by James Wilson
FIRST ARTIFACT
The stellar-dimming phenomenon, combined with the knowledge that there was intelligent life out in space and continued improvements in Earth’s economy, spurred a global renewed interest in developing a space program. In the year 3830, the three largest regions on the planet pooled their resources and formed a group called Frontier. The group’s mission was to develop a space-based transportation system. The goal of the new system was first to put satellites into Earth’s orbit, then to conduct manned missions in orbit. Eventually, the Frontier Group wanted to be able to go to and from Earth orbit and both the Moon and Mars. They also wanted to build up an arsenal of observation platforms throughout the solar system.
The first thing Frontier did was to establish an archive of old photographs of the Milky Way Galaxy. In 3837, they built and launched a space-based telescope that would take pictures of the Milky Way for comparison against the old pictures. They wanted to determine the prevalence of the dimming phenomenon. The photographic survey of the Milky Way was completed in 3843, and by the end of 3845, the number of dimmed stars had nearly doubled to 489.
The latter half of the thirty-ninth century saw a vigorous return to space by Frontier. In the 3880s and 3890s, permanent colonies were established on both the Moon and Mars. Construction of a second Mars colony was completed in the year 3898, and that same year the second Moon colony was started. On both the Moon and Mars, the first colonies were geared toward exploration and simply learning to live away from the Earth. The second colony at both places had more of a military purpose. Frontier had established a defense unit, which later became Earth Guard.
The first Mars-based colony had a population of over 200, consisting mostly of scientists, engineers, researchers, and their families. In 3906, a mining engineer named Stewart Adams was looking at rocks in a small crater on the southern hemisphere of Mars. One rock did not look like any of the others in the area. After photographing it and recording its location, he enlisted the help of his wife and partner, Stephanie, who had often accompanied him on his outings.
“Babe, can you please give me a hand with this rock? I want to take it to the lab so I can run some tests on it.”
The rock was not very stable, and small pieces broke off as they tried to move it. When it moved a little bit out of its resting place, Stephanie said “Oh, my God! Stewart, you are not going to believe this! Come look.”
On the underside of the rock were engravings that looked like text. As far as they knew, humans had never explored this area, and the text didn’t look like anything from Earth.
Back at the lab, the rock proved to be most unusual. After comparing the relative abundances of a few radioactive isotopes, Stewart could only guess that the rock was more than seven billion years old. They also found that the rock had a variety of complex, long-chained organic molecules, amino acids, monocarboxylic acids and TNA (Threose nucleic acid). Some consider TNA to be a possible precursor to RNA and DNA. TNA contains threose instead of ribose or deoxyribose, as in RNA and DNA.
CHAPTER 25
SECOND CONTACT
After more than 700 years of silence and several satellite replacements, in 4221 the ELQ space-based observational system picked up another extraterrestrial signal. This one emanated from a binary system near M2-9, the Butterfly Nebula. The intermittent signal lasted for three days. Over the next few years of constantly watching, the signal did not return, but it was established that two planets orbited the binary system. One of the planets would be too close to the stars and was most likely too hot for liquid water or life. The second, however, was about the right distance and the most likely source of the signal.
Shortly after First Contact, a method was developed to measure the atmospheric composition of extra solar planets called Artificial Partial Eclipse Stellar Spectrograph (APESS). An APESS analysis determined that the second planet had an atmosphere that contained both water and oxygen among several other gases.
APESS works by placing a programmable screen over the aperture of the telescope. The screen is programmed to allow light into the scope only at specific areas. In this case, light is allowed to pass into the telescope only from around the area of the star where the planet is passing in front. This is the artificial partial eclipse. In this way, light from the star that passes through the thin atmosphere of the planet is selected, and most of the rest of the star’s light is rejected. By doing a spectrographic analysis of the light, the composition of the atmosphere can be determined.
Six years after receiving the original signal, in the year 4227, there was a reoccurrence of the signal from the planet. This time the signal lasted for twenty-two days. Because of the repeatable pattern of the signal fading in and out over that time, it was assumed that the planet had about an 18-hour rotation. Unlike the First Contact planet, from the perspective of Earth, this planet passed directly in front of and behind its pair of stars over the course of its orbit.
The signal returned for a third time in 4230. This time it lasted for four months before fading away, while the planet passed behind the pair of stars, returning for another six months after coming back into view. The signal returned once again in 4231 and lasted for a little more than three years. In 4237, the signal appeared again. This time it lasted for fifty-one years with its characteristic periodicity. In 4288, the planet passed behind the binary system on its normal schedule and the signal disappeared like normal, but four months later it did not reappear as it had in the past. The signal was gone and never returned.
Following in the footsteps of the work done by Zarek in the 3470s, several attempts were made to try to understand the information contained in the signal, but no one was able to generate anything that made sense. An astronomer named Jennifer Rose McCann developed the most widely accepted explanation in 4242. She suggested that much like here on Earth in the 1960s, the life forms on the planet may have sent missions to their Moon and eventually colonized their Moon, and what we were seeing was the communication to the colony. Most people agreed that without any additional information, that was about as good an explanation as anything else fitting the pattern.
