A curiosity rose in Dawann, and she asked herself, Am I going to watch the clone through some sort of virtual reality transmission? Ignoring her racing heart, ignoring the smell of her own pheromones, she inched forward until she was within touching range of the monolith. Just then, she recalled how she had once wondered if Gus’s DNA had been responsible for the clone. It was a tantalizing thought, but undoubtedly a remote possibility.
She looked at the glass display case, hoping to find the amber Fey had found on Shurrr. To her disappointment, the case was empty.
“Where is the amber fossil?” Dawann asked Fey.
“We had to partially destroy the amber in order to retrieve the DNA sample that created the clone. What remains of it is locked away in our laboratory on Shurrr. The plaque is kept there, also.”
“The plaque?” asked Dawann.
“Yes,” Fey said. “I’ll explain it in a moment. Since we could not risk anyone finding out about them, there is a little trick.” Fey reached toward the display case.
It was the first time Dawann noticed a diamond ring on Fey’s right hand. The paleontologist touched the ring to the top of the glass case and stood back. A transparent, fluorescent-green cube appeared inside the case. As if suspended by invisible wires, the object floated in mid-air.
Fey explained, “I found this ring at the excavation site after I uncovered the other artifacts. It was just before the Alpha Nu’s visit, and I barely had time to obliterate all evidence of the dig. Oh, I know what I did was unethical, but I feared the Keeper would suppress my discoveries.” She gave a soft trill. “You were right, Your Highness. I have many secrets.”
Mem grunted in agreement. “The cube is my invention. It is made of fluoride glass which can be infused with atoms of rare elements and infrared laser light to store a three-dimensional image in the cube.”
“Uh, yes,” Dawann said. “But I don’t see an image.”
“Ah, it takes two touches to activate it.” Fey tapped her ring on the glass case again, and this time the air inside began to shimmer, then coalesce into a view of an excavation site. “This is a compilation of five separate pictures of the site. It permits the viewer to examine everything I found. As I said before, the artifacts were removed from the dig and secreted within my gear. Tell me, Your Royal Highness, do you recognize anything?”
Dawann studied the image of a standard excavation pit. Tools scattered around. A glob of dirt-encrusted amber on the ground. A metal plaque.
Her gaze zeroed in on the plaque. She moved her head and the image changed slightly, making it seem like she was walking around the paleontological site. She leaned in, still studying the 3-D display, and then did a double take. Was it her imagination or did the inscriptions on the plaque seem familiar?
The nictating membranes rolled over Dawann’s eyes. “I – I think I understand!” she said, blinking her eyes clear.
“What?” Fey and Mem said in one breath.
“The plaque contains a depiction of a human space traveler. It was left at the landing site as a commemoration of the event. And I believe... yes, I can read some of it. The signatures at the bottom are––”
“Oh, I was right then,” Fey crowed. “They are signatures.”
Mind reeling, Dawann pointed toward the first signature, boldly written with a mixture of cursive and printed letters. “That one belongs to the ship’s commander. His name was Gus. See? Right there. G-U-S.”
The couple stared.
“As for the rest of the letters I don’t know,” Dawann said. She gave a small growl of frustration. “It’s so hard.”
“Take your time, Your Highness,” said Fey. “Perhaps your memories will come back.”
Dawann stood there, pondering the image, the jumble of letters confounding her. And then, quite unexpectedly, a name leapt out at her, incontestable proof her visions were true.
She rubbed her eyes and then refocused on a line of distinctively slanted handwriting, the strength of her astonishment nearly propelling her to the floor. “My Goddess,” she cried out, “that’s her signature!”
“Whose?” Mem asked.
“Dawn’s!” Dawann looked at the three digits of her own right hand and imagined herself in another time and place. But she was not a saurian. No, she was human. A human female. And she was little; without breasts, her body small and light, only half as big as an adult. Human Dawn was a child practicing her penmanship. Pushing a writing device called a pencil across the page again and again, grasping it tightly with her own five stubby fingers as she carefully formed her letters.
