Crucible of a Species (49 page)

Esperanza lunged for the controls and manually brought the boat around to starboard. The Hunter rocketed away from the deadly gas giant, out towards the welcoming void of the stars.

Crewmembers helped others who had vomited the contents of their stomachs or had injured limbs during the ordeal while loud fans labored without success to filter the vile smells from the bay. Sobs, moans and groans filled the cabin and in the middle of this confusion lay Dr. Nolen, straining to stare at the pilot’s display. A smile crossed his face as he pulled himself back to his feet, “Has anyone else noticed?

“The rings of Jupiter are no longer there. We must have made it.”

*~~*~~*~~*

Ensign Li
reached forward, hands expertly flying over the communication counsel. Her excited shout filled the compartment, “We made it. I’m receiving standard tetrabit frequency carriers across the board from navigational satellites, ship-to-station communications, vids, even kCloud data swaps are clear. Nothing seems to have changed.

“The commercial broadcast tags indicate we’ve returned about eight months after first entering the Red Spot. Supralight communication with SkyPort however is not responding.”

Lieutenant Esperanza turned to her controls, “I’ll have the Hunter set in a course back to SkyPort. You try and establish standard radio frequency communications, we’ll have to put up with the time delay in the transmissions until we can figure out why the Supralight system isn’t working.”

“Aye, aye Lieutenant. It’s going to take at least eighty minutes for our message to reach Earth and reply because it’ll be restricted to lightspeed.”

“Thank you, Ensign Li. The delay’s going to make conversation difficult so please keep trying on the Supralight. Even if we don’t get a response from SkyPort Central, see if the Asteri will respond. I’d like to explain to them what happened.”

Time passed slowly as the boat flew in-system towards distant Earth. The great relief of being home was slowly fading into frustration for they could only listen to broadcasts.

They learned that politics at home had drastically changed. The Earth First coalition now held power and focused on building an artificial space colony somewhere between the Earth and Martian orbits. Broadcasts held no mention of the Argos, Asteri or interstellar travel.

Mary Li’s voice rose above the radio, “Lieutenant, I’ve received a Supralight query from the Asteri. They requested we identify ourselves, isn’t that a bit strange? They’ve never asked before.”

“Put it into the main cabin display, Mary.”

The Asteri salutation was crisp and clear, “Please confirm the presence of Doctor Phillip Nolen. Ask him to be seated at the communications console.”

A puzzled look crossed Nolen’s face as he took the copilot’s chair. With little hesitation the system replied, “Identity confirmed.”

“Doctor Phillip Nolen, we apologize for the delay. Your use of the second generation sliding frequency Supralight Communications System triggered this response. …”

Nolen looked stricken, “I don’t understand. They’ve never spoken directly to us like this much less asked for one of us by name. What is going …”

Ensign Li shouted over the doctor, “That’s why no one back on Earth is answering our Supralight Communications. We modified the systems from their original operation so that we could use them without attracting the predators. None of the Supralight systems back on Earth can decode the new signals. They …”

“Shh!” Nolen interrupted.

The Asteri message continued, “… these are final instructions that we will also forward to your world. Following the message there is a special segment restricted to Phillip Nolen and those with him.

“We have monitored and protected your race since before your species became self-aware. At this point in your development, you have a base capability for interstellar travel. Congratulations.

“We will send mappings that mark the stellar regions to which you will restrict future travel and colonial expansion. The volume we have allotted to you is generous. You will be able to explore, grow and progress by whichever path you choose as long as you do not attempt to pass beyond the reserved boundaries. A warning, we will deal harshly with any travel outside of these bounds for any reason.

“As a species, you are granted the freedom to survive or pass into extinction. Whatever path you choose will be without future external interference on our part.

“This may seem harsh but we do it for good reason. Your history holds many instances where contact with an advanced civilization has proven harmful to those less developed even when the best of intentions were involved. The disparity between our civilizations is too great. Your culture is simply not mature enough to survive the contact.

“The next segment is for Dr. Nolen and his few brave companions on the Hunter Reconnaissance Craft.”

Esperanza bolted upright in her seat, “How is it the Asteri know so much detail? Drake must have made it to Tau Ceti and found the ancestors of the Asteri. Why would they even care after all these years?”

For the first time in their contacts with the Asteri, an image solidified in the cabin.

It formed a pastoral scene centered on a smiling, and quite human, but wizened old grandfather. He sat in a lush garden under a blue-green sky with children playing at his feet. The old man looked up at those in the cabin and Nolen gasped as he recognized an elder Colonel Daniel Drake.

A warm smile blossomed on his face, “Unless our validation check failed I assume I am speaking to Doctor Phillip Nolen and Lieutenant Ester Esperanza. Please do not try to open a conversation, these thoughts are recordings; an extravagant favor for an old man who somehow managed to mellow a bit and grow a conscience over the years.

“The recordings are made possible by some dark-matter based circuitry I don’t understand but Thompson assures me it will survive a long time and, if you manage to endure the transit back home to our Earth, then the message will find its way to you.”

A very young girl gracefully approached with a glass and snack dish for the colonel before leaving the scene. “Thank you, Marion.” He called after her.

“Thirty seconds!” called a voice from behind the recorder.

Drake looked over and nodded before continuing, “I’m truly glad that you have survived and will be able to enjoy a full life as I have. I know you have many questions but my message must be brief. You will be happy to know that you were right for we never found the Asteri. However, we did manage to survive and build a home.

“I always hoped you would be able to return to Earth. I want to apologize for having abandoned you and thank God every day that I let Thrumbold talk me out of my original plan on that dark day. Poor old Thrumbold, I must admit I miss him greatly.”

