17:46, Planenthia

Entry begins __ We named the creatures Kleto. They thrived in the mostly hydrogen atmosphere of their home plant, Planenthia. Never before, in all of our explorations, had we seen specimens such as the Kleto. They where short and stubby, almost resembling baby penguins of earth. Their diet consisted of native vegetation and small crill-like organisms. They lived and traveled in groups of 5-10, mating with those in their group. It seemed that they had no social hierarchy and relied heavily on eachtoher. We will begin genetic studies in these creatures tomorrow. Entry ends __ __ __ 18:63, Garnenth Space Shuttle__ __ Entry begins __ We took a male Kleto in for studies today. It did not react to the sedative and seemed threatened by our presence. the Kleto called for its group members and its call was answered 7 adult Kleto.they are attacking the ship now and half our crew has been injured I am hiding in the engine room I hear banning they are coming for me- Entry ends

Alien species it camouflages itself Instinctively sensed the environment It looks at you than disappears It brings friends along looking l at a distance It sense and knows but sings a song It glides in the ocean like a dance It changes colour as to communicate camouflaged than exuberance. Its antenna flowing with electricity.

An ice volcano surrounded by frosted waves. A silent ocean rested on a frozen beach. Beneath the sparkling thick icy surface, there rose a hiss. The gentle hiss grew into a rumble. The rhythmic rumble mushroomed into a rattle. The frentic rattle raced up and up and up through the network of mining tunnels. Next was the rattle screamed.

In a fog of mechanical screaming and ice crystals, a lone figure approached the sound raising his hand. The moon landscape went back to silence.

“Not again,” Reilly said, putting his head in his hands.

“Report, January team, report. We have some anomalous reading over here at CC. Status of the YX-5 drill. Report.”

“January team here. Status of the YX-5 is let me see here…FUBAR. Stop playing with me. You know the drill is stopped. I’m heading back to home base and maintenance is waiting,” Reilly said.

“This is completely unacceptable. Water retrieval is down 13% this quarter alone,” Theo said.

“Stow the pep talk, Theo. Do you think I want my big gray ass out here freezing for nothing? I’m out. Son of—“

Under the hangar bay dome, a small group gathered around a massive hover drill. Androids and humans alike heads bowed as if in prayer over a massive metal spire. Command Center Coordinator Theo Whitlow marched into the hangar, steaming.

“What the—“ Theo said.

In the center of the huddle sat the YX-5. Rust, red and orange blossoms, bloomed across the metal Holes, some as big as a man’s fist, dotted the once sharp surface.

“I don’t understand it. My crew cleaned and polished this drill last month. This is years if not decades of deterioration,” Evergreen said, hands on her hips. “The weird thing is…”

“It’s all weird, babe,” Reilly said resting a hand on her shoulder.

“True, But what is especially weird is this persistent rust problem only happens in the Oceanus region,” Evergreen continued.

“Corporate is going to kill me. We are the least profitable mine for Lightbearer. Oh my God this is ruined. I’m ruined,” Theo wailed.

The workers ignored him. Evergreen worried her plump lower lip. Reilly nodded for Evergreen to continue.

“Talk babe. What do you think is happening?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know what’s happening. This is not normal. It’s as if something doesn’t want us to go any farther in this region. Something someone is making us stop on purpose.”

Evergreen moved closer to the drill, peering into the pattern of holes with a bright flash. She dropped the flashlight. Suddenly she leapt back. Reilly caught her up in his arms. The flashlight rolled away. In the bright light the holes resembled machine language a series of zeros and ones.

“My God what does it say?”

There it was. I could see it. I could not feel it. I didn’t know where it came from. But it was there. I was sure of that.

“Hello”

“Hello”

I wondered then if it was actually there or if it was a voice in my head. This same though had plagued me greatly throughout my life.

I ended up making it the resistance. I believe its goal was to throw me off my game. What was my game?

Easy, my game was to stay present and to keep love in my heart. Easy to say yes but not easy to do.

One thing that helped me accomplish this was remembering “the resistance” was just a thing. It could be a thing, the thing, or something. But, the thing was just a part of life, and because of that, I decided to show it love.

