A Peace Offering

A Peace Offering

Before the Voyage

It will be a very long trip to another planet. Mars and Venus, and even Jupiter are considered relatively short hops these days. I will be going to Neptune. When people asked me where I am going this time, my long standing joke was “Well, I’m not going anywhere near Uranus. Ha, Ha, Ha.”

The method of this flight is to be quite unlike my trips to other planets.  It is the 2040s after all. The spacecraft will be travelling faster and farther than any before carrying a human passenger. I can hardly call myself a pilot, as I will be strapped in my chair, semi-conscious and unconscious most of the time. I will not be eating or drinking (not even hot chocolate!), but will be supplied with nutrients through the ‘energy feeder’, so I won’t have to worry about going to the bathroom.  It was a little scary, but nothing bad happened to me during the experiments, I was just a little dizzy, not for the first time in my travels, or in my life generally.

I will be able to think sometimes, and will try to redirect my mind’s focus away from fear, and focus on something pleasant. I will definitely imagine myself drinking hot chocolate.

A recorded message, both vocal and visual, had been sent to Neptune over a month ago, with two individuals, one of them an ordinary looking human, the other a human cunningly disguised to resemble an earthling conception of what an alien might look like. They approached each other carefully, then slowly walked up to each other and gave each other a hug. It is supposed to send the message that I am coming to the planet in peace.

Time for Takeoff

           It is time for takeoff. My husband and I had just bid a teary farewell on both our parts. I know that he is worried every time I go up into space. Just before we parted company he handed me what he always did before a flight, a heaping cup of hot chocolate, a treat that we both love. I had assured him earlier that the cup and the hot chocolate would not be destroyed. I would have to reheat it, however. And, as in every landing, I would take it with me as I took my first steps on the foreign planet, and drink it as I scanned my surroundings. I would arrange to have this filmed, so we could share it upon my return to the home planet.

Take Off

My spacecraft takes off. Confined as I am to my bolted down chair, I can’t turn around to try to see my husband, or even just the planet earth. Weeks of travel will follow, every moment seated in this chair

The Landing

All of a sudden, my confinement in the chair ends, and I am finally completely aware of my surroundings. It feels a lot like being awakened in the middle of the night by the blaring of a firetruck on the street where you live (a personal experience). I look ahead and can easily see our eventual destination. In a short period of time my spacecraft touched down on Neptune. When I look at the monitor, I see that it had only taken us (the ship and I) a little over three weeks to get here via superspeed. 

The spaceship takes on the shape and general physical characteristics of a boat, and it rocks gently as it floats. For the surface of Neptune is not solid like with earth, and other planets I have been on, but consisted of ice that had melted into water and liquids from other melted substances. It is a long way down to the solid core of the planet, much like what was portrayed in Jules Verne’s epic “Journey to the Center of the Earth”, which had inspired me as a pre-teen to become a scientist and maybe a space traveler.

Getting Ready to Leave the Spacecraft

           Before I put on my mostly flat, but boat shaped and curved water skis, I look for and find my cup of chocolate, obviously  now no longer hot. I pour the brown drink into a pot, which I put on what passed for a stove in the spaceship. Then I turned the single burner on. In next to no time the drink was hot again, the way I liked it. As was my landing tradition, I would not take a drop of the drink until I was standing on the planet, queen of all that I surveyed. I also had some milk and chocolate powder kept in the fridge, in order to brew up some hot chocolate with which to celebrate with my husband my return to our home planet.

           Okay, the skis are now on, as well as my breathing device.  I shuffle my way to the door, and out onto the planet. While I was relaxed when I took my first steps, that soon ended when I spotted a number of tall, thin, green creatures approaching me. In their three hands they held what looked very much like weapons to me. I was unarmed, with no guns or other weapons in the spaceship. What should I do now? I have never encountered a situation like this before. But where I had been before did not have inhabitants such as these.

           The Neptuners, as I named them in my head, drew closer and closer; until they were only six or seven long sliding steps away from me. One, evidently their leader, approached me slowly. I thought of a desperate measure to alleviate the situation. I lifted my cup of hot chocolate, and took a slow sip from it. The leader watched me very carefully as I did this, and slowly came closer. Then I extended the cup to the alien, handle first so it would be easier for the Neptuner to grasp.

 It put down what I thought was its weapon, a good sign, and then grabbed the cup by the handle, lifting it up to what appeared to be its mouth. It took a long, lingering sip, finishing the contents of the cup – another good sign.

           The leader then moved its mouth in a circular motion, and made a rumbling noise, that I hoped was a yummy sound. When its mouth stopped rotating, it turned up at both sides, like an earthling smile.

           It then turned and waved to its companions, all of whom put down what I believed were their weapons. This was followed by someone moving forward with what looked to me like a recording device. It beamed out the picture that we had sent out to them.

           Then my hot-chocolate drinking new friend approached me and gave me a hug, followed by a lifting of the cup in what I saw as a request for more hot chocolate. We weren’t that different after all. I led it into the spaceship and brewed up some more, which we shared from the cup. The alien drank first, but left most of its contents remaining as it handed the cup back to me, a peace offering.