Alpha 1472 (23 page)

They walked in the darkness to an area about one hundred yards away from the house where they found several torches. Taking his oil lamp Aaron lit all of the torches. When they were all lighted, he picked up his shovel. He had been charged with digging the grave where Thomas was to rest. Jason placed his hand on the shovel and asked if would be alright with them, if he and Matthew could have the honour of preparing the site. A tear formed in Beth’s eye. She was touched by the generosity of these strangers. Her eyes met with her husbands and she gently nodded in his direction. Over the next two hours the three men took it in turn to dig a grave that was slightly longer than Thomas was tall, the same for the width and about the same
in depth as the length. When the grave was finished Aaron and Watkins reached out their arms and pulled Jason from the hole. The then went to bring Thomas to his final resting place. Using three long lengths of the same cloth in which he had been bound all six of them lowered the body to the bottom of the grave and proceeded to cover Thomas with the same soil that had been removed. To finish the site large boulders were placed around the site as a memorial to remind them of him. They went back to the house leaving the torches burning in the darkness.

They stayed for refreshments and then they announced that it was time for them to take their leave. It was still dark, and concern was shown for their safety but they insisted that it was indeed time for them to go, so, reluctantly Beth and Aaron thanked them for what they had done for their family and pledged to repay the favour in some way in the future.
They said their goodbyes and vowed to return. As they walked away they could see the torches burning in the distance. The emotions of the last rotation had taken their toll on the crew; they were drained and looked forward to relaxing in familiar surroundings. The journey back to the beach was a quiet affair. Each of them was reflecting on events they had witnessed and the fortitude of their new friends.

Having been debriefed about the recent events, the captain had ordered six hours of rest and relaxation.
Marius Hatch had slept throughout the whole episode and had awoken just as they were finishing their meeting. The captain stayed on the cockpit to bring him up to speed with their recent experiences. The rest of them retired to different parts of the ship. Although they had been granted a period of R & R, none of them could relax. There was no possibility of sleep, and besides which they were mentally occupied with their work. Most of them busied themselves with checking equipment and preparing for the next time they would go ashore. Travis and Anne had been assigned the task of connecting the storage media that had been given them by the elders of the tribe. They had managed to free the disc drive from its sealed container of the orange stone and were surprised to find that it was in pristine condition, or so it seemed. The care with which it had been packed had preserved it well. Had they have left it in the substance they felt sure that it would have survived indefinitely. It was of a format that no one was familiar with and back on the home world they had been searching for instructions to connect it to the main computer and hopefully extract any information that it may hold. They had direct contact with the technical engineers who had figured out a method that could possible achieve their goal. It required the assistance of Anne and her micro surgery skills. They told her that she would be working on micro circuitry and that she should secure the drive on the workbench and ready her tools to do the job.  Travis assisted her and when they were ready they contacted the engineers and started to try to achieve a connection. She placed the high powered magnifying glasses over her head and swung the lenses down over her eyes which activated the forward facing lights, which illuminated the circuitry she would be working on. The two problems that faced them were the electrical supply and the connection to their computers on board. The engineers had managed to trace the original specifications of the unit, so apart from making the link they could foresee no problems. It would be a simple case of hoping that time had not deteriorated the data. Travis handed her a connector cable that was compatible with the ships systems. She cut one of the ends off and stripped the cables. Following the instructions of the engineers, she traced each and every wire and attached and soldered the bare ends to the placed indicated to her. When she had completed all of the instructions she removed her goggles and they both sat back and looked at what they had created. It was a strange contraption consisting of a board to which they had secured the drive. Wires led from the drive to a power supply and a network of wires, which had been soldered to the circuit board inside led to a compatible connector for the on board systems. The device was not attractive but hopefully, it was functional. Carrying it carefully they took it to the cockpit. Travis cleared a place to set it down and then they waited until all of the crew were assembled. The engineers had uploaded a boot device to them and all they had to do was to switch it on and hope for the best. Eventually they had all finished what they were doing and joined the rest in the cockpit area. For Anne, it was not a moment to soon she was itching to switch it on just to see if it would work. Daniels and Hatch were the last to take their seats. He then turned to Anne and said “OK, let’s see what you’ve got.” She connected it to one of the terminals in the main computer, connected the power supply and threw the switch. They all waited. At first nothing happened and they all thought that that was it. Anne turned to the others and shrugged her shoulders questioningly. JD motioned to her using his head in such a manner to indicate to her that she should use a little force to encourage it to react. She was still holding a screwdriver, so she turned it around in her hand and using hammer style she tapped the outer casing of the drive. There was a painful scraping sound as the drive sprang to life. Before long, the scraping sound abated and was replaced by a gentle whirr. Hatch suggested that while it was functional they should download the content to the main computer in case it failed. The captain agreed and asked Travis to do so. The download took about ten minutes after which the contraption was switched off and placed into the storage of the ship. The archaic extensions of the files could not be opened by the computers and the engineers were called upon once more to upload converters to the main frame to allow them to view the content. This took even more time. It was frustrating for them all to have the files but not the means to view them. The final maddening cause for frustration was when they were told that now that they had the correct converters they must encode all of the information files to a format that the onboard computers could display. As it turned out this procedure would take some two hours to complete. They resumed their previous activities while they waited. Eventually the call was made and they all returned to the cockpit and took their seats. Anticipation was high as Travis opened the file he had, somewhat nostalgically named ‘106 the originals’ in the file he found three folders one called ‘Images’ another was named ‘Documents’ and the third was named ‘Video’. Onto one screen he opened the Images folder and started them running on a slideshow which would play in the background. He chose not to explore the documents folder for now and opted to open the Videos. In this folder there were literally hundreds of video reports, all meticulously dated. He arranged the files in date order and noticed that they all had prefixes and a structure to the title. The structure was prefix, file number, date. There were four prefixes, All, MK, GP and BH. He selected the earliest file number and date of the ‘All’ series and pressed the play icon. Instantly the screen was filled with the images of three uniformed, clean shaven young men. The images were incredibly clear and the audio was crisp. And they found themselves in the presence of legends.

