When the Major had called a break I made sure someone was getting Captain Silva whatever he wanted (I think he asked for an apple) but I still had questions and I was, well… impatient.
The main thing I wanted to know was exactly how long Captain Silva had been on Earth. If he really was Captain Silva as he’d said then he would have needed to enter the military 12 years ago just like it said in the personnel file that Julie had shown me on her smartpad.
He also looked more muscular than the other Noridian males; why was that? Were the two cultures physically different? Also, how had he managed to infiltrate the mission without the Noridians knowing who he was?
Unfortunately Captain Silva didn’t want to address them, it least not immediately. He politely agreed that they were good questions and that he would answer them but it was part of a larger answer that Major Reagan deserved to be present for.
“Ok,” I said. “At least tell me one thing that I believe I already know the answer to… there are other Coridians on Earth, aren’t there?”
After hesitating a moment he looked at me and said, “Yes doctor, there are.”
∆∆∆
Once the leadership team returned and shortly after the questions and explanations had started Captain Silva declared it would be a good time to jump into the long explanation he’d been promising. As he was saying this he gave me a long glance that seemed to say, ‘Here’s where you’ll get all your answers.’ At least I hope that’s what it meant.
“The first thing you need to put in perspective,” he started. “Is just how incredibly old the galaxy is.
“The universe was created 13.7 billion years ago in the Big Bang and what you call the Milky Way galaxy coalesced a half a billion years later. Your sun didn’t form until 4.6 billion years ago so your solar system wasn’t even around for two-thirds of galactic history and Homo sapiens didn’t evolve until around 200,000 years ago – so Homo sapiens have missed everything.
“The galaxy is old; and your part of it, out here towards the edge of the Orion spiral, is relatively new. If you’ll forgive me for saying so these are the backwaters of galactic society.
“Some of what Jaki told you about history is correct and some of it isn’t; and there’s a lot more she just left out. So I’m going to give you the broad brushstrokes and we can clear up the details with your specialists at a later time.
“First of all a little over 500 million of your years ago there was life in Earth’s oceans but that was about it. The people you have dubbed the First Prometheans finally made their way to this backwater at about the same time and started their bioforming project. They seeded the earth with what has now become the common genetic ancestry of the galaxy. Your scientists cannot fully explain this sudden expansion of life but do have a name for it; they call it the Cambrian Explosion. This much of what Jaki told you is true.
“It is also true that this small portion of our galaxy was invaded by others around 66 million years ago. You probably owe them a big thank you because they put your evolution back on the ‘right’ course when they bombarded your planet and created an extinction event. Our common genome, for reasons we don’t yet understand, has a propensity to evolve two legged primates that look remarkably similar to each other but it doesn’t always happen that way. Up until that point Earth’s evolution was off track.
“We suspect that this was the original attraction for the ‘Chextigans’; perhaps because of the original evolutionary divergence Earth’s primates were developing differently. So 200,000 years ago the Chextigans did something that is proscribed and all but forbidden by The Accord; they genetically altered Homo erectus into Homo sapiens.”
“Why did they do that?” I couldn’t help but asking.
Captain Silva expelled a large breath and said, “We don’t really know. Maybe because they thought they were helping Earth back to the right track; maybe just to see if they could. No one really knows, even the Noridian’s aren’t clear on why and they did it.”
“Ah, Captain Silva,” interjected Anzio. “I’m afraid you just contradicted yourself.”
“No, Dr. Spelini. This is the part that Jaki mislead you on; Chextigan is the home world that the Noridian Dynasty evolved from over half a million years ago. She tried to confuse the issue but it was the Noridian Dynasty that placed a colony on Earth.”
“So this is where the part about not being able to afford to blemish their reputation comes in,” said Anzio.
Smiling, Captain Silva said, “You’re way ahead of me Dr. Spelini.”
“Still,” Anzio said. “7,000 years is a long time. Would there really still be these repercussions?”
At the same time Anzio was speaking I blurted out, “Their civilization is that old!”
Looking around at a number of puzzled faces Captain Silva responded, “Why don’t I finish the narrative so everybody understands and address those points as they come up…”
“Approximately 27,000 of your years ago the Noridian Dynast started becoming more powerful. As your planet has experienced they have always held a fascination for genetics and they were able to present to The Accord some breakthrough work in this area. Not long afterwards and as I mentioned to Dr. Decker their work in Temporal Physics was recognized.
“Around 5,000 BC by the Earth Calendar, the Noridians revisited earth we think for the sole purpose of covering their tracks. As we said, what they had done crossed some of the strongest conventions of The Accord. Maybe they were becoming more politically ambitious and started cleaning all the skeletons out of their closet or maybe they knew Earth could be a huge tripwire but for whatever reason they were determined to wipe out Homo sapiens.”
