Outward Borne

Outward Borne

Alien Abduction and Return

R. J. Weinkam

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents either are products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to
actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 Robert J. Weinkam

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13- 9781310772047

Smashwords Edition published 2015

Smashwords Edition, License
Notes

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Chapter 1 14 April 2126

DePat Kiefer, my grandfather, is
one of the thirty-five men and women that were returned to Earth
sixty-one years ago from the interstellar ship they called Outward
Voyager. DePat is an old man now, almost 81, and the eldest of the
three surviving Voyagers. He is somewhat diminished from what he
was, but I can still see him as I did when I was a child. Tall,
erect, and graceful, with his long fingers, blond hair, and green
and yellow markings, he was a fierce presence. People were drawn to
him. They wanted to be near, but not close. As he came into a room,
people would step away and then reach out to touch his sleeve, his
unearthly origin always present. It seemed that he was always at
the center of some spectacle, in the midst of a crowd, but I knew
him as a quiet man who was forced to live his life amidst a plague
of notoriety, suspicion, and morbid fascination.

I always thought that I knew as
much as any Earth-born person about the Outward Voyager and what
had happened to the people who had lived on it. Everyone knew about
the landing, it was such a sensation, but there was so much hype
and confusing publicity that a lot of the things people now believe
are not actually true. We know why they were abducted, it was part
of some grand scientific experiment by the ObLaDas to study
intelligent life in our galaxy, but we know very little about the
abduction itself. People, I forget exactly how many, and dogs of
course, were taken from some isolated villages in northern Germany
around the year 650. They and their descendants lived and traveled
through space for nearly fifteen hundred years. Grandfather told me
stories of his life on the ship, which is why I thought I knew more
than other people. He said that their habitat was like a sprawling
hotel that was built inside a windowless warehouse. I still cannot
imagine living all my life in such a place, but they did, and those
people must have adjusted to it because DePat said that very few
were willing to be returned to Earth when the time came. Why their
alien masters chose to return a few of them to Earth, no one knows,
not even DePat, or so he had always claimed.

That was not true. He does know.
He was the only person who did, until he told me. I will never
forget that day because it changed my life. I was nearly twenty
when I received a message from Hali Umballa, the daughter of one of
the other Voyagers and DePat’s sometime helper. DePat requested a
formal appointment with me, Michael DePat Kiefer, grandson, college
student of undeclared major with somewhat average grades, to meet
with him in his home office on the evening of 14 April 2126. This
struck me as being a bit odd because I often stopped by and talked
with him, at least once a week, and had been doing so for as long
as I could remember. So why was it necessary to set up an
appointment? I knew the old guy. He would not do anything without a
reason and I was not sure that I wanted to hear it.

I had always been close to my
grandfather. He took time to talk with me even when I was small. I
liked to hear his stories and always asked a lot of questions. He
always seemed to make time for me, even when he was very busy. I
never quite understood this attention, but recently he seems have
become distracted. He looks off into the distance when he talks. I
feel that he is struggling with some problem, from his body
language perhaps, I am not sure. He might again be on the dangerous
side of being a Voyager.

As I walked toward his house that
day the wind was strong, not a quick urgent wind that precedes a
storm, but a persistent wind, a wind that would continue for some
time only to die down in its determined place. I arrived early on
that fourteenth of March. Hali and a man were already there
waiting. They scanned me for bugs. DePat was in his office, they
said, but I should call him before going back there. All this
protocol was strange and getting stranger. I made the call.
Grandfather answered right away, he told me to shower in his
private bathroom and put on a yellow robe that was in a plastic bag
near the sink. Obviously, he was going to great lengths to get rid
of the ubiquitous recording widgets that infect our lives.
Grandfather once found twenty-two miniEars, sticky confetti-like
transmitting microphones, and ten FlyingEyes in his living room
alone. He obviously did not want any of those things around today.
Even his dog, the beauteous longhaired Gweneth, a notorious bug
carrier, was banished to the yard.

Duly washed and wrapped, I went to
the office, entered, and closed the door quietly. DePat was sitting
at his old desk, looking out the window, back into the dark leafed
oaks. His thoughts were far in the past. When I said hello, he
seemed nervous and more serious than I expected him to be, but then
he did not usually summon me to an audience and have me cleansed
and gowned either. He looked up and I saw his timid smile. I
relaxed a bit thinking that all this formality was not really
because of me. At least that was that I thought until Grandfather
started talking.

