Out of the Trees and Into the Stars

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. The young aliens try to scare us with rubbish like that. They seem to resent us, as if it is our fault they are stuck on Earth. They ridicule us for thinking we will explore beyond Earth’s solar system; they say we will never survive out there, that we are too primitive.

The adults on the other hand, they just seem bored with our species. Duty-bound though they are to teach us the ways of the Intergalactic Nexus, they fail to approach the responsibility with anything like enthusiasm.

They arrived on Earth five years ago.

No one had seen it coming; there had been no warning; one Thursday in June, hundreds of the alien ships arrived in our atmosphere and promptly landed on the outskirts of cities across the globe. They hacked our internet and communicated that they were not aggressive – this was not a hostile invasion.

They deciphered and learned our languages on the first day. Apparently, ours were similar in form to the primitive dialects of their planet’s ancient history.

Technologically, they were leagues ahead of us. They were not only unimpressed with the state of our advancement, they were overtly annoyed with our reliance on fossil fuels for our simple technology. Like a parent irritated with the foolish mistakes of a child, they admonished us for threatening the planet’s viability by creating an atmospheric hothouse.

Using saline water as a base, they showed us how to synthesise near limitless quantities of clean fuel to use in our engines in place of petroleum based fuels. They then installed some of their own machines around the globe and corrected the greenhouse effect to pre-industrial levels in a matter of months.

Through all of this, the aliens came across as weary and apathetic. It seemed that the discovery of intelligent life on a new planet in a remote galaxy was quite unexciting for them.

In reality, it was just a job.

Initially, they made no mention of their agenda; and we were so preoccupied with the implications of their technology that we made no attempt to ask about their purpose. When they eventually did explain what they were doing here on Earth, it was clear they were not asking our permission.

Their purpose was to make Earth into an intergalactic hub, a valuable link connecting several key galaxies, which were at present inconveniently isolated from each other. Earth’s location and environment were said to be ideal, and because the native species would stand to benefit from outside technologies, apparently the development of the hub met the Nexus’s universal code of ethics.

The aliens had been contracted by a more dominant species to complete the development, and it became clear that it was not up for discussion.

Academies were established across the globe to teach young humans about the universe, and how to get by off-world. The complexity of learning was deemed to be too much for human brains in maturity to master, so the maximum enrolment age was set at twenty-one.

Once a student finishes the five-year training, an Interplanetary Travel Certification is to be issued.

What happens after that, we aren’t sure, because the academies are only now in their fourth year of operation. No one has yet to complete the training – we will be the first.

One such academy, located smack in the middle of Outback Australia, is where I’ve spent the last three and a half years.

Truth told, I’ve hated the experience. I didn’t choose to come; I have no interest in space travel. With such colossal physical forces and unimaginable dangers of the universe, I can’t help but feel that my chance of returning home safely would become exponentially smaller the farther away I travel. Every time we go through the launch and wormhole simulators, I find myself gripped by a debilitating fear. I pray that no one notices me hyperventilating.

I’ve barely had the chance to explore our own planet; a planet so wonderfully rich in habitats and life; a planet that is safe, measurable, and predictable. Out there in the endless unknown, who knows what kind of impossible horrors await us? We might not even survive a week.

All I want to do is stay on Earth and grow things. Trees, plants, a family. Here, I could have a house and a little slice of land. I could live my life – a calm life, a peaceful life.

But my father, inured by loss and embittered by his own corroded dreams, he was adamant that I take the opportunity to enroll. It’s the way the world is moving, he told me gruffly. Get on board or get left behind. It didn’t matter to him that I was afraid, that I didn’t want to leave Earth.

There was a time when I had managed to talk myself into getting excited about exploring the galaxies and discovering new and unique plants and animals. The thrill of discovery had me captivated. That was until one of the sub-adult aliens pointed out, early in my second year at the academy, that such an ambition was stupid and primitive; everything within range had already been discovered long ago and could be read about on the online database archives.

