The Sky People: The Sky People, #1

By B.P. SHEA

What transpires when aliens meet a human who doesn’t know she’s human?

In the orange seas of their world, they believed they were alone in the universe.

But on a day of storms and fire, a nameless creature explodes to life believing she is one of them, a child of the only home she ever knew. Her solid flesh and alien mind repel those she would call family, beings who have no vocabulary to describe her alien ways.

When her existence corrodes the very fabric of their ancient culture, only war offers a seductive return to the past.

Even if it destroys them all.

A journey to discover who and what she is, The Sky People records a solitary prisoner’s fight for identity as a civilization faces its own fear of the unknown. The Sky People begins the epic first contact trilogy that continues in The Sky People: Arrival and concludes in The Sky People: Full Circle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: B.P. SHEA
• Release date: Nov 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781540108920

B.P. SHEA

B.P. Shea writes stories for people who wonder what’s up there. His stories of first contact and adventures in the stars explore how contact impacts not only mankind, but the aliens who also thought they were alone in the universe. What aliens might think of us, and each other, offers as much wonder and adventure for today's readers as more common tales of humans fighting alien invaders. Drawing on his years in Asia, Australia, and the United States, B.P. Shea’s novels and short stories focus on how environment shapes cultures and what happens when those cultures meet on Earth and in the far reaches of space. From the thrilling twists and turns of The Sky People trilogy to the experience of first contact through the eyes of a Taiwanese monk in the forthcoming Moon Of The Buddha, B.P. Shea writes tales of thrilling strangeness for all fans of science fiction. B.P. Shea is also the author of The Tea Fellowship: Thirty Years and the Halloween Hike, which chronicles his annual pilgrimage to the White Mountains of New Hampshire with his childhood friends, where they camp, hike, and reflect on a lifetime of friendship. B.P. Shea’s non-fiction works also include the forthcoming Taipei for Dinner: A Guide To The Bastard Child of Asian Dining.

Book preview

1

When death comes, it comes from the sky.

That was the only lesson the Elders of the First Age would have the young remember, at least those Elders who remembered darker times. Future Ages were prone to forgetting what was truly important.

Reproduction in the vast orange seas of their world was also a direct response to intrusion from above, of course. Birth depended on the sky in a measure equal to death, though whether the sky was viewed primarily as a source of light or darkness depended on the perspective of a given generation. Each generation knew what celestial disturbance had given it life, when the collective mind of the One made physical its need to understand the source of the waves imparting motion on the liquid world, announcing a visitation.

When the heavens unleashed the Stones of Fire, the sea hissed with burning meteorites. The One had spawned and dispatched millions of gelatinous offspring in response, already knowing that the young, living probes sent abroad to investigate would adopt as their own the nature of whatever had arrived. Every new Age found its soul in such joinings, especially painful ones, and so were the origins of the First Age. When the newly born crossed the sea and enveloped the projectiles of molten rock, those who survived could not distinguish their new personas from the report they sent back to the One of what foreign force had come from above.

It was their nature, and they had matured to become the First Age as quickly as their pain had overwhelmed them.

But with time, when memories of peace outnumber recollections of torment, it can be tempting to dismiss new young, as those born after the First Age had spawned from the One to investigate only benign stimuli. And perhaps it was understandable that members of the First Age weighed the urgency of their own creation more heavily than those who suffered less for the act of birth.

They felt they had earned it.

So many sun cycles later, passing down the wisdom of First Age experience could not be accomplished with single, heavy doses of chemical thought, of course. So many thoughts already crowded the chemical streams connecting the beings who formed the One’s spherical mass. The density of the way civilization had evolved to speak diluted the strength of each individual thought, especially First Age calls for caution. Only the shock of emergency could clear the congested chatter, when some intrusive danger sounded the klaxon of panic, and the Many silenced their routine correspondence to taste the liquid flowing over their forms for any molecule that meant danger.

