Uncontacted, page 11
At length, when the tribal man paused, Antonio addressed his new colleagues while pointing to the artifact. “I think he’s saying that we stole it from his people.”
The three Oxford academics exchanged puzzled glances. Stel recovered first. “How is that even remotely possible when this object came from the Amazon and this individual came from an island in the Indian Ocean?”
The tribal man, apparently recognizing that they were talking about him, repeated the same kind of words he had just uttered, with perhaps a touch less anger this time, but he did not lower his hand from his face.
The older linguist held a finger in the air while he commented. “Now that we’ve got him actually talking, I do recognize a couple of the root words he’s using. Very strange, but they do seem to have something in common with the samples of the tribe that Stel played from you over the phone,” he finished, looking at Antonio.
Stel focused attention back to the tribal man. “He does seem to be saying that this object was taken from his people. But how on Earth is that possible, unless…”
“Unless they have one, too,” Antonio finished for him. “Halfway around the planet and their language appears to be the same. What else is the same?”
This was met with a stony silence, except for the tribal subject, who continued to rant about the glowing object.
Stel turned his gaze to the artifact on the table. “Maybe it’s time we took a closer look at this thing you’ve got here.”
Chapter 19
Oxford University Computer Science Facility
Antonio stood with Stel in a computer lab across campus. The linguists had been left behind with the tribal subject to continue their attempts at communication, while Stel and Antonio brought the artifact here. They stood next to the director of the lab, computer scientist Dr. James Hanlan, who had a good enough prior working relationship with Stel to be able to promise him discreetness in return for possible publication about the unknown computing device recovered from a cave in the Amazon rain forest. The artifact sat on a workbench with a swing arm magnifying lamp positioned over it. Two white-coated lab technicians were currently bent over the find, working to extract the device itself from its surrounding rock.
At that moment came a knock at the door, and the director moved to get it. “I’ll handle this, keep working.” He asked who it was through the closed door and then opened it after the muffled response. Two middle-aged men, both bearded with thinning hair, entered the room.
“Stel, Antonio, these are the gentlemen I was telling you about from the Geology Department. They’re here to take samples of the rock part of the artifact back to their lab for analysis.”
Both geologists nodded, and the one who wore prescription eyeglasses looked at the rock in question. “Hopefully we’ll be able to tell you exactly what your device here is embedded in,” he said, moving with his colleague to the artifact. One of the geologists carried a small field kit with him, from which he removed a chisel and a small rock hammer. He and his associate donned white latex gloves and then began working with the computer technicians to first carefully separate the main device from the rock. After breaking away the rock at certain key structural points, it came away surprisingly easy, and the technology itself was separated.
“That is some weird looking piece of tech,” the geologist who wore glasses remarked as he and his lab partner carefully lifted the geological specimen into a crate.
One of the computer techs laughed in his direction. “Sure is, isn’t it? We’re gonna have fun figuring out what this thing does.” The other computer tech nodded enthusiastically as he gently set the device on the lab bench. Freed of its rock prison, the device looked like a flat screen rectangular LED display attached to a ceramic, bulbous mold of some kind.
The geology pair left with the rock sample, and the two computer techs carried the device itself to a back room of the lab for testing.
#
Half an hour later, after Stel called his own lab to check on the linguists with the tribal subject (they reported he had clammed up again once the object was taken from the room), one of the computer techs walked out of the testing room and addressed his boss. “Dr. Hanlan, after initial testing, we’re ready to offer an early characterization of the device.”
“Excellent!” Hanlan waved to Stel and Antonio to accompany he and his technician to the testing room. Once there, the other technician pointed to the device, which had been connected by a modern computer cable with adapters to a machine of some sort.
“Let us begin by saying that this device, whatever it is exactly—and we’ll get to that in a second—represents very advanced technology. It’s clearly a sophisticated implementation…”
Stel cut in. “I don’t mean to be rude, but can you just tell us what it does, please? We’re extremely pressed for time.”
The technician who had been speaking raised his eyebrows and cleared his throat. “Of course. What we seem to have here is some kind of encoded information on hard media, which it seems to achieve using light.”
“Possibly even data encoded onto single atoms,” the other technician added, “but regardless of the exact mechanism, we’re confident that it contains some type of computer code, or programmed instructions, if you will.”
“I know what computer code is, thank you,” Stel huffed. “But what does it code for? What does it do?”
“We’re pretty sure it runs a simulation of sorts.”
“Like a probability model,” the technician’s cohort added.
Dr. Hanlan nodded to the screen on the machine they had connected to the device. “Can we see it in action?”
“Sure.” Both techs said it in unison, and the one closer to their machine pressed a key and pointed to the display. “Watch this.”
“I don’t see anything.” Antonio frowned at the empty black monitor.
“Not yet, but wait for it…there!” The tech operating the machine pointed to the display, where a single dot, a mere pixel point of white, was instantiated in the center of the screen.
