Intervention: A Science Fiction Adventure (2 page)

Unfortunately, at the
time they predicted that space travel might begin, the Agosei would
be back on their home world in a distant galaxy and unable to do
anything to rectify the situation. Another means of dealing with the
situation must be found.

It was agreed that in
order to ensure success, the course of action must take place only
after the early beginnings of space flight had been achieved. This
task could be easily detected by the computer in a craft. In order to
achieve any form of spaceflight, they must first develop radio
communications. By monitoring these communications, the computer
would be able to learn all of the languages and many of the customs
and cultures of that time as well. However, since the computer would
not be able to understand all of the complexities and subtle nuances
of the advancing race, it was agreed that there must also be a human
input to ensure the success of their effort.

The first idea to be
examined was to abduct a human male from the planet and bring him
aboard the mother ship. There he could be genetically altered and
educated as to what he must do. He would then be placed into a stasis
chamber aboard a smaller craft made using a portion of the craft’s
liquid metal, which would then be hidden on the planet. Then at the
appropriate time, to be determined by the scout craft’s computer,
he would be brought out of stasis. Using the communications of the
time, he could become current with the times, how to dress, how to
speak with the common dialect, social interactions, and so on. This
idea, however, felt as though it contained much too high of a risk
factor. There would be far too many variables—too many things that
could go wrong. This task was far too important to leave anything to
chance. A better way of solving this situation was needed, a means
with far less of a risk factor.

White Bird sat alone in
front of her teepee, faithfully working the crude bone needle through
the hide of the buffalo, pulling with it the coarse rawhide thread
with each stitch as she secured the torn pieces together to repair
her garment. With each stitch, she paused to glance up at her
husband, Running Horse, sitting by the fire in the middle of their
small camp telling his story of bravery and courage once again. His
fellow braves had heard it before, but still they listened to every
word. It had only been three weeks since her garment was torn by an
attacking wolf pack while she was filling an animal skin with water
by the river.

Although White Bird was
not seriously injured, the sharp teeth and the dogged persistence of
the small, but vicious pack of wolves tore her garment into many
pieces. Even though White Bird worked diligently to repair her torn
garment as best she could, it would never look as it once did, having
been fashioned with such loving care.

Running Horse was a
brave and noble Indian, as well as the son of the chief of this small
tribe, and he had just taken White Bird as his wife only three months
earlier. He loved her dearly, and would not see her, the wife of the
son of the chief, wearing a torn and ragged garment. White Bird had
become his reason for living, the reason for every beat of his heart.
He knew he must somehow, on his own, provide her with a fresh hide
with which she could fashion herself a new garment and, at the same
time, prove himself to be the bravest of the brave within his tribe.
So with every opportunity, he would go out alone to find and kill a
buffalo so White Bird might have the necessary hide to fashion a new
garment for herself.

Every night he would
set out on his own to claim his prize. The buffalo were many, yet
they were very careful to conceal themselves at night while they
rested. This made Running Horse’s task of finding them more
difficult than he had at first suspected. He was used to hunting the
great buffalo during the day with many of his fellow braves, working
together as a team. Now he was learning it was altogether different
at night, all alone, with only the light of the moon to see by. This
turned what was normally a difficult task into a nearly impossible
one. Running Horse would not give up though, and every night after
the evening meal, he would take up his spear and head off into the
night as White Bird wished him luck.

On several nights,
Running Horse was able to locate a herd of buffalo. He would move
slowly toward them, remembering all the things he had learned. When
he got as close as he dared, he would rise up to throw his spear, but
the odd twig would snap or dried up leaves crush under his weight and
alert the herd, sending them instantly into a stampede. This would
send Running Horse back to his bride empty-handed and sad.

After eight nights of
searching, he found a small herd of buffalo resting for the night in
an open grassy meadow. Like so many nights before, he crawled inch by
inch, silently, through the brush with cat-like movements, being
extra careful not to make even the slightest sound. Finally, he found
himself with just one bush between him and the open meadow, as close
as he dared get to his prey without once again startling the herd
into a stampede. As he carefully looked over the small herd, he
singled out the smaller adult buffalo closest to him. He waited for
the moment to be just right. When he felt the gods were with him, he
took a deep breath. Then as if in slow motion, Running Horse rose up
from the brush, slowly took his aim, and with a burst of energy as
strong as his love for White Bird, he hurled his pointed spear at his
prey. Alas, his spear found its mark. A sudden rush of pride and joy
surged through Running Horse’s body. The wooly beast reeled up on
his hind legs, his front legs kicking wielding in the night air in
shock and pain as the blood began to spurt from the severed artery.
Using every ounce of its strength, the wounded beast ran as fast as
it could, starting a stampede of all the others in the herd. The
sound of so many hooves pounding the ground sounded like thunder as
the herd began to disappear into a cloud of their own dust. His task
had only just begun, for lost in this stampede and quickly
disappearing into the night was Running Horse’s prey.

There was a full moon
casting just enough light for Running Horse to see the blood trail
left by his fleeing prize. Using all the tracking skills his father
had taught him as a child, he carefully followed the blood trail for
nearly an hour. Running Horse knew it was only a matter of time
before the beast would run out of the precious red fluid and fall to
the ground. Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity, Running
Horse saw the animal lying alone in the grass, lit by the moonlight,
just waiting for him. The beast was still breathing heavily, blowing
a puff of steam from his nostrils with each breath. Being humane and
not wanting to see the animal suffer, Running Horse drove the spear
in even deeper to end the animal’s suffering. He then raised his
arms to the sky giving a victory cry, as if to thank the gods for
smiling on him that night.

