Tony Higgins (An Alien by Any Other Name)

By Paul G Mann

Tony wasn’t frightened of UFO’s, he didn’t even believe in them. When one landed in the field at the back of his house, little did he know, today would be the last day he drew breath. Eric was in University and this was the summer break. He didn’t like Tony and as far as he knew the feeling was mutual, he was surprised therefore when the first person to welcome him home was his nemesis and next door neighbour, one Tony Higgins.
Tony claimed he had changed, he was no longer a thug or bully and wanted to treat people with respect, but he wanted Eric's help to show him how. Eric disbelieved him thinking it was another of Tony’s mind games, only relenting when Tony confessed he was an alien. The weeks that followed were filled with suspicion as both Eric and his new girlfriend, and one true love, Amanda suspected Tony was being less than truthful, but who would believe aliens had landed without tangible proof?
The pair, along with their friends Grace and Phil devise a plan of action after Eric finds out that Tony is the first of his kind on Earth, here to ascertain the technological levels of the human race under the pretext of joining their “Galactic Family.” Is Earth under threat? who will believe them if Earth and humanity is? Is Tony a good guy or a bad guy? even our hero's don't know.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul G Mann
• Release date: Apr 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463724927

Paul G Mann

Writing never came easy to me, even at school but somewhere inside me I always thought I had a story to tell. Before word processors and spell checks the bringing up of a family and out working to support them took precedence over such things as writing and as such setting my story down on paper was the least of my priorities.Things changed in 2007 when I suffered a heart attack which effectively ended my working life. My first computer back in 1988 was an old Amstrad word processor that allowed me to take work home from the office without the need of a ream of paper and white correction fluid. All I needed was a small three inch disc that fitted quite nicely into my pocket. It made letter writing so much easier and renewed my interest in writing although at that time I didn’t pursue it.I have had a large and varied working life to give me inspiration. I was a seaman for three years in my teenage years; I worked as a bus conductor on leaving the sea to raise a family before training as a plasterer and working in the building industry. A telecommunications factory offered better pay and conditions so I moved into the production of telephone exchanges for six years until securing a job in BT for seventeen years until made redundant in 1992. Ultimately I worked as a private hire taxi driver until illness forced me to stop.I am twice married with 3 children of my own (all grown up and flown the coup now) and 3 step children (also flown away). My present wife Gillian is a rock to me and who without her support and encouragement these books may never have been finished for publication. So if you don't like them blame her not me.The heart attack changed my life. I had to find something to occupy my mind and soon decided the best thing I could do was write. I readily admit I am not and probably never will be the most gifted writer in the world but as an exercise in keeping the old grey matter in working order it cannot be surpassed.All my work is ready for reading in e-book format from Smashwords and Paperback from http://www.Feedaread.com (cheaper at smashwords}

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Copyright 2020

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By the Same Author

NEWTH 1 (The Early Years)

NEWTH 2 (A Time of Change)

NEWTH 3 (Inhanth & Hive)

The Last Magician

Christmas Magic

One Small Step

A Child of Time

Solace

A Revelation at Ancandanter

Acknowledgements

Wirral Writers for their invaluable critiques and encouragement.

Gillian for her unceasing support.

Pixabay.com fort the cover Artwork.

Tony Higgins

An Alien by any Other Name

1 Discovery

He was an explorer; one of many sent out seeking new planets. The aim to find new life, following leads and information supplied by the the worlds leading astronomers. His mission, to catalogue what he found; to cross the Galaxy on a quest to save his dying people. An interesting existence, one he loved, even if it was mundane at times. Most of the stars he investigated lacked planets. Of those that claimed a solar system, many were dead, airless rocks, or Gas Giants, devoid of life. These planets gave nothing, only the monotony of classifying rock strata, and mineral deposits.

The ships' sensors collected and automatically analysed the air and soil. Dangerous organisms, and life forms quickly identified to prove or disprove the viability of long-term colonisation. It would be months of long hours, most of which spent in front of a computer. Boring tedious work, by the end of which, he was always glad to lift off and get back home.

To find life on a planet was different. The same tests had to be done as a matter of standard procedure, but finding life always carried an air of expectancy that filled him with a hope, that intelligence existed in the far reaches and blackness of intergalactic space. When life was found, it meant much of the boring work could be left to the automatic systems. He was left to concentrate on, and catalogue the life forms he found with the ships image and data recorders.

