Bubba And The Mayans
Ceriprius

Ceriprius

We walked for about twenty minutes until Elias led us to a building that looked like it was in good repair in contrast to the surrounding structures.

Inside the doors he called out loudly, “We have visitors.” Soon two other people appeared. They too were close to seven foot tall. They wore one piece work jumpers.

“Take care of these folks and show them around while I get out of this garb,” Elias stated and trudged off to a side room.

The pair we were left with was male and female humanoids. Their appearance was not particularly different from ours except for the height advantage they had.

“Ah, it’s been a long time since we had visitors,” the male said.

“Especially from Lakanica,” the female said as she looked at Mikimo. “I am Ttaliss,” she said. “This is my friend and coworker Ohminia.” Her “T” s and “S” s were extended almost like a German “R.”

I made a quick introduction of everyone.

“Have you had food and drink?” Ttaliss asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“I could use a bathroom,” Dingo announced.

“I will show you,” Ohminia stated. “Anyone else need to relieve themselves?”

The rest of us shook our heads. Men did not go to the bathroom in groups where I was raised.

Ttaliss led us to a room with large and amazingly comfortable chairs. They were a little tall for us, but not unbearably so.

“So, why have you come?” she asked.

“Maybe we should wait a moment until everyone returns,” I suggested. “Until then, Elias mentioned that the city outside was in disrepair because of Atlantis. Could you explain that?”

“Won’t your friend want to hear this?” she inquired.

“We can fill him in later,” Arlo offered. “He is not really big on details.

“How much of earth’s history do you know,” Ttaliss asked in general.

“We have a general knowledge of the last six thousand years or so,” Danny Boy stated.

“But nothing before that?” she prompted.

“Well, we know about the dinosaurs and other creatures that roamed the earth.” Arlo responded. “We have theories about an asteroid wiping them out and that time frame is about sixty million years I believe.”

“Only about a hundred and fourteen thousand,” Ttaliss corrected.

“Million, you mean” Arlo countered.

She shook her head negatively. Dingo, Ohminia, and Elias all walked in the room and took chairs. Dingo looked a little shaken, but I did not ask about it.

“Are we talking galactic currency?” Dingo asked.

“No, age of the earth,” Arlo commented.

“Oh, I thought it was five hundred million or so,” Danny Boy stated.

Mikimo laughed and we all turned towards her. “What’s funny about that?” Bubba wanted to know.

“She’s right,” Mikimo stated. “Earth has been off limits for the last four thousand years for the most part, but it isn’t much more than two hundred thousand years old.”

“That can’t be right,” Arlo argued. “I am talking about earth years. Since Elias brought up Atlantis, Plato wrote that it had disappeared ten thousand years ago. It has been two thousand years since he wrote about it.”

“I should not have mentioned Atlantis,” Elias said sadly and shook his head. He was now dressed in a jumper like his friends.

“This,” Arlo said pointing around the room, “and the city outside are absolutely amazing! But I do not have any idea how it connects to Atlantis. And I know the earth is millions of years old.”

“You can believe that if you wish.” Ohminia said with a smile.

Dingo cleared his throat and looked at our host for a moment. “Most of the Mayans left earth about ten thousand years ago after Atlantis disappeared,” he said.

We all looked at him with shock.

“How would you know that?” I asked almost stupidly.

“Because that is what the Mayans on Obujutte told us when we were playing golf with them,” Bubba revealed.

“When Atlantis sank into the ocean,” Arlo said, a little harshly.

“It didn’t sink,” Elias said. “It disappeared. And” he paused for a moment, “and I am the one to blame for that.”

“You didn’t know,” Ttaliss said comfortingly.

“Wait, are you saying you’re over ten thousand years old?” Mikimo asked Elias.

“Well, sort of,” he said quietly. “This is not my original body of course.”

“Of course,” Bubba said as he nodded. I was surprised he was following all of this.

“We have developed a cloning process for our bodies and are able to transfer consciousness at an adult stage.”

“That would seem to raise a lot of ethical questions,” Arlo pointed out. “What about the consciousness of the clone?”

“They do not have one,” Ttaliss replied. “We have been able to advance the science where the body grows without a brain. After a few hundred years the body will begin to deteriorate. At that point we grow and imprint a brain and transfer it into the new body.”

“You can live forever?” Dingo wondered.

