Not So Far Off

by =FeatheredCritter

"Let me play with it," the little brown haired, blue eyed boy pleaded to his older brother.

"This isn't a toy," the brother replied with annoyance. His hair was darker than his younger sibling, and eyes a typical brown. His hands were fumbling with the knobs on the front of an old radio. It has intricate designs carved into its wooden frame and a light wood mesh speaker. Their father was going to throw it out until the brothers expressed an interest in it.

"You're playing with it!"

"No I'm not, I'm trying to get it to work."

"Well let me try!"

"No, you'll break it."

The younger brother huffed and crossed his hands over his chest. The older ignored him, and continued to twist the old dials, trying to bring up some sort of sound. It should still work, but who knows if it could even pick up a signal anymore. He leaned back slightly in his chair, thinking about what else he could try.

In the few short moments he was thinking, the younger brother grabbed the radio off of the table and clutched it close to his chest, turning quickly and running down the hallway. The older stood up quickly, tipping back the chair and running after him.

"Joseph!" the older yelled after him. The younger slid with his socks on the hardwood floor around the corner of the hallway. Pictures of the two siblings, their parents, and their grandparents lined the light blue walls. Reaching one of the last rooms in the hall, Joseph turned into it quickly, moving behind the door and closing it just as the older slammed into it. The two battled with their weight against the door, the older brother having opened it again. Taking a final push, Joseph was able to push the door closed and, still using one hand to hold onto the radio, pushed in the lock. Noticing the door could no longer be opened from his side, the older brother banged his fists on the door as a last desperate attempt to make Joseph give in.

"When mom gets home, you're going to be in trouble," he said, finally giving up and going into his own room. Joseph listened with an ear to the door for the sound of his brother walking away. Satisfied that he was now safe in his room, the blue eyed boy walked over to his desk at the corner of his room and set the radio on it. On the walls above the desk were posters of space shuttles, solar systems, and constellations, along with a calendar dated 2048. Beside the desk facing out the window was a telescope.

Joseph sat down in the chair, head on an arm folded on the table, and fiddled with the dials with his free hand. He mindlessly made adjustments, realizing there wasn't really any use for the radio and so there really wasn't any reason for him to have taken it other than sibling rivalry. The boy sighed, looking up at his posters while still messing with the dials. Daydreaming, he almost didn't notice the small static that came through the radio. A large smile spread across his face, revealing the empty space of a newly lost front tooth. He listened to the static that came through the radio, and began to notice it was actually a short series of clicks that repeated over and over. He grabbed a piece of paper that had some of his school notes on it and flipped it over. He wrote down the settings on the dials so he may be able to find it again.




Shoes clicked over the linoleum floor at a fast pace. The short man hustled down the bland hallway until he reached the room he was heading towards. The door was left open letting others know they were free to come in, which the man did. Three people, two men and a woman, sat at a table, each using the touch computers that were built into the table. One of the men looked up. He had short dark blonde hair and blue eyes, and was wearing a blue military uniform like the other two were.

"Patrick, right? What's up?" he asked with a raised eye brow. He interlaced his fingers in front of him.

"Well, Sir," Patrick said, turning and closing the door behind him. "There was a signal that has come through an unused frequency. We've checked everything on this earth that is letting out a signal and none are using this frequency."

The man looked at the other two and they leaned back, allowing him to use the entire table computer. Patrick ran through a series of files and passwords on the computer and brought up a recording of the signal. The four people listened quizzically at the series of clicks that sounded very close to static.

"Sounds just like some sort of interference to me," the woman said, shrugging. Her long black hair was pulled back into a pony tail. The other man, who had short brown hair and blue eyes leaned back in his chair and began to bob his head slightly, finding a rhythm in the sound.

"Joseph?" the blond man questioned his friend's odd behavior.

"Andy… I-I've heard this before," Joseph said, still keeping the rhythm with his head. "When I was a kid listening to an old radio that was my grandfather's." Andy, Patrick, and the woman looked at each other with confusion. Joseph sat back for a little while more before sliding his chair forward and began typing on the screen, slowing down the recording to be able to pick out each individual beat.

One. One. One. One two. One two three four. One two three.

"I never could figure out what it meant," he said again, looking at Andy. Andy leaned back in his chair and stroked his chin a few times before turning to the woman.

"Julia, get a small team together and try to send a signal back," he said.

"Yes Sir," she nodded. "What signal?"

"The same thing back."

She stood and hustled out the room. Andy looked back over to Joseph who had both of his hands folded under his head.

"Out of an old radio?" Andy questioned again.

