by Mark Kraver
“Ocean of life? It’s nothing like what I thought it would be,” she said, turning to watch the tiny rocks in space vanish into the darkness. “And the gravitational forces from the, ah, dark-matter Halo—are what people are calling Planet X?”
“Yes. Now what do you think of something like this?” Yahweh asked, pointing to a dimly lit, dark-blue ball of spinning gases.
“Neptune?” she guessed as it flashed by.
“And this?”
“Uranus,” she said, reciting the next planet by heart as she had done since elementary school.
Passing Uranus, she saw another planet-like object smash into the ringed planet. The shock waves blasted most of the planet’s atmosphere toward its poles, knocking the whole planet ninety degrees off its axis.
Logan ducked her head when the two hit together.
“There are forces in this universe that humble even me, and what you have just witnessed is not even noteworthy. Now direct your attention to one of the fundamental structures of every habitable solar system,” he said as they streaked toward a giant gas planet. You call yours—”
“Jupiter,” she answered, knowing the gas giant as the largest body in the solar system, except for the sun itself.
“Yes. Each developing inhabitable system must have a Jupiter-sized gas giant at the outer edge of the inner inhabitable terrestrial planets for their mere survival. Its immense gravitational forces attract stray comets and asteroids—”
“So they will not interfere with the fragile lifeforms forming on the inner liquid water planets,” Logan finished. She was stupefied at the sheer number of comets and other space debris battering the giant planet and its moons. Smiling to herself, she watched the surface impactions explode into circular craters on Jupiter’s moons. She had been looking at this very planet and its moons through her telescope a couple of nights ago.
“Here is something else interesting,” Yahweh said, feeling their forward velocity diminishing as a large, white planet with a substantial atmosphere appeared.
She was puzzled. She had expected to see a smaller lifeless red planet, not something of this magnitude with a thick atmosphere.
“You do not recognize it because it no longer exists. Maybe a few of its fragments will jog your memory: Ceres, Pallas, Vesta, Hygeia,” Yahweh said, looking for a sign of recognition in her mind’s eye.
Logan recognized the names as massive hundred-kilometer-wide asteroids in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars.
“What happened to it?” she asked, staring into the past. “What could tear a planet of this size into asteroid chunks?”
“The question is not what, but who.”
“Who?”
“You will find out soon enough,” Yahweh said, again directing her eyes to something else unfamiliar as they slowed to almost a complete stop.
“Another lost planet?” She looked with apprehension at the approaching blue sphere. It was covered with a thick atmosphere but was smaller than the great white one they had just passed.
“This still exists, but not in this form.”
“Mars? But it has an atmosphere and oceans.”
“Mars was one of our precious ingots of life in this system. The lifeforms were quite advanced. Well ahead of your own planet’s development when they met their demise.”
“What happened to them?”
“One of the remaining perils facing the Elohim—invasion.”
“Invasion? Invasion by whom?”
“They call themselves the alphabiotic signatures. They are in your solar system, mining it for every scrap they can use, including the very star plasma that makes life in this system possible. Robbing the star’s energy shortens its life until it can no longer support the delicate balance between nuclear fusion pushing out and the time depleted zone within its core pulling everything together.”
He paused to let Logan absorb what he had just said. His words took on an increasingly somber tone.
“What is a time deleted zone?” she asked.
“Let me pose another question: ‘Does gravity actually slow down space-time or does slow time cause what you call gravity?’ Time deplete zones and eddies exist throughout the universe. It’s where you almost always find matter accumulating by the forces of gravity. Like high pressure rushing to areas of low pressure, normal space-time decays into areas of slow time leaving behind gravitons.”
Logan blinked, not every thinking of decaying time expelling gravitons like an electron produced a photon of light when it decayed from one atomic shell to the next. Throughout her career as an astrophysicist the theories stated dense gravity warped space-time, not that slow time made gravity. She felt like a primitive man-ape thinking about the sky for the very first time. How could humans ever hope to survive the vastness of the ever-expanding universe without someone like this alien demigod leading the way?
“Your star has a little over one thousand of your years of life left before the fusion/gravity balance is disrupted,” he said. “The sun will then erupt into a red giant star, inundating the inner planets with a fiery death.”
Logan was stunned. “A thousand years left?” she cried, “but that is nothing! How is this possible?”
“Bots first arrived—”
Logan interrupted Yahweh, “Bots?”
“Ah, yes, that’s what we call the alphabiotic signatures,” he said. “They first arrived 66,600 antons—or about 120 million of your years—ago, as an encased zygote. Lacking the intellect or ability to move through space-time as we Elohim do, the Bots distribute their kind by launching fertilized queen egg sacs at nearby star systems, hoping that they will find a hospitable, fertile bed to develop into an adult hive and begin their terrible planet mining and solar sucking habits. This means of colonization is primitive, but remarkably effective. Traveling hundreds, sometimes hundreds of thousands of antons of time, the Bots have raided this galaxy, leaving death and destruction in their wake. Their original foothold in this system was Eris, but they now inhabit several oceanic moons of both Jupiter and Saturn and the barren surface of Mars.”
