US Space Force Colonel Franklin glanced around at the diplomatic party. They had Ambassador James Fitzjames from the UN, flown in from New York; one of the NASA flight controllers who happened to double major in rocketry and astrophysics, Janet Reid; an anthropologist; Doctor Grace Gore; a reporter from the New York Times Mr Crozier; and Doctor Samantha Stanley, a NASA medical specialist. He hoped this would be enough for what they were doing. They were escorted by a handful of aides, and no armed personnel. He looked ahead, through the dusk haze of a Florida afternoon. Birds squawked, and they could hear jets in the distance. The sun was going down.
Fitzjames waved at the cars behind them that had dropped them off, and the vehicles departed. “Shall we?” He said, and pointed at the SpaceX landing zone up the road, and the large machine parked in the center of it.
At a distance the alien vessel was big and imposing, a silver egg-shaped craft with landing legs. But up close, one could see a patchwork affair of reentry tiles and paneling. Franklin had seen Atlantis over at the space center on the way here. The tiles there were a little worn, but he didnt think even cooling on the runway on the last mission they'd be this beaten up. “What a sorry sight,” Franklin muttered. Their ship in orbit didn't look much better. It was a teardrop shape that looked unbroken on radar, but a telescope showed it was battered by some kind of attack.
The party walked down the road to the SpaceX Falcon 9 landing pads. Well, technically for any vertical landing craft, Franklin thought. In the distance, he could see helicopters circling, taking photos. On the side of the craft, facing their direction, a hatch had opened this morning. Out the aliens had come. From the photos, they were disgusting.
Franklin could see them now. The beings were like giant trilobites with less bulk. They were hunched over like they could curl up into a ball at any second. their eyes glowed in the dark, once predators of smaller prey. They wore sheaths of light armor or clothing, augmented by synthetic leather, or what they guessed was synthetic leather. They were visible at this distance.
“Well, shall we?” Reid, the flight director asked.
“Wait, we don't know if they're here for trade,” Gore, the anthropologist, said.
Suddenly there was a crack and a buzz. “Shit!” Franklin dove on the ambassador, “Get down!”
Gore and Reid remained standing even as their aides ducked. Chatter crackled in Franklin's radio.“Who fired?”
"Who the hell was that?!"
“Cease fire, cease fire!”
Franklin lifted up his head. “Hey, colonel, hand me your binoculars,” Gore said.
“What?”
“Quick!”
Franklin handed them over. Gore squinted. “Oh dear…”
Reid took them. She swore. “My god…”
Franklin cautiously rose up, and helped the ambassador to his feet. “What the devil are you talking about?” he grabbed the binoculars.
One of the aliens, with gold chevrons on his shoulders, was waving frantically in their direction. Two crouched over a third. Whispy white smoke rose from some sort of firearm near the body.
“What on earth…?”
“I think one shot himself,” the doctor, Stanley, murmured. “Is that lead one signaling?”
As the colonel watched, the lead one kept glancing back and forth between them. The two monitoring the body snapped at each other with a chittering language.
“I wonder if they use pheromones…” Gore wondered.
“Forget that, what are they doing?” Franklin demanded.
A group of the aliens straightened up. They began marching east. The leader made a gesture toward his head. Only four remained to greet the humans.
The colonel didn't see any weapons, but he put a hand to his earpiece, “Don't fire on them unless fired upon. Something odd is going on here.”
Reid frowned. She gestured to one of their aides, burdened with electronic equipment. The aide looked quite concerned about something.
Franklin caught his breath. *Tic-tic-tic… The entire party went quiet as the sound seemed to echo. They could hear the surf in the distance, and the footsteps of the aliens.
The trilobites drew closer. The ambassador gasped. The doctor squinted in fascination, and revulsion. Tic-tic-tic…
However the aliens were supposed to look, this was not it. Up close, there were cracks in their exoskeleton, chunks of carapace seemed to have fallen off. Tic-tic-tic...
The lead one in gold, the captain, Franklin presumed, shuffled forward. They had four scuttling legs, and four arms. He wore something akin to a utility vest. He looked to be in rough shape, but his carapace seemed relatively intact. “Du'lox,” he said, pointing at himself. Then he gestured at his crew, “Litnus.”