"Yep. I was already into space, but that made me really want to get into learning about satellites and how they work," Joseph said with a slight laugh. After listening to the radio for a few nights when he first found the frequency, he began to think he was crazy for even thinking it was important. But now, 24 years later, here was evidence that he wasn't, and that he had a true reason for joining the space program.




The stars seemed so far off in the distance even though they were closer than back on earth. In certain places, Joseph could pick out where a galaxy was, the spinning group of stars hanging in the dark sky. He walked to another window, looking at others up on the viewing deck of the space ship. The advancements that man had made in the past 100 years was astonishing. They were traveling between galaxies!

He looked out of the other window, barely picking out the Milky Way among the stars. Every ten years the crew of the ship were woken up from cryogenic sleep to stretch their muscles and rebuild their strength, and also check up on their progress. Already they had been traveling for over a century.

Moving to the front view, their destination could be seen. The large cloud of stars swirled, two large "arms" of more stars reached out, spiraling around it. Joseph smiled. It took them eight years to get an exact location of the signal, but they had it. A small planet near the edge of a neighboring galaxy. It had been overlooked due to it's oxygen absent atmosphere. But after sending a fast satellite back over, a community complete with buildings was able to be seen. The satellite wasn't equipped to be able to land and get a better view, but that was what made this expedition so exciting. Joseph was the first to be asked to come on the ship. Next was his brother who shamelessly admitted to him not believing his younger brother when he was 10 years old and saying he got the radio to work. The two had joked about the matter for years.

"Next time we wake up, Jeremy, we'll be there," Joseph said to his brother who walked up beside him, also leaning forward on the railing.

"Just think of everyone back on Earth waiting for word. They don't get a system of sleep like we have," he replied.

"That's for sure." Joseph stood with a smile on his face as he examined every inch of the galaxy. Once they landed on the alien world, he wanted to find the man—or thing—that sent out the signal back in 2048.




The crew of the ship looked out the windows with awe despite them being nervous. The sky was a green color with dark gray clouds, and the ground and vegetation below was varying shades of orange. The planet was a bit closer to their sun than Earth was to her's, but it was the first planet in their solar system.

As the ship got closer to the surface, a few moving and shifting figures could be seen. It took a few more moments to make out their shape.

The aliens had flat, triangle shaped heads. On each side where long pits, but they had no eyes. Their thick neck looked similar to a chest cavity as it bent in near the bottom. A single front leg with three hoofed toes came from the base of the neck. Their large bodies ran back to two single-hoofed back legs. Their colorations were mostly red and yellow colors, with a few extreme shades here and there. Not until the ship landed, could the crew determine that they were about the same height as themselves when they were down on their front legs. A few of the aliens were standing on just their back legs.

Joseph took a deep breath and smiled, laughing. It had been 152 years since he first played with the radio, and now he was going to meet aliens. It was first contact. He turned around and looked at the crew who all smiled at him as well.

"How's the air?" He asked one of the people sitting at a computer as they tested the atmosphere. Unfortunately it wasn't suitable for humans, so they would have to wear space suits. Luckily they where less bulky than the original suits astronauts had to wear. They were still a bit baggy, but the helmet was just glass all around giving peripheral vision. Joseph would be the first to go as he was the commander of the ship.

Joseph took a deep breath to calm himself, opened the door in the air lock, and stepped out onto the orange-hued planet. One of the aliens stood in front of the rest. He had deep red scales on the top of his head and stripes on his back in the same color. Those stripes were separated by light orange ones. His hooves were bright red. Around his chest-like neck hung a green piece of cloth with various groups of dots in different colors weaved into its thread.

So they have cloth, Joseph noted as he approached the alien who he assumed to be the leader. He looked at the alien who lowered himself from off of his back legs down to all three, making their heads level.

Can it see? It doesn't have eyes… but those pits on the sides of its head. Maybe it's like a snake, he concluded. It seemed to be able to sense movements in the air through those pits. He was curious as to what it actually "saw".

Bending its knee down low to the ground—the alien didn't seem to have ankles—it was able to reach out its front foot towards him, bottoms of its hooves forward. Joseph did what he thought was best, and touched the tips of his fingers to the bottom of the hooves. The alien opened its mouth—which held no tongue and appeared to have two throats—and let out a series of click sounds, similar to that in the signal.

"Hello," Joseph said, not knowing how else to respond. The alien tilted its head and lowered its hoof. Joseph began to panic slightly, wondering if he had done something wrong. The alien turned around to its people, standing up on its back legs again, and made a different, deeper clicking sound. Joseph looked behind him at some of his crew, who stood just outside the entrance of the ship. Looking back to the alien, it motioned for Joseph to step forward. Taking a deep breath he did.

