Saving proxima, p.29
Saving Proxima, page 29
“That’s good to know.” Commander Rogers cleared his throat, getting everyone’s attention. “Alright, folks, let’s hold the chatter down now and let Ambassador Jesus do his thing.”
CHAPTER 49
December 27, 2099 (Earth timeline)
Proxima b, aka Fintidier
The tour of the complex was going well. The secretary general made pleasantries with all of the humans from Earth and then they all spread out and went back to the work they needed to be doing. The soldiers chatted with soldiers, shared stories, and showed each other their weapons. The scientists spoke with the women and the pilots. But, mostly, Charles had asked them all to get “back to work” and “look busy” so he could show the Secretary General around. Everywhere they went, the two younger women and the two men in black dress suits followed closely behind.
“We’ve had ten of your years, Ambassador.” The old Fintidierian woman smiled. Charles noted that they must not have invented dental braces yet as her teeth were very misaligned. “We all have studied your culture and language. We teach your English in our schools now in our primary education system.”
“Madam Secretary, we are mostly humbled, and honored by such actions. And believe me, many of us have learned much about your culture. But mostly, we’ve been studying your dilemma,” Charles said. “That and building a means to travel here to you to offer our help.”
“Yes, we received your messages that you were coming to help with our problem. And even that you have sent a second ship to be here sometime in the not-too-distant future.” Secretary General Balfine Arctinier’s eyes raised a bit when Charles realized his expressions were giving him away. They had yet to be able to reestablish communications from home and weren’t certain if the Emissary had left Earth or not. There were so many data dumps lumped in on top of each other and, as it turned out, Gaines had left them another present: about the last three or so years’ worth of communications had been scrambled by some encryption algorithm that they’d yet to crack. The Samaritan had no up-to-date data that was much newer than their midpoint physicals.
“We had, some, uh, technical difficulties, and have yet to be able to reestablish communications from home,” Charles explained. “We are working the issue and hope to have that fixed within the next week or so.”
The old woman paused a moment and counted silently on her fingers. Charles guessed that she was interpreting a week into some Proximan time unit. Then she nodded knowingly.
“I am sorry to hear that. If there is anything my people can do to help, then please ask,” she said.
“I’ll pass that along to the scientists. I have no idea if they need anything we don’t have or not. Thank you, Madam Secretary.” Charles led the ambassador around the control center of their headquarters building showing her some of their amazing “magical” technologies. He found her questions very interesting and with some of them he realized that he also didn’t really understand exactly how the technology actually did what it did. There was nothing like having to explain something to help you realize whether you really understand it—or not.
“About our problem, as you have perceived it?” the secretary general asked. “How do you think you can help us?”
“That is a good question. Our understanding, our science and technology, of medicine, diseases, and the human makeup is probably a century or more ahead of yours. Perhaps, with our technologies and advanced knowledge, we can find the culprit of your gender disparities,” Charles offered. “Would you allow for our scientists and medical teams to conduct physical examinations of a sampling of your people?”
“Of course. We have volunteers available.”
“Great. When can we go see them?”
“For the meantime, we’d prefer it if you stayed here on this isolated location while we bring them here.” The secretary general turned and faced him squarely. She was much shorter than Charles, her skin was very pale as if it never had seen sunlight, and her face was far less wrinkled than he had expected it would be. “Ambassador Jesus, your people might be dangerous to ours. We do not know what ailments you may have brought with you. And trust builds slowly.”
“For how long?” Charles asked.
“Until enough time has passed for our experts to be comfortable with you leaving this location. I’m afraid I cannot give you an exact date. You know how difficult politics, and politicians, can be. I don’t anticipate it will be too much longer,” she replied.
“I understand, ma’am,” Charles agreed. “I understand completely.”
“Good.”
“Now, if you don’t mind, Madam Secretary, I’ve noticed that you have a slight limp to your left side as you walk.” Charles had noticed an obvious medical issue as she walked down the steps of the aircraft. He’d hoped that could be one of the inroads to take with her. “A sports injury perhaps?”
“You are quite disarming,” she laughed. “I’m afraid it is geriatric. At my age, sports are quite the thing of the past.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, ma’am, how old are you?”
“Well, I had a suspicion you’d ask that question, so I have already converted it to your time.” She smiled at him with her crooked teeth again. “I am sixty-eight of your years old.”
“I see. Would you mind letting one of our medical experts take a look at you?” Charles couldn’t believe how young the “old woman” was. “I believe you will be amazed at some of the treatment options we have available for all sorts of ailments.”
“An excellent idea, Mr. Ambassador. Perhaps I can be the first test subject for you, although my birthing years are much a thing of the past.” They both chuckled together briefly and then Charles decided to bring in the doctor.
“Excuse me just a second,” Charles said. Then he reached up in front of him and moved an icon around until he found Dr. Thomaskutty. She was five buildings down in the medical center. He switched open an audio channel and connected to her. “Sindi, this is Charles, do you copy me?”
