The Chronicles of Amon book 1 LINK

  Chapter 10.

  “I think he’s asking us to humble ourselves.” Evander resumed his usual pose, hands clasped behind his back.

  “He?” Zuri looked at him questioningly.

  “Sure. Why not? The voice sounds masculine to me. Besides, ‘he’ sounds more polite than ‘it.’ Anyway; we have all this great technology at our fingertips. But I don’t think it’s up to the task he’s describing. I think he’s trying to prepare us for a quantum leap forward which will make a lot of our stuff look like children’s toys.” Evander walked toward Zuri, stopped a few feet away and folded his arms in front of him.

  “What brings you to that conclusion?” Zuri copied his pose.

  “Just think about it for a second. Intelligence (the kind we’re referring to, anyway) isn’t something tangible. You can’t hold it in your hand or examine it under a microscope. So far is I know, you can’t teach it, either. You either have it, or you don’t. So, how do we get it in the first place?”

  “Wooh! Slow down. You’re getting all epistemological on me here.”

  “That’s the point! You can teach a chimp to press a button, but can you teach it to talk? Maybe you could modify its larynx so it could form words. But something would still be missing. That ‘something’ has to be brain power. If it was purely a matter of evolution, chimps should have been talking long ago. They’ve been around a lot longer than we have. It’s got to have something to do with. . . .”

  “OK. I can see this is going to get real metaphysical in a hurry. Let’s save it ‘till the rest get here. Right now I gotta go pee.” Zuri patted him on the cheek, then turned and walked out of the room. He was left standing, his mouth open in mid-sentence.

  A few people stood in line at the checkout; but otherwise the cafeteria was empty. In the far corner of the room a long table had been set up. Each of the five captains sat at one end. Psychologists, medical doctors, engineers and assorted specialists made up the rest of the group.

  Evander walked toward his place at the table, tray in hand, balancing a tall bottle of water beside the menu items he had selected. As he passed individuals, he overheard bits of conversations: “ . . . when that happens we’ll need. . . .” “ . . . in the last 24 hours she’s slept maybe. . . .” “ . . . what’s inside that ship and what’s. . . .” “I think he knows more than he’s. . . .”

  Zuri was seated at the head of the table. Evander took his seat to her right.

  “OK, everybody. Keep eating, but let’s get started.” she said through a bite of sandwich. “You’ve all been briefed on what’s gone on so far, so let’s not retrace those steps. Instead, I want to hear what you think about this idea of becoming ‘seeders.’ Not just the philosophical side, but what you think might be involved in the actual process.”

  An arm raised near the center of the group. “Seems to me we’re being asked to take on a sort of God-like responsibility here. I mean ‘selecting worlds’?”

  Another arm raised. “Yeh. We’ve been at this for what, almost a thousand years and all we’ve come up with is 4 new races. Doesn’t sound to me like we’re very well qualified to do much selecting.”

  Chetan held up what looked like a green carrot, shaking it to emphasize his point. “Venure was the last to join up, and we’d been looking for almost as long as this entire mission.”

  Zuri stood, placing her fists on the table. “Don’t forget what we all heard at the beginning. This ‘God’ voice said we’d been ‘tried and found worthy.’ I’m not sure what his criteria were, but apparently we’ve been doing something right. As to Chetan’s point, this Link called itself a portal. I think that means it has the capability to get us around more efficiently than we’ve been able to do on our own. Anyway, Evander and I were discussing this before you all arrived.” Turning to him, she said, “Why don’t you take a few minutes to summarize what we talked about.”

  Swallowing, he said,

  “Happy to. Hope you don’t mind if I pace. I think better on my feet.” Taking a quick swig of water, he stood and began.

  “As to this ‘God’ thing; I don’t think we’re going to have many ‘selections’ to choose from. Look at our own racial histories. How many sentient species are there on our worlds? We can speculate there may have been more than one sometime back in ancient history. But the reality is; only one emerged to be predominant. There must be a logical reason for this. As to us being ‘God-like,’ I don’t think that’s the issue at all. You’ll recall Link never said anything about us ‘creating’ intelligence. We’re only going to be setting up conditions so that it has an opportunity to thrive. Where this intelligence comes from is anyone’s guess. Maybe it is God.”

