by T I WADE
“So you are saying the Homo-whatever remains in Indonesia, and the remains on Mars are the same people?” asked Maggie.
“We believe so, or at least they are closely related,” responded Petra smiling at the logical question. “Of course, we must take into account several dozen genealogical changes that occur naturally over time to one group of people. I, and coincidentally, a few others in this room, completed papers on the Homo floresiensis during our university years; our earlier research helped our group arrive at these conclusions. Also, a few of the really old relics in the chests backup our beliefs.”
Petra brought out an ancient comb from the chest. “A simple hair comb, found in archeological digs from the time of the Stone Age. For some reason, we, as animals, always considered our hair on our heads to be of vital importance. Ask any middle school student in America.” (The Americans aboard found this very amusing.) This delicate comb was made by hand from the tusk of an African elephant. Yes, it is pure ivory, creamy white, and in perfect condition. In the dense, lush valleys of the Sahara at the time, elephants were common. So were all the African animals still alive today. Remember, we are only talking about these people leaving Earth about ten thousand years ago, about 7,500 to 8,000 B.C. This comb is very modern compared to others found around the world.”
Next she brought out what looked like an encased mirror, with a handle. “Yes, ladies, something most of us have seen before, a cosmetic hand mirror. The glass is like ours, created by melting sand. The case is interesting though. It is not plastic, but a form of rubber. Ja, a form of white, clean, rubber; the same product we used on our automobiles back on Earth.”
“But rubber was always black on Earth,” somebody offered.
“I agree, but, remember latex, from the rubber tree, is white before it is processed into rubber as we know it. This rubber, comes from Indonesia, which supports two of my theories: One, that the Homo floresiensis were connected somehow to where their last remains were found in Indonesia; and two, that there was a connection between the remains here on Mars and the remains across vast seas from the Sahara. Imagine how far this ancient people had to sail, and or walk, to get as far as Indonesia. I now believe that these people walked down the continent of Africa, some of them remained in Southern Africa, the Bushmen as we know them today, and the balance sailed as far as Indonesia and became extinct. Of course, both Homo species have integrated over the centuries, and maybe that is why the African Bushman species is still alive today, and the Indonesian tribe is not.”
The third item she lifted out of the chest made the audience gasp with surprise. It was a rolled up scroll.
“An ancient scroll?” asked Kathy not believing what she was seeing.
“Correct, Frau Richmond, a scroll. A scroll made exactly as the scrolls found around the Middle East, and others areas of the Mediterranean around the birth of Christ and earlier, and this one has writing on it which we cannot decipher, yet.” Carefully, she unrolled the scroll.
“How come it hasn’t turned into dust?” asked Jonesy.
“An excellent question, Herr Jones,” remarked Petra. “Herr Warner asked the same question when I first showed it to him.” Even Martha Von Zimmer looked at the aging astronaut with respect, giving him a German nod of approval.
“It must have been protected by oil, or another type of liquid,” said VIN. “During my walk-about in Iraq, many archeologists we met walking in the safer, southern areas of Iraq told me about finding old artifacts with dried oil residues on them.”
“Correct, Herr Noble,” continued Petra. “It seems that olive oil had more benefits than light cooking. Even though this scroll was found dry, the earthenware jar it was found in showed evidence of being an oil jar. The small urn, or jar, is identical to the much larger water urns you found at the scene. It had an earthenware stopper on it which fit perfectly, sealing the interior. The liquid broke down or evaporated over time. I believe that given another thousand years, this scroll would have disintegrated. But, as you see, it has survived the journey in such a condition that I can carefully unroll it.” She did so and showed the writing to the audience.
“Looks like old Hebrew,” stated one.
“Greek Hieroglyphics,” stated another.