The other aliens stood up as well and began to make clicking sounds. After a few moments, the leader stood up as high as he could and let out a single, loud click. The group was silent. He let out a few lighter clicks and another alien walked forward and then lowered himself onto his front leg. This one wore a deep blue cloth with a different series of circles and colors in it. It looked at Joseph and extended its front foot like the leader had done. Joseph made the same motion he had before.

Blue-cloth lowered his foot and looked around Joseph at the other people, and motioned for them to follow him as well.




The buildings appeared to be made of solid pieces of stone, draped with red cloth. None of them were more than a few stories high, which would probably equal two stories considering how tall the aliens were when they stood. The vegetation was much different as well. Tall orange stalks stood with large yellow and red flower like ends. The ground was all stone, and the plants seemed to grow out of long, straight cracks. Without a doubt those cracks were hand made, much like how people dig holes to plant trees or flowers.

In between the buildings stood lines of other aliens. As the group rounded a corner, they were very close to one group of them. Joseph stopped and looked at the aliens, smiling. Looking down, he noticed what was probably a baby or young alien—how old these creatures lived he had no idea. He kneeled down, smiling. The young alien backed up a bit. He had two additional front legs for a total of three. Maybe they couldn't stand on their hind legs till they reached a certain age?

"Its alright," Joseph said softly, knowing that it couldn't understand, but the tone of his voice may help. He stretched out his hand. After a few moments and some prodding from what Joseph believed was the baby's mother or father, the baby stepped forward and lifted its middle front leg. Right after its hooves touched his fingers, the baby backed up behind its parent. Joseph and his crew laughed, and even the aliens seemed to have a click sound similar to a chuckle. Joseph stood and saw Blue-cloth standing with a slightly tilted head and slightly open mouth. To him, it seemed like the alien was happy.

Eventually the group reached a building which was made entirely of stone instead of having the hanging cloth. Their doors were still made of cloth, probably because of their lack of gripping hands. Joseph began to wonder how they even made the buildings without proper hands.

Inside the building were what they would consider computers, and surprisingly, robots. They were hands consisting of three fingers. That explained how they would be able to make buildings or the cuts in the rock, but now Joseph wondered how they made those. And if they had robots, what about other technologies? They seemed less advanced in some aspects, but more in others.

Blue-cloth stood next to a table which was filled with a light dusting of yellow sand. The alien folded back his two outer toes and made a series of dots in the sand with his middle toe. From a camera above and from four other smaller cameras in the corners of the table a hologram appeared above the marks of a markingless alien. Confused at what Blue-cloth was trying to tell him, Joseph shook his head and shrugged his shoulders at the alien. The alien moved over to a smooth area of sand, and made a different series of dots. One of their flower-like trees appeared.

"I think," Joseph said to his brother besides him, "They are trying to teach us their language or learn ours." His brother nodded and Joseph turned to one of his crew members who held a small computer which had uploaded pictures from Earth on it. Taking the computer and moving to the same side of the table that Blue-cloth was on, Joseph brought up two pictures: a flower and a tree. Then in the sand he wrote the words in english.

Blue-cloth clicked a few words to the others in the room and they brought up a digital version of words with their own language next to it. They were making a dictionary.




Joseph and the crew stayed on the planet for over a year helping make the dictionary. Luckily they were able to eat the "fruit" on this planet which gave the travelers a break from their space food. There were other species on the planet of course, but the aliens—who the humans began to call Throts—seemed to have no use for most of them. A few of the smaller ones were kept as pets. This planet seemed to have mostly a three-leg system, much like Earth had a four-leg. Most also had their brain in their throat, the reason for the thick, chest-like neck, and also was reason for their flat heads. Why a system with no eyes had evolved was a mystery even to them, but the sensing pits seemed to work just fine.

The dictionary was hard at some times, having so many differences between the worlds, but the vast number of similarities made up for that.

The humans were able to communicate with the Throts through the dictionary. A keyboard was able to be connected to their system so a human could type, and it would output the translation.

Joseph had many conversations with Blue-cloth who they named Tour. Most were about their individual worlds: what it was like, the creatures that lived there, and what technologies they had. But this time, Joseph decided to ask the question he had been wondering for a long time.

"Who sent the original signal?" Joseph typed. The words appeared in front of Tour on the other side of the sand table. He put his answer in the sand.

"I did/want," Tour replied. The translator wasn't exact enough yet so it showed the various options for each word.

"I thank you then. I wouldn't be here if you hadn't done that," Joseph replied with a smile. Tour seemed slightly confused at the statement but opened his mouth slightly in his species version of a smile.