Intelligent Design: Revelations to Apocalypse (21 page)

“And what of Terra?” he asked.

The holographic image shifted from Earth’s projection—including its moon, which was finally escaping Earth’s orbit and moving toward deep space—to a half-light, half-dark planet tidal locked in orbit just on the other side of the original sun. With no surface evidence of a modern society, the animation zoomed in closer to reveal a small, hominid-built series of living habitats in the planet’s crust. The only evidence of these on the surface was a series of ancient pyramids of varying size, distributed along the large planet’s equatorial line.

“Terra’s planetary axis change will expand from twenty point three degrees to twenty-three point seven, which will also create fissures in its mantle. Due to its tidal-locked nature, massive windstorms and sweeping tornadoes will dominate the light side of the planet, while even more impressive lightning and thunderstorms will occur on the dark side. The planet’s longitudinal equator will be the nexus of the violent weather. Fortunately, the Terrans’ biosphere is within the crust, sparing the population from surface elements. Terra will need to survive the tectonic movement. Comparatively speaking, since three-quarters of its surface are one large continent and the remaining quarter is an ocean covered by several kilometers of ice, Terra should remain relatively unscathed,” the computer explained.

Impact craters erupted on the animated projection, but there were no fires and only minimal volcanic activity. The intensity of violent winds and lightening along the planet’s longitudinal equator were impressive, however.

“And us? Anything more about us? Anything we can do to preserve ourselves?” Athena blurted out. Her anxiety, which bordered on desperation, was unmistakable.

Janus turned and saw Athena looking back at Mars. The destruction of Earth and the new star’s effects on Terra reminded her of what she had seen earlier in the projections.

“It is not always about us, Athena. There are billions on Earth and Terra at risk—but especially on Earth,” Olympia said. Her tone and voice sounded as harsh as Janus had ever heard.

“I apologize, Olympia. Should I become pregnant, I fear for the future,” Athena said quietly.
Shame. It still exists.
Janus waited to see if the computer would respond as a carbon-based, sapient creature to Athena’s concern.

“Ironically our planet, while closest, will benefit from the slight axis change as well as the light from this second sun. The planet’s permafrost may melt and the consolidation of Mars’s magnetic fields—with possible volcanic reactivation—may initiate a viable biosphere.”

“So our planet and Terra are less at risk, while Earth’s viability is devastated?” Janus said out loud as he returned to his tablet for final calculations.

“Yes. Our role as the senior species is to provide assistance to our wards. Based on our own limited resources and our own concerns with extinction, we can provide both Earth and Terra this information so they may able to preserve their populations and cultures. Would it be appropriate to say that the best preparation for these disasters is forewarning?”

Janus suppressed a smile at first as he finished up his calculations.
Just like clockwork—logic, survival, and then the rhetorical question. She does have quite the personality,
he thought. He stopped and took a breath. He did his best to contain his hope and to manage his expectations. Millions of years ago, he had witnessed firsthand the devastation of his home world and the other “great projects.” He was not sure he wanted to witness another. He pressed one more key on his tablet and watched as various values and equations filled its screen. He looked at the numbers and their corresponding equations and meanings, and then his shoulders slumped. There were far more red numbers than green. He felt his limbs tire and small tears dropped from his eyes and rolled quickly off his long, hairless cheeks and chin.

“No change?” Olympia asked. It was a kind, gentle voice asking an important question.

“None. It is all as the Keeper estimates. After a full annual cycle we are no closer to either an answer or a solution to this unexpected event,” Janus said. “End simulation,” he said flatly.

The dark, mini solar system and star field evaporated, revealing a large common area, work space, and library. With the sole exception of one elevated resting bed, it was filled with desks and tabletops littered with tablets, tools, and even bound books in old-fashioned covers made from recycled material. These were no textbooks, though—these special manuscripts were fiction. Food for the expanding mind and imagination. In his desperation, when all facts and figures left him with no satisfactory answers, he looked to fiction to help him think outside of his own mind and for ideas from another perspective. Half a cycle ago he had pulled an idea from a fictional story—it focused on stopping the beam that initiated Jupiter’s ignition. That novel had unique ideas and suggestions, but the Keeper and his Martian team had found no means of halting this intergalactic beam from deep space.

