In the Beginning: Mars Origin "I" Series Book I (23 page)

“Mars?” Mase looked up from his reading.

I stopped pacing and came over and sat in
the chair opposite where he sat.

“What?”

“Mars?” he said again. “The man who wrote
this was on Mars?” He seemed agitated.

“Yes.”

“A little green man - - big head, emancipated
body, slanted eyes and spindly limbs man from Mars?”

“Oh, my goodness no!” I started laughing.
“They were humans.”

“So give me this in a nutshell.”

“You mean what you read? I -”

“No. Stop, Justin,” he looked me straight
in my eyes. “I mean a paragraph, a hundred words or less, no more. Succinctly,
I’m using that word again. Tell me what this
whole thing
is about and
then - - well, then I have lots,” an amused look came across his face, “and
lots of questions.”

“Okay. I can do that, although you haven’t
read much -”

“See, already too many words. A hundred
words or less.”

I took in a deep breath. “Man originally
lived on Mars. Man that looked like us. Was us. Same DNA. Highly skilled.
Technologically superior. Decided to play around with the earth, small “e,”
next door. Played with gene technology - created huge animals and people.
Played with the earth’s resources – changed the climate, changed topography.
Lived and played among their creations, leaving evidence of their technical
prowess. Then, destroyed their planet by some kind of nuclear disaster. Decided
to move to the third planet to save mankind. History of man starts all over
again. The End.” I let out an exaggerated exhale.  “Succinct enough for you?”

“So the guy who wrote our
history
,
as it were, in this – manuscript, scroll or whatever you wanna call it, was
sitting on Mars and then had it brought down to Earth and put in a cave by the
Dead Sea with the Scriptures of the Old Testament?”

“I’m not sure if that’s exactly how it
happened, but yes, that about explains it. I don’t think it’s the original
because you would think if they can move to Earth they wouldn’t write on
papyrus. I don’t know though, you know maybe the original was lost. Or maybe this
information was passed down orally before being written down. I really don’t
know.”

Mase just stared at me and said nothing.

“You know,” I figured I should keep
talking, “It’s funny, I remember when I was in school this author - - what was
his name? Erich von Däniken. He wrote a book,
Chariots of the Gods?
He
wrote that alien astronauts visited Earth thousands of years ago and were
responsible for the pyramids, the Nazca Plains lines . . . Oh, maybe that’s
what Courtney was talking about - - lines on the ground.”

“What?”

“Courtney told me that her archaeology
professor was talking about lines on the ground. Maybe he was talking about the
lines and figures of the Nazca Plains.”

“Justin, what are you talking about? I’m
trying to figure out about men from Mars and you’re talking about some lines on
the ground.”

I laughed. “No. It’s all relevant. I
promise. Anyway. This guy, von Däniken, wrote that the crew of spaceships
realized that the people on Earth could support intelligent life so they
impregnated the primitive inhabitants – the cavemen – and that’s how
intelligent life came to be on Earth.”

“And how is that relevant? Did they
impregnate cavemen or rather cavewomen in the manuscripts?”

“No.”

“Are you sure about that because if these
manuscripts are right, spaceships did land here and spacemen did supply advance
technological information, just like he said.”

“No. It’s not the same. The visitors
weren’t “aliens” and the inhabitants of this earth are the same people who
perfected the technology. Don’t you get it? The ‘men from Mars’ were the only
people that ever inhabited Earth. No people were here before they got here.”

“Yeah, I really don’t get it. Not yet. But
just the same, maybe that Von guy knew what he was talking about. Maybe he knew
about the manuscripts.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Or,” he said, maybe he didn’t know about
the manuscripts. Maybe just like his book, this is all a figment of someone’s
imagination. Maybe these manuscripts are not really anything to get worked up
over because it never happened. People have had ideas like this all along.
There have been lots of authors that wrote of ancient astronauts or about space
travel. Maybe this is just another story.”

“Not hardly.” I was getting kind of upset.
“The author who wrote these manuscripts didn’t write fiction or how he
envisioned it to be. This is fact.”

