Harley recalled one particular conversation he had with Albert. “His fear was palpable when he insisted that the only chance of humans remaining untouched by the Primedes, when they did call, was if there was no evidence of cyborgs, and particularly their uprising.”
Christophe nodded and reminded the others that he had also predicted that there could be an even worse scenario.
“Their alleged struggle with cybernetic entities was not going well, and Albert intimated that if the Primedes failed to defeat them, the cyborgs would eventually come to Earth and eradicate all species related to their galactic foes. That’s what he meant by a temporal paradox. He insisted that Earth was just one ‘cultivated’ outpost of the Primedes, and may not be the only one from which their cybernetic nemesis arose. He also revealed that one such strand of dismantling the paradox was to alter the timeline of human history. He didn’t say that the Primedes have tried to institute this elsewhere. I believe we have to open the second chamber.”
The first signs of fracture were evident. Rodriguez thought that any future consequences were still speculative, and that Christophe was still carrying guilt over his treatment of Albert. The three domestiques were obviously worried that even the prospect of a visit within a few hundred years would affect their life. Harley was not diverted from what he had actually said to Albert just before his demise.
“I seemed to strike a chord with him when I suggested that a truly harmonious, multi-species Earth would surely give the sentient Primedes pause for thought. He was sufficiently pensive that I assumed he felt such a model might help them see that it could be applied in their own conflict, and simplify this pursuit of dealing with this temporal paradox. Anyway, we have to implement the new search for Albert’s kin, and I will arrange it through Cleopatra immediately. The second decision remains littered with all manner of aggregate from fact and speculation, but we still have to decide whether to open the next chamber. I would ask you to consider another question. What else is there for us to do here if we don’t open it?”
*
The global reaction to mission updates on Earth was chequered at best. The demographics had altered significantly at the close of the war. The conflict itself, and the two plagues, had restored a more even balance of species. Borg predominance was drastically reduced. Humans had closed the gap considerably if the loyalists and the domestiques were considered as sub-groups. The joker in the deck for the future could be the Neanderthals, who were predicted to see explosive growth in their numbers. Factoring this growth with the likelihood of Primede arrival being many years ahead, threw up a red flag. The Neanderthals had no interest in such long term projections. Humans tended to be almost as sceptical. Domestiques were mainly focussed on forging a lasting peace, and didn’t yet trust stubborn loyalists, who accepted rather than believed this peace was the first priority. The same loyalists saw the possible threat of Primede invasion as something for which they must be meticulously prepared. The invasion of galactic cyborgs would be welcomed.
*
There was also a curious response in Helena, to the massive effort invested in finding Jake and Primrose. Their self-sacrifice had obviously been planned. Their offspring would be split up and fostered by several families. Meanwhile, the conversion rate was relentless. Over ninety were on course to becoming disciples. The supply of serum would limit this rate of expansion, and the children would only be used after the pubescent phase, following the prescribed reinforcement of one female. This would become a periodical exercise, in a similar fashion to donating blood. The process would be set up by the chief medical officer during their monthly clinics, so it was a priority to get the foster parents processed ahead of the vial source running out.
*
The debate on Ganymede revolved around Harley’s last question, and they all concurred that there was little else they could achieve if they didn’t progress to the second chamber. They also agreed that they may find that they couldn’t access it. The possibility of not cracking the code should not be excluded. Further deliberation eventually corralled the indecisiveness into an admission that the first genie was already out of the bottle, and they couldn’t change that. In some way this knowledge had helped to create the paradox. A second genie could deliver more ways to tackle it, and without something to break the circular arguments, they were actually less able to deal with the unknown. Christophe made the point that neither he nor Rodriguez could translate the symbols and break the code.
“It comes down to all of us deciding to leave now, or the four Borg to approve trying to open up the bloody chamber. I’m not going to change my mind; we need to know what the hell is in there. You guys have the power to decide if we’re doing everything by committee, so let’s stop pussyfooting around the issue. I’ve had it with procrastination. I am saying for the record that it is negligent to pretend we have a choice anymore.”
They would descend within the hour.
Getting the circular cover off the panel without damaging it proved to be a time-consuming and delicate task. Anton was relaying this to Earth and the tension was steadily rising. Finally, the gentle twisting and low intensity vibration prised it from its defiant grip. The panel itself was a mosaic of cylindrical interlocking rods. They had to be withdrawn as a cluster to see the principle of the rearrangement to produce a key. This was the ‘code’. They needed to record any changes so that they could retrace their steps. They stopped to discuss the various female combinations inside the space from which the rods were withdrawn. There were many possible patterns which would slide back in, and many more which would not. They assumed the final grouping of the cylinders would have to be turned in one direction or another, or maybe both, or even several turns, like a combination to a safe. Rodriguez suggested fabricating some of the ‘key’ patterns from rock dissociated with a DPB, and recombined in the configuration of the particular desired template. The grains of rock could be aggregated with epoxy resin adhesive they always carried for emergency repairs. The shaping of the protrusions would have to be approximated at the mid-cure point of the resin, as they had no means of producing a mould.