“The Flood,” I said.
“Yes Dr. Spencer. The great somewhat mythical flood that all ancient Earth cultures seem to have recorded as legend.”
“So Noah really did need an Ark,” Julie commented.
“The original Noridian colony had been centered in the Black Sea region and by manipulating the overflowing of the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea basin they wiped out a tremendously large percentage of their work. It is also believed that they used weapons of mass destruction in many other areas to eliminate the living evidence. We believe that these events are the basis for many of the ancient legends of gods and the wars of gods; particularly around the city states of Sumer.
“And just to make sure that any Homo sapien survivors wouldn’t flourish they released a retrovirus that spread worldwide and infected everything.
“Shortly after, their work done, they left; confident that Homo sapiens were a dead or dying species,” Captain Silva concluded.
Major Reagan then interjected with a great question, “What I don’t understand is how the Coridian Dynasty would know any of this?”
Anzio was nodding his head; apparently seeing the same gap in logic.
Captain Silva looked down, then after a moment looked up and said, “It’s tougher than I anticipated; not being trusted after being one of you for so long. I know you have to regard me with skepticism and in your position I would do the same. You’re watching closely for every potential inconsistency and all I can do is agree to be an open book. Some things however won’t make any sense without context but let me address this question directly.
“There are really two reasons,” continued Captain Silva. “You were told about the Stasis Bubble that shut down; you were lied to about when it shut down. It was almost 280 of your years ago and we were intrigued by the star map we found. We decided to investigate your Solar System and were fascinated by what we discovered. I promise I will come back and explain this but for now I must insist that you let me continue the narrative.
“Anyway, we were so fascinated that we established a secret outpost on Earth in the year 1749.”
“Where?” Major Reagan said immediately.
After only a moment’s hesitation Captain Silva said, “France.”
“Why France?” Here I was interrupting again. “And are y
ou still there?”
“Yes, our Head of Mission as you would call her is still based there. As to why… well, France either fights its wars on the soil of other nations or surrenders very quickly when invaded, it’s politics are always in turmoil, it is an industrial nation with easy access to the Western World, the French Sûreté Nationale is a very competent police force but so infused with politics that it is easily controlled or manipulated, and quite frankly the French can get away with doing crazy things because nobody takes them seriously and the world expects them to.”
I couldn’t argue with any of that so I just nodded.
“Over the years as we spread out into your civilization we were stunned to find Noridian based lettering, numbers, and mathematical symbols on a number of your ancient artifacts. What you call Cuneiform was obviously originally founded on it and we saw evidence of Noridian influence as far away as the American Southwest and Peru.”
What he was saying was very consistent with everything I knew about the history of man. Privately many in archeology, anthropology, and related fields spoke of the seemingly inexplicable similarities of ancient civilizations; many times separated by thousands of miles and even thousands of years. Of course most serious researchers would never discuss these issues in the open; no one wanted to be labeled as one of the ‘Ancient Astronaut’ kooks.
“Based on that we launched a covert operation into the heart of Noridian civilization itself. Over time we were able to fill in the blanks and confirm the events I just described to you.
“We had no warning when a few years ago the Noridian’s showed up and towed the Laze Fair One space platform to Neptune. We were concerned, quite frankly, that if our covert operations have been compromised, we could have led them here.”
There was a lot of silence around the room; I don’t think anyone knew what to say to that.
Of course I’ve always had a lightning sharp intellect that many times lets me process information faster so I took the opportunity to interject more of my own questions but – Julie beat me to it.
“Why would the Noridians release a retrovirus instead of a virus and what did it do?” she asked.
∆∆∆
If you’ve ever had to give bad news to someone you know how uncomfortable it can make you. Some people struggle to find the words or the right approach and tend to beat around the bush, while other people prefer to just say it straight out and get it over with, thinking this to be less cruel.
And if it’s really bad news most people have to gear themselves up for the attempt.
This is what I was watching Captain Silva go through. He was sitting on the edge of his plush seat in the hub, elbows on his knees, hands steepled with forefingers massaging the middle of his forehead.
“Please don’t kill the messenger,” I heard him mutter. And then he looked directly at a number of us and in a much stronger voice said, “As you probably suspect Dr. Schein they used a retrovirus because they wanted to affect your DNA. To this point the Noridians had been careful not to bombard your planet with asteroids or do anything else that could leave a long term signature pointing to their interference. Even the evidence of multiple nuclear blasts disappears over time, but a virus can mutate and potentially become deadly for all primates. The last thing the Noridians needed was a time bomb of engineered viral destruction waiting to attack the next dynasty that happened along.
