1. The Long Dance with Superstition
The festivities were in full swing. The central bonfire blazed brightly and coughed sparks and white smoke into the night sky. High priests held incense sticks—some muttered mantras, others mumbled incantations, and still others moaned sacred verses. The brightly lit clearing in the forest was packed with revellers and worshippers. They shrieked frenziedly at the moon and barked frantically at the stars. An avalanche of prophecies tumbled down the branches of the Accadena tree, where the high-priest had perched himself: desperate tales of woe, dire warnings of disaster, harrowing narratives, stark commands, and lugubrious words of admonition and advice filled the air and competed for the attention of the delirious followers.
It was the annual worship of the Moon, or the God Mar, as it was known to the Marna people. On fifth day of their new year, it was their custom to worship their chief celestial god and offer prayer and supplications. However, tonight’s feast was no ordinary one. They were out this evening to celebrate a rare and mysterious celestial event—rarer even than a total lunar eclipse. They called it Kaynar, or the colouring of the moon.
The Marna were technologically backward, but the canvas of the night sky had been their nocturnal entertainment for thousands of years. They could discuss with great precision and acumen the movements of celestial objects. Their young ones were familiar with the names and positions of hundreds of stars. Having trained their eyes on the Moon for untold generations, young and old could discourse with ease and assuredness the significance of the dark patches on its surface: each pock had a story; each blemish had a tale; every pit, mark and scar on the Moon’s surface visible to the naked eye had been catalogued and chronicled. Elaborate accounts were created to explain the face of the moon, and detailed rituals fashioned over the years to commemorate its every phase.
Yuna and Cara were two young souls who had grown up immersed in the myths and legends of the Marna people. They revered their Moon god and had pledged their ultimate and absolute allegiance to his worship. Tonight, however, while the rest of their people commemorated the rarest of the rare lunar spectacle, they did something inconceivable and abominable even by their own standards: they stole away from the rest of the tribe to celebrate the impending celestial event on their own. They had wanted this to be their private moment.
Away they scampered from the maniacal dancing and the cacophonous crashing of musical instruments. Deeper and deeper they hurried into the dark forest and left far behind them the wild ecstasy and crazed celebrations of the rest of the tribe. Gradually, the sound of the chaos and tumult subsided. The forest fell silent except for the sound of insects and the cracking of twigs and dead leaves as they scurried through the forest.
The stopped in their tracks and revelled in the silence and darkness under the dark grey canopy.
“How are we going to see the Moon, if we are surrounded by trees?” Yuna asked, pragmatically. “At least back at the clearing the trees had all been felled and we had a clear view of the night sky.”
“I suppose the best solution would be to view the Moon from the tree tops—unless you want to scamper another three miles to the granite ledge overlooking the river,” Cara replied. “We could catch a glimpse of the moon over the river—there wouldn’t be too many trees blocking the view.”
“No, I’m tired,” Yuna protested. “I’d rather just climb this tree here. It looks tall enough to tower over the rest of the canopy.”
The two of them scaled the tall tree with the skill and ease that comes to those for whom the forest has been a native habitat for generations. Within minutes they were clambering over the top branches and had ensconced themselves on a firm branch almost at the very top.
They were well above the canopy of the trees. A dark sea of treetops stretched below them into the distance. Away in the distance they could vaguely see a ring of firelight above the clearing where the rest of the tribe were taking part in their frenzied celebration. Above them, the Milky Way dazzled and yawned from one horizon to the next. There was not a cloud in the sky to block their view. The thousands of stars strewn across the sky mesmerised them though they’d gazed upon this celestial display every cloudless night since their birth.
However, it was that piercing white orb, the moon that held their gaze and was the cynosure of their eyes,
“Hail God Mar!” they both exclaimed softly as they gazed on its spectral visage.
“Do you think it will happen?” whispered Yuna, snuggling up to Cara.
“Do mean Kaynar, the colouring of the moon?” Cara enquired softly.
“Yes; I mean, it has never happened in our lifetime. We’ve heard so much about it; I’m half afraid it won’t happen.”
“Our astrologers have never been wrong,” Cara stated emphatically. “They’ve been predicting celestial events for generations with great success. All our ancient texts chronicle the colouring of the moon every 2000 years and exactly every 2,000. Tonight is the night. –The glorious night when our God Mar blushes and blooms for us his unworthy supplicants. Oh, I’m so excited I can hardly wait.”
“Has it been written at what time the event will take place? How long do you think we’ll have to wait?”
“I have no idea. The ancient texts are much too obscure—they’re filled with esoteric references and arcane secrets. There is some disagreement among the priests about when exactly it will start. But look!” Cara exclaimed. “Is it my imagination or is that a streak across Mar’s face?”