“Not forever,” Ohminia answered. “But for a long time yes. There are many creatures with much longer lifespans than us. However, there is some data that is lost with each transfer. Eventually it is no longer feasible. We are all close to reaching that limit.”

“How many people are here?” Arlo asked.

“We have twenty-two who remain,” Elias answered. “That is part of the reason the city has fallen into disrepair. When the galactic council ordered everyone off the planet...”

“Wait, what?” I said a bit loudly.

“We should start at the beginning,” Ttaliss stated. Sᴇaʀ*ᴄh the Find_Nøvel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“I would like to hear this part,” Danny Boy said.

“Maybe we ought to just let them tell their story,” I suggested. “Let’s start from the beginning.” Everyone nodded agreement.

“I will tell it,” Ttaliss said. She stood up to walk as she gathered her thoughts.

“The reason I asked about your knowledge of earth history is because almost all of it was lost around eight thousand years ago.”

I could see Arlo wanted to argue more, but he let it go for the moment.

“At one time all of the continents were a single land mass,” Ttaliss continued. This was not added information for us.

“Atlantis was the exception. It sat alone some five hundred miles from the rest of the land. It was about half the size of your current Australia.”

“Hey, I’ve been there,” Dingo interjected. “I lived with this aborigine woman.”

“Dingo,” I cut him off. “Not right now.”

He nodded dejectedly.

“Go on,” I urged Ttaliss.

“The earth was unsuitable for life until about one hundred and sixty thousand years ago. The atmosphere was quite different than what it is now.”

“How so,” Arlo asked.

“Some of your historical documents have it written as a firmament between the earth and the heavens I believe.”

Several of us nodded agreement.

“There was some developing plant life that had sprung up after asteroid impacts. It was extremely limited, however.

“Before the galactic government decided who could claim such planets it was a free for all. Several varied species set up outpost here. It was a large world. Many areas were unclaimed or unexplored.”

“When was this?” Arlo inquired.

“I would have to check the computer for exact dates,” Ttaliss replied. “It was about a hundred and fifty thousand years ago. The Aquarians were interested in the vast oceans and set up an outpost first. They brought in several species of fish from their world to populate the rivers and lakes. Of course, they brought the plants in to support the fish.”

“What about evolution?” Danny Boy asked.

“I don’t understand the question?” Ttaliss answered.

“Evolution of the species,” he hinted. She still looked perplexed. “How tiny cells evolved into more complex organisms and then variations in the DNA led to more variety.”

“Oh,” she said with a shake of her head in a negative fashion. “No, it did not work that way. One of the other initial groups to settle here were the Escotarians. I believe you would call them giants.” She had completely dismissed the evolution theory.

“We’ve never heard of them,” I stated.

“Of course,” Ttaliss replied. “As I said, this history is lost to you. They were about fifteen to twenty feet tall and what you would refer to as humanoid. They ranged from eight to twelve hundred pounds on average. They were the ones who brought your dinosaurs to earth with them. Additionally, they brought plants and smaller animals for the dinosaurs to feed on.

“The Aquarians stayed mostly along the coast and the warmer regions in the southeast. They were monitoring the slowly growing oceans and other waterways.”

“I’m going to have to stop you again,” Arlo said with some frustration. “I just do not see how any of what you are saying is possible. We have proof of evolution in the fossil records.”

“Really,” Ohminia said with a little surprise. “We have observed variations in species over time. It is why you have variety in birds, mammals, and even reptiles. We have never observed one species turning into another, however. What proof is there? This would be groundbreaking.”

Arlo looked at me for a moment. I had no dog in the fight. He looked to Danny Boy to back him up. He found no support there either.

“Well, maybe proof isn’t the right word,” he said defiantly after a few moments. “But there is support for the theory. Extraordinarily dedicated support,” he added.

Ohminia looked a little saddened by his statement.

“The Cambrian explosion,” I injected after a few seconds. Everyone looked at me. “I used to read a lot of different stuff,” I said. “One of the things that evolution has a challenging time explaining is the Cambrian explosion. In about a ten thousand year span all these plants and animals started showing up in the fossil record. There is no explanation for it.”

“It was much shorter than that,” Ttaliss resumed. “The Roudivans and the Herpes also set up outpost and introduced their own animal and plant species to the environment. There was another major factor though.”

