And Time Convicts: (TimeSaga 4: Complete)

And Time Convicts
TimeSaga Story Four
Part One

I remembered the words from Ted Chemill, “Mister, you don’t know what I know.  This alien stuff is not weird and wonderful, but scary and destructive.  We need to come to terms with the possibilities, and that means doing more than simply making vague claims and wild hypotheses.  I will hire you to actually become a scientist, because I believe you have the drive.  The question however is, are you going to join those of us you despise?”

It took the presence of Dr. Rudolph Ryans to convince me to switch back to hard science.  I had started my life looking with wonder at the things that those of the past tried to tell us.  Where others saw the influence of beings from another world, I saw fools lifting up the gifted into the realms of the gods just because their wisdom of what was truly possible was so limited.  Their imaginations in the past were much more awesome than their reality.  Now we could make our wildest ideas tangible, at least in a visual manner, and the acts of our great people were scoffed at.  Dr. Rudolph Ryans was not just part of a company making grand feats possible, but one of those actually doing those miracles – actually one of our modern gods.  I thus listened to his words grounding one of my wild beliefs with the logic of solid science.

“There is no doubt this thing could be electronic.  The gold is not decoration, but appears to run through this thing like threads.  I believe other discolorations were direct doping of other elements to create circuits.”

Ted asked his company guru, “Anyway to prove that?”

“Clean it up.  I am not saying that we would understand its purpose, but could at least prove it does manipulate an electron flow.”

I had to say, “But if it is electronic, it could be –“

Both men quickly voiced a negative with Ted then challenged me to drop my association with paranormal researchers and go back to real science.  Having two men from RayWeight with me definitely had me tempted to agree.  That company was doing modern miracles with people.  What they were performing had nothing to do with speculation or dreams, but people left their influence highly altered.  I was not being asked to start dreaming another dream, but to set my feet back on solid ground and have others look upon me as a god.

Suddenly I found myself traveling to speak with people.  I did not want their interviews for their stories of what they claimed, but to hear the facts they could relate.  I checked names, places, and looked over evidence.  I turned in reports, and listened to complaints along with advice about to possible improve my chances of success.  After analyzing my own evidence, I would start to work on my next plan of attack making travel plans and setting up dates to interview people.

I turned down Egypt.  While I could not doubt the influence of religion in that part of the world, evidence of any real science was very scarce.  The Americas did have the gold and evidence of very precision processes in its construction, but again no real indications of having practical daily knowledge of modern technology.  East of the Middle East, through Iran into India, signs of batteries and other electronic remains became evident.  I thus turned my research in that direction.

I looked up from my desk on board the research vessel, as a very odd metallic sound came over a speaker.  The one controlling the submersible looked at me with a surprised expression when I told him to do that again.  As if thinking the sound was a bad thing, he questioned my command.

“Sir, we hit something.”

I clarified, “Something metallic.”

“Uh, yes, Dr. Rothman.”

“What the hell can be metallic here?  Do that again, and verify what we heard.”

As the man moved the submersible, others in the room checked things.  Metallic things could be in the water, but not set within the drop of the continental shelf.  The submersible was checking signs of a possible city once existing on the edge of a shoreline that had existed when the water level was about seventy feet below its present state.  Others spoke of natural processes that could have caused stones in the surrounding ocean bottom to appear cut and set into place, but I sought evidence of a once thriving culture.  Only the recent history of man provided large pieces of metal to be found.  The sound of the submersible again striking metal however gave me hope that my backers had proven themselves right in putting their faith in me.

Seventy feet was not a difficult depth for a dive.  The current was a little strong both from the ocean current moving along the continental edge and the flow of a river from inland.  Stronger motors had been put on the submersible to assure its ability to move, although I stayed calm at times when the pilot cursed his difficulty in getting the machine to perform maneuvers.  Sending divers down would be possible, but they also would need to take precautions in order to challenge the current.

Luckily at the moment we were not concerned with the weather.  I thus found the divers willing to go down and no one bothering to make any trouble with setting up some equipment.  As the submersible came up, the divers went down, and I kept my concern on doing my best to make out things on the monitors.

One good thing about the current was that it washed away the silt stirred up as the men sought to clean up what sounded like a strange metallic surface.  Those of us in watching on the monitors could not agree on what we were hearing over the speakers.  There was a ring as if there was a hollow behind the metal surface, although it quickly died down as if dampened by something.  Of course, I was hoping to find something like the object that initially had me search for this place while others in the room just hoped for a sign that we were not disturbing some relic of a recent war or other odd detritus of recent human activity.  Looking at the monitors, we often had the divers stop so we could look at what was being revealed.