“No, I see it too!” Yuna cried out, almost delirious with delight. “It’s starting, Cara! It’s happening! Thank you, Lord Mar, for gracing us with your gaze! We are unworthy of you!”
Yuna and Cara gazed in rapt silence at the bizarre and mysterious celestial spectacle unfolding in the sky. The moon’s surface that had been blazing white was now turning yellow. A slow xanthous mist spread from one end of the orb to another. Cara and Yuna stared in rapt silence as the event took place. For two thousand years their people had waited for this rare occurrence, prophesied as it had been in numerous religious texts from a different age. The moon shone brightly with an ominous yellow glow. Then, all of a sudden, luminous blue and green streaks from the periphery of the moon streamed inwards across the surface and merged at an area slightly west of the centre of the moon.
Cara and Yuna were lost for words. They clasped each other tightly. They felt a tumultuous welter of confusion, fear, and awe. They didn’t have the faintest clue what was happening to their beloved God Mar. The ancient texts were quite clear however, that once every two thousand years, God Mar vented his fury in this flamboyant, almost phantasmagorical display, at the evil and chaos taking place down on earth.
The young couple watched in silence as the blue and green streaks continued to stream in from around the outer edge of the moon and float in towards what was roughly the centre of the moon’s surface. Suddenly, and without warning, an explosion of fluorescent red filled the space where the blue streaks met. A dull red spot was clearly visible west of the centre of the moon. It started off as a dull brown glow and gradually over the minutes and hours began to glow brighter until it sparkled, fluoresced, and dazzled on the surface. For two full nights the moon was a yellow orb with a red amorphous shape glowing at its centre.
After the third night, as the moon traversed the night sky from East to West, the yellow glow began to gradually dissipate and the red smear faded. Before the moon sank below the western horizon in the early hours of the morning, its surface had returned to its normal white colour. The fury of God Mar had been spent.
2. Heretic in the House (4,000 years later)
“The charges against the heretic are the following, Gracious Judge: conspiracy to subvert the law and order of the state; conspiracy to overturn the sanctity of tradition; acting wilfully and knowingly against the teachings of the high priests; assiduously plotting and employing instruments of sorcery; and finally and most heinously, blaspheming against God Mar.”
A delicious gasp of shock and horror spread among the gathered crowd. A few calls of “Slay him!” and “Wicked blasphemer!” reverberated in the afternoon air. This was an open-air trial. The air was heavy with humidity and stiflingly hot. A smothering blanket of clouds stretched into the distance. Muffled cries of predatory birds rose and fell in the heavy air. All eyes were on the prisoner. Whilst in trial, the defendant was to be nameless – anonymity was thrust upon him not out of any desire to protect his character till he was found guilty but rather as a way of breaking his spirit and forcing him to confess. Adding to his humiliation was the manner in which he and all prisoners were presented before the judge: strung up with vines and left hanging helplessly from the branch of a tree.
The prosecutor approached the dangling figure of the prisoner and stated simply but firmly, “The prosecution calls for the prisoner to be executed forthwith for the commission of these crimes.”
“How does the prisoner plead?” intoned the judge, deigning to throw only the slightest glance at the prisoner.
“Not guilty, you honour. I’m not… I haven’t done anything wrong… I… I have evidence for everything I say… I can… you’d only give me a moment to explain… I could show you…”
“SILENCE!” thundered the judge. “Prosecution, you may begin your case.”
“The matter is straightforward, Your Graciousness. The prisoner has said, in front of numerous witnesses on several occasions, that God Mar is nothing but a solid body of rock. He has attempted to convince others of his outrageous beliefs. He has offended the priests, he has outraged his friends, and he has brought shame on his family. The statute clearly states that the punishment for blasphemy is death.”
“May I speak, Your Graciousness?” asked the prisoner, wearily.
The judge grunted his assent.
“I have not the slightest intention of hurting anyone’s feelings but in my investigations into the nature of what you call God Mar, I have discovered that it is solid and at a distance of 7,600 day-walks. My calculations show that this solid body in the sky rotates around the earth and that there is nothing divine or holy about its movements—it’s all entirely explainable. I could even show you the device I used to prove this…”
The crowd muttered its dissatisfaction and anger. Cries of “heathen” and “cursed heretic” were spat out.
The prosecutor seemed disinterested in the claims made by the prisoner. “It may please the prisoner to share with this august gathering the investigations and calculations he has made. And he may be free to elaborate on this ‘device’ he speaks so highly of.”
“It’s a device that produces sound, Your Graciousness. It produces sound and captures the echo and by calculating the time difference it tells you how far away an object is. I’d been pointing it to various objects and refining it, until one day I decided to point it at Mar. The readings from the returning echo prove conclusively that Mar is a solid body. Based on calculations I’ve been doing, it appears to revolve around the earth once every 28 days.”
