The Chrysalid Conspiracy (40 page)

“Okay. What if I asked you, for example, “How was your night out with the stars?” What’s the first thing that comes into your mind?”

“Oh that’s easy. All those famous people in their street clothes, normal. Why?”

“What’s odd about that is, you started with a highlight. Memories don’t come in chronological order like a video re-run?” The light was beginning to dawn and Rayn nodded in agreement.

“Exactly.” continued Amelia. “It happens with all of us. It’s the way we are. Melkins was writing his memories in the order they came to him. That’s why the book wasn’t too bad,” confirmed Amelia. “Just research and conclusions. But his story came from his memory, as random thoughts. So I re-wrote it in what seems to be a logical sequence of events. I think I’ve got it about right. Here, read this. Out loud so I can hear if it makes any sense and you can tell me what you think.”

As she passed the folder to Rayn’s shaking hands. Amelia’s throat was dry as Rayn took a deep breath and began to read.

Our particular chapter in this long-running story starts back in World War Two. A professor Albert Metcalf, a well-known and respected archaeologist and Egyptologist, while serving with the Eighth Army in the Sahara Desert, discovered a labyrinth of carved passages. The walls were covered in hieroglyphs of no known origin.

They were on a routine patrol in an isolated area when all their electrics failed, leaving them stranded. He explored further while his men tried to fix the problem

Copying as much as he could, he filled a couple of notebooks and found a few artefacts, pottery shards, worked flint and some bone fragments but, unfortunately, they had to walk out. It was a desperate journey and although Professor Metcalf was one of the few survivors the location of the labyrinth was lost.

After the war, he had the finds dated, as best they could in those days, and they were classified as up to fifty thousand years old. Established academic ‘experts’ knew this to be impossible and largely ignored it as an elaborate hoax. The details were kept by the Royal Society as a mild curiosity.

Years later, long after his death, and while his daughter was studying Paleobiology at university, she became aware of the ‘joke’ and, on discovering her father’s involvement, decided to investigate.

After graduation, she teamed up with Professor Melkins who claimed to have found an evolutionary anomaly in the same time period, twenty to forty thousand years ago. They decided on a field trip to Africa. There’s a lot at this stage about how they were treated by their colleagues and were actually warned off. Fortunately they were resolute and Dr Mary Metcalf funded the trip herself. Once in Africa, they visited all the relevant ‘digs’ and looking with fresh eyes they made some remarkable discoveries.

One example worth mentioning was the artefact classified as a ‘bell and striker for calling people to some religious activity’. It was stuck in a run-down museum labelled as Neolithic, (early stone age). But it was made of finely crafted polished flint, which wasn’t used until the Palaeolithic period, thousands of years later in the late Stone Age, and it couldn’t have possibly been struck to any effect. The two professors saw it as a pestle and mortar for pulverising organic material. The decoration had no known precedent and the artefact had been found in a stratification layer so deep it had to be at least twenty thousand years old, over twice the age it was catalogued at.

The abundant amount of such ambiguous evidence they collected on their travels indicated an extremely advanced knowledge of herbal remedies and medicinal compounds, even evidence of sophisticated surgery, dating back over thirty thousand years. At this point they were joined by a Dr Solomon Jaxson (
with an X
). Apparently, he was a geneticist, but also an amateur palaeographicist (
study of ancient languages
). Using Dr Metcalf’s father’s notes they eventually located the labyrinth.

It took Dr. Jaxson several years to decipher the strange language and was to discover, in Dr. Jaxson’s own words, ‘indications of wonders beyond the imagination,’ coupled with, ‘Horror’s beyond the sum of all fears’. Even though the labyrinth proved to be vast and they were only able to explore and record a small part of it, he learned enough to get an idea as to who and what the ‘Sanddancers’ were. A war broke out in the Middle East and somebody decided to use this particular area as a terrorist training camp. They managed to reseal the entrance and make their way further into the desert on foot. Close to death, they were rescued by an Irish mercenary and some local tribesmen (
Billy, as he called himself, fits the description of a younger George. Why are we not surprised
?). On arrival back in England, the three explorers agreed to keep the location of the labyrinth a secret.

