Reminiscing: Avta

            As I drove away from the station I thought about the aliens possessing those men. I should’ve realized when I touched him that the body snatcher wasn’t a human. Humans show us feelings when we touch them. He showed intentions, plans. We learn something different from each organism we touch. It is a quick way for us to collect information. That is the purpose for the implant in our inner right wrists. It was developed on our home planet special for explorers. We have a natural curiosity and our minds work very scientifically but our mission required a more expedient way to gather information.

We were looking for a new habitat. Our home planet was under attack by other beings looking for a new home. Some species are better at sharing than others. Our mission was to locate a habitable planet for the refugees of our species to escape to. Unfortunately, we were not successful in our mission. There were ten Goblins on our ship.

Our destination was Earth but the atmosphere was unexpectedly hard on our equipment. Our technology, communication and our ship in general failed once we reached the outer atmosphere of the planet. Earth has a very strong gravitational pull in contrast to our own planet and the material used in our ship has a magnetic attraction to the core. We were literally pulled out of the sky. Our ship was aflame in the atmosphere and we crashed into the ocean. Only six of us were able to escape the ship before the ocean’s bottom consumed it. Our pilots Stranton and Tinca went down with our ship and we also said farewell to our Oracle, Tippica. She could see what was happening on Gobliduanee even during our travels. And we lost her mate and our doctor, Tarson. They never emerged from the sinking ship. Karycon, Drandon and I jumped out at the surface of the water and found we floated easily. Swica was probably another mile down before she escaped the ship and she found her way to the surface. Karycon had to carry her almost to what is now Palm Coast beach on Florida’s coast before we had our first human encounter. Lynca, our medic and Netro’s mate, also made it out, but much too late. We could see her swimming toward us through the great depths but about ten feet down she stopped. Netro and I dove down and pulled her to the surface but she could not move. When I rubbed my wrist against her, I saw her diagnoses. She had swam much too quickly from the depths she was at and as the pressure changed around her body, air bubbles formed and grew in her blood and one of her hearts burst. There was also an air bubble against her spine which paralyzed her. She was still living but completely incapacitated. We tried to take her with us but she pleaded for us to leave her. Netro gave her his grava root to quickly end her existence. Each of us had some on us as a precaution but he didn’t know where she had put hers and she couldn’t remember either. He held her in his arms for a very long time before we convinced him he had to let her go.

We watched as she sunk back into the depths she had emerged from and then we began

instinctively swimming toward land. The waves told us of their travels when touched by our wrists and we located the Florida shore from the memory of the ocean.  The water itself contained millions of organisms that told us the way through migration patterns, sediment from land and the difference in how water moves in open sea compared to moving around a land mass. It was a long distance, but we are excellent swimmers. However, we were very tired when we first spotted humans. A large fishing boat came near, and there was a little blonde girl hanging her face over the side just looking into the water. She saw us before we’d noticed the boat. She started pointing at us and saying, “Look papa, mermaids, mermaids!” Her father came to the side to see and all five of us put up our invisibility masks. He patted her on the head and cooed at her softly, then turned around again.

Karycon was the first to think of it but we quickly followed his lead. He mimicked the appearance of the fisherman as best he could. We cannot change our bone structure or our body mass but his skin quickly changed from green to a ruddy tan color, his eyes brown and his hair dark blonde. I took on the fairer skin tone of the girl with the lighter blonde and blue eyes with a round pupil. Drandron, Netro and Swica changed similarly. The girl squealed again, “Mermaids, they are back!” Her father laughed and came to see once again but his wide-eyed expression changed into one of determination as he called, “Men overboard!” He quickly threw us ropes and life preservers. He pulled each of us onto the boat in turn and wrapped us in some awful fishy smelling blankets.

Karycon used his translator to communicate with them. He told them that our ship crashed. Looking back, I’m sure the humans believed he was speaking of a seafaring vessel instead of a space travelling one but that is definitely for the best. The kind fishermen brought us to shore near a small village. We found a quiet place in the nearby forest to discuss our mission. We found alligators and the other animals around did not find us intrusive. I touched the back of a large female alligator and filed away her evolution from very large ancient ancestors. We concluded that due to our loss of communication and transportation home, we failed our mission. Still, we decided to continue to collect data and do our research in the hopes that another ship would follow and have more luck landing safely. There we parted ways. As I’ve mentioned before, Goblins do not enjoy being around many Goblins.

After one hundred years, I think we can conclude there isn’t another ship coming and we can only hope more of our species still exist somewhere. Now I have a new mission. I want to reverse what I and the others have done to these fragile organisms. That is why I continue my travels.

The whole story is available in kindle form at Amazon.com Goblins: Avta’s Quest