The Blinking Star (Part 2)

Read Part 1 first.

Excitement charged through me again. I was still in my favorite blue Transformers footies, there was no changing that. I hoped the aliens liked Transformers. I straightened my hair and stood up. The fuzzy white airplane got bigger and clearer. It looked like a strange combination of airplane and butterfly. The wings didn’t flap, but they retracted as it neared the surface. Wind radiated from the center of the spaceship and made the grass ripple. I waded cautiously through the grass. A ramp slowly lowered to reveal three figures standing in the doorway.

They looked like monkeys. I was reminded of the chimps that were sent into space years before they sent humans. They wore what looked like British uniforms from the Revolutionary War, but less starched, and purple instead of red. The figure in the center wore a more ornate uniform. Its posture seemed to suggest leadership. When it spoke, its voice was robotic. Maybe it was speaking through a translator. Probably.

“To get the immediate questions out of the way,” said the leader, “my name is Corvus. To my left is Aquila, and to my right is Lepus. We are all female. Females are the dominant sex on our planet.”

“How come the astronauts didn’t notice you?”

“We did not want to be seen,” said Corvus.

“Why do you want to be seen now?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” said Aquila. She seemed amused. I glanced back at the house, thinking of the books that were stuffed in the bookshelf in my room. Science and science fiction. The telescope in my window winked at me. All these tools, all these resources for finding answers, and all they did was create more questions. Why? Why? Why?

“I’m very curious,” I replied.

“So are we. We are the… what’s your word… scientists. We came here because we received your radio signals. We thought you were sending us messages. There was a flood of them, and we couldn’t make sense of them. Then we realized the messages weren’t for us. Through our observation it is clear that you do not yet know of our existence, though you have guessed. We decided to observe from a distance before deciding whether to show ourselves. We have decided to show ourselves because we think it is safe. After all, your religion and ours are almost identical. We too believe in God, or Allah, or Yahweh. There seems to be several names for Him on this world.”

“Do you have a Bible?” Seeing that the word didn’t translate, I corrected myself. “Do you have a holy book?”

“Yes.” Lepus took out her Bible and showed it to me. “It automatically translates so anyone can read it.”

The words seemed very familiar. Other than a few minor grammar differences, the passages were the same as the Bible I had at home. My eyes grew wide.

“It’s almost the same as ours. Definitely the message is the same.”

“I would like to see your Bible.”

“Sure. I’ll be right back.”

I ran inside and grabbed the book, careful not to wake my parents. On my way out, I closed the door quietly. Then I returned to where the aliens were waiting. We sat in a circle on the cold, damp grass and looked through each others’ Bibles. Both of us were shocked at the similarities. The history and culture were different, but the message was the same. Love.

“I don’t know if this world is quite ready to meet you just yet. We still have a lot of problems. And nuclear weapons.”

“We will wait. Like a child, a species matures. Sometimes this maturing involves growing pains. Your species will be ready eventually. In the meantime, we will observe.”

Author's Note

I'm concerned that I ended the story awkwardly.