The Children of Time (The Children of Time Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Immediately, Nicolas moved away from Little Wolf, thinking it would be better not play with him. On Earth, the pets were definitely less dangerous. Zara smiled, reading his thoughts.

  The boy was much calmer and also happy to be able to help these people. And that robot made him sure that there was a lot to learn with that team. He would donate some cells to save a child, and he would be glad to do some good, and was sure he would learn a lot with during the trip.

  III. The Development of the Human Being

  Sivoc knew they wouldn’t be able to stay there for long. The danger was stalking them in more than one form and it was necessary to think of a safe place to stay. The Earth government was eager to capture them, targeting the advanced technology they possessed. On the other hand, Merko and its soldiers were also on the way and would never work together with them.

  While Sivoc, Drako and Tibor talked about the best strategy to protect themselves, Nicolas and Zara stayed away from the discussion. Zara knew the commander’s desire to tell the young man about the transformation of the human being, the way it had evolved until what it was about to become in the future. She thought that was the best moment to begin to tell her story:

  “Nick, I’m so glad you agreed to help us. While the rest of the crew is busy I would like to tell you a bit more about the evolution of the human species. Would you like to hear?”

  Nicolas’s eyes beamed with expectation of learning!

  “Please, Zara, I’d love to hear more about what happened. However, I imagine that the human being hasn’t changed much, since you have the appearance of a normal person.”

  The geneticist laughed with his statement. It was funny, but made sense, after all, he haven’t seen the real shape of the crew yet.

  “You are wrong, but I will start this story from the beginning. We know all the biological mechanism of the species in this planet, so we don’t need to make experiments with humans. When we perform our missions, the main purposes are to collect gens so our planet can recover extinct breed by cloning. The Science II has an immense database with most of the terrestrial genomes.”

  “I’ll explain briefly how we develop ourselves from the modern Homo sapiens.

  The human brain has a surprisingly capacity for data storage. With the advance of information technology and the increase of the human knowledge, brain development was accelerated by each generation.”

  The boy listened to what Zara was saying and felt completely immersed in an unknown and fantastic world. Every moment, he became more and more curious.

  “Therefore, the inventions and technologies grow exponentially, and the human mind has developed more quickly, making the brain and, consequently the skull, a lot bigger in comparison with the face.

  Due to changes in the eating patterns that have already started in the last two centuries, the jaws began to atrophy because of the lack of chewing food, since became more industrialized and soft. Without the movement of chewing the last teeth of each series of arcades, incisors, premolars and molars have disappeared, becoming only dental elements for residues. The jaw was reduced to the size we have in the future because of the reduction of its function.”

  Nicolas had never heard about that in his short life existence. ‘What is Zara referring to? Will we become bigheaded with small chins?’ He thought. With her telepathic abilities, the geneticist noticed that he clearly understood how human evolution had occurred. And she decided to continue the conversation telepathically:

  “Your conclusion about the future is correct. That’s why I said that we are the future of the human race.”

  “Zara, you’re reading my mind and talking to me telepathically. This is simply fantastic. I’d love to do that too!” He was really impressed with such ability, but also confused. “I don’t understand! How can you be so evolved if look exactly like the people I know?”

  She smiled and, telepathically, began to tell Nicolas about how man destroyed the terrestrial ecosystem:

  “I’ll get there, but first I have more things to tell. We know that the sun around which the Earth still moves will last around 6 billion years, but in order to preserve the planet is necessary that the humans are aware of the renewal of ecosystems. In a few decades, man will begin to use nuclear energy more often, since there will be no alternative to supply the lack of oil. He will dominate the technology of nuclear fusion, which will allow a multiplication of energy sources and increase of radiation. However, with the ineffectiveness of the methods of radioactive control, mainly by countries, which will use this method without total understanding, there will be a greater destruction of the ozone layer. Consequently, a greater amount of solar radiation will enter the planet and will drastically modify the climatic conditions. This will make it hard on the planet survival and a search for another planet to become a base will start. It will become necessary the use of domes with filtered oxygen and protection against solar and cosmic radiation. With this, the work of heating the air through the nostrils, to better absorb the oxygen, will be extinct, determining the nasal atrophy and reducing the nose into two small holes in the middle of the face.”

  Nicolas tried to imagine how this human being from the future would be, but it wasn’t easy. And Zara still had things to say:

  “The binocular vision of the humans also suffered some adaptations. When the man finally began to live in space, his vision had to be adapted to this new lifestyle, improving perception of depth to see well and to see the most distant objects. This made the eyeballs becomes more distant and bigger.

  Human fingers also have atrophied due to the modification of the labor methods because with the automation of the productions there was no need for manual work. Across the generations, the function of the fingers was lost and the hand was left with only three fingers, without fingernails.

  With the use of telepathy to communicate, the ears degenerated and reduced the size for the entrance of sounds.”

