EarthUnder (The Meteorite Chronicles Book 1) (11 page)

Mina turned to me again as we hung there more than a thousand meters above the ground or whatever it’s called, and she told me I could remain here for as long as I wished. Then her expression changed as she continued. “There are other hazards that threaten our planet and soon we will need to talk about those concerns. That is why you have been brought here. You have become our greatest hope for the future, a future that we all hope will last for many more millions of years. So we will remain here if you are willing. As you continue to stay here your body will adapt to our conditions and you will require less rest, less nourishment, and your mental focus will become keener. There are no days or nights here. You may need time to adjust to this, although we find that humans adapt very rapidly to change. Terans are not as adaptive as humans; sudden changes here are nonexistent. I will do all I am able to help you make this transition. Can you think of any questions at this point?”

I told Mina that this would take a great deal of time for me to assimilate. She nodded knowingly and gave me a warm, comforting smile. I did have one question suddenly pop into my mind. “Where are all the machines and buildings?”

Jasmina explained that machines were abandoned by her people many millions of years ago and that what remained on her home world were relics of a former life that were preserved as monuments for memories of earlier generations. Those material items were left to be destroyed because only living tissue can bridge space via the folded ribbon, and no tangible items can be taken. Only the memories of them remain. But she told me that certain treasured items were cached away in “Paleogarcks” made of nearly indestructible material in hopes that they might survive the cataclysm to be recovered in the future. These were items of tremendous historic value from Tera’s past much like famous oil paintings or carved marble statues or historic, antiquarian books. She appeared very pleased with my first question as though I had touched on some key issue. She went on to say that in this time they have no need of machinery or structures of any kind. “We all know what everyone is thinking and so there is no deceit, no privacy, no property, no greed or possession, no competition, basically nothing to hide. We all share in the same brain power and so there is nothing to prove or display.”

Next Jasmina took me down to the surface below. There I was shown things I haved never dreamed of. There were unusual plants, wildly colorful flowers, and strange, small creatures skittering about, stopping to look up at us. Everything glowed with its own light and unusual coloration. The surface was soft, and warmer than the air. There were plants the likes of which I had never seen. Many of them turned as we walked by as if they too were looking up at us. People walked past us and looked at us, but they all reacted as though they already knew me. There were no expressions of surprise, concern, or curiosity.

Again, I was not keeping up with the first day’s briefing. Mina said that they all know everything that she knows. I grinned at Jasmina sheepishly, and thought to myself that this would take me time to get accustomed to; she smiled back and nodded her head. I thought to myself,
Then why have a voice or why use it?
Mina looked at me and said that the vocal cords are vestigial for Terans but they use them for prayers and for singing, so they have not gone into complete dormancy. “Ok,” I responded rather cynically, “what do you pray about and who do you pray to?”

“We pray to our ancestors and to the creator,” Jasmina replied with solid confidence and conviction in her unwavering voice. “We pray for all races throughout the universe. We don’t pray for specific issues or requests. We chant in prayer as a way to share our good fortune and faith with others and we do so through rhythmic thought and sounds.”

The next question demanded an answer, “How long do Terans live?”

“The average Teranian will live three thousand Earth surface years. Some Elders live to be over four thousand years. This is how long our spirits live but we must reincarnate a number of times throughout this span of years. We don’t have the same endogenous components as humans. Without having to adapt to the solar and lunar rhythms, all creatures on Tera live extensive life cycles. Those who exist in EarthUnder do not suffer the same senescence as those who inhabit the surface of Earth.”

“Are you going to live that long?” I pried.

“No, my family line was genetically specialized generations ago to survive the rigors of Earth’s surface atmosphere. There is a cost for living in the light of the sun. The chronobiology of life under the light of the sun and moon dictates that we age much more rapidly than our people of New Tera. We still enjoy being Teran and we have been given additional abilities through our exposure to humankind.”

“Are there many others like you on the surface?”

She admitted, “No, very few, and most are part of my family.”

I had to ask the hard question, “So you intend man and womankind no harm?”

Mina quips, “If we did mean to harm you, don’t you think this would have happened a long time ago?”

“Hmm, so then why do this now?” I inquired, thinking I had her pinned in a verbal chess game.