“And you know that this is fact, huh?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Okay, Justin, right now I won’t even ask
you why you believe all of this. We’ll just make the assumption that it is true
for the sake of argument.”

“For the sake of argument? What the heck
are you talking about? This is true. Why don’t you believe it?” I couldn’t see
why he wouldn’t believe it. Maybe because he just read part of the translation.

“I am not saying whether I do or not. At
least not yet.”

“Well, you just need to believe it.  We
need to learn from this. Learn our history and learn how to save our planet
from the same fate. History repeats itself.”

“Yeah, and maybe if they hadn’t messed up
we’d still be living on Mars.” Mase started laughing.

“This is not funny.”

“Yeah, I’m not laughing at this. Not
really. I was just thinking if this is true, those guys on Mars were acting
like they were sitting on Mt. Olympus somewhere.”

 “Gods’ are exactly how the author
describes the mentality of Man at that time. Their arrogance, their feelings of
superiority was larger than life, larger than God. They knew their species was
unique. Not to be found anywhere else in the universe. They were the most
intelligent beings anywhere and they wanted to rule everywhere.”

“Yeah. I guess that’s right. But we’re
headed down that same road, trying to rule everyone and everything. Destroying
our planet. And we evidently don’t know as much as they did,” Mase said. “But
when it comes to those manuscripts, you gotta wonder how much of what was
written actually depicts what happened and the sentiments of everyone else. Did
they feel the same way?”

“You know, Claire said that to me once.”

He chuckled. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. She wondered how much of the
dialogue in the history books was given just for the drama and how much of it
really depicts how they really were and what they really felt.”

“So, what? I’m thinking like Claire now?”

I laughed. “That’s a scary thought.”

“You know, one thing you can know for sure
is no matter what you dream up or predict for the future, wondering how it will
be, or trying to piece together the cultures of the past, there is one
constant,” Mase said. “Human nature. No matter how advanced a people become, or
rather how advanced or primitive their technology is, the people are the same.
They don’t change. From millennium to millennium, and apparently world to
world, people are still people and nothing can change that. We all still need
and want basically the same things. We have insecurities, we have weaknesses.
We are born and we die and ultimately we don’t have any control over those
things.”

“I can remember looking at old pictures,
life from the Old West, or from like the early 1900s, and I wondered what was
in their heads. You know?” he said. “Like what kind of things did they think,
what did they say, how did they act - - react to things. You know? How did they
feel? But it’s no different, Justin, from what we say today. How we act or how
we feel. Looks like people are no different whether it was a man who lived a
million years ago on Mars or one that will live a million years from now on
whatever planet man will inhabit.”

“Oh, so are you conceding that Man did
live on Mars?”

“Oh no.” He held up both his hands, a
chuckle escaping from his throat. “I am definitely not saying that. But whoever
wrote this manuscript, from what I’ve read, could have just as easily lived
today - - right now. I understand that the words - the translation, is yours.
But the thoughts are his and they’re the same as the next guy, you understand
what I mean?” I nodded my head. “So, changing the subject, have you ever heard
of any concrete evidence of extraterrestrials visiting Earth before this
manuscript?”

“Ha! Now that I found the manuscript,
everything I ever heard is concrete evidence of extraterrestrials coming to
Earth.” I said. “But, like I said, no one ever believed those people. Although
now, they’ll have to believe after they see that these manuscripts explain all
of our ancient mysteries.”

CHAPTER
FIFTY-ONE

We sat in silence for what seemed like a
long while. I didn’t know what Mase was thinking. I was thinking that I was
glad to be talking about this to someone. Even if that someone still didn’t
quite believe it as truth.

“So, Justin,” Mase broke the silence. “Don’t
you think that makes this kind of suspect? Like it’s all made up? All of life’s
mysteries answered and wrapped up neatly with a bow. This one small notebook
tells this huge secret? C’mon. Who were the people that wrote it? No one’s ever
heard of this before.”

“I don’t care about that,” I said. “This
is true. There’ve been many peoples and civilizations that we didn’t know
existed. Some we are just finding out about. Like the Essenes. No one knew much
about them until we found the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

“Yeah, but they didn’t come from Mars.”

Ooh, he was making me so mad.