  The boy imagined himself with the mentioned features and feared that what he had just heard was true. Maybe if he told it to his college friends, he would be called crazy. Nobody would believe, even if it were the truth. He looked at the aliens and couldn’t see such changes. ‘Are they using some kind of costume?’ thought the boy. It was difficult to accept everything that took place in several millenniums in just a few hours.

  While Zara and Nicolas talked about the evolution of the human being, Sivoc and the others decided to leave the exosphere and hide the ship at sea. They were trying to deceive Merko and find the best moment to return to the planet Life. They needed to leave the ionosphere with safety and this was the best alternative. Listening to the conversation between the two, Sivoc decided to interfere, summarizing the matter:

  “When you get to our planet,” said the commander, “you’ll see how we value the environment. We recycle everything that’s possible and take care of our race, animals and vegetables. Besides, we don’t make war with other species. The military force exists to protect the planet against possible alien threats, meteors or problems involving the planet, like epidemics or environmental disasters. Are you ready to see the appearance of the human being of our time?”

  Nicolas just nodded, agreeing. Telepathically, the captain asked everyone to put some kind of sunglasses in their eyes. Then, he ordered that they assumed their real appearances. That was when the young boy really understood everything. They were using a different appearance not to scare him, since their original form was really impressive, so different than what he was used, just the way Zara explained with so many details.

  Minutes after watching them, the boy looked at Zara and a tear fell from his eyes. He thought: “Like had ever happened in my life, when I think I will have a serious relationship, everything ends. Zara and I have nothing in common; I just now see how different we are.”

  She noticed Nick’s disappointment when she saw his sad semblance and told everyone telepathically to become human again. She felt something new for the human, an emotion sh
e had never experienced before. After returning to the form of the beautiful woman for whom Nicolas had fallen in love, she saw him smile with the same innocence of young man she met in college. Somehow, seeing her as a human being, similar to him, gave him some hope of perpetuating the love he felt.

  However, the young man was amused with the use of this transmutation technology and pondered: ‘Would it be also possible for me to use these glasses and turn me into whomever I want to be? It’s unbelievable!’

  Sivoc ordered Drako to take the ship into the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, at a latitude and longitude next the city of Tampico. While the ship was moving there, he showed to the boy how gravity worked:

  “With the knowledge initiated by the Theory of Relativity, by a scientist of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein, it was possible to understand the balance of space-time-gravity. Scientists managed to study the changes that large celestial bodies, with mass and weight sufficiently able to deform the space-time, can cause in the universe, creating gravitational fields.

  The propulsion engines of folds we use are able to create a bubble around the ship, contracting the space in front of it and expanding the space left behind. This allows achieving large intergalactic distances respecting the law of general relativity that doesn’t allow that objects with large mass travel almost at the speed of light. We managed to create an artificial gravity using discoid ships which have rotational centrifuge speed, which creates a gravitational force similar to the Earth and to the Planet Vida, and benefits the structure and the blood circulation of the human body.”

  We traveled through wormholes formed from the space-time curvatures between opposing gravitational fields forming passage bridges between distant galaxies.”

  Nicolas was a Physics student and loved those issues about time traveling, life in other planets, and the law of relativity, energy sources and artificial gravity. To listen and to know that those explanations were actually used was just wonderful.

  Zara enthusiastically showed the galaxy where they lived in the virtual screen. She pointed her planet, which was located at a similar distance to our Earth to the sun. That was Vida, the planet where they all lived.

  She accessed a few images, and Nicolas could observe that the planet had some resemblance with Earth, because there was a lot of water and of green areas with different types of forests.

  “Andromeda is a spiral galaxy and is located about 2.9 million light years away from the solar system, to which the Earth belongs.” Explained the geneticist. “It’s the closest galaxy from the Milky Way and it was named is due to the Constellation of Andromeda, which the galaxy belongs.”

  This constellation has its name originated from the mythological princess Andromeda. This galaxy is also known as Messier 31 and its number of stars is twice bigger than in our galaxy.”

  She finished by saying that with the environmental degradation of the Earth, the man was forced to look for other places in the space to live, and conditions of other planets in the Milky Way weren’t adequate to the terrestrial life. First the human being created a colony on the moon, then in Mars and, with the knowledge he was acquiring, he could go farther and farther.

  “This place was the best we found.” She explained. “Since we could produce water from large glaciers and we managed to heat the planet with sources of energy from nuclear fusion. This caused a cycle of evaporation of water, which added to forest plantations, genetically designed, and established a continuing photosynthesis, also due to a privileged position of the planet Vida, in relation to the sun of our system. We also managed to save some species of animals and plants that we take with us on our trips throughout the space. There are still several domestic animals on our planet, which in the future are also different from how you know today. They all have suffered changes with the evolution process. With a quite diverse database of DNA, it became possible to clone several extinct species and recover much of the lost biodiversity.” Said the doctor, who at that time was no longer the simple beautiful woman he had met while trying to escape the rain, but someone who captivated him more and more.

