Red Hope (14 page)

“Go for it,” came a message back from Molly.

Adam walked back to the golf cart to grab the tripod-mounted
floodlight. He planned to use it to illuminate the interior of the pyramid. Adam
hefted it up and laid it against his shoulder. When he turned around, Yeva was
gone.

“Yeva! Yeva! Where are you? Yevaaa!” yelled Adam into his headset
microphone. He frantically spun around looking for her. His eyes searched the
ground for footprints.

“Relax mutton-head, I am inside the pyramid. I wanted
to be the first at
something
,” said an irritated Yeva over the headset.

Adam complained excitedly, “We gotta work as a team
and not lose each other. Just like in training, we’re using the buddy system.”

“Seriously? Okay, we will work as a team from now on,”
she said sarcastically.

Adam could see her flashlight beam moving around just inside
the doorway. He jogged over to the opening and peaked into the darkness. His
right hand reached up to his helmet and flipped two switches. The first engaged
a helmet-mounted flashlight. The second turned on the helmet-mounted video camera.
It would record all the amazing things they were about to see.

Adam turned sideways and squeezed through the door
opening.  “Think thin!” he said to himself. Once through, he walked over to the
middle of the room. His flashlight sent an erratic beam all over the floor.

Adam put the floodlight down on the dust and spread
out the tripod legs one by one. This was no normal floodlight. It contained a
large omnidirectional LED bulb that was brighter than most normal floodlights
back on Earth. He reached just beneath the bulb and turned on the power switch.
The entire room lit up like Texas at lunchtime. The two explorers immediately
realized that this building was split into two rooms. The room they were in was
much larger than the other room. With limited oxygen, they decided to focus on
this large room today.

Gray granite walls surrounded them; all polished flat
and filled with meticulously engraved carvings. This was not caveman art. With
all of the sharp angles and elaborate curves, this was the work of intelligent
beings.

Adam and Yeva both found themselves drawn to the walls
to experience the feel of the precisely cut characters. The indentations were
large enough for their gloves to follow them.

Adam pondered out loud, “If I didn’t know any better,
I’d say this is an advanced written language. Discrete characters with only a
few strokes and dots each. More like English than say Chinese. What do you
think Yeva?”

“It is so beautiful. Not sure what to make of it. It
actually looks a lot like proto-Elamite. In style at least.”

Adam agreed, “Yes, yes. And
what
is
proto-Elamite?”

Yeva turned and looked at him incredulously.

“And you call yourself a scientist?” she asked.

Adam jokingly replied, “No, I’m half-geologist and
half-engineer. An
engeologist
.”

“And a complete traitor,” she said accusingly. She
looked back to the glyphs and explained, “Proto-Elamite is the oldest
undeciphered written language on Earth.”

Adam raised his eyebrows, “Wow. That is something.”

Yeva rubbed her gloves on the smooth granite, “How has
the granite not lost its polish after millions of years?”

Adam and Yeva walked along the walls recording as much
as they could on their helmet-mounted video cameras. At the same time, each of
them was taking high-resolution photographs with hand-held digital SLR cameras.
Eventually they found themselves standing next to a granite block near the back
of the room roughly the size of a dinner table. Adam stared at it in confusion.

“And then there’s
that
thing,” he said curtly.

On the four exposed sides were groupings of letters.
Words perhaps, organized into paragraphs. On the large top surface was a string
of characters all evenly spaced with large gaps in between each one.

Adam said, “These carvings on the top must be the
alphabet.  Each letter is so delicately drawn.”

Under each letter was a column that contained tightly
packed horizontal grooves, like the cross-section of an old vinyl album with
tiny hills and valleys.

Yeva was photographing all of these while Adam, in a
trance, slid his finger along each of the engraved letters.

He counted them. As he traced each letter, he realized
that he was the first sentient being to do this in millions of years. The
person who carved these must’ve done the same thing with his fingers, thought
Adam.

“Twenty-nine letters. Amazing, eh? Millions of years
and millions of miles apart, and yet, our alphabets are so close in size.”

Yeva motioned for him to move his hand away so she
could take more pictures.

 “Hey Yeva, what do you think of all the writing on
the side of this block?”

Yeva paused to think about Adam’s question. She nodded
her head and answered, “It appears to be some type of Rosetta stone, perhaps. You
know, the same story told on all four sides, but each side in a different
language to help some future translator. Unfortunately, we now see four stories
that we can’t read.”

A slow beep started.

Adam looked down at his beeping oxygen gauge.

“Ah crap. Ten minute warning; gotta get going. We’ll
leave the floodlight here. Did you get a lot of photos too?” asked Adam as he walked
over and turned off the floodlight.

Yeva nodded her head in confirmation.