“Yes, fascinating,” said the prosecutor, “a delightful bedtime story for gullible infants. How do you plan to explain the changing faces of God Mar? Everyone since time immemorial has seen his pristine white visage cloud over with approaching black. His black anger at our sins and iniquities creeps until the blackness covers his white face. Every month we see this—with a regularity that has been witnessed over generation. It is only through propitiation, prayer, and chanting that the full white visage of Mar returns to full bloom each month.”
“I don’t think it has anything to do with our chanting, I believe the increasing and decreasing blackness of Mar is because of Earth’s shadow falling on its rocky surface.”
“And how do you propose to explain the colourful lighting up of Mar’s visage every Age?” The prosecutor inquired. “You know as well as I that the radiant colours have been prophesied by the holy books and have been observed by our ancestors for thousands of generations… Even the great King Yuna the first and Queen Cara the first witnessed it with their own eyes in days of yore. It was that mysterious encounter with Mar during the festival of Kaynar that drove them to create the great civilisation we live in today. Do you deny that too?”
The prisoner seemed bewildered. To this he had no ready response. “I… to be honest… I don’t know why the moon lights up with colours every 2,000 years. I think we should study it some more… maybe even try and visit it someday to figure out what’s actually happening…”
The crowd drew their breath and gasped in horror. A chilling silence filled the place.
The prosecutor was the first to gather himself. “Your Graciousness, as you have just heard, the prisoner, not content with insulting the God Mar by saying he is made of stone, has just uttered the worst blasphemy of all. He has actually suggested that we enter the presence of Mar ourselves. On behalf of the people, I ask that this prisoner be swiftly put to death.”
The judge glanced around at the expectant crowd. The dark emerald circle of forest behind them looked menacing and foreboding. The cries of the predator birds fell silent. The leaves of the trees ceased swishing. An absolute silence pervaded the place.
The judge finally spoke: “After listening to the charges against the prisoner and to his own statements made in this court, it is my considered opinion based on the laws and statutes of our great civilisation, that the prisoner is guilty of the worst form of blasphemy. By the power vested in me by God Mar I sentence him to death. Take him away.”
As the limp and spiritless body of the prisoner was cut down from the vines on which he hung, a great cheer of delight ran through the crowds.
3. Whispers from a distant past (4000 years later)
The hot sun beat down on the archaeologists. With the exception of the dig pit there was nothing to distract the eye: the barren desert landscape stretched as far as the eye could see. The sky was a piercing blue. A gentle breeze stirred up grains of sand. The busy sound of excavation filled the air: the clank of shovels, the crack of pickaxes, and the swish of dirt being brushed on to sieves… the excavators were diligent and focused on what they were doing. They didn’t mind the heat or the lack of shade. They felt a sense of purpose, involved as they were, in an attempt to unlock the secrets of the past.
Lardoy was the chief archaeologist of the dig. He was driven by a burning desire to unlock the secrets of the past and discover how his ancestors had lived. He was now too old to dig himself, but he was thankful that he had a band of young followers who were driven by the same sense of wonder and curiosity that he was filled with.
Lardoy was examining an outcrop of rocks that had a sequence of petroglyphs. He called out to his assistant Jered to come take a look. Jered was much younger than Lardoy but what he lacked in age he more than made up for in drive and determination. He knew more about ancient cultures and archaeological digs than most of his peers combined.
“Yes, I’ve been wondering about those drawings myself,” said Jered, as he approached and noticed what Lardoy was looking at.
“Of course, it’s impossible to say without doing some form of dating of the rock, but I get the distinct impression that these carvings were made in the period of Yuna and Cara the first.”
“Yes,” agreed Jered, “It does look like it’s from the period of the Marna dynasty.”
“And the subject of the art would fit in as well. They were, after all, worshippers of the moon. Look here, this looks like a celebration of some sort. The next carving in the sequence looks like a male and female running surrounded by trees as if they were in a forest.”
“Yes, and the next one is obviously a representation of their moon god – they used to call him Mar. It’s fairly obvious that this male and female figure are prostrating before their god. But it looks like the moon is filled with coloured pigment—it’s mostly eroded by now, but you can still see the remnants of the red, yellow and green pigments they used to give it colour.”
“Jered, I believe this may be one of the earliest representations of the legend of Yuna and Cara—founders of the great Marna dynasty. The second amendment to the holy books has a detailed account of their vision of Kaynar and the profound impact it had on them.”