To effectively shape the thinking of others, small, steady doses of suggestion must coat every idea and every word over many sun cycles. The First Age knew that over time, the young might absorb the First Age’s fear of above until all trembled at the very idea of the sky and all that it might rain down on the living. When the First Age exploded into consciousness so long ago, it had little time to contemplate or seek rescue from the searing pain of burning rock. That pain was the very soul and nature sought by the First Age, who internalized it even as it brought death to so many of them.

And so the coming children would have no time either.

Should the sky speak to the One again, whatever new generation of souls should emerge from the One to investigate must already know of danger if they hoped to protect the One.

The First Age could not be there for them, to guide them through the explosion of birth. New stimulus required a new generation, even a new Age, if the scale of intrusion from above was sufficiently disruptive. Even if the Stones of Fire had returned, the First Age must suppress its desire to return to its days of daring and glory. It must hold position within the collective of the One, listening to the vibrations of whatever had entered the world and to the thoughts of the young dispatched to determine its nature.

It had been many sun cycles since such thoughts were necessary. History recorded the existence of only two Ages, two generations of life who stood as living documents of how long the world had enjoyed peace. As the First Age would certainly have predicted, peace came to an end from high above.

The planet’s gravity pulled the torpedo-like object from space, which hissed on contact with the atmosphere. Each layer of the planet’s striated skies opened in a dark, scorched ring when the object cut through, forming a chain of black holes marking the object’s final descent. Pieces tore from the main body and hung suspended in the environment, painting an expanding debris trail across the sky. Each slowly rotated in the heavy atmosphere.

The smooth, oval nose section of the object cracked, separated, and tumbled under the main body when the machine first skipped across the gelatinous surface. Black streamers of smoke trailed behind, recording a jagged graph of the vessel’s fall suspended in the air. With each strike, a slow, rippling ring spread across the planet’s surface, followed by another, and then another. The circles followed the machine’s path, each one closer than the one behind it, until the alien object settled to a stop on the undulating waves of heavy orange liquid. The smoke slowly swung upwards and to the sky.

As sea liquid seeped into the severed forward section, the machine knew there was little time left. Anticipating its demise, the vessel extended a telescopic arm from its midsection. The ribbed stem extended vertically, its tip flowering into a round, retina-like sensor pad to record atmospheric data. Inside the dying craft, a beacon glowed to life, uselessly transmitting its last known position and status towards its home. Had the diagnostic systems survived the initial impact, they would have informed the beacon that its signal had failed to penetrate the planet’s thick atmosphere and allocated the power elsewhere. Its auxiliary battery might have been able to amplify the signal, but orange liquid had already dissolved the necessary circuits. Glowing cinders hissed and went black when sea liquid steadily advanced over them.

The data sent towards the clouds included no evidence of advanced life on this final destination, and no such life would be anticipated in any case in an environment so unlike that needed to support intelligent life. It would have been logged as another barren world, and the alien machine would have moved on to other targets, if given the chance.

But the gelatinous sea below the machine began to move.

At first, the swirls were indistinguishable from the cyclical tides pushed by the planet’s sun and moons. But the moving liquid adopted a controlled trajectory, even defying the direction of the wind. Beneath the small wake, an oval shadow widened and darkened, betraying the wave’s source as something animate, something determined to rise to the surface and approach the alien craft. As it passed underneath the probe, the machine lifted upwards, rolling from one side to another as the shadow turned for another pass.

On the second approach, the dark form paused directly below the machine. Small tendrils of fluid climbed up the sides of the smooth metal, snaking from side to side until they met each other on the top surface. There they became one strand of viscous gel, thickening around the object until a belt of liquid had formed around the metal casing. More hair-thin strands of liquid crawled upwards along the entire length of the hull, covering the machine in a web of gel until the scorched metal was entombed. The telescopic sensor was the last to be coated but continued to sway and bend, ever searching for more data as the ancient machine was pulled below by the dark mass. The torn forward section slowly rose to face the sky, paused, and slid beneath the surface.

