Back To Earth

“That's not possible!” cried Petri. “That N^COM of yours must be out of phase. Check again.”

“I’m sorry, Petri. I’ve already checked it twice and I’m absolutely certain that this isn’t our work.”

The short-range viewing system generated a three-dimensional image of the object, meticulously reconstructing every minute detail. The hologram floated in the centre of the control room, suspended half a metre above the floor.

With a movement of his right hand, Petri began to rotate it slowly, closely examining every detail.

“It would appear to be made of a low density metal alloy,” he remarked in a decidedly more technical tone than the one adopted moments before when he’d been overwhelmed with amazement. “The engines must be powered by those three petals. They seem to have been covered with some kind of light-sensitive material.” He had finally begun to fiddle with the system controls. “The pistil must be some kind of radio antenna, and the hexagonal prism is definitely the “brain” of this thing.”

Petri was moving the hologram increasingly quickly, turning it over in all directions. Suddenly he stopped, and called out “Look here. What do you think this is?” he asked, zooming in on a small area.

Azakis approached as closely as he could. “They seem to be symbols.”

“I'd say there were two symbols,” Petri corrected, “or better still, one drawing and four symbols close together.”

Azakis was still eagerly searching on the N^COM, trying to find something on the GCS. Yet there was absolutely nothing that matched the object in front of them.

The drawing represented a rectangle composed of fifteen horizontal red and white stripes. In the upper left-hand corner was another blue rectangle containing fifty white five-pointed stars. To the right of this were four symbols:

JUNO

“It seems like some kind of writing,” Azakis guessed. “Maybe the symbols represent the name of the people who made the probe.”

“Or maybe that its name,” argued Petri. “The probe is called ‘JUNO’, and that coloured rectangle is the symbol of its creators.”

“Whatever it is, it wasn’t made by us,” declared Azakis. “Do you think there could be some life form inside it?”

“I really don't think so. At least, nothing that we know. The only place where there could be something is the rear capsule, and that’s too small to accommodate a living being.”

Even as he spoke, Petri had already begun to scan the probe, looking for some sign of life inside it. After a few moments, a series of symbols appeared on the screen, and he quickly tried to translate these to his companion.

“According to our sensors there’s nothing living inside. There doesn't seem to be any kind of weapon either. From a preliminary analysis, I’d say that this thing is some kind of scout ship exploring the middle part of the solar system, in search of who knows what.”

“It could be,” agreed Azakis. “But the question we should be asking is: Sent by whom?”

“Well,” said Petri, “if we rule out the presence of mysterious aliens, I’d say that the only ones capable of constructing something like that would be your old ‘terrestrial friends’.”

“But what are you saying? The last time we left them they were still travelling on horseback. How could they have reached this stage in their development in such a short time? Sending a probe to go roaming around in space is no small feat.”

“Short time?” said Petri, looking him straight in the eyes. “Don't forget that, for them, almost 3,600 years have passed since then. Considering that their average lifespan is fifty to sixty years at the most, at least sixty generations have come and gone. Maybe they've become much more intelligent than we imagined they would.”

“And perhaps that’s why the Elders were so worried about this mission,” added Azakis, attempting to follow his friend’s line of reasoning. They’d expected this, or at least considered the possibility.”

“Well, they might have mentioned something to us. The sight of this thing almost gave me a stroke.”

“This is mere speculation,” said Azakis, rubbing his chin with his thumb and forefinger, “but it seems to make sense. I’ll try and contact the Elders. Try to get some more information out of them, if they have any. In the meantime, you try to find out more about this thing. Analyse its current course, velocity, mass, etcetera, and try to make some predictions about its destination, when it left and any data it’s recorded. I want to know as much as possible about what’s waiting for us there.”

“Okay, Zak,” agreed Petri, while colourful holograms with an infinite number of numbers and formulae fluttered in the air around him.

“And don't forget to analyse the part you identified as an antenna. If it really is as you say, it will also be able to transmit and receive. I wouldn’t be happy if our encounter had already been communicated to whoever sent that probe.”

Having said that, Azakis made his way to the H^COM cabin, the only place on the ship equipped for long-distance communication. It was located between gates eighteen and nineteen of the internal transfer modules. The door opened with a slight hiss, and Azakis slid into the narrow cabin.

Goodness knows why they made this thing so small... he wondered, trying to settle into the equally narrow seat, which lowered automatically. Maybe they didn’t want us to use it too often...

While the door reclosed behind him, he began to make a series of commands on the console in front of him. It took several seconds for the signal to stabilise. Suddenly, in the holographic display similar to the one he had in his room, the hollow, lined face of his Elder superior began to take shape.

“Azakis,” said the man, smiling and slowly lifting a bony hand in acknowledgement. “What has made you call a poor old man with such urgency?”