“Loud and clear, Charles. How can I help you?” The Fintidierians looked at Charles as if they were trying to find the transmitter. He turned his head forward and pulled his earlobe down and then showed them the tattoo there. “A transmitter here . . . Sindi, I’m going to bring the secretary general down there now for a physical examination.”
“Wonderful, Charles. I can’t wait to see her,” Dr. Thomaskutty replied.
“Your technology is so amazing,” the secretary general said. “You mean that mark behind your ear is actually a communication device? That small?”
“Yes.” Charles nodded.
“And why do all of you wave your hands about in the air? I’ve noticed this.”
“Ah, I should have thought about that. Those motions are commonplace for our culture now. You see, not only do we have systems like this tattoo behind my ear that is microscopic technology, but we also have lenses that we put in our eyes. They act like movie screens we can see through. In my vision right now as I look at you, there is information in front of me that I can see which you cannot. I can move the information around like books on a shelf. But they are not real books, of course, they are movies. I can show you with glasses we have if you would like to experience it?”
“Very much, please.”
* * *
“Her limp is gone,” Charles noted. Dr. Thomaskutty stood next to him, waving goodbye to her as she walked up the aircraft stairs without any help from her guards.
“She had a bacterial infection in her joints. It used to be quite common in the elderly on Earth even fifty years ago or so,” Thomaskutty explained. “I gave her an anti-inflammatory, the right antibiotic, and a female hormone stimulant. Her endocrine system had basically shut itself down. I turned it back on.”
“Wasn’t that a bit premature? We haven’t yet done a complete physical workup on them yet. What if she has some sort of reaction? Accidentally killing their ambassador in our first meeting would not be a good way to begin establishing relations,” said Charles.
“That’s what I said. After the exam, she asked me what I found, so I told her. She then asked me if there was a treatment and I wasn’t going to lie, so I told her that too. It was at that point that she specifically asked if I could administer the antibiotic and the hormone stimulant. I warned her of the risks, but she insisted,” she replied.
“You should have asked me,” Charles said.
“Sorry about that, but when I have a patient I can help and they ask me to do so, I have a difficult time saying no. I did insist that one of her protectors witness her treatment request and I recorded it—just in case. I will send you a copy. Besides, there’s always patient-to-doctor privilege. I probably shouldn’t have told you anything.”
“She already looks like she feels better.”
“Wait until tomorrow when she starts menstruating again.”
* * *
As promised, a steady and recurring stream of volunteers began visiting the basecamp for their medical screenings. As would be expected, there was roughly a fifty-fifty split in the genders, with the average age of the female Fintidierian volunteers being much older than the male. Over the next ten days, the Earth humans had poked, prodded, scanned, and taken samples from well over three hundred individuals. All of the volunteers spoke at least rudimentary English and, without exception, they were polite and completely cooperative, showing absolutely no modesty during the exams, which were sometimes quite intrusive and lengthy.
CHAPTER 50
January 7, 2100 (Earth/Proxima timeline)
Proxima b, aka Fintidier
“As far as we can tell, there’s nothing wrong with them.” Yoko Pearl pointed out the last graph in her slideshow to the team.
“Really?” Charles Jesus whispered under his breath and to no one in particular. He had been expecting to find some disease or something. Charles had called an all-hands meeting, including the crew of the Samaritan who were connected virtually. As the ambassador from Earth, he, by default, had become the leader of Proxima One Embassy—at least that’s what they had been calling it. He figured that at some point they’d have to come up with an official name like the United Nations Embassy to Fintidier. But for now, Charles was fine with Proxima One Embassy.
“Doctors Nkrumah, Polkingham, I, and the medical team all agree. There is no known, or unknown and detectable, pathogen we can find, no genetic anomaly, nothing. The genetic makeup of the Fintidierians is identical to our own—which is miraculous, by the way—and suggests identical or connected origins. Even the local animals and plant life we’ve been able to sample show identical genetic origins, although they’ve evolved to slightly different species. There was a clear genetic origin for both our planets that, well, must have been from the same genetic samples. Our immune systems are slightly different due to evolution on separate planets, which is to be expected like the animals and plants evolving differently. Dr. Kopylova has something to say about that, but before he does, I have some other, very interesting news.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“As you knew before we left, life here is similar to that on Earth, but an independent parallel evolution creating humans so similar to us is a near impossibility. You are familiar with the basics of evolution, and you know that human reproduction creates children who are the combined product of the genes of their parents. These combinations are unique enough that genetic testing can confirm your identity perfectly, and the threads of these genes can be traced back through generations over thousands of years. Since genetic testing began we have created massive databases of genetic data for us humans, and also virtually all the other remaining species on Earth.
“Using this technology, we can determine whether you and, say, Dr. Gilster share a common ancestor, and can also estimate how long ago they lived, up to several thousand years back,” she said.
“Go on,” Charles prodded.
“We now have a Proximan genetic database too, thanks to samples we have taken. We compared it to our own Earth human database, and some of those samples suggest we share a common ancestor from about 50,000 to 75,000 years ago, most likely somewhere in Asia. Ancestors who strike out on their own to create a new line in a new place are called ‘founders’ in genetic terms.”