“Ah, my dear man, that is just exactly why you are here,” Mina replied with relief and confidence in her tone. Right now your best researchers are watching a maverick asteroid they call Apophis. Some have predicted that it will make a near Earth pass in 2024 and again, it will pass even closer to Earth in the year 2036. Your people are just beginning to understand how powerful this threat can be. The Terans monitor the balance of all orbiting objects that might threaten this planet at any time in the future. We have helped orchestrate a delicate magnetic balance in this solar system, as have our brothers and sisters on planetary bodies throughout this galaxy and several others across the universe. Over time, my people have grown to feel responsible for the continuation of your species and all other creatures on the surface of Earth. We brought you here. Terans altered the flora and fauna and the environment of the surface several times to accommodate your kind. We altered Man’s genetics to help you develop and to help you survive on the surface. Now, sadly, over time we have realized that we must help you survive each other. Man has become Mankind’s gravest threat.

“If there were another massive planet killer hurtling toward Earth, then Terans would be forced to leave. Without the time to prepare we would need to move to another planet already prepared for our numbers and we might then be forced to coexist with another population on their world for a time. In doing this we would be left with the grim choice of leaving your race behind. This is a choice that no Teranian ever wishes to make. Terans have a special love for all mankind and in spite of the crimes between you, we see your good and wish to protect you as we will protect our own.

“Your scientists are making plans and building ships in order to travel into space and begin mining minerals from random asteroids and planets in our solar system. They have proposed plans to harness an asteroid and bring it back near Earth and place in an orbit around the moon. Take this to mind, my star man. These planets and planetoids drift and spin in a delicate balance. We, the Terans, maintain that balance with the strength of our minds and millions of years of putting all the pieces in their places. Just as your greatest minds cannot fathom our most basic creation, this planet’s gravitational field, they cannot possibly understand what holds all of these planets and planet killers in the stasis your people call the solar system. Terans have patiently observed your people since the beginning of your time on Earth. We have enjoyed your successes and have marveled at your creations, but at the same time there have been wars, competition on a planetary scale, crimes between one another, and crime between entire countries.

“Sadly, it gets much worse, while your people busily go about your lives under the sun, most of your refuse is dumped into the ground, rivers, lakes, oceans, and air. Your scientists and military experiment with atomic bombs and nuclear energy, creating massive amounts of deadly fallout and waste on many areas of the globe. They have exploded and still plan to test these bombs above and below ground as well as beneath the seas. There seems to be little regard for the lives of others and certainly no regard for lives in the future. It seems to my people that yours are not looking far enough into the future. Mankind must ask the question, what of the lives of humankind one thousand years from now or one million years from now?

“You see, my dear Sterling, Terans have no reliance on the existence of Man on Earth, but without my kind, Man will perish in a handful of heartbeats. In this time, Man poses many threats to our survival. The oceans are our oxygen tank. Think of the planet as a spaceship and the oceans are our rebreather; they take in our carbon dioxide and breathe out the oxygen that our lungs require. Just one too many bombs or barges of waste or chemical dumps or accidental spills of oil can kill our oceans. One more fresh water river dies and spills only pollution into the oceans of the world, or the long-term effects of a tragedy such as Fukushima, oceans die and with them so do we. Many times now Man has ignited nuclear bombs below ground or under water and my people are forced to exact a greater surge of our energy to prevent a breakthrough into EarthUnder. This drain on our mental energy force has caused a weakening in other areas of the planet, where resulting catastrophes have then occured.

“You understand what I am saying; I can see it in your eyes and I can hear it in your mind. I need not continue on this bent, but this is why you have been brought here.The small fragment in your pocket represents our only hope. In the time it takes a human to inhale a breath of air my people can depart from EarthUnder and the surface of Earth will be scoured away like the surface of Mars or Mercury. This is not our wish. Our desire is to find a life of harmony with mankind.

