Intervention: A Science Fiction Adventure

by J. W. Huemme

  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.

  White Bird watched as one of the creatures held up a long shiny object. The other creature touched the small box-like object held in his hand, and it opened like magic to reveal what White Bird thought was a grain of rice. However, instead of being all white, it glowed with a blue light from within. The blue glow suddenly grew bright and then dimmed. This happened over and over, but not nearly as fast as her heart was beating in her chest.

  The creature held the long shiny object over White Bird and toward the other creature. The other creature then carefully removed the small pulsating grain of rice from its container and placed it on the end of the long shiny object. The creature moved the long shiny object down below her stomach, and White Bird once
again turned partially transparent. Now, being able to see inside her body, the creature placed the grain of rice into position in White Bird’s reproductive organs. Once at the exact spot necessary for the implant, the grain of rice was released and the long shiny object was removed.

  White Bird was certain now that she had been chosen because of her husband. She could not be sure whether it was because he was the son of the chief or because of his bravery in single-handedly killing the great wooly beast, or maybe something she did not even know about. But she knew she had been chosen by the gods in order to bear many strong and brave sons for her husband, Running Horse.

  An extremely bright and vivid light, as blue as the water that flowed in the river, shone upon her from somewhere above her. At first it seemed to shine on her forehead, then a few moments later it moved slowly downward until it beamed directly into her eyes with the intensity of the sun on a cloudless day. Her thoughts grew dim; she was unable to focus as the blue light continued to ambush her efforts to remain in control. White Bird was very strong, but this blue light was stronger, and all went dark as she fell into unconsciousness.

  * * *

  Sparks from the burning embers rose into the darkness of the night sky as Running Horse once again finished telling the story of how he was victorious over the wooly beast he had hunted for White Bird. His fellow braves were in admiration of his courage, and the children were mesmerized as they listened from a respectful distance.

  As Running Horse smiled with pride, he looked back over his shoulder to fill his eyes with the beauty of his new bride.

  She must be inside the teepee trying on her new garment, he thought. White Bird emerging from the teepee wearing the prize he had hunted for her would make for the perfect ending to his story. But just as he thought this, Running Horse noticed the garment lying on the ground outside the teepee’s entrance where White Bird had laid it before she went to the river to fetch some water. As he turned his head toward the path leading to the river, the thought hit him like a spear in the heart: White Bird has been gone too long. Is she in danger?

  More than enough time had passed to allow White Bird to go to the river and return. Perhaps the wolves found her alone once again. Running Horse feared the worst. Quickly he summoned all of the other braves and explained White Bird’s absence. The braves joined Running Horse as he ran like his namesake down the twisting path leading to the river’s edge. All they found at the river’s edge was the crude bowl White Bird had dropped as she stood frozen in the light of the alien moon.

  “Do you see any tracks, Running Horse?” a fellow brave asked.

  “Only White Bird’s tracks leading here. No wolf tracks or signs of a struggle. It is as if she vanished into thin air,” Running Horse answered.

  The other braves looked into the brush and the woods on both sides of the path and on the other side of the river as well for any sign of White Bird. No matter how hard they searched, however, they were unable to find even the slightest hint of anything.

  Undaunted by the lack of any tracks or a trail to follow, Running Horse and his fellow braves spread out and began to search the woods for White Bird or for any clues to her whereabouts. The light of the now three-quarter moon trickled through the trees, casting enough light into the forest for them to see their way around to search.

  After about twenty minutes, Running Horse was far from the path when he heard something in the brush in front of him. His breathing became shallow—he could almost hear his own heartbeat. He moved like a cat, slowly advancing on the sound he had heard ahead of him. Finally, he was close enough to make out the sound of animals feeding. Fearing the worse, he quickly rose and charged in a fit of rage only to find himself in the middle of a pack of wolves that had been feeding on a small animal. Revenge was a strong motivator, and as fast as the wolves could grab hold of Running Horse, he threw them into the brush, only to have them return again and again. All this commotion quickly brought many other braves to aid Running Horse, and in no time, most of the wolves lay dead, scattered around them, while the rest fled into the night.

  After taking a moment to catch their breath, the braves began to exchange information. Each in turn told what he had, or rather hadn’t, found, and it soon became obvious that there was no trace of White Bird. Running Horse and the braves continued to search, spreading out even further into the forest.