The entity gently rotated to more evenly distribute itself around the craft, which remained fixed in position as the living cocoon of gel swirled around it. The cold hardness of the object transmitted ripples of ancient memory through the being’s jellylike structure. It had been countless sun cycles since hardness had fallen from the sky and penetrated this world. At least, that is what the Elders had said. In the ancient days, Stones of Fire came from above to inaugurate the First Age, eventually causing the planet’s life to converge as one collective and drift below, where they might be safe.

The sea compressed the being as it descended, pressing its fluid matter against the alien object within its core. Tapping the vocabulary of its communal species, the entity searched for those chemical molecules that might be condensed into an expression for the unprecedented sensation. It began with complex proteins representing the past, the only building blocks available for the construction of new meaning. The cooling depths immediately recalled the One’s great descent from the Stones of Fire raining down upon the world so long ago and the word that their exodus brought to life.

Sanctuary.

The being’s descent reenacted the word’s very creation, a creation made necessary by the sudden equivalence of above and peril.

The fact of solid matter inside the being’s own structure demanded reassurance that such stimulus from above posed no danger to the Elders. To drift downwards to the darkness might invoke the comforting memories among those who still feared the sky. Perhaps it would even open their minds to the new if they forgave the youth for adopting the cultural reference to their glorious past and projecting it onto current events. Should the old deem the present unworthy of such hyperbole, they would again bemoan the habits of ungrateful youth who took for granted the safety of their times.

To prepare possible arguments with the Elders, the young life form sorted the cognitive sediments floating through its mind, at last locating the desired chemical thoughts that might disperse the sky’s tired association with fear. The old were hesitant to admit they had ever changed their thinking, even to a slight degree, after so many sun cycles of peace. This was the Age of Silence, a peaceful time marred only by the First Age’s obsession with the dark times that preceded it. The Stones of Fire had at last abated, and even the old did not oppose returning to the upper layers of their universe. They followed the young, at first with reticence, to rise again and welcome the warm, filtered light above. The old had even settled into a relaxed routine of rest, debate, and study as they drifted together in safety. So complacent had all life become in this luxurious time that many believed that individuals might eventually disconnect from their shared consciousness, their consolidation now an evolutionary relic of their species’ response to the environment.

Nevertheless, the young being was not naive and anticipated the First Age’s reaction to the news from the sky. Even diluted descriptions of the invading machine could rekindle the terrifying memories of the Stones of Fire that claimed so many of the First Age. The emerging chemical profile of the alien material permitted no illusion that a new Era of Fire may have begun. Even the cool depths in which the being floated were a limited metaphor for sanctuary or reassurance. They could only distract society’s fears for so long, and as the molecular profile of the black machine took form, the being studying it wondered if omen might better describe its culture’s name for the depths.

The being further enveloped and dissolved the outer surface of the machine, ingesting the trace compounds and comparing them to those within the chemical memories of its entire civilization. The material was not elemental like the Stones of Old; this material was refined, its structure consisting of precisely replicated patterns that spoke of consciousness.

It spoke of planning.

Of others.

The entity wondered what species could compress solid matter into such an object and even impart movement. Perhaps the vessel came from one of the Many’s cousins from some distant sector of the One; the Second Age of the North, perhaps. The iconoclasts of the North shared their larger relatives’ gift for science but cared little for orthodoxy. But the thought dissolved to irrelevance before it even took shape. Hiding memories from the others was difficult, nearly impossible, the young being somehow knew. A recollection could no more be separated from the protein chains on which it traveled than could the communal speech, emotions, and thoughts that shared its path from one mind to another. The Many were One, and besides, the craft had come from above, not below.

From above. It was almost inconceivable.

The being’s chemical inquiry dissolved the last layer of the machine’s magnetic shielding, and globules of liquid information swelled within the living entity’s core. When enough energy had been generated, they burst outwards in every direction, suspended in swaying columns of fluid. The streams of information searched for their path home in order to inform the Many and the One.

The being had been tempted to complete the analysis before dispatching the information to those who listened and waited for news. From afar, this particular account of events might look like any typical fluid strand of thought crisscrossing the sea, enabling the traffic that constituted society’s daily business.

