Sea Salt

Copyright © 2009 - 2018 - This is an original work by Zeb Carter and is protected under copyright by U.S. copyright law. It is only submitted at Literotica.Com and any submission to any other site has not been authorized by the Author.

Author's Note: This is just a short flash story about... well read on. There is no sex in this story I wrote it just for fun a while back. Enjoy.

"how much longer until the plan is complete?"

"estimates range from twenty lexicals to thirty-five lexicals."

"where are they as far as progress on finding a faster than light space drive?"

"estimate ten to fourteen lexicals."

"i see. carry on then dixor, carry on."

Dixor shook the sweat from his melon, which floated in the salty liquid, before pushing back his tendrils with his flipper. Since his posting here he had become most fascinated with this race of air breathers. His own kind preferred the deep, dark pressure of salt seas. Right now he was a little uncomfortable as the pressure at this depth was causing his tender hide to stretch. Before this assignment was over he was sure to have stretch marks over most of his smooth tan hide.

Just another ten lexicals and this race of air breathers will have invented a technology every race in the galaxy would love to have. And only Dixor and his race, the d'Amorf, would have it. Of course, these air breathers would also have it but, that hardly mattered as most of the intelligent races lived on worlds they couldn't possibly exist on. Plus, the races of air breathers were the most aggressive in the known galaxy. They were always at war with one another.

It was Dixor's job to leave clues for these being's to discovery so they would one day, in the not too distant future, develop a faster than light space drive. Once that happened he would be free to travel the galaxy faster than anyone of his race had ever done.

Dixor spent five hundred lexicals in suspended animation to get here. The time spent here on this planet, two hundred and fifty lexicals had been spent in and out of the suspense chamber. Every ten lexicals the chamber would wake him up and he would spend three or four lexicals determining how far along this tiny race of air breathers had come in their development. Then if he felt they needed a nudge in one direction or another he would leave a clue to what they were seeking in an appropriate place and depth in the soil, with the appropriate age signature.

Or if possible plant the idea needed in the subconscious of one of the air-breathing creatures of the land. Implanting a memory was the most expedient and was fairly easy to do as Dixor's race was telepathic. Most liquid dwellers were, not many air breathers were. The few air-breathing races Dixor had been in contact with seemed very surprised that his kind was advanced enough to have developed telepathy. Dixor and his kind never had the heart to tell them they were the latecomers to telepathic communications.

Dixor was in the sixth femoral of his three lexical wake period. He had been asleep for ten lexicals and so much had changed on the face of the planet he was just confused out of his wits. There seemed to have been a population explosion. The last time he had been awake the air breathers had just finished a great war that involved almost every being on the planet. The air-breathers referred to it as world war ii. Almost half the population of the world had been decimated. Although one continent seemed to fair better than the rest.

But now the complete planet was populated again. In the first femoral Dixor had initiated a population count. Remote pellgors had been sent out to count the number of bi-ped air breathers. When the pellgors returned with their data, Dixor could not believe his eyes. The combined data suggested that there were more air breathers on this planet than any other planet in the galaxy. Dixor was completely bewildered by this revelation.

In the second lexical Dixor started looking for signs that the air breathers were developing an FTL drive. He found one small group, in a fairly isolated place, working on an FTL drive. As he watched they had failure after failure. They had progressed farther than Dixor would have thought they could. Studying their design, Dixor spotted where they had gone wrong and sought a solution to their problem.

You see Dixor's race was very good a finding solutions to specific problems and even though they had been able to build spacecraft and computers and all sorts of other electronics, they didn't have the abstract thinking process, as these air breathers had, to build a complex FTL drive. To build one required thinking outside normal space-time conventions. Dixor's race, like all the other races in the galaxy, just didn't have a brain, constructed so they could do that.

In fact of all the races in the galaxy, only this race of air breathers had a brain configured to allow them to think, they called it imagination, outside the current time-space parameters.

It took Dixor three femorals to find a solution to their problem. As their stumbling block had been a technical one, Dixor was able to find a technical solution for them. So late one-night Dixor sent a jarkma to the lead scientist on the project and through the jarkma implanted the solution to the problem in his mind.

Over the next four femorals, the scientists made tremendous strides in their development of an FTL drive. But by the time that Dixor was ready to return to his stasis chamber they hadn't perfected it as yet. Dixor shut down all his equipment and eased into his stasis chamber slapping the initiate paddle with his flipper. As the hood came down over him, he drifted off to sleep.

"mmm..."

"dixor, wake up!"

"wha..."

"dixor, wake up, something terrible has happened. dixor!"

"wh...i am awake, i'm awake. what has happened eminence?"

"what has happened is those air breathers of yours have spread throughout the galaxy and have brought faster than light travel to all the other air breathers who have now stopped fighting amongst themselves and are spreading to all habitable planets around them."

"what? that's impossible. they were nowhere near having a viable FTL drive when i last was awake."

Dixor looked at his lexical readout and found he had only been asleep for two lexicals.

"your eminence, i have only been asleep for two lexicals. how could this happen?"

"i'm sure i don't know dixor, you find out and report back to me."

"yes, your eminence."

