“It is chaos, Adrian. Pure chaos,” said Erin. “There’s no way to explain this place.”
We sat around the oval table, trying to piece together what we knew. There were a lot of pieces, but they were like pieces from different puzzle boxes.
I tried to offer reason. “Okay, let’s back up. Start with what we know. We know that a Nasebian ship came to this area of space, and either crashed or was disabled. We know that because there’s a piece of it still down there. And, probably because of that visit, this planet has inherited some of Earth’s history. Let’s go from there.”
RJ held up a photo. “I’ve seen several religious broadcasts. This is a minister from one of the groups down there reading from a King James Version of the Bible. He referenced both the Old and New Testament.”
“So they have a copy of the Bible?”
RJ nodded. “There have been references to a bunch of other religious writings, but all of them sounded original and directly related to this planet’s real history. Only their Bible is an exact copy of Earth’s.”
“So they accidentally got their hands on a Bible, or they were deliberately given one.”
“Would someone actually try to manipulate people using another planet’s Bible?” asked Wilson.
Shelly answered. “Someone promoting their own religious program. Someone maybe trying to set themselves up as a God.”
“The Nasebian race is so far beyond religious denomination we can’t even understand them. If they wanted to make themselves appear as gods they wouldn’t need a Bible to do that,” I said.
RJ added, “There are other reasons to plant something like that in a developing culture. I can think of several. You might try to give a society a common religious root if you were hoping to avoid holy wars.”
Wilson said, “Well it looks like that one didn’t work out too well down there. They still found a reason to have one hell of a war.”
Paris spoke. “If you look back to the beginning, their history is riddled with contradiction. Our long distance scans of the largest pyramid are complete. It is identical in every way to the Cheops pyramid of Egypt, and like Earth, the capstone is missing. It cannot be a coincidence.”
RJ added, “Which is even more proof that someone manipulated the development of this society.”
Erin said, “It makes you wonder about the races that do exist and the ones that do not. Were they preselected and brought here for a specific reason?”
I raised one hand. “Let’s get back to mission objectives. RJ, have there been any other traces of the Nasebian ship?”
“No, but we’re not finished with the Polar Regions.”
“Could we have missed it?”
“Only if it is buried deep underground.”
“Our prime objective is the Udjat. Has there been anything at all on that?”
RJ spoke, “All the answers are available, Adrian.”
“What do you mean?”
“You marched right passed them on the way to the museum. The Provincial Public Library. The place is huge. All the answers are in there.”
“There are no computers, RJ. That could take forever.”
Danica held up one finger. “Not if we work in teams. Erin and I now speak Earth II quite well.”
“You guys want to go down there?”
Erin answered, “Are you kidding? Go back in time and feel what the world was like in the 1940’s?”
“You’re going to give me gray hair. Teams wandering around down there? We still don’t even have any fake ID’s. You get stopped by someone, they’ll drag you into a police station and there will be too many questions. How the hell will we get you out?”
Erin frowned. “There wouldn’t be wandering, Adrian. We just want to go to the library.”
“And home by eleven or you’re grounded for a light year?”
RJ cast a sympathetic look. “What else you going to do, Kemosabi?”
I considered his argument. They all looked at me like puppy dog hopefuls. “Well, shit then, as you would say.”
Someone began laughing. Others joined in. It tapered off and we all sat silently exchanging apprehensive glances.
A flurry of wardrobe production broke out. Not to be outdone, Paris had brought along a man’s suit and vest that was made to roll up in a tube, the size customarily used for paper towels. He deployed the thing, re-pressed the lapels to enlarge them, sewed extra buttons on the front, and used a chain from the necklace Erin had torn apart to create a pocket watch. He looked so good it almost pissed me off, though I don’t know why. Danica and Erin created period dresses that came down well past the knee. Erin had found material in the bedding section, a light brown plaid. Danica used a blue cloth equipment cover. Both outfits were belted in the middle with former equipment strap tie-downs. The makeshift dresses became an amusing example of attire not suited for zero-G space travel. They constantly billowed up so that the two women had to wrestle to preserve their modesty. Zero-G boots were cut, laced, and padded to create footwear. RJ’s wardrobe was the easiest. He wore his normal casual clothes and fit right in: baggy brown pants, blue work shirt. Last but not least, the group was carefully networked to communications, collar cameras all.
The teams were Paris and Erin, Danica and RJ. I reluctantly forbid them weapons. If someone got their hands on a communicator or a hand scanner, there was little damage they could do. It would take decades to decode that technology. But, if a weapon was accidentally acquired, a single, experimental push of the trigger could be a very bad thing.
