Space Pioneer 1 - 17. Chapter 17

The shuttle reached the Horus and the men went straight on the bridge. Corr, Le’Ton and Hulton didn’t look up and focused on their screens and controls instead. Jeff and Midad exchanged a puzzled look. Lest looked at the men, raising an eyebrow.

"What’s going on here? Is anything wrong?" he asked, sitting down in his seat.

"An individual approached the Horus a short while after you left with the shuttle," Le’Ton said in a sober voice.

"What?" Lest exclaimed, jumping from his seat. "Report, Le’Ton," he commanded.

"The ship was in stealth and defense alert mode. The place seemed to be safe, but we were nonetheless scanning the area. Since everything was quiet, we changed the ship’s mode to parking mode in order to not waste our energy resources. The parking lights were on," Le’Ton reported. "We spotted a figure approaching the ship. We zoomed in with the night surveillance system and saw a man with a torch and a stick in his hand. He was moving towards the Horus."

"Someone was that high up in the mountains?" Doctor Midad asked, joining the men by the console. "Was the man a native or could he have been one of Ezer’s men?"

"He looked like a native. He was dressed in a long and ragged robe and he was wearing sandals. I don’t think he belonged to Ezer’s crew. I’m mainly concluding this from the events that followed the initial incident," Le’Ton said and then fell silent.

"What exactly happened?" Lest asked, moving towards the console.

"The man raised his stick. It turned out it was a plasma weapon. He shot it in the air. We immediately put the ship on alert," Le’Ton said, glancing up.

"A native with a plasma weapon? I don’t understand," Doctor Midad said in confusion.

"The man continued approaching the Horus," Le’Ton carried on. "He pointed with the weapon at the Horus and then bowed to the ship. He knelt down and touched the ground with his forehead. Then he got on his feet again and raised his arms in the air."

"We suspected that his gestures were gestures of worship," Hulton said. "Anyway, we were alarmed. We thought that if there was one man, then there were probably others. So we sent a out a drone and had it scan the area."

"Why didn’t you report back to me?" Lest asked angrily.

"We had to take a quick decision," Le’Ton replied. "The drone detected tents in the valley on the other side of the mountain. A lot of tents. The people came out at dawn. There are actually several hundred persons down there. Men, women, and children."

"Holy crap!" Lest hissed. "Who would have thought that this desert was inhabited? This man will certainly report to the others what he has seen."

"This incident might change the timeline," Doctor Midad said with concern.

"That’s not all, I’m afraid," Le’Ton said meekly.

"What else?" Lest asked, glaring at the navigator.

"The man kept approaching the Horus," Le’Ton said. "We decided to scare him away. We switched on the lights of the ship. This impressed him greatly. He repeated his gestures of worship. Unfortunately, he didn’t back away, but kept moving towards the ship."

Corr pointed at a screen. "This picture shows the man."

The screen showed a middle-aged man with what looked like a stick in his hand. A thorough look, however, revealed the stick’s artificial nature. It was clearly a plasma handgun, albeit one long out of date in space.

"The man reminded me of the Kygryn nomads," Hulton said. "They live in an isolated area on Cyrus and close themselves up. They have almost no contact to civilization due to their cult. Their religious codex is strict. They follow only a couple of laws."

"What has this to do with our situation?" Lest asked impatiently.

"Hulton played along with the man’s behavior," Corr said. "We opened a channel and talked to the man."

"You did what?" Lest asked in disbelief, looking from one to the other.

"I don’t know what to say," Doctor Midad said, shaking his head. "I think this was very imprudent."

Jeff just gazed at the men. Corr and Le’Ton shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Hulton, however, straightened and cleared his throat.

"I thanked the man for coming all the way up on the mountain and told him to follow the rules," he said. "I looked up the Kygryn laws in the database and read the ten commandments to him. I told him to go and stick to them. I read the old Daglon translation to him."