The present assignment was taking him to a system in the outer section of the galactic third spiral arm. An as yet unexplored region of the galaxy where, according to his mission brief, astronomers had detected abnormal radio waves. Knowing this, his mission parameters filled him with a quiet excitement. The discovery of radio waves, complicated waves that might show intelligence, came from a bright yellow star. He remained cautious, it wasn’t the first time they had sent him to report on something like this, only to be deflated when nothing was found. Intelligent life remained a dream, one he had lived through for nearly thirty years. He reined in his excitement, experience told him radio waves were nothing but the random noise from an over active star, pushing out noise as all stars do.

This time was different, they told him when he questioned the findings and the scientists back home. There was a definite pattern in the waves they had discovered. Again his excitement rose at the thought of this, but he brought his emotions under control remembering his sobering experience’s of chasing this type of star before. But there was always the hope, that this time there was a possibility intelligent life existed.

As usual, he took his time, provisioning the ship for all eventualities. Food and water. Fuel wasn’t an issue, the nuclear reactors had hundreds of years in them before age demanded they would need replacing. Clothing, hot and cold weather wear, a spare suit for outside the ship in case the atmosphere proved inhospitable. He checked the emergency life craft, the AHU (all purpose habitat unit). It was a versatile craft, used to get from the orbiting ship to ground, and if needed could act as a ground vehicle, depending on the terrain. It too was self sustaining from a nuclear core, with the ability to take any form, shape and dimension he programmed it for.

His journey would take him across Ninety-one light years of interstellar space, and he mentally juggled to either stay awake, or go into short-term hibernation for the duration of the voyage. Awake won, sixty-four days at warp wasn’t a hardship. He could catch up on some of the books and articles he had missed on his last mission. More importantly he would be fully awake as he neared his destination, and be on hand to identify what the radio transmissions were, and more significantly, where they originated.

Two days into the voyage, he set the ships on board internal com systems to sound an alarm if the incoming signals changed either in frequency or direction. With a smile of contentment he settled down to read, sitting by the forward view screen to catch the beauty of the star trails as he sped through the black void. Fed up with reading, he switched to the documentary series on the video outputs that he had watched before embarking on the mission. He enjoyed reading, but it made his eyes heavy and sleep was never far away, he was glad to put the book down and watch his programs.

The internal alarm advised of a change in frequencies when he was still twenty-two days from the system. Nothing unusual, radio waves were notorious for being unstable. A change in frequency could mean anything. He idly cast his eyes over the readout. Surprise at the steady rhythmic display, making him turn the volume up to an audible level. The one thing he hated about following radio signals, was the white noise the stars generated, it could have a serious effect on your sanity if listened to for too long.

His excitement only surpassed his surprise at what came out of the speaker. It was noise, but not white indiscriminate noise. A steady gentle rhythm pulsated from the speaker, the sound keeping a perfect synchronisation with the screen readouts. Whatever was making the noise, it wasn’t the star; the noise wasn’t natural, it was artificial, it was life, an intelligent life form making what he assumed was a form of entertainment. The beat and rhythm couldn’t be anything else, well nothing natural.

Excitement mounted as he began to search through the wavelengths, nothing was empty, virtually every wavelength carried a sound wave. Every few minutes the rhythm sounds would stop replaced by what he thought was speech, or was his imagination getting the better of him? He wasn’t sure, how could he be, but every wavelength was the same. He cleaned the noise out of the waves, refined them until he had one frequency crystal clear. Now it was unmistakable, music, a strange, unfamiliar music, but music, followed by an unintelligible language, life, intelligent life. The discovery was his, his alone to be remembered for all time as the first to discover life outside his own planet.

He set the translating algorithms working to identify the patterns. Running the signals through the communication relays, was the first step before refining them. Then a fine tuning to clear and clean the static and background noise from the constant stream of information now coming his way. It took days before he sat back in satisfaction, he could do no more to sharpen the incoming feed. Once complete he stood in nervous expectation. The push of a button and he would see for the first time, what these beings looked like.

The first few images showed vast cities. Ground vehicles zipped along wide roads. The scene changed. Huge flying machines similar to the ancient craft of home flew across the skies. Vista's of beautiful lakes and mountains took his breath away, before the scene shifted once again to an underwater grotto teaming with aquatic life. Overriding the images, was a monotonous tone, a language, he smiled to himself as he set the ships translator to record and analyse the tone, and define the audio patterns.

