MYSTERY OF THE SHIPS

MYSTERY OF THE SHIPS By the time most of Earth's natural resouces were nearing depletion, a plan was well underway. A plan, which would save what some people would consider the "best" of what mankind had produced. The plan was for the classic "sleeper" ships. Ships whose passengers would sleep away the trip, while crew would be awake only for departure, landing, and for any necessary maintenance, of the ship. During each ships LONG "cruise", to its destination, all available power would be diverted to the ships engines, so as to increase chances of reaching new home-worlds. At the same time, on the Earth, itself, a second group was studying Earth's past, searching for any passages, which might indicate WHERE any aliens MIGHT have come from. The goal was the HOPE that, if the aliens had visited Earth, far enough, into the past, that the aliens MIGHT have left some other planets habitable behind, as well. Part of this groups work would include hollowing out the insides of mountains, in order to create shelters, both to house workers, during ships construction, and, later, to provide limited protection, for some of those, who would remain behind, after the ships left, and the planets climate began to change. For over a year, excavations proceeded, on schedule, even as researchers read countless volumes, which claimed that "man", and Earth, were but one, of many, habitable planets, which aliens had "cultivated". (And NOT for "food" (cannibalism), either. Then, the un-expected had occurred. Geiger Counters, and Ground Penetrating Radar, began registering vast amounts, of refined, nuclear, material, deep inside a mountain, as well as other, refined, materials. When workers investigated, digging into the mountain, and through walls, of natural rock, the workers would locate what could not possibly exist. Inside a cavern, up to 1,000 feet below the surface, workers would find a "relic". An age old copy of ships which were, currently, being designed, and were awaiting final approval, before construction began. When atleast one worker would suggest that this "relic" was just a discarded prototype, another team member would ask "A failed prototype, of a ship, not even built, yet?" Then another worker would ask "Why bury the thing under almost 1,000 feet of mountain?" In order to prove the point, that this was just a failed experiment, the team leader would have the surface, of the ship, scanned, in what they HOPED would yield the crafts NAME. If the team could identify the prototype, this could help morale, considerably. To the team leaders annoyance, though, the scans showed what the team never expected to find. IF the analysis, of the ship, were correct, this ship, in this cavern, was several hundred thousand years old. This left the question of "If this ship design was, still, on the drawing tables, then, HOW could the ship be so old?" When the team leader called up the current ships design spec's, on their computer, the team would use these designs to find the ships entry hatch, as well as maps of the interior. Once inside the ship, when the team found the "Engineering Section", and scanned the details, of the fuel plant, the team was surprised to find that the hazardous, nuclear, material, had "settled", and was emmitting just trace amounts, of heat, and radiation. When the team leader asked their engineer, about the power plant, the engineer could only say "To decay, this far, the engines would have to be dormant, for generations" When the team lead would ask "How many generations? Three, four, five?" The engineer would say "My best guess would be about seventy-five, or more, generations" When the team leader would ask "Can you restore the engines?" The engineer would only say "I will try". What concerned the team leader, most, about this ship, was how very similar this craft was, to the supposedly "brand new" design. In fact, there were very few differences, in design, as was proven by the groups flashlights, which shown on passageways, and into chambers. An examination, of the ships Medical Bay, proved that, not only had the ships freezers been without power, for a very long time, but, in fact, the units had been without power, for long enough that the contents had spoiled, long ago, and even the smell, of rotting supplies, was long gone. It was the teams medic, who would make the important discovery, inside the ships medicine cabinet. Not only were most of the labels, on the supplies faded, almost beyond recognition, but containers contents, which had been in liquid form, originally, had, long since, dried out, and some had even mummified. It would not be until the team reached the ships bridge, and found no more than "cosmetic damage", that the teams "techies" had voiced "I only wish we had some power, so we could READ..." When the bridge came to life and, in English, a voice announced "Emergency Power Restored. Estimate ten hours until Primary Power Restored". The team leader would call down, to Engineering "Good work. Now, come help us on the bridge" It would be atleast a couple of hours, before the teams "techies" were able to acccess the ships files. What they would find, though, would be listed as "impossible", for most scientists to believe. The ships very FIRST entry was dated