There are three types of flying objects that I normally mistake for UAP: Venus — yes, I’m that dumb; balloons, which is apparently a common one; and of course, satellites. Far too many times have I raised my hopes up only for my good friend and alienologist Phil to consistently bring me back to my senses. Let me sum up the current situation with a simple statement: not today. As a matter of fact, Phil is sweating profusely in this very instant, as what I can best describe as a shiny metal ball is making its way earthwards at incredible speed. Just as our brains click in, and adrenaline starts rushing our veins, the shiny ball stops midair. It’s now slowly descending in Phil’s back garden making light humming noises. How do I describe this thing? It’s like a huge pinball ball the size of Phil’s shed. This makes me a little nervous. Luckily, it seems to be stationary, hovering at about five to ten centimetres from the ground. This might sound a bit cliché — I’m the guy mistaking Venus for aliens, remember? — but I’m expecting a door to materialise any moment now and for some weird looking entity to emerge from it to greet us. I blink once, twice, thrice… I look at Phil with my dumbest expression. He says, Look! I turn to the shiny object again in anticipation, but it hasn’t moved. Can’t you see? Says Phil, The humming sounds come from all the spinning! I have to take a step closer to notice that it’s true: the big ball is whirling at an anbsurd amount of RPM. Just as I muster some more courage and take a step closer, our spherical friend shoots skywards and disappears in an instant. I look down, and I see that something has been etched onto the ground. Phil’s also noticed it and is now rushing to look at it. I join him. It reads, in perfect English and in comic sans: “Apologies, wrong planet”.

I watched the scene in horror on the VHS tape, coiled under my robe, tucked tight in my wheelchair. My limbs pulsed in pain.

The being we studied for years suddenly rose from the ground before us. I heard Mark crying behind me, looking on at something that we never thought possible. In the flesh, the creature looked different from our laboratory sketches. There was a human like aspect to its face, its arms, coiled with veins. The eyes were brown and the lips were pink, and although it did not have a nose, the makings of a human were there. Yet, we knew this was an alien to us and to all we knew.

With a step forward, it came our way. But it faltered, and fell back to its knees. Squirming as it tried to get back up, I watched as it flailed, not using its arms or legs for support. I turned to Mark, scared to take my eyes away from the creature for even a second, and he was staring, mouth wide open. The creature made a strange noise, almost like a radio being turned on, as it continued to try to get up but failed.

I didn’t know if we should help the poor creature. It was lacking intelligence we could have sculpted in the lab.

I extended an arm forward, and a large tendril shot out from its lips. The vine coiled around my wrist and pulled me forward, as Mark screamed, and I cried, and my wrist came clean off as if shortened by a scalpel. Then, with open mouth it fed, standing to its feet, my limbs hanging from its sturdy jaw.

The creature was more intelligent than we thought. Only now, it was too late.

Two beings stood before the craft as a dozen men stepped out.

“Take us to your leader” one of the men joked as the beings look at each other unamused. Their large eyes appearing vacant to the ignorant travellers.

As one of the beings went to speak another of the men made a crude symbol towards them to an eruption of laughter from his peers.

“Look they have no idea what it means bless them.”

A taller man pushes to the front of the group holding a flag pole in his right hand.

“We claim this planet in the name of the New Interglactic American Empire.”

The beings blink silently before they too begin laughing.

“What’s so funny?” One of the men calls out.

“They’re laughing at us!”

The beings slap their knees in hysterics as they fall to the floor pointing between the men and their flag.

After a joyous moment they collect themselves and clear their throats.

“Yeah I don’t think so” one of the beings steps forward crossing its arms.

“They can speak English?” The men mutter amongst themselves in awe.

“You’re not the first humans who’ve tried this, we will do to you what we did to them if you don’t leave our planet right now.”

The men laugh nervously amongst themselves unsure what was being implied, but clarification soon came as one of the beings reached into his pocket and pulled out a disembodied human hand.

The men gasped in horror before retreating back to their ship. Their leader standing firm still gripping onto his flag.

The beings stare him down before he too begins to sweat.

“We will be back you green skinned scum.” He says before walking backwards into the craft.

Once the door closes as the craft blasts off the beings share another laugh as they turn around and walk back home.

