*
Primrose had to have the birth induced. Wilson Kelly had offered to help. But despite his hybrid state, Jake declined politely. The real reason was to disguise the tricky immediate post-natal period during which the baby would have to adapt to oxygen-rich air. It would look unnatural to human onlookers. Primrose smiled at Jake, knowing that she wouldn’t survive. She fought through the respiratory pain to see the last of seven infants emerge from inside her. Jake was emotionless and tended to the new arrivals before asking Mr. Kelly to help him bury Primrose. It was a grisly scene, in which the two-day-old corpse creaked under the weight of the soil, due to a combination of rigor mortis and the freezing mountain climate. The simple wooden cross, carved with her name, was hammered into the unyielding earth, and the echoes brought the first raw emotion to the eyes of Jake. When Wilson Kelly saw the seven babies for the first time he was not yet a full convert, and expressed genuine sorrow to Jake. He took it upon himself to inform the inhabitants of Helena about the cruel sequence of events. Jake played the part of the helpless father to perfection, and a nursery was set up in the medical centre. This communal concern gave him the platform to extend the conversion programme, and soon he could count on Wilson Kelly’s assistance. Who better than a trusted one of their own?
*
Atlas had passed on and Harley honoured his obligation. The gathering was immense, showing exactly how the Neanderthals were revered in peacetime, just as they were for their heroic deeds in conflict. Harley really struggled to get through the words Atlas had left with him. The realisation that many more of the Neanderthal ‘veterans’ would be gone, in the coming weeks, hit home as Harley closed his speech. Never before in Earthly conflict had an entire generation of soldiers died in just weeks after surviving the war. Attila, Christophe and Cleopatra had to collectively convince Harley that the other comrades of Atlas preferred to rejoice in the friendship and leadership they had shared with their departed Commander, than mourn his passing. He recovered his poise to speak with each and every one of them. He had also temporarily lost his appetite for heading to Jupiter. The contrast in joy and sadness gradually restored his perspective, and a smile fought its way back to his circuitry, even if his face could not display the result.
Chapter 31
With all seven children in the care of the Helena medical unit, Jake continued to milk the pity of its citizens. Its population had been fairly steady over many years, except for a slight increase to just over twenty-five thousand at the millennium. Then the advent of the radiation blight heralded the decline of so many small cities, towns and rural communities. Having to spend so much time indoors wasn’t conducive to their preferred way of life, and the drift toward much bigger urban centres became irresistible. This relentless trend saw the disembowelment of many such centres of human population, and Helena was typical of such deserted shells. The current population was less than three thousand, and still heading downwards. About the only upside to this decimation had come in the diminishing attention they attracted from the Borg High Command. Even at the height of the war, Helena was relatively free from loyalist patrols.
The plight of a desperate father of seven children, who had tragically lost his ‘wife’, was a potent factor in his ability to vacuum offers of help on every corner. Jake was selective, and wanting to remain relatively reclusive was important to him. He accepted a volunteer young woman, Hannah Treadwell, to assist him with domestic chores in and around his cabin, while he was grateful for the opportunity to help run the library, following the sudden death of the former incumbent. It was a start, but he had to make haste with spreading the infection, as the respiratory problem would gradually limit this activity. The good news was that Wilson Kelly was ready to begin producing converts, and he had no such governing ailment.
Jake explained the process to his protégé and gave the vial extract to him for safe storage. He observed Wilson’s capable handling of the conversion of his domestic helper, Hannah Treadwell, the widowed mother of two, who had one eye on Jake as a future provider. The sedation and infusion went smoothly each day. When Jake was certain that Hannah was fully converted and able to speak of the agenda with Wilson, he revealed the next steps to them.
“I am leaving the mission in your hands. I will soon join Primrose, and you must make sure I am laid to rest alongside her. You must prevent any attempt for conducting a post-mortem. I will leave a note to explain why I could no longer go on. My last wish will be that my orphaned four girls and three boys are cared for by the good people of Helena, and that Wilson becomes their godfather. Your conversion programme must continue at a pace which is commensurate with the serum you have, but it is vitally important that you keep sufficient for reinforcement of one of my children. It will be a female, and she will identify herself to you when she has passed through the first of two stages of puberty. She must not receive the boost before that natural development phase is complete. The first stage defines her procreation potential, and the second controls her ultimate procreative capability as a function of that potential. If she suffers an accident or contracts some disease and dies prematurely, another will come forward, but she will have correspondingly lower potential.”
The news of Jake’s death was reported by Hannah, suitably hysterical while giving her account. Many citizens travelled to the mountain retreat to witness a distraught Wilson Kelly. He was paralysed with shock and had not yet cut the rope from which Jake’s body swayed in the breeze. He handed the note to the chief medical officer and attracted a gathering of sympathetic citizens who imagined the terrible ordeal of discovering the tragedy. After all, Jake was like a son to Wilson Kelly.