“Yes. Lots of pictures. When we get back to the Big
Turtle, we can upload them to the NASA servers. Maybe the NSA guys can work
their magic on this alphabet.”

They squeezed through the doorway and trudged over the
red dust toward the golf cart. Adam picked up several rock samples to bring
back to the Big Turtle. Yeva once again hopped into the driver’s seat before
Adam had a chance. He climbed into the other seat. She pressed the accelerator
pedal and they took off up the hill sending a rooster tail of cloudy scarlet
dust.

“Hey Molly. Hey Keller. Do you hear me?” asked Adam
over the main headset communication link.

“Yup, loud and clear,” replied Keller.

“Well, Mom and Dad are on their way back. Hope we
won’t be interrupting you two,” Adam said over the intercom as he grinned and
winked at Yeva. She did not smile.

Keller was sitting down with his boots up on the main
table when he saw a red cloud of dust in the distance give birth to the golf
cart. He casually wandered over to the airlock control panel, ready to let the
weary travelers back into the life boat.

Keller was humming the lyrics to the song
Rocket
Man
when he saw the golf cart finally arrive. At first it stopped next to
the ramp, but then Yeva drove it out into the direct sunlight. She hopped out
and gathered up the cameras and fossil samples. Adam deployed the solar array
to charge the batteries on the golf cart.

The two explorers made their way up the ramp and into
the airlock. Keller pushed a sequence of switches which flooded the evacuated vestibule
with breathable oxygen. He opened the door and Yeva walked in first and removed
her helmet.

Keller asked, “Did you see any little green men?”

Yeva quickly answered, “No, but did you see what this arrogant
monster did to me during our walk down to the surface?”

Keller felt like he was in the middle of a messy
domestic quarrel. He said, “Um, yah, we noticed that. Fortunately, nobody at
Mission Control knew what was supposed to happen. And may I congratulate you,
Yeva, for not punching Adam in the stomach on live TV in front of billions of
people.”

Adam redirected the mood and said, “We did take a lot
of photos. Let’s get them uploaded to NASA, pronto.”

Yeva added, “We have some samples from the fossils
too. Let’s get them into the thermal ionization spectrometer right away and
find out how old they really are.”

Molly hooked up the cameras to her laptop. After some
fiddling with the software, she started the upload process that would move
gigabytes of photograph files through the long void of space to the antenna on
the International Space Station and then finally to the NASA servers at the
Mission Control Center in Houston.

This process took over two hours. The data link was
quite slow due to the distance and the error correction involved. When it was
all done, they had a teleconference with Chris Tankovitch to discuss what
they’d found.

“Thank you everybody. The media is itching to get
ahold of these images,” said Chris excitedly as he was viewing them on a nearby
monitor.

The ten minute round-trip delay made communication
very difficult. At the end of the disjointed discussion, Chris congratulated
them and assured them, “We have top mathematicians and paleographers here in
this building trying to decipher this language as we speak. Wish us luck.”

After ending the teleconference with Chris, they started
the night-time process of shutting things down. The astronauts had been awake
for a long time now and could barely keep their eyes open.

“I have a feeling we’ll find something amazing in that
other room tomorrow,” admitted Adam to the group.

“Hopefully.
Good night
,” said Molly.

The Sun set and pitch black darkness took over the
cabin interior. They fell asleep quickly and easily for the first time in over
a month.

“Rise and shine slumber heads,” said Adam as the automated window blinds
rolled up. “I’ve got hot liquefied waffles and milk for everybody.”

Rays of morning sunshine cascaded through the Big
Turtle’s interior. One by one the other crewmembers pried open their eyes to
see breakfast set out on the main table.

“Yummo,” said Keller.

The astronauts gathered around the table and ate their
boxes of goo and drank their bags of milk, water and coffee.

Molly asked Yeva and Adam, “Did you have time to think
more about what you saw in the pyramid?”

Adam glanced at Yeva and then said, “I still don’t
have a clue what those engravings meant, but I’m sure it was an alphabet. Very
similar to the pronto-Laminate language.”

Molly laughed and said, “I’m sure you mean
proto-Elamite
.”

Yeva interrupted, “Yes, that is what I taught him
yesterday. His inflated head makes him forgetful. Please pass the coffee bag.”

Adam tried to redirect the conversation.

“Anyhow, inside that pyramid it felt like we were
surrounded by tombstones and epitaphs. I suppose they had to write in stone to
preserve the information for so long.”

Keller looked at Molly and said, “Tombstones and
epitaphs? On that cheery note, Dr. Life Support, do you have our oxygen tanks
ready to go?”

Molly smiled and put her hand on his arm

“Why, yes, Keller Murch, they are ready for you to use
on your pyramid adventure today.”

Adam interjected, “Great. We’ll get cleaned up and get
ready to go. Today’s job is to photograph the secondary room in the pyramid.
While we’re away from the Turtles, why don’t you two drop the caisson and start
on the soil experiments?”