"This impressed him a lot," Le’Ton said. "He must have understood the ancient version of Daglon."

Corr nodded. "He bowed deeply, turned around and moved away with measured steps, but then he started to run like a weasel," he said.

"God, what have you done?" Jeff exclaimed, his voice horrified. "This man was Moses. You have changed the timeline. My planet will go to ruin now."

The others turned to him.

"Moses?" Doctor Midad asked. "You know the man’s name, Jeff?"

Jeff nodded and summarized the story as it was written down in the Bible.

"I always imagined the man was in his eighties, with white hair and a long white beard, but Moses apparently wasn’t an old man. Anyway, you played god and gave him the Ten Commandments. This was a serious mistake," he said.

"I don’t think it was," Doctor Midad said thoughtfully. "I think this incident actually healed the timeline. Can’t you see? Everything is now exactly as is stated in this holy book."

"Except that Moses didn’t meet God but the Horus," Jeff said drily.

"Well, I can’t imagine the man ever met a deity in person," Midad said. "If he goes and tells the Ten Commandments to his people, then everything is just fine, I think."

"The drone continued watching him," Corr said. "He ran down the path to a few men who were apparently waiting for him halfway down the mountain. They sat down on the ground until dawn was breaking. Then the man activated his plasma weapon and used it at as a cutter. He cut stone plates from a rock and now they’re sitting on the ground, working on the plates."

"God," Jeff said. "They’re carving the Ten Commandments on the stone plates right now."

"You mention your god a lot," Lest said with a smirk. "The concept of god must have been preserved on Earth for a long time."

"Thanks to the Horus intervention," Jeff said with a frown.

Lest made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "If Doctor Midad’s conclusion is correct, then this incident actually healed the timeline. I don’t approve of what you did," he said, looking from Corr to Le’Ton and Hulton. "You acted carelessly. You should have reported back to me. I don’t want a thing like this happen again, but I won’t dwell on it for now, because our situation is somewhat tough. If the incident healed the timeline, then consequently someone must have damaged it previously."

"Ezer Malk," Jeff said.

"Most likely," Midad said. "It also means that the space-time continuum has self-healing capabilities. This theory has long been discussed, but evidence unfortunately has never been found. The concept, however, is widely believed in by various species in space. Science is not happy with beliefs, but scientists are beginning to open their minds." He took a deep breath.

Lest raised his hand and stopped him. "This is all very interesting, Doctor Midad, but unfortunately we don’t have time for it now," he said. "Let’s discuss this some other day. We must focus on the matter at hand. Earth’s timeline has healed due to the incident, but the incident might have also revealed our presence to Ezer. Sending off the drone and using the transmitter to speak to Moses might not have gone unnoticed. It much depends on the capabilities of Ezer’s shuttle and his main ship in space."

"Ezer has left for now, but I’m sure he’ll come back. If he wants to retrieve more than just a single and small artifact, then he must come back and land with the main ship. I fear this is exactly what Ezer has in mind," Jeff said.

"We’ll relocate the Horus and then we will try to contact the man we saw," Lest said.

"Which man? Moses?" Corr asked in confusion.

Lest summarized what they had discovered. "It seems the man is a Seth descendant. We suspect that he was tracking our shuttle. He’s got technical equipment and he knows how to use it. We must contact the man."

"We can’t just fly into town," Jeff said skeptically.

"I didn’t suggest we land in Men-Nefer. We won’t fly into town with the shuttle. We’ll try to establish a contact with the man from the Horus instead," Lest said.

"Ezer might detect the transmissions," Jeff warned.

"He’s up in space now, but of course we must hurry. He might come back any time soon," Lest said. He turned to Le’Ton and Corr. "Consult the map and find a safer place for the Horus, then relocate the ship."

The men nodded and turned to their devices. Lest looked at Doctor Midad.

"Doctor, we lack sleep, but we must focus. We need to stay awake and remain concentrated for a couple more hours. Is there anything that can help us with it?" he asked.

