3012: The Artifact

by John M Grier

Paul’s Discovery

  The next morning they set about boiling the roots of the hickory tree. Janet took charge of the boiling process, with instruction from Suzie, while Jack and Paul set off to the river for water. Jack couldn’t help but think that he may very well have been stuck here permanently, if not for Suzie and her knowledge of how to extract salt from a tree. Who would have thought of that?

  They returned with every container available to them full of river water. Suzie supervised the mixing to ensure the proper amount of salt was added. It took until just after noon to prepare enough to fill the emergency tank. However, once it was half full, a leak was noticed. They quickly patched the leak and prepared another batch of hickory root to top off the tank again before calling it a success.

  Jack tentatively opened the control panel to the time circuits and saw the indicator was a weak green, as opposed to the bright green it normally showed. He said “Well, it looks like it might work, but the light is much weaker than it normally is.”

  Paul said “The difference is probably due to the minerals we left out. Sea water has more than just salt in it and your engine probably utilizes all of the minerals for something or other. Hopefully, it will work anyway,”

  “I think we should wait until tomorrow to try it, though. If our arrival is anything like this one, we will need our strength and I, for one, am beat!” Janet showed her exhaustion with an overly dramatic sigh making everyone chuckle.

  Jack agreed saying “That sounds like a good idea to me. Paul, if you want to see anything else in this era, now is the time.”

  Paul said “Okay. Maybe we should take a cruise down to the river again. I want to get a bit of video footage of the strange variety of animals there.”

  “Okay” said Jack. “Why don’t you and Janet go and I’ll stay here to watch the boat.”

  Seeing that they really wanted some alone time, Suzie said “I’ll stay here with you, Jack.”

  Paul and Janet flew off to the river and set down on the far side since there seemed to be no animals on that side this evening. As they sat and watched the animals enjoy the water hole, the two of them talked. “Paul, I keep thinking about that family. I know it might be a bit premature, but I would love for us to be able to have our own family someday. But I can’t see how the government will allow it. And, I would assume that in order to have a family of our own, I would have to carry a baby full term and give birth to it. I don’t know of anyone who has done that in our lifetimes. What should we do?”

  “I want it as much as you do, Janet. And I agree it’ll be a challenge. But, I do have an idea…two actually. One, we could ask Jack to let us stay in his castle until the time comes, then go back home once the baby is born. Or, we could get back in touch with Bob and Rachael. Jack and I met them in our time underground. They had a large family and mentioned several other families there as well. They live completely underground with no contact with the surface government. I think I mentioned them when I was telling you of how Jack and I got to the dig site in Canada.”

  “Yes, I remember now. Do you think they would help?”

  “All we can do is ask, they did invite us back after all.” The conversation drifted back to the animals across the water and for some reason they began counting them. Just as Janet was mentioning another number, Paul jumped up and said “Six thousand years! Of course! Janet, we need to get back to the boat. I have to do some counting of my own.”

  “Okay Paul. Boy, when you launch yourself into scientist mode, you go in all the way.”

  “Yes, I suppose I always have. Sorry it cuts our evening short, but this is important. This could be very important in fact!” He got them back to the boat in no time and landed next to it. He quickly jumped out of the hovercraft and ran to the boat. Climbing the ladder as fast as he could he shouted, “Jack! I think I know why the display shows only six thousand years!”

  He ran to his cabin and came back with the book Jack had loaned him. Holding it up for Jack to see, he said “I've been reading this book of yours and at first thought it was strange that there were no dates, but for some reason it came to me while Janet and I were sitting on the bank of the river just now.

  “According to the date we left, and the fact that we went back in time approximately six thousand years, the current date would be somewhere around four thousand, BCE. As a historian, I understand that BCE once was known simply as BC. BCE stands for ‘Before Common Era’, whereas BC was ‘Before Christ’. Naturally, before Christ was born, they would have used some other form of counting the years.

  “I assume that Christ is this man named Jesus in this book, since he had such a profound effect on the world. Using his birth as a reference point, and counting backwards in the book, adding the dates and ages of his lineage, we only go back to approximately four thousand BC to find the creation of the earth by God.

  “In the very beginning of the book, it says that He made every kind of animal. From what we have seen around here, he must have made the dinosaurs as well as the rest of the animals together. Scientists have it wrong! And this story about a flood would explain how all the different layers of earth got there. It would also explain why we can’t find an ocean anywhere here in this time. Quite simply, there aren’t any yet!

  “Additionally, it explains this strange looking sky and the high air pressure. Let me read a passage to you.” He paused while he found the correct page then continued “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven.

  “This archaic language had me going there for a minute. I mean, it’s old even by your standards, Jack. I got all this from Genesis, which is arranged first. Chapter 1, verses 6 though 8. The word ‘firmament’ had me confused until I found this verse” he paused again to locate the correct verse, then read “And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. Genesis chapter 1, verse 20.

  “Apparently, this ‘firmament’ is the air, Jack! Suzie was right when she said that strange looking sky that has the appearance of a window is actually some form of water, perhaps ice. I think that when this great flood happened, this water over the atmosphere came crashing down in the form of rain for some reason, perhaps a meteor or something hit it.

  “Jack, I think this book you have here is the actual history, the true history of the earth. To play it safe, when we return tomorrow, why not set the machine to just jump us forward in time six thousand years, like it says on the time circuit display. If we were to jump 65 million years into the future, who knows what we’ll find?” If I’m wrong, we can make a few more jumps to make sure then make one big one to get us there. What do we have to lose?”

  Jack said nothing while Paul spoke. Finally he said “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to play it safe. By the way, I had no idea which book you had. That is The Bible, which is the basis for Christianity. And, if the creation story is true, as the local wildlife and atmospheric conditions would seem to indicate, the rest must be as well. Maybe we should take a closer look at what else it says.”

  Janet said “I don’t know what to think. I was taught that the world is millions or billions of years old and that we all evolved from animals. But I have to admit, this sure looks like the real thing to me.”

  With an uncharacteristically somber look on her face, Suzie said “The Bible and Christianity were eradicated during my time. The government said it only promoted hate and discontent among people. I can see that they were wrong in this, too. In all the many years I have been around, I have seen many things, even though my experiences were very limited until Jack came along. Still, I was able to see the government make a declaration like that and years, s
ometimes decades or centuries later it is discovered that they had it wrong. It certainly doesn’t surprise me that they would have this wrong as well.”

  Raising the Bible over his head and holding it as if to make a declaration of some sort, Paul said “Based on this, I plan to read the rest of this book. If this is the truth, I want to know it!”

  Seeing his friend's sincerity, Jack said “Feel free to keep that copy. If I don’t have another, I can certainly get one. It’s not illegal yet in my time. But, I agree with you, it’s certainly starting to look like its true. It’s funny, actually; all my life I have ignored the Bible and church and basically just had the opinion that people needed to believe in something because maybe they were just weak or something. I don’t know…maybe there’s something to it after all.”

  They all went to bed that night with much to think about. Paul kept reading the Bible well into the night. It was as if he couldn’t get enough of it. Finally, he put it down and went to sleep.