“Is that their species or their ship?” Mr Crozier asked, speaking for the first time. He snapped off photos.
“They must use spears,” Gore said immediately, “They use arrows like we do!”
“Or they have fingers,” Stanley pointed out.
Franklin gulped. Tic-tic-tic… He looked at Reid. Reid nodded nervously, gesturing to the yellow box the aide held. Fitzjames stepped forward. “Fitzjames,” He said, gesturing at himself.
“Don't get too close, ambassador,” Franklin said. Tic-tic-tic...
“I know what a Geiger counter sounds like,” Fitzjames snapped over his shoulder.
“It's possible they emit radiation as a byproduct of their biology…” Stanley suggested.
Tic-tic-tic went the little box the aide held. Every time the wire attached to it was pointed at the aliens, it clicked.
Du'lox looked at them, and then the ticking of the radiation meter seemed to register. He gestured, and one of his Litnus friends stepped forward. They put their own box on the ground.
Stanley gasped. Click click click…the black box went.
The two parties stood there, recognizing each other's technology but unable to decide where to go next.
The Litnus chattered between themselves. Then Du'lox seemed to have an idea. He looked at Franklin, his green eyes fixed on the colonel's cap. Slowly, the alien walked forward.
“Easy, colonel,” Gore said.
Du'lox looked him up and down, then from his collar(or the beetle equivalent), pulled out a metal token and handed it to him. On one side was alien scripture. On the other, Franklin saw a spiderweb like symbol. Nationality?
But the captain tapped it with a claw. Then he gestured to the sun above. He hooted. He tapped the diagram again, pointed at the sun.
Franklin frowned at the symbol. It seemed familiar, somehow. Something from his boyhood… something.
Reid stepped over. “That's a pulsar map!”
“Like the Voyager record?” Fitzjames asked.
“That could be their homeworld, or where they want us to go…” Gore murmured.
Du'lox coughed. It was a deep guttural sound. And then he stepped away and puked; a horrid yellowish-blue.
The doctor swore, “That's ammonia! They must be ammonia based!”
“And terribly sick.” Reid swore. She scowled, “Look at them!”
“This doesn't seem like natural radiation, doc,” Crozier said, taking more pictures.
The captain hooted, and doubled over. Chunks fell off his carapace. The colonel covered his mouth. “That's blood.”
“Yeah,” The flight controller grimaced. She looked at the geiger counter. She moved closer. Reaching out, she got the captain's attention. He saw the clicking device, and flinched back. She put up a hand, and he stopped. She held the probe out again, and pulled it back.
The captain straightened up. He pointed at her. She blinked, then pointed at herself, “Reid.” Then she pointed at the pulsar map, and the sun.
“Reid,” Du'lox repeated. He took out what looked for all the world like a pad of paper, and a stylus.
“It's like one of those new tablet writing pad… things,” Franklin said.
Reid glared at him, then at the captain. “Du'lox?”
He drew on the tablet a circle. “Kikikiki…” he said, imitating the geiger counter. Then a teardrop shape like their spacecraft beside it. Then he drew some curved lines around it, from the circle. He seized the geiger counter, and imitated the clicking again. “Kikikiki…” He pointed at the ship. “Kikikiki!”
Crozier snapped a photo. “Holy shit, their ship must be radioactive!”
“No, I heard about that,” Reid said. She and Du'lox kept making gestures, and he kept clicking.
Eventually he drew several figures, likely a stick figure version of the aliens. He circled them rapidly, “Kikikiki!" He moaned.
Reid sighed. “It's radioactive, yeah… but so are they. And that's just as bad for them as it is for us.”
Du'lox looked at the colonel and walked over again. His glowing green eyes looked at the metal tag. He hooted again.
“I don't get it, you're the one who can understand him!” Stanley said, gesturing to Reid.
Du'lox tugged at his chevron, and gestured to Franklin's cap. Franklin frowned, “I'm sorry, I…”
Du'lox sighed, then vomited again, groaning. Franklin tried to steady him, and the beetle straightened up. He staggered away. The other members of the alien crew followed.