“Both correct, but not correct,” smiled Petra trying her best in her third language; German and Russian were her first two. “Maybe an older form of both, but as yet, we haven’t decoded the symbols. There are many alike, but with all languages, we need one item of information, a symbol, or a letter to be able to decode the rest. The team believes that these are scrolls depicting the person’s family line or family tree. Each chest contained one of these scrolls, although many were rotting or had already decayed. After examining several of them we realized that they seem to have been written in the same format: a symbol or symbols, likely a name, was inscribed at the top, underneath which appeared to be lists of generations. If so, the possible family trees went back a dozen generations, or in our world, about 30 to 40 years per generation. So, these scrolls could reveal up to 500 years of this tribe’s history, unless their typical longevity far exceeded ours…”
“What chances do we have of ever finding out what these scrolls mean?” asked one child.
“Christian, we have all the time in the world, or solar system, and there are many aboard this spaceship that will never give up trying to decipher what is written here,” Petra replied.
“Are they going to decay more?” asked Michael Pitt.
“Of course, now they are in atmospheric conditions, Herr Pitt, but we are chronicling and photographing everything, and will place the scrolls in fresh olive oil that Suzi will prepare for us once we have collected all the information.” There was silence. Everyone was transfixed by the opened scroll and the hundreds of letters on it, nothing more than squiggles and dots.
“I’m glad we now live in space, so valuable jewelry is of no importance to us anymore, right ladies?” Petra smiled, questioning the women.
“Depends how pretty it is,” answered Jamie Saunders from the back.
“Who said we don’t like pretty things anymore?” added Maggie. I look at my jewelry, especially my necklace and wedding ring every day.”
“Me, too,” added Suzi.
Jonesy rolled his eyes at the women, who were once again engaged in chatting about bobbles, bangles and beads. It seemed things hadn’t changed much.
Suzi noticed Jonesy rolling his eyes and commented, “Herr Jones, we ladies still think about pretty things, just like your one-celled brain thinks about the alcohol we brew in the cubes. And you are still banned from entering our establishments at tasting times. You and my husband,” who she elbowed in the ribs like Maggie had taught her.
“Alright fellow space citizens, calm down,” Ryan said, interrupting the laughter. “Dr. Bloem, please continue before you are attacked by these ladies thinking they are at a jewelry house party.”
Dr. Bloem brought out a beautiful green broach and laid it on the table. “Twenty-four carat gold, with diamonds, rubies and emeralds; this broach is the exact shape of an African crocodile. Most of the jewelry is of animals, and each chest had one to five pieces.”
Everyone could see that the piece was exquisite.
“We think they could be either items of jewelry, or maybe insignia of rank, as many of the pieces are identical. Each chest had the alligator, even the children’s chests. The smaller adults, the females, had leopards, and the men’s chests had lions. The four chests of what must have been the most senior men contained an alligator, a lion, a hippopotamus and an elephant; that is why we think the jewelry could be a ranking system. Only one chest had five pieces of jewelry, the one where there were no remains on the bed. Remember, three of the beds were empty, and we decided that they were the beds of the suited bodies Herr Noble found in the first room. The single, most beautiful piece of jewelry was this,” and Petra lifted out a second broach, twice the size of the alligator, and easily seen by all in the room. It w
as a beautiful eagle with two pure white eyes that shone like the diamonds on DX2014.
There was absolute silence as everybody stared at the beautiful piece of artwork. The colors of a bald eagle were exact and, even from a distance, it expressed authority.
“So, you think this eagle could belong to the ship’s commander or captain?” VIN asked.
“Yes, we believe so. Why would there be so many exact pieces, and so few elephants compared to the alligators? That is why we believe that they are insignia of rank, Herr Noble, and not just pieces of exquisite jewelry. Let us get on. The last semi-recognizable item included in all of the adult cases were these,” and Dr. Bloem brought out several pieces of paper, blank, white paper, about four inches square that were beginning to crumble.
“What are they?” asked Maggie.
“We believe them to be the remains of color photographs, replied Dr. Bloem.
“But how could this tribe that looks like the Bushmen of 10,000 years ago have had Kodak cameras?” asked Jonesy.