But with the death of Dr Jaxson and the subsequent denial and death of Dr Metcalf, the good professor found himself with no evidence or anybody to corroborate his story.

(The Dr Jaxson who died, did so in a car crash and fire. He left a wife, Lucy, and a two-year-old daughter, Amelia. His wife was left in a wheelchair, paralysed from the waist down (just thought I’d pop that in here. Give you time to get your mind round it).

He wrote his book on the basis that there was so much controversial evidence it couldn’t be ignored and claims he became ostracised by the academic world. All copies of his book were withdrawn from sale and he was the victim of an elaborate smear campaign. But more recently, when he realised the significance of his discoveries, he secretly rewrote his story and to prevent Galileo getting it he planned to pass it to (his words) ‘the only person in the world who could truly understand and recognise its significance’.

To summarise, there’s a race or tribe of early man who leapfrogged Darwin’s theory by evolving from hairy spear throwers to intelligent sophisticated humans running a global economy in less than twenty thousand years. Left to their own devices they would have been quickly overtaken by the more voracious ‘Modern Man’ and would have most likely followed Neanderthal Man into extinction, so they chose isolation in a secret land leaving a record of how they achieved their superiority. Lost for thousands of years, the location of this place was rediscovered and lost in the nineteen forties, then again twenty years ago. Known to be in the Sahara desert, it’s lost somewhere in a little over three million square miles of sand. The only clue is that it may be on the Tropic of Cancer. But it’s a big desert.

The Sanddancer’s (Melkins’ words) use of the natural environment conflicts with modern society’s concept of history. He quotes Sherlock Holmes. ‘Once all possible explanations have been eliminated then one must look at the impossible’.

If, as the evidence suggests, that the Sanddancers, (christened by Mary Metcalf as ‘Homo Natura’), appeared on the scene as much as thirty thousand years ago, as the abundance of evidence suggests, it means that everything we know about human evolution, archeologically, geologically and biologically, is wrong. Although this may be not beyond the realms of possibility it is very highly probable, and it begs the question, if the evolutionary period is too short, how did they acquire the knowledge for both the industrial and technological revolutions necessary? Did they in fact have some ‘outside’ help?

There have been many books written on the theory of ‘Alien Visitation’, indeed much of the evidence reflects my own research, but they are written either in the fiction genre or fiction posing as fact. I am reluctant to support much of this, but the mathematics of ancient architecture and astronomy does seem to point to a mathological ‘Message in the Stars’ that is there for us to read, if we can find it. Although our current knowledge of the Universe puts the possibility of alien visitation beyond speculation it becomes obvious that either there is some truth behind it, or something happened in the distant past that affected the course of human evolution. The only truth is that Homo Natura existed.

I remain convinced that the Sanddancers, whoever or whatever they are or were, still live amongst us and that some type of cataclysmic social upheaval is imminent.

It’s the only explanation, possible or impossible that can account for my own experiences of threats and intimidation, and yes, even murder. I believe it has happened before; and my research and personal experience lead me to the conclusion that there is a ruthless conspiracy of silence to prevent the public from discovering that the last time this happened civilisation was reduced to a fraction of what it had been and the survivors found themselves back in a new stone age. And that our stone age was in reality a ‘new start’.”

After Rayn had finished reading, she sat motionless.

“Any questions?” asked Amelia, eventually.

“Hmm,” murmured Rayn. “Okay. If George, or whatever his name is, rescued them from the desert, why didn’t Melkins recognise him at St Margaret’s?”

“No idea,” said Amelia. “Perhaps he didn’t recognise him. Or maybe they didn’t meet. George was, after all, only a working man to our academic Headmaster.”

“Possible, I suppose. Why are they called Sanddancers?”

“He didn’t say,” Amelia replied.

“Now,” said Rayn. “The question you are dying for me to ask. Do you really think that this Dr Jaxson was your father?”