I was crushed, but I was stuck. New recruits to the academy all sign a no-quit commitment at enrolment. And with the academy so isolated with only one red dirt road leading in or out, escape was not an option.

*****

“Thoughts, feelings, ideas, these don’t occur as words, or as language,” the drawl of the alien teacher matches the dull look on its pale face. “Think of them instead as sparks; little pulses of energy generated in the brain. Each spark has a unique character, and language is used to decipher and translate its meaning.”

From behind the teacher, an alien sub-adult eyes us menacingly; the teacher’s aide.

“The trouble with traditional, syllabic language – like this one – is that it is woefully imprecise. Like a blunt instrument when you need a blade, too often these languages just make a mess of things.”

Next to me, my best friend, Shane Yurrawindi, raises his hand. “Sir, I’m pretty sure I think in words.”

A contemptuous shadow darkens the waxy face of the alien as it regards Shane. Cocksure and defiant, Shane meets its black-eyed gaze.

“You may find that you have an idea about something,” the alien continues without acknowledging Shane. “A thought that you feel you understand quite well, but then when you go to explain it, you discover you can hardly get your meaning across at all. Try as you will to reframe it, the articulation eludes you.”

Shane lets out an audible sigh as he slumps forward on the desk. His sister, Joyce, two desks away, throws an irritated glance in Shane’s direction before raising her own hand. The teacher doesn’t look at her, but she speaks anyway. “Excuse me, where does this spark come from?”

“That has no importance,” the alien says. “What you need to consider is how much of your attention is dominated by this incessant process of improper translation.”

“The only thing my attention is dominated by is this boring nonsense,” mutters Shane.

The alien stops, slowly turns its head back towards Shane. Something in its posture changes. I feel Shane tense. A cold fear drips down my neck as I realise the alien is angry. It doesn’t move or speak. Its expression remains dull, unreadable. But it has changed; its presence has intensified. I am drawn to it; I can hardly bear to look away.

A chilling fear takes hold, I feel my heartrate increase. Like an animal trapped, I want to get away but I can’t. The alien turns its gaze on me. My heartbeat thumps in my stomach.

Then, as quickly as it began, the tension evaporates, and the teacher turns away; but the teacher aide’s dark gaze remains fixed on Shane.

“That will be all for today,” the teacher says. “Next week, I will begin to teach you how to control your cognition.”

*****

“Launch day tomorrow!” Shane says, bounce in his step. “First time clearing the atmosphere. It’s finally happening.”

Joyce purses her lips. “I think you made that teacher really angry, Shane.”

“Well sorry, but frankly I’m fed up with these things,” Shane frowns. “They’re a different species to us Joyce, their brains are going to be wired different to ours. Why should we think like them? We aren’t them. We’re here to learn how to get by in the universe. I’m not interested in thinking like the aliens think.”

“Bureaus,” Joyce says.

“Sorry?”

“The aliens. That's what they're called; bureaus. Or at least something that translates into bureaus.”

“How do you know that?” I ask her.

“I’ve been doing some reading on the database archive.”

“I don’t know how you managed to figure out that interface.”

Joyce smiles and looks down at her feet. “It’s a strange system, but they have a software overlay that does a crude translation into our language systems.” She shrugs. “Now that I’ve found my way around, it’s quite intuitive. Just like anything really.”

“Better you than me,” Shane says.

After class, we had set off walking around the academy grounds.

Hot autumn air hangs thick and calm. The desert sun sits low in the sky, backlighting distant cumulonimbus clouds. Underfoot, the dusty-red dirt doesn’t yield as it should; during the construction of the academy the bureaus had cleared all vegetation and sealed the ground with a compound designed to turn a substrate into a rock-hard version of itself, negating the need for building foundations.

“Apparently, the bureaus are known around the universe for their efficiency and expedience,” Joyce explains. “They’ve accomplished incredible things throughout the Nexus because of their ability to focus and direct their attention on a task until it is concluded.”