“Hand of the Originators…” Janus mumbled. He was surprised how quickly the Keeper responded. It was as if she had been thinking the same thing he was.

“Perhaps this is an act of the Originators, our creators. If it is, should we stop it? Would there be a purpose to trying to stop their intervention?” the master computer asked.

“I have always thought the Originators would preserve life and support sapient civilizations,” Olympia said. She had moved to stand just behind Janus, who was looking down at the floor. He felt her light touch on his back, and he was grateful for it. In his earlier life, he had never taken companions. It was just him and the Keeper. He was appreciative of the Keeper’s selection of mates, or at least for Olympia. Athena’s emotions and impulsiveness he found distracting, but Olympia made up for that with her calm presentation and natural abilities to invoke reason without effort.

“This may in fact be the case. While Earth may suffer, its hominids are due credit for adapting to profound difficulties in their past, and that was without a master keeper. Maybe this is a required step for their adaptation and evolution? Maybe our own planet is being triggered to become a viable biosphere? Maybe this is Terra’s time for growth and expansion—could its citizens ultimately inhabit both Earth and Mars? Or perhaps Jupiter’s moons will be the next locus of a new civilization. Maybe the magnetic field alteration and axis shift on Venus will reverse its hostile surface to create the dream Junior Architect Iris attempted long ago. Perhaps…perhaps the Originators have greater plans, in which we are simply witnesses and not participants,” the Keeper said. Her capacity for speculation and her use of imagination didn’t surprise Janus, but the overall thought of just being a small part of a profoundly larger plan was humbling. Based on the Keeper’s intonation and difficulty in finding words, Janus wondered if she could now experience humility, too.

“Is the possibility that an artificially intelligent creation could experience feeling…insignificant?” the Keeper asked. Janus’s feeling of loss and sadness shifted to awe.

“I think you are more than the sum of your parts. I think you feel, Master Keeper,” he said.

“You are more like us than different, Master Keeper. I am glad you are here,” Olympia added.

“So am I,” Athena quickly said.

There was a pause in the quiet room. The moment seemed just perfect for reflecting more when Janus heard a loud, strung-out stomach noise, indicating a peristalsis wave. Olympia didn’t bother to even look at Athena when she responded.

“I know, Athena. You are hungry. Janus? Shall we prepare our first meal of this cycle?”

“I apologize for my digestive tract. I have little control over its operation and corresponding sounds,” Athena said apologetically.

Janus sighed and put his tablet down on a nearby desk. He motioned for both females to leave the room.

“Yes, it is time for us to prepare food and eat. Afterward, I need to talk to Terra and Earth’s Keepers regarding this news. The Originators may have a master plan, but we are here and we know too much not to let our wards know of this impending astronomical shift. Being forewarned is forearmed,” Janus said.

All tremble at violence; all fear death. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.
—The Buddha

Perez the Younger looked out over the small clumps of people in the miniature coliseum. It was hard not to take the poor showing personally. Located at the center of a series of grand, tree-lined walkways that transected Terra’s networks of shops, artist studios, and galleries, the coliseum reminded Andrea of a smaller version of the grand coliseum she had seen on her home world, Earth. She had never been to
the
Coliseum in Rome, Italy, but rather had seen pictures of it in her old history textbooks and on the Internet, and she found it ironic that she was actually in a coliseum on a cloaked planet on the other side of the sun.

She looked around and saw the low stone seating, plaster detailing, painted reliefs, gold-colored grand archways, and hundreds of sculpted images of Terrans both fighting and arguing. The coliseum played two roles in her martial society—it was an arena for settling disputes, usually regarding honor, and also a forum for political debates, which were typically held in a senate-style format. Andrea suspected this was similar to how Roman senators might have settled disputes of all sorts centuries ago on Earth.