But the entity’s suspicions proved correct; this object was not of this world, and regular bulletins must begin immediately. When the planet’s magnetic fields herded the streams of information into a narrower, controllable path, the chemical messages stabilized, their random bends and waves tightening to fix on a singular destination.

For several recent sun cycles, the planet’s magnetic fields had been disrupted, likely from flares from the sun, they guessed. Communicating with even nearby individuals could be abruptly severed, one’s thoughts and speech delivered in broken snapshots of meaning as the cells coating protein thoughts were stripped of their ability to navigate the world’s own magnetic topography. But on this day, the young correspondent sent an unbroken stream of experience and imagery from the crash site, relieved that the sun’s arbitrary flares would not interfere with this momentous day in history.

Given the chance to complete its emergency assessment, the metallic device from far away would find no reference in its biological library for the form of life now reducing its hull to a liquid profile. Its creators might not even be convinced the undulating mass now surrounding it was an evolved form of life at all, a fact that the life form had already deduced and transmitted back to those reading them with alarm and wonder.

Those who constructed the craft might not even recognize the proteins flowing from within the living entity as information, no less as the thoughts of an entire civilization transmitted chemically in a semi-liquid medium. How beings from the sky could create so remarkable a device with such narrow perceptions of communication defied all convention.

The young life form yielded to the First Age compounds in its mind that warned of danger. The Elders’ alarm must at least be acknowledged as the machine’s ancient records described its own physical configuration. The sleek, elongated machine had adopted the shape of an ancient weapon designed to destroy at long distances.

Death had arrived again, the minds of the First Age declared.

The life form’s chemical investigation ate through the last layer of the alien machine’s hull, opening multiple internal chambers of organic matter, including genetic samples of the machine’s own creators. The molecular integrity of the foreign cells collapsed and dissolved in the acidic bath, their matter reduced to fluid compounds necessary for any serious analysis on this world. The consciousness of the being and all those who listened marveled at the needless obstacles that solid forms of life apparently imposed upon knowledge.

Such linear perspectives, an entire species told itself in unison, drinking in the data from its correspondent on the other side of the world. They would not even perceive us as civilized life. They assume only solid variations in their own likeness.

In the final hours of its life, the machine from the sky frantically studied the alien being until the last of its sensors fell silent. It was not programmed to consider the possibility of its log entries never reaching home.

Physical structure liquid to semi-gelatinous, the machine’s log noted. Dimensions of gelatinous form indeterminate…cognitive and sensory perception indeterminate…demonstrates…awareness of external stimuli but no evidence of intelligence…low order stimulus-response…

The telescopic neck continued to search for escape, stabbing its terminus wildly towards any surface of less resistance. As the gel thickened around it, the writhing slowed to a weak swing from left to right until, after a final effort to reach the heavens, stillness. The retina’s pale yellow light faded to black.

The entity digesting the panels of metal knew it was not the first to be in physical contact with solids. The memories of the First Age beings enabled such distinctions, reminding the solitary youth what it meant to be burned from the inside out by missiles from the sky. A sting from their ancient pain persisted in the being’s cognitive center, deliberately reminding naive adventurers that the First Age had once parted from the One to absorb the essence of the Stones of Fire and assess the potential danger they posed. Glowing embers rained down on the sea, and only the First Age had departed to investigate.

No other.

The founders of the First Age had returned to the One shaken, the absence of all those who perished imparting a dull haze that almost made their bodies opaque. The young entity examining the machine knew why the First Age was again projecting its creation story to all who would listen.

The youth was not immune to fear of danger. Like any being within the One, it could taste the molecules of grief being replicated by the First Age in generous amounts. It could not blame the First Age for reliving the departure from the One and the pain of contact with burning rock during the Time of Fire. The First Age had been born for torment, and to be born so ensured a life of obsession with the past.

But the fantastic structures of the alien material overwhelmed the being’s respect for the old ways. New feelings of wonder surpassed