Are we dead?
When you actually have to ask the question and you really don’t know the answer, you can bet you’ve been though something intense.
Impact was sudden.
The spacecraft appeared to nosedive toward the bright blue water of Earth before plunging deep under the glassy surface before coming to a full stop on the murky ocean floor.
“Are we dead?” Tim managed to ask again, certain that because no one answered the first time, he probably was.
Canary laughed.
“No, Tim,” he said as he put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “You are decidedly not dead.”
Canary and Rusty had opened the cockpit door moments after landing and were now helping everyone undo their safety belts.
“We’re going to take the ship to the underwater docking station, but there’s no need to be buckled in any longer,” Rusty said. “Is everyone feeling okay?”
They all nodded in response.
Tim stretched his arms up in the air and walked up to a window. Looking out, he could see an ocean that looked very similar to his on Indus—except for what appeared to be something alive out there.
Wait. What the . . . ?
“Look out here,” he called toward his friends.
They all huddled around the small window.
Emily jumped back when she saw it.
It was a squiggly, wiggly, squishy looking thing—almost invisible—and it was moving around right outside the window.
“That’s called a jellyfish,” Luke said. “There are a lot of living things in the oceans here on Earth: fish, sharks, dolphins, and whales—wait until you see one of those—you will definitely freak out.”
“That’s just weird,” Emily said with a frown. “Yuck.”
“Get used to it,” Canary called to her. “It’s just one of many new and different things about this planet—wait until you see the bugs.”
“Yum, bugs,” Max said. “I can’t wait to eat some real food again.”
Canary’s stomach gurgled at the thought.
“Hey look, what’s that?” Emily asked.
“What is what?” Rusty responded.
“It has eight—um—legs and a big head.”
Rusty looked out and saw nothing like what she had described.
“It sounds like you might be talking about an octopus, Emily, but I don’t see one.”
“But it’s right over there,” she said pointing straight ahead.
Rusty grabbed a pair of binoculars and held them up to his eyes.
“Wow,” he said with surprise. “There is an octopus out there—but I can barely make it out—even with the binoculars. How are you seeing that?”
“It looks really close to me,” she answered.
Rusty made his way back to the cockpit and guided the vessel into what looked like an enormous underwater cave. Once fully inside, he brought the ship to a halt.
“Now, we wait,” he said.
“Wait for what?” Max asked.
“Not for what, but for who,” Rusty replied with a wink.
Suddenly the ship lurched upwards, as if a giant hand had just grabbed it from underneath and was lifting it up, up, up.
Tim could see they were indeed rising, like being on a supersized elevator.
After a few moments, they came to a stop, and the water around the ship began to lower.
“They’re here,” Canary said as he turned to Rusty.
“Wait . . . Rusty,” Max whispered. “Do they . . . um . . . do they look different from us?”
“Well, Max, I do have to mention something very important,” he replied. “Whatever you do, don’t look at their third eye. It’s actually a laser beam that can turn you to mush.”
“What!” Max yelled out.
“He’s kidding with you,” Luke said with a laugh. “Man, you are so gullible.”
Canary turned to Max and gave him a playful push on the shoulder.
“They look just like you—ugly as sin.”
Rusty walked to the hatch and began to enter some sort of code.
They heard a loud banging coming from the outside.
“Come in,” Canary jokingly called.
Tim felt a wave of panic rising in him. After all, he didn’t know anything about these people. What if it had been a mistake to come here?
A few bells sounded, and the hatch began to rise slowly.
Luke stood in front, alongside his father and Canary.
Instinctively, Tim, Max, and Emily all reached for each other’s hand.
As the door rose higher, Tim could see there were at least ten people outside it.
They were all dressed in white, clinical-looking medical jumpsuits that covered their heads. The whole suit actually covered their entire body.
“They’re dressed that way for safety,” Luke said in a hushed voice as he turned to look back to his friends.
“Whose safety?” Tim whispered back. “Theirs—or ours?”
Before Luke could answer, one of the men boarded the ship.
“Welcome, everyone,” he said. “Welcome to Earth.”
This is going to be a huge shock for them.
“What is?” Tim asked as he looked at the man.
“I’m sorry young man, what did you say?”
“You said, ‘this is going to be a huge shock for them,’ I just wondered what you meant.”
The man just stared at Tim with a confused, sort of surprised, expression.
Another person came onboard—this one looked more like a woman.
She walked past the other man and stood in front of Tim, Max, and Emily.
Up close like this, they could all see her face clearly now. She took a moment to look at each of them warmly and then softly spoke.
“Welcome home.”