He watched with growing expectancy; he had found life, that was indisputable, but what did it look like, was it carbon or silicon based, mammal, reptile or insect? He had to know, the people at home had to know, and the question were they friendly or not must be answered. The one thing he knew for certain, was this discovery was going to need years of research by teams of scientists, anthropologists and geologists to see if the life forms would be beneficial to his people.

At last a view of an inhabitant burst into life on the screen taking him by complete surprise. Like him they stood on two legs, had two arms with a head supported by a neck on top of a torso. They wore strange garments that acted like an outer skin, but from the scenes in front of him he surmised unlike his own race, they comprised two genders, male and female for procreation. Nothing unusual in that, plenty of his own planets animal life comprised of two sexes.

What to do next was beyond his mission parameters. Finding life was one thing, intelligent life was another. Any step he took from here could if he continued his approach, be disastrous and do more harm. Intelligent life had never been contacted before, there were no set protocols. What to do and say was beyond him. He brooded, and came up with the only course of action he could, he would go back home and wallow in the hero’s reception he would receive. To him would go the honour of first contact along with the honour of being sent to live among the creatures. He would become one of them and report back home with what he saw, and then wait final instruction. Hopefully they would be the salvation of his people.

2 Tony Higgins

Tony Higgins had always mocked the idea of life on other worlds. That kind of thinking was for the weirdos and dreamers, and if one thing Tony was not, it was a weirdo. Eric Griffin on the other hand, the lad who lived next door, was definitely a weirdo. He he was at University, one of those nerdy types who knew too much for his age. The cretin could even speak another language, something Tony found hard to understand. What was wrong with good old-fashioned English, he could speak to other people using English; why the hell, would he want to speak something foreign? 

He was in the garden, a nice warm sunny day, sitting back in his mother's garden chair, a can of lager at his side, abusing a stupid bitch on social media with his phone when he looked upwards.  Something was dropping slowly out of the sky, landing without a sound in the open-spaced field at the rear of his home. It was like nothing he had ever seen before, resembling a helicopter in the way it moved and hovered. Slightly bigger, but looking short and squat, it had come down the same way as a helicopter, but it had no rotor or tail. Tony didn't understand how it could fly, and couldn’t care less. An avid disbeliever in U.F.O’s and little green men. To Tony it was either an experimental craft being tested by the government; or a new plane the Russians or Chinese were testing. 

If nothing else Tony was a curious creature, and never one to pass up the chance of making a few quid, legal or not, he vaulted the fence and jogged the few hundred yards to where it had landed. If the pilot was in trouble, he might get a nice reward for his rescue. Reaching the craft, he looked for smoke or signs of damage. He couldn’t see a door, or even windows, or an engine for that matter. Scratching his head, he wondered how it could fly, and why if it was in trouble, the pilot hadn’t radioed a Mayday. If he had, the rescue team was slow in getting here. The craft had been on the ground for a good ten minutes, and by now crowds should be approaching wondering what was happening, but there was no one.   

About to shout a greeting, an opening in the craft slid to one side, stopping his hail in mid breath, steps appeared from it. Tony ambled forward. He wasn’t afraid, he still clung to his disbelief in U.F.O’s, and all the hype that went with them. Besides U.F.O’s never landed, if they did, they were conveniently never there when someone got to the landing place. The open doorway was a beacon, beckoning him closer until he paused at the bottom, and looked up the steps. 

‘Is anyone there?’ he shouted. ‘Do you need help? 

Suddenly he was filled with a feeling of euphoria; calm swept through him and he smiled, a half smile of complete fulfilment that dispelled all the angry emotions and thoughts that normally ran through him. At the top of the steps a pale luminance appeared, slowly it made its way down towards Tony who was starring into the distance, with that strange half smile on his face. Tony was in a world of his own, unaware that he was about to take his last breath as Tony Higgins. 

The luminance stopped and enveloped him. It seeped into his body, through his skin, his mouth, nose and ears. It raced through veins and arteries, taking control of his vital organs. Reaching the brain it stopped, raping the organ for the memories it contained. In a micro second, the language and customs of his host became his. He eradicated the personality of Tony Higgins, smothered it with his essence, digesting what he had learned, imprinting his own persona into the body of his victim. He stood unmoving. Tony’s memories became his, as the body merged with the mind of an alien being, leaving one entity, capable of independent movement and thought. 