“Oh, so you really believe all of this,
don’t you?” He all of a sudden seemed surprised.

“Yes, I do. Can’t you tell? Do you think I
would have been so adamant over something I didn’t believe?”

“How? How could you believe this?”

“I’ve never had a problem believing in the
other artifacts that I dug up.”

“You didn’t dig this up.”

“It was found with the Dead Sea Scrolls,
and everyone in the entire world believes that they are authentic. Plus, as you
say, it has all the answers ‘neatly tied up with a bow.’” These manuscripts
explain the extinction of dinosaurs, the origin of the Neanderthal man, the
ability to build pyramids and how there are similarities in language, and
architecture of peoples that supposedly had no contact with each other. So many
other ancient mysteries that scientists have pondered over for centuries are
answered. So many pieces of history just weren’t explainable. Besides, how
would someone two thousand years ago know about space travel and nuclear war
and all the other modern things that these manuscripts talk about?”

“Justin, you’ve said yourself, that there
have been many authors who wrote about flying machines and space travel long
before we actually did it.”

“I never said that. You said that.”

“Yes, you did, Justin. And, people for
hundreds of years, heck, thousands of years have dreamt and wrote about space
travel.”

“And?” There was an edge of disgust in my
voice. I hope he sensed it.

“Now. Look. We can’t have this discussion
if you’re going to act like a brat.”

I opened my mouth twice to speak, and
finally just let out a very loud, very long sigh and rolled my eyes, again.

Mase squinted his eyes and shook his head.
“You know you are going to be met with a lot of opposition on this, so you
better get used to it. Be a professional.”

“What a mean thing to say, Mase. I am a
professional. And I know people will have a hard time believing this, but I
really didn’t expect the opposition to come from you.”

Mase laughed. “I don’t know why. You come
to me and tell me that Man originated on a planet that does not have any life
and as far as we know, never had life. Then you tell me that it not only
did
have life, but that life beamed down to this planet, started all over again,
creating their own Book of Genesis. And you expect not to get any opposition?
You couldn’t really be serious.”

Maybe I was being a brat.

“I never said they
beamed
down,” I
said, half mumbling.

He smirked. “Okay, maybe that was my own
rendition. Can’t help but to think about Captain Kirk and the starship,
Enterprise.”

“Yeah, well big difference, Mase. This is
all true.”

CHAPTER
FIFTY-TWO

“Speaking of race,” I said. We’d been
talking about the human race, but I wanted to swing the conversation back
around. “Another interesting fact I discovered was they decided to populate
their ‘new’ earth with only one race of people. They tried to repopulate the
Earth with Indians.”

“Indians.” He sounded skeptical. “Yeah, I
remember when you first figured that part out. And, I did read that part, but –
I don’t remember seeing the word Indian in there.”

“Well, I had to figure out that he meant
Indians. I’m sure they didn’t call them that.”

His expression showed his disbelief in yet
another fact of the manuscript. I opened my mouth to explain but he held up his
hands to stop me.

“We’ll come back to that one. Tell me what
happened that they came here.”

“You just read it.”

He gave me a look.

“Okay, at first they came here to fool
around with the planet. To play God, as it were. Then they
moved
here
because they had some kind of nuclear holocaust. It destroyed their planet and
most of the people.”

“How did it happen? Did the manuscript say
that or is that something else you figured out?’

“The manuscript.”

He looked at me suspiciously. “So, what?
Did they blow each other up? How? What? Why? Why would they blow each other
up?”

“I don’t know why. I don’t even know if
they did blow each other up or not. The manuscript doesn’t give the reason.
They do talk about global conflict and destruction, but I don’t know if
war
caused the holocaust. The author never uses any word with the English
equivalent of ‘war.’ He uses words like “accident’ and ‘chance.’ So it could
have been a war, a chance attack, I don’t know. Or an accident, perhaps, like Chernobyl.
I don’t know which one. But I do know that there was some sort of nuclear
catastrophe and the surface of the planet was destroyed and a lot of lives
lost. And the manuscripts describe a one world government, making the
declaration of war on one nation, other than the possibility of a rebellious
faction, not likely. So who knows what happened. I don’t know.