“You said some of the samples suggest a common ancestor. But not all, then?”
“Well, some may have founders older than that, up to two hundred thousand years ago or longer. But those with Asian ancestry are more closely related. Much more closely.”
“But how is that possible?”
“Honestly, we don’t know. We are starting to sequence as much of the flora and fauna here as we can, to see if it also relates to those on Earth. Maybe then we will have a rough family tree of sorts.”
“Thank you, Dr. Pearl.” Kopylova’s face appeared on the large data screen in the basketball gymnasium they used as the all-hands assembly location. Kopylova was currently on the ship at geostationary orbit above them, using the scanning electron microscope there. The team had yet to transport, unpack, and install the one meant for the lab at Proxima One—soon, very soon, there was just still a lot to be done.
Charles listened intently and made mental notes of who was on the surface and who was still on the ship and for what reasons. He understood the need to man the ship with at least a minimal crew, but if there was an issue of not getting equipment moved down in a timely manner, then he might need to suggest some prioritization. He’d give it time and see if the scientists figured it out for themselves. He listened as Kopylova continued.
“Doing a pathogen screen, and an immunity analysis, I’ve identified the disparate pathogens between us and have a vaccination protocol being developed for us and the Prox . . . uh . . . Finitidierians. The vaccine should be ready in a couple of days in a quantity enough for us and several hundred of the Fintidierian volunteers to come onto the complex. While none of us are currently infected with primary sickness, and the fact that we’ve been quarantined on the ship for almost seven or ten years relative, it is possible our immune systems are constantly defeating something within us that could be deadly to them and vice versa. We know that lower and microgravity exposure can weaken the immune response to certain Herpes viruses, like Shingles, for example. There are others that might become transferrable under certain intimate contact with the aliens . . . uh, Fintidierians . . . I don’t know what to call them. So, I suggest we implement the vaccine protocols as soon as possible.”
“That is good news, Mak,” Crosby chimed in virtually. “Right, Commander?”
“Agreed,” Rogers replied. “We’ve been wanting to do some exploration, even to remote areas that aren’t populated, but the excuse we get from the Fintidierians is that they want to maintain the general isolation and control any exposure that may occur.”
“I didn’t realize. I’ll push that,” Charles said. “Dr. Kopylova, is it possible to spread something to the Fintidierians if we traveled to an unpopulated area?”
“I don’t see how,” Kopylova said. “What are you thinking?”
“Commander Rogers, could you conduct manned recon in the OSAMs without being detected by their radar systems?” Charles asked.
“Hahaha!” Victor Tarasenko laughed out loud and the screen switched to his face. “What radar systems? They have not invented them yet. Or maybe, they have the idea in a lab somewhere, but there are no radars being implemented on this planet or we would have detected them with the satellites.”
“Okay, then. I’ll authorize away missions for data gathering as long as we stay out of sight, to unpopulated regions, and as long as we don’t get caught. I’ll have to deny ever having given permission to you if the secretary general asks,” Charles said. “So, be prepared for a public slap on the wrist if you get caught.”
“Understood, Mr. Ambassador,” Commander Rogers replied. “Been there and done that.”
“Is there some place you’d like to go?” Charles asked.
“Not me,” Rogers replied. “My job is to go where ordered.”
“Yes, there is!” Dr. Alma Jones’s face appeared on the screen as she stood in the bleachers so everyone in the gym could see where she was. That wasn’t actually necessary as much as tradition. Their individual AIs would quickly handshake and point out the locations of whoever they were looking for. Old habits sometimes took a long time to filter out of culture.
The AI drone flying silently in the gym readjusted itself to get a better view of her for the video conference. Charles noted in the bubble he could see above her head through his contacts that she was an expert in archaeology, archeoastronomy, theology, and anthropology. Of course, she would want to go exploring the planet.
“Dr. Jones?” He motioned for her to continue.
“Yes, look at these satellite images here.” She waved her hands about a bit and then tossed something toward the main screen set up at half court. “Here, see? Look in the southern region here of this continent.”
A globe of Proxima b, Fintidier, appeared and she started zooming in on a southern continent on the planet’s side farthest from their equatorial island continent. As the satellite image zoomed in, an area of heavy foliage appeared. It looked like one of the deepest, darkest jungles from anywhere in Africa or South or Central America on Earth.
“This jungle region here shows no signs of current habitation. Exhaustive infrared searches show only animal life and no human population. There are no roads, footpaths, dwellings, farms, or anything. It is currently, completely uninhabited. However, when we apply the foliage penetration filters in this region here, and overlay the lidar depth data, as well as the infrared data, we can see that there was clearly an ancient civilization here hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago,” Dr. Jones explained. “At first, I thought it would be easy to find stories about this ancient civilization in the library data the Fintidierians gave us. I wanted to know—and still do, spoiler alert—who were these people? We’ve collected a significant library of Fintidierian history books. We scanned them and have had the AIs go through all of them looking for any reference to this culture. There is none that we can find. According to the history that we’ve been given, this continent has always been uninhabited. Nonsense.”