“Well come on!” Reid exclaimed. The bugs were surprisingly fast, and the diplomatic party fell into a jog to keep up. The beetles were following their other Litnus brethren.
Franklin’s radio crackled. “Overwatch to Diplomatic party. The party on the beach has stopped moving.”
“We're on them!” Franklin said distractedly.
"Party, you don't understand. They…"
They broke through the undergrowth to see the crowd. Nearly a score of the beetles sat around the beach, looking at the setting sun.
The four with Du'lox looked around. They gave low keening sounds. Two separated to meet the others.
Franklin saw many of the beetles weren't moving. They were bleeding across the sand. The smell of ammonia blood and vomit filled the air. Chunks of carapace were scattered across the sand like fragments of some enormous black egg. One trilobite moved about, giving them liquid from a container one at a time.
“Oh, jeez…!” Stanley gasped, and rushed forward.
“Doctor, the radiation–!”
“We'll be fine,” Stanley ignored the aide. She put a hand on the alien's shoulder. They gave a start. But after some miming, they gave Stanley a small kit. Stanley moved among the wounded, imitating the nurse, doctor, or whoever they were.
A few of the aliens seemed to appreciate the help, letting out little clicking sounds of approval. Most were silent.
“Well, doctor?” Fitzjames called out.
“They're dying,” Stanley said. She looked around as if she were in battlefield triage. Franklin realized with horror that's what this was. Stanley looked around with a forlorn expression, her mouth open slightly, eyes twitching. She looked like she was in a medical tent full of black tags. “Some of them are dead already.”
“Yup,” Reid agreed grimly.
“Reid?” Fitzjames asked.
“They’ve all got radiation poisoning,” Reid said.
“Seems to match their symptoms,” Stanley called out, as she crouched to help another beetle. He leaned over and puked. More carapace came off.
Reid covered her mouth, “My guess is they hit the sun, or a different one. Must've gotten scorched by a solar flare or something.” Another beetle rolled to the side, and went still.
“Would that explain the damage to their ship?” Crozier asked.
“Probably.”
“Is there anything we can do?” Fitzjames asked, “Shouldn't we… I don't know, isn't there anything?” One trilobite gave a squeak, and puked. Most of it came out as fluid, there was nothing left in her stomach.
Stanley straightened up. “We can make them comfortable,” she said grimly, “We need a medical team down here to treat their symptoms, bandage them up, that sort of thing. Other than that…” She trailed off. The living beetles huddled together, watching the sunset. Another laid back and didn't rise again.
“We can't do anything?
Stanley nodded. “I'm not a vet, or a xenobiologist. In humans, radiation literally collapses our veins. For all we know it could be worse on aliens with an exoskeleton. I don't know if morphine will just kill them.”
Fitzjames hesitated, then nodded back, and took out his phone.
Crozier snapped photos, moving around at various angles to get the best view. Two Litnus seemed to recognize the camera. One turned away. Another raised his arm slightly, then coughed violently. He sighed. “Jesus, I haven't seen anything this bad in years.”
“If they're all sick, why did they come here?” Fitzjames asked.
Crozier lowered the camera. The one who coughed puked, and his motions tapered off, though he seemed to be breathing. The reporter looked off into the distance. “Maybe they… wanted somewhere to put down.” He fiddled with his lens, “Just to watch the sunset while they still can.”
Gore saw one of the beetles taking out a small leather pouch. From it, he withdrew a photo. His eyes went from it, to the sunset, and back again. It was of a similar sight, with several other beetles. It might have been family, friends, or even just a party. Even it ticked with radiation. “But why come here, to Earth? Why to us?” She asked quietly, “And what was that business with the colonel?”
Franklin stepped over to stand near Du'lox. He held one of the other survivors in his arms, and watched the brilliant light. The sky turned from blue to red, setting it ablaze. Du'lox rocked back and forth slightly, chittering gently with the survivor. There was something that felt like a smile about him. Not an expression, just a feeling. Perhaps it was pheromones, or some other kind of influence.
Franklin held out the token. Du'lox looked at him. The captain shook his head, reached up, took his chevron, and held it to what passed for a forehead. Then he handed it over. “Reid?” he asked.
