Chapter 4
It took days for Helena to begin decrypting the book. She did not work linearly. Instead she identified words based on their similarities with the Sanskrit and established rudimentary grammar rules. The books were useful, their print easier to decrypt that the script. She identified numbers and, using phonics from the proto-indo European, she was able to identify syllables and reconstitute names. She was stunned to see that the names looked strangely modern and certainly were at the roots of the names used by European populations. The lighter books looked more like paperback versions. The leather-covered book remained a mystery, its print different and likely more ancient. One book was called "Dark Day" and the language on this book as easier to work with than the brown book. The story took place in a city called "Caprica City", a part of twelve colonies. One colony was called Caprica. Helena could not understand were the colonies were located. Yet, in all the books she had, the twelve colonies were referenced again and again. Their society seemed colonial with colonies nobody had heard off, their geography elusive with landscapes which corresponded to none she knew in any part of the world. But she was puzzled to see that the names of those twelve colonies corresponded strangely to the names of the twelve zodiacal constellations. Surely this could not just be a coincidence. She took the wireless phone and placed a call to Dr. Inoue.
"I have some interesting news."
"So do I. Come down for a meeting with everyone in the conference room."
Helena walked down from the lab across the field to the tent, which served as conference room. The conference room as used also as a dining hall for the team and a relaxation spot. Everyone was carrying their laptops. Dr. John Evans was here as well as Dr. Evelyne Bordes for molecular biology and Dr. Liang Hsu archeologist and paleontologist. Helena had been so busy by her research on the books that she hardly had talked to any of the scientists on the other teams.
"There were twelve colonies, each of which is named after one of the zodiac constellations. Most of the books seem to take place on a colony called Caprica, but others take place on a colony named Picon. The geographical references are obscure, they do not match anything we know or any place on earth. That is of course assuming that they are describing real places, which of course we do not know. But the descriptions of the cities and places seem to be quite really accurate and they match across the books, leading me to believe that these places were real. Also, the books were printed by a publisher. On the first pages there is a street address listing Caprica City as a town. There is also a printed phone number and a date, implying a dating system we do not know. There also several numbers, maybe copyright references you would expect from a mass produced book" Helena concluded her presentation.
Dr. Inoue continued: "The question is where they come from? If we had some kind of location, we could search for remains."
Dr. Evans interrupted:
"Well good luck with that, because those people are not from here."
Helena turned to him:
"What do you mean?"
"Our chemistry team has had a hell of time. They just finished the isotope analysis of the bones. When we live, we incorporate elements in our bodies, through the food, through the breathing. These elements become part of us. They have the isotopic composition similar to the environment around us and of course, after our death, the unstable isotopes decay. That is how we can do radiometric dating. Well, when we attempted to date these specimens, we ran into difficulties because they were so old, but also because the isotopic composition of her bones was off."
"Are you suggesting that the dating is incorrect?"
"Not actually. The dating is correct, because it is based on long half-life elements, like Uranium and Thorium, which we have in very very small minute amounts. No, I am talking about Oxygen, in particular Oxygen-18. This isotope of oxygen is too heavy to be found in rainwater. Earth 150,000 years ago had a certain isotopic composition for the oxygen in the water molecule that we have documented over several years of research with fossils and core samples of Antarctica ice. Their isotopic composition does not correspond to it at all, especially for the oxygen element. It is completely off. This woman did not live on earth. She was not breathing earth oxygen or drinking earth water. She might have come here and died soon after, but she did not live here. The isotopic evidence does not support a life on earth."
"Another planet? Are you saying that these people had space travel abilities? Do you know how far any habitable planet would be from earth?" Helena questioned.
"I know only the evidence and the evidence says that this woman did not live on earth." Dr. Evans replied.
"The simple explanation is generally the best one." Said Dr. Inoue.
"Occam's razor." Said Helena.
"I have her DNA sequence back" said Dr. Bordes. "Her DNA sequence is human without a doubt, but an extreme variant. She is not related to us. If this woman had any children, none of them would have generated the human race as we know it."
"Did you test the local population? This tribe you were telling me about, which seemed so different culturally from the rest of the local populations" Helena asked.
