by Donal Myrick
Klarrio replied, “Yes!” The translator even applied emphasis to his response.
Max said, speaking to Klarrio, “Okay, we have a lot to talk about. We need to give you a quick overview of what has transpired in the last two thousand years, and a bit about how the world is today. Then you need to tell us all about your selves. This may take a while. How many of you are here?”
“There are sixty of us, but only seven of us are awake now. Five are here, and two are inside.”
Max asked, “What do you call your selves?” We refer to ourselves as ‘Humans’.”
Xyllio replied, “We are known as the ‘Pollomarians’.”
Max thought to himself, “I wonder if Pollomarian has anything to do with Apollo.” Then he said aloud, “I suggest that we go one on one, and just start telling each other how things are now and what has happened. You know, a quick history lesson. Do your translators interconnect so that what one learns the others will know also?”
“Yes.”
With that, Spider and Peggy squared off with Allaria and Gharrizia, and the four guys ganged up on Xyllio, Klarrio, and Tarbonio. They spent the next four hours talking about everything that came to mind. Peggy talked a lot about world geography, the countries that currently exist, their various governments, conflicts, different peoples, different religions, wars that had occurred, and something about world trade. Spider talked about different languages, different cultures, the weather, how we travel these days, and of course, the way we educate our kids. Max and Ted talked about science, computers, engineering, technology, nuclear energy, space flight, communications, and of course, politics.
Meanwhile, the alien translation devices were becoming more and more fluent in English.
About four hours later, everyone was mentally exhausted. Peggy suggested, “Why don’t we take a break? I, for one, am famished!”
That brought up an interesting question, so Peggy asked, “What do you all eat?”
Allaria answered, “I think we metabolize much the same things as humans do. We have had to improvise somewhat down here. The river has always provided a variety of fish. If fish didn’t get washed down here from the surface, I don’t believe that we could have survived. That has been our main source of protein. There are other creatures in the water which we also consume, but they are not plentiful. We have modified the plants that were down here so that they are now edible, and that is what we have survived on for two thousand years.”
“How come there were green plants down here in the first place? That doesn’t seem possible.”
“That is part of our story. This hasn’t always been a cave. I’ll let Xyllio explain.”
As Xyllio began relating their history, Bufford unpacked a half dozen MRE’s. Ted asked, “Would you like to share our food? I am sure it is a great departure from what you are used to.”
The aliens looked at one another, and one of them said, “Yes, we would like that. We will have to be careful to ensure that it won’t harm us. We have tuned our bodies very carefully to use the meager food sources that are available to us here.”
Bufford said, “I believe that all of these MRE’s are the same. They can be ready in a few minutes. Ladies, why don’t you take charge here? I am sure your hosting skills far exceed that of any of us guys.”
Spider remarked, “Knowing you as I do, I am certain that you are right.”
Off to one side of the meeting area was a long low table. Peggy and Spider arranged the MRE’s on that table and began heating the food.
Peggy asked Gharrizia, “Do you all have plates and eating utensils?”
“Yes, we do,” Gharrizia replied simply as she disappeared into a nearby structure. Shortly later, she reappeared with an armload of bowls, saucers, and a variety of small spoons.
“These will do nicely,” Peggy said as she prepared to portion out the contents of the MRE’s. “Let’s make this a multicourse meal.” She prepared several cheese and cracker hors d'oeuvres and passed them around for the aliens to sample.
The aliens all had rather small indistinct mouths, so when they ate, it seemed like they were just nibbling. Tarbonino was the first to try a bite. He nibbled away, then paused and said, “This is incredible!” He then said something to his peers that didn’t come through the translator, but it must have had the connotation of ‘You must try this!’ because they all reached for a cracker at the same time. The aliens obviously required much smaller portions than the humans, because they took very little and nibbled on it slowly. They tried all of the ‘delicacies’ contained in the MREs and seemed to enjoy them far more than one could have expected.
Xyllio said, “Your food is very good. We have never eaten anything like this. Is this what you eat every day?”
“No, no,” explained Peggy, “this is expedition style food. This food lasts for a long time without spoiling, it is easy to prepare, and has lots of energy. If you like this, then you all are in for a real treat when we can share with you some real food like we eat every day.”