They cleaned off the table and ran through the daily
checklists. Adam set up the video chat link with NASA for their first
post-Mars-walk interview with the media. Only Yeva and Adam were required for
this event.

They once again realized that a ten minute roundtrip delay
wreaks havoc on interpersonal communication. NASA arranged for the astronauts to
receive a list of questions ahead of time and would answer them nonstop in a
stream. The questions ranged from the mundane (How do you pee in space?) to
pretty extraordinary (What color is the sky on Mars?).

Adam completed the media conference with, “Okay,
folks, I hope you enjoyed our little talk, I know that we did.”

Adam looked over at Keller and said, “Are you ready to
walk on an alien planet?”

Keller smirked and asked, “Are you going to jump in
front of me too?”

Adam stared at Keller and said, “Anyhow.”

They walked over to the airlock and put on the rest of
their pressure suit. Adam opened the airlock door and stepped in followed by
Keller. Each astronaut inspected his oxygen gauge and then gave Molly the
thumbs-up sign through the window. She flipped a big switch and turned the
handle that evacuates the airlock. They heard the air escaping moments before
the outside door popped open.

Keller walked out only to be blinded by the Mars sunrise.
The sky was a brilliant solid gray with slight red tinges along the horizon.
This odd morning sky was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Keller was
transfixed and could not move.

Adam stopped short and said, “Wow, now that is a sight
to behold.  Let’s go.”

It was obvious to Keller that Adam didn’t really care
about what they were doing anymore. Instead, he got the impression that Adam
had completed his goal of being first on Mars and now had the urge to get home
and cash in those chips. This was just a stop on the journey; an item on his bucket
list to check off.

Adam folded down the solar arrays and they both climbed
into the golf cart; Keller sat in the driver’s seat.

Adam pointed toward the sunrise and commanded Keller,
“Just follow our tracks from yesterday.”

Keller accelerated and followed the tracks exactly. It
was the easiest path he’d ever driven and his wheels threw up a rooster tail of
red dust.

“Man, this is just like driving on my beach back
home.”

They crested over the ridge and rode down toward the
pyramid. Keller stopped just a few feet from the big circular stone door.

“Where’s the Curiosity rover?” asked Keller.

Adam answered, “I guess it already left on another
adventure. That new power generator gave it a new lease on life.”

Each astronaut grabbed a handheld camera from the golf
cart and crawled back into the pyramid through the small door opening. They
both turned on their helmet-flashlights and video cameras. Adam turned on the
floodlight-tripod. Bright light illuminated the entire pyramid interior.

“Wow,” said Keller as he drank in the ancient museum
ambiance.

Adam replied, “I agree. Look around. Check out all of
these engravings. It’s amazing stuff.”

They both examined the walls carefully just like the
day before. After showing Keller all that he and Yeva had found, Adam walked
over to the floodlight and picked it up.

“I gotta move this over to the other side. Follow me.”

Their shadows wobbled all around as Adam carried the
floodlight. They eased around the large divider wall. The style of the symbols
carved into the new walls was different. These looked more mathematical in
nature; lots of right-angles and circles. Adam couldn’t decide if it looked
more like geometry or chemistry. He set down the floodlight.

“What the heck is that?” asked Keller as he pointed to
a small black cube floating just a few inches above what looked like a granite
nightstand.

They walked directly over to it and stared quizzically.
The small black cube was floating above the table surface. Keller poked it and
the cube drifted across the top of the night-stand. He poked it from the
opposite side to keep it from falling off.

Adam lifted one eyebrow and then he repeated what
Keller had done. He poked the cube with his finger and it started to drift
across the table. However, he didn’t stop it. He let it drift. And it didn’t
fall off the table. In fact, it just kept on gliding at the same height. Adam
poked the bottom and it started to drift upward at an angle. This little cube
seemed to completely ignore gravity.

Keller and Adam looked around again and noticed that
this room seemed to be dedicated to this cube.

Adam pondered, “You know, I can’t figure it out. Is
this room a gift to future explorers or some kind of shrine to this cube? I
mean, this thing looks like anti-gravity, but that’s not possible. If I
remember my physics class, Einstein’s General Theory states that anti-gravity
can’t exist.”

Keller put his glove on Adam’s shoulder and said, “Either
you’ve got a crappy memory or Albert was wrong.”

With new excitement, Adam took a slew of photographs
of everything on the walls. Keller continued playing with the floating cube.

Adam stopped and expounded, “Wow, wow, wow. This could
be the biggest thing to ever happen to science. I don’t understand the drawings
here, but they must be trying to explain how this cube works.”

Keller quipped, “I’ll admit, this is probably bigger
than sliced bread or the keyless chuck.”