“Yes, but Lardoy, you’re not seriously suggesting there was any truth to these myths. I mean, these were a group of primitive people who had no clue what the moon was—they literally believed it was a god. Everything they did revolved around the worship of the moon.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course I’m not saying there’s anything divine about the moon. But for the longest time there has been disagreement in academic circles about the origins of the Marna dynasty and the legend of Yuna and Cara. I wonder if these petroglyphs will do anything to settle that debate. And you forget, young Jered, we still don’t know why the moon colours up every two thousand years. That’s the one thing all the records from prehistory agree on.”
“To be honest, Lardoy, I’m not interested in these primitive stories. What I find incredibly more fascinating are these carbon polymers we’ve been finding. We’ve just reached the Ertal stratum immediately below the global layer of basalt and sulphur. We know what caused the basalt and sulphir layer—it’s been positively associated with the lava and ash of super volcano event approximately 80 million years ago. But what’s really interesting is what we’re finding in the Ertal stratum. It’s filled with carbon polymers of all shapes and it’s mixed with unimaginable amounts of calcium and aluminium oxides. There’s also a heck of a lot of quartz and silica mixed in there.”
Lardoy was intrigued. “We’ve found more or less the same material in the Ertal stratum in nearly every dig I’ve taken part in. I can understand the volcanic ash layer. But the huge sediments of differently shaped carbon polymers mixed with calcium and aluminium oxides… that’s something that doesn’t necessarily happen naturally.”
“I suppose the only way to find answers is to dig some more—I mean, it’s still early days in the field of archaeology—who knows what strange and wonderful things we’ll find from the past.”
4. The Age of Enquiry
The classroom was outdoors. The children preferred it that way. It was cloudy with some chance of rain, but that didn’t bother anyone. Their houses in the trees were close by and they could get to it fairly quickly. The children were given the option of designing their own curriculum and had a lot of input in what was to be included in the syllabus.
This particular group of students had a deep and almost existential wonder about the universe and their place in it. Consequently, Dirah, their young teacher, did everything she could to make lessons exciting and appropriate to their interests. She encouraged them to ask challenging questions and believed that the only way for society to progress was to encourage scepticism and nurture doubt. All the enlightened people she knew were of the opinion that they were taking their first baby steps into the vast ocean of future truth and knowledge, and it would be wise not to be too sure or too set in their ways.
Dirah believed she needed to encourage her students to take education into their own hands, think for themselves and focus on making creative connections through cross-curricular learning. She wished to help them become leaders—leaders who were catalysts for change—positive change—enlightened and compassionate change. She believed that society needed to teach its children that blind obedience to authority and dogma was not what dynamic societies needed. It was science and the scientific method that would take them to new and dizzying heights.
Most of all Dirah believed in offering a deeper and more cosmic perspective of life. She wished for her students see themselves not just as citizens of the world but citizens of the universe.
The children sat around her with eager faces and expectant eyes. They’d been encouraged to ask why questions and many of them had spent the previous night wondering about the universe they lived in.
“So, my young curious minds!” Dirah exclaimed, “Are we all set to share our questions and thoughts?”
A clamour of excited assent rose from the group.
“Ok, Swarn, you go first—what’s your question?”
“I wanted to know why we believe the earth is round and not flat like our ancestors used to believe.”
“Ah, that’s a good question,” said Dirah. “Jayla, you look like you have the answer.”
Little Jayla stood up and turned to face Swarn. “We know it’s round because sailors have travelled all the way round the planet and have found no end to it. Also, the shadows have different lengths at the equator than they do in the northern and southern hemisphere. By calculating the difference in the lengths of the shadows we were able to correctly estimate not just that the earth is round, but also its exact circumference.”
“Well done, little Jayla! That was a very good response. Anyone else with a question?”
I have one, said a young student at the back. “Why is the moon round?”
“Ah, that’s an interesting question. Who would like to answer? I’ll give you a hint, the moon is round for the same reason the Earth is round and all planets and stars are round.”
Jayla’s bright eyes lit up. “Is it because of gravity?”
“Yes, Jayla! That’s right! My, how clever you are. Gravity is always pulling everything to the centre. Any body with sufficient mass with end up as a sphere because gravity is pulling it inwards at all points. Asteroids are not spheres because they don’t have enough mass to have a large enough gravity. But planets and stars have lots of gravity so they end up being spherical. But though the earth is spherical from a distance, its surface is far from flat—there are mountains that are hundreds of metres high and there are deep ocean trenches that are thousands of metres deep.”
“Are there any stellar bodies that have a flat surface?” asked young Jayla.
“Perhaps only neutron stars, my dear; because of their enormous gravity; but I’m not too sure, to be honest.”
“I have a question!” Jayla said, excitedly. “We know the moon changes phases because of the earth’s shadow falling on it and that’s also what causes a lunar eclipse; but why does the moon colour up every 2000 years?”