That focus. I remember the way the teacher’s presence was magnified and all else fell away, as though its attention had become a physical force.

“From what I gather, it seems like they built most of the developed universe.”

“But they’re contracted, right?” I say. “They aren’t actually in charge?”

Joyce nods. “Right. I don’t think they’re interested in governance.”

“Who actually is in charge, then?” Shane asks.

Scratching her head, Joyce frowns. “I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure…”

“Well no. There’s a lot of reference to the bureaus meeting contractual obligations and staged galactic development strategies, but I can’t tell where it’s actually coming from.”

“Weird.” Shane shrugs.

“Our lack of perspective is a worry,” I say. Upon starting at the academy, we had launched into a curriculum designed to equip us with the knowledge we needed to function in the intergalactic community, yet so much about the universe remains a mystery. “Do you think we’re ready? Our species, I mean.”

A penetrating look from Joyce. “Ready for the universe?”

I nod.

“I’m ready,” Shane says.

“Don’t be glib, Shane,” Joyce says. “It’s a good question. It’s the question really.”

Before Joyce can answer the question, a young bureau – the teacher’s aide from class – approaches us.

Standing a head taller than me, this individual is nearly fully grown. Short legs support a long and narrow torso, while extraordinarily long and gangly arms, knobbly with extra joints, end in huge hands with six thin, opposing fingers. Its large head is mostly featureless, aside from a thin, lipless mouth and eyes that are quite like ours, but with colours inverted.

“If you were anywhere but on your own planet,” the young bureau says in a harsh two-toned voice, “you would be slaughtered for your insolence.”

My heart pounds through my whole body. Shane bristles, bares his teeth. Joyce, glancing at Shane and seeing the danger, takes a half step forward. “We’re sorry,” she stammers. “We didn’t mean –”

“You ignore me human?” The bureau's gaze fixed on Shane, a similar intensity to that experienced in the classroom begins to rise. While not as profound as the feeling from the teacher, something about this feels more alarming. Lacking is the focus, the concentration, but the force is there; it makes this individual seem volatile, deranged.

I glance at Shane, register a hint of fear flash across his face. “I apologise,” he says through gritted teeth. “I meant no disrespect.”

The bureau scowls at each of us in turn. “Here you are like foetuses in your mother’s womb. You have no idea what awaits you beyond your planet, how ill-equipped you are to cope.” It stares us down. “You are like ants, attempting to tame an ocean. You should stay in your ant hills.” Turning on its heel, the bureau walks away.

My breath is shallow and rapid. Cold blood courses through my body, my hands are shaking. I exhale the tension, but it doesn’t leave me.

“C’mon Sean.”

I look up and see the other two walking away. Shoulders squared and jaw set, Shane carries himself with stubborn determination. Joyce just looks worried.

None of the bureaus are particularly friendly, the sub-adults the least so. All along the young ones have behaved belligerently towards us, as though we were dirty, lowly animals unworthy of their attention. There is something about that one though, something deeper. A bitterness, a malignant discontent, emanated like an aura; I had seen it from the beginning. On orientation day, awed as we otherwise were by our first real encounter with the aliens, the malevolent gaze of that particular young one had stuck out and burned itself into my memory.

We don’t talk about it. We walk, heading north, out of the bare academy compound, back onto the comforting yield of red earth. Out into the fresh air, the land ruled by mulga and brigalow. Dainty desert flies cling to our shirts, stowaways. Desert grasses brush my legs as I feel myself beginning to calm.

To the east, I watch as an alien landing-craft descends slowly onto a docking bay of the new East-Australia Space Port. “I wonder what kind of ship that is,” Shane says, following my gaze. The air surrounding the craft shimmers as it eases itself onto the landing pad.

The Space Port looks out of place in the middle of the Outback. Manifolds of cosmic skyscrapers rise from the Earth like stalagmites, their constituent minerals seemingly dripped from the heavens.