over five YEARS into the current future. If that were true, HOW could the ship have been buried, inside the mountain, all those years ago? While the "techies" "played" with the computer files, the remainder, of the team would continue investigating the ship, including locating the "meal room". Inside the "meal room", aside from a thick layer, of dust, all the team found was a room which was clean, and deserted. When "Food Storage" was examined, by the team, its members learned what happened to food, even when preserved, yet left, un-attended, for countless centuries. All that remained, in food storage, was dust. By the time the team was checking the cargo holds, the "techies", on the bridge, were calling down to say "You HAVE to SEE this" When the team leader returned to the ships bridge, the team was shown video logs, of the ships departure, from a space station, whose construction was, barely, underway. According to the ships logs, THIS was the fifteenth ship, to be sent out, in the search for new planets, for Earths people to colonize. According to the log, though, after departing the solar system, the ships reports had gaps, of decades, then centuries, as the ship continued, on automatic power. When the team leader asked, the "techies" would say "This is because the ships are programmed only to wake the crew, either to report potential collissions, or of planets, worthy of exploration" When the team leader would say "Okay, if that is, all true, then Question Number One is "HOW did it get back?" and Question Number Two is "WHY was it buried?" When the "techies" ran through the ships records, they came to a report, of a "gravity well". According to the record, it seemed that the "well" sucked the ship into its core, then spit the ship out, here, of all places. When the team leader asked "Where and When, was the ship sucked in?" The "techies" could only say "About 200,000 years from now, and in a system far too distant to affect our own". When the team leader would say "Fine. Good enough. Only HOW did it become buried, in the distant past?" The only answer the "techies" could come up with was that, either the ships mass, OR its nuclear fuel, de-stabilized the gravity well, and the ship "sling-shotted", back, towards Earth, at un-imaginable velocity. When the team leader would ask "Take a guess. Sub-light speed? Warp speed? Hyper-drive?" The "techies" would agree when they said "Nothing so slow, or primitive. We are talking factors of one hundred, to one thousand, times the speed of light". When the team leader would say "Impossible. No ship could travel that fast. The velocity, alone, would kill the crew". "And yet", the "techie" would say "The evidence is right in front of us". When the team leader would switch tacts, asking "Where is the crew? So far, we have found no signs of life". The "techie" would say "Best guess? Either they died, in the tubes, when the power went out, OR they COULD be the dust, which the team have mentioned seeing, around the ship. Ashes-to-ashes, Dust-to-dust. That sort of thing". When the team leader asked "What does the FINAL log show?" The "techies" would say "The return to Earth". When the team leader would ask "How did they crash?" The "techies" would say "Not crashed. Landed. The ships automatic programs landed itself. It seems that, after it was released from the gravity well, it must have had enough remaining time, and fuel, to make a controlled landing". When the team leader asked "If the ship made the trip, intact, what about the crew, and passengers?" The "techies" would say "That may be the problem. We dont know, for sure, without the actual bodies, but it is possible that the crew, and passengers, were dead, even before the sling-shot, from th gravity well." When the team leader would ask "How LONG, before this "sling-shot", of yours?" The "techies" would say "Who knows? Days?, Years?, Cnturies? This is why we suggest that they died in their sleep". Although Central Command, for the project, would receive the teams reports, seriously, the problem would be that, to date, over $500 Billion had been spent, on the ships programming. This meant that, if the program was to be altered, to prevent this event from happening, more than $2 Trillion more would need to be spent, to alter the programming, then re-alligning the ships courses. Central Command knew that there was no WAY that either tax-payers, nor government, would agree to this. Especially not with construction costs already exceeding the Earths combined national debts, by eight times, already. Back in the cavern, the floor was examined, for landing gear marks, and the conclusion held to the fact that this ship had made a controlled, vertical, landing. The real problem would be in convincing command that the ship had "Shot back, through time", to an age far pre-dating modern aircraft. A time, possibly, pre-dating even the wheel. Ofcourse, command would ask what the point, of such an exercise would have been. The team would suggest that it had been a "fluke", or accident, even though the team knew that command would never accept this as fact. By the time that the careful use, of shaped charges, on the mountain chambers walls, would create an opening large enough for the ship to exit the cavern through, the engineer