For the first time that morning Dirah looked nonplussed. She hesitated and decided the best course of action was to be truthful. “Jayla, the simple answer is, we don’t know. What we do know for a fact is that historical records have spoken about the colouring of the moon every 2000 years and it happens like clockwork. What we do know is that it is not random geological events happening on the moon. Something is triggering it. In the past people believed it was the response of the moon god to prayers, but we don’t believe in those superstitions anymore.”
“Have you seen the colouring of the moon?” asked Jayla.
“I have, actually. I was very young, but I have vivid memories of the excitement leading up to the event. The media focussed almost exclusively on it. Our scientists had done a fairly good job predicting its advent. I was with my parents and hundreds of other people. We all looked up with anticipation on that fateful evening. The moon was high up in the night sky. We watched with bated breath. And sure enough, right on schedule, after exactly 2000 years after it was previously observed, the moon began to change colour. First it turned a bright yellow with faint hues of green and blue. And then a red shape appeared. For two nights the colourful moon was clearly visible. And then the colours slowly dissipated and disappeared.”
The students listened in rapt attention with wide eyes and open mouths. Jayla was first to snap out of the daze they were in and asked, “Will we ever know what’s causing the colouring of the moon?”
“Ah, I think there’s a very high likelihood of us finally finding the answer. As you know, our species is filled with curiosity and we like to find answers to mysteries. The government has decided to send its first ever space mission to the moon. Perhaps those moon travellers will be able to tell us what exactly is happening and then maybe we can solve this mystery once and for all.”
5. Journey to the Moon
Arden stared out the porthole of his moonship. It was day three of the mission. Back on earth, he knew his people were waiting with feverish hope and anticipation for answers that had puzzled brilliant scientists and hoary theologians for centuries. This mission, he knew, would put an end to thousands of years of speculation and superstition. Which theories would bear out? Which hypotheses would fall through? Some explanations were downright kooky. Others seemed more plausible than others.
Though Arden didn’t have a religious bone in his body, he couldn’t help wondering about the ancient stories of the moon being a divine entity. Here in the dark vacuum and emptiness of space, tiny subliminal chinks began to appear in his rational armour. He was aware of the neo-theologians and the brand of consciousness that they peddled. Everything is conscious, they claimed: The Sun, the moon, the oceans… How different was their pan-consciousness from the pantheism of the old days, he wondered. Could it be that the moon was conscious in some remarkable way that they couldn’t even begin to conceive?
As he prepared the moonship for landing he couldn’t help wondering about all those fringe theologians and peripheral philosophers who posited that the primary nature of reality was consciousness. Yes, the moon exists, they said, but its external physical reality consisting of rocks and molecules was very different from our internal subjective perception of it within our minds. What was that mental image of the moon made of?—certainly not of rocks, molecules and subatomic particles.
How did the mind take on all the qualities of our experience and encounters with matter? What was he to make of those mystical seers who said the universe was in you, the moon and the stars were in you? Of course, being of a scientific bent, he knew that physically he was made of Hydrogen, Carbon, Oxygen and Nitrogen, and there was a one-to-one correlation between the stuff of the universe and what he was made of. He also knew that the heavier elements in his body were made in the insides of stars and spewed out into the universe in supernova events billions of years ago. So, in one sense, he literally was the universe and made of the universe—his body was not made of anything exotic—just plane ordinary stuff.
But at the same time he knew that even though the matter itself he was made of was ordinary, it was arranged in quite an extraordinary way—perhaps unique in the entire universe. That matter had clumped together to form a mind. And every time he contemplated the cosmos, in some strange way, he realised, it was the universe thinking about itself—the evolution of mind and intelligence had led to a metacognisant universe.
Arden shook his mind free from these metaphysical speculations and forced himself to focus on the task at hand. Being the lone pilot aboard the moonship meant he couldn’t afford the tiniest slip.
The controls indicated everything was working fine; the descent was going according to plan. The thrusters kicked in right on cue and brought the craft to a gentle landing on the surface of the moon.
Arden couldn’t believe the situation he found himself in. For the first time in history someone would be stepping foot on the moon. For countless centuries his ancestors had looked up in awe and wonder and perhaps fear and trepidation at the moon. And here he was, on the surface of a new cosmic body.
He slipped into his protective suit and got ready to step out. He’d been drilled about what to expect, but ultimately all of it was just theoretical. Who knew what awaited him out there. He fervently hoped he’d be able to investigate and find the cause of the Colouration of the moon.