When the time was right Shelly lowered us down to the 500-foot level where we paused to scan for human bios. The coast was clear. We let down and the teams deployed. It surprised me that I did not have more misgivings as I watched them push through the high grass to the woodland. We climbed away and left them back in time.
At first, the expedition became a comedy show. Four collar cams on four monitors showing it all. They did not stalk quietly as they should have. Dresses kept getting caught on brush. There was cursing and sarcastic exchange. They finally settled down and became quiet when they reached the park border. Wilson kept vigil at his engineering station and directed them behind the same shop we had used to hide. Once there, the whispering again became script for any good comedy play. Erin was preoccupied with not getting dirty. Danica kept bumping RJ out of the way so she could see the park.
Once the world came alive, their five-mile hike began. Some of them kept getting separated in the crowd. I had to caution RJ about speaking into his sleeve too much; reminding him we could see most everything he was reporting. His excitement at being immersed in a pre-computer era was a bit overwhelming. Somehow, the undisciplined entourage reached the library with little incident. As they entered, both Wilson and I reminded them to be careful about transmitting in a closed in environment where it could be noticed more easily.
The teams went to work. The place was huge. Similar to the museum, the ceiling was constructed entirely of panels of glass, providing ample light to read. Most of the main room was lined with long tables for just that purpose. The entire east wall of the place was filled with file cardholders and waist high potted plants. There were statutes of famous characters separating some sections. On the left, carved columns divided the wall into alcoves with exhibits in each. Grand portraits lined the highest parts of the chamber. At the far end there was a caged wooden elevator with a man in uniform operating it.
A large circular information desk commanded the room’s center with an attractive older woman setting up the counter. Watching on RJ’s collar cam I winced when Erin approached her and asked for something. The conversation went on and on, though no one had keyed a mike for the rest of us to hear. The two women laughed. The attendant finally smiled, found a certain folder and handed it to Erin, then turned away to another waiting customer. Integration with the new culture had been successful. Erin seemed to speak the language as well as she had promised. The teams spread out in pursuit of their particul
ar assignments.
The research quickly became mundane for those of us watching, but we made sure at least one of us was always on top of it. I pulled myself away and suddenly realized how empty the Griffin had become. Shelly up front, Wilson at engineering, and me. It had never been this deserted. I did a quick inspection of the other compartments. Some sleeper cells had been left open. Photos were pasted to the walls, magnetic keepsakes in shadowed alcoves. In the gym, a used towel was floating near the ceiling. I pulled it down and shoved it into the laundry hamper. A drawer had been left open in the med section otherwise everything was neatly stowed. The aft airlock felt cold. The hatch to the service module was closed and sealed. The place was neat, clean, and too quiet. Back in the habitat area, Earth II’s black and white broadcasts were on the main screens. A cowboy epic was playing. As I took a seat at the table, I choked back a laugh. One of the cowboy extras in the background looked just like a young John Wayne, another example of life’s subtle sense of humor.
With Danica on the surface, Shelly and I had to put in twelve-hour shifts. We talked it over and split them into two six’s. I used my off time to study more of the broadcasts, hoping to get to know our Earth II brothers and sisters better. I logged onto a tablet and went over the notes made by the others. Images of particular interest from the library were being discretely uplinked to the ship. There were copies of a driver’s license, a birth certificate, military discharge, voting registration, and others. Paris’ collar cam seemed to show him spending quite a bit of time in front of some kind of old-fashioned display screen that used camera film to show images and printed material.
At the appointed time, we descended into gravitational darkness. The five-hundred foot scans again showed no human biology other than the team. We dropped down and Wilson pulled them back aboard.
They were excited. They had been up for twenty-four hours. They were equally exhausted and hungry. I tried to insist on a rest period before the meeting. They ate, drank, and talked incessantly about what they had seen and learned. Some of it sounded absurd. With hot food in their stomachs, they refused to sleep and gathered at the table for debriefing.
“We can show exactly where false history ends and real history begins,” said Erin. The table in front of her was covered with mag-paper printouts, food containers, and drink bottles.
“Okay, okay, but please start from the beginning so you don’t lose me,” I begged.
“You want the very beginning? Okay, here it is; in the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. That’s the first sentence in the beginning of these people’s history. From there it goes right on up through the Old Testament and then through the New Testament as well, even though none of that actually happened down there. Architects keep searching the deserts for relics and sites described in the bible and they keep finding artifacts and ruins that they try to fit to it. In some cases, they claim to have proven the connection.” Erin paused and looked around the table.