Drake looked off into the distance before speaking to someone unseen, “Yes, yes, I know …. time is short.”

“I sincerely hope you will accept my apology, think well of us and hold dear the memories of your old crewmates.”

The scene panned to a wider view. Little Marion threw a ball into the air behind the seated Drake where a squawking microraptor and a young hypsilophodont dinosaur chased after it. Drake smiled and waved at the recorder as the image faded into nonexistence.

Stunned silence filled the Hunter until Lieutenant Esperanza growled, “What a bunch of wusses. They never made it to Tau Ceti but they managed to crawl back to Earth.”

Nolen shook his head. “No, they weren’t on Earth.”

“Did you miss the dinosaur? They’re back on Earth.”

Nolen smiled, a wistful look filled his eyes, “This recording was made at great expense and many years after Drake abandoned us. Didn’t you see the color of the sky? It wasn’t quite right.

“They made the recording on Tau Ceti.”

“But the…”

“The dinosaurs? Yes. Do you remember Doctor Reilly’s work with fertilization? If I recall properly, they took many of the dinosaur species with them. You had some Troodon and Microraptor eggs in storage didn’t you Susan?” Nolen called back into the cargo bay.

“Yes, Dr. Nolen but that thing on the message was a Hypsilophodont not a Troodon. We saved those species and more. They had all the equipment needed to hatch eggs.”

Esperanza wasn’t satisfied, “It still doesn’t make sense. Where did the message come from? Can gravity waves travel through time?”

“No. I believe the message has been preserved for a very long time, just waiting for this moment of transmission by the Asteri. They must have loved and honored Drake very deeply, very deeply indeed.”

Esperanza still wasn’t buying Nolen’s explanation, “He said there were no ‘Asteri’.”

Nolen turned to the officer. Frustration edging his voice, “Lieutenant, open your eyes. We were just speaking with an ancient Asteri. Allow me to spell out the obvious.”

“They did it! Drake and his people not only made it to Tau Ceti, they fathered a civilization, a human culture that has survived to this day.

“We had it all wrong, the Asteri are not aliens, they may no longer be Homo sapiens but they are humans. We are the ancestors of the Asteri, the so-called aliens are our own highly evolved descendants who have had interstellar technology for nearly a hundred million years.

“It boggles the mind. How can we hope to imagine the fruits of their evolution, the power and capabilities of their civilization?”

Nolen sighed, “Our children have always been out there guiding us, protecting us. Drake’s children evolved for thirty four million years before they even saw the first species of our hominin clade emerge from the trees on Earth but they remembered. They faithfully maintained their watch over their primitive ancestors, isolating us from the dangers of the universe. We have no concept of where evolution has taken them in either capability or appearance.

“However, through the ages we remained extremely important to them.”

Esperanza wasn’t fully buying it, “Humph, why are we important?”

Nolen visibly sighed once more, “As a race, the Asteri faced a terrible threat that went far beyond survival. Consider that the entire existence of their race depended upon us making this trip to the past aboard the Argos.

“Theories on time travel are one thing but, when faced with reality, they feared that if somehow a small piece of something changed and we didn’t travel back to the Cretaceous then they, the Asteri, would never exist.

“Now, after waiting the many long millennia for our species to evolve to the point that we could send the Argos back in time, their task is complete for we have satisfied the cycle. They finally made it. Their race has a guaranteed place in the universe for all future time. They no longer need us and they don’t want us encroaching in their affairs.

“Our children have outgrown us.”

“Well I don’t like it one bit.” Cookie spoke up, “I don’t care how big a chunk of the universe they give us, they’ve put us on a reservation. We’ve been isolated from the rest of the universe our entire history because of them. Now that we’re no longer important we’re being pushed aside as children who must behave and stay within the playpen.”

Dr. Nolen stood, “Not quite ‘children’, Mr. Slap. We are absolute primitives, less than Neanderthals compared to the ninety-nine million years of evolution endured by the Asteri. However, we remain their very primitive ancestors. Now, let’s think about this very unique situation.

“We now sit waiting for a reply from Earth hoping the people who sent us on this mission will soon return our radio calls. Remember, politics on Earth have drastically changed since our departure. Our people have turned inward, away from the stars. It may be a long time until our species again begins interstellar travel and this last Asteri message will fit right into the isolationist plans of our current world governments.

“The leaders of the world, however, did not receive this last video. This was a gift, restricted by the Asteri, to us on this small ship.”

Nolen moved to where he could address all the people in the cabin. His eyes burned into the soul of every individual and all in that vessel realized that a changed man now stood before them, “The private information we just received must remain confidential. The true history of the expedition must remain hidden. There will be no vids or biographies published by the survivors of the expedition. You will speak with no one about the truth of it.

“We will cleanse the ship’s computer and secure our knowledge safely into our own personal storage. Then we will fabricate a story about how the Argos malfunctioned and we escaped to limp home on a very long, boring trip.

“I warn you, we must be deadly serious about this opportunity the Asteri have given us. The future of our descendents depends upon our actions now as heavily as the Asteri needed the Argos to visit an ancient planet.

“You are not to speak about this to anyone and we will discredit or eliminate anyone who dares break this rule. If you do not wish to work with us then you need only keep your silence and we will make it worth your while.

“Those who wish can join me but we have much work ahead of us. In return, you will become very rich and eventually famous thanks to an omission in the restrictions placed upon us by our children.

“We will form a private company and grow it far from the controls of the governments on Earth. There is money to be made in mining asteroids and elements found on the larger moons of Jupiter. There, as the Earth stagnates, we will secretly build our own fleet of starships and someday very soon we will return to the stars.”