The Green Button

When the ship escaped the atmosphere and broke free from the gravity of KG08, Dr. Lambert, heavily inhaling the stale air of his spacesuit, glanced out the window. KG08, the artificial satellite of a long-abandoned planet in the Draco II galaxy, was a ball of flames. The spectacle was grand, and Dr. Lambert would have admired the destructive force of disaster as he always did, but he was overwhelmed by several thoughts at once. First, only a dozen Mahaa, those who followed him, managed to escape KG08; the rest of the Mahaa civilization was now dying in flames. Second, two-thirds of Dr. Lambert’s crew, which had headed to explore the vicinity, most likely perished in hellfire. Most importantly, he realized the disaster was entirely his fault.

Dr. Lambert swallowed the thick saliva lodged in his throat, struggling to push it down. He glanced at Dr. Kering, whose face bore an expression of horror.

“I made a mistake,” Dr. Lambert said, addressing no one in particular among the eight humans and twelve Mahaa. Perhaps he was just talking to himself, unable to bear the silence amid the monotonous hum of the ship. “I didn't understand. I thought he was pretending. They were always pretending.”

It was true; the Mahaa were always pretending. Dr. Lambert had witnessed their silly acting many times. On the first day, when the ship from Earth landed in the meadow, a naked, hairless creature with a snout and short arms emerged from the forest. With wide, Tarsier-like eyes, it let out a piercing scream and began banging its head against a granite stone. A few seconds later, the creature collapsed to the ground, breathless. Dr. Lambert was the first to approach the creature, mistaking it for a strange animal. He pushed the lifeless body with his foot. Only then did he realize the creature wasn't dead; neither had it lost consciousness. On the contrary, it stared at him with intense interest and no fear. Then the creature exclaimed “mahaa mahaa” in a high-pitched voice, suddenly leapt to its feet, bit Dr. Lambert’s finger—thankfully protected by a thick glove—and dashed into the forest, squealing and breaking branches.

“I wonder what other wild animals are here,” Dr. Kering said, approaching Dr. Lambert from behind. “We should consider putting up a protective barrier.”

“I don’t think it was an animal,” Dr. Lambert replied. “It seems we’ve made contact with an intelligent species.”

A few days later, after the camp was set up and the perimeter established, the pleasant afternoon silence was shattered by a blood-curdling scream. Dr. Kering was the one screaming. Everyone nearby immediately grabbed their laser weapons and turned to where the young doctor was looking. There, near the forest, they saw a group of creatures identical to the one they had encountered on their first day. They stood in a row, like choir members preparing to sing, with their legs tucked under them, staring at the earthmen with their huge round eyes. As Dr. Lambert hurried toward them, the creatures remained still, following his every move with rapt attention.

“I am Dr. Lambert,” he said, pointing to himself as he got closer.

"Earth!" he exclaimed, pointing to the sky.

"Earth!" one of the creatures replied with a thick accent. Then, pointing to his feet, he said, “Mahaa!”

“Mahaa!” Dr. Lambert echoed. He took a granola bar from his pocket, unwrapped it, and took a bite.

"Food!" he said, offering the granola bar to the creatures. One approached him without hesitation, grabbed the bar from his hand, took a bite, and then suddenly clutched its throat, coughing desperately. The doctor's heart sank. He never expected that a simple granola bar could be poisonous to these creatures. Meanwhile, the creature, gasping for breath, fell to the ground, kicking the air and rolling its eyes. The agony didn't last long. A few seconds later, its short hands dropped to the grass.

His companions sat still, calmly watching their friend's demise. But when Dr. Lambert approached the creature on shaky legs, it sprang up and began jumping, emitting cheerful, piercing cries, “Mahaa! Mahaa!” Following his example, the others squealed and started jumping, throwing their hands in the air.

It took Dr. Lambert several weeks to establish linguistic communication. The Mahaa, as the crew named the inhabitants of KG08, quickly learned new Earth words for objects: ship, woman, compass, gun. However, teaching them to construct sentences turned out to be impossible; they had no understanding of verbs and adjectives. The doctor also discovered that the Mahaa lacked a true language; they used only the word “mahaa,” pronounced with different intonations to convey meaning.

Dr. Lambert spent many days trying to learn the history of KG08, and eventually, the story came together. The planet where the Mahaa once lived had long been uninhabitable. An unremarkable but deadly asteroid brought a virus that caused all plant life to slowly die out over several generations. KG08 was actually a space station that had collected cosmic dust for centuries, eventually transforming into what looked like a small planet with its own fauna. The still-functioning gravitational field allowed it to trap air on the surface.

This history became legend over time, and although the Mahaa lost all technological knowledge, they believed they might one day return home.

“Spaceship, cosmos, life, planet, death,” said one of the Mahaa, chewing one of the doctor’s granola bars and giggling.

“This is very interesting!” the crew captain exclaimed when Dr. Lambert shared what he learned from the Mahaa. “Imagine if we could build such stations around Earth! We should study the structure of this one as much as possible.”

The crew split into groups: one headed east, the other west. Dr. Lambert and his research team remained in the meadow to continue communication with the Mahaa. While examining the underground station, which scientists initially mistook for caves, they found many intriguing artifacts from the past—books, toys, and clothes. The Mahaa had long since abandoned these items, losing the ability to read and adapting to the constant temperature maintained by the station.

"I'm curious what kind of energy it's using,” Dr. Lambert said to Dr. Kering. “It can't be nuclear—it would have extinguished long ago. It's not solar, as I don’t see any solar panels.”

“Maybe we should ask the Mahaa,” Dr. Kering suggested.

“I’m afraid they lost that knowledge long ago.”

One afternoon, Dr. Lambert, accompanied by a dozen Mahaa following him everywhere, visited a lake he had seen from afar and long wished to explore. They walked through the forest and approached the water. As they neared the shiny surface, the doctor realized what he thought was a lake was actually a vast sheet of thick glass, with grass growing in areas where soil had accumulated. Following his companions, he turned left and, through thickets of bushes, found the entrance to a giant room filled with computers. The command center, he guessed—where those who operated this station worked centuries ago.

Dr. Lambert approached the long, dusty desk in the center of the room. The creatures, jumping with excitement, scattered in different directions, whispering “mahaa” in admiration. The doctor sat in a massive rusty armchair and instinctively reached for a green button on the control panel with an unreadable inscription. But before he could touch it, he heard a terrible screech behind him. He turned to see one of the creatures looking at him with fear in its eyes, shaking its head and repeating “Mahaa! Mahaa!”

"What? I don't understand. Speak in my language. You know the words," the doctor said. The creature instead clutched its throat with both hands and staggered, collapsing to the metal floor.

“Quit pretending… I’m so tired of your theatrics,” the doctor sighed as he pressed the button.

He would never forget the moments that followed. Somewhere below, turbines screamed, and computer monitors, thought to be dead, lit up with blue light, producing lines of code. A siren blared, and the doctor heard an explosion in the distance. Then another.

He didn’t wait for a third explosion. He jumped from his chair and, pushing his long legs forward, rushed toward the exit. Outside, he saw fires erupting high into the sky, one after another, covering the surface with thick clouds of smoke. Before he ran to his ship, two thoughts crossed Dr. Lambert’s mind. Green didn’t always mean go. And that Mahaa wasn’t kidding around.