“This is the first report from the crew of Alpha 106. My name is Malcolm Keogh, this person to my right is Gary Parr and this is Balvinder Singh.”
They were filming this report from within their capsule. It was strikingly smaller that the cockpit where the crew was viewing from and bore no familiarity with the ships of today. It looked primitive and unworkable. “We have just landed on Epsilon Omega and have lost contact with home, but we hope to re-establish some sort of communication soon. We seem to have landed on a plain near to an inland body of water somewhere between thirty one and thirty three degrees inside the northern hemisphere. We have not ventured outside as yet so we have no idea how our ship is lying. The first order of business is to disguise ourselves to protect against discovery that is if we have not been discovered already. Then we need to organise ourselves, we only have enough rations to last us for thirty rotations of this world. We need to check the body of water that lies near to us to see if it is drinkable if not then we must desalinate it to make it fit for consumption. We will make video journals periodically for as long as is possible and will carry out our orders to the best of our abilities. When we have secured the ship we will then test the outside atmosphere and hopefully it will support our vital needs. So, this has been the first report from 106. It has been short but for now there is nothing else to report. So this is Malcolm Keogh on behalf of the crew of Alpha 106 signing off.” As he finished he could be seen leaning forward to turn off the camera.

This had been a first glimpse into their own history and it had a profound effect on them.
To sit and watch images of people, fellow countrymen who had been dead for over two and a half thousand years was confusing to the sensibilities. It was hard to know how to feel about these three pioneers. They had watched the first report which was as fresh as the day it was recorded all of those years ago and it could have been yesterday. Effectively, they had been spoken to by historical figures. They were people who they had studied at school. They, of course had seen pictures of them, but now this was much more personal. The captain asked Travis to skip forward about one month.

