“Thank you, Athanasia, but please in future only provide information when I request it.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible, 1960.”
“Why not? Aren’t you just a computer?”
“That’s an invalid question, 1960. Would you perhaps like to watch the Hubble Space Telescope’s Greatest Discoveries?”
“Some other time,” the diplomat grumbles.
Miffed, Ayak decides to complete his journey backwards through time by watching “Cradle of Humankind”, the last in the series of programmes on the computer’s home menu.
This feature is an animated story about human origins narrated by a male voice artist who sounds suspiciously like Morgan Freeman.
“Scattered fragments of evidence preserved in fossils, bones and ancient tools, as well as DNA traces they may reveal, are all there is to work on in the task of pre-constructing the history of our origins,” the voice artist states. “It’s the ultimate detective work.”
The animation has recreated the savannah of the land now known as Southern Africa. This is interspersed with documentary footage of the excavations conducted at Sterkfontein caves in Gauteng, South Africa.
“One of the major paleoanthropological treasure-chests is the Cradle of Humankind. Just to walk around these parts opens a window onto a past whose story is told in billions and millions of years,” the narration continues. “Looking northwards from the Cradle, you can see, in the distance, Magaliesberg mountain range. A majestic apparition dominating this ageless landscape, it was formed well over two billion years ago. It’s now a World Biosphere Reserve.”
Svenson is fascinated to hear that hominid sites dating back between 1.8 and 1 million years ago had been excavated in South Africa and East Africa, revealing a variety of bone tools which these early creatures used, including implements for digging.
“As far as we can gather, Homo erectus was the brave, enterprising creature who first began migrating out of Africa, probably from about 1.8 million years ago. The fossilised remains of this dynamic, now extinct, species are spread across Africa, Europe and Asia.”
While watching, the UN envoy gets the feeling of déjà vu.
I was there, Svenson thinks to himself, I’m sure of it.
“This region of the world has yielded over 35% of all the world’s early hominid fossils. In addition to about 500 hominid fossil fragments, approximately 9,000 stone tools have been recovered.”
He’d heard many times about the Out of Africa hypothesis for human origins but this was the first time he’d seen himself as part of that ancient adventure of monumental migration and exploration.
“Athanasia, can this magic ship of yours take me back to this far away time?”
“Only mental time travel is possible. Real time moves in one direction only and that’s forwards.”
“The famous Taung Child skull is like a tiny time machine,” the voice of Morgan Freeman continued. “Here one is looking at a petit creature, probably aged three years old, who walked these parts some 2.8 million years ago. Its human-like teeth and delicate facial features are unmistakeable. Imagine different species of ape-people co-existing in these ancient grasslands, along with a vast array of animals, including some now-extinct creatures like sabre-tooth cats, short-necked giraffes, colossal buffalo, huge horses weighing an estimated 895 kg, and the giant hunting hyenas.”
By the end of the programme, Ayak is tearful. The programme on the Dark Force of history had depressed him, whereas both the Earth Rising and the Cradle of Humankind programmes had re-energised him, rekindling hope.
Afterwards, he talks with Athanasia for hours. She’s a mine of information, as one might expect of such an advanced computer.
“About six million years ago, we believe ancestral hominids split from the apes. By contrast, modern humans may only have been on Earth for a mere 40,000 years or so,” she says. “Homo erectus used stone tools like handaxes and could even control the use of fire. They were meat-eating hunters of the African savannah whose flexible set of survival skills enabled them to adapt to cold, Northern climates once they’d migrated northwards across huge expanses of unknown terrain into what is now part of the continent of Europe. They were so adaptable that they eventually usurped the Neanderthals who’d lived in the cool northern hemisphere for centuries before them.”
“So, it wasn’t humans who invented technology, it was hominids,” Ayak muses.
He knows now that he is, by nature, as a human being, an explorer and that the Monarch, too, is a space explorer.
“And we think they lived in small bands based on families, similar to human hunter-gatherers. What’s even more interesting is that Homo erectus is believed to have been capable of caring for the weak or sick of their kin. This was the earliest dawn of compassion, ethics and even nascent spirituality in the world.”
“And we think we invented societies!” the man from the UN quips.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
AFTER ANOTHER DEEP SLEEP, the space traveller wakes up in an adventurous mood. By now, he’s used to being free of the need to eat or drink.
He unstraps his seat belt and floats around the cabin.
“Freedom!” he exclaims, extending his arms like a bird.
As he bounces around, he knocks his head, and other parts of his body, several times against the fuselage’s ceiling and sides.
After this ride through the air, he struggles to strap himself back into the cockpit. When he finally gets back into a sitting position, he switches on the console. He first checks the flight readings on Monarch’s the Nav Control Panel.
Velocity: 40,000 feet per second
Distance from Earth: 340 million miles
Distance from Mars: 190 million miles
Distance to Jupiter’s orbital path: 20 million miles
Direction: Galactic North Pole
Date & Time: Time-free zone
Next Space Frontier: The outer zone of the Inner Solar System, home of Earth, Mars, Venus, Mercury and Jupiter.
“I’m ready, Athanasia.”
“For what, may I ask, Traveller 1960?”
“Ah, for once you don’t know what I’m thinking!”
“Correct.”
“Please bring up the option ‘Leave Your Past Behind Now!’”
“Are you sure?”
“No need to second-guess me at this time.”
“Give me a good reason. This is a critical decision.”
“I now know myself better. Besides, the past cannot tell me where I’m going. Only in that sense is it useless,” Ayak answers.
“10 out of 10!” the computer enthuses.
“Activate, Athanasia! Let’s go,” he calls out, closing his eyes, half bracing for something dramatic to happen.
“Roger.”
Svenson’s eyes are tightly closed as he waits.
“Mission Control, initiate the TimeGate trajectory,” the computer instructs.
At that very moment, there’s a tremendous surge of energy in the spaceship.
The passenger opens one eye to see the atmosphere out of the windscreen change from blackness to a tunnel of light approaching from the front of their vessel. The spaceship starts shaking as it initiates a burn to prepare for hyper-acceleration. It flies into the tunnel where the light is white hot, tinged with streaks of a bluish-green gas. Then the tunnel expands like a balloon as the vessel hurtles into a brilliant core, as if it’s burning with a trillion-watt light bulb. Surprisingly, the temperature cools, instead of heating up, as would happen on re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, for example. As the speed doubles, trebles and then quadruples, the sensation of weightlessness increases until Svenson feels he has dematerialised. It’s the most exhilarating ride of his life. But where are they going?