“Did you just say people from the planet Herpe?” Dingo asked.

“Yes, do you know of them?” Elias inquired.

“We have known a few,” Dingo replied ruefully.

“Interesting,” Ohminia responded. “I thought no one knew where Herpe was.”

“Perhaps that is something to be discussed later,” I redirected. “Dingo also has met Mayans on the planet of Obujutte while on holiday,” I mentioned. “Right now, let’s listen to Ttaliss.”

When no one objected she continued. “We came and settled on the continent of Atlantis and set up an outpost in the southeast a few hundred miles from the Aquarians. Both groups were interested in scientific study of the developing planet and in the interaction of the variety of species introduced.” She stopped and looked at Elias for a moment.

He nodded and began to speak. “The crisis on the fourth planet in your solar system brought the separate groups together as we discussed what actions to take.”

“Mars,” Arlo piqued up with interest.

Elias nodded. “The civilization that had developed on Mars was made up of refuges from the Fentitian wars. The atmosphere on the planet was more suited to their needs than the one here.

“So there really were Martians,” Bubba asked with wonder. He had been so quiet I had forgotten he was there.

Ttaliss nodded her agreement. “Yes, they were Fenitians, but the planet was inhabited. One of the things they had sought was simpler life and basically wanted to be left alone. It was one of the reasons they settled in a system so far from the rest of the galaxy. Fate had other plans for them.

“A few ships brought supplies for the first couple of hundred years. After they were fully self-sufficient, they had asked to be left alone. That lasted almost two thousand years. Space beacons had been set up to ask for non-interference in their affairs.

“As different species set up outpost here on earth, we respected their wish for independence.”

“What was the crisis?” I asked as Ttaliss paused.

“One of the moons from the fifth planet was impacted by a comet,” Ohminia answered. “The moon fractured and almost a third of its mass remained intact. In its new trajectory it would crash into one of the moons of the fourth planet within five years.”

“This left the occupants of earth with a dilemma,” Ttaliss picked up. “If they did nothing all life on Mars would perish. When there were only two years left before the collision a council from earth went to visit the Fenitians on Mars and told them of the impending disaster.”

“They were not greeted kindly,” Elias commented. “Eventually the situation was relayed to the populace. Some chose to relocate to earth along with plant and animal species suited to earth’s atmosphere.”

“Where did we come from?” Arlo asked skeptically.

“Kansas,” Bubba answered and leaned back with a satisfied grin. “It has only been a few years Arlo. I figured you would have remembered that.”

“A little bit of everywhere,” Ttaliss replied. “That is much later in the story.”

Arlo nodded and she continued. “Previous settlers had brought only what they thought was essential to survive. With the Fenitians they tried to save as much of the variety of life on the planet as possible. It was drier and warmer there. The temperature swings between day and night much greater than here. Not knowing what would survive, just about everything was brought if there was a remote chance of survival.”

“The addition of so many different plants and animals at the same time began to create problems over time,” Elias stated. “Originally this was an out of the way planet where distinct species came to be left alone for the most part.

“Even scientist in different fields liked being out in the field here and away from their planets. This was long before jump drive was invented. Travel took years to reach here and return. Even radio traffic had delays of a few days to several months depending on where it had to go.”

“You used radio waves?” Arlo asked with surprise.

Ohminia nodded affirmation. “Yes, and there was no galactic government to settle disputes or interfere in planetary affairs. As time went by the earth transitioned from a few settlements to a growing population of several distinct species. It was a place for outlaws and smugglers for a while.”

“That is not relevant at the moment,” Ttaliss stated. “Once the fragment of moon from Jupiter collided with the largest of Mars moons it destroyed the atmosphere on the planet. Those who had remained died within hours.

“Unfortunately, the collision created even more space debris and one of those fragments impacted the earth. It drastically changed the climate here as the dust filled the atmosphere and the temperatures dropped rapidly.”

“And that is how the dinosaurs died,” Dingo said as he nodded his head thoughtfully.

“Not only the dinosaurs,” Elias replied. “We were able to observe what was going to happen to the fourth planet for several years. The asteroid that hit here came within days. Many varied species abandoned the planet. Not all could be taken. Some chose to stay and ride it out. You would call this the ice age.”

“Sorry, you are losing me again,” Arlo stated. “The ice ages took several million years according to the fossil records.”