  “As to the ‘conditions’; this implies something technological. Is it environmental? Is it physiological? Again, it’s anyone’s guess. I think it may be both. But that’s neither here nor there. I think the point he’s trying to make (I’m calling it ‘he’ now)” Evander smiled slightly, turned around and began pacing in the opposite direction.

  “He’s telling us we’re about to be bombarded with a lot of new information, much of which is probably far beyond our comprehension. ‘Consider our place in the universe’? He’s telling us we may be ‘unique,’ but we’re not necessarily ‘special.’ He’s saying we need to open our minds, and get rid of our preconceptions.”

  Imamu raised his hand.

  “This is all well and good. I’m sure we’ll all know more soon enough. But what I’m most interested in is that thing out there. That vehicle. Did you see those spikes come out just before it turned? What was that all about? If that thing’s a portal, does that mean we get to go inside it? How come we can’t see inside?”

  Engineers around the table nodded agreement.

  “Great point, my friend.” Asha said as Evander returned to his seat. “I feel certain that this vehicle is integral to the process we’ll be engaging in. I’m reasonably certain we’ll be learning more about it as time goes by. But I’m not sure we need to know how it works in order to perform our task.”

  “What are we going to tell the population?” Another hand went up.

  Zuri’s response was quick and to the point.

  “They’ll hear everything we hear. Link said we’ll learn and we’ll teach. I interpret that to mean we’ll all be involved in this adventure. We’ll all be participating in one way or another. How that will happen remains to be seen. For now, I think it’s vital that we all understand a few things. First, we’re not the first to be offered this challenge. ‘It has ever been so.’ Remember that? I think that means there are others out there. We just haven’t run into them yet. Second: If they’ve been at it for ‘ever,’ they’re probably much more advanced than we are. Are we prepared to deal with that? Philosophically, probably. But psychologically, I’m not so sure. Our races were mature enough to get this far. But are we ready to accept the possibility that we may be psychologically and technologically quite immature? Can our egos handle it?”

  “My sister makes a good point.” Wasswa pushed her empty tray aside and stood. “We’ve been at this for a long time. Can anyone here imagine what it was like before space travel? Our worlds didn’t just go from planet-bound technology and make a giant leap into space over night. It took years . . . generations! In other words, it was a gradual process. People had time to get used to it. Now we’re here facing that huge spacecraft out there. What do we know about it? Nothing, really. I mean, how does something that big just pop into existence? We can ask the question. But are we prepared for the answer? Are we even capable of understanding the answer once we get it?”

  “All good points, everyone.” Evander interjected. “If they’re that advanced, I’m sure they understand this.” He raised a hand to stress his point. “After all, we don’t try teaching 4-year olds quantum mechanics. We teach them basic arithmetic first. I can’t imagine we’ll be burdened with more than we can handle.”

  “That’s probably true, sir,” Wasswa said. ?
??But we’ve got a lot of people on my ship alone who’re expressing some serious doubts as to whether this is all as benign and benevolent as it seems. That first contact it made felt really good to everyone. Don’t you agree?” she looked around the table. Everyone was nodding ‘yes.’ “It was almost like everyone had gone under a sort of mass hypnosis.” Again heads nodded in agreement. “But as soon as it wore off, all the old doubt and fear started coming back. At least that’s how I felt, anyway.”

  “I think most everyone felt that way to,” said Zuri. “But the truth is, we have no evidence to prove what we felt was wrong. As to its . . . Link’s intentions; it seems apparent that his intentions are the same as ours. I agree, though, we ought to proceed with caution. In the mean time, we have a population in need of some reassurance. We need to be sure we keep everyone in the loop. There are always going to be some who aren’t comfortable with this. We dare not ignore their concerns. They’re legitimate and they need to be addressed. That’s why we must demonstrate that we’re united. We need to maintain a positive attitude.”

  “What’s next, then?” someone said.

  “I think we need to get out among them . . . let them see our confidence and enthusiasm. That’ll go a long way toward alleviating their apprehensions,” Evander looked toward Zuri as he spoke.

  She took her queue. “That sounds like a plan. Let’s get back to our ships and get out among them. Delegate when you need to. But remember; people usually look to leadership to show them how to act. Don’t be allusive. Don’t show false bravado. Be honest. Let them know of your concerns. Reassure them and keep them in the loop.” Again, heads nodded all around.

  “All right, then,” Zuri stood and picked up her tray. “Let’s get to it.”