More of a city than a port, the sprawling expanse is nearly a hundred kays across. It makes Melbourne seem like a country town. Since its construction was completed only six months prior, students at the academy have been watching from a distance as an eclectic variety of spacecraft come and go in increasing numbers.

“I read that the sub-adult Bureaus have been known to create problems,” Joyce speaks quietly, like she’s afraid of what she is going to say. “That intense attention the species is so famous for seems to take some time to master. Until then they’re noted to be quite volatile, as they figure out what to focus on.”

“Aren’t we all,” mutters Shane.

“All I’m saying is to be careful Shane. Clearly they’re a formidable species – they’ve built most of the developed Universe themselves. I imagine their wrath is nothing to be sneezed at.”

After walking on for a time, we crest a rise in the landscape. Our feet know where to go. A faint track reminds us of the way we have walked a hundred times before.

I breathe a deep sigh of relief as I see the tree ahead. Looking up, I feel the tension finally ease.

Thin ribbons of brown bark hang from the mighty girth of a paper-white trunk. Rising from the Earth, straight and true, the thick trunk branches into powerful limbs, topped with a crown of lance-shaped leaves.

A towering Queensland white gum, Eucalyptus argophloia.

Big John.

Proud and alone, rising above all else in the landscape. Sentinel of the Outback. It evokes calm acceptance, without need for understanding. A feeling of belonging, of connectedness to the Earth; the irrevocable bond of all life.

Shane sighs as he sits himself down on a log.

Joyce sits herself cross-legged on the ground and then lays back, arms behind her head as a pillow. I follow her gaze up into the canopy of the tree, shining golden in the late afternoon sunlight. Pioneering blossoms of the purest white appear among the leaves; the first flowers of the season.

A flash of green, blue and yellow steals my gaze; a small flock of mulga parrots careens by, landing in a nearby wattle tree. Darting from branch to branch, chattering and singing as they go; my mind is cast back in time, back to the farm.

Four generations that property had been in our family; would have been five if we’d kept it. What felt like endless hectares of fertile pasture, thronged by viridescent corridors of virgin forest; tallowwood and blackbutt eucalyptus, she-oak and paperbark. Koalas shared the canopies with the birds, the bees, the bats. Kangaroos grazed alongside livestock.

I remember sitting out in the paddocks with my grandfather, the air rich with the smell of spring grass and cattle. He would point out solitary blue gums, standing ancient and bold in the middle of the fields. We’re nothing without trees, boy, he’d say. Take care of them while they still stand. If we lose them, we’ll already be gone.

He had died by the time we sold the farm. I remember my father calling it a mercy that Granddad didn’t live to see that.

*****

“This is it Sean,” Shane says, eyes wide with excitement. “Today’s the day. Just think of it; since the dawn of time we have been gazing up at the heavens, guided by the stars, wondering what’s out there.”

“Settle down Shane-o,” I croak. “It’s too early.”

Seated at the breakfast table outside the dining hall, I can’t stomach any food. Nerves pulled tight, heart pounding thick in my chest. I mumble something unintelligible, breathing steady, trying to exhale the tension.

“Seven o’clock launch mate,” he says, clapping me on the shoulder.

I look to the pre-dawn sky, the eastern horizon glowing with the sun’s promise. Only hours ago, sitting alongside Big John, we had watched the same sun descend beneath the western horizon. As the afternoon faded to dusk, the lights of the Space Port had glowed bright.

“You look tired Joyce,” Shane says as Joyce gets up from the table with her used breakfast dishes. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“No,” she says, throwing Shane a stern look. “I was up late revising the launch procedures, like you should have been doing.”

A pang of guilt strikes me in the gut as I remember that I too was supposed to have been reviewing the procedures.

Shane nods slowly as he bites into an apple. “Launch procedures,” he says. “I probably should have done that.”

Land cruiser troop carriers drive us east across the red dirt through the dawn twilight, the V8 engines running quiet now they’re no longer burning diesel fuel.

The megalopolis of the Space Port is already bustling with activity.

