[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Minerva!"
"Oh, Chris, really..."
"This is getting ridiculous..."
Danchekker hammered on relentlessly: "Because, if we accept that divergence
must have occurred, then both we and the Lunarians must have evolved in the
same place, and we already know that they evolved on Minerva!"
A murmur of excitement mixed with protest ran around the room.
"I am stating that Charlie is not just a distantly related cousin of man
-- he is our direct ancestor!" Danchekker did not wait for comment but pressed
on in the same insistent tone: "And I believe that I can give you an
explanation of our own origins which is fully consistent with these
deductions." An abrupt silence fell upon the room. Danchekker regarded his
colleagues for a few seconds. When he spoke again, his voice had fallen to a
calmer and more objective note.
"From Charlie's account of his last days, we know that some Lunarians were
left alive on the Moon after the fighting died down. Charlie himself was one
of them. He did not survive for long, but we can guess that there were others
-- desperate groups such as the ones he described -- scattered across that
Lunar surface. Many would have perished in the meteorite storm on
Farside, but some, like Charlie's group, were on Nearside when Minerva
exploded and were spared the worst of the bombardment. Even a long time later,
when the Moon finally stabilized in orbit around Earth, a handful of survivors
remained who gazed up at the new world that hung in their sky. Presumably some
of their ships were still usable -- perhaps just one, or two, or a few. There
Page 101
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
was only one way out. Their world had ceased to exist, so they took the only
path open to them and set off on a last, desperate attempt to reach the
surface of Earth. There could be no way back -- there was no place to go back
to.
"So we must conclude that their attempt succeeded. Precisely what events
followed their emergence out into the savagery of the Ice Age we will probably
never know for sure. But we can guess that for generations they hung on the
very edge of extinction. Their knowledge and skills would have been lost.
Gradually they reverted to barbarism, and for forty thousand years were lost
in the midst of the general struggle for survival. But survive they did. Not
only did they survive, they consolidated, spread, and flourished. Today their
descendants dominate the Earth just as they dominated Minerva -- you, I, and
the rest of the human race."
A long silence ensued before anybody spoke. When somebody did, the tone was
solemn. "Chris, assuming for now that everything was like you've said, a point
still bothers me: If we and the Lunarians both came from the Minervan line,
what happened to the other line? Where did the branch that was developing on
Earth go?"
"Good question." Danchekker nodded approval. "We know from the fossil record
on Earth that during the period that came after the visits of the
Ganymeans several developments in the general human direction took place. We
can trace this record quite clearly right up to the time in question, fifty
thousand years ago. By that time the most advanced stage reached on Earth was
that represented by Neanderthal man. Now, the Neanderthals have always been
something of a riddle. They were hardy, tough, and superior in intelligence to
anything prior to them or coexisting with them. They seemed well adapted to
survive the competition of the Ice Age and should, one would think, have
attained a dominant position in the era that was to follow. But that did not
happen. Strangely, almost mysteriously, they died out abruptly between forty
and fifty thousand years ago. Apparently they were unable to compete
effectively against a new and far more advanced type of man, whose sudden
appearance, as if from nowhere, has always been another of the unsolved
riddles of science:
Homo sapiens -- us!"
Danchekker read the expressions on the faces before him and nodded slowly to
confirm their thoughts.
"Now, of course, we see why this was so. He did indeed appear out of nowhere.
We see why there is no clear fossil record in the soil of Earth to link Homo
sapiens back to the chain of earlier terrestrial man-apes: He did not evolve
there. And we see what it was that so ruthlessly and so totally overwhelmed
the Neanderthals. How could they hope to compete against an advanced race,
weaned on the warrior cult of Minerva?"
Danchekker paused and allowed his gaze to sweep slowly around the circle of
faces. Everybody seemed to be suffering from mental punch-drunkenness.
"As I have said, all this follows purely as a chain of reasoning from the
observations with which I began. I can offer no evidence to support it. I
am convinced, however, that such evidence does exist. Somewhere on Earth the
remains of the Lunarian spacecraft that made that last journey from Luna must
still exist, possibly buried beneath the mud of a seabed, possibly under the
sands of one of the desert regions. There must exist, on Earth, pieces of
equipment and artifacts brought by the tiny handful who represented the
remnant of the Lunarian civilization. Where on Earth, is anyone's guess.
Personally, I would suggest as the most likely areas the Middle East, the
eastern Mediterranean, or the eastern regions of North Africa. But one day [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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Minerva!"
