The Watcher

by Saxon Andrew

  “Why?”

  “Because he demonstrated that he knew what sacrifice was and appreciation for what I did.” Charles was silent and, after a few moments, he said, “I still have that stone knife; it’s one of my greatest treasures.”

  Nicole watched him and didn’t know why, but she asked, “What’s bothering you?”

  Charles looked at her with surprise written all over his face, “How do you know something is bothering me?”

  “I don’t know…I just sense that there is.”

  Charles blew out a slow breath and said, “I continued to follow Amug and his family. About ten years later, a much larger tribe of hominids sneaked in on Amug’s cave and attacked them. Amug and all the men were killed outright along with any older men and women. The women of childbearing age along with all the children were taken away by the tribe to be slaves. They eventually assimilated into the tribe and life continued…but Amug was gone.” Charles lowered his head; Nicole stared at Charles and didn’t know how to respond. How do you explain fighting for limited resources and food to an alien. She kept her silence.

  Charles finally looked up, “The Computer and I had a very long discussion on why this species attacked each other. After a hundred years, we decided that the only reason they did it was because they lacked the intelligence to fully understand what they were doing. In all my travels around the universe, this planet is the only place where numerous species attacks and kills other members of its species.”

  “What did you do about that decision?”

  “Why do you think I did something about it?”

  “You don’t impress me as someone who doesn’t act on your impulses.”

  Charles smiled, “Thank you…I think.” He paused and said, “The computer and I decided to correct the problem.”

  “And just how were you going to do that?” Nicole asked.

  “We came up with two genetic modifications and introduced them into about fifty or so tribes when they were sleeping.” Nicole’s eyes narrowed. “A gas was used to insert the genetic modification and it was painless and no one noticed what was happening.”

  Nicole stared at Charles and asked, “Are you saying you changed the people that breathed the gas.”

  Charles’ head tilted, “That’s what modifying genetics does.” He stared at Nicole for a moment and then shook his head, “No, the people who inhaled the gas did not change physically. The modification only affected the children they would have.”

  “That’s what I was asking.”

  “The computer and I sat back and watched what would come from this little experiment.”

  “How long?”

  “About five thousand years.” Nicole looked up and rolled her eyes. “Hey, it takes time for a new species to settle in and develop.”

  “And these two new species were Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens?” Nicole asked.

  “Yes. Their intelligence was the highest of any previous human ancestor.”

  “So after five thousand years, what did you determine?”

  Charles shrugged, “We were wrong.”

  “In what way?”

  “More intelligence didn’t cause them to see that killing other members of their species was wrong; it simply made them better at doing it.” Nicole stared at Charles and he saw her anger, but he didn’t say anything.

  “I imagine you thought about this for a while to determine where you messed up, didn’t you?”

  “As a matter of fact, we did.”

  “And?”

  “We missed what was really the force behind the attacks. We thought low intelligence was the issue and correcting that would solve the problem. We discovered intelligence had nothing to do with the issue.”

  “Then what did?”

  “Do you know much about the life on your planet?”

  Nicole shrugged, “Some.”

  “We went back and took a good look at this planet and we discovered something that I think is unique to this place.”

  “What is that?”

  “I think the term your own scientists have used to describe it is Territorial Imperative.” Nicole’s eyes narrowed and Charles continued, “There are so many examples of it in the animal life on Earth that I’m surprised we didn’t really see its relationship to most living things earlier.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Lets take Lions as an example.”

  “Ok.”

  “A pride of lions live in a specific area where they hunt prey and live as long as there is enough prey to feed them. If another group of lions move into their territory, they will attack them and fight to keep their hunting grounds. Tigers do the same thing and fight off any tiger that enters their domain. Hippopotamus stake out their territory and are one of the most dangerous animals on the planet to anyone that enters their territory and that includes other hippos. Wolves also defend their territory against any other pack that enters it. The examples of this behavior are too numerous to list.”

  “But all you’ve talked about are predators.”

  Charles nodded, “That’s true and most herbivores aren’t as territorial as most predators.” Charles paused and smiled slightly before asking, “Is your species a predator or a prey?” Nicole stared at Charles and didn’t know how to answer. Charles still had a smile when he said, “There’s an easy way to make that determination.”

  “How?”

  “The genetic pattern of most animals, and quite frankly sea life as well, reveals their status. A predator’s eyes are always on the front of their heads. They are used to spot prey and move in on it. Prey creatures mostly have their eyes on the sides of their heads to see any danger around them in all directions. They will also often have a keen sense of smell as well to detect any approaching predators.”

  “There are predators that also have a keen sense of smell,” the computer interjected for the first time during their conversation.”