CHAPTER 21
Eureka
When the cavers began to chow down on what was left of the MRE’s, which was most of everything, Xyllio began to tell about their history, much of which he had already related. “We are a very old and long-lived species. We come from a planet over twelve hundred and twenty light-years from Earth. It takes us over sixteen-hundred of your years to make each trip. Our Kind has been watching and interacting with humans for over ten thousand years. We long ago recognized human’s potential, and have sought to provide guidance to help you develop a moral basis and rules for living so that you wouldn’t destroy yourselves long before you as a species reach your potential. From what you have just told us, we have not been very successful in this mission. Life is very common throughout the galaxy, but sentient species that develop high levels of technology are rare. And, those that do often self-destruct. That is why we chose to intervene on behalf of your species. About four thousand years ago, another old and long-lived species discovered your planet. You would think of them as reptilian. They are known to us as the Maleoron. Unlike us, their evolution was stagnant and had been so for a hundred thousand years and maybe a lot longer. Their interest in you humans was not benign. They saw in humans a potential for rejuvenating their species. Their interest was in mining your DNA and the DNA of other earth species. You probably do not realize it, but this planet has the most diverse array of species of anywhere known to us in the galaxy. The Maleoron had no interest in the inalienable rights, feelings, or future of any of the denizens of this planet. They were only interested in exploiting the vast DNA resources found here. But, that is not all, they began conducting genetic modification experiments trying to see if certain components of your DNA could be incorporated into theirs. Apparently, your DNA and theirs are not compatible, and the results of their experimentation were not very successful. This was very sloppy science and resulted in the creation of some very unearthly creatures, many of which are surely described in your world’s mythology.”
Spider said to Max, “Don’t say it!”
Max replied, “I was just going to say that that explains a number of things that have confounded archeologist for ages.”
Xyllio continued, “We felt that their actions were wholly unethical, morally wrong, evil, and could not be tolerated. We went to war with them in an attempt to drive them away from this earth. This war lasted for nearly a millennium before we were successful. We are sure that they retreated with a trove of stolen earth DNA, and what they are doing with that information, nobody knows other that it probably is not good. Within a few hundred years after they departed, we managed to eliminate all vestiges of the creatures that they had created except for one. That one was a genetically modified human. A little time bomb left just for us. As of the time when we became trapped down here, we were not able to detect which humans were modified and which were not. But these modified humans were enabled to detect our presence, to seek us out, and to kill us. That ab
ility is built into their DNA as a natural instinct and is passed from generation to generation. We suspect that they found us here and used a weapon left behind by the Maleoron to attack us. This area here was a deep rift valley isolated from the upper surrounding jungle. There were ninety of us down here with two ships studying the unique biology of the area. One of our ships with thirty souls on board departed. Shortly after they rounded the corner into another part of the rift, there was a huge earthquake, and the walls of the rift collapsed inward. As the rift began to collapse, there was a tremendous explosion, and we know by the signature of the explosion that it was the ship that had just departed. We were shielded somehow from the explosive effects, and we found ourselves trapped here, and we have been here ever since. We don’t know for sure that there was a Maleoron weapon or not or if it was used to cause the earthquake or not. That is our speculation. We do know that the explosion was caused by the ship’s anti-matter reactor being compromised.”
Ted said, practically shouting, “Anti-matter! We didn’t consider anti-matter. We considered every type of nuclear device we could think of, including neutron bombs, and the possible collision with a micro black hole, but not anti-matter. That is why there was no residual radiation. I can’t wait to tell Dr. Fred. He is going to be amazed, just like the rest of us, maybe even more so.”
Max asked, “So, you still have a space ship down here, right?” Xyllio gestured off to his right, “Yes, we have our ship, but it isn’t a space ship. It is a laboratory ship designed specifically to support terrestrial explorations. All of us are scientists, what you would call biologists. The resources that we have in that ship enabled us to genetically modify the plants native to the rift so as to make them edible to us. The ship also provides us power, power that will last for several thousand more years. However, the ship was not equipped with tools that would have enabled us to dig our way out of here.”
“We would love to see your ship; will you show it to us?”
“Yes, in due time. It is right over there. We have built various structures around it to expand our living and working spaces.”
Max’s mind was buzzing now, and he persisted, “Are there more of your kind still here on earth watching us?”
“Yes, of course, that is if they are still here.”
“And why did they not try to rescue you from down here?”
“I am sure that they did try, but without detecting any sign of our survival, I am sure they eventually gave up. We had no means of transmitting a signal through this dense rock, so we could not alert them to our presence.”
Jim asked, “Did you try ultra-low frequency?”
“We would have liked to have tried that, but as I said, we had no means to generate such a signal. There was also the danger that had we been able to set up some sort of beacon, the wrong people could have detected it, and that would not have boded well for us. We felt that our best strategy was to simply wait and hope that someday someone friendly would find us.”
Max continued exploring out loud an idea that was forming in his mind. “If those genetically modified humans were, in fact, responsible for your demise here, then the knowledge of that fact and this location will have been passed down through the generations to the present. That might explain the mission of the Russians. One or more of them might be descendants of the original modified humans. I’m going to refer to them as GMH’s from now on. And you know what, I’ve got two candidates whom I think might be GMH’s, Vassilov and Kuznetsov.”
Ted remarked, “From the very beginning, they seemed to know a whole lot more than what they were sharing with us. It seemed to me that they were looking for something specific, and they didn’t want us to find it before they did.”
Klarrio asked, “Tell us more about these two individuals. From what part of the world do they come?”