"Oh, Chris, really..."
"This is getting ridiculous..."
Danchekker hammered on relentlessly: "Because, if we accept that divergence
must have occurred, then both we and the Lunarians must have evolved in the
same place, and we already know that they evolved on Minerva!"
A murmur of excitement mixed with protest ran around the room.
"I am stating that Charlie is not just a distantly related cousin of man
-- he is our direct ancestor!" Danchekker did not wait for comment but pressed
on in the same insistent tone: "And I believe that I can give you an
explanation of our own origins which is fully consistent with these
deductions." An abrupt silence fell upon the room. Danchekker regarded his
colleagues for a few seconds. When he spoke again, his voice had fallen to a
calmer and more objective note.
"From Charlie's account of his last days, we know that some Lunarians were
left alive on the Moon after the fighting died down. Charlie himself was one
of them. He did not survive for long, but we can guess that there were others
-- desperate groups such as the ones he described -- scattered across that
Lunar surface. Many would have perished in the meteorite storm on
Farside, but some, like Charlie's group, were on Nearside when Minerva
exploded and were spared the worst of the bombardment. Even a long time later,
when the Moon finally stabilized in orbit around Earth, a handful of survivors
remained who gazed up at the new world that hung in their sky. Presumably some
of their ships were still usable -- perhaps just one, or two, or a few. There
Page 101
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
was only one way out. Their world had ceased to exist, so they took the only
path open to them and set off on a last, desperate attempt to reach the
surface of Earth. There could be no way back -- there was no place to go back
to.
"So we must conclude that their attempt succeeded. Precisely what events
followed their emergence out into the savagery of the Ice Age we will probably
never know for sure. But we can guess that for generations they hung on the
very edge of extinction. Their knowledge and skills would have been lost.
Gradually they reverted to barbarism, and for forty thousand years were lost
in the midst of the general struggle for survival. But survive they did. Not
only did they survive, they consolidated, spread, and flourished. Today their
descendants dominate the Earth just as they dominated Minerva -- you, I, and
the rest of the human race."
A long silence ensued before anybody spoke. When somebody did, the tone was
solemn. "Chris, assuming for now that everything was like you've said, a point
still bothers me: If we and the Lunarians both came from the Minervan line,
what happened to the other line? Where did the branch that was developing on
Earth go?"
"Good question." Danchekker nodded approval. "We know from the fossil record
on Earth that during the period that came after the visits of the
Ganymeans several developments in the general human direction took place. We
can trace this record quite clearly right up to the time in question, fifty
thousand years ago. By that time the most advanced stage reached on Earth was
that represented by Neanderthal man. Now, the Neanderthals have always been
something of a riddle. They were hardy, tough, and superior in intelligence to
anything prior to them or coexisting with them. They seemed well adapted to
survive the competition of the Ice Age and should, one would think, have
attained a dominant position in the era that was to follow. But that did not
happen. Strangely, almost mysteriously, they died out abruptly between forty
and fifty thousand years ago. Apparently they were unable to compete
effectively against a new and far more advanced type of man, whose sudden
appearance, as if from nowhere, has always been another of the unsolved
riddles of science:
Homo sapiens -- us!"
Danchekker read the expressions on the faces before him and nodded slowly to
confirm their thoughts.
"Now, of course, we see why this was so. He did indeed appear out of nowhere.
We see why there is no clear fossil record in the soil of Earth to link Homo
sapiens back to the chain of earlier terrestrial man-apes: He did not evolve
there. And we see what it was that so ruthlessly and so totally overwhelmed
the Neanderthals. How could they hope to compete against an advanced race,
weaned on the warrior cult of Minerva?"
Danchekker paused and allowed his gaze to sweep slowly around the circle of
faces. Everybody seemed to be suffering from mental punch-drunkenness.
"As I have said, all this follows purely as a chain of reasoning from the
observations with which I began. I can offer no evidence to support it. I
am convinced, however, that such evidence does exist. Somewhere on Earth the
remains of the Lunarian spacecraft that made that last journey from Luna must
still exist, possibly buried beneath the mud of a seabed, possibly under the
sands of one of the desert regions. There must exist, on Earth, pieces of
equipment and artifacts brought by the tiny handful who represented the
remnant of the Lunarian civilization. Where on Earth, is anyone's guess.
Personally, I would suggest as the most likely areas the Middle East, the
eastern Mediterranean, or the eastern regions of North Africa. But one day [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]