Ripar's Return to Earth (Part 7)

“Come on everybody let’s go!” Shouted Ripar

“Ok, I’m looking for my gloves.” Jodi said “Found em!’”

All of them ran to the ship, put their packs in storage, and took their seats. The ship took off.

“I don’t think this could ever get old!” John said

“I’m so excited!” Jodi rubbed her hands together, smiling.

Ripar plotted a course to Antarctica. The walls of the ship became see-thru and they all watched as they flew across the land. Ripar flew slower so everyone could see the scenery, it was so beautiful, the aliens were as in awe as the humans. They flew over big cities with a lot of traffic as well as grasslands, they saw flatlands and mountains, the ocean with boats and they even saw some whales. After a while, the water turned into ice. They saw snow, and icebergs, polar bears, it was beautiful.

“We want to take some samples of small, medium, and large bodies of water to test so we can see the difference in salt, microbes, and such. Readings ahead show a small pond, we can land close by, take some samples of the water and dirt surrounding it.” Vocar pointed out

“Sounds good.”

The ship landed and the door opened. The occupants exited and Vocar went to work collecting samples. The pond was frozen so Vocar took out his laser, cut a chunk of it, and put it in a metal box, she then cut down to the water and took a sample, and put it in a tube.

While Vocar did her job, everyone else looked around. Mike picked up and threw rocks, while John and Jodi just sat down on a bolder holding hands, and looked around. Jodi was curious about what Vocar was doing so she got up and looked over her shoulder.

“So, is that laser just for cutting things for scientific use?” She asked

“Well, it’s used for many things, scientific and defense.”

“It’s also a weapon like in Sci-Fi movies?”

“Yes, you know like in Star Trek when the crew will use their phasers to cut into things like rock, but also they can use them to defend themselves? They’re like that, but we don’t have a stun feature, just less damage, and more damage. We may have to work on a stun setting if it's possible. Ok, got the ice and water samples, now I’ll just get dirt and rock samples then we’ll leave.”

Vocar took some dirt and put it in a separate box, then took some rocks and put them in a third box and lastly cut a boulder with her gun and took a sample of that as well.

“Ok, I’m done, let’s get going.” Vocar said as she walked toward the ship. The rest of the gang followed. Once again, they took off.

“I see a lake nearby; I don’t see any human activity.” Ripar said as he found a good landing spot and touched down. They exited the ship again and Vocar did her business while the rest looked around.

Vocar scanned the lake “Some of the ice is thin so be careful.”

Mike picked up some snow, made a snowball, and threw it at John, laughing. John threw one back at him and then they looked at each other and smiled as they knew what the other was thinking and each hurled one at Ripar and Raj. The aliens looked at them with a perplexed look on their faces, then smiled and started throwing snowballs back at them. Jodi meanwhile started making a snowman. When Ripar saw what she was doing, he walked up to her and helped.

“I’m making a Snowman. You make two balls of snow, one is the head, and the other his body. Usually, you have something to make the eyes, nose, and mouth, we can use some nearby rocks I guess for the eyes and this thin twig for the mouth, and these twigs for the arms, some use a carrot for the nose.”

Raj walked over and started to help as did the two men. When Vocar was done he put the samples on the ship then everyone joined Jodi and Ripar. The six of them making a snowman and enjoying themselves. Jodi thought to herself, she never thought she’d be making a snowman with aliens from another planet, but here she was and it was the best time of her life.

They were almost done with their snowman, they made the body and the eyes and mouth, now they were looking for the perfect nose. Vocar took her laser and cut a piece of rock

“How about this?” she said handing Jodi the rock.

“Perfect! Since you made it, why don’t you put on the final piece Vocar.”

She walked up to the snowman and put the nose on it. Now let's smooth out the bottom of the head to make it look more like a neck...and voila! They all stepped back, arms around each other, and smiled as they looked at their masterpiece. Jodi took out her phone and snapped a few pictures of it, then asked for a group picture. John who had the longest arms asked if he could take it. He held the phone in his hand, they looked at the screen and saw they were all in it and John snapped the picture. Vocar let her little drone out and had it take a picture.