The lead diver claimed that we were looking at a mica deposit rubbed smooth by the currents.  My time of quickly jumping to some paranormal conclusion helped me to shut the man up.  I easily pointed out that I had never seen a mica deposit so large or smooth.  It caught me by surprise to hear a usually skeptical academic speak to support me before having the divers move the light.  Even the lead diver had to admit that we found something when discernable symbols became revealed.

We watched as the divers set to work to further clean the surface.  The fact that we were looking at a metallic surface of precious metal could not be disclaimed, but none of us could understand whether the elements showed corrosion or even smaller runes.  I suddenly saw a depression become revealed from the accumulation of silt, and screamed with delight.

“THE KEYHOLE!”

“BARRY!” my skeptical academic companion retorted.  “What are you talking about?”

I was already making connections on my computer.  Dr. Kuliak did not argue with my command to route the signal to my computer, but did move to look at to whom I would have view the image.  Seeing that it was the usual front man to RayWeight kept him from canceling my actions, as I am certain he wanted the man’s opinion as well.  While I saw nothing on my computer screen, I hoped the other was getting a video feed even as I heard him speak.

“Barry?  What is it?”

“Look, Ted.  This is it.  This is where that device goes.”

I guess that I woke him up, as he did not turn on his camera.  I however heard him ask some questions informing us that he was indeed looking at the visuals I had sent to him.  Finally, I heard the conclusion I sought to gain by contacting him.

“This will take some time, although I have already put some action toward assuring a lack of problems should this moment ever come.  Expect a delegation, but until then do what you can to clear up the site.”

Dr. Kuliak asked, “Sir, what do you think we found?”

“Think?  We might think at RayWeight, Floyd, but we put action behind our thoughts.  What is important is not what we think, but what we find ourselves knowing.  When I get there we will be wanting to know, Floyd, so you support Barry in directing a full scale clearing.  I challenged Barry to find out things, and stop making his wild claims that he thought was probable.  Thus, when I get there, I will be seeking to discover if he met his goal, and not what either of you think was found.”

After the connection was closed, Dr. Kuliak looked to me and said, “Don’t tell me that this something to do with aliens.”

“It is something to do with the ancients not being as primitive as we believe.  Either aliens visited us, or ancient humans had access to far more knowledge than our present authorities will believe.  Proving either will be a major step toward our understanding of our place in the universe.”

“Oh, don’t give me that crap.  This will be simply be another obscure site that you UFO freaks will pontificate about when there really is no evidence for your claims at all.”

Keeping control of my voice, I said, “I don’t think so.  I believe that we will gain solid proof of something that will knock the socks off learned authoritarians like you.  That is what Mr. Chemille and Dr. Ryans challenged me to do, and I think I have succeeded.”

“The more fantastic the claim, the greater the need for solid proof.”

“The harder the rock, the finer the grit as it wears away.”

We traded comments like that between us all the time.  Dr. Kuliak was really a cold scientist intent on making what was found fit into old already-proven-wrong theories.  I did have the history of jumping on every new piece of new data with a claim of it having extraterrestrial origin, but I felt my recent work more than declared a change of attitude better fitting someone able to make good discoveries and seek their proper place in history.  My resurfaced faith in the scientific method I felt needed to be duplicated in Dr. Kuliak, which was something he would not admit at all.  The verbal fight however never got mean, and I often found our comments to change to actual discussions of history.

I looked at what was being revealed, and could not help but confidently say, “I think I will win this time, Dr. Kuliak.”

“You cannot win with the belief in aliens, my boy, because those back in time could not imagine such a concept.  Those not of their world would have only been considered from the land of the gods.  They were thus gods to those people.”

“But technology.”

“Will just be proof that they had technology.  Honestly, technology will first have a true scientist look to recent industries to assure the finding is not really recent.  Even if it is proof of ancient technology, it is still another step to show that it was of alien construction.”

I looked again at the strange surface with its strange markings.  While there were inscribed symbols, which I assumed were writing, the only inset was in the shape of what I remembered the odd piece of hopeful electronics to be.  It was rectangular with angled points making an equilateral triangle with the main surface about where the bars of a cross would be on a Christian symbol.  While what I would call a keyhole I felt to be the evidence I had been searching for, even in my least reputable years, the training of a scientist had my eyes go back to the strange markings.

“Those are not hieroglyphs,” I said, “but actual writing.”

Dr. Kuliak replied, “That could be important depending on the actual age of this site.”

“Age?  There is no way that this site can be less than four or five thousand years ago.”

