishness, and irresponsibleness of mankind lingered in his thoughts. In a minute, in the console's screen there appeared a face closely similar to him. It was his father's face transmitted through radio waves from his planet. "Orakne, you must return here. Your grandfather is dying," said the face on the screen.

Orakne began to operate the ship. It lifted up and traversed the space until only a dot of light was seen in the heavens. His ship moves as fast as the speed of the light.

***

Orakne's grandfather was lying in a water-like circle bed. The bed is transparent, but it is not a liquid. Every household of Genebiev has this kind of water-like bed. It is very soothing to lie there, especially for someone who is sick. His grandfather was quite sick for a long time. Maybe the reason is age. His grandfather was already 750 years old. On Earth, he is 2250 years old since Genebiev planetary revolution is thrice as Earth. A Genebieven's normal life span is only 700 years or more than two millennia on Earth. Fortunately, his grandfather survived that long period.

Orakne arrived on his planet. As soon as his ship touched down on the ground, he saw his race waiting for him outside. He then stepped outside his ship and immediately ran towards the mosque-like house. Reaching the entrance, the door automatically slid open. He entered and passed through a ten-meter long passageway. Shortly, he was inside his grandfather's room. His father and mother with some of the relatives and members were there.

"Father, I'm here," he called.

"Come here, son. Your grandfather has something to give you."

"I'm very old, Orakne. I'm dying. 750 years is enough for me. My father died when he was 710 years old. I'm fortunate I reached this age," said the dying Genebieven patriarch.

All of them were lamenting as they heard the words of one of their leaders.

Orakne's grandfather was regarded as the leader of the race in their region. Planet Genebiev has eight regions. One of these regions was managed for a long time by Brogatto, Orakne's grandfather. Brogatto did not know about the past of Genebiev since his ancestors never told him where they were from. He would always remember his father Dellexos would mention planet Earth. "Brogatto, planet Earth is a place where humans live. It is a beautiful planet. My grandfather was once there." Brogatto's father would say. "I have a gift for you. My grandfather gave this to me. I never open it. He said I must not open it until the time will come when one of our race members has gone to Earth." Brogatto, upon hearing it, has never opened the gift until this time when his grandson Orakne went to Earth and has come back.

"Orakne, my grandson, I have something for you," said his dying grandfather. "You have gone to Earth. My grandfather gave this to me. He said I must give this to the one who has gone to earth." He looked at his son Olduruk, who was standing beside him.

Olduruk was carrying a small box. It was so ancient that it needed delicate hands to handle so that it would not break.

"Son, here is a gift from our ancestors. Please be careful about it." Olduruk slowly handed the box to his son.

"It came from Earth, Orakne," the dying Genebieven repeated.

Orakne was half excited and half afraid to open the ancient box. He carefully put it down the table anchored on his right side and slowly opened it by cutting the ancient nylon tied firmly around it. The ancient box has a similarity with the boxes in Genebiev but the ancient nylon was not found in Genebiev. He tucked open the cover, then they were all astonished. No one knew what it was except Orakne. All of them could feel it has something to do with them.

The gift was a weapon for annihilation on Earth. It was ancient yet its appearance seemed to be still working. Orakne knew it was from Earth because he had seen it in his dream back on Earth. It was a weapon in the 23rd century. It was a laser weapon. He spotted it attached to a human's right arm. He saw how the bearer used it. The human bearer raised his right arm and aimed at his enemy, then a sudden swift of radiation with the red-tinged color shot the enemy dead.

"This is a weapon from Earth," Orakne declared.

"How do you know, my son?" asked Olduruk.

"I saw it back there."

"Tell us more of what you see there," requested his mother.

"I did not see a lot of things. The planet is lifeless," said Orakne in a disappointed tone. He decided not to tell what he had seen because many members were listening and he wanted to share it with his family first.

"Father, how did it get here?" asked Olduruk to his dying father.

"I don't know son," replied his dying father in between throb.