“Showoff!” Mike said with a smile

“I’m having fun but we still have to take samples from a glacier then get to California.”

“Hey, can we use the tractor beam to take Mister Icee with us? I know we can’t take him back home, but it would be nice to have him with us while we're in Antarctica.” Jodi asked

“I guess so, let's get going and I’ll pick him up. Do humans name everything they make?” Ripar said laughing

The friends entered the ship and went to their third destination with Mister Icee in tow with the tractor beam.

“Ahead there is a cave we can land in, maybe I can take some samples of it, let's check that out first before going to the glacier, It’s not that far.” Vocar pointed out looking at the map on her screen.

Ripar landed the ship in the cave and they got out. It was quite beautiful, the cave looked like it was carved out and the light from the sun could be seen through the thinner parts. They looked around a bit before Vocar took samples. The cave was big but not big enough for them to get lost. After about 20 minutes they entered the ship, hovered out of the cave, and then flew to the glacier. Ripar looked for a good place to land and then did so.

“We’ve been to planets with ice before, but this is beautiful. It's too bad global warming is shrinking them, if humans don’t find a way to fix it, in time this will all be gone, but not in your lifetime, but maybe in your kids, or their children's lifetimes maybe depending on how you handle it. Your scientists seem to say anywhere between 100 and 5000 years but with the little computations our computers have taken it could take between 100-200 years.”

“With all the technology you have, can you help?” Jodie asked

“We can’t even fix our planet, so no unfortunately we can’t. Even if we could, that would mean we’d have to show ourselves to the people of your world and we don’t know how they would react. You’ve been great, but even you said your government may react negatively twards us.”

Jodi looked at Ripar with sadness in her eyes and nodded.

“Ok, I took the last of the samples I need here. Let’s head off to Death Valley California.”

When everyone was on the ship, they took off and went on their way. The humans were silent for most of the trip, thinking about what Ripar said about their planet.

They flew over Los Angeles. “There is the Hollywood sign.” John pointed out “Hollywood is where a lot of the movies and television shows are made. And those buildings there are Downtown LA. I’ve always wanted to come here. Look at all the traffic though, I don’t think I could live here.”

As they flew on, they came to the desert. “We're almost there.” Vocar said a few moments later, “Here we are, Death Valley, the temperature is 123 degrees. Before we exit, I can help with the heat.” she led them to the medical bay where Vocar had them walk into a tube-like structure. When they entered it sprayed them with a mist. “This will keep your body cool and stop you from burning.”

“Wow, an alien sunscreen, this could come in handy.” Jodi said

They exited the ship onto the dirt of the desert. Vocar took some dirt samples, and also some of desert plants and rocks.

While looking around, Jodi pointed out a desert tortoise slowly walking, then she saw a jackrabbit run from behind a rock. “I hope we don’t see any rattlesnakes.”

“Your sunscreen works great. I don’t even feel hot.” John commented

“Yes, think of it as a very light shield that can protect you from heat. It doesn't only protect from heat over 5000 degrees, but from cold as low as -3000, plus many other things." Vocar explained

“This could be very helpful to humans.”

Vocar ignored the comment “Ok, I got the samples I need, let’s go.”

They got back on board and headed to buy some Almonds. Vocar looked on the internet to see how to grow an almond tree and after finding one, she thought it was pretty simple. She thought they could start the stratification process right away and get the almonds to germinate before they got back home. The difficult part will be cloning the soil and getting all the vegetables, fruits, and almonds to grow properly, and she thought that wouldn’t even be too hard.

Ripar landed, the ship and they walked to the nursery to pick up the fresh almonds, they talked to a nice man named Darren who gave them some pointers. He also said they should pick up some sphagnum moss to put under the almonds. Mike paid for what they needed, they thanked Darren and left. Now that their adventure was over, they went home and talked about what happened. It was an adventure they’d never forget.