Stage one was complete; he controlled the body of one of the planets intelligent species, and had done so with consummate ease. His own body lay in peaceful slumber where it would stay, on board the mother-ship, enclosed in a deep sleep unit. There it would remain while he lived as a human, gathering the information he needed to appraise this worlds suitability.

His first act was to gather the tools and equipment he would need from inside the transport. Nothing outlandish, or out of place. A small hand held communication device, similar to a native mobile or cell phone, that doubled as a remote transponder for the transport. His other requirement being a small hand held computer used to communicate with his superiors and run the systems on the mother-ship.

Back outside, he withdrew the steps. The door slid silently closed, and with an increase of energy to the nuclear generated magnetic coil. It rose into the air, back into space, disappearing into the clouds as electrically charged metastatic energy encompassed the craft rendering it invisible. Up it sped on a force of nuclear fused magnetic energy, back to the mother-ship, laying at rest on the far side of the Moon. There it would stay until his mission was complete, and he could return to his home, his family and friends, to be welcomed like the hero he was. 

The being who was now Tony Higgins watched his ship rise and disappear; then made his way across the field to where he lived. Upstairs in his bedroom, he made the first report home via the ships com link. Success, a native taken over without trouble or noticeable side effects. There would be no response, the signal would take six Earth years to get through and an answer received, but at least the waiting millions would know he had succeeded.

The next stage was to blend in to this society, living as his new host. For the next twenty of the planets revolutions, he would act and live as Tony. He would work alongside the natives, and report his findings and discoveries to the waiting, expectant hordes back home. Finished he returned to the family living room in time for his mother to announce dinner.  

This was his first test, had he absorbed enough of Tony’s memories and personality to pass as him? Would he falter at the first hurdle, would he be able to form the words of the spoken language? Tony sat where he always sat, his mother placed a plate of food in front of him, bacon, egg and chips Tony’s memories said, his favourite. He picked up a fork, stabbed it into a chip and broke the egg yolk with it before putting in his mouth. Not an unpleasant taste was his thoughts as his father spoke to him. 

‘You’re quiet, what's wrong, have you been fighting again?’ he asked through a mouthful of food. ‘I swear if anyone knocks on that door complaining you’ve hit their son, I’ll brain you.’

‘No Dad,’ he heard the voice of Tony reply, pleased he had formulated the words correctly. ‘I have a few things on my mind, nothing important and nothing to worry about.’

The conversation around the diner table continued. It was Tony’s father, and occasionally his mother, who asked the questions. Most of them about him finding work, and his friends, why didn't he have a girlfriend, was he GAY? All answered without commitment by Tony. His father changed direction and began talking about the upcoming football match before his mother changed the subject to the usual chit chat that dinner time brought about. They discussed Aunt Maggie, Uncle Fred, the neighbours, especially Eric Griffin who was due home from university. The latter subject brought up by his mother who knew Eric was due home despite the fact Tony disliked him.

The being who was now Tony was grateful when his hosts mobile phone trilled to let him know he had a message. He had suffered the questions, but was glad the ordeal was now over and he could retire with the phone to the confines of his room; glad in the knowledge they had accepted his version of Tony. 

Social media, a place where Tony’s memory said he insulted and berated people without them knowing it was him. It was a game to Tony, make a fictitious identity, cause misery and then delete the account before they could trace him. Once deleted he would create another identity and the misery to others would continue. He looked at the phone message Piss off you piece of shit, if I ever find out who you are I’ll brain you. It came from a woman or a girl, Tony’s latest mark he was screaming abuse at. It confused him, why antagonise and hurt others for no reason? This was only one of the questions he needed an answer to, and quickly.

He felt the persona of Tony fighting him, he needed time for the imprint to combine, and the interaction with others so soon after the joining, had left it weakened. Feigning tiredness, he shouted to them goodnight, but not before he heard his fathers statement to his mother. ‘There’s something wrong with him,’ he said to her. ‘Or he’s done something even he is ashamed of. He’s too quiet, not his usual nasty self; I don’t trust him, he’s probably planning something horrible for Eric when he comes home.’ 

He lay on the bed and ran a self diagnostic on Tony’s imprint. It was good, but he still felt the personality of Tony resurfacing. It confused him, the imprint should fuse with him, merging the memories and the host persona with his; but it was fading instead. Another self diagnostic with different parameters showed nothing amiss leaving him with the conclusion that the persona of Tony was still there and fighting back. He went through the imprint process again. This time slower and deeper than before, until satisfied, that