Olduruk moved to his son and asked him to see the past of the ancient weapon.

Orakne held the weapon and concentrated. He slowly closed his bulging eyes.

The human who has the weapon in his right arm is in a hurry as if someone is chasing him. The passageway is so narrow that two humans could block it. The place shakes. He heads towards a door and pushes combination buttons beside it. The door slides open. He gets inside and hurries directly to the triangular glass pane. He peers into the pane and sees a huge violet planet more than a hundred thousand miles away from his location, an enormous spaceship that is orbiting the unknown planet. Worried, he moves swiftly into the console. He pushes buttons and slides down levers.

The ship shakes again. A robotic female voice resounds inside the entire ship. "Athenae is down…Athenae is down…Cosmic travelers must head to the Lifeships…Cosmic travelers must head to the Lifeships…"

Another human with the same suit appears behind him. "Yan, we must eject before this ship crashes. We would be dead within a few minutes," said the man, throbbing.

Yan, anxious and worried, joins with the other as they rush into the ship's compartment where a few cosmic travelers worry and cry. The compartment is a small spaceship they called Lifeship. The Lifeship automatically lifts away from the mother ship then darts off. Not all Lifeships can eject.

In a moment, the mother ship crashes into the unknown planet. The impact was so tremendous that the surviving Lifeships have been reached.

There are 14 cosmic travelers inside the Lifeship where Yan is. A woman is operating the console. She is wearing a suit that carried a patch in the sleeve, NASA. Yan assumes she is not just a cosmic traveler like him. She is also an astronomer of NASA. Yan moves towards her. "Where we go now?" he asks her.

"We must wait for Captain Bowen's call," she says.

"What if he's dead?"Yan frowned.

"He's not. He was in the first Lifeship to eject."

Prior to the tragedy of Athenae, the mothership, cosmic travelers are facing pestilence inside the ship. The pestilence stayed for years and killed many including medical practitioners.

Yan's company is waiting for Captain Bowen, Athenae's Captain. They have to decide whether to stay and die in the Lifeships or find a planet where they could possibly survive. They know that the Lifeships' fuel is not enough for a hundred light-years travel. They could not go back to Earth. The inadequacy of fuel would lose them in space if they attempt to head Earth. They would be running out of time, for the remaining fuel might be consumed all up. They would starve to death.

There are six other Lifeships in space with unidentified numbers of cosmic travelers. Two of them are moving in the direction of Yan's Lifeship.

"There they are," says one cosmic traveler who is sitting beside the NASA astronomer.

The NASA astronomer phones in Captain Bowen. "Captain, this is Ramirez. Where are we heading now? Roger that…"

In a moment, a hologram appears before the console. It's Captain Bowen. "This is Captain Bowen. You must follow our Lifeship. We've spotted a planet near a small star that could be habitable by humans. It's about five million miles away from us. In an hour, we would be there. It's our last chance to live. Don't lose hope." The hologram disappears.

The Lifeships journey the empty space. The cosmic travelers watch visible cosmic bodies from hundreds or thousands of light-years away. After an hour, the Lifeships are a thousand-mile near an asteroid belt, the boundary of a star system. As they are entering the planet's system, they discover that the other five planets revolve elliptically around a yellow dwarf star, smaller than the solar system's sun.

In a few minutes, Yan could see the outside features of the planet on which they would land. The planet is light-green, a quarter smaller than Earth.

"Activate the ships' element detector device," Bowen commands via hologram communication.

A long cylindrical tube emerges from the captain's Lifeship. Over the console pops out different names of elements that are found in the planet's atmosphere.

"Oxygen and Hydrogen are present, Captain," says someone in the comm.

"Check for possible menacing inhabitants of the planet before we prepare to engage in landing," says the captain.

The Lifeships land on the surface of the planet. Sixty-three cosmic travelers are all in the count. They wear spacesuits and masks. They climb down and begin to examine the surface of the planet. It has similarities with Earth. It has rocks and soils. Its environment is akin to that of the planet Genebiev. The planet's air is 67 degrees Celsius temperature. Though its solar power comes from a small yellow-dwarf, it is still hotter than that of Earth in the 21st century.

