by John Akers
Soon the tunnel opened up into a giant, spherical room. It reminded Pax of the Alien Zoo virtual environment he’d been using the previous week, only without the white lines slicing it up into sections. This was the seamless interior of a vast, obsidian orb. A faint light came from a source he couldn’t place, and it was just bright enough for them to see the interior surface of the room. But Pax couldn’t identify the source. It was as if the molecules in the air had somehow acquired some sort of innate radiance.
Pax looked down and saw that whatever surface they were walking on now was completely clear. It bisected the room, and although his feet felt the firm surface beneath them, as far as his visual system was concerned he and Alethia were floating in space. The conflicting sensory messages made Pax start to feel nauseous. He focused his attention on Alethia’s back and tried not to look down. She continued walking forward until she was almost at the center of the room.
An image more than 30 feet tall began to materialize directly in front of them. Pax recognized it at once: It was a three-dimensional version of the picture he’d found in his office a week earlier.
“I believe you’re familiar with LUCA,” said Alethia.
Pax stiffened, then nodded his head. “I figured when I was on the sub you all must’ve had something to do with that. I don’t suppose you’d care to explain how it got into my office.”
“Another time, perhaps,” said Alethia. “What’s important to know about it now is that 3.8 billion years ago, this organism had evolved the process still used by all life-forms today for passing genetic information from one generation to the next. For more than three billion years, the only forms of life to appear on Earth were microscopic unicellular derivatives of LUCA.”
“It wasn’t until about 600 million years ago that eukaryotes—the life form that evolved into all plants and animals existing today—developed the ability to form multicellular organisms. Then it was another 60 million years passed before they started forming multicellular organisms. But then, over a comparatively short duration—80 million years—all the animal phyla present today developed.”
The light grew slightly brighter, and the surface under their feet turned a sandy color. Now it appeared as if they were standing on the bottom of a sea floor. The light rippled in such a way that made it seem as if they were immersed in water. Somehow, Pax felt himself swaying as if he were being buffeted gently about by undersea currents. The effect was so realistic he gave a small gasp.
He looked down and saw a sea sponge lying on the sand about three feet away. Nearby, a small worm wriggled around slowly. As he stared at the creatures, Alethia said, “Sponges were the first animals, but the sea worm evolved the basic characteristics of most animals still living today: a mouth, an anus, an alimentary canal, bilateral symmetry, and a means of self-propulsion.”
The sponge and the worm suddenly faded out and were replaced by others that looked like enormous insects. One looked like a horseshoe crab, more than two feet long, with segmented casings and stubby, chitinous legs that churned rapidly. Another resembled a giant spiny slug, while another looked like a giant millipede with no legs, a long nose, and five eyes. It was followed by what looked like squid arms emanating from a long, conical shell.
Pax started to wonder what was going on, why she was showing him all this. But the effect created by the room was so realistic, he didn’t say anything. He almost felt as if he were on a ride at some otherworldly amusement park, and he found himself wondering what would come next.
The light faded to black, then a moment later returned, only this time considerably brighter. Now it appeared as if they were at the edge of a forest adjacent to a large beach. The leaves on the bushes and trees around them were enormous. From out the corner of his eye, Pax saw something dart rapidly around beneath the undergrowth. He turned to look and saw a small, hairy creature the size of a rat staring at him. Its eyes darted furtively around for a few seconds, then it emitted a strange squeaking sound and darted off, quickly disappearing amidst the thick foliage.
“Around 230 million years ago,” Alethia said, “just as the dinosaurs were just beginning their reign as the dominant form of animal life on Earth, the earliest mammalian ancestors also appeared. They started out quite small, getting by as nocturnal insect-eaters or scavenging eggs from the nests of small dinosaurs. But they quickly evolved a uniquely mammalian feature, the neocortex region of the brain. This area eventually came to manage several higher-order functions such as sensory perception and language.”
The images around them blended and swirled into a mist of colors so thick that Pax could no longer see Alethia. She continued speaking, her voice sounding strangely ethereal.
"One hundred million years ago, the mammalian line diverged into two primary branches: primates in one, and all others—dogs, cats, cows, pigs, horses, whales, moles, and so on—in the other. Over the next 70 million years, several offshoots developed in the primate line. First were lemurs and loirises. Then monkeys diverged about 40 million years ago, followed by gibbons 17 million years ago. The remaining group was the great apes, who by this point had a number of physiological differences from other mammals, such as considerably larger brains, complex social structures, and perhaps most importantly, opposable thumbs, which allowed them to grasp external objects in ways no other animals could.
The great ape line continued to develop offshoots, including orangutans 14 million years ago, gorillas 8 million years ago, and chimpanzees 7 million years ago. The remaining group we call hominins.
The colorful mist dissipated, and a bipedal creature more human than apelike appeared, squatting over some large rocks on the ground ten feet away. It was holding a stone in its hand, which it forcefully struck it against a larger stone on the ground. It had coarse, thick hair all over its body compared to a modern human, but much lighter than the fur of an ape, and it held its head and neck fully upright.
