Here’s another instance of pulling a prompt from a list and coming up with a story.

Lost Expedition

“What do you mean you don’t want to go?  Why wouldn’t you want to rejoin the colony?”

“Aria, we appreciate the effort you went to, trying to find what you call the lost expedition.  But we’re not lost.”

Perplexed, Aria ran her hand through her hair, “Jacamo, we’ve wondered and worried the last hundred years about the expedition.  What happened to those twenty men and women?  When I found the clue in the archives, I had to mount a search.  We were so happy to find you.”

They were standing in the plaza of the alien city.  Aria and Jacamo were surrounded by descendents of those twenty explorers. They held themselves apart from the five members of Aria’s search party.  Not a long distance apart, but it was clear that there was a separation.

Jacamo nodded.  Aria fought the urge to pace.

“I appreciate that, Aria.  But when our forefathers, the lost expedition as you call it, crashed here the Wise Ones took them in.  They nursed them back to health and began teaching them their wisdom.  We are the 5^th generation of that teaching.  We will stay here.”

Aria looked to her team.  The doctor, Bill Covey, gave a slight shake of his head.  The engineer, Elian Shapiro, brought along to assist with any repairs needed, spoke up.  “We’d love to meet the Wise Ones, Jacamo.”

Aria saw the miniscule startled reactions of the descendents.  She pounced on that, turning back to their leader.  “Indeed, Jacamo, we’d love to meet the Wise Ones.  We never expected an alien city.  All of our records say the planet was uninhabited before we established the colony.”

She waited expectantly.  Her team was surprised beyond belief when they flew over the city.  Only half the size of the current main colony town, it was totally unexpected, especially when they scanned and found human bio signs.  But the scans never reported any other bio signs, other than local wildlife.  She was beyond curious.

Jacomo’s expression never changed.  “That’s not possible, Aria.”

She clenched her fists, nails biting into her palms.  “We’ve been here two days Jacamo.  We’d love to be able to bring such a huge discovery back to the colony.  We’d like to share in the wisdom as well.”  She looked around the plaza at the descendants.  “You all have done so well here, we’d like to share that news.”

He shook his head.  “We will share the knowledge, of course.”

Aria smiled, at last, getting somewhere.

“But you cannot meet the Wise Ones.”

“Why not, Jacamo?  Are we not worthy?”

He smiled.  “You are as worthy as our forefathers, naturally.”

She frowned, glancing toward her team.  “Then why not?”

He looked at his people in the plaza; there were at least 100 of the 3000 living descendents.  “Because they left.”

Aria, her mouth open, looked to her team doctor, who just shrugged.

“When did they leave?”

“Ten years ago.”

Aria felt like she had to drag every word out of him.  “But why?  Where did they go?”

Jacamo sighed.  “They knew you were coming.  They didn’t want to interrupt our development more.  They had been studying the colony, and us.  They saw that the colony was expanding and knew this place would be found soon.  So they left.”

Aria’s heart fell; she so wanted to learn more about the aliens.  “So they just left?  In a spaceship?”

He smiled, “Oh no. They just,” he paused, “moved to a different plane.”

She could hear her team’s indrawn breath.  “To a different plane,” her voice was flat, absorbing what that could mean.  She hardly knew what to ask next.   “Will they come back?”

“No, they made their choice.  They said it was early for them, but to protect us, they’d go now.”  He looked around the plaza, smiling.  “We’re here now to carry on their work; to pass it on to you, to the rest of our people.”

The End

654 Words

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