The cosmic travelers, who are also considered survivors, have no other way to live but to sojourn on the planet and find things there that could sustain their lives. Fortunately, it is a planet that possibly might save them from dying because they find some flora-like species during their wanderings. The living thing has a likeness with that of cactus yet it does not have thorns. They think it is edible. They remove their masks. The air around them seems like the air on Earth. They are able to breathe, indeed. They eat the flora-like species. In a few hours, many of them suffocate probably because they could not stand the air or the plant they've eaten.

Many days have passed and half of the cosmic travelers have weakened and starved to death. The flora-like species in that region could not suffice all of them so they look for other regions where they could find food. They could not go to the other side of the planet since they no longer have the means of transportation. The Lifeships fuel tanks have been emptied because they've used the fuel for their fire at night.

Months have passed and there are only 14 of the cosmic travelers who have survived, eight are women, and six are men. They could not believe why their bodies have adapted to the new environment and they've become more active than ever. They've become stronger and more alert. They begin to look for other things for survival. One strange thing that has occurred to them, their memories of their past have started to diminish.

On their way, they happen to see a small lake. Yan thinks of it as a gift from God. He believes in God. His companions too. They manage to construct huts near the lake using the remnants of the flora-like species. They've created a small village… a small civilization on an unknown planet. They name the place Paradise.

As time passes by, as a natural phenomenon of human beings, they've reproduced. Five of the women have been impregnated. That is also the time when Yan discovers that all of them who have survived have a syringe scar in the right thigh. They have no idea what was injected into them during their birth.

After an Earth-year, Yan notices that his body is changing. He reckons that maybe it is just natural because of environmental adaptation. His eyes have begun to bulge, lips gradually become a part of the skin, nose, and ears have begun to sink in his head and his arms and legs have thinned. His torso has also changed. Its muscles have disappeared, perhaps because of the low gravitational pull of the planet. The same has happened to others.

Jane and Yan have become lovers. After a quarter a year on that planet, she gives birth to a baby boy. Yan is there to help the labor and delivery to succeed. The infant is apparently human but some features are very different. They are the same as what is the appearance now of Yan.

Yan and his companions have never worried about their physical transformation. They've believed that it is a chemical reaction within their bodies in response to the planet's environment. They've assumed that it is a constant change since their babies have now possessed little of the human physical attributes.

As the children have grown old, their parents notice that they are mentally and physically active. They are amazed by their performance in discovering ideas and things on the planet that are beneficial for their survival.

Yan and two other cosmic travelers are able to live for almost an Earth-millennium. They are also able to reproduce children. When the last of the cosmic travelers die, it was Yan; the population of the planet is around two hundred. The women cosmic travelers have just borne two children in a lifetime. And their sons and daughters have reproduced by this time only two children.

Before Yan's death, he remembered a little of what he did back on Earth. He mentioned them to his grandson. He had kept his laser weapon in a small box tied with a nylon thread. And when the time came that he has to leave the planet that has salvaged him, he decided to give the small box to his grandson.

"Dellexos, I give you my treasure. Never open this until someone visits Earth. He can use it against evil people on Earth."

Orakne suddenly came to his consciousness and he accidentally unclasped the laser weapon. It fell to the ground. Everybody was astounded. No one spoke up. Then Olduruk broke the stillness of the room. "Orakne, what did you see?"

"Humans…" he said, immovable in his position. He could not believe what he saw. He could barely speak a sentence.

"Orakne, what happens? Speak now!" said Olduruk anxiously.

Orakne pulled out something from his suit pocket. It was the golden wristwatch from Earth. He raised it above his head so that everyone could take a look at it. "This thing is from Earth…" his utterance trembled. "…our planet."

Everyone hung open their lipless mouths.

"Our planet?" asked his amazed father. . . .