CHAPTER 26
THE EARK
A little more than thirteen billion years ago, the life form living in the super massive black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way Denigrate Centurm, was awakened from her multitrillion year slumber by an explosion. The area previously devoid of any low-density gas was enriched with an enormous amount of hydrogen and helium gas. Some of the vast quantities of gas released from the explosion eventually formed an accretion disk around many of the black holes in the area, including the Milky Way Denagrata Centurm’s black hole. The infusion of gas allowed the Centurm to begin to feed for the first time in trillions of years, causing them to wake up. To the Centurm, anything less dense than a neutron star is considered low density.
Without an ample supply of gas, the Centurm first resorted to cannibalism until there was only one colony left. After that, they went dormant and slept until there was something to consume to provide them with fuel to live and move. When consumed, low-density gas could be compressed by the Centurm and used in one of two ways. The compression process, much like nuclear fusion, could be used to convert some of the mass into energy. They could use that energy for propulsion, or they could compress the low-density material into high-density material and add the mass to themselves to grow even larger and more massive.
A little over two billion years after waking up, the Milky Way Denagrata Centurm discovered that they either had to move out of the way or risk being consumed by the much larger Andromeda Denagrata Centurm, which was heading in their direction.
In response to their impending doom, the Milky Way Denagrata Centurm built the Magna Turris Muros in an effort to collect the energy contained in the low density gas that now surrounded them. The gas would be used as an energy source to propel them out of the path of the approaching Andromeda Centurm. They selected twelve solar systems, all within ten t
housand light years of their location. Each of the selected systems had to have a star that was between .8 and 1.5 times the mass of the Sun. Much larger than that and the star would have too short a life span. The chosen systems also needed to have a planet that orbited that star at a distance that would allow for liquid water to exist on the planet’s surface.
The first system that the Denagrata Centurm selected to receive the Magna Turris Muros was a star with a mass of about 1.1 times the Sun’s mass. The life forms that would later evolve on this planet, the Eark, would come to call that star Mae.
Mae is located only about 7,000 light years away from the center of the Milky Way and has a planet that met all the requirements. Its inhabitants would later name that planet Timouri. Timouri takes a little over thirty hours to rotate on its axis and about nineteen months to revolve around Mae. Timouri is a mostly watery planet about twice the size of Earth that gave rise to the Eark about one billion years ago. Mae and Timouri are now about ten billion years old. If left alone, Mae would now be getting close to the end of its life and would soon be lost. Using their star-harvesting machine to slow the rate of the solar fusion reaction at its core, the Eark were able to extend Mae’s life expectancy by another fifteen billion years.
The Eark are a kind of bird-like creature that evolved from an aquatic species. They have two feet, a large strong tail, and wing-like arms with five highly dexterous fingers. They almost look like something that could have evolved on Earth. While there are differences in their DNA, the differences are minimal, and their cell structure works much the same as ours.
The Eark’s method of reproduction is also much like on Earth, except that each individual has both male and female reproductive organs. While they tend to form mating pairs for life, individuals are also capable of impregnating themselves and having their own clone child. More often though, they form couples that often impregnate each other simultaneously and about a year later, each gives birth to a baby at around the same time.
The Eark have developed many ways of communicating. Their main method is high-frequency sounds that they made. They also communicate very efficiently with facial and or finger gestures. Their mastery of technology and biology only added to their ability to talk among themselves.
While maintaining the ability to breathe underwater like their ancestors, the Eark moved first to land and slowly evolved wings for gliding. Eventually they developed the ability to fly. There was not much land for them to move onto, only a handful of scattered islands and several outcroppings of high mountain ranges. As their technology improved, they began to develop their own floating surfaces that eventually became floating cities.
The Eark’s’ religious beliefs are far different than those on Earth. Their one religion is accepted by all as simply a matter of fact and is woven into their understanding of the universe. There is only one religion among the Eark. Unheard of among humans, there was never a single religious dispute in the history of their species. There was no war in their history and they didn’t have a word for murder.
The Eark believe that the Denagrata Centurm (their God) lived within the super massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Over nine billion years ago when the planet Timouri was young, the Centurm sent their barren planet the gift of the Magna Turris Muros. The Muros was a tower over 1,000 feet tall. The tower’s outer skin was rock-like, and over time as the rock weathered, it released organic material and dormant microorganisms that gave life to the planet and eventually evolved into all the creatures that inhabited Timouri.
At the base of the tower, there were entrances that opened into hollowed-out rooms. These rooms were great shelters that the early Eark ancestors made their home. Diagrams and inscriptions were carved into the walls of the Muros. After some time, the early Eark discovered that the rock-like outer layer of the Muros could be removed to reveal even more elaborate inscriptions.
It took hundreds of years for the Eark to remove all of the outer encasing rock. They spent several thousand years learning from the Muros. The inscriptions described everything, starting with numbers and an alphabet and progressing to mathematics, chemistry, biology, condensed matter physics, and how to build ships that could travel at nearly the speed of light. After a few thousand years, the Eark began building some of the designs detailed on some of the more advanced panels of the Muros.