“Here!” The flight controller rushed over. Reid looked between them, and pointed at the token. “Du'lox, what's up with this?”
Du'lox took the token. He put it in the sand. Then he drew a pointed symbol. And the bug stick figure symbols again, circled. “Pssshhhhh,” he croaked. Then he pointed north, toward the rocket launch pads that ran up the coast. From here, one could just barely make out one of the launch complexes. Then he pointed at the circled stick figures, then the sun, and said one word, “Rocket.” With that, he fell silent, and looked toward the sunset.
Gore approached. “You figured it out, Reid?”
Franklin looked at the chevron. Suddenly it was all plain. “They didn't just come here for a comfortable plot.”
Reid nodded her head. “You're right. They knew we were civilized, because we have rocket technology.”
“Then what's up with the pulsar map?” Fitzjames asked.
Reid spoke haltingly, “They… they want us to bring them home. Or at least they think we can figure out how to.”
Gore looked at some of their equipment. She saw the beetle with the photo. Slowly, his hand came down to rest in the sand, still, and unmoving.
Reid looked to the north. “Hey, colonel, you know which pad that is?”
Franklin looked up. Then he looked at Du'lox. “Do you think he knows?”
“But they don't know us! They're just relying on the kindness of strangers?!” Crozier exclaimed.
Reid looked at Franklin. “He knew you would understand.”
Franklin looked at the pulsar map. “I guess old soldiers always know each other,” he murmured.
Du'lox looked up at him. “Home,” he said, the second English word he'd used.
Franklin crouched beside him. He pointed, “You see the complex over there? Uh…” He thought, “Rocket?” He held his hand flat and made it look like a rocket launch pad with his other index finger.
“That's Launch Complex 14,” Reid said. She pointed, “John Glenn launched from there. First American to orbit the Earth.” She pointed again, “Launch Complex 15 up there is disused, but it's still there. All the way up the coast, we've got the launch sites of the first US satellite, Alan Shepard's pad, the first Gemini,” She pronounced it like knee, as in the old NASA recordings, “The first uncrewed US lunar lander, the first Apollo…” She trailed off and looked at Du'lox.
An image of a weathered concrete structure appeared in her mind. Fire in the cockpit. A photo of three men smiling around a model capsule, and another of the same men praying playfully around it. She looked at the captain's weathered body. More chunks of carapace peeled away. Was it the result of a simple accident, or was it a bad contractor? Budget cuts or a simple error? In an instant, she saw the world plain. People are alike all over…
She blinked back tears as she looked at Du'lox. “Gus, Ed, and Roger are looking down on you, my friend.” She wiped her face.
“Reid?” Gore asked.
Du'lox echoed, “Reid?” His green eyes widened, and there was a tremor. His alien mouth shifted, and bent forward. “Gus… Ed… Roger?” He repeated.
“They were…” Reid's voice broke as she studied Du'lox's alien face.
He reached out to touch her hand with his claws. “Tulk, Elbla, Utk, Fakrir,” he said, then some other strange sounds.
Reid took his claw. “Oh my god…” She looked at Franklin. “I think he understands.”
“I wonder if they are that much more advanced than we are,” Gore muttered. “They're just astronauts.”
Du'lox took Franklin’s hand. “Rocket?”
Franklin nodded. Images of a fireball entered his mind. A contrail that slowly broke into a thousand pieces.
“We'll bring you home, sir. That's a promise,” Franklin said quietly.
The surf pounded and boomed. Distant birds squawked.
Du'lox remained alive until the next morning. He hooted. Then he said, “Home…”
~~
One year later, a spacecraft launched into orbit. Launch Complex 14 and 15 were active once again. The Florida coast was alive with activity, as rockets of different shapes and sizes from two hundred nations came and went.
A new memorial was in front of the landing zones. It was a bronze memorial of a small crowd of humans and trilobites watching a rocket climb into the sky. The humans wore a variety of different suits and overalls from three different eras.
“Here Litnus from the planet Alika first set foot on the planet Earth”, it said, inscribed with the date, “They did not die in vain. Poyekhali!”