“So instead they chose to be much more subtle. Your planet already had a history of evolutionary divergence and the Noridians were quite skilled in genetic manipulation. They simply altered the eukaryotic DNA replication enzymes so that Earth life could no longer replicate the sequences present at the ends of the chromosomes. To offset this, they added telomeres to the ends of those same chromosomal strands as well as an enzyme called telomerase. So now when your cells replicate, the DNA information lost at the end of the strands are only telomeres and you have telomerase to replace it in critical cells.”
“Oh my God,” said Julie.
I quickly looked around for Toni because this was her specialty and I wanted to get a read on her reaction but when my eyes found her I realized that she was staring at the ground.
“What does that mean, in English?” I heard Major Reagan say rather sternly.
“It means Major that the telomere/telomerase addition was only a Band-Aid, and by definition Band-Aids are meant to be temporary. In plain English, it means that the Noridians artificially and significantly shortened the lifespan of every single life-form on planet Earth – including Homo sapiens.”
Chapter 27
Major Mathew Reagan, US Army
It just keeps getting better.
If what Silva was saying is correct the Noridians attempted genocide and that means war under any definition but why had their strategy changed? What were they up to now?
Also, why hadn’t their plan to shorten our lifespan worked? I didn’t understand half of what was being discussed but I was pretty sure that this genetic thing was supposed to have wiped us out. We were still here and how much older were we supposed to be anyway?
The Coridians seemed to be on our side; why? What did they want from us? And even though it seemed almost trivial compared to everything else I wanted to know how Captain Silva had infiltrated the Earth Team, let alone the US Army.
I had always prided myself on being able to handle stress. I had both led and lost men in battle. Those responsibilities will be with me forever but I will not shirk from my duty; I hold no doubts that I would do it again with the strong moral conviction that I was upholding my sworn oath to the Constitution of the United States.
The military puts you through a crucible; if you can’t handle the pressure they cull you from command quickly. Learning how to handle that pressure had years ago cost me my wife; one of the bigger errors in my life that I had learned to take responsibility for. Fortunately, the military is also very good at eventually teaching you how to handle that pressure by giving you rigorous training in almost every possible scenario; almost every scenario. There was no way to have anticipated or trained for what we were experiencing now.
I think every head of household knows the weight of being responsible for others. My father was a small business owner and the whole family looked up to him. Cousins and in-laws would come to him to make everything right; to advise them and save them from folly.
I remember a period of a few years when my father lost his business. He started and failed several times before he got another one up and running but he was still there for everyone through the process. It wasn’t until years later that I understood he had almost lost everything and what it had cost him personally. Looking back I realize that this was when his hair went grey and his health first started suffering, but he did his duty.
In the end I think that’s the choice all of us make; we can do what we know is right, or not. I had a responsibility to my team, to my country, and to my planet. It would be easy to ‘tuck tail’ and run home to Earth; there would be no shortage of politicians willing to take command and make all the decisions, but I was on the front line and people were depending on me. It really was that simple.
There was a lot more we needed to know; whether we were going to like hearing it or not.
Echoing my thoughts perfectly Iron Jaw spoke up, “Well something obviously went wrong; we’re still here. How much shorter were our lives supposed to be?”
Letting out a deep breath Captain Silva said, “The retrovirus worked as designed. We believe it probably took several generations for all organisms to adapt but Earth DNA has been changed and the RNA from the retrovirus is no longer present as a ‘smoking gun’.
“The Noridians thought that if Homo sapiens lived short lives they wouldn’t have time to be creative and advance technologically. You need to understand that galaxy-wide, things move very slowly; civilizations develop slowly. If you drastically cut everyone’s lifespan then you theoretically cut everyone’s ability to progress. The Noridians fully expe
cted mankind to stagnate and die off.”
“But that didn’t happen,” I said.
“No sir,” replied Silva. “Instead, you Earthers have become more dynamic, almost frantic in your rush to achieve things during your lifespan. It is totally the opposite of what anyone would have expected and that is why we became so fascinated with you when we came here almost three hundred years ago.”
“The Law of Unintended Consequences,” I heard Dr. Spencer mutter.
“Captain,” I said. “Are you telling us that we’re the only people in the galaxy that don’t live as long as Coridians or Noridians?”
“Yes sir; that is what I’m saying.”
“Captain, just how long do you live?”
“Theoretically we’re not really sure. People die, quite often in fact, just not from what you call ‘old age’. Typically a person in this galaxy can expect to live for thousands of years.”
Here Comes Earth: Emergence Page 18