The Perfect Moment in Peril

by Kenneth Preston

  Deanna dropped her face into her hands. “I'm not ready to go there yet. I'm way too bitter to consider that as a possibility.”

  “Do you remember that first night?”

  Deanna raised her head, looking past Elexa like a child being lectured. “Yes,” she moaned.

  “When we found Emily and the Community of Light?”

  “I already said 'yes.' And I know what you're going to say: 'We believed it.'”

  Elexa brightened. “Exactly! She told us that we'd chosen this path for ourselves. At first, we were skeptical, but when we parted ways, we believed it, both of us. We didn't just believe it; we knew it to be true.”

  “Then we came to our senses.”

  Elexa snickered. “Maybe. Maybe not. But we at least have to consider the possibility that what Emily told us is true.”

  Deanna dropped her head and groaned. “Can't you just give me a little more time with my cynicism.”

  “You've had enough time with your cynicism, and so have I. Besides, your cynicism will always be there waiting for you. It's in your genes. It isn't going anywhere.”

  Deanna lifted her head and nodded. “What were you dreaming about?”

  The question came at Elexa like a curveball. She looked at Deanna sideways, taken aback by the sudden change of topic. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She had no idea what she was about to say.

  “I heard you talking in your sleep,” Deanna continued. “Muttering would be more like it. I really couldn't make out much of what you were saying. Just bits and pieces.”

  Elexa looked away. She didn't want to talk about. She had had a dream. She remembered it vividly, but she didn't want to. She wanted to forget it. She wasn't sure why. It was just a dream, right? But this one had been a doozy. Six hours later and it was still with her.

  “You don't want to talk about it,” Deanna remarked. “But I do.” Elexa looked at her. “I had a dream too.” Deanna's voice was soft. She seemed fragile. “And judging by the bits and pieces I got from you, it was the same dream.” Elexa furrowed her brow. “Or a similar dream.”

  Elexa hesitated before opening her mouth, uncertain as to what she was about to say. She hesitated a moment longer before saying, “What did you dream about?”

  “I dreamed we saw another Encounter.” She paused, letting her little revelation sink in. “What did you dream about?”

  “The same,” Elexa just barely managed to utter. She took a deep breath in an effort to pull herself together and said, “But you already knew that.”

  “I did. What do you think it means?”

  Elexa was mystified. Being the pragmatist that she was, she immediately began combing her brain for a practical explanation. “I must have heard you talking in your sleep.”

  “Pssh. I don't talk in my sleep.”

  “Pssh. That's what you think.”

  Elexa allowed herself the briefest of smiles to match Deanna's briefest of smiles before the couple gazed at one another, both at a loss as to where to take the conversation next.

  Deanna broke the conversational stalemate. “I doubt that the others heard us talking in our sleep,” she said, her tone hovering just above a whisper.

  Deanna wasn't fond of where the conversation was going, which was why she had chosen not to take the conversation any further. Deanna had always been the bolder of the two. Depending on the circumstances, Elexa could be either impressed or annoyed by it.

  “What are you trying to say? And why are you talking like that? Do you have to be so melodramatic?”

  “I'm saying we should ask them if they've had any interesting dreams lately.”

  She gave Deanna's words a long and awkward moment to sink in. She was reluctant to take the conversation any further, but she didn't know why. What was she so afraid of? It was just a dream...right?

  Deanna's eyes were locked on Elexa, a sly grin touching her lips. She could read Elexa like a children's storybook, and Elexa knew it. She'd clearly sensed that Elexa wasn't comfortable with the conversation. A clear challenge had been issued, one that Elexa wasn't ready to rise to. If only she could come up with a creative way to squirm her way out of the conversation.

  The seconds-long silent challenge was cut short by the ping of the cabin's doorbell.

  Deanna raised her eyebrows. “Saved by the bell.”

  “Saved by nothing,” Elexa muttered. “It's open!” she called over her shoulder.

  “It's a cliché, you know,” Deanna said.