"Yes we did. Our tests were very preliminary. They will have to be done again to target both Mitochondrial DNA and Nuclear DNA but so far they indicate that they may not be related to her as well. As a matter of fact the local populations we mentioned before are not related to Middle East, Asian populations or South East populations. Clearly they have mixed with African populations over time, but they have some unique DNA variants. These people are unique, just like her, well, but unique in their own particular variation. We have another mystery. There seem to be two distinct populations, which are variants from each other and not related to our common earth roots. The variable regions of Laura's mitochondrial DNA are significantly different from any human DNA on record. So she has the same genes, but different variable regions in the alleles. And oh, yes, she had the BRCAI and II mutations for breast cancer. She also had a severe deficiency in Vitamin D. Lack of sunshine."
"Space travel" Helena concluded.
"I have difficulties entertaining this possibility" said Dr. Hsu.
"I unfortunately cannot think of anything else." Replied Dr. Inoue.
Dr. Bordes continued: "In her bones, we found traces of anti-mitotic agents, just as you suggested Dr. Harper."
"Chemotherapy. She was very sick. Extensive terminal cancer is likely the cause of her death."
"So they come from another solar system. They mention places unknown to us, colonies. Yet, they are human. If we had any outer space visitors, they probably would likely be alien in nature. It does not make sense that they are human. What is the likelihood of humans evolving in identical form on another planet?" Dr. Hsu interjected. "This seems like complete fantasy to me."
"Her DNA is different."
"But not that different."
"What if they are our real ancestors?" Helena added.
"Well, we have ample archeological evidence of our ancestry among fossils of early humans predating 150,000 years ago. Some of which comes from Tanzania, west of here." Dr. Hsu added.
"Her DNA does not match, she cannot be our ancestor." Dr. Bordes reminded them.
"No not this woman. But maybe another woman in her group is."
"Her group?"
"Well she did not get here alone."
"How do we know that?"
"We don't. But such extensive space travel requires advanced technology, teams of people, at least a doctor to treat her. Certainly more than one or two persons."
"Yes, they activated their warp drive and used their photon torpedoes to fight the natives. Unless it was a tachyon field" Dr. Evans laughed.
"Can we stop speculating? We do not have any evidence about space travel yet. This is just a hypothesis." The tone was rising among the group and Dr. Inoue put a stop to this discussion. "We will know more when Dr. Harper will have the translation of the handwritten notes, I am sure."
"150,000 year ago, humanity leaped forward. That has been documented. Language appeared with significant change in the culture. We always thought this was the result of a mutation in the cerebral cortex resulting in the development of the language regions, but it could be the result of interbreeding with this race."
"If we had interbreeding, why is her DNA so different? It does not make sense."
"It is different because she is from the original race, but she is not our ancestor. Her children, if she had any, were not our ancestors." Dr. Evans added. "It does not look like she had any children, from what you said, Dr. Hsu. Her hip bones do not bear any signs of child birth."
"We are missing a piece of the puzzle." Dr Inoue concluded. "She cannot be our ancestor and she did not live on earth."
"Yet, she is here." Helena pointed out. "So something had to happen to bring her here."
The team spent the rest of the meeting carefully reviewing all the references and sharing files. Helena knew it would take weeks to have a full translation of the books and even longer for the script.
And that is how it continued, day after day, learning their language, working on grammar rules, cataloguing vocabulary. Helena worked mostly in the main lab, while the other teams completed chemistry and biological studies on the body, only to confirm what they knew already. They shared meals in the commons and exchanged their information, also getting to know each other. They became close, with the real intimacy of people sharing a common adventure, and exceptional discovery. They were not allowed to go out for security reasons and the camp, weeks after weeks, became a kind of golden prison. Helena took walks in the camp to the site of the dig, looking to the ground to the grave, so plain, so little. "Not much for a queen." She thought. There were no ornaments, just an uneven hole lined with natural rocks. Then she walked to the other site down below, a few meters down the hill. Satellite pictures and careful mapping of the site revealed traces of an ancient foundation, a small house, although the satellite pictures would not allow to date the remnants precisely. There was nothing left of it, but this titanium alloy crate filled with books. The mystery of this woman remained.
She visited the body of Laura often and looked at the skeleton, growing attached to the lost woman. She whispered: "Whoever you were, I promise you to tell your story. I will learn about your life. I will learn why a long time ago you came and stayed. I do not know what happened to you and your people and the people of this earth. Laura, you must have been a goddess in their eyes." She blew a kiss in the direction of the body, feeling immediately childish and silly for doing so, and displaying affection to this ancient skeleton and hoping no one had noticed her gesture. But deeply she had connected to this ancient woman, queen of a world she did not know.