would have restored enough, of the ships fuel core, that the ship could fly out of the cavern, under pilot control. Once the craft was delivered, to project command, and all of the sand, and dirt, left on-board, was sifted, for human D.N.A., the problem became that the samples were of such extreme age that the "best", which the science department could come up with, for answers, was the term "In-Conclusive". Although command could doubt the ships passage, through time, the one thing command could not doubt was the ships log. A log, which gave DETAILS, of events, from light years away, of exactly what atleast one, of the explorer ships would find. Command, though, would want to dismiss the logs, but only until other events transpired. Events, such as an underwater, salvage, team finding another, intact, ship, this time, on the ocean floor. Then, there was another, intact, ship, found DEEP inside the Amazon Rain Forests. Then, there was the ship, which was found, frozen, in a block of ice, which had broken free from the Artic Circle. Of all of the ships recovered, it would seem that only the "Artic" ship still contained its still-frozen crew. When these, still-frozen, people were shipped to command, several members, of center staff would look like they had seen "ghosts", as they looked upon the slightly older versions, of themselves, frozen in the containers. In order to make certain that this was no "prank", both the current mission members, and the "frozen" mission members, were asked the same questions, about their personal lives. Questions which only a person, who, actually, LIVED the life, would know. For command, the problem was that, even with people in seperate rooms, both people gave identical answers. In fact, the only "advantage", which the "frozen" members had, was the memory, of serving on the completed ship. When asked WHY the ships were sent BACK, in time, the "frozen" crew said their "impression" was that the ships were, simply to be returned to Earth. Not, into the past. When asked the purpose of this, the "frozens" said they suspected that someone "Did not want mankind in outer space". When command asked how MANY explorer ships had been launched, the "frozens" would say that they thought that 72 ships had launched, in total. When command questioned the "frozens" accuracy, saying that 75 ships were planned, the "frozens" admitted this was correct. The "frozens" then looked very somber, as they reflected "Two, of the ships, blew up, when their reactors were pushed, to the limit, to start the ships in motion" A third ship would be smashed, by an un-charted asteroid, which pulverized the ship, shortly after launch. Only 72 ships would survive launch. The Science Department knew that Command was stupid, when Command asked the "frozens" "How LONG" were you out there?" Command just did not understand that time is meaningless, while one is frozen. As the "frozens" said "To us, it was like ten minutes" Five minutes, to set the ship on its course, then enter the cryo tubes, then five more minutes, to be revived, here. When the Science Department was able to "piece together" the ships log entries, this, along with the carbon-dating of the ships hulls, verified that the ships could be as old as one million years. Science would say that this would, also, explain the ships log gaps, of centuries, and even millenia. As the "frozens" has stated "The computer only made log entries WHEN there was, actually, something to log". What even the "frozens" could not understand was that, since the ships computers were programmed to fly out, only a century's worth of distance, then return to Earth, and report in, then WHY had the ships never turned back, on automatic? At a cost, of $2.5 BILLION, additional, every line, of the flight plan code, was re-examined, until the problem was located. Science would say that it would seem that the techno-nerds, who had done a beautiful job, of designing the OUT-bound flight plans, had made the goof, of forgetting to program the ships computers, for the return flight. As a result, the only directions, which the ships computers had, was the OUT-bound instructions. When command asked the Science Department about ANY information, gathered during the flight, including messages, from "home-world", all that the Science Department would say was that, after awhile, the ships were just "too far out", for messages to be received. The good news though, was that, now, Command did not have to launch four, of the ships since command already HAD the flight logs, from the ships, as well as the locations, of several, potentially habitable, planets. This, atleast, is what command THOUGHT, until they cancelled the flights, after making dozens of back-up copies, of the ships logs. The next morning, though, command staff would be required to report, to Command, that ALL data, as well as the "frozens", had vanished, overnight, along with their ships. When Command asked Science "HOW did they escape?" Science would say "We believe they were "erased"". When command would ask "By WHOSE authority?" The scientists would say "By yours, we believe". When command seemed puzzled, at hearing this, the scientists spelled it out: "When you cancelled the flights, history was changed. The "frozens" never embarked