“Our hope is that this fragment of meteorite that you have will bring this world to a changed direction. What you possess is a fragment of our sacred Cunene Obelisk. The obelisk was built using the brain bone of an ancient sea creature, a Drillian named Cunene. Cunene swam the seas of our home world for several billion years. This massive, gentle creature went into extinction, but its brain bone was preserved along with its entire memories and all of the memories of my people down through the millennia. When Tera was destroyed, this was the most treasured artifact placed under the protection of the Garck. Just like you, many of my family have searched the surface of Earth for generations hoping to recover any Paleogarcks that might have survived the cataclysm and then by some miracle found their way to Earth. Our sacred stone is a fragment of Cunene’s brain bone and the piece you have is a piece of that powerful, ancient artifact. Your love of the quest is no accident; your passion for the hunt is the result of genetic memory. A part of me is in you. You may recall strange dreams from when you were younger. These were vivid dreams that seemed too colorful to be anything but real, but at your young age you could not understand them. Those were some of our memories. You also have some very keen residual talents. You tend to do things prematurely before they become commonly known, this is because you have a vague sight into the future but it is not perfected in you. When you were young you felt unlimited strength and energy. That too was genetic effect. Your body will adapt quickly to this environment because there is Teran in you. We have watched your genetic line for thousands of years and have waited for you and your time to come. I have loved you for many of your lifetimes, Bryce Monroe. Now in my prime I have seen the culmination of all of the traits that I have admired in every one of your prior lives. You are he, the one we have waited for to bridge the gap between our peoples, and you can do this with the stone.

“Now is as good or bad a time as any to tell you of a great disappointment. Your trusted friend Ali has betrayed that trust. This is something that surprised us as well. It appeared to us that you two were as brothers. Ali has met with your nemesis Laurent and has offered to sell him our stone for the right price. Your other travel friends are safe, as are my family members, but you were all followed aggressively by corrupt competitors trying to take what they believed you to possess. When you changed your mind and walked away from the bus, your pursuers took the long ride north and your ride to us with Simon was unfettered. So, if this is too much, too quickly, I am happy to give you time to rest,” Mina offered with kind consideration. “But if you desire more, I can go on with your indoctrination.”

I nodded in agreement and simply said, “Yes, more please.”

Jasmina went on. “We understand that your scientists will have serious skepticism and we are hoping that your relationships with many in that community will carry weight enough to get them to give extra consideration to what we are about to reveal to your world. The consensus is that once they have had the opportunity to analyze our fragment, they will change their minds on their own about what they feel is a certain reality. Right now the most intelligent minds on Earth do not believe in life elsewhere in the universe, yet many are scrambling to be the first to find evidence. A majority of those researchers figure that the most they will find might be a life form similar to the cockroach and possibly to be in the form of a fossil. What they will find in our fragment will be bone cells far older than this star system and still unmineralized as well as having fusion crust that can be dated for its terrestrial age.

“The Elders feel this may be the key that allows humans to open their minds to further possibilities. Our hope is that through your science experts, we can then approach your governing body for further revelation. Based on our calculations, there is little time for this process and we shall aid you in any way possible to expedite this effort. I do understand that there shall be great danger for you during your journeys on our behalf. But now that you are more informed, you will be more receptive to my thoughts. If you trust me implicitly, I will get you there and I shall be with you in mind, heart, and body. I have been with you for longer than you know and if you allow me, I will never leave your side again. From now forward our souls are one.”

How lucky am I? The most beautiful woman in three galaxies is never going to leave my side!
I turned to see her looking at me intently and about to burst into laughter. I have just been busted for thinking happy thoughts. Her laughter broke the tension and helped me to get over the embarrassment.

An unavoidable question came to mind, “What comes after I get the fragment into the hands of researchers?”

Jasmina revealed to me that there was no need for a plan beyond this point, but rather there would be a very predictable chain reaction that would transpire. The discovery would be announced, and coming from humans of such reliable credibility, the truth would never find question. Government leaders would want to hear more and would find a way to the source of the material. At that time I would then play the role of ambassador for a time while the transition took place. The idea was to turn things around with Teranian help wherever possible. But the fear of potential abandonment would be necessary to force the change, and since it would take less than the blink of an eye for this to occur, there would be a great deal of motivation for all surface dwellers to respond to the need for change. I could not imagine how the entire global population would react to the news that we are not alone. This is a question that everyone ponders at times. It’s been the source of thousands of books and other publications, the plot of thousands of films, the fabric of myth, legend, and storytelling through the ages. All of that speculation will end. The only part of all this that might be easily accepted is the thought of coexisting. That would be a moot point since it has already gone on since the beginning of time.