“That’s it?” Stel asked. Clearly, those in the room who were not computer scientists had yet to be impressed.
“That’s definitely not it, the other tech said. “Watch this.”
As they continued to stare at the screen, the first dot split into two. “Just like last time,” the tech working the machine said. No sooner had he completed his sentence than the two dots had become four.
“Looks like a cellular mitosis demonstration,” Antonio put forth. They continued to watch as the pattern of dots, starting small and localized, rapidly grew and spread.
Stel shook his head, an openly critical expression on his face. “A program that does this was found guarded by a tribe in the Amazon rain forest? He took a step closer to Antonio. “Dr. Medina, you listen to me: if this is some kind of a hoax, some pathetic cry for attention, I can assure you that—“
Antonio shook his head slowly while making eye contact with Stel. “It’s not. I admit that I don’t know for sure how it got there in the first place, but my own team are witnesses to the fact that I didn’t have it before I made contact with the tribe —documented contact, I might add, since I have video taken from my airplane—but that I did have it afterwards. So if you can’t—“
“Gentlemen, please!” Dr. Harlan said, throwing his hands up. “It’s not a hoax. The technology is sufficiently novel that we’re not entirely sure how it works, but we do believe we have a handle on what it does.”
“And what is that?” Stel demanded.
“Our best guess as to what it really is,” Harlan said, turning back to the screen, “is that it’s a simulation of humanity starting tens of thousands of years ago and running through the present. Each dot represents a person. Keep in mind though, that this may only be half of the technology—if there’s another half with the Andaman tribe, which seems to be the case according to your tribal subject’s reaction. So we don’t yet know what that does, or if it’s merely a copy of this one. But we’ve let this thing run, and it always stops at around 8 billion dots on the screen, which roughly corresponds to the human population of planet Earth today.”
There was a pause while everyone digested this, and then Hanlan finished with, “But it still seems like it’s missing something to me, like this is too simple. Not to mention it begs the question, who made the sim and where are they now?”
Stel’s face started to redden. “With all due respect, Dr. Hanlan, this is getting ridiculous. What is this circus?” He looked around the group to gauge their reactions, and suddenly Stel’s smartphone vibrated in his pocket. He looked at the caller ID and accepted the call.
“Hold on, it’s the geologists getting back to me about the rock this thing was encased in…Yeah, Stel here, what have you got?”
He put his phone on speaker mode so that the others could hear the geologist. “So it turns out that this rock you brought back is mighty special indeed. That’s because it’s a meteorite, as in, it came from space.”
“A meteorite?” Stel asked, buying time to process the craziness of it all.
“Correct. To clarify, the same rock would be called ‘meteor’ if still in outer space, but as soon as it hits the Earth, it, or what’s left of it after burning through the atmosphere, becomes a meteorite.”
“Okay, okay,” Stel prodded, “so go on.”
“Right, so all meteorites, including this one, are extremely old. Because of that age, we can conclude that the device you found implanted in this meteorite was placed there not long after its origins, somehow embedded inside the rock at the time of its very formation.”
Dr. Hanlan beamed smugly at Stel, who continued irritably into his phone. “But that’s impossible, because that would mean….”He looked at Antonio, who also wore an expression of stunned confusion.
“What you’re thinking is correct,” the geologist on the phone said. “The piece of technology taken out of that rock has to be at least one million years old.”
Chapter 20
London, England
An hour later, Antonio and Stel were seated at an outdoor table in one of London’s better restaurants for a late dinner. Their entrees had already arrived and, after more discussion about the incredible findings back in the lab, talk now turned to what to do next.
“There is only one thing to do,” Stel said, waving a forkful of steak at Antonio.
“And that is?” Antonio sipped his glass of mineral water.
“I need to bring our human subject back to his home in the Andaman Islands. He cannot stay here indefinitely, the object was to learn about his people, not to kidnap him. To keep him here any longer is to risk starting an international incident.”
“On that we agree, Stel. So when do you leave?”
“Not me,” the anthropologist said, wiping his mouth with a linen napkin. “We. I need you to go with me.”
“Why?” Antonio set his wine glass back down.
“To find the other half of the rock, with the other half of the light disc. When pieced together, they will tell the whole story.”
Antonio flashed on something his father said during his final meeting with him, his father the tribal native. Antonio, It’s starting. I’ve been expecting you. Hinting that something had been set in motion, something big and with potentially devastating consequences for humanity as a whole.
He found himself nodding. “All right, Stel. I’m impressed with the work you’ve done on this so far, and it does seem to lead to the Andaman Islands. I’ll go with you to confirm the presence of a second device.”
Stel beamed. “Excellent! We can depart tomorrow.”
Their server walked up to the table, an attractive blonde who asked if they needed anything. Antonio said he thought a drink was called for, and ordered a glass of wine.
“Great, but I’ll need to see your ID.”
Antonio laughed, almost blushing, taking it as a compliment.