“I can’t believe they fell for it.”

“The old fake hand trick never fails.

They push back some foliage to reveal a bustling cityscape filled with all manner of inventions any sci-fi film would be jealous of.

“You know we’d happily share our home with those who show us some respect.” One being says to the other.

“Honestly, I’m not sure humans are ready to respect anyone. They don’t even respect themselves.”

They came from different stars, unknown, To Earth, a land they’d never grown In the beginning, they stumbled slow and strange, Their movements awkward and out of rage

No shinning minds or quick designs, Just creatures learning in a bind Their thoughts like clouds, they drifted wide, As if the lacked a certain guide

Unnoticed intelligence, took its time, Like clumsy step in foreign rhyme I watched, unsure, if they could know The depths of life, or how to grow

But in the quiet, slow and still , The seeds of wisdom found their will For even in their fumbling grace, There bloomed a truth we cannot replace:

That knowledge takes its own sweet pace, And learning wears no certain face

Deep in the uncharted sector of the galaxy known only as the Damp Bits - nobody really knew why - space explorer Lionel “Fingers” Dempsey found himself stranded on a planet which at some point had been marked on the charts as ‘Grut’.

Grut was not the sort of the planet you’d expect to find on the cover of an overly optimistic science fiction novel: verdant jungles, very large mushrooms, and shockingly advanced aliens. Grut had largely missed any sort of explorer appeal whatsoever.

Lionel’s spacecraft, the SS Failure of Optimism, was worryingly, lodged unceremoniously into a swamp. The ship’s AI, PAM, had been running diagnostics for seven hours now and was suspiciously silent, which probably meant she was trying to calculate how to break some bad news. PAM was used to breaking bad news, but still hadn’t really got the hang of it.

Lionel sighed. A practical man, he thought, doesn’t dwell on the fact that the swamp smells like wet socks. A practical man dons his suit, grabs a sensor array, and goes for an exploratory walk.

The lifeforms of Grut, at first glance, appeared to be unremarkable. The landscape was low-slung. Which is a trendy way of saying bog/mire/swamp/marsh/quagmire or fen. There was vegetation that seemed to sway gently even though there seemed to be no wind. There thrummed a constant background hum that suggested either a frighteningly vast number of insects or a lot of washing machines.The local fauna, such as it was, appeared to consist mainly of creatures resembling dandelions, which Lionel decided to name, he really had no idea why, but it seemed appropriate somehow, “Flooffers”. And anyway, he was the first human here and it was his prerogative to name things.

The Flooffers were round, fluffy, and altogether unthreatening in any way. One bounced up to him and emitted a soft phlbbt noise that sounded like an apologetic sneeze.

“Not exactly the sort of apex predator one writes home about,” Lionel muttered, taking a reading with his sensor thingy.

Still, something about Grut felt… odd. It wasn’t just the fact that the mushrooms occasionally appeared to move when he wasn’t looking. There was a strange pattern in the way the Flooffers bounced, a rhythm to their little phlbbts. Lionel adjusted his scanner whatnot, which didn’t seem to work properly and then expired loudly in a small shower of sparks.

“Typical,” he grumbled. “Well, I suppose I’m solving this mystery the old-fashioned way. With guesswork and making stuff up.”

Lionel’s suspicions began to solidify into something resembling a theory when he noticed the Flooffers were always in groups of three. Not four, not two. Three. They hopped about in intricate patterns that reminded him of something he couldn’t quite place.

As night fell, although “night” on Grut was relative, as the place never seemed to go fully dark, Lionel, ever the brave explorer, instead of retreating to his ship, set up camp and continued his observations. That was when it happened.

One of the mushrooms spoke.

Well, “spoke” is perhaps too strong a word. It emitted a series of sounds that Lionel’s brain, assisted by the universal translator embedded in his helmet, interpreted as language.

“WHY DOES THE LARGE FLESHY MONKEY THING STARE SO MUCH?” the mushroom intoned, in a voice that could only be described as deeply bored.

Lionel did what any self-respecting explorer would do in such a situation: he tripped over his own feet, and landed face-first in a puddle.