RJ picked up the story. “The most interesting things begin showing up around 1500 years ago. From that time back all the forensic records show Neanderthal colonies. Clovis point weapons. No modern humans at all. Only the larger, less developed skulls. Occasional flint tools. It is clear something happened around 1500 years ago, and modern man emerged as suddenly as though he had stepped off a spaceship, if you will forgive the comparison.”
“But it’s the 1940’s, 1950’s down there.” I said.
RJ was adamant. “Yes. Your confusion is well-founded. What took our Earth’s civilization five or ten thousand years to accomplish these people have done in less than fifteen hundred years.”
“Are you trying to say that humans from Earth were brought here like Shelly suggested?” I asked.
RJ said, “There are few ways these people could have suddenly shown up here, Adrian.”
“And no way they could have advanced that quickly?”
In unison, RJ and Erin replied, “No way.”
“So a Nasebian ship brought humans to this planet and helped speed their development along?” I asked.
“Or, if the humans brought here already possessed advanced knowledge, that would also explain the rapid development,” said Wilson.
“Except for one thing,” said Paris. “These people built pyramids. Why would people with an industrial knowledge base build pyramids? There’s more to this. We haven’t figured it out.”
Erin added, “If the humans that were brought here were already advanced, they would know the Bible they were given was not their history, and that’s not the case. The people down there firmly believe that Noah and Moses, and all the other biblical characters and events of our Earth were a part of the history of this planet.”
We sat in silent wonder until RJ spoke. “The answer lies in the why of it. If we understood the underlying purpose of all this, our questions would be answered.”
I rubbed my eyes and spoke. “Was there anything at all referencing the Udjat? I’m almost afraid to ask that.”
“We had luck there at the last minute, Adrian,” said Paris. “The very last minute.” He slid a tablet with a photo of an Egyptian-styled stone tablet at me. “This was the last microfiche I looked at.”
The timeworn stone in the photo was covered with Egyptian carvings. I looked up at him with a questioning stare.
“Do you see the cartouche near the center? It has symbols that are different from those around it. The symbols outside it are standard Egyptian chants and prayer symbols, but the markings inside the cartouche are phonetic references. They tell how to pronounce something. They are the phonetic translation of the word ‘Udjat’.”
I let out a long sigh of relief. “So what does this tell us?”
He pulled the tablet back. “Only that we’ve picked up the trail. We have to go back to the library. I can start tracing down these other markings and they will probably lead me to additional info. At the least we know the Udjat is somehow related to the pyramids here. At some point, we are probably going to need to get a look at those pyramids first hand. There are probably inscriptions there that are not in the library.”
“There’s something else, Adrian,” said RJ. “While Danica and I were running down the ancient history, I accidentally came across a conspiracy theory section. There’s a bunch of stuff making claims of UFO visitations and government cover-ups, just like we used to see on Earth before Disclosure. There are references to Capal’s chariot, claims the government actually recovered it buried in a desert somewhere, and that they have it stashed away at a secret facility. The government reports are heavily blacked out, but there was enough to identify the facility and figure out its location. We need to go there and run some scans.”
“Why wouldn’t we have picked up a footprint already?”
“Because we weren’t looking for something that was being hidden.”
I sat up and stretched. “Wow, you guys. I’m impressed. Confused, but impressed. I never expected this much. So, the decisions are easy. Back to the library for Paris and Erin. The rest of us will visit this other facility while we’re waiting and see what we can see. This time you will have good ID and paperwork. We’ll drop you two at the next window. Can you handle the hike again?”
They nodded enthusiastically.
“You all have time to get some sleep now. Does anyone have anything else before we break up? If not, head for your sleepers.”
No one spoke. One by one, they pulled up and floated back to the galley or sleeper cells. RJ remained. The two of us sat still mag-locked in our seats.
“Is this making any sense to you?” I asked.
“Are you kidding? It’s handwriting on the wall.”
“Well clue me in, will you?”
“You ever study Sumerian history?”
“I’m embarrassed to say, not much.”
“It’s a damned big controversy even to this day. Sumerian history says that a race referred to as the Anunnaki came to Earth to harvest gold. They began mining o
perations and while they did, they also began genetic manipulation of the primates, the Homo erectus, which inhabited the Earth at that time. They mixed their own DNA with the best of the primates they could find, and over time created modern man. They trained man to mine the gold for them, and when there were enough, they withdrew and let the new species called humans, Homo sapiens, do all the work for them. That is the Sumerian story of creation.”
“That’s a bit distasteful. I think I’d prefer the special-children version of creation. And, that doesn’t quite fit what we’re seeing here.”
“It doesn’t fit yet, only because we don’t know the why. Humans were introduced to this planet, and their evolution was accelerated for a reason. As I’ve said, all we need to know is the why. Then we’ll understand.”
