Chapter 6

I suppose I should be slightly ashamed over my sense of satisfaction as I watched Officer Wilkins being arrested as soon as the gold was deposited and all the paperwork signed. Instead, I found myself fighting back a chuckle as I saw the look of sheer astonishment that flashed across his face when he was confronted, handcuffed, and led away in disgrace. After his arrest, I was soon separated from most of the bank personnel and found that Fred, Marika, and I were on our way somewhere else, only I wasn’t told what was going on. All I knew for certain was that Fred and I were being rushed out of the bank and into another tightly sealed vehicle, a limo this time. To complicate matters, I found that Marika was going to be riding along with us, but she would be sitting at my side this time.

“Just what are they trying to do to us?” I grumbled privately to Marika as I fought to hold my lustful thoughts concerning her under control. “Don’t these idiots know what happens when people like you and I are sealed into an inadequately ventilated space for any length of time?”

“Probably not, since most of them aren’t aware of the problem or how it affects strong telepaths.” Marika said evenly, then broke into a nervous giggle. “Besides, you and I are the only people involved who know that I’m fertile as a turtle right now.”

“What about Fred? He’s my cousin, and he’s a telepath too?”

“_Not a strong one! He’s nowhere near as strong as you are, and that seems to make all the difference, at least from what the Eritol and the Maminai have told us. Sawish said that the strongest male telepath influences the fertile female, and her body sends out pheromones that are geared to match with that strong male’s DNA.” She snorted, then switched to speaking aloud. “At least that’s what they think, because that’s what happens with the Maminai, who could be classed as mammalian, since they have live birth and suckle their young. Actually, our similar DNA structure is why their cloning and renewal methods work so well on us. They were able to adapt their previously standardised procedures to work with our nearly congruent DNA profiles.”

“Excuse me?” Fred said then. “Am I missing something in this discussion?”

“My fault. Sorry!” Marika apologised. “We were ‘pathing’ each other, and I felt we were being rude not to include you in our conversation. I was just explaining how similar our DNA and Maminai DNA are to each other, which is why they were able to clone our bodies so easily.”

“No problem, that happens around my women all the time, so I’m used to it. Anyway, my doctor was just talking about that DNA business when I saw him the other day. He’s one of the ‘parallel evolution’ crowd, not one of the ‘galactic seed’ bunch, so he believes that life will develop in a similar manner when it meets with similar conditions, no matter where in the universe that development happens.” Fred joined right into the secondary conversation. “By the way, Dave, my doctor would love to talk to you and the people on your ranch who actually saw or met that Xalibrox guy. He said the Maminai told him that the Xalibrox are a sulphur/calcium-based race, not carbon/calcium-based, like the Maminai or humans are, and he’d like to know more about the guy.”

“What? Sulphur? How the heck could that happen? Is it chemically possible?”

“Actually, I’m not enough of a chemist to argue with him, but if you consider the fact that calcium sulphate is a natural form of rock and calcium carbonate is also natural, then it might just be possible. After all, our bones are made up of various combinations of calcium and carbon, so it makes sense that sulphur could substitute for carbon in most circumstances. What my doctor was thinking of was the similarity in form and function between the Xalibrox and humans, though. You know, two arms, two legs, a head, and vertical posture, that sort of thing. He wondered if you smelled anything strange about the guy when you were near him, Dave? Since his body was sulphur-based, the guy would be breathing out sulphur dioxide instead of carbon dioxide, and sulphur dioxide stinks to high heaven, besides being poisonous to humans.”

“Wait a minute!” Marika interrupted. “I’m sure I recall Sawish mentioning that the brains of the Xalibrox were in their chest cavity, which is why their head is such a strange shape. Wouldn’t that brain position be a heavy-duty argument against the parallel evolution theory?”

“Actually, no, it isn’t.” Fred shook his head. “Instead, it’s an argument for parallel evolution instead of the duplicate pattern that a galactic seed theory would produce. The positioning of the brain is a major difference in form, but not in function. The Maminai and humans both have four limbs and a vertical stance, with major sensory organs on one end of our spine and a tail on the other, even though we humans only have a vestigial tail. Other than the position of the brain, the Xalibrox have the same general form and function. Of course, that doesn’t take into account any other internal differences because a sulphur-based life form is so different from the standard carbon-based pattern.”

“Well, that’s all very well, but look at the Eritol, they’re definitely an intelligent race and they don’t follow your vertical stance with four limbs and a tail business,” she argued. “Instead, they look and act more like an octopus, even though they do spend extended periods out of water.”

“Once again, the similarities of evolution seem to be parallel between a Mamina life-form and an Earthly one,” Fred grinned at her.

I was slightly lost, so as they continued to argue, I did the ‘telepath thing’ to find out what ‘galactic seed’ meant. “Information, please explain the theory of a ‘galactic seed’ in simple terms.”

“Galactic seed: proposition that DNA for life spread via ‘specific virus’ throughout the total universe by either spontaneous development or eminent intelligence.”

“Okay then, what’s an ‘eminent intelligence’ or whatever you said?”

“Eminent intelligence: two choices - first, supreme being - second, earlier race of intelligent beings, both intentionally spreading ‘intelligence’ virus.”