Dawann envisioned the girl writing, D-A-W-N. D-A-W-N. D-A-W-N.
“Do you feel ill?” Mem asked, looking worried.
Fey’s expression matched her mate’s. “May I get you some water?”
“I’m stunned, that’s all. I’ve lost so much of my other life, and each time I regain a part it takes me a moment to adjust and make sense of it all. Forgive me.”
“Of course, my dear,” Fey said.
“But what did you see?” Mem asked.
Dawann described her vision, then pointed to the plaque and pronounced the name for them in the alien English tongue. “Dawn Anne Ssstroganoff,” she said, the words coming in a slow hiss. “It says Dawn Anne Ssstroganoff. It’s the signature on the right, the one with the slanted letters. The full translation gives her title, too. It says Dawn Anne Ssstroganoff, Misssion Ssspecialist.”
“Holy Mother She-Goddess!” said Fey as Mem grabbed her hand.
Dawann turned to look straight at Fey. “Once, I was a scientist like you. I dug up old ruins and explored the ancient cities of my world.”
“You were an archeologist?”
“Yes, and I loved my work.”
In the next few moments, Dawann was able to decipher only one additional word, the name Mars.
“And that was the human word for Moozrab?” Mem asked.
“Yes,” Dawann said. “See the letters? M-A-R-S. I don’t quite understand what happened. You said you believe humans also evolved on Shurrr? Then why did human astronauts visit the Shurrrian continent of Mera, as if they were exploring an alien world? Why doesn’t the plaque say something about Mera?”
“Maybe someday you’ll be able to tell us, Your Highness,” Mem said.
“There’s something else,” Fey said mysteriously. “Something I discovered after I left the site.”
Dawann turned as Fey touched her ring to the case. An image of the back of the plaque shimmered into view. The metal surface was marred by a series of scratches. Amazed, Dawann took a closer look. There was printed script there.
“I have pondered this for a long time,” Fey divulged. “I believe it’s an extra message, perhaps done in an emergency. It looks rough, as if written in haste. The hardness of the metal makes me conclude someone used the diamond ring to scratch the message. I would love to know what it says. It must have been important.”
Dawann leaned forward, staring at the marks on the plaque. Fey’s assessment seemed correct; the script looked like it had been scratched into the metal. After a long moment, she said, “Other than the names Dawn and Gus, I can’t read it.”
“In time,” Mem said. “Perhaps you’ll be able to read it in time.”
Fey gestured toward the virtual reality/retinal headset affixed to the monolith. “We have a direct feed to Shurrr, so we can observe the clone’s progress. This is what Mem referred to a moment ago. Our secret.”
“Who else knows about this, Fey?” Dawann asked.
“No one but us here on Moozrab. This is a quantum-secured communication device, which cannot be monitored by the Keeper or any of his government ministers and spies – another of Mem’s inventions, a new method known only to us and our closest allies. The distance to Shurrr creates a time delay, but you can watch and listen to the clone.”
Dawann reached for the headset, which was cradled in a carved slot on the face of the monolith.
Fey raised her hand. “Wait a moment,
please. You must be prepared, Your Highness. The clone can be disturbing on first sight, for he is quite ugly, not only because of his flat facial features, but because,” she exchanged a look with Mem, “he has chosen to let the hair on his face and head grow long.”
“Really?”
“Yes, and his body odor is revolting if he has not bathed in the river,” Mem added.
“With our telepresence equipment,” Fey went on, “we can recreate everything, even the smells of the rain forest of Sagamish, and him. So, you must prepare yourself.”
“I am prepared.”
Mem said, “The clone has strange habits. For example, he is omnivorous.”
“Omnivorous?”
“He eats meat, but prefers fruit. Physiologically, he needs fruit to survive, even nuts.”
“Oh!” Dawann shivered with revulsion at the thought of eating nuts. “What else is different about him?”
“Unlike us, he has long dreams when he sleeps,” said Mem. “When questioned, he told us about them. They’re wild stories, the most fantastic tales we’ve ever heard.”