We have cohabited this planet for ages without mankind knowing about it. This brought other questions to mind. I turned again to gaze into the lovely green eyes that shone even brighter here in the luminescent glow of every living thing in EarthUnder. I asked Mina if the Terans had anything to do with the dinosaurs.

She replied swiftly, “We had everything to do with the dinosaurs; every creature on Earth was brought here from other planets. We could not always fold space. In our early ages of experimentation with the utilization of space ribbons, our earliest efforts six hundred million years ago were partial failures, only transplanting single-cell organisms. But with time Teranians perfected distance travel, populating many planets with life forms saved and transferred from dying worlds. Later in time when our doom became more clearly apparent, we began to modify some of the worlds more suitable for our kind to inhabit. I know from your education that you are familiar with the fossil record and the explosions of life and later extinctions of certain species; this was designed and orchestrated by our efforts. A piece to this puzzle for your history books might interest you. Your paleontologists find many species of dinosaurs in fossilized remains, but they are no longer living while other creatures that appear in the same fossil formations are still present on Earth today. It is assumed that the giant lizards and many small species were driven into extinction. The fact is that some did die off for various reasons, but many were moved elsewhere to planets more suitable for their anatomy or lifecycle. Many of our early efforts were flawed, lacking proper planning and preparation. Over time my people in their wisdom have learned to be far less invasive. We have learned that in an effort to maintain balance it is better to make small nudges than to push and shove to make things work, Compri?”

My heart leaps. The word fills me with warm, comforting, distant memories. I should have expected that Mina would know that word and how Kadishya had used it back then. It felt good to hear it used again. It seemed to flow into the moment. I was absorbing a great deal of new and exciting information and it was an appropriate word for her to use. The word had reminded me of the surface and all I had to eventually return to. For now I wanted to hear more about Jasmina’s home world Tera and EarthUnder.

As Jasmina revealed more about the history of her people, questions that have boggled the minds of brilliant men and women for centuries were being answered. This experience was connecting the cosmic dots! Her descriptions and explanations painted vivid images in my mind. I could feel the excitement her ancestors must have felt being able to do all these amazing things. I needed to ask Mina more about this “brain bone”; so far this made little sense to my caveman brain. Again she showed me with her eloquent eyes that she was listening in on my thoughts. It occurred to me at this moment that her abilities would be very helpful in the race to get this specimen into the hands of the right group of scientists.

Mina nodded knowingly, answering, “This giant, gentle, sea creature was much like the gray whale found here on Earth, but far larger and able to live for great spans of time. They were a magnificent creature that swam in our ocean and lived a life much as your whales do here. The Drillians’ large brain afforded them great intelligence and power. We learned how to control and develop our brain power from the Drillians. Not only were they able to perform massive displays of mental power, they were able to clearly communicate with all species of our world including the Terans.

“Now, this part may be difficult for you, my Bryce Monroe Sterling; in your culture and in recent years you have developed the ability to store memory into crystals such as the silicon wafers in your computers. Billions of years ago the Drillians outgrew the memory capacity of their massive brains. You see, they were unable to forget anything. The massive brain was as a light that burns always; they could not erase or prioritize memory—it was always right there in the foreground. The end of a Drillian’s life came in the instant the brain could hold no more information. This would take many millions of your years, but it was tragic to the Drillians to lose one of their ancient companions. Over the millennia Drillians evolved, developing the brain bone. This was a large, heavy, silicified mass above their brain that acted much like what your people would consider to be a biological supercomputer with great quantities of memory. Within this bone they would store literally every memory, including those of others and what memories could be recalled of their predecessors. In more recent times their memories included all those of the Teranians as well. In the last millennium of our time on Tera a small comet had fallen into our ocean. This was assumed to be a harmless event, but locked within its icy nucleus was a rabid bacterium that spread throughout the Drillians, killing every one. We were devastated by the loss of our mentors, the Drillian. Not only had they taught us much of what we live by, but they were so intricately involved in our lives that their memories were a complete chronology of our own lives for many millions of years. When the corpse of the oldest Drillian Cunene was located, the bones were preserved in a memorial obelisk. We discovered in touching the brain bone that all of those memories were accessible by our minds and we learned that by touching this bone our current memories were also stored within the Drillian brain bone much like memory is stored in a silicon wafer.