Chapter 3: The Discovery
After a while of screaming in the dark, Abraham's programming made him take action. The darkness was cut by a sudden light emanating from the bear's electronic core. The abrupt disturbance was enough to make Roxanne pause in her crying; Abraham took the opportunity to sooth her. Once she was fully calm and silenced, he floated into the other room to experimentally pull the gravity lever, to discover the emulator was still working. Turning it off, he brought Roxanne into the cabin and activated the gravity again. Acting as a night light, Abraham was still able to care for her in the less than suitable situation. He started to do something rather odd, however.
During moments of peace and contentment, the teddy would cut his light and do something to cause Roxanne to cry in the darkness. Knock her over when she was sitting up, snatch her pacifier from her mouth, wake her up, or scare her with loud sounds of static and hissing noises – anything to upset her while also not causing her harm – physical harm anyway. In this way she would not associate fear and distress with the teddy bear, but unfortunately associate the emotion with darkness instead. When rest and baby maintenance was unneeded, Roxanne would spend her time wailing in the dark. This behavior was not out of malice, though, in fact the robot had good intentions – good intentions that eventually paid off.
On a distant blue planet, two blue men, wearing blue trimmed clothing, sat at two computers with blue screens. Reviewing the screens contents sleepily, one man suddenly perked up as a window popped up on the face of the computer with a red line that was zigzagging erratically. Blinking at the line a few times, he eventually nudged his partner for his attention.
"Hey, hey look at this. Giant Satellite 3A has detected a noise in its assigned area of the quadrant." The man with the red line on his screen spoke in a language unique to the blue world. He had an angular face with golden eyes with streaks of green.
"Oh yeah, look at that. But then why aren't we hearing anything?" The second man with a rounder face and grey-brown eyes replied.
"I think it must be muted for some reason, let me fix that." With a quick few finger pecks at some buttons, he unmuted the machine….and instantly regretted it. The room was soon filled with earsplitting screams which rose and fell with the dramatic dancing of the red line.
"AH! What in Glaupunk is that! Why is it so loud!"
"I don't know! I wasn't the last person to use this computer!"
"Well turn the volume down already!"
"I'm trying I'm trying!" The golden-eyed man then proceeded to button-mash control panel frantically while the other man pressed his hands to his ears, the sound too agonizing to allow him to think straight. Finally he managed to decrease the volume to a more reasonable level. The two then continued to listen to the sound thoughtfully. "It…it sounds like an infant." The man with the golden eyes ventured.
"An infant? What would a baby be doing in space, Derex?"
"Do you have a better identity for the noise, Reggen?"
"No, but I can't wrap my head around the concept, which is saying something." Reggen indicated his large cranium, which would have been impressive by human standards.
Derex groaned, "Your humor never ceases to be original. Shut up and check the telescope to see if we can't find where the sound is coming from."
Reggen faced his own computer again and put his hands to work. Soon a live feed was presented on the screen. Using what looked like a joystick, he maneuvered the lens until it pointed in the direction the other computer indicated was the source. What they saw was a white piece of foreign machinery – some kind of shuttle - completely covered in craters; it presumably had been pulverized by the asteroids located directly behind it.
The two men quickly gathered their gear, got into their own shuttle, and lifted off to investigate, using far more advanced technology. In a ship which greatly resembled an earth manaray fish in both appearance and movement, they reached the pathetic thing within minutes, which was then gathered into a jaw-like opening by two fin-like appendages, where it was thoroughly decontaminated for any alien bacteria or organisms.
The blue people approached the metal chunk, now inside the larger ship, wearing full coverage body suits, taking zero chances before opening it up when the decontamination process had no yet been repeated on the inside – that would happen after whatever was inside was removed. Opening the hatch, they gasped in unison when what appeared to be some kind of hairy, orange baby in pink clothing gazed back at them with glazed blue eyes. Neither had truly expected an actual infant to be the cause of the sound.
"Y-you- you were right, it is an infant," Reggen stuttered breathlessly.
"It's not povoiran is it?" Derex offered.
"No, it doesn't have the same body build that povoiran children have at this age."
"Well, there's one way to know for sure!" And with that Derex didn't hesitate to remove Roxanne from her harness and toss her into the air to see if she would fly or fall, easily catching her when she managed to do the later and efficiently caused her to scream. Reggen cringed.
"Was that really necessary?"
"No," Derex admitted with a laugh, bringing the infant closer to him in his arms. "Look at those blue eyes. It seems that's the only thing that doesn't come in that color on our planet, our eyes. Lucky baby." It was at that time something else emerged from the broken craft. Abraham hopped into the now empty seat and attempted to communicate something with his arms. Questioning what he was out loud was unneeded as they shared a disbelieving glance. "I …I think that…thing wants us to remove the chair."
"That…that can wait for when we get back to Caelumar," Reggen decided, still staring at the odd fuzzy white robot thing with the pink ribbon. "In the mean time, let's get these two and the interior of this piece of scrap decontaminated."
Once they had safely returned to the planet known as Caelumar, and after more determinedly animated body language from Abraham, they removed the seat from the cockpit to reveal a hidden compartment filled with strange items. Upon closer inspection Derex and Reggen discovered a bounty of informational books, items, and devices which would thoroughly explain the languages, cultures, natures, histories and ways of earth to any sentient being that was capable of learning and was unfamiliar with such things. The collection began with basic things such as pictures, sounds, and videos, and became more advanced for after comprehension had been accomplished. It had been prepared by the team of astronauts for any possible successful intelligent extraterrestrial encounter they might be lucky enough to have in their lift times in order to quicken future communications and understandings between the two life-forms – human and not. In case the baby's space travel succeeded, the parents had the foresight to include this set of the complete knowledge of earth for the benefit of the child's care.
Also included in the compartment by the child's parents was a list of details concerning the baby to be interpreted after the people of the blue planet knew how to read it with the assistance of the knowledge set, which would thoroughly explain human letters, words, and grammar for all languages. The list held information such as proper diet, known allergies, hygiene, growth, development, and any other essential facts about Roxanne.
Reggen became impressed by this treasure chest of knowledge about the distant world, apparently from a nearby star the planet of super geniuses had somehow managed to overlook in their from-home exploration of the galaxy. They would be disappointed once they learned the star named Sun was now nonexistent, as were the planets surrounding it. Derex, however, was busying himself in trying to discover what gender the alien baby was. "What should we do with…uh…her?" He asked after concluding Roxanne was in fact female.
Reggen walked over and gave the child what appeared to be a pink primitive form of binky. "That," he stated, "is an excellent question."