“And he’s afraid of snakes,” Fey said. “He acts as if all of them are poisonous.”
“But snakes are beautiful,” Dawann said in disbelief.
“Yes,” Mem agreed. “The clone hates them, though. A peculiar trait, unless you take into account his mammalian heritage.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have a theory that he evolved from mammals, and reptiles and dinosaurs hunted his ancestors. That’s why he has an inborn fear.”
“Oh, I want to see him!” Dawann said excitedly.
Fey glanced over at Mem. “Yes, Your Highness,” she said. “It is time.”
Chapter 7
Very old are we men;
Our dreams are tales
Told in dim Eden...
~Walter de la Mare, All That’s Past
After Dawann sat in the chair, the nano-components went to work and molded to her shape. She grabbed the headset, disengaged it from the monolith, and affixed it to her brow. As she moved the tiny scanner screens to the level of her eyes, she asked Fey, “What did you name the clone?”
“We didn’t give him a name.”
Dawann raised an eyepiece and looked at her. “I’m surprised. You treat him like a lab specimen then?”
“Actually, he chose his own name,” Mem said. “He is quite intelligent, and decided when he was two years old that he wanted to be called Da. It was his first word.”
“Da?” Dawann recalled Tima saying she had made that sound, too, during her brief “awakening” incident. A coincidence? Or do all human babies make such sounds?
“Yes, it’s a strange name,” Mem acknowledged.
“And how old is Da?” Dawann asked.
When Mem squinted in thought, Fey jumped in, “Ah, in Shurrrian years, he is forty-four. In twenty-six days, he will turn forty-five.”
“He is young then.”
“We’re not certain about that,” Fey admitted. “His hair has started to turn gray, which may indicate advancing age in his species. There is still much to learn about him. We tried to clone other specimens after we sequenced the complete nuclear genome, which, as we indicated before, was successfully extracted from the samples found in the amber fossil.”
“From a molar and two hair strands, to be exact,” Mem added.
“But even though we had the complete genome, no viable embryos resulted after these initial attempts,” Fey said. “We blundered by using donor eggs from saurians, which, of course, did not work.”
“Donor eggs?”
“Yes,” Mem explained. “Donor eggs with their genes removed. When you clone something, you need an egg to provide the nurturing, maternal chemicals that switch on the genes in your DNA sample, making them become embryonic again. An entire living being can grow from your original DNA sample. We already knew how to do this, but in our excitement, at first I’m afraid we rushed a bit.” Mem shot Fey a self-conscious look. “In our rush to clone the alien DNA, we ignored the fact the genetic material was from a mammal. At that point, we decided to use the ova of the primitive Shurrrian lemurs. To our delight, one egg began to divide. The embryo grew in an artificial egg––”
“Actually, it was an artificial womb. To be more precise, an incubator womb,” Fey interjected, “because of the embryo’s mammalian status.”
“Quite right,” Mem said.
“And the embryo was Da?” Dawann asked.
“Yes,” Mem said. “We nearly lost Da, however, when he was very young. After we removed the seemingly full-term fetus from the artificial womb – the time of full gestation was a guess in itself – we could not immediately find an acceptable food source for him. Fortunately, we stumbled on a nano-soy/nucleotide formula that mimicked the milk lactating Shurrrian mammals produce for their young. Da survived, but we’ve been unable to produce another clone of his species. Consequently, Da is one of a kind, unique.”
As am I, Dawann thought, feeling instant kinship. “I will look at him now,” she said.
Mem and Fey bowed to her.
She pressed the monolith’s activation panel, restored the eyepiece, and waited for the transmission to begin. The sensations of high humidity and tropical warmth enveloped her. Her vision cleared, and she looked out at a world thick with dripping vegetation and the constant, teeming din of life. She glanced up. Through the upper story of the trees, she saw the blue sky, and it was beautiful.
Excited by the experience, Dawann felt light-headed. She closed her eyes and took a few breaths of the heavy, spicy, flowery air. Shurrr was gorgeous, the rainforest an earthly paradise, a veritable Garden of Eden––
Her eyes flew open. What is Eden?