“Fast forward now to just 2 million years ago, and the evolutionary path had led all the way from our humble earliest ancestor to what you see before you now. Already, Homo Erectus was well down the path of solving life’s little problems through a combination of a more powerful intellect that was just beginning to exercise the capacity for abstract thought, as well as a powerful, precise grip that enabled them to create a variety of tools. By chipping sharp edges in rocks, our ancestors could construct rudimentary tools such as hand axes. Perhaps most significantly, they learned to make fire and cook meat. The addition of cooked meat in their diet which led to even more rapid cranial development.”
The image of Homo Erectus faded out, and an image of what looked like a small, male aboriginal with a frizzled mop of hair and a roughly shorn beard appeared. “Then, somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago, Homo Sapiens Sapiens evolved. Genetically speaking, this is us.”
“Our brains had doubled in size again, and we had mastered the use of fire and living in caves to protect ourselves from the elements. By 150,000 years ago, we had figured out how to skin other animals, treat the hides, and wear them for warmth and protection. Our skeletons had become considerably lighter, reflecting our increasing reliance on technology, rather than biology, to cope with the demands of our environments.
“Around 50,000 years ago we began to make more advanced stone tools, such as finely chipped scrapers and slicers and fish hooks made out of bone. We began to paint our bodies, wear jewelry, make cave art, and bury our dead. We developed the first bow and arrow and the first pit fires. We created fibers from flax and began weaving. We began creating art, such as cave paintings and sculptures.”
Suddenly, the room went completely dark. A moment later it brightened again, this time much more than before. To his astonishment, Pax realized the sphere they'd been standing near the center of was gone. Now they were standing slightly off-center in a circular room at least 100 feet in diameter and 50 feet high. The walls and floor were white, but the ceiling, strangely, was jet black. Now he could see light coming from
the floor and walls, not from specific point sources, but from the surfaces as a whole.
In the center of the room there three white, circular disks. One was larger, about four feet wide and half a foot thick. It lay flat but somehow seemed to be hovering about three feet off the ground. The two smaller disks were positioned closer to the ground on opposite sides of the bigger disk and were half its width and thickness. Looking up again, Pax realized there didn’t seem to be a ceiling per se, just eerie darkness. He felt like he was staring at a black hole.
Alethia walked over to the disks and Pax followed. He tried to see what was holding the disks up, but he couldn’t detect any wires above or supports underneath. On top of the larger disk, he saw two tall glasses containing a clear liquid. She picked them up and held one out to Pax. He took it but then hesitated, watching her. She took a long drink, then said, “Water, with some special additives for a pick-me-up.” Pax took a sip. It tasted like water. He drank some more.
Alethia walked over to one of the disks and sat down on it. Pax sat on the other one. The feeling was similar to sitting in the knife cycle—the disk adjusted its position to counterbalance his weight and motion perfectly. He felt his feet settle comfortably on the floor. After he sat, he casually swept one leg around underneath the table, trying to find whatever was holding it up, but his leg found nothing but air.
“Roughly 10,000 years ago, we entered the ‘civilized’ period of human existence, also known as the Anthropocene, or ‘epoch of man.’” She looked up and made a gesture. As Pax’s eyes followed her gaze, the blackness above suddenly soared away from them, revealing the enormous expanse of the tower’s interior.
There were no rooms or even floors, just a single, continuous space. It was like being in a gigantic, endless tube, the inner walls of which were covered in brightly colored images. They created a massive, kaleidoscopic tapestry soaring thousands of feet into the air. After a couple of hundred feet, the colors swirled together so Pax couldn’t tell what they were depicting. But as he looked back down, the resolution of the images at the bottom became razor-sharp.
Alethia pointed off to one side, where a man in a loincloth was squatting over a large, flat stone. Then, the image seemed to extrude from the wall into three dimensions. It continued moving away from the wall until it was directly in front of them. Pax saw the man was scraping the edge of a small stone at sharp angles back and forth against the larger one.
“Around this time, we learned how to grind and polish finished edges on stones instead of chipping them. This seemingly innocuous change dramatically increased the sharpness and durability of our cutting tools, as well as the reliability with which they could be made.”
The image of the man chipping a stone tool began to move away from them and back toward the wall, while other images of people chopping trees and clearing brush in a field with rudimentary hand axes and scythes slid off the wall toward them. As they neared, other people began digging large holes in the ground and covering them with thatched roofs and walls. The clothes the people wore had changed from animal hides to ones made with plant fibers.
“Humans now began to make significant, lasting changes to their environment. We created safe spaces from the surrounding wilderness and built permanent living areas like the pit-houses you see here. The most important transition in our developmental history began as we began farming. Eight thousand years ago we learned how to irrigate our crops with trapped rainwater or water channeled from nearby rivers. We learned how to store food in airtight containers created through the practice of pottery.
"As the practice of agriculture rewarded us with a food surplus for the first time in our existence, we abandoned our previously nomadic lifestyle and began to live in one place. We developed divisions of labor and formed towns, which became cities, which became city-states. By 5,500 years ago, several city-states had formed alongside some of the major rivers around the world, including the Tigris and Euphrates, the Nile, the Indus, and the Yellow River. The worldwide population of humans began to grow rapidly, increasing from 4 million to 5 million in less that 5,000 years, and —”
Pax suddenly jerked up a hand and in a sharp voice said, “Stop!”