He had never managed to find out the exact age of his superior. No one was permitted to know such private information about the Elders. They had certainly witnessed many revolutions around the sun. In spite of this, his eyes were darting from left to right with even more vitality than he possessed himself.

“We have made contact with something surprising, at least to us,” began Azakis, dispensing with preliminaries, trying to look straight into the other’s eyes. “We almost collided with an unidentified object,” he continued, studying the expression on the face of the Elder.

“An object? Tell me more, my boy.”

“Petri is still analysing it, but we think it could be a kind of probe, and we’re certain that it’s not ours.” The Elder’s eyes widened. Even he seemed surprised.

We found some strange symbols engraved on the hull in a language we don't know,” he added. “I’m sending over all the data.”

For an instant, the Elder looked absent. Using his O^COM he analysed the flow of information coming in.

After several long moments, his eyes turned to look at Azakis. Finally, in a tone that belied no emotion, he replied, “I will call an emergency meeting of the Council of Elders. All indications are that your initial deductions are accurate. If this is in fact the case, we will need to revise our plans immediately.”

“I’ll await instructions,” and so saying, Azakis broke off the communication.

Nasiriyya – The dinner

The colonel and Elisa were already draining their third glass of champagne, and the atmosphere between them had become decidedly less formal.

“I must say, Jack, this Masgouf is divine. I won’t be able to finish it. It’s huge.”

“Yes. It’s truly wonderful. We should send our compliments to the chef.”

“Maybe I should marry him so he can cook for me,” said Elisa, laughing a little too excessively. The alcohol was already beginning to take effect.

“No. He will have to wait in line. I was first.” He risked making this joke, hoping it would not be too inappropriate. Elisa pretended not to notice and continued to nibble at her sturgeon.

“Are you really not married?”

“No. I’ve never had the time for that.”

“That’s an old excuse,” she said, giving him a sly look.

“Well actually, I came very close once, but the military life doesn’t work too well with marriage. And you?” he added, changing a subject that was still painful to him. “Have you ever been married?”

“Are you joking? And who would put up with a woman who spends most of her time going around the world digging underground like a mole and enjoys desecrating thousands of year old tombs?”

“I see,” said Jack, smiling bitterly. “You’re obviously not cut out for marriage.” And raising a glass, he offered a melancholy “To us.”

The waiter arrived with a few more Samoons13 fresh from the oven, which fortunately interrupted that moment of sadness.

Grateful for this interruption, Jack tried to quickly banish a series of memories that had suddenly come into his mind. It was water under the bridge. Right now he had a beautiful woman sitting with him and he had to pay attention to her. This was not proving too difficult.

The gentle background music around them was just right. In the light of the three candles positioned at the centre of the table, Elisa looked wonderful. Her hair had gold and copper highlights, and her smooth skin was bronzed by the sun. Her penetrating eyes were of the deepest green. Using her soft lips, she was trying to pull a piece of sturgeon off the bone that she was holding between her fingers. So sexy.

Elisa was certainly not going to let the colonel’s moment of weakness go by. She placed the bone on the edge of her plate, and sucked the juice from her thumb and fingers with apparent nonchalance. Lowering her head, she gazed at him so intensely that Jack feared that his heart would leap out of his chest and land on his plate.

Realising that he was no longer in control of the situation, the colonel tried to pull himself together. He was much too old to behave like a lovesick school boy, but there was something about her that he found irresistibly attractive.

Taking a deep breath, he wiped his face with his hands and tried to say “Do you think we can finish this last piece?”

She smiled, gently took the last morsel of sturgeon and, leaning forward in her seat, moved it towards his mouth. In that position, the neckline of her dress fell away slightly, revealing her generous breasts. Jack, visibly embarrassed, took only a bite. He did not, however, manage to avoid her touching his lips with her fingers. He felt a growing sense of excitement. Elisa was playing with him like a cat with a mouse, and Jack was unable to defend himself.

Then, with the air of an innocent girl, she sat back in her chair as though nothing had happened and signalled to the tall, thin waiter, who arrived promptly.

“I think it’s time for some nice cardamom tea. What do you say, Jack?”

Still recovering from the previous incident, he stammered something like “Er, yes. Okay...” Straightening his jacket, he tried to adopt a more casual tone, adding “I believe it’s great for the digestion.”

He realised he had said something ridiculous, but at that time nothing else came to mind.

“This is all very pleasant, Jack. It’s been a lovely evening. But we mustn't forget the reason for our meeting tonight. There's something I have to show you, remember?”

In that moment, the Colonel was thinking of anything but work. She was right, however. There were more important things at stake than a foolish flirtation. The truth was that, to him, the flirting did not seem foolish.

“Sure,” he replied, trying to recover his authoritative expression. “I can’t wait to find out what you've discovered.”