“And in your opinion?”

“Eritol ambivalent, uninterested. Humans, Maminai, Eritol, Xalibrox exist. No theory fits all circumstances. Unimportant to life and development of races involved!”

“Okay, then a second question; how similar is the DNA of the North Pacific Octopus, Enteroctopus dofleini of Earth to the Eritol, since the two seem to be almost the same size and general shape? I know the Pacific Octopus is darn smart for a sea creature and I can’t help making the comparison.”

For once, there was a longer-than-normal pause before the Eritol answered me.

“DNA similarity of North Pacific Octopus, Enteroctopus dofleini, to Eritol; virtually unbelievable 87%. Further research required. Patrón to be commended by Eritol for query of interest to the Eritol hives. ” My information contact’s ‘voice’ had changed and now seemed to sound somewhat astonished and quite respectful.

Suddenly, Sawish broke in on another ‘telepathic channel.’ “Nice work, Patrón! I didn’t think the level of respect the Eritol have for you could be improved, but I think you managed. Right now, Bniss, the local head Eritol princess, is flashing through all the colours of the rainbow, which shows that she’s extremely excited. So far, she’s sent about two dozen requests through to Mamina for information from our geneticists about all forms of the Earthly octopus. That is extremely surprising because until now, the Eritol showed little curiosity over the genetics of any Earth creatures except humans. She’s even reaming out her clone princesses back on Earth for their lack of curiosity over a species having so similar an appearance and characteristics.”

“Her clone princesses on Earth?” I asked.

“Yes, Bniss was the princess in the vessel that you inadvertently saved when you destroyed the Xalibrox device on Earth. Since she was the primary princess on scene, she took over the rescue operation and designated several of her existing clones to handle the job of assisting the people left on Earth. After promoting one Earth-based clone to primary function, she travelled to Terratoo along with you and your section of the world in order to assure your safety on the journey. There are at least two dozen of her clones on Earth now, along with thousands of drones who are all working with the local human population to try and reestablish a civilization of some sort.”

“Pardon me?” I sent in astonishment. “There are still thousands of Eritol on Earth after more than five hundred years? Why, for goodness’ sake?”

“Patrón, don’t you understand what happened when the Xalibrox operated his machine? That removed a spherical section from the surface of the Earth which was eighty miles in diameter. While the upper hemisphere was only atmosphere and caused few if any problems, the lower half of that sphere was gouged out of solid bedrock, a forty-mile-deep chunk of solid rock. That area was near the juncture of two major tectonic plates and on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, a locality that was already known for earthquakes and volcanic activity. The result of the removal of that immense mass was a super-volcano, which spewed ash and poisonous gasses into the Earth’s atmosphere for almost forty years. Initially, the removal of that mass caused several earthquakes and tidal waves, but in the long run, the resultant volcano altered the climate of the whole world. Had it not been for the hard work of the Eritol, its effects would have brought on another major ice age which might have lasted for eons.”

“One volcano did that much?” I queried in sheer disbelief.

“Yes, it did, but it was a huge volcano and it was responsible for killing between four and five billion people, almost two-thirds of the human population on Earth. Just the tidal wave that resulted from the initial shock devastated the shoreline of many of the Pacific Rim countries. Seaside areas all along the western coast of the North American continent were virtually wiped out of existence, and that destruction included cities and towns from Alaska to the Baja Peninsula in Mexico. There were smaller tidal waves and disasters down the western coast of South America as well, but nowhere as serious as those further north. Large portions of Hawaii and several of the Pacific islands were either greatly damaged or, in some cases, almost wiped out. A fifty-foot-high tidal wave hit the coastal zones of Korea, Japan, and China, with smaller tidal waves radiating up and down the remainder of the Pacific Rim countries. Then, by some freak of nature, the repetitive action of the tidal waves broke free the last of the ice shelves of Antarctica, setting free millions of tons of ice. In fact, the resultant tidal waves were measurable at virtually every beach around the world, but there was only minor damage in comparison to those areas I mentioned.” Sawish paused then.

“But, tidal waves are caused by earthquakes and ground movement, not volcanoes.” I argued.

“Oh, initially there was a major earthquake. Just removing an eighty-mile-wide hemisphere of rock caused the local tectonic faults to shift, which caused a massive earthquake, followed by a series of aftershocks which followed one after the other for a week or more. As well as that, the opening was so deep that it intercepted a lava chamber or perhaps an upwelling of the Earth’s magma, which burst out as a volcano. Then too, you lived within forty miles of the ocean to the south and the east, so when that chunk of rock lifted, the gap left behind opened onto deep water. Sea water poured into the opening and met with the lava and hot gasses as they were being forced upward - the result was something no one could have envisaged. There were massive explosions, huge clouds of steam, devastating storms, multiple lightning strikes, extremely high winds, along with almost any other weather disaster you can imagine. Initially there was so much water being evaporated and rising as steam and mixing with the clouds of ash that there were storms of falling mud far inland, but later emissions had even more serious and much more harmful effects. There were discharges of poisonous gasses with those clouds of ash, all of it blasted high into the stratosphere which is what caused many long-lasting problems for the whole world.