As captain I took the lead and enquired how they could communicate with us in our own language and how they knew so much about us. She introduced herself as Helmeria

(the name of their planet) and said they had abolished personal names in order to simplify their State Database. Through an agreeably attractive mouth she explained they had picked up our spaceship from three thousand miles away. The intense light and deafening sound we encountered had been their laser-weapon that had penetrated our cabin and had performed a brain scan on each of us. This is what had ultimately rendered us all

unconscious. They had digitally scanned our brain patterns and had inserted a virtual chip into our minds so they could study and control our thought processes. They were then able to communicate in a language compatible with our own. Within seconds they had tapped into our personal memory banks and knew all about our families, hopes and ambitions.

Over the next few months we were well fed and watered within an enclosed environment and told a bit about the way they had developed in a world not dissimilar to our own.

In effect their technology was approximately two thousand years in advance of ours. And Helmeria said they had abolished birth and death. Birth as we knew it was far too laborious and death was too distressing. With each new state approved pairing of couples, they were allowed one test tube child. This is why they were all identical size and appearance. They didn’t need names as all had the built in brain scanning equipment to read one another’s thoughts. Malice, envy, hatred and disease had been systematically eradicated at the point of birth. Religion, sex and excitement had been abolished. As regards death: everyone had an exit device built into their brains to enforce removal on their fortieth birthday. To ensure survival of ethnic relationships, the departed person’s “Soul Essence” was captured on the state database and a sterilised version was passed on to the newly allotted test tube baby, so that all learning and life experience was passed on, thus keeping each family’s history intact.

It was then that the penny dropped. We, as uninvited visitors had become a part of the system, our brains had been digitalised, which meant we were now subject to their exit strategy, unless it could be reversed? Helmeria said it was impossible, as otherwise our brains would be destroyed by State Decree. However we would be allowed to leave and return to Earth, even guided back as close as our Moon. At thirty-two, I was the youngest member of our team, the oldest, Brett, being thirty-six. We would all die on our fortieth birthdays. It was a sobering thought, knowing that even if we managed it without mishap, we had a two-year journey back to Earth and home.

Somehow we survived and now I am the only one left alive.

There is a footnote to this story. In a last ditch attempt to restore him to normality and in a ten hour operation, the astronaut was offered a brain transplant, still leaving a small part of his brain intact. A similar operation had been tried before and been successful on a patient with a large tumour.

The doctors now had a suitable subject for the transplant to take place. A man in his early twenties had been paralyzed from the neck downwards in a rock climbing accident. His mind was undamaged and he was adamant he had no wish to live as a vegetable and so was eager to grab the chance of regaining physical fitness. Likewise, Marcus Benedict didn’t want to die.

On recovery, and speaking in a clear voice, the first thing the new brain recipient said was that now he hoped he could achieve his life’s greatest ambition. When asked what that was, he replied that he had already climbed the world’s highest mountain and dived the deepest ocean. He always wanted to be an astronaut, to explore the farthest reaches of space and to search for evidence of life on other planets!

End.