  Charles nodded, “You’re right; however, a keen sense of smell is not the determining factor in making the determination.” He turned back to Nicole, “Am I wrong?”

  “Humans are omnivorous; they don’t just eat meat.”

  “True but look at all the other evidence.”

  “What other evidence.”

  “Look at the nature of how large groups of humans act toward each other. Nations will attack other nations if they violate their sovereign lands. Humans will also fight and often kill anyone who enters their homes without permission; remember the phrase a man’s home is his castle? That’s a lot closer to the truth than you can imagine. Even different races in humanity have conflicts over something as simple as skin color. And you can’t tell me there is any creature in the animal kingdom that can be more vicious than a human defending their territory.” Charles paused and then tilted his head and stated, “And, if your territory is perceived to be better than mine…” Nicole had no way to counter his argument. Every time she thought of something, she’d see something that showed her wrong. Charles was making an excellent case about how dangerous humanity was to not only themselves but to others.

  The computer remarked, “Once we saw this, it became clear that aggression toward others is baked into humans from all the way back to when life first appeared on this planet. It’s not something that can be genetically removed.”

  Charles waved a hand, “Oh, it can be removed but what you’d have left wouldn’t be anything close to human and would be easily destroyed by all the other creatures on this planet. Humanity has to have this behavior to survive.” Charles paused and then added, “But this trait is going to be what leads to the destruction of this planet.”

  Chapter Five

  “You can’t tell me that of all the civilizations you’ve seen out there in the universe that none of them are aggressive in nature.”

  “You’re right; there’s a large number of them. But none of them kill members of their own species and none of them are as good at killing as viciously as humans. If humanity
had star ships they would go out and remove a close by civilization simply because they wouldn’t want them so close to you; they could be a menace one day, you’d say to justify it.”

  Nicole wanted to change the subject, so she said, “You mentioned earlier that you took on the form of this Amug when you came down to the planet; how did you do that?”

  “I have the technology to change the outer layer of my appearance. That won’t work anymore though.”

  “Why not?”

  “When I changed my body to human, I lost the ability to do that. My previous body could change shape, this human body cannot.”

  “You never told me what happened to force you to change your body to human.”

  Charles raised his hands, “The atmospheric processor had a part go bad and in order to repair it, it had to be shut down and all the atmosphere evacuated from the ship.”

  “Don’t you have a spacesuit or something?”

  “Not that would function long enough to repair the processor. I was faced with a dilemma and the only answer was to change my body to one that could breathe the atmosphere on the planet I was trapped on…”

  “Or?” Nicole prompted.

  “Actually, that was the only option. However, if I genetically changed my physical structure, I could not change it back.”

  “Why not?”

  “The spore that made up my body could not be reproduced by the DNA chamber. Cosmos knows we’ve tried hard enough for over a billion years and didn’t come up with a way to do it.” Charles blew out a breath, “So, I changed my DNA to human and moved down to the planet to live until the computer could make the repair. It was decided that the ship would produce an atmosphere like this planet going forward instead of my former atmosphere.”

  “How long were you forced to remain on the planet?”

  “About ten thousand years or so.”

  “HOLY CRAP!”

  “Hey, it was a good time to be around. Homo Sapiens were the survivors of all the other hominids; they killed all the others and interbred with the Neanderthals. Civilizations were starting to spring up on the planet and I used the small ship to move around and explore what was going on. Like I told you, I’m incredibly curious and my species doesn’t notice the passage of time. I’m still doing it now; I’ve come to like living here.”

  • • •

  Grant looked at Graham Stewart on his communicator and asked, “How may I help you Graham.”

  “I need to change the date of our meeting.”

  Grant opened his computer and pulled up his calendar, “What date works for you?”

  “Three weeks from Monday is open.”

  “I’ll have to get back to you; I have another meeting on that date.”

  “Let me know what works for you.”

  Grant ended the call and turned back to his computer. The satellites would be taken out three weeks from Monday. He contacted Captain Kelly later in the day and gave him the date to round up the Opposition agents.

  • • •

  Lt. General Kelly looked at his Executive Officer and said, “We have the date.”

  “When?”

  “Three weeks from Monday. I need you to get everything organized and start moving the personnel out to get in place for the extractions.”

  “General…”

  Kelly held up a hand, “Call me Captain! It draws less attention than General.”

  Major Blackman snorted, “Sam, I don’t know why you insist on that. If I’m ever promoted to General, you can be sure I won’t be called Captain!”

  Sam shook his head, “Do you know what happened to my previous commander?”

  Jack’s eyes narrowed, “He died of a brain aneurism, didn’t he?”