As they were photographing the peculiar cube, a
crackly message from Yeva arrived over their headsets.

“….. Adam…. Kell…. We just got some news from the NSA
on the language. They cracked it overnight. They sa… that it is a short hist….”

Adam and Keller looked at each other and shook their
heads side to side. Neither one understood her message.

“Yeva, we’re having a hard time hearing you. Hang on,
we’re going to walk over closer to the door.”

The two astronauts walked over toward the door opening
and Yeva’s voice became crystal clear.

“Okay, Yeva, you said they cracked the language code
already? How’d they do it so fast?”

Yeva explained, “The NSA paleographers sent the
photographs out to universities around the planet. A grad student at the Moscow
State University cracked it.
My alma mater
. Go me!”

Keller remarked, “So they crowd-sourced it? Very
clever.”

Yeva said, “They think it is a history lesson of some
kind. It talks about how they created something and it caused their society to
run out of food and water. We haven’t deciphered what that creation was yet,
but it is related to the extra signage found on the circular door. Those
phrases are repeated several times.”

Adam and Keller looked at each other and shrugged
their shoulders.

Yeva continued, “By the way, you will laugh, but these
ancient Mars people are now being called
Curiosites
by the media, named
after the rover.”

Yeva chuckled after stating the new name.

“Anyhow, so the Curiosites planned to move many of
their people to the third planet from the star. Obviously, we can assume they
are referring to Earth. It had more land and water and could be used as a
farming colony. However, that planet had some rather intelligent, yet
violent
,
animals that needed to be dealt with before it could be a safe place for them
to inhabit. They were also worried about the intense gravity on Earth.”

Keller said confusingly, “Are they referring to the
dinosaurs?”

Yeva paused. Adam and Keller heard the muffled sounds
of Yeva talking to somebody else.

She continued, “Okay, sorry, Molly had a question. So
these Curiosites sent a team of explorers, but never heard from them again. It
says they are still waiting for their children to return. It keeps referring to
the explorers as their
children
. They miss them dearly.”

Adam and Keller sat silently contemplating the sad
message.

Adam replied, “Sounds like things didn’t go well for
them. Thanks Yeva. Is that, uh, is that everything?”

“No, there is more,” added Yeva. “Do you remember that
Rosetta stone block with the alphabet on top and the serrated columns under
each letter?”

Adam replied, “Yup. Keller and I can see it right
now.”

He pointed his head-mounted flashlight toward the
large table-sized block.

“Well, those serrated columns are audio strips. They
encoded the sound waves required to pronounce their letters. They wanted to
preserve not only their written language, but also the spoken form of it. That
is very arrogant, yes?”

Adam started laughing.

Yeva asked, “Why are you laughing?”

“When I was a kid, they had birthday party balloons
with hard plastic sticks as handles. Well, the sticks had serrated ridges on them
and when you ran your finger nail down the edge it would literally sound out
messages like ‘happy birthday.’ They never worked right and it always sounded
like ‘yappee wormway.’ I guess there is nothing new under the Sun.”

Keller said, “Maybe they wanted to preserve as much of
their culture as they could before the end came. They must’ve had time to see
it coming. How awful.”

Yeva added, “One more thing. I saved the best for
last. I completed a carbon dating analysis on those fossil bone samples. There
is a problem with our original theory. They are not two million years old.”

Keller smiled proudly and said, “See, I told you.
Dinosaurs
.
These fossils must be sixty-five million years old! Heck, these Curiosites are
what killed off the dinosaurs!”

Adam questioned, “
Anyhow
, how far off did we
get the date?”

Yeva explained, “To our surprise, they are still
mostly bone. Not fossils. Our dating analysis says they are only about two
hundred
thousand
years old. Not two
million
. And certainly not
sixty-five million. Sorry Keller. A meteor still killed the dinosaurs.”

Adam furrowed his eyebrows in concentration and asked,
“Are you sure? Only two hundred
thousand
?”

“Yes, give or take a few thousand,” said Yeva.

Keller grabbed Adam’s shoulder and asked, “I don’t get
it, what does that mean?”

Adam stared into empty space and said, “That uh. That
turns everything on its head, but it explains a lot. The timeframe coincides
with the sudden development of
Homo sapiens
on Earth.”

“Us,” said Adam and Keller simultaneously.

Adam thought for a moment and continued, “So, this
culture was having problems and sent explorers off to
our
planet at
around the same time modern humans appeared on Earth? And they waited for their
explorers to return?”

Yeva replied, “That is correct. That is what the
report from the NSA says.”

Adam grinned as he looked at Keller and said, “I think
we
just fulfilled that promise.”

They both stood there with their mouths agape trying
to comprehend all of this new information. Adam said, “I mean, there’s a lot of
explanation for our own history if that message is accurate.”