“Where do they come from?”
“That is an interesting question, and there is a theory that has been told over the eons. In our earliest days, my people began to terraform the first systems in a now extinct galaxy far, far away. One of our first Creators, who called himself Gog, had difficulties with his Homo sapiens children on—”
“Wait,” Logan blurted out. “Homo sapiens? How are you talking about Homo sapiens if this took place eons ago in an extinct galaxy?”
“Homo sapiens have been shepherded by the Elohim all over the universe since the beginning of time.”
“People like me are on other planets? That is amazing,” she said, dumbfounded.
“So,” Yahweh continued. “Gog was having trouble with his human children on a planet called Hell. When he was needed elsewhere, he left the job of supervising the population to one of his most trusted seraphim, Armilus. As the legend goes, Homo sapiens had a great war and poisoned the planet with radioactivity, making it unsuitable for higher lifeforms. Upon this planet, in this toxic wasteland environment, a highly resistant extremophile—which is common to all developing worlds, including your own—emerged. This eight-legged micro-animal evolved into what is now known as the alphabiotic signatures.”
“That sounds horrible. Why doesn’t the Elohim do something about them?” Logan asked.
“That is a complex issue. Many in the Elohim, myself included, feel these runaway genetic offspring are a threat to the very fabric of our existence. However, this is not the only opinion. Others see the Bot as a variation in evolving lifeforms, and choose to ignore them, like parents of naughty children.”
Yahweh looked at Numen, who had suddenly appeared at the dreamy campfire. “That may be why the proletariat of Helios left the Bot infestation of this system out of our mission report,” Yahweh said.
Numen paused to research his records, while reaching out to touch Logan o
n the arm with something moderately sharp.
“Ouch,” she said, looking to the spot on her skin where she’d felt the small scratch. When she looked up she noticed Numen was gone again. “Why are you telling me this?” she asked Yahweh.
“Millions of antons ago, when this galaxy was newly emerging from a little bang, my Creators, Ra and El, ignited a graviton bomb in the Nartac Nebula creating a time-void. That antigravity implosion precipitated a primordial accretion event that lead to the formation of this solar system and your world.”
“This solar system was created by alien technology?” she asked.
“Once the proto-planets emerged around the newly formed star and cooled enough to support primitive lifeforms, the planets were bombarded with icy comets and inoculated with extremophilic bacteria. They were left to run their course through the ever-watchful eyes of one of the many seraphim employed by my Creators. Once a planet evolved environmentally and was judged ready for the next stage of development, the assigned companions manipulated, through gene drives, the most successful lifeforms into a higher order of existence. Over time, transforming the indigenous life into their ultimate conclusion, and that conclusion would be you, Homo sapiens.”
“Why go through all the trouble of building a solar system? Why not find already-made planets and transfer higher lifeforms there to begin your colonization?”
“Why not, indeed? Could it be that systems like yours are unique? The truth is they do not exist in sufficient quantities to make them feasible alternatives, and they are too distant to seek out and monitor, even with our level of technology. Besides, if we were to find a planet inside the inhabited zone of a star, life may have already begun to evolve, and we have made it our policy to avoid any interference in the natural spontaneous development of any life.”
“You mean the prime directive?”
“What?”
Feeling a little foolish, and not wanting to explain to him the fictional doctrine of Star Trek, she redirected her dreaming with a disorienting shake of her head and hands. “Never mind. Isn’t that a lot like playing God?”
“Do you mean, are we worshiped because of our superior intellect and technology?”
“No, I mean, are you God?”
“I am no more a god in this universe than you are a god to the creatures beneath you on Earth. I am a member of the Elohim species, and the Elohim are hominids, like you. We are much more advanced, yes, but still hominids. I was born, I will live, and I will die, like you. Is there a God of the universe? I believe so. We call her Eos. Eos and the universes are one. We are all children of God.”
“Eos? So, if people on Earth think you are God, but you also have a God named Eos, then Eos must also be my God,” she summarized.
Yahweh did not respond.
“Why have you told me this? What purpose will this serve? I am not worthy of your effort.”
“Because you and your child are lambs that your people will accept and follow if they are to be led to their rightful place at Heaven.”
“Child? No. That’s over. Didn’t happen,” she said, placing her hands on her belly.
Yahweh directed her eye to a distant star as they approached the blue planet, Earth.
“At the current rate of growth, your planet will soon run out of natural resources. Disease and famine will sweep across the lands causing untold grief and pain. Your genesis has arrived, our exodus will come soon to save you and me from the red giant death, by delivering us all to the star Heaven.”
“Genesis? Exodus? Heaven?” Logan asked, confused.
“The genesis will bring the first generation of Earth-born Elohim into service, and the exodus will lead us all to Heaven,” Yahweh said, stretching out his arm and pointing to the bright distant star.