Composed of silver tinted glass, smooth and unbroken from ground to peak, the colossal towers are connected to each other at all levels by enclosed foot bridges. Launch and landing pads for craft of all sizes are abundant; some at ground level, others attached to the sides of buildings, some forming the rooves of other towers. Car-sized transport ships and hovercrafts in the hundreds zigzag through the airspace surrounding the towers in organised chaos.

“It’s incredible,” Joyce says, mouth agape as she stares up at the Port; it is our first time visiting.

“It’s all alien,” I say. “Those buildings, the aircraft, all this activity, none of it is human. Five years ago we figured we were alone in the universe. Now there’s an alien city bigger than Sydney in the middle of the desert.”

“Fair dinkum,” Shane says, digging earwax from his ear.

“Our year is the first to go through the academy,” Joyce says. “Once we graduate, we’ll be free to use the Port properly too.”

The land cruisers slow as we approach a ground-level launch pad on the outer edge of the Space Port expanse. An expressionless adult bureau stands to greet us.

I notice the aggressive young teacher’s aide standing behind, long arms folded, a foul look about it.

“What’s that one doing here,” Shane groans.

A squat, grey triangular spaceship sits ready on the launch pad. The size of a six-story apartment building, the ship is typical of the kind the bureaus use to enter and exit the Earth’s atmosphere.

“Today you will take a short flight in this heading-ship,” the bureau says flatly, addressing the class. “You will breach the Earth’s atmosphere, before accelerating into a close, rapid orbit of the planet. You will complete a single orbit, before returning to this same launch pad. You should already be familiar with your Captain.” I feel Shane draw a sharp intake of breath as the young bureau teacher-aide steps forward, black eyes locked on us. Joyce and I exchange a worried look.

“The point of this exercise,” continues the bureau, “is that you will experience, first hand, profound changes in altitude, speed, gravity, and pressure that are not available to you with your current technology.”

“Rub it in, space man,” Shane says under his breath.

“These are normal features of interstellar travel,” it continues. “You will grow accustomed to it through exposure.”

My heart pounds in my stomach.

I force my breath into a steady rhythm as the sub-adult bureau leads us towards the craft. The choppy gait of its short legs coalesce strangely with the lumbering swing of its arms. Fear threatens to overwhelm, but I subdue panic by thinking about immediate actions. Left foot, right foot. Hand rail. Breathe. “I thought we’d need spacesuits,” I say quietly to Joyce, feigning nonchalance.

She shoots me a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry,” she says. “The environments in these craft are carefully manufactured to control radiation, and once launched, there’s no outside access from the Observation Deck, where we will be.”

I nod, swallowing thickly and trying a brave grin. “Did you read that on the database archive?”

With a wry smile she says, “It’s all in the procedures.”

Grey light inside the craft, cold and odourless. We are greeted by a pair of adult bureaus, wearing uniforms adorned with the crest of the Intergalactic Nexus; a red, five-pointed star imposed upon a perfect circle. The young bureau grunts in acknowledgement of them and leads us along a wide corridor, onto an elevator platform. I bump into the solid form of Shane as the platform lurches into vertical motion, carrying us high into the craft.

Bright light from above keeps us squinting and our necks craned up. As we ascend, I am surprised to see blue sky above. The platform slows and we emerge in a large, round chamber. To our right stands another pair of bureaus in Nexus uniforms working at an elaborate console. They are joined by our young captain.

Around us is an unobstructed, panoramic view of the outside world; the bustling hive of activity of the Space Port on one side and the red open plains on the other. Distant clouds obscure the rising sun in a sky that is otherwise purest blue. “The Observation Deck,” Joyce says with an awed smile.

The students all move to the window, mouths agape, taking in the view of the Space Port. The elevation gives an incredible perspective on the alien city. I, however, am drawn to the view on the other side. The wilderness. The Outback.

Crossing the room, I notice the young bureau eyeing me from the console.