“Really darling,” Stel said, “ the man’s old enough to be your father.”
She shrugged with a smile. “I’m sorry, I know it’s an inconvenience, but it’s our policy to ask everyone.” She lowered her voice into a faux-conspiratorial tone. “We had some trouble recently selling to minors, so management is really cracking down now.”
“Not a problem,” Antonio said, smiling at the woman. He himself was single, his work and extensive travel routine not having been conducive to marriage. The server left the table and Stel leaned over to have a look at Antonio’s driver license.
“Really, let me see, old chap, just how old are you?” He read the birthdate and smiled. “A couple of years younger than me, as I suspected. And I see you just missed being a leap day baby by one day.”
Antonio thought back once again to the recent conversation with his father… What’s your birthday, Antonio?
He was a leap day baby, but his Mom had the hospital put the day after instead of the 29th. But this was more than he felt like sharing with his new friend, Dr. Stel Foster, at the moment.
“Yep, just missed it. Lucky me.”
Stel raised his wine in a toast. Antonio picked up his and they clinked glasses.
“To luck,” Stel said. “I have a feeling we may need it.”
Chapter 21
Andaman Islands, Indian Ocean
“I’ve got to hand it to you, Stel, you really know how to make the most of a research budget!” Antonio looked out the window of the Bell JetRanger helicopter at the silver sea flashing by below. A string of green, mountainous islands was visible up ahead. Antonio sat in the back seat next to the tribal man, who was wrapped in a blanket staring out the opposite window, while Stel sat up front in the co-pilot’s seat. The pilot was an Indian woman working for the air charter company Stel contracted to take them from the Indian mainland to the Andamans.
“Wasn’t sure I’d be able to swing it, but I had to try. So much faster than by boat, and since we have a limited team and gear, I figured why not? Normally the engine noise is a turnoff because it attracts them to us in a hostile way, but in this case…”
“We want them to find us, because we’ve got him.” He nodded toward the Andaman native.
“Precisely. So Anoushka here is going to drop us off on the mud flat, and then leave right away. Then, when we’re ready to be picked up, since we don’t know how long we’ll be, we’ll give her a ring on the sat-phone, right dear?”
The pilot looked over and smiled, giving Stel a thumbs up sign before turning back to her flying. Stel turned back to Antonio. “Just be ready to get out as soon as we touch down.”
Five minutes of racing above pristine island beaches, jungles and rocky cliffs later, Stel pointed out the mud flat to the pilot. She corrected course and brought the helo down lower. Antonio scanned the beach for signs of the natives he’d heard so much about by now, but he saw not a single soul. Soon the water beneath them changed to brown sand and mud. The pilot slowed to a hover and then set the aircraft down on one of the drier looking patches of the mudflat. The engine, however, kept running as the pilot waved to Stel while he popped his door open and climbed out of the helicopter.
Concerned about what the native might do once his door was open, they waited for Antonio to get out first, without opening the tribal man’s door, so that he would be forced to exit down to the two waiting men. They could not afford to have their ticket to good relations with the tribe run away as soon as they touched down. They needed him to explain what they wanted from the tribe, that as a show of good faith they returned their villager, that they have the other half of an object they have been safeguarding.
The tribal man cowered in his seat once the door was open, shielding his head with his arms. Seeing his native land so close must have spurred him on, however, in addition to Antonio and Stel’s waving arms, because he got up and jumped from the door. He landed on the hard-packed mud between Antonio and Stel and stood there, flinching at the helicopter’s rotors. Stel gave the pilot a thumbs up and the craft lifted slowly skyward. Once hovering at a safe distance above its departed passengers, the bird headed away from the island, back across the sea.
With the noise of the helicopter sure to attract tribal attention, Antonio and Stel each grabbed the tribal man by an arm, unsure if he would attempt to race off into the jungle now that he knew where he was. He walked along with them in step, though, allowing himself to be led without putting up a fight. They walked across the mud flat, and just before they reached the edge closest to the beach, the tribal greeting party burst out of the jungle and onto the sand.
Five warriors, Antonio counted, all with bows and arrows. As Antonio, Stel and the returned subject stood in place, side by side with their hands in the air, even the native—the warriors began shouting amongst themselves as they recognized one of their own. Then they called out to him, and he called back.
”What’s he saying? What was that about?” Antonio hissed.
But before Stel could answer him, one of the archers drew his bow and launched an arrow. It arced high, almost ceremoniously so for what could have been a more direct shot—giving Antonio and Stel time to move to either side out of its path. When they looked back, however, they saw that not only was their subject still there, but that he was now kneeling in place, arms still outstretched to the sky. As if offering himself.
And then a five-foot long wooden arrow tipped with a stone spear point pierced the tribal captive’s face with an audible thud. There was a small explosion of blood and then the tip was protruding out the back of his head. He fell over dead on the mud while the war party ran across the beach toward the mud flat, weapons aimed and still shouting.