Alethia said, “Is something wrong?”
Pax nodded and said, “Yes. I want some answers. And no more waiting. Now. What’s going on here? The technology you’ve shown me is amazing, but where are you going with all this? You didn’t just bring me out here to give me a fancy history lesson. What’s the point of all this?”
“We’re getting to the point, Mr. Pax,” Alethia said curtly. “Believe it or not, I want to get through this even more than you do.”
“I seriously doubt that. And you can believe me when I say that whatever it is you want from me, I won’t agree to it until I have a better idea of who I’m dealing with. Starting with you.”
“What do you mean?“
“I mean I want to know about you. Who you are. Where you come from. Why you’re here. And after that, what this society of yours is about, and what it is you want from me.”
Pax half expected her to get angry, but to his surprise, he saw a flicker of anxiety pass over her face instead.
“I understand why you want answers to those questions,” she said slowly. “I hope you’ll believe me when I say that I was planning to answer them later. However, there is an increasing urgency to getting through the rest of what we’ve got to show you now.” She gave a strange look off to one side for a moment, then refocused on Pax and said, “But I suppose I can answer some of those questions now if you’d prefer.”
“I do.”
She nodded her head slowly as if agreeing against her better judgment.
“All right, Mr. Pax,” she said with a look of resignation. “I’ll tell you my story.”
Chapter 44
Sunday, 7:45 AM PT
To Cevis’ surprise, he could find hardly any information about the Ludibrium in the ShipSearch database. There was no point of origin specified, no destination, and for captain, it simply said “Ludibrium.” However, the scarcity of information only solidified Cevis’ suspicion that it had been used as a means of escape by the people who had kidnapped Oreste.
“Call the San Diego Port Authority,” he said to Cyrus. A moment later a gravely, worn voice answered, “Port Authority.”
“Hello, I’m looking for information on a ship that docked there briefly Friday night and then left in the very early hours Saturday morning,” said Cevis.
“Name?”
“The Ludibrium.”
“Howdya spell that?”
“L—U—D—I—B—”
“Oh, yeah, I remember. Big ship, came in around 10, left just a few hours later.”
“I can’t seem to find any information about its port of origin or destination,” said Cevis.
“She said it was her maiden voyage, came from a private port of origin. No cap’n either. Fully automated, just like them damn cars.” The voice on the other end grumbled for a bit about the evils of automation.
“Was there any information about the owner?” asked Cevis.
“Naw. Said it wadn’t transporting any cargo and wadn’t traveling internationally. It ain’t required to provide a manifest if yer stayin’ stateside so I didn’t bother asking fer one. We get a lotta rich celebrity types from L.A. or Silicon Valley who wanna keep a low profile, so I jus’ left it alone.”
“Did she happen to say where she was headed?” Cevis asked.
“Nah, and they stopped broadcasting their location soon after they left.”
“Isn’t that illegal?” asked Cevis.
“Nah. It’s a good idea to stay in touch in case you run into any troubles, but it’s not requi—” The voice paused. “Say, who’m I talking to anyway?”
Cevis hung up.
He drummed his fingers on the desktop. Regardless of which direction the Ludibrium had gone, Cevis knew the only way he could track the ship in the time he had available was through publ
icly accessible marine device networks. He knew the nearby Scripps Oceanographic Research Institute, in conjunction with other universities and research institutes around the world, maintained a worldwide network of fixed platform buoys, drifter buoys, and torpedo drones. He also knew it was just one of many such networks. He did a quick search and found an organization called the Joint Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology. JCOMM coordinated the data collection from marine technology worldwide.
Cevis quickly honed in on one network, the Data Buoy Cooperation Network, which provided access to data from a wide variety of buoy networks. He was pleased to discover the DCBN network was quite dense. There was some sort of buoy or torpedo drone at least every five square miles. Most of them were meteorological, tracking water and air temperature, wind speed, wave height, sea level, ocean circulation, salinity, and so on. A few tracked the movement patterns of animals or ocean waste, using sonar-based, passive acoustic listening devices. Most importantly for Cevis’, the majority of the buoys had two to four SuperHD cameras mounted on them.
Cevis directed Cyrus to track the Ludibrium using images taken from buoys in the DBCN. But while the DBCN maps showed the location and ownership of every buoy in the network, the buoys were owned and managed by different organizations, so the information was spread across multiple databases. Most frustrating of all, they lacked CHUI interface protocols, so Cyrus was unable to communicate with them directly.
Cevis didn’t panic. Instead, he focused all his attention on the next step, which was to begin querying the databases manually. He selected a fixed platform buoy located about a mile from the marina that had four cameras, all with night vision mode. He opened its image database. It turned out the cameras all took one picture a minute. Cevis scrolled around until he found four images taken Saturday at 3:15 a.m. and opened them. The one facing south had a clear shot of the Ludibrium.