I go to the window and take in the view, searching the landscape.

Something’s missing.

The feeling of the bureau’s gaze is unsettling. I try to ignore it as I look around, scanning the land. A hint of urgency takes root in the back of my mind.

“Trust you,” says Shane, stepping in next to me. “There’s an unobstructed view of an alien metropolis over there and here’s Sean staring at dirt.”

In spite of himself, Shane goes quiet as he too takes in the view. Frowning, he points his finger; to the southwest, a cluster of dull glass buildings atop a circle of barren red – the academy. His finger slowly moves, pointing, searching, north of the academy, only a few kays, over the rise, through the scrub. He stops, turns to me, baffled.

“Where’s Big John?”

A cold fear runs down my spine and the hairs on my neck stand erect; I look around and see the young bureau standing at the console, staring at the two of us, one after the other. Its expression is unreadable but returned is its volatile intensity.

I glance down to see the two bureaus in Nexus uniforms descend back out of sight on the elevator platform. The young Captain turns to them and barks something in their language; the two-toned sound fills the space and moves chillingly between a range of frequencies that make my ear drums quiver. The uniformed adults look up in unison but say nothing in reply.

Returning to the window, I look again, desperately searching, scanning the same patches of earth, knowing but not believing.

“Sean,” Shane says, concern in his voice. “The tree, it should be right there.”

I look again to the bureau; its attention is now intently focused on the control console. Shane looks between the bureau and I, not comprehending.

My eardrums and sinus throb thickly with a profound change in pressure, a low hum fills the air.

Outside, the Earth moves, slowly begins to fall away.

I hear a voice, Joyce’s voice in the distance; faint, muffled, as though speaking through water. I can’t make out what she says.

I turn my head back to the window, back outside, down at the outback plain.

Then I see it. There in the distance. The tree. Big John. The mighty white gum tree.

Uprooted.

The entire tree, roots and all, torn brutally from the ground, laying still beside where it had stood for more than two centuries. A fallen giant, its branches already becoming bare of leaves.

Impossible.

I turn and stare at the bureau and find its black eyes staring straight into mine. A ghost of a smile in those eyes, dark and menacing.

Then, a deep rumble beneath my feet; increasing in volume and frequency until I can hear nothing else. All sound is drowned out and forgotten as the vibration of the craft around me makes me lose all sense of where my body ends. Vision blurring, I look around, try to gain my bearings. I see flashes of blue sky outside, glimpse the red dirt and the buildings of the Space Port fall away.

I find myself on the ground, paralysed by the vibration and the sound; I must have blacked out for a moment. Around me I catch glimpses of my classmates, strewn about, as helpless as I am.

I see the bureau standing at the console, somehow unshaken and unaffected by the apparent havoc all around.

The blue sky above fades and all goes dark.

*****

“What do you think you’re doing!” I hear Joyce through the blackness, her voice raised in anger. “That launch was completely against protocol!”

I open my eyes, puzzled to find it is night-time. A wave of nausea hits me as I realise that it is not night-time; we are in space.

Lifting my head, I see Joyce standing on unsteady feet, yelling at the bureau, still standing at the console. “What are you doing now? Aren’t you going to turn into orbit?” Desperation in her voice. “We’re just heading straight out into space!”

White light fills the room, illuminating a stunned looking Shane as he helps the other students to their feet. Recognition takes my breath away as I see the moon, our moon, impossibly huge, passing us on the left. Our glistening moon, what was forever just a distant image in the sky, now right there, just outside, so close I could almost touch it.

“That’s right,” comes the two-toned voice of the bureau. “I have better things to do than sit around on your mouldy, miserable little planet.”

Desperately, I rush to the window.

“You wanted to see the universe?” the bureau says, words laced with malevolence. “We will find out if the universe wants to see you.”

I push my face into the window and try to see, try to catch a glimpse of the Earth, our home, fading away into the distance.

But the angle of the window means I can’t see.

Earth is gone, already behind us. Already out of sight.