A Small Gray Dot

“It’s a type of recording device,” said the doctor. “There are other facets to it, some I’ve yet to work out, but just watch it for now.”

A face appeared in the center of the “screen”. It wasn’t human.

Chapter Twenty-eight

MORGAN GAWPED AT THE IMAGE.

“Is that some kind of trick? How can a monitor float like that, and what’s that picture? Geez, it looks like something out of an old sci-fi movie!”

She was right. It did. I stared at the face that resembled nothing I’d ever seen. It was roughly triangular with eyes that reminded me vaguely of pictures I’d seen of the eyes of a squid with horizontally slit pupils – except there were four of them. The skin was a dull shade of yellow, and if there were ears, they weren’t evident. The nose, or what I thought was a nose, was a row of four fringed holes directly beneath the eyes, the mouth a wide, laid-on-its-side figure eight – or an infinity symbol. I couldn’t tell if it had teeth.

Morgan hadn’t heard our previous conversation so I explained as we examined the image. “Dr. Bennett believes Semptor Labs is a front for aliens. The floating device isn’t a trick. I saw him activate it. That is supposedly one of them.”

She stared wide-eyed at the doctor. I could see the disbelief in her eyes. Then she went back to gaping at the image.

I eyed Dr. Bennett. “Are you telling me this is how Henderson looks?” I was on my way to being convinced but if he was saying that this… being… was at Semptor, then considering that Frank hadn’t mentioned a non-human supervisor – something that as nosey as he was I think he would’ve noticed and mentioned – I was ready to take Morgan and quietly slip away. Before he became violent.

I was relieved when he shook his head and said, “Of course not. Henderson looks human enough to pass for one of us – as long as no one does an internal examination. I’ve never personally met this, er, being. This is an image of Henderson’s supervisor.” He touched the side of the floating frame and the image moved back to show the entire creature.

It stood on two legs and sported two arms but there the resemblance to any of Earth’s bipeds ended. Hanging from each arm was an arrangement that looked more like an array of tentacles than hands. I was only guessing it wore some type of clothing since its body was a different color – brown – than its face and rather long, thin neck and its tentacles. It also wore wide brown boots that merged with the garment that covered its legs. I supposed the boots were wide to accommodate what, if they resembled the hands, were likely tentacles instead of toes.

“Er, is it male or female?” I asked.

“Without examining it, there’s no way of knowing, Tennessee,” said the doctor. “It could be either – or both. Or something else entirely.”

Damn.

The figure became animated and its tentacles wiggled with what appeared to be agitation. Its face didn’t seem to be expressive but its mouth moved – sideways. It appeared to be speaking. The doctor pressed the side of the frame again and the sound came in.

A shrill voice spoke in a language like none I’d ever heard. I stared at the doctor.

He said, “Oh, wait, there is what I call a universal translator… here,” and he pressed something else and it became stilted English.

It came in, midsentence… “get it done now, Simretun! If you do not, you will forfeit your ****!” it blinked out. The last word was apparently untranslatable.

I sat in silence, unable to think of anything to say. It was awfully convincing.

“But… but… where would they have come from? How did they get here?” stammered Morgan as she dragged her eyes away from the now blank screen and back to the doctor. She eased herself down into a chair at a desk opposite the ones the doctor and I occupied.

He sighed and pushed away the lock of hair that kept falling over his eye. He touched the side controls and the monitor telescoped back to its original size. He placed it on the desk.

“I’ve learned a lot over the last couple of weeks.” He indicated the again card-sized apparatus “This is one of their communications devices. The machine from which it appeared is a type of transporter. Getting this enabled me to hack into Henderson’s computer and I have gone through some of the records I found but I have not yet been able to discover from where they originate. The problem is that they, of course, don’t call the stars their planets circle by the names we have for them, and I’ve not yet found star maps that might allow me to compare it to my charts and pinpoint any known stars. Indeed, they may not even be from our galaxy.