on their journey. Their ship was never launched, so it was, never, discovered" When command would ask "What would happen IF I restored the flights?" Science would only say "Unknown". By the end of the day, command had given permission, to renew the flights, and, somehow, by the next morning, the "frozens", and their ship, was back. It was then that the un-expected happened. As if out of some sort of time/space portal, a fleet, of LARGE ships, would slip into parking orbit, around the Earth. Then, as if by magic, the fleet commander would appear, at Earth command, saying "We know of your plans. If you wish to join the interstellar community, and have your descendants join us, among the stars, then the first thing you must do is to dis-arm your ships nuclear weapons. After that, you may send your ships out, to meet our bretheren, among the stars". When many, of the command crew trainees would ask "What weapons? Our ships are, merely, explorers. We have no desire to conquer" The fleet commander would look at command staff, and say "So, its true! You never told your own people". Command would answer the questioning looks by saying "Yes, our ships are armed, but ONLY against potential resistence". When the fleet commander would ask "Please define "resistence"", command would say "The tactical nukes are only to suppress opposition to our colonization". When the fleet commander would ask "And would these "nukes" be controlled, by ships personnel?" Command would say "Certainly NOT! The ships computers are pre-programmed, for such events" The fleet commander would say "So, that is the reason why five, habitable, planets were destroyed, along with five of the explorer ships". Command would say "We will do what we must, to preserve our race". Shortly thereafter, as the fleet commander prepared to depart, three explorer staffers would ask "How long will it take us to reach the new home-world?" The fleet commander would look at one staffer, and say "Ten years", then looked at another, and say "Fifteen years", then, to the third person, the fleet commander would say nothing. When command staffers would ask the fleet commander "How long will it take for us to re-build our society?", the fleet commander would say "It has taken generations. I encourage you NOT to rush things. It will return, in time". With that, the fleet commander would vanish and, soon after this, the fleet left Earth orbit. When command would say "We REFUSE to dis-arm the nukes. Those aliens, out there, have to understand that "WE mean BUSINESS" Only a firm hand, on a nuclear trigger, will guarantee success". 1,000 years later According to historical records, once the explorers launched, the crews, most discreetly, dis-armed the nukes. In fact, by the time Earth command realized what was going on, aboard the ships, command had time to stop only one crew, from dis-arming, even as signals arrived, reporting that the other nukes were "dead". Ironically, when Earth Command would press the "fire" button, Earth would have to wait over six months, before the destruct signal even reached the ship. It would be another two years, before the dull "thud", of the nuclear explosion, would reach Earth receivers. Still, five planets, and four ships, would be saved, from Earths paranoia. In time, peaceful colonization would spread life among dozens of worlds. Although the worlds would start out, primarily, as agricultural colonies, in each succeeding generation, atleast three to five groups, of individuals, would be trained, as "Crews", in case the colony ships ever had to be flown, again. In time, though, and over centuries, new engines, and new ships designs, would be created, even as various colony worlds began reaching out, to one another. Soon, a new, planetary, federation, would emerge and, with it, new breeds of ships. What Earth had NOT been told, during the fleets visit, was that the future KNEW the reason why the ships had been turned back, for Earth. Two, of the ships, had been seen, by alien races, as "trespassers". When a total, of three trespasses had taken place, the races the acts were committed against were advanced enough to see humans as little more than we see insects. This is why the ships were sent back to Earth. This, as a message: Trespass, and we WILL DEAL with you". Since the federation had agreed to respect the aliens boundaries, the aliens never interfered with human progress. On several planets, though, the crews showed the wisdom to record mans folly, by erecting the deactivated nukes as statues/reminders, of mans potential, for cruelty, against others. The devices would be seen as sadistic reminders, of mans in-humanity towards man. The one thing most colonists would feel was so sad was the fact that so many, of Earth's children, would, never, live to see their descendents live in peace. At various points, over the centuries, probes, and scout ships, would be dispatched, to monitor the now-dead Earth, but the stories, of lush, green, plains, snow-capped mountains, and bright blue oceans, were, now, nothing more than the tales, of Atlantis had been, on Earth. Just legend. Nothing more. Most probe crews would remark that, thousands of years, after the exodus, the planet, named Earth, looked no different than its moon. All thanks to man-kind.