The pod doors slid open and he stepped out. A greyish white landscape stretched out to the horizon—a horizon that seemed surprisingly close. Though he was slightly discombobulated by the illusion of distance, logically he knew the surface bends so quickly on the moon that it would be possible to stand inside some of the largest impact craters and not know he was in one because the walls of the crater were below the horizon on all sides.
The sky was black due to the lack of discernible atmosphere. The sky on earth was blue for the most part. This was because of the predominance of Nitrogen in the atmosphere which scattered light in such a way as to leave observers access to mostly the blue wavelength of solar light.
As he turned to his left he caught his first sight of earth from the surface of a foreign body. It sparkled like a rare and precious jewel in the black sky. It seemed so agonisingly beautiful that he wanted to reach out and touch it. The earth was in its waning phase; and so for observers on earth the moon would be in its waxing phase; for he knew that the moon seen from the earth and the earth seen from the moon were complementary to each other.
He felt light as his feet made contact with the dusty surface. He took a step forward and found it difficult to maintain balance. He tilted to the left and then over compensated by tilting to the right and nearly toppled over. The heavy protective gear he was wearing didn’t make things any easier.
He detached the moon buggy from its hold and followed a list of coordinates given to him by his superiors and handlers back home. His instructions were clear: he was not to waste time sightseeing—his primary mission was to find the cause of the Colouration. The landing spot had been precisely calibrated so that the mooncraft would descend on the spot on the moon that turned red at the peak of Colouration.
As he drove around in his lunar vehicle following the first in a series of coordinates he was assigned, he noticed the lunar surface was covered in craters; some a few feet wide and others several metres across. Almost all of them were circular. When he was young he had wondered why—if the meteors that had caused the craters didn’t necessarily fall from directly overhead and more often than not hit the surface at an angle—the craters were not oblong or stretched out. He later learnt that many of the craters were formed by detonation of the meteors on impact—and these detonations would cause a more or less circular impact crater regardless of the angle at which they struck the surface.
Arden soon found himself in a great basin with rocks that were slightly darker-coloured than the rest of the highlands where his mooncraft had landed. The floor of the basin had formed due to molten lava that had spewed out in ages gone by. This made the journey relatively smooth. He manoeuvred his vehicle around a particularly large crater surrounded by rays—bright streaks that radiated from the periphery of the colossal hole in the ground.
Up in the distance he could see a ridge that ran right across the horizon. Towering behind the ridge was a range of towering mountains. One of those mountains was his primary destination.
As he approached the ridge he noticed the terrain seemed to gradually change. He found himself driving next to sinuous clefts and gently undulating rills. The ridge drew closer. The mountains towered above them. Nightfall was not something he was too concerned about. He knew the sun would be visible in the sky for 15 earth-days and would then disappear for another 15 earth-days
As he stepped out of his lunar vehicle, the sun that was low on the horizon behind him threw a long almost menacing shadow of him against the ridge. He had arrived at his destination.
Almost immediately he could tell that there was something not quite right about the section of the ridge in front of him. At first glance, it looked the same as the rest of the terrain with its bleak white and grey surface; but the section in front of him had a subtle shimmering aspect to it.
He made his way toward it and stopped. On closer inspection he realised that this section of the ridge was definitely not rock. It looked superficially like the rest of the moon surface, but up close it had a faint white and grey grid of squares all over it. He knew this couldn’t have been made by any natural phenomenon.
He opened his toolbox and pulled out an instrument that looked like a pickaxe. After briefly debating what to do next, he wielded the pickaxe with some force and struck the grid-covered surface. A layer of moon dust shook free and fell to the surface, but the pickaxe left no dent at all. He struck it again, harder. It still had no effect.
Arden realised that force wasn’t going to achieve much. Whatever this thing was, it was designed to resist a meteor impact. His puny attempts at breaking it would meet with little success. No; he had to find some other way of discovering what this structure was.
He stared at the grid lines before him and all around him. He suddenly realised that the grid lines that he thought were all the same size, were actually getting imperceptibly smaller towards his right. He followed the grids as they got smaller and smaller and found himself standing on a small circular area with no grid lines at all. He realised this area must have some significance.
He was wondering what to do next, when the ground underneath him began to tremble. A whirring sound filled the air. The circular area over which he had stood a moment ago began to descend into the ground. All around him metallic tubes began to drill their way out of the surface. He didn’t know whether to stay or run.
In the distance the black sky seemed different. The horizon was changing colour. Blue and green streaks of fluorescent light seemed to approach him overhead. They came in undulating waves like some sort of lunar aurora. With a chill, Arden realised he had unknowingly triggered a Colouration event.
The metallic tubes all around him began to hum and buzz. Suddenly, with a sharp hissing sound all of them ejected pellets of material into the sky. A few moments later the sky started to glow a haunting yellow and shortly after, he was bathed in dull red fluorescent light.