“STOP THAT, SMELLY MONKEY,” the mushroom said. “IT IS UNBECOMING.”

Lionel wiped mud from his visor. “You talk?”

The mushroom sighed. “ONLY WHEN IT IS NECESSARY TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE INTELECTUALLY CHALLENGED.”

This was not how Lionel had envisioned first contact. “But you’re… a fungus.”

“FUNGUS IS SUCH A LIMITED TERM,” the mushroom replied. “WE ARE THE GRUTANI. THE FLOOFFERS, AS YOU HAVE SO RUDELY NAMED THEM, ARE OUR HERALDS.”

“Heralds?” Lionel glanced at the bouncing dandelion creatures, who were now forming what looked a lot like a conga line.

“YES. THEY TRANSMIT OUR THOUGHTS ACROSS THE PLANET. OUR NETWORK SPANS THE ENTIRE SURFACE. WE ARE ONE. WE ARE MANY. WE ARE… ALL.”

Lionel blinked. He’d not encountered hive minds before, but usually, he remembered, they were big, flashy things with ominous red lights and an unhealthy fascination with assimilating people. Not… this.

“So, you’re saying the Flooffers are like, what, your comms system?”

“YOU COULD SAY THAT, IF YOU WISH TO BE WRONG.”

Lionel decided not to press the issue. “Right. So, uh, what do you want from me?”

The mushroom paused, as if considering. “WE HAVE BEEN OBSERVING YOU. WE ARE CURIOUS ABOUT YOUR KIND.”

Lionel straightened. This was more like it. “Well, humans are a fascinating species. We’ve built civilisations, explored the stars, invented art and music…”

“YES, YES,” the mushroom interrupted. “BUT WHY DO YOU DO… THIS?” It emitted a soft hum, and Lionel realised with growing horror that the Flooffers were now reenacting his earlier faceplant into the mud, complete with tiny splashes and a surprisingly accurate rendition of his swearing.

Over the next few days, Lionel came to realise the Grutani were far more intelligent than he had initially thought, but their intelligence worked on an entirely different axis from human cognition. They communicated through patterns: the movements of the Flooffers, the arrangement of spores in the air, the subtle shifts in the glow of the environment.

To the Grutani, language was art, and art was language. Every interaction was a dance, every thought a mural painted across the planet’s surface. They didn’t build cities or machines because they didn’t need to. They were the planet, and the planet was them.

Lionel tried to explain human concepts like art, culture, capitalism, tea and a general inability to do anything constructive, but the mushrooms seemed to find these ideas baffling.

“YOUR SPECIES SEEMS… POINTLESS,” the Grutani observed one evening, as Lionel attempted to repair his ship.

“Well, we’re not a hive mind,” Lionel replied, wiping sweat from his brow. “We’re individuals. We have different goals, different dreams.”

“AND CLEARLY THIS IS WHY YOU ARE ALL MAD?”

“Well, up to a point, but it’s also what makes us… us. The arguments, the contradictions—that’s how we grow. How we learn.”

The mushroom was silent for a long moment. Then it said, “FASCINATING. BUT YOUR SPECIES HAS NO POINT. YOU ARE PARASITES. DESTROYERS OF PLANETS. ONE AFTER ANOTHER YOU MOVE LIKE A SLOW SCOURGE THROUGH THE GALAXY.”

Eventually, PAM got Lionel’s ship operational again. As he prepared to leave, the Grutani said. “WE HAVE DECIDED THAT YOU MUST TELL YOUR KIND ABOUT US. BUT DO NOT BRING THEM HERE. WE DO NOT WISH TO BECOME PEST CONTROLLERS.”

Lionel nodded.

The SS Failure of Optimism lifted off, Lionel suddenly realised that he was lucky to have escaped with his life.

“PAM,” he said, “please erase Grut from the maps and let’s not go there again.”

“Well, it would be alright for me, but you bald monkeys should definitely give it a miss,” said the AI somewhat brusquely.

Lionel sighed, holding his head in his hands as he wished, not for the first time, for a nice cup of tea and a bourbon biscuit.

Emotional intelligence Reaching peace Quiet thought Silence each

Maybe not brilliant But kind and strong Know enough Nothing goes wrong