The Eark believed that along with the gift of the Muros came a responsibility and a mission. Their first big job was to build the Stella Metentis and use it to harvest the power of their star. When the Metentis was complete and most of their star’s total energy output was collected and redirected to the center of the galaxy, they could move on.
Their next task would be to colonize the galaxy. They were to build ships as described on the Magna Turris Muros and send out expeditions to colonize the neighboring stars in their sector of the Milky Way. The Centurm divided the galaxy into twelve sectors, like a pie cut into twelve pieces. Twelve worlds in total, one in each sector, were chosen by the Centurm to receive the gift of the Magna Turris Muros.
CHAPTER 27
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH EXPEDITION OF THE TENTH GENERATION STAR
Among many other things, the Magna Turris Muros described how to build a beacon. The beacon was designed to sit on top of the Magna Turris Muros, acting as a light and a message board. The Eark could program the beacon to display anything they wanted. The beacon also had a receiver to pick up broadcasts from the Centurm Galaxy Harvesting System (CGHS), which sent out messages every few hundred-thousand years. The messages, when they came, showed just how the Denagrata Centurm operated on such a different time scale than Earth. Messages came in at a rate of about one character every three or four days, so the typical message required about four or five years to receive completely.
The last message from the CGHS was received about 32,000 years ago saying that the Magnus Turris Muros of Sectors Nine and Twelve had both failed to result in any harvested stars. The Eark were already aware of the problem in the Twelfth Sector. The message directed both the Eark of the First Sector and the Shinawik of the Eleventh Sector to begin to send expeditions into the uninhabited Twelfth Sector so that harvesting could begin there. The CGHS also instructed the Alagrath of the Tenth sector and the Serpentine of the Eighth Sector both to send expeditions into the Ninth Sector.
When word of the failed Twelfth Sector reached the Ninth-Generation Eark star back in 7993 BCE, the fifth expedition that was preparing to leave in 8000 BC was redirected towards the Twelfth Sector. It was sent to a star about 2,000 light years from Earth, which lay in the same direction from Earth as the much further globular cluster, NGC 6397. The fifth expedition from the Ninth Generation star built a Stella Metentis that was completed in the year 1684. It was a tenth generation colony that would send a stream of expeditions into the neighboring reign of the galaxy, Sector Twelve, for the next five hundred years.
In the ship assembly area of the Tenth Generation Star, there were usually at least three or four ships, each at various stages of completion. It took about fifty years to complete a ship from start to finish. There were five ship bays, and as long as they had enough Eark to man the ships, one would leave about every ten years. Captain Nikodima was in charge of the shipyard and often went to dinner with some of his lieutenants after a long shift. After dinner one day, Lieutenant Agafya said, “Hey, Captain, you should apply to take one of these ships into the Twelfth Sector. You would make a great admiral. I heard that they were about to commission three more expeditions later this month. Wouldn’t it be great to get out into some uncharted space?”
“You know, I was thinking of doing just that. My wife was complaining about being tired of this station,” replied the captain. “Are you going to be my captain if I get the job?”
“Of course, I’ll be your captain!” Agafya enthusiastically responded.
“Ok, I’ll talk to the wife tonight, and if she’s up for it, I’ll put in my application tomorrow.”
Two years later, in 1722, Captain Nikodima was promoted to admiral and was granted two ships to take into the Twelfth Sector. All three ships in the docks at that time were accounted for: the first two were for the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth expeditions. The next ship in the process of gearing up its assembly was the second half of the twenty-sixth expedition. The two ships after that would start their assembly processes in 1780 and 1790, and would both be for the new admiral. The first ship was scheduled to leave in about sixty years.
Admiral Nikodima would spend the next several years putting together his two crews. After that, he would go into stasis for over 3,000 years. Stasis is a kind of frozen sleep where body functions slow down and the person stops aging. The twenty-seventh expedition would send the Admiral’s two ships to our solar system. The first left with a crew of 250 couples, along with a few retired couples who had worked all their lives and were entitled to free transport. It started its 2,990 year journey in the year 1830. Its sister ship, with a similar crew, left about ten years later. Their mission was to establish a colony at our Sun, harness all its radiant power, and send it to the center of the galaxy for the Milky Way Denagrata Centurm. Their secondary mission was to send out expeditions to nearby systems for colonization and harvesting.
CHAPTER 28
THE VESSEL
Like all the Eark ships on harvesting missions, Admiral Nikodima’s two vessels were intra-galactic ships over a mile long, and shaped like a cylinder. Their 50,000-year-old design had changed little since its first production run on Timouri. The long, thin ship was like a series of cylinders stacked on top of one another. Some of the cylinders also had additional concentric cylinders inside them to add additional floor space. Each cylinder had a hollow core divided into four sections. Each section acted like an elevator shaft. There were two shafts each for going up and down, one fast and one slow. There were no elevator cars. Eark simply watched the mirrors or the lights and waited until the way was clear of any others that may have been using the shaft at the same time; then they jumped in. Fans circulated air in the shafts in the right direction to push the Eark along, and since there was no gravity in the shafts, they could travel from floor to floor with ease. Eark carrying anything more than a small bag or backpack were required to use the slow shafts.