Arden had remained frozen and rooted to where he stood. His attention was arrested by the sudden return of the circular platform that had disappeared below ground a short while earlier. But this time there was an object on it.
What he saw filled him with a sense of horror. Every fibre in his being was instructing him to run. Whatever that thing was it was not natural. But the scientist in him compelled him to stay and investigate. He shuffled back with dread at first, and then took a few hesitant steps towards it.
There, on the circular platform, lay a solid black brick. Its sides were absolutely smooth and had a strange translucent sheen to it. But at the same time the black brick absorbed no light or radiation of any sort and allowed no reflection of any kind. It just lay there on the ground in perfect stillness. It was obviously fashioned for a specific purpose by an intelligence or some agent endowed with a mind.
Arden waited for 15 minutes and did nothing. All around him the display of fluorescent hues in the sky continued. He wondered if it was some kind of a weapon or destructive device. He finally decided to pick it up. Not to do so would have been a complete waste of this mission. He knew the recording devices hitched to his space suit were capturing footage of everything that was happening and transmitting it back to earth. So even if he died here in the desolation of the moon, his superiors back home would be seeing what he was seeing.
He stepped closer towards the black brick and picked it up. It was practically weightless.
He slipped the device into a pouch and made his way back to his lunar vehicle. He turned and looked up towards earth, hovering like a colossal blue marble in the sky. He was convinced he now possessed the key to all the questions that had plagued the most intelligent minds on his planet for untold centuries. His mission had come to an end almost as soon as it had begun. It was time to return to earth.
6. Revelation
The room was filled with a small select group consisting of the defence minister, the science advisor to the president and the president herself.
Gorna, the lead investigator faced the expectant gathering. They were seated round him, eagerly waiting to hear the news. He started peremptorily and without ceremony. “I know we’ve all been waiting a long time to discover the meaning and significance of the black device the moon traveller, Arden, brought back with him nearly 15 years ago. Since that momentous day, it was a collective decision to keep the discovery a secret until we discovered what exactly it was.”
“And have we?” asked the President.
“We believe we have, your Excellency. In short, the device is a time capsule. It took us a long time to decode the primer; it was stored in a digital language and we had to secretly recruit a host of mathematicians, physicists, and computer scientists to decode the information. It will still take several more years to decode all the information on it, but we believe we have a broad idea of things. Perhaps it will be simple if you asked the questions and I did my best to answer them?”
“I’ll go first,” said the president. “Where did it come from?”
Gorna took a deep breath and said, “I know this may sound absurd… it came from Earth.”
There was a collective gasp of shock and disbelief. The defence minister was the first to react: “But that’s outrageous! No one on earth has had the technology to visit the moon before us. We were the first in the history of our species.”
“You’re right,” Gorna replied, “We were the first among our species. But this device was not placed there by us.”
“By whom then?” asked the science advisor, burning with curiosity.
“By a species that lived on this planet a long time ago,” replied Gorna.
“How long ago?” asked the advisor?
“We’re estimating that time capsule has been on the moon for at least 80 million years.”
A stunned silence filled the room.
“But… but where are they? Who are they?” asked the defence minister… “Will they be coming back? Should we be prepared?”
“I don’t think we need to worry about them coming back. They’re no longer around. Their kind was wiped out by a super volcano event in the southern hemisphere. Hundreds of millions of their kind choked to death on the toxic ash in the first week following the event. The volcanic winter that followed killed almost everyone else in the next few months.”
“What’s a volcanic winter?” asked the defence minister.
“It’s when the volcanic ash lingered in the atmosphere and blocked the sun’s light from reaching the surface. Temperatures plummeted, plants died, global oxygen levels were dangerously low. But worst of all, the sulphur compounds released by the super volcano reacted with the ozone layer and completely wiped it out. Their kind didn’t last for too long after that. Some survived for a few years in underground bunkers and a few took refuge in space, but it would seem their species was doomed to extinction.”
“But why did they place this time capsule on the moon? And when did they have time to do it?”
“It would appear that the brightest and most far-sighted among their kind had already been working on a time capsule even before the super volcanic explosion. After the event, amidst all the death and chaos those left in control realised that the gene pool was decimated and the rate at which people were dying meant that their species could never recover from the loss of genetic diversity. The few presidents and leaders left alive realised that this time capsule would be all that survived the unimaginably long geological time it would take for intelligent life to once again evolve on the planet. In essence, this time capsule is their gift to us.”
“Yes, all that’s well and good; but why place it on the moon of all places? How did they expect us to find it?”