Considering a moment, she tried to collect her thoughts. Then, abruptly, an ancient creation myth flooded her mind. The first humans. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And there was a serpent in the midst of the tale, wasn’t there? Dawann tried to remember more, but all she recalled was the reptile had somehow engineered Adam and Eve’s expulsion from beautiful Eden.
Quite a fitting occurrence, she thought. Suddenly, she remembered what Mem had said about Da’s fear of snakes. The Eden tale appeared to be correct in one way; snakes and their relatives, including the dinosaurs, had been the cause of misfortune and death for countless generations of mammals.
She hooted lightly, in pleasure, for the distant echoes of the past seemed like old, dear friends. Perhaps, if she tried hard enough, she would solve the mystery of her visions.
With a newfound understanding, she regarded the forest before her. If this is Eden, where is Adam? she asked herself.
Just then, she heard the sound of running water, turned toward it, and spotted the clone. With his back toward the virtual reality recorder, the tall, muscular human stood tanned and naked by a clear, bubbling stream. Lightly streaked with strands of gray, his brown hair was long, trailing all the way to the small of his back.
“Do you see him?” Mem asked.
Dawann jumped. She was so caught up by the transmission, she’d forgotten Mem and Fey were still in the room. As she opened her mouth to respond, the clone knelt by the brook, cupped his hand in the water, and took a drink.
“Do you see him?” Mem repeated.
“Oh, yes. I see him,” Dawann said.
“Is he a human, like the creatures you imagined?” Fey asked.
“Yes, he is,” Dawann said in a hushed tone, remembering her strange visions. She felt thrilled, vindicated; she’d been sane all along.
“Interesting,” Mem said as Fey gave a little hoot of agreement.
The click of the door latch told Dawann they had left. She held her breath, afraid to stir for fear of losing her nerve. What more would she see? She exhaled slowly, deliberately. Now, she was alone in the hidden chamber, all alone as she studied the scene unfolding on faraway Shurrr. In awestruck silence, she watched the clone pick a flower. He rose to his feet. With a graceful air, he turned to
face the recorder.
She wanted to see his features, but the flower had captured his gaze, his long locks making it impossible to see his face. Her eyes roamed downward, and she was momentarily shocked by the display of frontal nudity, particularly because his penis and scrotum were fully exposed; humans did not possess the genital sacs of saurian males, or the Keeper.
But I knew that once, didn’t I? Dawann recalled. She concentrated on Da’s naked form and tried to remember how human females reacted to such displays of male nudity. Her gaze roamed upward, slowly, admiringly, across the human’s flat stomach until it came to rest upon his broad, lightly haired chest.
Suddenly, a musky stench assaulted her nostrils, and she noticed the human was drenched in some kind of smelly liquid. Sweat.
Dawann screwed up her nose and held her breath, waiting for something to happen. As if on cue, the clone glanced at the recorder.
With a gasp, she looked him full in the face. Ignoring his beard and broadening smile, she concentrated on his eyes, which held her because of the sweetness of his stare, the clear blue-gray irises filled with such a shining innocence.
She wished she could laugh and cry for joy, for she recognized this particular human being. The answer to her previous question surged through her brain.
“Lex,” she told herself with absolute certainty. “Oh, your name isn’t Da, or Adam or even Gus. It’s Lex!”
***
After watching the Lex clone for what seemed like a long time, Dawann heard an insistent clawing at the door.
“What is it?” she called out.
“Your Highness, forgive me, but it is time to go,” Mem said. “Tima has returned from her meal. She’s waiting with my daughter in the outer office. Fey went to greet them.”
Dawann took a final look at the Lex clone, then reluctantly removed her headset. “I’m coming.” As she moved toward the door, she felt a strange sense of excitement mixed with sadness. When would she get the chance to observe him again?
The door swung open. For a moment, Mem watched her expression. “Did Da please you?”
Dawann trilled. “He is fascinating.”
Dragon Dawn (Dinosaurian Time Travel) Page 6
