The Invitation(49)
Chapter Sixteen
Since this incredible drama first began nearly twenty-four hours ago, television cameras have streamed uninterrupted live coverage, and additional crews have been allowed, but only at some distance from the inner perimeter, which has been sealed off.
All across the western hemisphere, people in countless millions are either outside watching the darkening eastern sky, or inside watching their TV screens, waiting for the reappearance of what they saw the night before. There seems to be an unspoken hunch by most that the time to expect communication might be at eight o’clock, which had been the time of last night’s appearance. This intuition proves correct. Many are looking at their watches, when precisely at eight o’clock, something happens, and happens instantly. From the top of the craft a pure, white beam of energy begins rising toward the eastern sky, exactly as it had done the night before. Moving much slower than the speed of light, it gradually traces the outlines of the same visual platform that carried the astonishing images of the night before. When the expected facial image of the creature that calls himself a Linesian’ suddenly appears, it immediately becomes the most recorded image in human history. For most, seeing the image of this creature for a second night in a row confirms their belief that what they are seeing is genuinely authentic. A moment passes. All are waiting for something momentous to begin. All the people of the world seem to be collectively waiting to discover what the ultimate destiny of mankind will be, as if something so profound could be told, and understood with only the words, and vocabulary of common human experience.
After another few seconds of silence, the Linesians low pitched voice is heard.
“People of Earth, once again we greet you. A full rotation of your planet has passed since our last communication, time enough to consider what you saw last night. The images of your own future depict a grim, inescapable reality for your descendants. You have begun a process that will catastrophically change your world’s climate. Adulterating a planet’s atmosphere has happened on other worlds across the galaxy countless times. Sentient life emerging from conditions similar to your own, reach a point in their history when they despoil their biospheres. Civilizations that pass through this dangerous phase are, as you will be, careful to never make that mistake again. Some damage their world’s ecology beyond recovery, and self-extinguish. Throughout the galaxy, millions of planets have on their surfaces the archeological remains of advanced civilizations like your own, co-mingled with the ancient bones of those creatures that once inhabited those worlds, now long extinct. The struggle of life to survive that you see in your own world is a theme that runs constant across the galaxy and beyond. Planetary civilizations that survive stabilize over long periods of time. Through millions of generations, highly evolved beings of imponderable cerebral depth emerge with an evolutionary lineage that spans hundreds of millions of years. The Linesians are one of many civilizations of this type.
“Linesia is a planet much like your Earth, a jeweled wonder. Liquid water on its surface harbors a profusion of living forms. Like you, we evolved from early, primitive, cellular life. Hard land surfaces formed on our planet early in its history, and intelligent beings evolved through deep time. We are those beings. We are from a part of the galaxy you call Cassiopeia. The star our planet orbits is twenty-six thousand light years away, and like your sun, is a main sequence G spectral type. Millions of years ago we passed through an ecological crises similar to your own. Our cataclysmic fall was as great as yours will be. We have survived what you will survive. We have learned what you will learn.
In this galaxy, and in all galaxies, emergent life proliferates, and in time beings of deep luminary knowledge emerge inhabiting millions of planets like your own. Fifty-nine million years ago we began cataloging these worlds, and their indigenous life. In that time we have identified more than twenty-two million planets that harbor advanced, intelligent life.
“Your Earth is one of them. Every planet across the galaxy, every civilization, their science, language, culture, and varied histories are preserved, and form an immense repository of knowledge for future generations. Millions of civilizations have pooled their knowledge, and experience for the benefit of all. When your future descendants are ready, they too will be given unfettered access to these deep stores of accumulated knowledge. It would be dangerous for you to possess this knowledge before you’re ready. What lies ahead for mankind is something far more basic. The next ten thousand years will be a grim struggle for survival that proximate human generations cannot avoid. A massive die-off of your population is necessary for what will become a restart of human history. Once this difficult period is over, mankind will stand at the dawn of a great epoch of self-awakening. The evolution of human brain development will gradually begin speeding up, as symbolic language spurs accelerated cognition, and human speech will quicken sharply. This strain of audible speech that you are now hearing from me has been slowed down hundreds of times to accommodate your rate of comprehension. Your stolidly slow cognition will accelerate many times over. .