The coliseum had been in heavy use for the last six months as news of Jupiter’s potential collapse and rebirth into another sun spread. The warning had come by old-style carrier waves with limited visuals from the Old Ones and their Master Keeper who somehow existed below the surface of Mars. Andrea wished she could have heard or seen the transmission herself, but she had only seen the darkish images of a large-featured, longish face with blue-grayish skin—a creature called “Master Architect.” She was sure the actual images, rather than the stills she saw, would have given her more information about this species of sapient life living in her solar system.
I thought we were supposed to be alone here,
she thought. Andrea shifted her weight between her feet. She found her clothes, although scanty, chafing under her outer garment. Her shaved skin was sensitive to the touch and she was not used to wearing a cloak with a hood that obscured her entire figure.

As a faint smell of cooked meat wafted through the air vents of the contained world, she looked to see where the disputing families were seated. She knew both families and also the onlookers, but there was only one party she was particularly interested in.

Today, the coliseum was to be an arena used to defend honor. Andrea was surprised to see that the usual podium at center stage had been removed and a large, flat surface with raised barriers in the form of a large octagon had taken its place. Ostensibly, this was the area for combat. Many of these squabbles were resolved by combatants representing two disputing parties fighting until one submitted. Many times, one would submit before even striking a blow. For that to happen, the offended party would accept the “apology” and the matter would be considered closed. In rare cases, the offended party would not accept the apology, and the fight would commence.

“I won’t be that lucky,” she said aloud.

Andrea’s eyes moved to the offender’s area. Her father, Anthony Perez, called Perez the Elder, had insulted the Iratus clan by refusing to join their family for purposes of procreation. Andrea had argued that her father could not join another family, as she had already been accepted into Dimitra’s clan, the House of Ferris, for saving their daughter’s life in the battle with the great rats. By default, then, he was already in a family. Andrea had expected the matriarch, Dimitra, to see the logic in that, thereby ending the dispute. But Dimitra had not. While Dimitra was indebted to Andrea for saving her daughter Vista, she obviously was not happy about having a connection with the Perez clan. Perez the Elder would need to fight—unless he could find a substitute from another family to take his place.

While Terran-Earther mixes were highly regarded in their society, “off-world Earthers” were not usually embraced. Their lack of body hair, large torsos and legs, relatively weak arms, and high foreheads were seen as odd. While hybrids were seen as demonstrating the best parts of both hominid species, full Earthers just appeared strange to Terrans—almost immature in development and primitive by default. Terrans’ sloping forehead structure, heavy eyebrows, thick reddish hair, short-yet-powerful limbs, and thick torsos were highly praised in the subterranean culture.

Andrea started her walk to the corner of the ring, where her father was preparing to enter. The constant vibration below her feet from the enclosed world’s generators was reassuring. Generators on Terra meant air, water, power—life. She often wondered what it would be like to return to Earth, and to be able to walk in the open air, see the blue sky, and not to have ground constantly shifting below her. A pang of sadness struck her. She wondered if Earth would survive the second sun’s appearance. For Terra, a tidally locked planet, plate tectonics might not be too affected. For Earth, though, with its rotation and wobbling axis, tectonics would be seriously affected—and be the least of the population’s worries. Tidal waves would annihilate the coasts and either the planet would heat up with a greenhouse effect, or a cataclysmic global climatic change consistent with the earlier ice ages would ensue.

“Either way it’ll just be awful,” Andrea said to herself as she walked.

She closed the distance between herself and her father, keeping him in sight. So as not to offend the spectators and their families, Perez the Elder wore full-length pants, a shirt, and a tunic to cover his lack of body hair. He planned to use just his hands as weapons, so he was warming up with Centurion Dea Data, or “Dee Dee,” as Andrea had come to call her, in his corner. The hybrid Terran-Earther doctor Medicus Paeoniis was also there, looking on with concern. He possessed a large torso, strong limbs, very thick dark hair, and gray eyes. She smiled at the sight of the doctor at the same moment Hydra—her toothy, laborer neighbor who had turned into a close friend—came up behind her.