A New Beginning
When the pilot regained consciousness and was able to lift his head—a slow and painful process—he noticed that he was still behind the controls of his ship, a one-man fighter that had crashed on an island located on Planet M25. After ascertaining that he was not seriously injured, he turned on his radio and attempted to make contact with one of his fellow invaders. The silence confirmed his worst fears: there were no other survivors, and he was alone in an alien world, light-years away from everyone and everything he had ever known.
As the pilot crawled out of the wreckage of his ship, he wondered if the commanders in charge of the ill-fated invasion ever dreamt that their battle plan would be such a catastrophic failure that not only the entire population of Planet M25 would be massacred and its cities obliterated but also that all but one of the invading force would be killed. Considering that most of the pilots were former condemned prisoners who would have been executed had they not volunteered for the mission, it was likely the commanders would view such a loss of manpower as an acceptable risk.
Not wanting to waste time in idle speculation, the determined pilot set out to explore his new environment. Survival was now his main objective since it was highly doubtful there would be a search and rescue mission sent to find him. He would have to find food, water and shelter.
The island on which he crashed was fairly small in size, but it seemed to have an ample supply of fresh water and abundant vegetation. He considered himself extremely fortunate that he landed there rather than on one of the mainland continents since his comrades' firepower had leveled the planet's cities with their superior weapons and left the land uninhabitable. It would be years before their environments would once more be able to sustain life.
* * *
The pilot had been marooned on the island for three days when he found a building hidden deep in a wooded area. A well-built, multistory structure made of concrete, glass and steel, it would no doubt offer protection from all sorts of inclement weather.
This place will provide a much more secure shelter than my hastily constructed hut, he thought, overjoyed at his good fortune.
Inside the building, the pilot found many rooms, most of which contained beds. There was also a large room that held shelves full of what appeared to be food in various containers made of cardboard, glass and metal. These supplies, added to the fresh fruits, nuts and berries that grew in great quantities on the island, should be able to sustain him for many years to come, he reasoned, quite possibly for the rest of his life.
Having found adequate shelter, a more than sufficient supply of food and a readily available source of fresh water, the pilot no longer worried about his immediate physical needs.
But what of my mental and emotional state? Can I survive on this island, cut off from all contact with others, without losing my mind?
He believed he could. After all, he had been imprisoned and condemned to death on his own planet. While he would have a lonely existence, confined to a small island on a planet light-years from his home, at least he would be alive. Besides, if there were surviving natives on Planet M25, which was highly unlikely considering the efficiency of the attacking force's advanced weaponry, it was extremely doubtful they would forgive an alien invader who took part in destroying their planet. No, any survivors would be much more likely to kill him on sight than to befriend him.
That night, after dining on canned creamed corn, tuna fish and a bottle of carbonated orange drink, the pilot retired to one of the rooms with a bed and settled down for a much-needed rest. Just as he felt himself drifting off to sleep, he was awakened by muffled sounds coming from the floor below. The pilot grabbed his weapon and illuminator and searched for access to the lower level of the building. He opened several doors off the main entrance and found a staircase: a rather primitive method of vertical movement.
When the curious pilot reached the basement level, he followed the sounds, which led him down a long corridor past closed doors, storage rooms and work areas consisting of machinery that was unfamiliar to him. This was not surprising, given the fact that the inhabitants of this planet were so inferior to those of his own world.
As he approached the western wing of the building, the sounds grew louder. He soon discovered that they were coming from inside a room at the far end of the wing. Unlike the other doors in the building, this one had an opening at eye level, roughly the size of a man's head. It was similar to a window but was made of unbreakable plastic rather than glass. Through this aperture, he glimpsed the figure of a human. Well hidden in the lower level of the remote, fortified building, separated from the majority of the planet's population by hundreds of miles of ocean, it had managed to survive the alien attack.
The pilot cautiously drew near the door and peered through the bars. The room's walls, ceiling and floor were covered with a thick layer of material similar to that used on the beds on the floor above. Obviously, this material, meant to provide protection for those inside the room, had prevented the death ray from vaporizing the occupant.
Apprehensive that the human being within might have a weapon to use against him, he never took his eyes off the person as he slowly opened the door, which had been secured from the outside. He soon realized he had nothing to fear because the creature wore a strange outfit, one that secured the wearer's arms within its folds, leaving the person virtually helpless.
Since the human presented no threat to him, bound as it was, the alien pilot approached it. When it finally sensed his presence, the creature raised its head in surprise.
"Who are you?" it asked.