  “What's a cliché?” Elexa asked as the door slid open behind her.

  “Being interrupted by a third-party at a crucial moment in the conversation.” She looked over Elexa's shoulder. “Oh hi, Richard!” Her expression suddenly turned dour. “Oh, something is clearly not okay in Richard-land.”

  Elexa turned on her heel. Richard was leaning through the doorway, his hands holding onto the door frame as if for dear life, a forlorn expression confirming that she had definitely not been saved by the bell contrary to Deanna's suggestion. He didn't even seem surprised to find Deanna sitting on her bed, not that she would have cared. Something was seriously wrong.

  “We're...uh...we're gonna need you two in the...uh...in the lab,” Richard stammered. “Something's...”

  “Seriously wrong?” Elexa suggested.

  Richard nodded. “Yeah, that.”

  Chapter 4

  “Directed panspermia?” David said with an exaggeratedly cocked eyebrow.

  Encounter's five-member crew, the only five intelligent corporeal beings left in the solar system, stood huddled around the meteor, perched atop an examination table in the ship's laboratory.

  “You've heard the term panspermia?” Richard asked.

  “No, I can't say that I have,” David confessed.

  “Well, now you have. Panspermia is the name given to the theory, that we all now know to be fact, that the building blocks of life began elsewhere in the universe. Billions of years ago, microorganisms, similar to what we have here in this rock―” He gestured to the meteor. “―arrived here on Earth, and over a very long period of time, they multiplied and evolved into life as we know it.”

  David nodded. “I'm assuming that directed panspermia means that some intelligent life form sent them here.”

  “Exactly.” Richard grabbed the meteor and turned it. He pointed at a charred, coin-sized object embedded in the rock. “It may be difficult to see. It was fried when it passed through the atmosphere.”

  David leaned in closer. “What am I looking at?”

  “We don't know exactly,” George volunteered. “But it isn't natural. Beneath the charring, it's metallic, or appears to be. My guess? It's some kind of super-advanced guidance system.”

  “Super-advanced guidance system?” Elexa said with a sly grin. “Is that the technical term, Uncle George?”

  George chuckled. “Or SAGS for short.”

  “You're adorable.”

  “So we had a little help,” Deanna suggested. “Our quest to save the planet from crumbling into a lifeless abyss is going according to plan. Isn't it?”

  Deanna's question was met with silence. David had assumed that he was being filled in on details that the rest of crew were already familiar with. Richard―and presumably, George―had apparently waited until David was present before breaking whatever bad news he suspected was coming their way. Richard's dour expression when calling him in had concerned him. Richard's dour expression in conjunction with the stony silence that followed Deanna's question chilled David to his core.

  “Why the long face, Richard?” Deanna asked.

  “Richard, what's wrong?” David added.

  Richard sighed. “There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to say it. Our little re-population party may be over before it's even begun. These microorganisms are essentially useless. They can't reproduce.”

  “There is a gap in their genetic code that prevents them from reproducing,” George said. “If they can't reproduce, well...I don't nee
d to tell you the rest.”

  The silence in the room was palpable. David, Richard, George, Elexa and Deanna had all been on the verge of standing in the proverbial Garden of Eden. Emily had told them that they would be ushering in the new era of life on Earth, but that may have been a grand overstatement. They would have been little more than observers during the very earliest stages of the new evolutionary process. The regenerative medicine in their bodies would take them far into the future, but not that far. Perhaps two hundred years if they were lucky. Nothing but a microscopic particle on a long evolutionary highway. The spark is what excited them. The birth and the knowledge of what would become of these microscopic children. But George and Richard's discovery put a damper on their excitement.

  David broke the silence. “So...what? It's over?” It wasn't over for Encounter's crew. The five of them would live on as long as the regenerative medicine in their bodies allowed them to, and if they graduated to the Community of Light that they had thus far been excluded from, they would live far beyond that, perhaps into eternity. The jury was still out on that last point. But the mere suggestion that corporeal life, the only life that David had known for the vast majority of his life, could be on the verge of extinction sent waves of fear racing through his body.