The funeral was attended by almost everyone in the area, and not only was Jake interred next to Primrose, but a huge headstone was inscribed and erected at the site. Helena would never forget Jake and Primrose, yet none of this bizarre event percolated to the wider world; it was an essentially private expression of mass grief, a contradiction in itself.
*
The vessel had passed the proving trials and the crew was assembled. The public were told of the information which had been suppressed by the Borg High Command from the previous mission. The purpose of the new voyage was to confirm or deny certain allegations that there may be more data to be found. Put in the context of the now famous Neanderthals, it was important to have all knowledge regarding the revelation that the human race had not solely risen to the zenith of life on Earth under the constraints of Darwinian law. Whether the Primedes were benefactors or a threat was not yet known, and the longer term future could be affected by whatever remained in the cavern on Ganymede. It was a sobering thought that such a fundamental alteration in perception could undo all that had been fought for, but it would be extremely foolhardy to bury heads in the sand.
The crew had its own situation to consider. The first mission was embarked upon with no real expectation of finding anything of interest, and then making the most astonishing discovery in the history of the planet. This time around, the reverse was true, as they were all bristling with anticipation and yet realised that they could well find nothing to add to what they already knew. They previously left Ganymede debating the meaning of a paradox. Now they were looking for information which could either dismiss such conjecture or immerse them deeper in its complexity.
Harley stressed to each participant the need for consistent methodology. “We have what we saw and analysed last time, and then there are the assertions of Albert. We should begin by confirming what we already think we know, or marking any differences to that knowledge before tackling the second objective. Whether or not we see slight differences from the former analyses in comparison with the present, we should take time to debate how to proceed. Pressing buttons, translating script, breaking codes and entering any new areas must be treated with caution. The urge to react emotionally to such stimuli must be kept under control. We rushed back home last time, and for good reason we thought, but ask what would have changed if we ha
d discovered what Albert told us without him ever having been born. The questions leading to a decision process are likely to produce disagreement. We mustn’t let that boil over into frustration or worse. Finally, I see you are all nodding your heads, and I’m going to remind you of that whenever necessary, because it will be much more difficult in practice than in a briefing such as this.”
The launch was broadcast and unlike the first mission, the population watched with trepidation rather than wonder. Another difference would characterise the Ganymede II trip; the reporting would be uncensored, and regular updates would weave their own grip on the population’s emotional ebb and flow. It would begin almost immediately after the craft acquired Ganymede orbit.
*
Wilson and Hannah had now promulgated the second wave of Primede converts and were currently engaged with fourteen new friends. They had chosen people of influence to further the alien infusion. The mayor, the chief medical officer, the head librarian, and the midwife supervisor were amongst the fold. The meetings with the second tier had to be one-on-one and carefully planned to minimise suspicion that something strange was going on. The babies had been given names and Wilson noted that the girls were developing quicker than the boys, just as Jake had inferred. Betsy, Clare, Deborah, and Katherine were difficult to tell apart, whereas, Jonathon, Nathaniel, and Zak were more varied, like siblings, but not identical twins.
*
Cleopatra was nominally the reporting voice of the mission. She made her first broadcast to the world. “Ganymede capture has been achieved and the new hover descent pod will soon be employed to transport the crew to the precise landing coordinates in this tricky terrain. One crew member will always stay in orbit, for safety reasons. The next bulletin will be in two hours from now.”
*
Because Christophe had not descended to the surface during the last trip, and he had heard more than the others from Albert, he wanted to be amongst the first to descend. Harley agreed and allocated him second spot, having already made landfall himself. They were followed by Nero, Rodriguez and Beethoven. Anton remained aboard and would relay any unseen updates to Earth.
The terrain was familiar and showed little change from the recorded footage they had with them. The displaced hot-spot area was unchanged and they noted that they had to repeat the sub-surface reaction to their scanner adjustments. The hologram duly appeared and indicated the upward projection to the elevated cavern. They needed to see if the hologram was actually able to deliver any different information. The cavern entrance was still as difficult to access, but was achieved without incident. Entering the chamber confronted them with the vast array of vials. They once again compared the portable footage display with their optical assessment. The Borg visual capability was more precise than the humans in terms of fine detail, but less efficient in handling spectral variation. Both species agreed that things looked pretty much the same. The first real test arrived with the search for Albert’s code panel for the alleged aft chamber. Several hours later they were ready to return to orbit without success. Nero asked the rest to join him at the narrowest point in the cavern.
“There are faint marks in the floor next to this section of the wall. I think we should blitz this area with the scanners. We should do it in close-up, not more than ten centimetres from the walls.”
The intense scans finally revealed a discrete circular area of no more than ten centimetres in diameter, which had been so precisely cut in all dimensions, that the outline had been undetectable to the naked vision of both species. Time had obviously compounded its invisibility by the combination of dust and atmospheric erosion. Without the micro-mapping of the scanners it was impossible to see the circle, even when staring at it. Harley called a halt to proceedings.