  Two hours went by. Running Horse heard a distant cry that told him someone had found something. He flew through the trees, leaping over brush and the occasional fallen tree trunk, following the repeated cry until he found himself at the place where the path met the river. Lying on the ground and being tended to by his fellow braves was his beloved White Bird, alive and well. She was drinking water from the small clay bowl. She tried to get up to greet her husband, but she was too weak.

  One of the braves explained how, being weary from all of the night’s activities, he went to the river for a drink of water. When he arrived, he found White Bird lying next to the river’s edge, unconscious, right where she had dropped the small clay bowl hours earlier. She did not show any signs of having been hurt, and when he put some water to her lips, she came to.

  Running Horse looked her over for signs of injuries, but saw none. He asked her what had happened and where she had been. All she could remember was coming to the river to get some water; the next thing she remembered was the brave giving her water to drink. White Bird said she must have fallen and hit her head and lay there until they arrived looking for her. But Running Horse explained how, when she didn’t return to camp, they all came to the river’s edge, to this very spot, to look for her but she wasn’t there. He went on to tell her how they looked deep into the woods for her, and he told her about the battle with the wolf pack.

  White Bird was very weak, so Running Horse picked her up in his arms and carried her back up the path leading back to their camp. The rest of the braves followed behind.

  “Running Horse is back with White Bird,” the children called as they saw the group emerge from the woods, returning to camp.

  Running Bird announced, “White Bird is fine, she just needs some rest.” As he headed into his teepee with White Bird, the other braves began to explain to the tribe what had happened.

  Running Horse gently laid White Bird down onto their bed and covered her with a blanket. He poured some water into a small cup and put it gently to her lips for her to drink. White Bird looked up at Running Horse, once again her hero. “I still don’t know what happened to me,” she said.

  “Do not worry, precious White Bird. You are home now and I will take care of you.”

  As he got up and went toward the teepee’s entrance, White Bird said, “Please don’t leave just yet.”

  “I am not going anywhere, my love. I will just bring your garment inside so you can keep it close to you.” White Bird smiled in response, thinking how lucky she was to have such a loving and brave man for her husband. The gods had truly smiled on her.

  * * *

  The Agosei traveled all over the planet abducting and implanting females of the species. They knew these were hostile times for the people of Earth, and many of the bloodlines implanted would, unfortunately, not survive. The future of mankind depended on at least one member of an implanted bloodline surviving until the time of activation. If not, all of their efforts would be in vain. These implant recipients were mostly chosen from the families of local leaders, determined to have the best chance of surviving in order to pass on the genetic material implanted in them. The Agosei implanted females from almost every race on every planet except one: the Egyptians.

  Abducting these primitive people in order to make the necessary DNA implants was easy, if not routine, for the Agosei. This was something they had done countless times before on hundreds of other worlds throughout the universe. However, the next phase of their plan would prove to be far more difficult and the criteria would be far more demanding.

  The Agosei sat in a circle to establish a set
of parameters and guidelines to work within. The objective was not going to be easy. They had to create a structure that would be large enough for everyone on the planet to be aware of its existence. It had to be constructed so that it would stand the test of time, lasting long enough to remain long after the time-release DNA’s activation. It also had to be constructed of a naturally occurring material that could be found in the immediate vicinity in sufficient quantities.

  It must also appear to have been designed and constructed by the Egyptian civilization with their current level of technology. This all must be accomplished with the willing cooperation of the local population without them having any knowledge of, or leaving any trace of, the use of advanced technology.

  They quickly found the area to be mostly limestone, more than enough to fill their needs. The limestone was hard enough to withstand the weathering of time, yet soft enough to be quarried by this civilization using their existing technology. It would require the work of at least one or possibly two generations, but could be accomplished within the time constraints of their mission. This was deemed acceptable.

  Next, they reviewed the Egyptian’s religious practices as a possible means of influence. It would be a simple task for the Agosei to convince the Egyptians of the reality of an appearance from Ra, the god of the Egyptians. This could be easily accomplished using a 3-D holographic image projected from a craft in stealth mode. They would use Ra as the vehicle for imparting the necessary information for the construction process, as well as a source of the plans.

  Taking into consideration the level of technology possessed by the Egyptians at this time, the materials to be used, and the period of time the structure must stand, it was decided the design of the structure would be that of a pyramid. This could be easily constructed out of blocks cut from limestone and would be likely to remain for the thousands of years necessary for their plan to succeed.