The creature spoke a strange language, one the alien had never encountered. But the people from his planet had long ago mastered telepathy, so he could communicate with the human without the use of words.
"I am a visitor here," the pilot said in his silent language.
The creature's mind was quite simple, and its thoughts were easy for the alien to read.
"I'm hungry," was its main concern. "Do you have any food?"
"Yes," the pilot replied. "Come with me, and I'll give you some."
The creature tried to stand, but the outfit it wore made it a difficult task.
"Can you get me out of this thing?" it asked pitifully.
As the pilot helped extricate the creature from the highly illogical item of apparel, he scanned the being's mind. He learned that the creature was called, in her language, a "woman" or a "female" and that he was a "man" or a "male." The creature had many ideas, emotions and fears associated with this male/female distinction, but they were confusing to the alien, whose planet had long ago adopted more scientific, sterile forms of reproduction.
The alien led the creature back through the long corridor, up the staircase and into the room where the food was kept. He read his companion's mind: kitchen was her word for the place.
Since he would most likely be on the island with this human being for the remainder of his life, the alien thought he should learn to speak her language. He would begin by referring to her as the woman, rather than as the creature, and to himself as the man. Soon he was able to hold verbal conversations with the woman by first scanning her mind for the appropriate words before he spoke.
"Where did you come from?" the woman asked after she had satisfied her appetite.
"I am with the army," he said, not bothering to elaborate.
She showed no fear at his answer. Either she did not realize he was the enemy or she simply did not care.
Then he asked her, "What is this place?"
"A hospital."
Her answer made sense. That would explain all the beds. The pilot had already assumed that such a building housed either prisoners or the seriously ill.
At first, the man was afraid that the woman might have something contagious, but he decided she looked healthy enough once she had gotten some food to eat. The poor thing had probably not been fed since the day of the failed invasion.
Odd, he thought, that he should care one way or another whether this woman had eaten or whether she lived or died. But he did care perhaps because without the woman's company, he risked losing his sanity.
* * *
During the following weeks, the man and woman developed a rapport, which then developed into a close friendship. Inexplicably, the man even came to feel a strange protectiveness toward the woman that grew into a pronounced affection.
Since he had met the woman, the man found life on this strange planet quite enjoyable. They had tasty and nutritious food, shelter from the elements, no enemies to fear and no work to perform. The two people were free to spend their days as they chose. They could swim in the clear, blue sea or bask in the warm rays of the sun on the beach. What the couple enjoyed most, however, was to stroll hand-in-hand through the serene woods or simply sit among the beautiful tropical plants that grew behind the hospital building, in an area the woman called "the garden."
It was there in the garden, amidst the beautiful colors and heady, fragrant scents of the blossoming flowers that the man learned the respective roles of male and female in the human mating process. He also came to understand the emotion known as love, one that had ceased to exist on his own planet many centuries earlier.
Yet, although he grew to love the woman, the man could not deny that her thought patterns were most irrational. After reading the primitive paper documents in the hospital's antiquated filing cabinets, he realized the woman's illness was in her mind, not her body. And while he did not observe any of the violent tendencies her doctors spoke of in their written reports, the alien did notice that his companion was sometimes prone to wild imaginings.
"There's a serpent in that apple tree," she told him one day, her eyes bright and gleaming with intensity. "It tried to get me to eat the apples."
"They're not ripe yet," the man cautioned. "You should wait until they turn red before you eat them. They'll be sweeter then."
"But the serpent promised that if I eat an apple, he will share his great knowledge with me."
The man, unable to cure the woman's diseased mind, humored her instead.
"If you want to listen to the serpent and eat the apples while they are still green, then do so, but don't be surprised if you get a stomachache."
* * *
Because of her deficient mental faculties, the woman was not capable of appreciating the irony of the situation, but the man was. He was the only one left of an alien force that had virtually destroyed M25, and he was mating with the only survivor of that doomed planet.
He, Adam, a condemned murderer who had narrowly escaped a death sentence on his own planet by volunteering for a suicide mission, and the woman, Eve, who had been committed to an institution for the criminally insane, would repopulate this otherwise barren world. The alien man and the native woman would be fruitful and multiply and would thus spread their tainted bloodlines through countless generations of beings on Earth.
Before they eventually constructed boats and, out of a growing curiosity, left the island to settle on the mainland, the pilot's many descendants continued to enjoy the beauty of the garden of the former Psychiatric Medical Center. Eventually, the sign would rot away, leaving behind only four letters on two scraps of wood: ED ... EN.
No, Salem, that's not a straitjacket. (Just ignore him; he's pretending he's Hannibal Lecter again.)