“Ok, let’s get back to the vessel, get some rest and talk this through. We can watch for any consequent appearance of the hologram through one of the ship’s telescopes. Nero, can you and Beethoven highlight the discovered circle with indelible markers so that we can check its position easily when we resurface? And then you can ascend after the rest of us have re-boarded the vessel. Make haste, we need to discuss this, and we must not waste too much time, there is a cosmic dance beckoning.”
They all made it before the Sun entered a partial eclipse with Jupiter. The return of the hologram disappointed until the very last seconds. It stunned everyone aboard. The final projection clearly and unambiguously showed a digitised representation of the six vials which had been taken from the cavern. They were set alongside a graphic of the Earth. Before they could catch their breath another burst of magnetic flux was despatched. They didn’t need to guess the destination.
Harley was first to recover his poise. “This must mean we have missed something else. The detection of us taking the vials could only have been made from the cavern, and on the first trip. There must be a device in there, and our removal of the vials must have been sent to the centre of the galaxy at the time, we just didn’t see it happening. The transmission trigger could be in the next chamber and connected somehow to the holographic display. Now the recipients will know we’ve come back for some reason, and also compute that we know that they know. We have to proceed with extreme caution.”
No one got any sleep in orbit, and few back on Earth could put this out of their minds. One intermediate conclusion could be drawn and yet still subject to change. So far Albert had been right. Christophe was more affected by this than anyone. He couldn’t help connecting his distrust of Albert with the death of his family at the hands of Alexander. He may not have reacted to Albert in the same way if the earlier atrocity had been avoided. Harley could detect his inner conflict and stared at him in silence. The seemingly eternal stoppage of time was eventually reset by his determination to gently coerce Christophe into focus, and stay with the plan.
Chapter 32
The analysis was still missing an important element. Christophe illustrated his recovery of emotional control by reminding the others of this lapse.
“Albert claimed that he discovered the existence of this second chamber from the inscriptions. We have found what may be a control panel, but we haven’t confirmed the text he said was in the symbols. Harley, you and Nero did most of this translation. Don’t you think you should look at it again before we do anything else? Remember, Albert has never been on Ganymede, other than in the Primede vial.”
It was agreed to concentrate on this before the next descent. It was a valid but tiresome reminder that they had to rigidly and thoroughly re-interrogate all of the known data, before authorising each and every new action.
Harley and Nero spent several hours on this task and the rest of the crew were getting restless. Rodriguez and Christophe at least had to consume sustenance, and even this mundane chore was a welcome distraction. All of a sudden, Nero shouted so loud that the others thought there was a problem with the vessel.
“It is a matter of context which fooled us Harley. Look here, the symbols for circle and sphere are virtually identical, and this applies similarly to code and what we transposed to DNA.”
They still didn’t get it. Nero continued. “Study the section at the end of the description of the vials, and substitute circle for sphere, bearing in mind that the vials are spherical. Now substitute code for DNA. It gives a different meaning to that section. Instead of it being a continuation of the description of the vial experiments, it is telling us that more information can be accessed by entering the code (which we transposed as DNA), behind the circle (which we read as vial). Albert was right, and he translated the text more carefully than we did. It’s quite an indictment of cybernetic fallibility, especially when it is proven by an organic from pre-history.”
They appreciated the humour for all of ten seconds, and then Christophe brought the mirth to a shuddering halt.
“This means that everything we challenged Albert about has turned out to be true. If this continues to be the case, we are looking at the probability of a visit from the stars.
Although Albert predicted that the Primedes would be utterly intolerant of cyborgs, I now realise that he didn’t share such generalisation. His frustration was rooted in his inability to change anything, and we made it worse because we wouldn’t listen. I can at last appreciate his concern about the two Primedes who disappeared immediately after his death. Having discovered that he told us the truth, we can no longer rule out that they might have had something to do with his death.”
The mood had changed. They were apprehensive about opening up the second chamber. Albert had said this was where the proof of the Primede intent could be found. Christophe recalled Albert’s vivid description of the numerous times they had visited Earth in the past, but even Albert’s discourse didn’t have detail on how recent the last trip may have been. They were now convinced of the threat, and that some of the answers were back on Earth. They had to resume and intensify the search for Nap and Jos, alias Jake and Primrose. They interpreted the latest signal to the galactic core as an invitation for the fox to check out the henhouse. Because the bulk of the data on the Primedes was historical, and the same was apparently true of the vial contents, they had no real idea how these aliens had progressed, or what they now looked like. All Albert had predicted was a very poor chance of resisting them whenever they did arrive. Either he didn’t know much detail about their present state of development or he knew so much he daren’t tell the Earth inhabitants.