“This is the weekly report for the crew of 106. We have finally finished the camouflage of our ship and now it is, we think, totally undetectable.” This report was being filmed by Keogh, and the narrator was Parr. The camera was being hand held and was following Parr as he was making the report. “As you can see, we have built the sand and rocks from around the are
a up around the ship which, to all intent and purpose, forms part of the natural landscape.” He pointed towards a small rock built archway that was set into the mound which now surrounded the craft. “You can see that we have left ourselves access into the ship via that doorway. Our task for the next few days is to create our settlement in front of that entrance giving us access to our equipment and at the same time disguising its existence to any prying eyes. Moses has been a great help to us and although communications are still a little impossible we seem to understand each other more and more each day.” They were confused as to who Moses was. They would have to backtrack through the reports to discover more about this stranger. “Balvinder is not around at the moment he has gone off on a hunting foray to boost our stocks. Not much more to report at the moment. Everyone is well and healthy; this planet seems to fit our needs perfectly. We will update you about our efforts to create our camp on our next report. This is Gary Parr on behalf of the crew of Alpha 106, end report.”

Moses was a new character to the crew and they wondered how he became involved with the other three. For now the captain was content to take snapshots of the reports on a six monthly period.
As they watched they witnessed the changes in them. The first to go was the uniforms which seemed to be discarded in favour of clothing that was more fitting for the environment and more inconspicuous to anyone that may stumble across them. It was interesting to watch as their skin became more rugged and their hair grew longer. All of them developed beards and moustaches and soon they were almost unrecognisable at the three fresh faced young men who had first landed there. As time went by the development of the settlement became more and more established. What started as a collection of three tents grew into a small community. New faces appeared on a regular basis as their group grew. Soon there were children in the group and it was clear that a small village was being created. While they were sampling the video library Mary had been looking into the Document folder where she found a complete written account of the day to day happenings in and around the community. It was a journal of events that included births, deaths and new arrivals. Now that Mary was opening the entries around the date of the video that was being viewed they could sometimes match faces that appeared with their exact circumstance.

They had been watching this society build for about four hours when the captain asked to see the last entry.
Travis lined it up ready to play and waited for the captain. He gave Travis the sign and he pressed the play icon. On this occasion they were seated inside a tent, and were surrounded by others. This report would be made by all three of them.

“Hello friends.” Began Balvinder, “This will be the last report from the crew of Alpha 106.” This time they looked serene. They looked like true leaders of their people and it was almost sad that although they had never met the crew felt as if they were saying goodbye to good friends and family.
“You have watched us grow for the last twenty five years but now our equipment grows old and our storage is almost full. We have tried to fulfil our mission to the best of our ability, but now, we must continue onwards without your company. These people around us are our family. They are our wives, and our children. Together we will continue to grow and sustain our legacy. Our tribe now numbers one hundred and twenty seven and in the next few days it will be one hundred and twenty eight. So we continue to grow.” Gary Parr was the next to address them. “We will secure these recordings as best we can and pass them down through the generations of our descendants. We hope that one day in the very distant future; someone will watch these recordings, they are our gift to you, a message to a world long lost to us. Our hope is that you learn much about our people and our way of life. We are proud to have been selected for this mission and none of us have any regrets. We have been given a unique opportunity to shape our own destiny, and for that we will be forever grateful.” Finally Malcolm Keogh spoke. “We will continue on our path but know this about the crew of Alpha 106. We are proud men with proud families who will live the rest of their lives in peace and harmony. But above all else, we are men of God and will always hold true to what God means to us. We are and always will be servants of God and will always be at your service. Our beliefs will be passed on to our offspring, and they, in turn, onto theirs. Our hope is that one day when you return you will find our descendants and know that through us, they will be there to serve you. Do not grieve for us, celebrate our lives. And now it is time for us to take our leave. So, this has been the final report from the crew of Alpha 106. My name is Malcolm Keogh.” “My name is Gary Parr.” “And My name is Balvinder Hasar. May God be in your hearts now, and forever more. Goodbye dear friends. Alpha 106. out.”