“If you think about it, what other option did they have? They needed to ensure the device lasted for millions perhaps even hundreds of millions of years. They couldn’t bury it—the constant tectonic plate movements would have meant that in a million years it would end up under a mountain or in the middle of the ocean. They couldn’t place it in orbit in space—its orbit would almost certainly have deteriorated over millions of years and it would have crashed back to earth and burned up on re-entry into the atmosphere…”
“But why couldn’t they house it inside a structure built of some super strength alloy that would last for aeons?” asked the defence minister.
“Ah, I suppose they could—but that would mean it would be visible and accessible to any species that hadn’t achieved space travel,” Gorna replied.
“Is that why they chose to place their time capsule on the moon?” inquired the science advisor.
“Yes. They chose the moon because there would be less chances of it being discovered and destroyed by a less intelligent species than say ours.”
“But why the entire charade with the lights every 2000 years?” asked the President.
“Ah, that’s a good question. The lights were their beacon. It was their way of saying to any potentially intelligent species that evolved on earth that there was something awaiting them on the moon and that they were to go find it. It was like a neon map in the sky—their way of calling out to us…”
“So, they weren’t interested in our ancestors discovering the time capsule, because they were far too primitive and hadn’t managed space travel?” said the science advisor.
“Precisely,” replied Gorna. “They only wanted to reach out to a civilisation that was sufficiently advanced. And space travel was their big criteria.”
“Just think of all the countless years our ancestors spent venerating, worshipping, and propitiating the moon…” said the president. “…And all those superstitious festivities at the time of Colouration… Kaynar they used to call it in the old days.”
The science advisor was more interested in the science than he was in the superstitions of his ancestors. “So how did they actually do it, then? How did they get the moon to change colour.”
“Ah, that’s the ingenious bit,” said Gorna, looking excited. “The metal tubes that Arden had seen were actually time-controlled to fire once every two thousand years. However, they were also designed to be sensitive to movement. So Arden’s arrival at the site of the time capsule triggered the motion sensors which led to the Colouration event and the subsequent release of the time capsule.”
“Yes, but how did they get the moon to colour up?” the advisor persisted.
“Well, they didn’t actually get the moon to colour up.”
“Now don’t be silly, Gorna, we all saw with our own eyes the moon colour up when Arden found the capsule,” exclaimed the defence minister.
“Yes, that’s true, but what I meant was they didn’t colour the moon’s surface—it was the moon’s atmosphere that coloured up.”
“But I thought the moon had no atmosphere,” said the president.
“It does have a negligible amount of atmosphere—not nearly enough to breathe, of course, but enough for their purpose. Here’s what they did, once every 2000 years the metal tubes ejected pellets of sodium molecules high into the air. As the sodium particles rose above the moon’s atmosphere, they would light up once they were struck by the sun’s light. The effect is the vivid yellow moon. They used different chemicals to produce different colours. They also ejected ionised particles that in effect would create a lunar aurora—visible to us from earth as vivid blue and green streaks…”
“Ingenious!” exclaimed the advisor. “But what I don’t understand is why did they set the timer at 2000 years?”
“It was their way of getting our attention. If the Colouration happened too regularly then it would not be of novel interest. But having a 2000-year gap would allow for a species to evolve a little more and look at the event with a fresh perspective. I mean, it makes perfect sense—in the past when our ancestors saw it, they thought it was an act of god. But more recently we’ve known there was something causing it—which led to us actually visiting it and finding out more.”
“So, what was in the time capsule itself, what were its contents?” asked the President.
“We’re still working on decoding all its information which is stored in digital form. Much of it is in the language of Mathematics and even though we’ve decoded the primer it will take us many years of investigation to fully decode everything. Much of what we pieced together was from the holographic depictions that the device beamed. So to answer your question, the capsule contained images of life on earth 80 million years ago. They called themselves Humans, and they were quite a remarkable species. They had colonised the entire world; built megacities and superstructures; they even sent probes to the outer planets… There were images of their art; files of music; unimaginable data on their literature and philosophy and language… much of what they’ve included is also of scientific interest—their discoveries about the subatomic world; information about how their brains worked; data on genetics and computing; discoveries about the universe… it’s a treasure trove… our scientists will be sifting through all of it for generations.”
“That is exciting and worrying at the same time,” said the defence minister.
“Worrying?” repeated Gorna, perplexed. “Why worrying?”
“Because if that information got into the hands of our enemies we’d be doomed.”
“So… what are you saying?” asked Gorna, looking successively at the three individuals in front of her.
The President and the defence minister exchanged knowing glances in silence.
Finally, the President spoke. “What I’m saying, Gorna, is that no one in the general public will ever find out about the contents of the capsule. It will destroy the psyche of our species. The time capsule project will be taken over by the military and everyone working on it will be sequestered from the rest of the public… forever.”