  “He was four years younger than me and he went everywhere in a big Flyer with two-star flags flying on the bumpers telling everyone his importance. The autopsy revealed he was assassinated by injecting a drug under his fingernail. It happened in his home and his family never noticed anything unusual.” Jack stared at Sam and he said, “Why do you think I spend my days commanding a company of police officers? Outside of you and several others, no one knows my real rank. You better be careful what you wish for Jack; you might get it.”

  Jack said, “Yes Sir.”

  “Any way, your promotion has come through and you’re promoted to Colonel.”

  Jack smiled, “I think I’ll just continue to use the rank of Major.”

  “And I think that is very wise on your part Jack. I’m assigning you to command a company of security forces in Oklahoma. You can set up the extractions from there. We don’t have any Opposition Agents operating there and you should be free to set the operation up.”

  “Nothing ever happens in Oklahoma.”

  Sam smiled, “That’s going to change when you arrive there.”

  “What are you going to be doing Sir?”

  “Hey, hey, you outrank me now!” Jack laughed and smiled. Sam sat back in his chair and said, “I’m going to personally remove the Opposition agents in Washington. You will set up the operation to remove all the others.”

  “I’ll start the troops moving immediately.” Sam nodded and dismissed Jack. Won’t be long now.

  • • •

  Nicole’s eyes showed her wonder at what Charles said and she asked, “What was it like on Earth ten-thousand-years ago?”

  Charles stood up and got a bottled water out of the refrigerator. He took a swallow and sat back down, “Homo Sapiens had pretty much spread around the planet during the previous hundred and fifty thousand years. They learned that to stay in an area with a growing population was an invitation to be attacked by other humans. So smaller bands of humans moved away and sought areas that weren’t so dangerous. Over time, they were located on every continent except Antarctica. Matter of fact, before I moved down to the planet, a group of humans moved to Australia about fifty thousand years ago and became the first civilization on the planet. Their modern name is Aborigines.”

  “History says that the first civilization was located in the Middle East,” Nicole responded.

  “Aborigines settled into permanent communities, started growing crops, and had a common language forty thousand years ago. They even had the first written language. The first civilizations in the Middle East started about ten thousand-years ago. And the interesting thing was that there was an explosion in the numbers of civilizations around that time. Concurrently with the Middle East, civilizations in China and South America were appearing.”

  Nicole stared at Charles and he saw her doubt, “Look, about twelve thousand years ago, humans started farming. Instead of simply being hunters and gatherers, they learned how to plant crops. That allowed humans to remain in one place. There was never a need for permanent structures to live in before then because humans never stayed in one area; they were nomads. They followed the herds they prayed on and gathered any available seeds and edible plants. Now, they could remain in one place and it was starting to happen all over the planet about the same time. The ice age had ended, and Earth was warmer which provided a good environment for farming. It started slowly at first with groups of humans staying close to the fields they planted living in tents. Over time, permanent structures began being built and once that process started, small communities began appearing. Following them, cities made an appearance.” Charles paused and he sat back, “Even then, wars took place between the civilizations.”

  “Did you actually visit any of those first civilizations?’

  “I visited Sumer and looked around.”

  “YOU DID?!”

  “Yes.”

  “What were they like?”

  “Rather primitive and religious nuts. They organized their cities into city-states with their own independent governments ruled by kings. I can tell you that the Sumerians really knew how to throw a party!”

  “Really?”

  “Their main gods were fertility gods and they took it seriously. Every city had its own special deity an
d a pyramid was built in the center of the city where religious rituals were performed. Anyway, I walked around their communities during their religious celebrations and I was amazed at the things I saw taking place in the streets. I settled down in a city called Ur and opened a business as a faith healer. Many of them wrote about their behavior on clay tablets and put them out in front of their homes. Their behavior was explicitly described on the tablets; I guess they were advertising for the next celebration.”

  “We’ve not been able to translate Cuneiform.”

  “I’ll provide you with a translation of the most common terms if you want.”

  “Get out of here!”

  Charles shrugged, “I feel I must warn you that most of the surviving clay tablets aren’t suitable for young readers. Even the ones collected from government facilities often had rules demanding the populations put all their efforts into partying during the ritual celebrations.” Nicole stared at Charles and he smiled, “Needless to say, their populations increased rather quickly. When I left Ur, the population was more than fifty thousand.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  “The computer informed me that a civilization was building rather huge stone structures and that I might find it interesting.”

  “You’re talking about Egypt.”

  “I am. I left Ur and headed toward the Nile River in what is now called North Africa.”

  “There are some wackos that insist aliens took part in building the Pyramids.”

  Charles smiled, “They’re right, in a manner of speaking.”