Chapter 11. Uncertainty.

Late one night, Jack was awoken by a signal from Tog. He got out of his bunk and pulled his brief and shorts on before running to the command station.

"What's wrong?" He asked Tog after plopping down in a seat next to him. His cat came to the station and jumped onto his lap.
"The alien craft is attempting to contact us."

"Can you receive their signal?"

"Yes."

Jessica, Natalie and Lorrie came to the control station in their pajamas and took seats.

"What's happening?" Jessica asked, her expression radiating a deep concern.

"The aliens are trying to contact us?" James told her. "Tog is trying to receive their signal."

"How is that possible? I thought we determined that the aliens were extinct."

James didn't have time to reply when the main screen lit up with a very strange alien face that had smooth shiny skin with two large dark slanted eyes, a long tubular nose and a small mouth with lots of sharp teeth. Gills were not located on the sides of a head that had a serrated projection running along the center of its large skull.

The mouth had a narrow-like tongue, which allowed it to talk in a squeaky high-pitched tone.

"Why did you come here?"

"We were sent to repair the probe that was in orbit around your planet," Jack replied in a calm voice.

"Why did you remove material from the planet."

"We are curious about the structures on the planet and needed rock samples to obtain its age. We were unaware that a planet existed out this far."

"Why do you have a feline?"

Jack blinked several times before he settled down. "They keep us cool, calm and collected."

The alien's head turned as if it was trying to discern a sound.

"They help us deal with problems," Jack said.

The alien nodded and the contact with it was broken.

"How did an alien species from some distant star system know our language?" Natalie asked.

"Evidently, they have been monitoring our signals for some time," Jack said. "Too bad NASA didn't warn us about their presence in our solar system."

"No wonder they didn't want to come on this mission," Lorrie said.

"Yes, they risked our lives in an attempt to make contact with an intelligent alien species, but we can't do anything about it," Jack said. "We have to adapt to the situation and hope for the best."

"We're not diplomats," she said, "We have no idea what they might do."

"I agree. The best thing for us to do is remain calm and don't do anything that would be considered a threat to them."

His plan made perfect sense, but it had no guarantee that it would work.

"I have received a message from Houston Command Center," Tog revealed.

"Tell them we're on course to return to Earth. Don't tell them that the alien species contacted us."

Tog did as he was instructed.

"Shouldn't we tell them what happened?" Jessica asked.

"I think it's better that we don't. They can't save us this far out in the Kuiper belt."

Jessica stared at him with a blank expression before she smiled, "I see that you don't like pajamas."

He stared at her for a moment before replying. "They didn't add any to my wardrobe."

Her expression changed to a more serious one. "I'm surprised that they included them for us."

"Hopefully it meant that they respect you."

She shook her head. "I doubt that."

Jack ran a hand through his hair. "Who knows what they were thinking when they sent us on this insane mission. The good news is that they included enough food and water to return to Earth without us having to go back in the hibernation modules."

She replied to his statement with a nod.

The aliens didn't try to contact them again, allowing the crew to enter a more relaxed mode where discussions tended to be conducted at the evening meal.

"I'm surprised that the aliens aren't shadowing us," Natalie said. "I would think that they would be more curious."

"They must know a lot about us already," Lorrie said,

"There's something not right about this," Jack said, causing all eyes to be focused on him.

"First of all, if this alien species has been observing us long enough to know our language, I think that the UFO conspiracists would have been blaring it all over the internet."

"What are you inferring?" Jessica asked. "That this is some sort of a fabrication?"

"Why would NASA go to all this trouble to fake a possible intelligent alien species?" Natalie asked.

"Maybe to gain an advantage over their competitors," Jack said.

"The problem with that idea is the advanced city on the planet," Jessica said. "That would have cost a fortune and taken a very long time to construct. A project of that complexity would have been very difficult to conceal."

"Maybe that was something an intelligent alien species did build, but they no longer exist," Jack said. "Maybe that's why the official crew didn't come along on this mission. They sent us to rig an alien encounter."

That theory sounded weird, but it was a possibility, but it rendered the crew's work as being of no actual value. The plan to reveal its actual reality would take some time. Fortunately, they had plenty of that. But there's always another brick in the wall, and it was about to fall out.