“Keep thinking, RJ.”
He smiled a tired smile and pushed himself up and away, heading for his sleeper compartment.
When everyone had spread out into their personal time, I went looking for Erin. She was alone in the med section of the science lab, mixing herself a medication cocktail.
“What is that?” I asked, suspended over her shoulder.
“Vitamins, anti-inflammatory, and a mild feel-good. The long hike caught up with me a little. The re-G regiment wasn’t quite enough.”
“You gonna be alright to do it again? We can switch off if you’d like.”
“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss it for the world. It’s amazing down there. I doubt I’ll ever get a chance to go back in time again.”
“Well, you let me know if you have a change of heart. It’s no problem to plug someone else in.”
“Don’t even think about taking any of my field trips, Adrian.” She paused and gave me a threatening look no man would argue with.
“I wanted to ask you about Paris.”
She turned and drank from the vile of liquid. “I wanted to talk to you about him, too.”
“He’s been a problem?”
“Just the opposite. He’s been super.”
“Really?”
“You’ve seen his work down there. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes, and I plan to mention that to him. I just wondered if there was anything going on with him I didn’t catch. He’s had his problems in the past.”
“Funny you should put it just that way. On the way back through the woods to the pickup sight, he and I fell behind a little. We had a chance to talk. I asked him about his wife. He told me. There’s some things you should know, I think.”
“My ears are open. My lips are sealed.”
“It wasn’t just a wife he lost. It was a wife and a six-year-old daughter. And, his wife wasn’t just a doctor. She was chief of staff at Mt Sinai. There was an incident where some terrorist cell got hold of a new, lethal virus. They secretly exposed a flight attendant to it thinking he’d carry it around the world for them. Fortunately, he became too sick to fly and ended up at the hospital. Doctors there were baffled. Dr. Denard was called in. She contracted the virus without realizing it, and took it home to their daughter. As soon as the problem was identified the CDC was all over it. They contained the outbreak, but those first to come down with it did not survive. Paris’ wife and daughter did not make it. Paris was away on assignment and did not get back in time. A year later, he switched to the intelligence department of the space agency. That’s where he’s been ever since.”
“Wow. None of that was in his file. I wish I had known.”
“It’s as personal as it gets, but I thought you should know.”
“Thanks. Guess I’ll go track him down.”
I found him at the back of the flight deck at an engineering station. He was doing something to a hand scanner. He cleared the display screen and looked up as I entered.
“Anything new?” I asked.
“No, actually I just finished this. It’s a present for you.”
“For me? Gee, I didn’t get you anything.”
He did not crack a smile. He handed me the scanner. “There are a couple of rooms in the library with old-fashioned cipher locks. Hand scanners can be programmed to decode any of those old mechanical types. You scan from the front and if it doesn’t work scan from each side and you’ll get a printout of the numbers in the proper order. It works on dial-type combination locks also.” He pointed to the top row of buttons on the scanner. “It’s the number six function key. Hit that and you’re ready to scan. I made one for myself as well.”
I looked up at him. “I’m impressed.”
“There’s more. The number seven function key will scan for alarm system triggers. That was a bit more complicated. They only use wire types here, so it had to be able to recognize magnetic micro switches, but it does work. It’ll tell you if there’s an active alarm.”
“You thinking of going into some secure library rooms?”
“There’s a good chance I won’t need to. The stuff I’m looking for they don’t understand well enough to classify it.”
“Paris, do you mind my asking, how is it you can translate Egyptian and open locks with one hand tied behind your back?”
He looked at me with the same expressionless stare. “No, I don’t mind. I started out as a propulsion engineer. You know that. I decided I wanted something more exciting than just shock diamonds and nacelle design. I asked to be transferred to the agency's intelligence group. They won’t let quantum physics majors do field work, but they tested me and said I had an aptitude for cryptology. I took their deal to get a foot in the door. Their idea of cryptology amounted to a whole new degree. They used Egyptian, Mayan, Sumerian, and a bunch of other stuff in the training. They even had a German Enigma machine from World War 2 in one of the classes. Locksmith was also part of the curriculum. They figure you can’t break an enemy’s coded material if you can’t open his safe. I did get some fieldwork out of it eventually, but nothing cloak and dagger. Does that answer your question, Commander?”
“Yes, thank you. I’m thinking we’re lucky you’re here, Paris. It has occurred to me we would probably have failed except for you.”
He looked at me and said nothing, but I could see the gears turning. It seemed as though he wanted to say something more, but wasn’t ready. I pushed away, nodded, and headed up front to relieve Shelly.
Chapter 37