At this point, the fat man in the nearby car, who was listening to everything, shouted “What a bitch!” Women are all the same. First they make you feel like they're going to take you to the moon, then they drop you as though nothing had happened.”

“I think your ten dollars will soon be lining my pockets,” said the thinner guy, following up his comment with a hearty laugh.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t give a damn who gets into bed with the professor. Don’t forget that we’re only here to find out what she knows.” While he was trying to find a more comfortable position in his seat because his back was beginning to ache, he added, “We should have found a way to place a camera inside that damn restaurant.”

“Yes, under the table, even. That way we’d have got a good look at her thighs.”

“Idiot. Which asshole picked you for this mission?”

“The boss, my friend. And I advise you not to insult him. He knows about bugging devices and he may even have bugged this car.”

The big man winced. For a moment he thought his heart had stopped beating. He was looking to build a career, and insulting his immediate superior was not exactly the way to get ahead.

“Stop talking bullshit,” he said, trying to sound serious and professional. “Just think about getting on with the job, and let’s get back to base with something concrete.” As he was saying this he was staring at a point in the night darkness, not well-defined through the slightly steamed up windscreen.

Elisa removed her beloved computer from her bag. Placing it on the table she began to scroll through the photos. The colonel, whose curiosity was aroused, tried to focus on something, but the angles did not allow it. Having found what she was looking for, she got up and moved to the seat next to him.

“Now,” she began. “Make yourself comfortable. It’s a long story. I’ll try to summarise as much as possible.”

Scrolling rapidly down the screen of her computer, she found a picture of a tablet engraved with strange drawings and cuneiform writings.

“This is a photograph of one of the tablets found in the tomb of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem,” Elisa went on. “He is thought to have been the first to open the Cave of Macpela, also known as the Cave of the Patriarchs, in 1119. This is where Abraham and his sons Isaac and Jacob are believed to be buried. These underground tombs were found beneath what today is called the Mosque, or the Sanctuary of Abraham in Hebron on the West Bank.” At this point, she showed him a picture of the mosque.

“Inside these tombs, in addition to many other things, the king found a set of tablets that would have belonged to Abraham. It’s even believed to represent some kind of diary that he kept, where he recorded some of the most significant events in his life.”

“His travel notes,” Jack suggested, hoping to make a favourable impression.

“In one way, yes. For someone of that period of history he wrote a lot down while he was travelling.”

She scrolled to another photo and continued to explain. The greatest experts on the language and graphical representation of the time have tried to translate what has been recorded on this tablet. Obviously, opinion is divided in some respects, but everyone agrees that this,” she continued, enlarging a detail on the photo, “may be interpreted as ‘vessel’ or ‘amphora of the gods’.” Then there are the words ‘burial’, ‘secret’ and ‘protection’, which are also quite clear.”

Jack was beginning to feel a little confused, but he kept nodding his head to convince Elisa that he had understood perfectly. She looked at him for an instant, then continued. “This symbol, on the other hand,” she said, adjusting the screen to make the image as clear as possible, “would, according to some, represent a tomb, and the tomb of a god. Whereas this part probably describes one of the gods warning or even threatening the people gathered around him.”

The colonel, partly due to the alcohol and partly due to the intoxicating perfume emanating from Elisa, and perhaps partly due to his being lost in her eyes, was no longer following what she was saying. In spite of this, he went on nodding, as if all was clear.

“To put it simply,” said Elisa, who had noticed that Jack was becoming ever more perplexed, “experts have interpreted the contents of this tablet as being a depiction of an event confirmed as having occurred during the time of Abraham, in which the alleged god, or broadly-speaking gods, would have hidden or buried it near one of their tombs. It was something very valuable, at least to them.”

“That seems like a bit of a leap of logic,” Jack began, trying to have some say in this matter. “Saying that something valuable was buried near the tomb of the gods. It’s not as though they provided GPS coordinates. It could refer to almost anything, anywhere.”

“You're right, but all inscriptions, especially those dating from so long ago, have to go through a process of interpretation and contextualisation. That’s what the experts are there for. And I’m one of them, by the way.” As she said this, she pretended to be a model posing in front of paparazzi cameras.

“Ok, ok. I know how clever you are. But right now, try to make this clear to us mere mortals.”

“Essentially,” Elisa continued once she had composed herself, “having analysed and compared all kinds of historical finds, including facts, legends, rumours, and so on and so forth, the consensus of the greatest minds in the world is that there is an element of truth in this reconstruction. On this basis, they unleashed archaeologists from all over the world to search for this mysterious object.”

“But where does ELSAD fit into all this?” The colonel was beginning to regain his cerebral function. “What they told me was that this research was aimed at recovering some imaginary alien artefacts.”

“And maybe that’s exactly how it is,” replied Elisa. “It’s now widely believed that these ‘gods’, who in ancient times were wandering around Earth, were none other than humanoids from a planet outside our solar system. Because of their technological superiority, particularly in medicine and science, it’s quite possible that they were mistaken for deities capable of performing miracles.”