“Well, they both are Russians. At first, Sergei was very abrupt and was dogmatic that he was in charge and that his mission should take precedence over ours. However, after we had mutual discussions, his attitude softened towards us, and we worked out a mutual cooperation and support agreement. I think he realized that we were not a threat to his mission and that he thought he could exploit our skills. Shortly after we made our agreement, Kuznetsov arrived on the scene and replaced Sergei, and he abrogated our agreement. Since then, our relations have been very frosty, so to speak. I think Kuznetsov would just as soon eliminate us, and he probably would do so if he thought it wouldn’t create an international incident and draw a lot of unwanted attention to his activities. Sergei was immediately recalled to Moscow when Kuznetsov arrived on the scene.”
After hearing this information, the aliens began buzzing intently among themselves with their translators muted. After a few moments, Xyllio said, “The Russians must not learn of our existence here. It is likely that they pose an extreme danger to us, and by association to all of you as well. It is also possible that they are friendly, but it will be difficult to determine which they are. Most likely, they are not friendly. You must find a way to shield all knowledge of our existence from them. Do you think this will be possible?”
“In the interest of self-preservation, we will dang sure do our best.”
Max said, “Going forward, we need a plan. I see three things we need to do. First, we have forged a route down to here. If we could do it on our meager budget, others, who are much better financed than us, can do it as well. So, we need to block this route and find another one or else secure it in some manner so that no one else can find or use it. Second, we need to find or generate justification for our continued exploration of this cave system. So far, we have sold ourselves as being strictly spelunkers, and obviously, we need to keep that appearance. And third, we need to convince the Russians that there is nothing more to see down here. They already know there was an explosion, and now I believe that they know what kind of explosion it was. They are seeking confirmation. Some of them may also suspect exactly what we have found. We need to be able to convince the Russians and the world that the extension of the cave beyond the pit so far is just a maze of tortuous belly crawling passage through a massive pile of breakdown and that so far it has led to nothing. We will need to conceal the detailed map we have generated thus far. We will need to make a convincing decoy in case our mapper gets confiscated or hacked.”
Max asked, “Does anyone else have more ideas?”
Peggy said, “Let’s make a really good map of this area to see if there is a possibility of finding or making an alternative entrance. I just have a funny feeling that we are not all that far from the cliff face on the north. Also, remember, I have Charlie with me. I think we need to take a good look at the top of this huge room. It looks like it may be a thousand feet high in some places. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could find a hole up there so that we could just rappel directly into here.”
Jim agreed, “That would indeed be very cool.” Jim continued, “Also, I need to remind everyone that we need to get back to the reality of the present. We have just about run through most of our supplies, so at least some of us need to go back to the pit and get another week or so of provisions sent down.”
Max said, “You are right. It is easy to lose track of time down here, and with all the flood of information and events which we are now in the middle of, it is easy to get distracted from what we need to be doing in the here and now. I suggest that we four guys go back to the pit and do the heavy lifting in regard to hauling more supplies back here. Peggy, can you take over the mapping chores?”
“Can do.”
“And can you and Spider start work on faking up a decoy map that will obscure the existence of this part of the cave?”
“That part will be fun, faking is what we women do best,” Peggy replied while doing a fist bump with Spider.
“Xyllio, I hope that you will be thinking of ways that we can best work together as we go forward. In particular, be thinking of ways that we can secure the route down to here.”
“There i
s so much we need to tell you, and there is so much that we need to catch up on in regard to the past two millennia. I must also stress that I believe that we all are in extreme danger right now. We have some tools, but they are totally insufficient for creating a new entrance. However, they may be sufficient to help you in blocking a passage if the passage isn’t too large. We used these tools to shape our structures that you see here.”
“What else can you do with your tools?”
“We can move small boulders, and we can melt and mold rock.”
“You can melt rocks?”
“Yes, but it takes some time. The device’s main purpose is that of a portable energy source. It is very powerful and versatile in that role.”
“How large are these tools? To be useful, we must be able to get them through a crack, not much larger than my body. Will that be possible?”
“Yes, they are both smaller than you.”
“That sounds great. We will need to position them in the upper passage and make some preliminary preparations so that the passage can be closed on short notice. Also, we need to equip and teach you how to climb and descend using our ropes.”
Jim said, “I’d like to see these tools in action so as to get an idea as to whether they are capable of doing what will need to be done.”
Xyllio said, “Let’s go over to one of our growing areas, and I can demonstrate them.”
The group quickly walked down one of the paths for about three hundred yards to a small garden area plush with a variety of plants. All around the plants were lights glowing brightly with a yellowish-white light. The color of the light was obviously carefully tuned to the needs of the growing plants because the plants were flourishing with a vigor that would be the envy of the best of any terrestrial farmer. From a small shed, Xyllio pulled a small device that resembled a small wheelbarrow, except that it had no wheels, it hovered instead. Jim went over and pushed down on the bucket of the device and immediately felt it respond with an equal but opposite force.