“Kodak cameras they certainly were not,” responded Petra Bloem kindly. “The chemical residues and the type of paper is nearly exact to what we have here on board. Several of us brought old family photographs with us. Some brought the latest in technical photo viewers like revolving photo images; and, some of the older folk, like me, brought old Kodak and Brownie camera-made photographs of our mothers and fathers. We tested and compared the alien paper to some of the oldest photos we have, about seventy years old, and this paper was close to identical to our own.”
“But how could these people have cameras?” Jonesy asked, still puzzled.
“Well they achieved space travel, created a blue defense shield, and made space suits out of better materials than we have. Why shouldn’t they have cameras, televisions or even computers?” VIN replied to his partner.
“They must have had computers,” added Captain Pete. “How else could they get around such a vast area like the solar system?”
“And I’m sure we will find their better weapons that will blow ours away,” injected VIN.
“Thank you gentlemen,” smiled Petra. “That is all I have for you for this meeting. There were other items, we believe clothing and other personal belongings in the chests, but unfortunately like the bodies, these items have decayed down to dust. All of the items we discovered, like the teeth and bones, were found under piles of dust that filled the chests.”
The meeting was over and one by one, the entire crew got in line to look at, touch and feel the objects just described. Now VIN really wanted to get back to DX2017 and find more items. He knew that everything he would find would add pieces to the puzzle these space travelers left behind.
He was about to get the surprise of his life.
Chapter 10
What is the meaning of life, and back to DX2017.
America One was in a comfortable orbit around DX2017. The planet was doing all the work of transporting them through space, and all the internal builds and upgrades were long since complete. Many of the crew wanted to spacewalk, now that there was more to see on the little planet than in the ship.
The results of tests to analyze the materials used in the alien spacesuits were shared with the astronauts in the Bridge twenty-four hours later over cake and coffee. Martha Von Zimmer and Suzi were in charge of the lecture. VIN, Fritz Warner, and Petra Bloem were the only extras in attendance.
Martha let Suzi do much of the first part, since fabric was in her domain: biology.
“Darwin’s bark spider is an orb-weaver spider that produces one of the largest orb webs in the world. These webs have anchor lines that can span over 25 meters, or about 82 feet. The spider was discovered in Madagascar in 2008 or 2009. The bark spider was named in honor of Charles Darwin, and what is so fantastic is that its silk is the toughest biological material ever studied.
“It really surprised me to see how they managed to bond spider silk and silkworm silk together. Their version of “Kevlar” is a much different form than what we know our synthetic Kevlar to be.
“Not as strong as Kevlar, nothing is stronger,” VIN, her husband, retorted.
“Wrong, darling,” smiled Suzi back. “Darwin’s bark spider spins a silk 10 times stronger than your American Kevlar, which was invented by a scientist working for a French company inside America. I know. I loved to study spider and silkworm silks in university, as much as you and your friend Fritz love studying weapons. The Bark spider’s silk is twice as strong as what is produced by any other spider. The only problem with spiders is that they spin far slower than silkworms and in our classes in Munich we tried to mate Tarantula spiders with silkworms. Silkworms produced hundreds of times more silk than any spider. It was impossible, the spiders often ate the silkworms and the eating of many silkworms did not help the spiders make silk any faster,” Suzi joked. “Actually, to be more serious, we worked on genetically splicing the genes of the silkworms and the spiders. The American military, and the French company Du Pont, have worked hard for the last two decades trying to develop lightweight, flexible soft body armor with a higher degree of protection. But, apart from Kevlar, their quest has so far been an impossible dream.”
“DuPont's Kevlar fiber, the soft armor fiber widely adopted by American and other law enforcement, is often described as five times stronger than steel; but spider silk continues to outperform its artificial counterparts, so the pursuit of “Spider-Man” style armor has been underway for decades,” added Martha Von Zimmer.