  ***

  While the crew of the ship was talking, the Multinational Space Station observed on its radar the presence of an UFO in the Earth’s stratosphere region.

  “Attention, control mission on Earth. There is a presence of a ship near the Siberian region. Is there any air-fighter available in the area?” Asked the French commander, Raonut, head of multinational space station.

  “Listening loud and clear, orbital station command. Here speaks the commandant of the Russian space mission, in Moscow. We have two Sukhoi fighters ready to intercept. Please confirm the order of destruction.” Said the head of the Russian space mission, Sergey Yurich.

  “We have two F16 fighters near Germany. We’ll send it immediately.” Said Lieutenant Colonel Smith, from American command.”

  “Try to capture the ship and the crew and. It would be a milestone in human history. If they are hostile, you can destroy the ship.” Raonut confirmed.

  “Okay, let’s execute the mission.” Yurich replied.

  “Understood.” Said the American space control mission.

  ***

  Drako, watching the conversation kept his attention on the ship’s holograms.

  “Commander Sivoc, we were identified by radars of the Multinational Space Station. Four fighters are coming our way. We need to get away as quickly as possible. Two of them are coming from the East and more two are moving west.”

  “Take us to the orbit of Jupiter. There we’ll be invisible to the radars.” Ordered Sivoc.

  In a spectacular speed, they left the Earth’s orbit and reached Jupiter, crossing the belt of meteors and entered the orbit of the satellite Ganymede.

  ***

  “Orbital Station, Yurich speaking from Russian Space Command on Earth.”

  “I hear loud and clear.” Raonut replied.

  “The UFO just disappeared from our radars. Can you see it?”

  “Negative, Yurich. I will ask the European and American commands to try to locate them.”

  “Smith in listening. I also missed the target on the radar. Abort the mission.”

  IV. Another Ship on its Way to Earth

  Meanwhile, the ship Challenge I was ready to leave. The coordinates were already set on the wormhole formed near Jupiter’s moon, Calisto, where the gravitational curvatures between Andromeda and the Milky Way galaxy could be found. There was located the other bridge of space-time. Merko was anxious because of the delay and Mirov gave the final instructions:

  “Commander Merko, don’t forget to keep me updated through my particular communication channel. I want you to report the information about the mission directly to me. The other ship is unable to perform this kind of mission. If the people from Earth attack them, they will be captured; they are not prepared for the fight. Tibor can’t protect them alone.”

  “Lord Counselor, me and my team will do our best to get to the Earth with safety. No one will stop me from achieving my purposes.”

  “I want you to bring him dead or alive. If he dies, separate the bone marrow in the ship cryogenic laboratory, because what matters is the blood and his special defense cells.”

  Radof, Mirov’s assistant, got surprised with the order of his master; he knew that saving the princess’s life was not in his plans. When Mirov left to his chambers he talked to him after reading his thoughts:

  “I need the commander to bring me the earthling anyway. I need him to complete my plan to dominate the kingdom. Merko has to trust my noble intentions. Although everyone fears him for his strength and force, he is a man of principles. I’ll change the boy’s marrow bone and by the time the girl needs it the most it will be too late.”

  “Very insightful, sir. No one will suspect your plan and choosing Merko was a masterpiece.”

  “The commander has never failed. The conviction that he’ll conduct an honorable mission will help him achieve success. Now be qui
et and prepare the communication room in my chamber so we can monitor everything.”

  Challenge I descended into the Earth’s atmosphere at high speed. They arrived in Alaska, where there was an extraterrestrial base inside a mountain. A huge door opened among the snow castles, allowing the ship to enter without any problems. Captain Crom reported to his commander:

  “Sir, having one of our bases here is highly strategic. We became immune to the Earth radars and we still have a place to hide ourselves and prepare our military tactics. We need to worry only in finding the earthling, without fearing for our safety.”

  “Previous missions were performed in order to build this. We visited Earth several times, that’s why we know the place very well. It is extremely important that we focus only on our mission. We’ll leave in a few moments.”

  The crew of Challenge I didn’t know the whereabouts of Sivoc’s team, but they believed that they had arrived on Earth before. However, it was necessary to seek information about the target. Merko and his team, all in human form, teleported themselves to the city of Los Angeles. They synchronized the coordinates and pressed some kind of watch they were wearing on their wrists.

  The technologies used on the sunglasses and watches teleportation were similar. When they entered the gravitational field of a planet, a satellite robot was able to absorb the cosmic radiation of the stars and use it as an energy source.

  A chip located in the sunglasses scanned and read the DNA of the cell or tissue of the human whose identity they desired to copy the robot processed the information. The information about the current latitude and longitude had to be transferred to the satellite in order to materialize the DNA anywhere in that area.