Dixor scrambled out of his sleep chamber and started flipping switches on the panels in front of him. As he waited for the electronics to come to life, he contemplated what could have gone wrong. As the view panels lit up he saw that the air breathers had made great strides and advances in just their building architecture. But, as more and more data came in, Dixor saw that most of the cities on the planet were deserted.

"what the meclar has happened?"

Dixor's equipment started to detect some air breathers on the planet's surface but not many. Almost nine-tenths of the population was gone. Turning to his historical systems data, Dixor started to scan all happenings on the planet while he was asleep. On the main screen was the security data of his ship, which lay at the bottom of a shallow sea to the south of one of the most prosperous continents on this small planet.

On the screen before him, he saw three grotesque figures enter his spaceship. The blix stamp on the screen showed they had entered almost four lexicals ago. They were air breathers in some kind of suit that allowed them to breathe air under water. To say Dixor was shocked was an understatement. He was so frightened that he almost lost consciousness as he watched the air breathers on the screen.

He watched as they looked at him through the clear top of his stasis chamber. He watched as they figured out how to work his data consoles. He watched as they placed alien devices around his ship, devices he hadn't even noticed until now. Then came the biggest shock of all. On his screen was an air breather without a suit talking to him. The sounds he made were gibberish to Dixor but Dixor did have a translation device he could call on to translate.

"...determined that you are called Dixor, whether that is your personal name or the name of your species has not yet been determined. My personal designation is Allen Cooper, which probably means nothing to you but to me, it is my name. Dixor, we have been watching you for some time now. We know it has been you who has led us down the path to an FTL drive and we thank you.

"We don't know how long you have been here, but we do know that your frame of blix must be a lot different than ours. The intervals at which you woke to check on us were so long that sometimes we grew impatient waiting for our next clue. But our patience paid off. The last time you woke, some fifty of our #*@? ago, you provided us with the last piece of the puzzle. As I don't know when you will wake again, I have made this recording to give our thanks for such a wonderful gift.

"It is unfortunate that your kind will never be able to use the FTL drive you helped us develop as my scientist tell me the construction of your brain prevents you from conceptualizing the processes needed to even build one, let alone operate one. We will, however, extend the offer to transport you and your kind between planets that you now inhabit for trade and such."

Dixor's mind was reeling. These puny beings had developed a star drive that only they could operate. This was a setback Dixor could just not comprehend as he continued to listen to the air breather on the screen.

"Our species is very curious. We are born explorers and will put the star drive you have given us to good use. We have already made contact with other species like ours and have the beginnings of an alliance of sorts between us. Now that population pressures have been alleviated, there will be no more war between us. The number of planets out in the galaxy is more than enough for our species to expand and still have enough resources to go around.

"I will say thank you once again and leave you with a message of peace. If you need to communicate with us, we know you have the technology to translate our language, there is an FTL communicator in the cabinet above your sleep chamber. Just press the button and someone will answer you.

"We really would like for there to be peaceful relations between our two species.

"I will say goodbye for now and hope to see you among the stars."

The screen went blank.

Dixor was cowering in the corner of the room. The shock had finally set in and he was unable to think clearly. He sat there for a long time, at least fifty quinox until he finally rose and went to his science console. There he punched in some numbers and some queries. He stood waiting for the answer, in ten quinox the computer displayed the answer on his screen.

To say Dixor was stunned by the answer was an understatement. He was also angry, at himself and his superiors. Someone had screwed up big time. It appeared, it was right there in front of him, that the two species marked blix differently. Dixor leaned against the science console as he read the answer to his query.

"Ten generations"

It would appear that for every lexical that passed ten generations of air breathers passed. Ten generations. Why in just two and a half femorals a generation of air breather's lived their lives. That would mean that from the time Dixor arrived on this planet twenty-five hundred generations had lived. No wonder they were able to progress so fast between Dixor's wake periods.

"dixor?"

"yes, your eminence?"

"have you found the problem yet? have you found out how they did this?"

"yes your eminence, i have."

"well, what is it?"

"as you know the air breathers lifespan is shorter than ours..."

"yes, yes i do, get to the point dixor."

"the point is your eminence that short lifespan. two and a half femorals per generation of air breathers. since I have been here over twenty-five hundred generations have come and gone. and these air breathers were meticulous record keepers. especially after they found my spaceship and studied our computer systems."

"what?"

"they found my ship and came aboard. They studied every system on board. They then duplicated them in the air where they were able to increase their speed tenfold."

"no!"

"yes. we gave them the ability to store yillmacons of data. we also gave them a way to retrieve that data almost instantaneously. they put that ability to good use by building a space drive that could take them across the galaxy in the wink of an eye. They have offered us transport any time we wish it but, they say we would never be able to operate one."

"why?"

"our brains aren't complex enough."

"what?"

"they say our brains aren't complex enough to engage the drive, even though we are telepathic. they say the part of our brain that would be able to activate the drive has atrophied beyond repair."

"what part of our brain is that pray tell?"

"our speech center."

"oh!"

So using the device the air breathers left for him Dixor arranged a ride back to his home planet. He was back home in the deep salt sea before his skin had a chance to stretch too far.