“Remember the firmament?” Ttaliss asked. Arlo nodded. “Everything before the firmament was destroyed cannot be dated the same as after it was. They decay rates of elements shifted vastly after the change.”

“What caused that to happen?” Danny Boy asked.

“I did,” Elias answered.

We all turned to look at him.

“Wait a few more minutes,” Ttaliss urged.

Elias hung his head and let out a sigh but did not speak.

“For almost a hundred thousand years the Aquarians, the Mayans, the Fenitians, the Herpes, and even a few of the Escotarians remained and survived. The vast change in the atmosphere left little land for use. Life was harsh in many places,” Ttaliss explained.

“Atlantis was different though. It did not suffer as much as the mainland due to being farther south. We produced less food, but the population had been reduced. And here,” Ttaliss said as she pointed around, “we went underground. The planet had once teamed with four billion beings that lived in relative harmony. Over time that number was less than eighty thousand.”

“But our records indicate the ice age lasted over two and one half million years,” Arlo continued to argue his point.

Ttaliss shook her head. “Your theories are based on glacial movement and sediment deposits. All those things were altered by what happened to Atlantis.”

“What happened,” Bubba wandered back into the conversation.

Elias raised his head and looked around the room. He let out another sigh before he spoke.

“I was born eight hundred years before the end of the last ice age. On that time frame your records are pretty close. It was near twelve thousand years ago.

“My parents were both scientist who were working on ways to warm the planet back to where it had been before the asteroid hit. They and other generations had made significant discoveries in an immense variety of fields. The clones that allow us to extend our lifetimes are one such advancement.

“There were others that reduced energy consumption and almost all refuse was recycled in some way or another. There were a few Aquarians who remained, but much of their field of study could be done on other planets where the atmosphere was warmer.

“Atlantis was the hub of the world, but it was using more resources than it had. I, along with some other scientists, theorized we could transmit an energy beam from the southern coast to Atlantis across the ocean. The energy supply would allow Atlantis to conserve and eventually replenish their own resources. As a bonus effect the sidebands of the energy beam would add heat to the atmosphere. It would not be a great amount at once, but over a few hundred years it would speed up the process a great deal.”

“And your power source would be an engine made of Noibium and powered by Promethium,” I interjected.

Every Mayan in the room looked at me with shock. Several seconds of silence ensued until Elias stammered out a question. “How did you know about this?” He asked shakily.

“Because we were sent here to get the plans for it,” Dingo replied nonchalantly.

“Is this true,” Ttaliss asked as she looked at me.

“Yes, it is,” I answered with a slow nod. “But” I added after a moment, “Why don’t you finish your story before we tell you ours?”

The Mayans all looked at each other for a moment. Finally, Elias nodded. “We did small scale test, of course.”

“Of course,” Arlo echoed.

“In the labs everything worked remarkably close to the theories we had proposed. The sidebands were one of the things we had not anticipated.”

“What do you mean?” Danny Boy inquired.

“We had hoped to keep the energy beam in a tight bandwidth to maintain efficiency. The sidebands were efficiency losses that we had not predicted. Their discovery in the lab was seen as an added benefit.” Elias explained.

“How efficient is the engine?” I wondered.

“Very efficient,” Elias said as his eyes lit up a little. “Using the Promethium with a Mayan element unavailable on earth we could create a reaction that would self-sustain for almost ten thousand years by our estimates.”

“How much Promethium?” Arlo inquired.

“A little over six pounds,” Elias said with a wave of his hand. “That’s not that important though.”

“You could power Atlantis for ten thousand years,” I stated as the impact rushed through my synapses.

“Not just Atlantis,” Ohminia added. “We could supply fifty cities the size of Atlantis. We could power the entire world with energy beams. In areas where there was nothing but ice, we could use the heat of the beams to begin the melting procedure.”

“That is where our field tests were conducted,” Elias picked up the narrative. “We started the engine with a quarter pound of promethium. It produced seven times the energy we were expecting. We had no use for even that much and shot the energy beams out into space towards the sun where they would have no significant effect.

“We then began using extremely low powered beams to impact the glaciers covering the northernmost parts of the planet. The water would melt and run down the faces of the glaciers, and then refreeze at the bottom.”