Even though he was
tired from the long pursuit, Running Horse knew the morning sun would
soon be peeking over the horizon and White Bird would begin to worry
if he had not returned. As the sun rose, it would quickly grow too
hot to be dragging his prize by himself. So taking only a moment to
catch his breath, he fashioned a sort of litter from the branches of
some nearby trees and fastened it around his prize with long thin
strips of soft bark from another tree. Running Horse began the long
trek back to his village and to his beloved wife, dragging behind him
what would soon become her new garment.

Even though it was
nearly dawn before he reached his village, White Bird was awake and
beginning to show concern at his absence.

“There he is!” she
cried.

The rest of the tribe
began to emerge from their teepees to greet him.

“For you, my wife,”
Running Horse said as he proudly showed White Bird his prize.

Praises rang out for
Running Horse who, in the dark of night, not only killed the beast
alone, but dragged it back to the village, showing great devotion to
his wife.

Everyone helped skin
the hide from the beast and carefully cut the meat from the bones.
There would be plenty of food to eat that day for everyone thanks to
Running Horse.

White Bird instantly
went to work stretching the hide over a crude wooden frame to dry and
cure in the sun.

After several days of
treating the hide with oils to make it softer and more pliable, White
Bird began to trim the hide by laying it on a large boulder and
cutting it with a sharp edged rock. Once it was the proper size and
shape, she punched holes along the edges that would eventually become
the seams. This was long and tedious work, but White Bird’s
anticipation for this task made it seem effortless.

That moonlit night,
White Bird continued to fasten the pieces of hide together outside
her teepee. While she stitched, she looked over at Running Horse,
admiring her hero husband. He sat in a circle of friends around the
campfire as they passed the pipe of peace and friendship. Running
Horse, once again, told the story of how he stalked and slew the
woolly beast.

White Bird reached down
to dip the rawhide thread into a bowl of water by her side. When the
stitches dry, they will shrink, drawing the seams tightly together in
preparation for a final trimming.

White Bird noticed that
the water bowl was nearly empty. Wanting very much to finish her new
garment that night, she set her the garment gently aside and picked
up the water bowl. She walked over to where the men sat around the
fire laughing and telling stories. She waited until it was polite for
her to speak.

“I must get more
water. I wish to finish stitching the garment tonight,” she said in
Running Horse’s ear.

Running Horse looked at
his new bride. “Hurry back, and be careful of the wolves.”

White Bird walked down
the narrow path to the river. She grew up walking this path and knew
every twist and turn, everywhere she needed to duck to avoid a tree
branch, and everywhere to step so as not to land on a sharp stone.

The river was a mere
ten-minute walk from camp, and on that warm summer night with the
moon nearly full, it was an especially pleasant experience.

The sound of the water
gently running over the rocks that rose above the surface greeted
White Bird. She could see the moon’s distorted and rippling
reflection on the surface of the water. The narrow path had opened
into a small clearing at the river’s edge. White Bird knelt down at
the water and gently lowered the crude clay bowl into the river’s
edge to fill it with water, all the while thinking of the new garment
she would soon be wearing. Suddenly, she noticed that the moon’s
reflection on the water looked somehow different.

As White Bird looked up
toward the moon, her eyes focused, not on the distant skies and the
moon, but right in front of her over the river. Twenty feet directly
in front of her and fifteen feet above the ground, was the Agosei
spacecraft. Before she could turn and run back to camp, where she
knew her new husband would protect her, a beam of white light,
brighter than the sun itself, reached out and paralyzed White Bird.
She kept telling her legs to run for help, but they wouldn’t
listen. Although she knew this must be one of the gods, she was
terribly frightened.

As if by magic, White
Bird slowly rose above the ground and found herself being drawn
toward the mysterious silver moon. As she neared the craft, she
became almost completely transparent. Upon reaching the surface of
this silver moon, instead of bumping into it, she somehow passed
right through it and into the interior of the craft. White Bird
finally came to rest on her back on a round table-like object with a
flat surface. Although she could see no ropes or bindings of any sort
holding her down, she was held in place and unable to move. The
bright white light still shone down upon her from above, washing her
entire body like the sun on a cloudless day.

Through this bright
white light, White Bird was able to see two small odd-looking
creatures standing on either side of her. The fear she felt surpassed
the feeling she had when the wolves tore at her garment just a few
weeks earlier.

“Do not fear. We do
not wish to harm you,” she heard one of the odd-looking creatures
say. “You are special because you have been chosen to be the vessel
to help save all of the people of you world.”

How
can I hear them speak to me when their lipless mouths do not move at
all?
White Bird thought. Strangely, her fear was beginning
to subside.
Why have the gods
chosen me?

White Bird figured she
was chosen because of her bravery when faced with the attacking
wolves, or maybe because of the courage of Running Horse for
single-handedly bringing down a buffalo so she might have a fresh
hide to fashion a new garment.

One of the creatures
reached over White Bird with what looked like a very small ice cream
scoop in his hand. He leaned down over her right leg. Just as one
might take a scoop of vanilla ice cream from its container, he took a
small scoop of White Bird’s skin from her leg. White Bird felt no
pain—she could feel the small scoop dig into her skin as it removed
the flesh, but there was no pain.

The second creature
produced a small container into which the small scoop of her flesh
was placed. He then put the container into an opening that appeared
on the table-like surface next to White Bird. A moment later, the
opening closed and a 3-D holographic image of White Bird’s DNA
appeared above her in the form of a double helix. The image slowly
rotated continuously above her.

She watched as the two
creatures studied the image. Finally, the two strange beings seemed
satisfied with what they had seen and the image vanished as suddenly
as it had appeared.