Amelia sat for a moment, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice. “That’s a hard one. It all fits, and one thing we have learned is that there are few, if any, coincidences in this thing. My conclusion is that I don’t want to believe it, so I’ll wait for evidence from another source.”

She was visibly shaking by now and Rayn decided not to pursue the subject by doing a little side-step to ease her friend’s distress.

“All this is from the main text of the book, I gather?”

“Yes. There’s a lot missing, but that’s about the best I could do.”

“So what about the ‘story within a story’? Did you do that?” asked Rayn.

“Oh yes. That was tough. But I got something,” Amelia told her. “But I can’t read it out, I burned it.”

Rayn was mortified. “You what!” she cried. “Listen girl, I love you like a sister, and I’d do anything for you, but you are pushing your luck. What’s the idea?” Rayn was trying to control her emerging anger.

“Don’t worry, I memorised it.” said Amelia quickly. “I’m going to tell you. I just don’t want a copy lying around. You’ll have to digest and remember. Am I being paranoid or just plain stupid?”

“Neither, my friend,” smiled Rayn, conceding to Amelia’s logic. “If that’s your decision, that’s fine with me.”

“Thank you. It was far from easy and I hope I’ve got it right. I want you to read the book and cross-check the details.”

“No way,” Rayn was emphatic. “I’ve tried to read that thing, and your interpretation will do me fine, thank you.”

“All right then,” said Amelia. “No hysterics please, and don’t interrupt till I’ve finished. Got it?”

“Yeah, I got it,” replied Rayn as she made herself comfortable on Amelia’s bed.

Outside, a cold wind was blowing down from the High Lakes and rain was spattering against the window. Rayn had the feeling that tomorrow was going to be a bad day, and it was getting light already.

“These are my own words,” explained Amelia. “The dear professor has loads of statistics and rather vivid descriptions, as you would expect, but this is how I’ve interpreted it. Please remember we are discussing the conclusions of a very clever but extremely bitter man. So don’t get hysterical on me.” Amelia paused to collect her thoughts. She took a few deep breaths to steady her nerves and then continued.

“This next section is all the things he couldn’t publicly put in the main text of his book. You’ll begin to understand when I get going.” She said.

“According to the Professor, the human race is in serious trouble. The last time, he says, climate change or a lack of resources, whether by nature or nurture, shouldn’t have been a problem, and surely a super race such as visiting aliens, or even the Sanddancers themselves would have the capabilities to solve the problems and save themselves and the planet.

He had no idea whether the ‘Aliens’ have returned or are returning, or even if they ever existed. When or why they left he claims is interesting, but largely irrelevant to the outcome. If they did arrive and teach us the wonders of the Universe then their departure would have left us to our own destiny anyway.

The following is what he had learned in the last few years and is the only explanation, possible or impossible that can account for his own experiences. He goes on to explain that Man, (Homo Sapien) including modern man, (Homo Sapien-sapien) is a creature of habit, and a breakdown of society would leave us with no controlling authority to prevent us from regressing to our former ways; imprisoned in a spiral of greed, selfishness, a lust for power with little or no compassion, and a total disregard for the natural world in which we live.

Our natural predilection for war and destruction would eventually reduce us to a few bands of hunter-gatherers from which we have descended. I think we’ve proved in our known history that man’s inhumanity to man is never far beneath the surface.

With our current global economy based on one single product; oil, we are very vulnerable and I see no chance for any concerted plan of action, indeed not even any serious dialogue to prevent the total economic collapse. It would seem that with the current collapse of the world banking system it may already be on us.”

“Could oil be our metaphor for Aliens?” Amelia slipped in.

If he’s right, and claims he’s quite literally staking his life on it, he tells us the only safe haven is the lost land of the Sanddancers. He said quite adamantly, ‘Retrieve the Jaxson codex, his original and the only translation of Sanddancer hieroglyphics, find the labyrinth, and sanctuary will be yours.’

***

Rayn had gone a peculiar shade of white. Reaching into Amelia’s drawer she took a cigarette and lit up with shaking hands.