“Even if I agreed with you, my boy, it would still be our duty to prove it.  We don’t go jumping to any conclusions.  We might say things to the cameras to assure a flow of funds from certain pre-opinionated groups, but a real scientist, such as I, only sees years of verifying specifics and writing papers before any real acceptance of a conclusion can be established.”

“There has to be a fire, a drive, to keep you going through all that toil.  That is what I have, and why I was hired.  You, old man, will give up and just start repeating the mistakes of the past so you and those like you can sleep at night.”

“Maybe, but I was hired to assure that you did the work properly.  The world does sleep better with my conclusions.  If you are going to wake them up, it needs to know that there is really something to be alarmed about.”

And Time Convicts
TimeSaga Story Four
Part Two

As the divers began reaching their limits of being below the water, the discussion began about how to work the site. The weather bureau was contacted about how long the good conditions might last. Dr. Kuliak and I were wondering about the extent of the discovery and how we could use our limited resources to assure enough of a claim on the full expanse of this sunken moment in history. Overall, everyone on the vessel was discussing how we could continue to work to explore what was found below.

Picking up the slab became a discarded idea when it was found to be part of a greater structure within the continental bedrock. While I had spoken of the marvels of ancient constructions found to be very precise in its crafting, even Dr. Kuliak had to speak of his amazement at the odd type of stone, its size, and how the construction did not match anything he had seen previously. Agreeing that we needed to keep everything in place, we went back to our drawings and notes to assure the evidence for any ideas would be kept as pristine as possible.

Almost a week later we found ourselves surrounded by boats. A number were of the local navy and coast guard simply to act as stooges for the vessel carrying the government officials. Three yachts carried a number of prestigious people of RayWeight along with some other distinguished scientists.

Only one was a lady, and I could not help but fixate upon her. “Dr. Beyonce, I am surprised to have you.”

“Oh, don’t slight the skills of Dr. Ryans, but he worked under my supervision. He asked me to look at this ancient artifact, and I had to agree that it was extremely strange. I hired the chemists to properly clean the artifact under the supervision of others present.”

The artifact she spoke about was the one I referred to as the key. I had considered problems with my idea resulting from its condition after suffering through an extended period. The same problems with the discovery found in the water below, but I gained hope in seeing the wonderful condition of the key.

It was Ted Chemill who said, “We have a plan, but we need to see the extent of what you have uncovered. Work first, then we will determine if our wild ideas have any merit.”

We did work. I had been hired due to a belief in my drive to find an answer. I however found those that had put their money into me to have a level of energy and focus that surpassed my mental and physical abilities. It helped that I had been putting together the evidence, as the time they needed to catch themselves fully up-to-date with my discovery gave me an opportunity to rest before again joining those taking over my work.

They had sent down a military dive team to perform a seismic reading of the surrounding rock. The data was poor, as the water had saturated the bedrock, but they confirmed that the panel was part of a structure that went back at least sixty feet into the continental shelf. They had then sent divers to check the possible size of the community before the panel, and I found myself having to play catch-up with what they had added to my data in just a few hours.

Both Dr. Kuliak and I were pressed to reveal all of our findings. I thought it strange, but entertaining as well, that he was as reluctant as I. With what the both of us considered odd details supporting our own beliefs added to the amount of information, I found myself wondering what conclusions the learned individuals newly arrived would try and claim for themselves.

Ted lifted his eyes to look at the others in the room in the room as he said, “We have to do it.” Seeing nods, I wondered what was being agreed upon and found myself shocked to have him look to me and ask, “Are you a qualified diver?”

“What? Yes. I mean it is only down seventy feet. I am qualified for seventy feet.”

“Good. Of course we will have professionals down there with you, but it is your discovery, and I do not believe that Dr. Kuliak is qualified.”

The elder replied, “Not even in my younger days. Barry did take a recertification course before we started this expedition, as he had hopes of going down.”

Dr. Beyonce must have understood my mystification, as she looked to me to explain. “We can speculate for years, but until we put that object in that slot questions will remain. We have the object out here with us. It has been cleaned, the panel has been cleaned, it would thus be a fault if we do not take advantage of opportunity.”

Ted Chemill added, “And it is your discovery, so you get the honors. Get yourself prepared to go down.”

As I changed into a scuba suit, I could not believe what I was going to get to do. In all my years of making claims of aliens I constantly fumed about how the known establishment would not do anything to actually put some of the simple conclusions to the test. Now, here I was actually going to do something that I suspected would be denied. While the divers around me spoke of controlling my breathing and not rushing, I felt a need to take action while I had the chance.

