Chapter 3: A curious gift from a strange race
Talin was playing hide-and-seek with his father, Ralin. The sky was clear…clearer than most of the days where Ralin family lived so they both spent time together as one of the few opportunities they had through the year. It was in the middle of the game when the phone rang and Ralin, giving away his position, answered it.
- "Ralin? This is Loke from the job. I am sorry to interrupt you in your day-off but we have something that may interest you…A LOT".
- "Sure, I'll go there right away".
Tsufurs are a very curious and peaceful race and are always looking for something to learn, to manipulate, so Ralin's son understood his father. He'd have done the same if one of his friends called and showed him a rare flying worm.
Ralin went as fast as he could to his job, a government agency dedicated to research the space and time. His colleagues were waiting to show him a strange artifact they found in space near their planet. It was an oddly shaped cube contraption in which sides were some strange dark plates that seemed to extend and capture light. In the upper part seemed to be an aperture which unlocked the inside. Tsufurs technicians opened it and extracted it's content so scientists at the center could examine it. Two of the contents were given to Ralin: the first one was a transparent cube with strange inscriptions on it. The second was a very strange box with lights and displays all over, showing different temperature values, pressure, elements present, etc.
- "Well well….this looks like a stasis chamber for cells. It's really old, but it looks like its working" – said as he slowly examined it. For him, the object was precious like a natural pearl.
- "Shall we translate it's symbols now or wait 'till tomorrow?" said one of the scientists
- "Let's examine this more carefully tomorrow. That was enough excitement for today."
And Ralin was right. About 4 hours passed between the discovery of the strange space contraption and the stasis chamber examination. He was only hoping his wife won't get mad at him because of the hour.
The next day arrived and with it, fresh new energies for the people at the agency. Everyone was as motivated and happy to work, in great part because of the recent discovery. It was in that ambient that Ralin got to his lab. It was time to decode the symbols and more importantly, examine the strange cells that looked like nothing he has seen before. He thought that the display with a thermometer symbol shown the temperature, so he assumed that what the screen displayed was numbers with a scale. With the help of the other scientists, after several hours of work, they found out the meaning of the displays and the numbers, although, they couldn't decipher the strange cube that accompanied the chamber. It wasn't until the oldest of the scientist arrived ('bout 5 o'clock) that they discovered what the cube was: an ancient holographic cube that can contain data in both video and audio, as well as data. The old scientist remembered the technology behind it and went to his house to get the decoder.
Ralin was excited. He could now understand the foreign science behind those cells and bring Tsufur more scientific and galactic knowledge…along with great honor for him and his family. It was in the middle of those thoughts when the old scientist arrived to Ralin's lab and handed the ancient cube decoder. It was like a box with a hole in it that fitted perfectly with the holographic cube. As soon as Ralin fitted the cube in the decoder, an old man hologram appeared:
- "This is Dr. Michael Schneider and if you are watching this it means I'm already dead. What you're looking at is a stasis chamber that contains the cells of a new mankind that my team and I have designed for the last 20 years. We have done several modifications to our original genome so this new mankind can be resistant to almost all known and future diseases, physically much stronger, fast, agile and longevous. Their metabolism works much faster than ours and because of that, they need great food amounts as well as constant physical activity to be mentally sane. Our rat experiments showed that if the genetically modified rats (which we based our project on) aren't on physical activity, they get really angry and seriously injure the other rats".
While Ralin watched the old Dr. speak, he wondered how could it be possible that there was a race in the universe (besides the tsufurs) that could improve itself at will via genetic modification. Without noticing, his jaw was loose and he looked like a complete moron to someone other than him.
- "I hope our research serves mankind as it should and we no longer have to fear against disease or oldness..."
Suddenly, the video was cut and a new person appeared in front of Ralin. This time, the man wasn't as old as the first one, but still looked like he was over 40 years old.
- "Hello. This is Dr. Karl Schneider, Dr. Michael's son. If you're watching this, it means my father's project could never come true on our planet because of internal industries and interests problems. However, that does not mean the project is all lost. Along with the stasis chamber are all the data necessary to put the cells out of their "long sleep" and create the first human beings outside earth. Nevertheless, I shall warn you that there might have been some little mutations on the cell's DNA because of the space gamma rays, so it'd be better to make little adjustments in order to fully restart the cell's metabolism".
Ralin realized he was in front of another not comprehended scientist work and he took it as a personal crusade, just as Karl and Michael did. No matter what, no matter how and no matter when, he was going to complete it.
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Author's Note: ...I'm still writing this, so don't complain if it's short. There's plenty more on my mind to just stop writing. It's just that my head hurts right now...maybe because I've written the 3 chapters on one shot while doing other stuff at the computer in my native language (which is spanish, by the way), so "switching" back and forth it's kind of...annoying. xD