  “David, look at me,” Richard said, seeing the fear in David's eyes. “I said it may be over. The word 'may' implies danger, but the uncertainty also implies hope. There's room for optimism.”

  Leave it to Richard to immediately find the words to bring David back from the edge of panic. There was hope. Richard and Uncle George would find a way.

  “You have something,” David said, desperation filling his voice. “Tell us you have something.”

  Richard dropped his head, exasperated. Lifting his head, he let out a long sigh and said, “I don't want to get any of your hopes up. Just let George and I do what we do and―”

  “Out with it please,” Deanna interjected. “Please don't toy with our emotions. We're all in this together, are we not?”

  Richard nodded. “We are.”

  Deanna raised her hands, palms up, and motioned toward herself with her fingers. “Bring it on.”

  Richard hesitated a moment before saying, “As you all know, DNA is extremely complex and extremely intricate. What you may or may not know is that DNA can, and has been, used as a recording device. DNA is so complex and so intricate that vast amounts of detailed information can be encoded in DNA. In the early 20th Century, researchers at Harvard University were able to encode a fifty-four thousand page book into DNA. But that was only the beginning. Since then, entire libraries of information have been encoded in DNA. The DNA was synthesized, and the vast quantity of information was decoded back to its original form.”

  Deanna smiled. “You just can't cut to the chase, can ya?”

  “Don't worry. I'm getting to the relevant part.”

  “Don't bother,” Deanna said. “I think I know where you're going with this.” She gestured to the meteor. “The DNA in these microorganisms has been encoded with information that we may be able to use to save our collective asses.”

  “Our collective asses will be fine,” George said. “It's the future of life on this planet that we're thinking about.”

  “I know, Uncle George. That's what I meant when I said 'collective asses.' We're all in this together.”

  “So you've found something useful in the DNA?” Elexa asked. “Something that could, as my partner in crime over here―” She gestured toward Deanna. “―put so eloquently, 'save our collective asses'?”

  George said, “That's what Richard meant when he said that he didn't want to get your hopes up. We haven't found any useful information. Not yet. We just know that the DNA in these microorganisms has been encoded with a wealth of information. We haven't decoded it yet. That will take some time.”

  “And even when you do decode it,” David said, “there's a good chance that you won't understand what you're looking at. If it's in the form of this distant civilization's written language, we won't be able to read it. But...” David raised his index finger into the air.

  “But―” Elexa chimed in, picking up on David's thought process, “―if the information is visual in nature―pictures, moving images, maps―we may be able to make sense out of it.”

  “Took the words right out of my mouth,” David said with a smile.

  “Great minds think alike,” Elexa said, returning the smile. “High five.”

  Elexa raised her hand into the air, and David gave her palm a slap.

  “Let's not get ahead of ourselves,” George warned. “We have no idea what's in there. It could be helpful in our endeavors, or it could be useless.”

  “Hey, don't rain on our parade,” Deanna protested.

  “There shouldn't be a parade,” Richard said solemnly. “I understand that, on the verge of disaster, you're all desperate for something to hold onto, but we need to be pragmatic. There may be call for celebration...eventually, or there may not. We won't know until we decode the information. So let George and I get to work. Hopefully, we'll soon have something to share with you.”

  ―

  David asked, “Do you think it's possible that Emily knew about the gap in the DNA code?”

  David, Elexa and Deanna had retreated outdoors to allow George and David to get to work. There was plenty of room aboard Encounter to congregate, but there was something about the outdoors in a world devoid of technology that invited one to ponder life's greatest mysteries. If David had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and that was often the case since returning to Earth six months ago, he inevitably found himself walking away from Encounter.

  Deanna smirked. “Nowadays, I think that anything is possible. Why don't you ask her? Aren't you two close?”

  Not allowing David a chance to respond to Deanna's cynical inquiry, Elexa asked, “Why would Emily keep that information from us?”

