Something To Crow About

What was the origin of the strange signal coming from such a desolate spot?

“So, why am I here?” John Henry was the last team member to arrive. He’d practically been kidnapped to get him here. Mere hours before, he had been celebrating his twenty-fifth birthday at his favorite bar and grill with friends.

The faces staring back at him looked excited and tense. “You’re the ornithologist. You tell us.” Missy Anderson, team leader, Turned on the audio broadcast of the signal coming from 25°25'25.25"N, 25°25'25.25"E : in the Sahara desert near the western edge of Egypt.

Bird chirping noises met his ears. “What can you tell us?” Missy asked as the bird song ended and started up again. “We need to know before the team arrives on location.” She tapped the notes she held against the table everyone sat at.

“It’s a distress call, judging by the intonation and rapidity of the call. I don’t recognize the type of bird. The closest one, I’d guess, would be a relative of the American Crow.” He'd been studying them for years. He considered two favorites to be his family.

“Here’s what we know..” Missy handed her notes to John..

It wasn’t much. There was the definite location from which the signal was being broadcast, the time of discovery, names and qualifications of the hastily assembled team members, and timeline of the plan to go there.

With Trump’s firing and lay off of so many scientists in the Department of the Interior, John wasn’t surprised at the chaos and inability to gather anyone of consequence. His own grant had been cut and his crew gone. “I’d need more than a group of political hacks to help me decipher the bird call’s content.”

“We are time limited. Other countries have competing teams racing to get there first. We can’t let that happen. The president has ordered military action against the target site if any other government sends their team in first. We think this may be mankind’s first chance at an alien contact.”

Missy sailed another single sheet of paper at John. It floated and dipped into his waiting hands. Missy kept talking. “No bird could fly this fast. Whatever is making that signal flew from the moon to earth as fast as the speed of light. We think we have an Alien contact. You are going to be our country’s ambassador.”

The news rocked John to the core. Out of work and with friends commiserating with him at a birthday party to becoming a national spotlight in a president’s publicity stunt was not his cup of tea. “And if I refuse?”

Two burly guards silently came into the room to stand on either side of John’s chair. “That isn’t an option, John. We’ll be boarding our plane in fifteen minutes.”

The flight was uneventful, if you disregarded the military war planes escorting the team’s path. John listened to the signal repeat the same bird song over and over again without any variation. Without seeing the context in which the bird was calling out its message, John had no way of deciphering it.

He knew he was being set up to be the fall guy when an international dispute erupted if things didn’t go as planned. “We’re air dropping you in. Pray that the other governments allow it to happen.”

John was manhandled into a parachute, told tp pull the ripcord after slow counting to fifty, and record everything with the handset thrust at him. Hot air rushed at John as he was thrust out of the plane. Wind shrieked. The parachute opened. John flotation down with drones buzzing angrily nearby.

Below him, a shiny speck grew larger. It matched the photographs given him on the plane. He landed at the tip of a giant saucer half embedded in desert sand. A new bird call sang out to his ears. John had often talked with Crows using the caw signals while befriending and feeding them. They were among the smartest of birds, using tools to solve intricate puzzles.

He sang the same call he’d first listened to and heard it repeated back as part of the saucer opened inviting him to enter.

“Hello, John.” The voice was musical, beginning and ending with the familiar bird call. John walked towards the sound, hearing the flutter of wings as he did so. The saucer entrance led towards a brightly lit inner compartment. Inside two shadows fluttered against a wall. “Happy twenty-fifth birthday.”

Inside the compartment were Maggie and Solimon, John’s two favorite crows. They whistled and chirped as speakers in the craft interpreted back into English. “Hang on, John. Your country is bombing us with nuclear firepower.. We’ll have to depart.”

Maggie began pecking at a control panel sliding out to greet her. A soft humming noise vibrated around the saucer as bombs exploded harmlessly at the saucer’s edges. John felt the saucer motion as it rose through exploding air and fiery light.

“Where are we headed?” asked a completely stunned John Henry.

“The only thing that seems to bring mankind together is a common threat, John.” Solimin cawed. “Any government not joining in against the threat will be toppled.”

Laser like streams of light speared the sky, demolishing drones and missiles alike. The craft hovered momentarily before shooting skyward towards the moon. “Tell your president and the other world leaders, if any crows are harmed, our saucer’s weapons will be trained on the culprits instead of on your attacking weapons. We’ll be in touch, John. Here’s a birthday gift in thanks for your friendship all these years.”

A ring flipped from Maggie’s beak into John’s grasp. When he put it on, the same humming sound that shielded the saucer now surrounded John. A soft glowing ball surrounded him,picked him up and escorted him towards the outer hull.

“Don’t worry about money, John. Consider this your new grant. Others of our kind will be joining you as advisors when the time is right.”

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