“All of this took almost a thousand years of development and testing,” Ttaliss stated. “Elias was already in his first clone before Ohminia, and I were even born.”

“What went wrong,” Mikimo asked with sensitivity.

“After adjusting our calculations after each experiment, we were able to transmit a beam from here to the abandoned Aquarian settlement,” Elias picked up again. “Once we had done that, we built a receiver near the center of Atlantis and prepared for the energy transfer.” Elias stopped and looked at Ttaliss.

She nodded after a moment and took a seat across from us. “At first,” she hesitated for a second. “At first everything worked exactly as we had expected. There were slight variations in beam stability. We thought they were nothing to be concerned with. Additionally, the increase in Promethium had not had a linear increase in power output. It had been exponential. We had known this from our earlier test. Our calculations for compensation were still incorrect.

“For the first few weeks Atlantis took their own power stations offline and more of the load was connected to the beam receiver. This kept everything in balance as the power source here continued to expand at a rate much higher than we had expected.

“Within six months the entire continent of Atlantis was using power from the generator here. But our reaction continued to grow.”

“Was the motor here in this complex?” I asked as I looked around.

“No,” Ohminia answered. “It was about a hundred and fifty miles inland from here. It was due north at that time.”

“Where would that be today?” Dingo wondered.

“In the Gulf of Mexico,” Elias answered. “But the geography of things is not what it was.”

“I’ve been wondering about that,” Arlo stated. “Are you saying that there were only two land masses as little as twenty thousand years ago?”

“Fourteen thousand eight hundred and twenty-six,” Ohminia replied sadly.

“We lost containment,” Elias said, ignoring Arlo’s question for the moment. We all swiveled our gazes to him.

“Like a nuclear explosion?” Dingo suggested.

Elias nodded thoughtfully for a moment. “Yes, but on a much larger scale than anything currently discovered on earth.

“The motor sent out a massive power surge just before it exploded. When it hit the receiver in Atlantis the whole continent disappeared.”

We were all silent for a few seconds. “Did it vaporize the continent?” I asked.

“That was what we thought at first,” Ttaliss admitted.

“But you don’t believe that now?” Arlo inquired.

“Not exactly,” Ohminia replied. “Syntyche, who is still with us, worked it out later. Her theory is the massive ionization of the air and the magnetization of the atmosphere around Atlantis transported it somewhere.”

“What do you mean?” Mikimo wondered.

“It is similar to the basis for how a jump drive works. The explosion and power surge created a black hole at the receiver and power station in Atlantis,” Elias explained.

“Where would that be now, geographically?” Arlo asked.

“Where the Marianas Trench is in the Pacific ocean,” Ohminia replied. “The gap in the ocean and the crack in the mantle of the earth had to be filled. Millions of gallons of sea water and even sea bottom was pulled into that crack and the rest of the earth’s mantle cracked to form the tectonic plates you have now.

“The accident caused the remaining continent to break up into the eight land masses you have. Over the next four thousand years these plates collided in violent and unpredictable ways to form the oceans and mountains that form modern geography on earth.”

“We only have seven continents now,” Danny Boy interjected.

“Well, yes,” Ohminia said after a moment of consideration. “Most of what is between New Zealand and India sank.”

“All the changes radically changed the atmosphere again,” Ttaliss added. “The cracks in the mantle allowed the tectonic plates to rise and sink as they settled and altered the orbit of the earth around the sun due to the wobble created by the imbalance of the plates.”

“Why don’t you think Atlantis was destroyed?” Arlo queried.

“Syntyche was able to determine that the matter has disappeared from the planet,” Elias told us. “Matter cannot be destroyed. A substantial portion of it had left the planet. There was no observable space debris nearby.”

“The instability in the planet,” Ohminia stated, “caused most of the remaining survivors to abandon the planet. Our underground complex survived the worst of the changes, but most of our people decided to head back to the Mayan home world.”

“So, where is Atlantis?’ Bubba asked

“We don’t know,” Elias said sadly.

“We have been trying to work out the mathematic formulas to project where it went,” Ttaliss explained. “We have not been successful in the last ten thousand years.”

We all sat silent for a little while as the reality of their story sunk in.

“I could use a break,” Ohminia said after a few minutes. “Perhaps drinks and a small snack and then we can show you the rest of the facility and introduce you to the scientists who remain.”

“That would be wonderful,” Arlo commented.

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