  David shook his head. “She said...on that first night when we found her in the forest with rest of her...Community of Light, she said that we were to usher in a new era, or a new process, or something along those lines.”

  “Yeah, I remember,” Elexa replied.

  “Well, doesn't that strike you as strange? I mean if the DNA in those microorganisms were intact, if they were able to reproduce, we wouldn't really be ushering in anything. We would just be observing.”

  Elexa shrugged. “I think maybe you're reading too much into her statement. She exaggerated or misspoke.”

  “I don't think so. I think this situation is exactly what she was referring to. This is the challenge. She knew that the DNA wouldn't be intact. We have a puzzle with a missing piece. She wants us to find that missing piece.”

  Deanna leaned forward and spread her arms in an exasperated manner. “Hello!” she exclaimed mockingly. “Why don't you ask her? That wasn't meant to be a rhetorical question. Didn't she say that we would work together?”

  David nodded. “She did.”

  Deanna threw her hands up in the air and twirled. “Well, where is she? Oh, Emily! Come out and play!”

  She dropped her arms and looked at David to gauge his reaction. She was frustrated, cynical and at the end of her rope with this Emily and Community of Light nonsense. Like the others, she couldn't help but be bitter regarding the unenviable position they found themselves in. They were supposed to be honored. They were supposed to be humbled. Hah! What a crock! They were five human beings, the only five corporeal beings left in the solar system, not privileged but doomed to live out their existence watching a bunch of microorganisms reproduce and wondering how life would unfold after they all graduated into some magical dimension of pure consciousness. She chose this. It's all non-linear. She chose this path in the future. She was fed up with Emily's mumbo-jumbo.

  Elexa took Deanna's hand. “Settle down,” she said softly. Deanna heeded her advice lowering her eyes to the ground.

  David looked at their intertwined hands, taking notice of th
e fact that they continued to hold on to one another. He raised his eyes, watching as Deanna, eyes down, leaned into Elexa for support. He looked at Elexa. She was watching him watching them.

  “I'll ask her,” he said.

  “How does that work?” Deanna asked cynically. “Do you just snap your fingers? Recite an incantation?”

  “I'll ask her,” he repeated.

  “Ugh.”

  Chapter 5

  The highly evolved being of pure consciousness, known to her corporeal friends as 'Emily Díaz,' was immersed in her Community in a dimension beyond space and time. Her corporeal friends had come to refer to this Community as 'the Community of Light.' It was how they saw her and her kindred minds. Of course, she didn't see her Community that way for she had no eyes with which to see, not in her non-corporeal state. She thought her Community; she perceived her Community; she understood her Community. But she could not see them.

  Her eyes were among many corporeal attributes that were rarely used when she became one with the Great Community. Chief among these attributes was her gender but not her gender identity. She didn't use her body when she was immersed in the Great Community; hence she was genderless in her natural state. However, her gender identity remained firmly intact. It was ingrained in her psyche. She was a woman.

  Most of those immersed with one another in the Great Community shared the same attribute. Most members of the Great Community identified themselves as either male or female. They were non-corporeal reflections of their former corporeal lives.

  This was true for the being formerly known as Michael. This was true for the being formerly known as Danielle. This was true for the being formerly known as Grace. Of course, those archaic names didn't exist in the Great Community. They weren't referred to as “Michael,” “Danielle” and “Grace.” They weren't referred to as anything. They just were. They all were, and they were all together in the Great Community.

  Her corporeal friends knew that. They were well aware of the presence of their friends and loved ones in the Great Community. They couldn't see them individually with their corporeal eyes, but they could see the Great Community when the Great Community presented itself. They couldn't communicate with their friends and loved ones in the Great Community, but they could feel them when the Great Community presented itself. The presence of their friends and loved ones within the Great Community was conveyed by the love that radiated from the Great Community. These feelings of love were unique to each corporeal being, and could be associated with the friends and loved ones they had known before they had graduated to the Great Community.