His expression changed, the color
drained slowly from his face and he seemed to grow smaller. I was
taken aback to see him so hesitant and perhaps afraid. He is still
a tall, lean man though not as erect as before, his blond hair has
now turned white and he has lost some weight recently. DePat has
unusually straight eyebrows that determine his look. He has wide
yellow stripes went from the side of his nose to his ears, with
narrow green stripes across his face above his brows. His hair was
always cut to create another straight line high across his forehead
and across the nape of his neck. He sat before that desk, leaning
forward with his jaws clenched looking into the evening’s fading
light, then turned toward me and took a deep breath. He had no
choice but to begin.

“
I have something that I must give
to you, Michael. You have long been my favorite grandchild and a
very bright and talented young man, though you have slacked off
lately. Ever since you were a small child, I could see your
curiosity and determination to understand the meaning of things.
You could not be gotten rid of with some silly explanation. You
were annoying, really.”

I felt a lump in my chest, as if I
could not breath. I never expected my grandfather to speak this
way. “There is something that I have, something I have kept for
many years, waiting until it was the right time, for the right one.
I know that I can trust in you, but I apologize for all the
difficulties that this may bring about. You did not ask for any of
this, it was my task, but I could not finish. I have no right to
impose it on you, but I know you, Michael. I know you will want to
make it your own.”

I was not so sure about that. Not
when someone who has been jailed, robbed, slandered and tracked by
spies most of his life starts talking about trouble. He is not
referring to a parking ticket and I was about to say so, but was
not given the chance. He again looked toward the window and into
the past.

“
The Outward Voyager had been
following a course toward some star, another solar system that the
ObLaDas thought might harbor life, but midway into the mission the
ship had changed to a new course. The People were told that the
ObLaDas had decided to begin promoting planetary life forms. It was
many years later that they learned that they were that species,
that some of them were being returned to Earth, the planet of their
ancestors. They were stunned. The idea had a chilling effect on all
of them. They knew Earth only from ancient legends, some distant
past event that had no relevance to their expectations. They had no
thought whatsoever of going near the place. They were People of the
Outward Voyager and had been for some sixty generations. No reason
to change.”

DePat took a sip of water and settled back
into his chair.

“
In time, a group of children was
chosen, raised, and educated to make the return. I was one of those
selected. I never knew why. The pending return to Earth had a
profound effect on everyone, even those who would not be in the
landing party. For me, it fueled an interest in the People of
Outward Voyager and its mission through the interminable years that
it had been in space. I did not really care about Earth as some
did. I was drawn by our past. I was encouraged to pursue this
project and the ObLaDas gave us, KeDom Sa and I, access to some
achieves and later to the computers that operated the Outward’s
data storage systems. We spent almost four years looking through
those files and pulled out a lot of information. I even found
records of some other aliens.”

I was confused. I knew that DePat
had the famous Alien Planet Cube. He had given it to Earth many
years ago, but it only had data on planets and some low life forms.
There was nothing about the Outward Voyager or aliens.

“
Did they make you leave your
files on the Outward Voyager? It would have been fantastic to have
such a thing.” I asked.

“
No, I have them here.”

“
What! Where?”

“
Here, well, right over there,” he
said pointing to an antique cabinet.

“
You mean you have kept some data
from the Outward Voyager? All these years?”

DePat seemed to snap into the present. “Some,
oh yes, much more than some. That is the point.”

“
Oh shit!”

“
Why shit, and that stricken look
on your face?”

Stricken, like in cold panic fear.
Almost nothing was more dangerous than keeping ObLaDa information
secret from the government. So much flashed through my mind, fear
of having forbidden information, excitement when I thought of
looking at that file, dread of the likely prospect of being caught.
Caught, I would just disappear into some secret prison and no one
would ever know.

“
All of that material is here,
some of it is still a hash of copied files, but the thing is, what
I need to tell you, Michael, there was much more in that memory
cube than we ever put there. A great, great deal more. There is
data from ObLa, how that cloud-bound planet came to know of the
universe, all their science, information on alien civilizations, I
do not know how they acquired such detailed knowledge.”

DePat paused a while, inward
looking, he gathered himself. “When I discovered all this, the
question I kept asking myself was why? Why did they give me this
huge repository of knowledge? I began to look into these files,
trying to find out.”

He shook his head, “There was
something very curious, Michael. The ObLaDas were quite anxious
about Earth’s technology and concerned over how fast it had
developed. They saw the same things happening here that troubled
some of the other planets they had visited. They wanted me to use
this information to help, somehow. Help prolong our way of life I
think, but they did not know enough about Earth to tell me how, and
I could not find a way to do it. It took too long for me to
understand, then Liana and I were arrested, all the problems in the
Compound, when she became ill, was dying, it was too hard for me. I
was too old by then. What I am telling you, must be kept an
absolute secret,” DePat said very seriously. "It is extremely
dangerous.”