Mase was staring at me in doubt again.

“You know,” he said, after a moment’s
thought, “for you to have all this figured out and be so convinced that it’s
true, you sure do say ‘I don’t know’ a lot.”

I started to say something snarky, but he
spoke up first.

“So, after the nuclear calamity they came
to Earth and started man here, right?”

“They didn’t
start
man here. It’s
not like they came down here and ‘impregnated a Neanderthal’ as Greg puts it.
They just
continued
life here. It was migrate, mutate or die.”

“Migrate, mutate or die.”

He repeated it, “Migrate, mutate or die.”
And then seemed to mull the thought over for a long moment. “So for thousands
of years,” Mase said, “people are arguing whether God put man on Earth, or if
man evolved from a single-cell organism. Now, here come these manuscripts with
this extraordinary revelation.” Mase seemed overwhelmed. He was staring out
into space like he was really trying to figure this thing out and all of a
sudden this concerned look came over his face and he looked at me. He didn’t
say anything right away.

Finally, he spoke, “So, maybe the second
coming of Christ has already happened.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe he said that.

“In the Book of Revelation it talks about
the world being destroyed by fire, the air killing folks the same as it would
in a nuclear attack. It talks about a new heaven, a new earth, the old one
being ‘passed away.’ And you could easily equate the rapture to them leaving
the planet on spaceships. Maybe God has already redeemed man and now we have
just messed up all over again.”

“What a horrible thought.” I felt a lump
in my throat and a knot in my stomach. Mase’s observations actually scared me.

“So, Mase, that would mean that there’s no
hope for us,” I said hesitantly. “No hope for a better existence. No hope of a
heaven to give us eternal life and replace this pitiful existence that we
have.”

He nodded, “That’s what it would mean.” He
said it so matter-of-factly. “I’m going to get a drink of water, something to
eat or something.” He spoke abruptly. “I gotta take a break. Take a minute to
digest all of this. This is too much for me. You want something out of the
kitchen?”

“No.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

How could he want something to eat? His
last comment had left such a bad taste in my mouth and a sick feeling in my
stomach that there’s no way I could even think about eating anything.

I remembered thinking after Dr. Margulies
died that maybe there isn’t any God. That maybe Dr. Margulies was just lying
down there in the ground, cold, hard, with no soul uniquely his own to live on.
That he’s just there waiting until some futuristic archaeologist dug him up and
tried to figure out what he ate, what kind of living he had, and then base a
whole civilization’s culture and beliefs on it. I leaned back in my chair and
felt tears roll down my face. How could Mase make such a statement and then
just get up and leave?

I could hear him in the kitchen. Cabinet
doors closing, the refrigerator door opening and shutting, him raffling around
in the silverware drawer. What was he doing? I shouldn’t have told him about
all of this because he had me upset again. Right when I was starting to calm
down. This thing was hard enough for me without me having to defend it to him
and listen to his obscure interpretations. I heard another cabinet door shut.
Oh, he makes me sick. He is as bad as Greg.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
Okay, so I wasn’t really
mad
at Mase. I just don’t want to ever think
that there isn’t any hope. I opened up my eyes and stared out blankly.

“God,” I whispered softly, “Are you there?
Please be there.” I sat with tears running down my face.

Instead of God, I got Mase. He came back
from the kitchen with a pound bag of potato chips, four sandwiches each wrapped
in its own paper towel, a half-gallon of orange juice and two glasses of ice. I
looked at him as he juggled to place the stuff down on the desk. I shook my
head.

“That’s why we can’t keep any paper towels
in this house. Did you need to use all of those?”

“Yes, figured it might be a long night.”
He smiled at me and unwrapped one of the sandwiches. “Here.” He handed me one
of the paper towels, “You can use them to wipe your tears and blow your nose. I
see that you’ve been crying again. Now what’s wrong?”

I guess he had forgotten what he said.

“Nothing. I’m okay.”

“Oh, I thought maybe you found something
else in that little notebook of yours.”

I chuckled. “No. I didn’t.”

“Good. So, now, tell me about the
dinosaurs.”