Midad nodded. "The computer is monitoring your body functions. Your neural implants send data to the main computer. I will program the computer to stimulate your brain and level of attention. I’m hesitant to use this particular software, though. I have never used it before."

"You can actually make the computer influence our brains?" Jeff asked with a perplexed look.

"I heard rumors about it, but nobody has ever offered the software to me. This software is implemented on my ship? I didn’t know it," Lest said.

"The software was implemented when the ship was updated for the Daglon war. A time stamp is proof of it," Midad explained.

"Are you saying they wanted to control the captains and the crews with the software?" Lest asked in disbelief.

"The men on board of the warships were considered Daglon soldiers that were supposed to execute commands," Midad replied. "The war wasn’t justified and many men were unwilling to join it or were prone to quit when the war lasted way too long. The software was designed to stop these thoughts."

"I was right to quit this unfortunate war," Lest said in a disgusted voice. "Why didn’t the software affect me and my crew? Why didn’t they track us later with it?"

"You got out of their reach before they activated the software," Midad replied. "Internal investigations uncovered the operation later, but it was never revealed to the public. The Alliance prohibited the use of the software ultimately, but it’s still produced illegally on Cyrus and I heard it sells very well. It’s a weapon of war, now used in illegal wars, and it’s very expensive."

"One more reason to stop Ezer Malk," Lest said. "He was an actor behind the scenes. He had a finger in the pie. I’m certain of it." He turned to the navigator. "Le’Ton, have you found a safer place for the Horus?"

"I suggest we fly north and land in the desert," Le’Ton said. "We can send off a drone and have it scan the place thoroughly."

Lest gave him a nod. He turned to Hulton. "Check again where the tracking signals came from. Refine the target and get a communication channel ready. Think of how they used to do it in the old days."

Hulton gave him a questioning look, but Lest just shrugged and left the bridge. Doctor Midad followed him.

"Like in the old days," Hulton mumbled. "What the hell did he mean by this?"

"Stretch your imagination," Le’Ton said with a grin. "Seth was destroyed 45,000 years ago. Unfortunately, I have no idea what kind of equipment our ancestors used and which channels they used for communications. I’m afraid, Hulton, I can’t help you with the task."

"I’m having an idea," Jeff said. "Lest said the data of my ship has been transferred to the Horus. I think the man’s equipment is not as advanced as the Horus technology is. We received his tracking signals, but I doubt we will be able to successfully communicate with him. Can we run a simulation of my ship on the Horus main computer? I want to establish a connection with the man from the Daidalos."

Corr and Le’Ton looked at Jeff in confusion, but Hulton understood what Jeff had in mind. He rubbed his chin, thinking.

"This should work out," he said finally. "You can use my computer and my system software. I’ll provide a section for your ship’s data and you can simulate flying your ship. Much like Le’Ton simulated doing the time jumps."

Le’Ton gave Hulton access to the data. Hulton transferred the data to his own computer and opened a simulation program. The screen showed an interactive console that was programmed to adapt to the input data. Hulton imported the data of Jeff’s ship and the console on the screen changed and restructured itself.

"What’s this?" Hulton asked, leaning forward. "Something must have gone wrong. A lot of controls are missing."

"No, everything’s fine. The console looks like the console on the Daidalos. The Daidalos was my ship. I flew with it to Mars," Jeff said calmly.

"You flew with an almost dysfunctional ship?" Hulton exclaimed with a horrified look.

Jeff frowned at Hulton. "Now would you please help me with checking the communication systems or do you prefer lamenting?" he asked.

Corr gave a laugh and Le’Ton looked over curiously. Hulton grimaced and gave no reply, but finally focused on the data. Soon he was entirely absorbed in the job. The sent-off drone had meanwhile scanned the area north of the pyramid site. The area was devoid of people. Corr and Le’Ton relocated the spaceship.

***