She looked into the distance at a lonely star low on the horizon of her planet. The light from the star grew brighter and brighter, until she held up her hands shielding one eye and squinting to see with the other. In the light of the distant star, she made out a long chain of spheres that looked like a pearl necklace encircling a single star. Looking more carefully, she saw small specks of light weaving between the pearls. They looked like spaceships moving between a ring of blue planets. Each planet looked amazingly like Earth.
“What is this?” she asked.
Yahweh whispered with a great longing into her ear, “Heaven.”
A warm, glowing gush spilt deep inside Logan’s mind. Her consciousness shifted as she realized she had just dreamt the most extraordinary and realistic dream of her life. She was becoming more aware of her surroundings with every passing second; the sensation was like how she felt when she recovered from a strong dose of antipsychotics. Her head was still in a fog, and she could hear a ringing in her ears.
“It’s time to pick him up,” Yahweh whispered.
Logan recognized the ringing sound as her cellphone. It was still clipped to her belt. Yahweh gestured to her to answer. She focused her sleepy eyes, pulled it from her holster, and slid her finger across the phone’s slick surface. Without looking to see who was calling, Logan placed the phone against her ear and said, “Hello?”
Inside the connectome, an overwhelming thought bloomed:
“Does this hominid comprehend what you expect of her, and the people of her planet?” Lanochee asked.
“Numen chose her for this above all others. Perhaps she will prove herself more resourceful in the future. Maybe the neural engrams patterned from your father in Numen are more you than you think,” Nadira said.
“Interesting,” Yahweh whispered.
Chapter 39
Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.
George S. Patton, 1885-1945, Earth
Library of Souls
Big Cypress Swamp Jetport
“You’re telling me we’ve got an honest-to-God alien spaceship, and your people won’t even touch it?” General Cathguard barked at Colonel Solomon. “We’re not talking about some trumped-up balloon experiment like Roswell. Figure out how to examine it, or I’ll find someone who will. The President and the Joint Chiefs are chomping at the bit for information, and I need answers now.”
Flash, puff. A new baby flew out of the ship right in front of the general’s eyes.
“Flying naked baby,” Cathguard gasps, watching it hover over the ship for half a second, and then disappear through the airplane hangar’s bullet-riddled walls.
“That’s number eighty-three, sir,” the colonel added.
“I can count.”
“Yes sir. I’ve ordered a robotic drill press from Miami, and we’re working on the few slivers of the hull we secured from the portable drill we used to stimulate its first response,” Solomon said.
“Slivers? This is the first I’ve heard of slivers.”
“They seem to be an unknown alloy. Johnston, you can fill in the general better than I can,” the colonel said to a tall, red-haired man, who looked surprised to hear his name called.
“And this is?” the general asked, frowning.
“First Lieutenant Jason Johnston, sir,” Johnston said, coming to attention and saluting. “Material science specialist, on loan from the Army Research Lab, sir.”
“The colonel said you have some results,” the general huffed.
“Sir, yes sir. The metal secured from the drill press’s drill bit showed it is iridium, one of the hardest substances known to man. We were very lucky to get the specimen. We only got it because we used a diamond drill bit to scratch the surface,” Johnston explained.
“Iridium? Never heard of it. What is it?” the general asked.
“Iridium-silicon to be exact. From the X-ray powder diffraction, density scans, microprobe analysis, and electrical resistive tests that my men and I have completed on the sample, it is definitely iridium-silicon. I am assuming the orthorhombic type until we can get the results of the X-ray crystallography, since it does exhibit polymorphic tendencies. Orthorhombi
c is the most common type.”
The general looked at the lieutenant as if he had a hole in his head. “Cut the scientific mumbo-jumbo, and tell me something I understand, son.”
“Uh, yes sir. Our lab has experimented with this alloy before in semiconductors and concluded that it might be possible to construct a molecular quantum processor from such materials. The space shuttle tested its feasibility as a protective lining under the heat-shield tiles, but it was too costly.”
“Why is that?” the general asked.
“Iridium is one of the rarest metals on Earth. There are no known mineable deposits of it anywhere. It is so dense, most of it has sunk into the earth’s core. The richest sources come from fallen meteorites,” Johnston answered.
The general cast his eyes to the dawning sky in the East. “Get these doors shut. If this is a real Area Fifty-One, then it needs to be secured like one,” the general growled.
“Uh, forty-one,” Goodheart added.
“What?” the general asked.
“Area Forty-One. I’m calling it Area Forty-One cause it’s on Highway 41.”
“Whatever.”
“General,” Solomon said. “My men secured the parameter all night and escorted all civilian personnel off the jetport. The FAA finally declared this area a no-fly zone, sir.”
“Good. Lieutenant are there any more tests you can do on the craft?” the general asked.
“With the general’s permission, I’d like my team to perform a laser permeability test to evaluate the structural integrity of the hull. We will be able to see if this craft could have survived entry into our atmosphere. It should be safe. We won’t even have to touch the ship,” Johnston answered.