“Ja, I know, I was involved in many of the tests,” continued Suzi “Strand-for-strand, researchers in Germany and America know the drag line of an orb-weaving spider, especially the bark spider, while weighing much less, can be three times more flexible than Kevlar and five to ten times stronger than steel. Also, contrary to its size and weight, spider silk is naturally capable of absorbing a huge amount of energy. Several years ago, a team I studied with at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies in Germany, identified the building blocks that make spider silk so naturally strong. There are two key components: the soft gel that is manufactured in the abdomen and the strong, solid thread it becomes when it leaves the body. What we are seeing here, is what we tried to accomplish in Munich in my last year of study; to somehow join the silkworm’s extremely high production quantities to the bark spider’s silk strength and energy absorbency.”
“These people have done it,” continued Martha. “We found the DNA of silkworms and of the bark spider in the material of the suits. Also, if you recall what Dr. Petra said yesterday, Madagascar is a natural stopover for any ship traveling between Southern Africa and Indonesia. I believe these silk spacesuits give us another piece of our fantastic and most interesting puzzle.”
Since Suzi had no spiders aboard ship, the potential to copy the material would have to wait until the scientists returned to Earth.
Ryan was in his element. He never saw Suzi, a person he respected for her vast knowledge and intelligence, so excited. In addition, Dr. Martha Von Zimmer and Dr. Petra Bloem were at the cutting edge of new technologies. But to cap it all, the same advances scientists on modern Earth were struggling to achieve, already existed, and had been developed by an ancient tribe from North Africa who had found their way into deep space.
As he listened to the discussion, Ryan allowed himself to slip into a moment of reflection. Years of observation and discussions still brought him to the same conclusions. Humans, so intelligent, so clever, so capable of expanding knowledge and achieving outstanding advancements, were blocked by greed, politics, wars, religion questionable ethics, and moral turpitude. Humans were extinguishing their own chances for long-term survival on a beautiful planet. He had seen the unintended consequences of bad decisions made by corrupt politicians. He had seen the excitement the act of killing could engender in too many people. He, himself, felt vindicated when Jonesy fired on the speedboat in Greek waters. Yet, other humans like these scientists, only wanted to get on with their work, in harmony
with others, and advance knowledge. Why was there such a difference in one’s own breed?
Before her accident years earlier, when he and Suzi were together, they frequently discussed biology over a bottle of wine. She maintained that humans did not differ from animals. He was shocked to hear her say that she believed animals mated, cheated, destroyed, and stole anything they could from other animals, without remorse or shame at doing unjust things; it was as if they had been born, or primed by external, or internal forces. One thing Suzi did say was that the greatest achievement of any human was to do battle with his evil inclinations and become a good human. Suzi did not believe that helping others was the ultimate goal; it was to live a good and honest life.
Ryan had tried his best to be a good person, to always be fair to others, and he had done well. The only real exception was when others, so excited by force and subterfuge, so eager to harm, destroy and kill, came to attack him and lay waste to all he had achieved. Then, and only then, were feelings of revenge ignited within him.
He wondered where all this “bad” came from. Was it a chemical that arrived on Earth from an asteroid? Was it really because of eating an apple, or talking to snakes? Did everyone carry a gene within their DNA to kill, hurt, destroy or maim for pleasure, for entertainment, or revenge? Where was the other world? The perfect world where only good things happened?
Ryan was brought back to the meeting by Dr. Petra Bloem speaking quietly, as she always did.
“I am beginning to get a few ideas on these people we have located through pure luck, this ancient tribe. One just has to study what we now believe are their possible ties to people that still exist today. We can learn a lot from the Bushmen. It so happens, I studied them for a project in high school. It wasn’t an in-depth scientific study, just a high school semester paper. Others have studied the Bushman of the Kalahari in extensive detail. But what I remember about these small people is their way of life. They respected and worked with nature. I believe they said a prayer before, or after they killed for food, and a prayer for the animal. They ate the entire animal in respect for Mother Nature and the animal. They used every part of the animal they could, again respecting and, I suppose, thanking their gods for giving them food. They were kind to each other, looking after each member of the tribe, and sharing their knowledge with their children. As I recall, they didn’t even have a chief of their tribe, just an elder who had gained wisdom through experience and age. The Bushmen were a hardy people, and due to their way of life, they lived in a place nobody else at the time could survive, even many animals.