Some of the attempts failed but they gradually got more proficient and the first acceptable ‘key’ was allowed to harden and then be tested. The principle seemed to work, but they detected no movement in the female parts. The frustration was building following failures stretching into double figures. At last, a simple arrangement with four protrusions at north, south, east and west caused a short grinding sound. They decided they should try this with the cylinders and meticulously noted each step. With the longer, harder protrusions, insertion was inhibited, but jiggling the position at the first point of resistance allowed further entry. Repeating this four times gained the flush position within the lock and the moment of truth arrived. One movement clockwise and then anti-clockwise, kicked off an escalating rumbling noise and the opening appeared. It was quite small, only about five feet high and two feet wide. The equilibration of atmosphere, or lack of it was audible, and once more hesitancy returned to the group. The interior was unlit and it was Christophe who volunteered to go first. He turned up the headlight on his suit, crouched and poked his head through the ‘doorway’. He reported that the walls, just like the antechamber were covered with inscriptions. He could also make out a soft glow at quite some distance from the entrance. He took the unilateral decision to squeeze through the gap. Once inside, he beckoned the others to follow. His opening remark jogged Harley’s memory.
“Albert was almost paranoid about the potential variation contained in the ‘pure’ Primede vial. I’m beginning to appreciate what he meant. The two we’re searching for on Earth were nothing like him; they were smaller, so now I’m wondering why this damned entrance is so diminutive and inconvenient for anyone taller than five feet. The vial may well be a cocktail of many eras.”
Chapter 33
They arranged the pre-charged solar lights around the perimeter of the chamber. It was larger than the antecha
mber. This solar illumination assisted the soft glow in identifying a circular podium. There was a faint humming noise from near the base. It was almost ten metres in diameter, and without any obvious means of powering a cartouche of backlit symbols. Other than the inscribed walls, and the podium, there appeared to be nothing else of note in the illuminated space. It was a pretty flat emotional moment, as the only agreed action was more hours of painstaking translation of the inscriptions. Christophe and Rodriguez were redundant while this activity was in process. The onerous task of logging everything from the walls was undertaken by Nero and Beethoven. Harley began examining the symbols in the cartouche.
He quickly made the assertion that he didn’t recognise any of them, and began to look for references to them on the walls. He asked the other two to look out for them and alert him if they became evident. The boredom of this necessary phase had all but eclipsed the former adrenaline levels, when Nero shouted for Harley to check his latest find. “There are some which look very similar to those in the cartouche, and they are spread amongst ones I already recognise. They are instructions as to what will presumably happen if the new symbols are activated. It’s a little vague but the ones I’ve found so far seem to indicate time periods. They are in some delineation which doesn’t relate to Earth dates, as we would expect. I have the order but nothing else.”
“Ok Nero, let’s find the rest before we fiddle with the cartouche. It seems logical that we concentrate on your section. I will join you, and Beethoven can continue with his methodical translation.”
It was an agonising situation for the two humans, and they wandered back to the antechamber. They began to check the vials to see if there were repeats of any particular type, as there was really nothing else to do. The paranoia of Albert was still bothering Christophe, and they now knew that some device could be monitoring their movements. Although they couldn’t truly translate the symbols on the vials, they could match like with like. Considering that they had only selected six from this massive horde on the first trip, Christophe felt that the assumption of every one being unique was solely based on translated inscription data. It had been persuasive because this text had described millions of experiments, and the vials were some kind of representation of the best efforts in each category, hence only thousands of vials.
“Let’s start at the other end from where we took the first vials Cameron, and we can build a row of unique examples. If we don’t find any duplication, at least we have ruled out another conspiracy theory of mine, while we patiently wait for the Rosetta-Stone moment from next door.”
Meanwhile, Beethoven had extracted some of the new symbols from a different section of the inscriptions. “They are related to positions in the Milky Way galaxy. As my section seems to come before the one Nero is working on, it may mean that this group of new symbols should be checked out before his are activated. It makes sense in a way if we consider the position, then the chunks of time, rather than the other way around. What do you think?”
“Yes, that is logical,” said Harley, “we now need to check if your combined extracts account for all of the new symbols.”
Nero and Beethoven conferred and affirmed that it did, and Harley went to the antechamber to alert the humans that they were about to interrogate the cartouche. He found them just as they had discovered their first duplicate sample. It was another vial of the Neanderthal perfect specimen. Harley’s urgency to begin pushing buttons receded. Christophe and Rodriguez didn’t try to convey what this might mean until they produced several more identical vials. They kept moving to the right, and checking each row and column, to reveal an estimated six hundred vials, which were probably marked with the same identifying symbols. Harley returned to ask the domestiques to join the trawl for more vials which had been duplicated. The result was worryingly simple in its implication. The only other vial with multiples of identical marking was the ‘pure’ Primede type. There was over four thousand with this nomenclature. They took a break to digest this revelation. It wasn’t difficult to see how they missed such a discovery during the first visit. The duplicate samples of both the Neanderthal and Primede broth were set back in rows eight and upwards, the first seven rows were taken up by vials with unique markings. They now had a drawing to show the overall distribution. The blocks were divided by the door to the second chamber and its access way. The multiple Neanderthal vials were to the extreme left of this divide, and the Primede to the extreme right. When they had looked at these together with the text describing the experiments to guide them on the original trip, they had never penetrated beyond row two. The text was persuasive in reinforcing the one vial – one type mental configuration, and they had truncated their visit due to pressing problems back home. They now realised that this had been a serious oversight, and one which would have probably saved the life of Albert, apart from knowing then what they were about to find out.
