"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
My name is Avery Harper, MD, PhD, and I'm not afraid to die. In fact, I was in heaven. Since I was a young woman, I have studied exobiology, actually only possible biologies, for my entire twenty-year career, ever since I became a grad student. It was only possible biologies, as far as I knew, until yesterday, when I got a call from a friend at NASA, and a quick trip via T-38 to an Air Force base in Nevada. Why I was tapped, I still don't know. I heard some things I don't quite recall about some of the papers I wrote.
My friend, Doctor Bertrand Lane, was waiting for me in front of the hangar. After a few minutes to freshen up in the restroom, we were whisked by car to a large hangar near one end of the building complex that comprised the base. Inside the hangar, which was literally the size of a football stadium, was a luminescent hemisphere, like a large dome, mostly green, but with flecks of color that would wash over its surface.
Bertrand assured me that the hemisphere was a perfect semicircle. Inside it, he informed me, was a being that had traveled here from another star, and who now presumably wanted to communicate with us. So far, the hemisphere had allowed in some but not all machines with cables. The researchers had been hopeful the alien or aliens inside would be able to use these devices to communicate. Measuring devices were universally rejected. Machines that had been pulled back out came back wet by an inorganic nutrient solution that was much like seawater, but infused with oxygen. It was a fascinating liquid with valuable properties. It was keeping the researchers busy. So far there had been no other contact. Men in space suits had tried to enter the hemisphere, but they had been rejected, just gently pushed back out before they could see or sense very much of anything.
Still, I had to attempt the obvious, so I also suited up and attempted to enter the hemisphere. To everyone's surprise, especially my own, I was allowed in without incident.
The inside of the hemisphere was filled with the aforementioned nutrient liquid as we had hypothesized. The aforementioned three or four waterproof machines were sitting by themselves. In the middle of the hemisphere was a teardrop-shaped being, mostly orange, but with other colors that moved slowly across its surface. I say "being" because it was moving slightly and because it was apparently the only other thing in the hemisphere, so I assumed it must be the alien in question if there was one. Perhaps it was only a system that allowed for communication with the real aliens that were located elsewhere.
I approached the being and attempted to make physical contact. I touched its surface, and it shivered and shimmered, profoundly beautiful. I pushed at it slightly, and it yielded like a flexible bag of water, that consistency. I pushed it harder, and it gently placed me on my back, like an Aikido throw. It was not violence, I was just on my back, and it flowed over me some. I had the strong sense that the being was going to maintain physical control of our interaction, but not in a malevolent way, more as a practical matter, and who was I to judge its needs at this point?
The being let me up and I left the hemisphere, much to the relief of everyone assembled outside the hemisphere. There was a solid day and a half of debriefing followed by a solid week or so where I brought underwater cameras and other measuring devices into the hemisphere with me. The atmosphere in the hemisphere appeared to be healthy for humans to breathe even though it was liquid. I'd heard about this before, where mice were able to live in water that had been infused with oxygen once they had gotten over the feeling they were drowning.
I begged and begged, and finally they let me enter the hemisphere in a wetsuit, without the space suit and limited air supply. I did so knowing it would feel like drowning, but confident that our analysis of the fluid was correct, and wanting a chance to connect more directly with the being. It was frightening at first, and it took me a long-suffering minute before I could bear to start breathing in the water. The being came over, perhaps to comfort me. It touched my hand at first. Its touch was hot and electric, profoundly sexual, even though it was just touching my hand. I was still gasping and thrashing out bubbles. Water was spilling uncomfortably into my lungs. I hardly cared about the pain, though, all of the sudden. I was immediately diverted and aroused by the touch on my hand.