The filming for the documentary began as I finished my preparations. A scene was made of the curator of the museum that held the object turning over the artifact to Dr. Beyonce, then of her entrusting the item to my care in the hopes of uniting lost pieces of an ancient puzzle. I had done enough documentaries in the past to know what to do, although found it strange that this time my words could be taken seriously by even those who scoffed at my claims.

There was a difference in what one saw through the glass of one’s mask and the view on a monitor. The major difference was the scope of what one could see. The properties of lenses often had the view from the camera limited in what it could discern. Going down with the divers I however found myself amazed at the extent of the work I had set myself to accomplish.

The panel was definitely large enough to let me know why it commanded the respect from even someone like Dr. Kuliak. While I had considered the size of the indentation in which to fit the object was a major discovery, it was truly just a small disruption in a much larger surface. I looked at the supposed writing, the rock face around the panel, and found myself awed by the scale.

My own past had me ask, “Who other than aliens could have done something like this?”

Over my headset I heard Dr. Beyonce reply, “People, Barry. Do not ever lose your faith in the ability of people to accomplish things. Do not ever lose your faith in yourself to accomplish things. You are not here by alien design or direction, but due to a life of commitment to a belief. I will berate you heavily if you start claiming my own achievements should be awarded to aliens and not my own work.”

“People? This is beyond the capabilities of any people that I know.”

“I take offense at that, Barry. I would say that you need to learn more about me, Ted, and the group of people that I consider friends. People are capable of the fantastic, and occasionally we are able to prove it. I would say that you are gazing upon another moment of someone, some person, rising up to show what they were truly capable of.”

The voice of Ted Chemill now came over my headset to say, “Well, we can talk and make nice speeches later. This is your moment, Barry, see if that object truly fits.”

It was hard to feel through the gloves, and for a moment I felt that the object was not present in its pocket. It however was there, and I carefully withdrew it. I made a scene of showing it to the camera, then passing it around the panel until circling the indentation just to give a building of tension as well as a sense of scale. Finally feeling the moment was right, I set the object into the slot.

Turning to signal a cameraman to come close, I found him indicating a negative while also saying that he did have the lens set to zoom in on the object. Something in the agitation of his actions, and the odd postures of the other divers, caused me to turn back to the panel. I could not say that I saw sparks, but something had me notice what the cameraman, probably due to his distance enabling him to get a better perspective on the situation, saw.

Seeing bands of light suddenly reveal themselves in the panel I considered to be amazing. There was something geometric in the lines of illumination, but not any clear symbol or image. It stopped at a line below the writing, which I felt let me know that the symbols were inscribed by the same ones that made the panel.

I heard voices telling me to get back. I however only uttered statements of my amazement in what was going on around me. To have something thousands of years in age suddenly activate could only be relegated to stories of science-fiction, although having it occur in my presence I felt certain gave testament to something alien being active in the early days of humanity. Wondering what would be revealed, I held my place to fully witness the moment.

The light from overhead disturbed me in that I felt the government forces, or even those of my own financial backers, were descending to take over the scene. Looking up I however saw a column of a strange pinkish, purplish, swirling vortex of white light that could not fully consume other colors from revealing themselves. I considered the effect marvelous, and wondered how my ancient ancestors would have considered the phenomenon. I however found myself disturbed as voices now shouted for me to move back, but I could not help being drawn upward into the strange column.

I felt myself traveling. I looked in the direction I considered myself to be heading, and made out that I was moving at a fantastic speed. I could not help but keep my eyes open while wondering what more fantastic sights I would behold. Phrases of what I would say to aliens passed through my mind. Without fear, I set myself to traveling toward the destiny I had always desired.

The creature that almost floated toward me was humanoid only in the number and placement of major appendages. The legs were thick with projections appearing like fins. The arms were long with normal fingers coming from large, round, meaty palms. The head had no neck, or a very thick one with what appeared to be gills flapping as the mouth opened and closed as if gulping some essence. I considered that the creature had to be intelligent to be part of such a magnificent designed phenomenon, so spread my arms to show what I felt it would surely recognize as a sign of peace.

It grabbed me with a hand. The flesh of its bulbous palm spreading around my torso I considered a marvelous thing. I spoke a greeting, although found my voice failing. My head felt strange, and I tried to clear my mind for what I accepted might be a psychic form of communication.

Agony however was the sensation that passed through my body. My senses somehow came to understand that my physical form was being devoured. I felt fear not for myself, but for those aliens that once surely visited Earth. They had come to us in peace, and while I sought to go to them in such a fashion, my last thought was that I had arrived too late.