“I see,” interrupted Jack. “If I appeared in front of a tribe in the middle of the Amazon in an Apache combat helicopter and started launching missiles, even I could be mistaken for an angry god.”

“This is precisely the effect that they would have had on the people of that time. There are some who even believe that it was these aliens who implanted a seed of intelligence into Homo Erectus, thus transforming them, in just a few tens of thousands of years, into those we now call Homo sapiens sapiens.”

Elisa looked carefully at the colonel, whose expression was one of astonishment, and decided to sink a low blow. “To tell the truth, as the person in charge of this mission, I’d have thought you’d be better informed.”

“I'd have thought so too,” Jack blurted out. “Obviously, those in authority follow a ‘less said the better’ philosophy.” Anger was beginning to take the place of his former schmaltz.

Sensing this, Elisa placed her computer on the table and brought her face so close to the Colonel's that for a moment he held his breath, thinking that she even wanted to kiss him. “Now for the best part,” she said.

Returning to her seat with a swift movement, she showed him another photograph. "While everyone’s been throwing themselves into the search for this notorious ‘Tomb of the gods’, by going off to rummage through the Egyptian pyramids, the tombs of the gods par excellence, I’ve been formulating a different interpretation of what’s engraved on the tablet, which I believe is the correct one. Look at this,” she said, complacently showing him an image that depicted the text according to her own interpretation.

The two cronies listening to the conversation of the diners would have given anything to be able to see the photos being shown to the Colonel.

“Damn!” cried the larger one. “We have to get our hands on that handheld device.”

“Let’s hope that at least one of them reads it out loud,” replied his thinner companion.

“Let’s hope that this ‘romantic dinner’ is over soon. I’m sick of sitting outside in the dark, and what’s more, I’m starving.”

“Starving? What d’you mean? You’ve just eaten my share of the sandwiches.”

“Not all of it, my friend. There’s one left and I intend to gobble it up.” Smugly, he turned to remove it from a bag on the rear seat. In turning, however, his knee hit against the power button on the recording system, which gave out a faint beep and died out.

“You clumsy idiot! Are you trying to attract attention?” The thin guy hastened to switch the instrument back on. “Now I’ll have to restart the system and that will take at least a minute. Just pray that they’re not saying anything important, otherwise this time I’ll kick your fat ass to the Persian Gulf!”

“Sorry,” said the fat guy in a quiet voice. “I think it’s time you went on a diet.”

“The gods buried the vessel with precious contents to the south of the temple, ordering the people to stay away from it until they returned, for fear that some terrible calamity would otherwise befall all nations. Four blazing guardians were stationed there to protect the site.

“This is how I translate it,” said Elisa proudly. “In my opinion, the correct name for it is not ‘tomb’ but ‘temple’, and the Ziqqurat of Ur, where my research was carried out, is none other than a temple erected for the gods. There are certainly a number of Ziqqurat in this area, but none of them are this close to the house belonging to the person who, presumably, was the one who inscribed the tablets: dear old Abraham.”

“Very interesting.” The Colonel was scrutinising the text. “The place that everyone has identified as the ‘House of Abraham’ is only a few hundred metres from the temple.”

“Also,” Elisa continued, “if these beings really were aliens, imagine how interesting this ‘vessel’ could be to the military. Perhaps even more so than the ‘precious contents’.”

Jack was pensive for a moment, then he replied, “that’s the reason for all this interest on the part of ELSAD. The buried vessel might be much more than a simple earthenware container.”

“Well done. And now for the moment of truth,” cried Elisa theatrically. “Ladies and gentlemen, I now present what I found this morning.”

She touched the screen and a new photo appeared on the device. “But it’s the same symbol as the one on the tablet,” exclaimed Jack.

“Exactly. But I only shot this photo today,” replied Elisa, feeling pleased with herself. “Apparently, Abraham used the same symbol to represent the ‘gods’ as the Sumerians had already used: a star with twelve planets around it, and, incidentally, it’s the same as the one I found engraved on the cover of the ‘container’ that we are in the process of unearthing.

“That might not mean anything,” remarked Jack. “Maybe it's just a coincidence. That symbol could have hundreds of meanings.”

“You think so? How about this one? What do you think it is?” she asked, showing him the last photo. “We took this from the outside of the container, using our portable X ray equipment.”

All Jack could do was stare in amazement, his eyes wide open.

Theos spacecraft – Data analysis

Petri was still absorbed in his analysis of the probe when Azakis returned to the bridge. “They said they’ll get back to us,” he said.

“Which means they’re going to discuss it amongst themselves,” remarked Petri bitterly.

“More or less what we expected, eh?” replied Azakis, patting his companion on the back. “So what can you tell me about this hunk of metal?”