*
Wilson Kelly spent a lot of time deflecting questions over the selection of foster parents for the children. He was uneasy that it could snowball and attract attention from outside Helena. He placated the complainants by arranging communal play sessions, so that those wanting to be included in the care were satisfied without having the burden of full responsibility. This deft move permitted the conversion clan to increase to two hundred and seventy, nearing ten percent of the population.
*
Harley offered to point out the sequence of symbols and allow Christophe to touch them in the cartouche. “We wouldn’t be here at this time had it not been for your continual hounding to bring the trip forward.”
He began with the positional variety. Nothing happened until the full complement had been lit by contact but without pressure. A sub-menu appeared in the form of a list. They had no idea which symbols referred to any particular location, but proceeded from the top. It was immediately recognised as they leapt back in awe. A cube of pixels appeared above the circular podium and displayed a three dimensional chunk of the galaxy. It wasn’t the sector containing the Earth. They continued to the next sector and the next without much of a pause. The fifth selection produced the one they were after. A short deliberation resulted in Christophe touching the time related symbols. This was different. The first brought up a sphere, and the cube shrunk to a reference sized icon at the side. Their open-mouthed reaction provoked Harley to call for another pause, this time to record what they were looking at. It was a totally realistic scene of Homo-Erectus interacting with what could only be the Primedes. It was a typically cautious encounter, presumably somewhere near the Rift Valley. There was no sound, until Anton scared the wits out of them by announcing that another magnetic flux had been observed. They acknowledged, and watched in wonderment as the Primede seemed to cast a spell over the aggressive primate, and the gesticulations became more playful. Christophe was urged to go to the next period. This proved to be a taster for what was to come. A group of Neanderthals was being baited by early Homo-Sapiens. The to and fro of this ritualistic intimidation was punctuated by a Primede trying to communicate with the protagonists. This mediator was not quite the same in appearance as the one in the first sphere. The body was smaller, the head larger, and the features were less angular.
There were six periods to get through. They were now shivering with excitement. The third sphere depicted a realistic shot of Giza, except the pyramids still had their white limestone dazzle. Panning around, a figure of an Egyptian official came into view and he was discussing some object which was still out of sight. Another few seconds of camera rotation and the object was actually revealed. He or it was again a Primede, with slight variances compared to the previous one. The cranial capacity again appeared to be increased and although the height was similar, the torso was more slender and less muscular. It was becoming annoying that there was no sound, but it was also plain to see that they were exchanging views by symbols and hieroglyphs. Presumably, the Egyptian was some way down the pecking order from the Pharaoh. With a total of six to check, the
situation reached fever pitch.
The fourth sphere was from the Hellenistic era. Attending a play in an amphitheatre, the Primede was very similar to the third individual. That seemed logical with just a few thousand years between them. Then there was a change. The fifth scene was one of observation but no interaction. The Russian Steppe was probably captured by the recording device at some point leading up to or during the Mongol transformation into a nomadic empire. This was the first of two images, the second being from the other side of the planet, concentrating on Inca sites. It covered the period at some point between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The final projection was pulled back to a further altitude in the sky, and the slideshow was the most specific of all. The occupied trenches included from the First World War graphically brought the potential threat very close to ‘home’. It produced a spiral of speculation. Rodriguez ventured that the compression of the last three into a period of two and a half thousand years, and minimum interaction, reflected the Primedes’ concern.
“There is an interval of well over a million years in the first three. It has to have worried them that Neanderthals were gone, and humans were out of control.”
Christophe concurred. “This last graphic was also about the time computers were being vigorously researched. They could have been refining projections on when this would lead to cybernetic life forms. Hello, has everyone gone deaf?”
The combination of the thousands of Primede vials, and the last visit being only about two hundred and fifty years ago, did precipitate the possibility of an invasion launch pad. Before panic overtook reason, Harley reminded the others that they still needed to check the other galactic spheres. The appetite for doing so had all but evaporated, but it was necessary to complete the task this time.
Trying to make sense of the three dimensional coordinates from the cubes was going to be guesswork at best, so they captured the images for astronomical computation on return. The spheres themselves painted an easier landscape to understand. Of the other five sectors, only three were in the era of emergence of sentience. The remaining two not only confirmed Albert’s insistence that the Primedes were at war with cyborgs, but also showed them to be vaguely similar in physique to those who visited ancient Greece, and more importantly that the cyborgs were more advanced than those who were actually watching the display.