MOBIUS INSIGHT ©

By Allen D. Furford

CHAPTER 3

"We'll take a break here shortly. We both can nap, I'll have the cots brought in."

"If I go to sleep I might not wake up."

The President was suddenly concerned. "Are you all right, Mr. Horn?"

"Just that tired, sir."

"We'll both catch some shut eye, then. Dreams sometimes help organize information, at least it works that way for me. Do you dream often? Many people don't remember their dreams."

Miles just ruefully grinned. " My dreams lately have been more on the order of nightmares..."

They got everything done in time to get roughed up somewhat by a storm. They kept the objects in two tubs of seawater until they reached port to prevent any more damage from atmospheric contact.

Layer after layer of growth was carefully washed of until what appeared to be corroded metal came into view. The surface had various samples taken and small core samples of base metal also went to the lab. The entire surface of the first object was then washed with ultrasound and sealed with a special polymer to prevent deterioration.

It was obviously a map, but time had destroyed more than half of the casting. It would be difficult to even try to computer generate it. The lab report stated the metal was more like brass then bronze. The other piece was different though. The lab test was quick and also somewhat surprising. It had been done with the ancient arsenic process and manganese was in the alloy also. How the smiths managed their science was still a mystery even to the present time. They had a chance with this one.

Athens was hot. The lab they were working in had air conditioning but even that was taxed due to the number of electronic devices that were all pumping their heat out of their circuits into the room. Three months of work had taken them into the summer, the bulk of the expedition returning to their various pursuits, including the lovely Heidi. The woman had made the mistake of asking Doc too many questions and it was Doc who cooled the relationship.

Miles spotted George at one of the computer stations and slowly walked over until "Crazy's intensity abated. Then he moved up quickly.

"What do think of Doc's two god theory?"

George looked up. "He is right of course. There seem to be two personalities but that is entirely explainable. The Hebrew side of the story is the simple one, the Greek version is much more complicated for various reasons, but I like the Sumerian one best of all. The Greek stories are much more advertised."

"Greek?"

"That was the language the Christians used to assemble it bible first in. Latin came later. Remember there were two basic religious philosophies, one of monotheism, and multi-theism. What happened was Jesus. The original church was entirely Jewish. The Greeks were the first non-Jews allowed into the church and an entire culture that had practiced multi-theism for millennium, from historical standpoint suddenly became Christian, to be followed by Rome. Now just who were these Greeks? This now mixture of Hellens and Mycenaens, as well as other sea peoples that survived the big crunch. And look how they came back. They had a grasp of science and space that was far above their time, they knew the gods were real, they had been dealing with them, but what gods?"

"Nephilim".

"Cloud beings. When you read our story of Creation, keep in mind they had a story to tell, also. That is why man knew he crawled from the seas. By the way, Miles. Mt. Olympus is right in the glide pattern for spacecraft landing in the Garden. All major religion was born on that glide pattern. The Greeks went Christian because they knew something to be true had occurred. During this time period, the entire world turned upside down, spiritually so. God had returned once again to the garden, and he did not like what he saw."

"Which God?"

"You figure it out, your the engineer. Before the Greeks there was the Sumerians and we are still translating many of their tablets. I want the library those Mycenaens found, the ones that turned them into Greeks, and the way points to the land of Shinar. That is what I want. The information or thing that was so important the gods would come back for it, and found man already had been there. Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. They then destroyed our libraries and major learning centers, cut our supply lines and starved us, all on their way out...or we got hit with a solar flare."

"They could have taken the records with them..."

"Then why destroy us?"

"Possibly fear of us.The same natural laws of species that apply on this planet apply for the Universe, and that includes species preservation. Maybe they watched and saw what happened to the Neanderthal."

"Maybe the Tree of Knowledge told how to grow the Tree of Life or use it, if it was in fact an actual tree."

"Good point to consider..."

"One other thing, George. Would an atomic space craft heat an area up enough so that mutations would occur over a long period of time?"

"I don't know much about atomic engines or the types that would be practical. We don't have one yet. Radiation is radiation, but remember the flood. The ground was washed possibly twice depending on our true age. The physics people would know."

"Thanks."

"No problem. By the way, the new findings on this alloy the map was cast out of are interesting. At one time they said it was hot. It must have had a short half life, what ever it was. The computer generated model will be out this afternoon."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world." Miles then turned and left the area.

Daniel was wet, clinging to the spar for all he was worth. Yahweh had protected them again. All the scouts had survived. Their mission would continue. It was a good thing the original map, still in it's small though heavy container, was on the other ship. They would not have to dive for it.

Days later, Daniel and his men were put ashore in the country of Troy, to face the stubborn Arzawa. He hoped the advance team of spies had gathered their information well. They had been collecting it for years, waiting for the day an attempt would be made. The Mycenaens claimed the gods had not been seen since the last flood. He hoped their information was correct. Hittites and Arzawa he could handle, but gods...?

When they were deep in the mountains and started to finally use the ancient document, one by one they sickened and died. The last one left, Daniel checked the container seal and found a protected area of the type that was defined to all Hebrew scouts, in case something of this type of disaster should befall a team. There would be only one way to mark the site, after scratching the secret marks a deeply into stone as his sickness would let him, he used his body. Suddenly he was looking down on himself. He turned, bewildered, and saw The Light. He went toward it...

On the big screen in front of them a map was suddenly displayed. The computer notified them the language could not be translated but pointed out geographical similarities until the men knew what they were looking at.

"Two centers, gentlemen. One as close as they could get to civilization, and one just about as far as they could get. All good landing sites during our ice age model of the globe. We and the rest of the world have had this information at our disposal for some time."

"These expedition people are merely giving us a fresh look at an old unresolved problem. We were playing a version of the old shell game and lost the pea ourselves. The photos of the pyramid on Mars are still classified since the government crack down, but we have them at our disposal, of course. The probe has not arrived in the asteroid belt yet to take samples, to see if bacterium fossils are available.

"Sir, if we had control of the map at one time, how did we lose it?"

"It was in an old lead container, rolled up. There were two layers of lead crimped together in such a way the end caps could conceal the type of construction. It came with a collection of other items that did not have specific dates or areas of discovery. The only reason we knew about the construction method was due to a fragment of clay that had been fire baked over three thousand years ago. Our information was embossed on it."

"It looked like something from World War one or two, so it was put with area military history memorabilia. Though the museum was open to the public, the collection was privately owned by business. Iraq as you know is full of that sort of item, so no one noticed it until the Mossad stole it, or tried to."

"Our teams never recovered even using high tech?"

"No, and Israelis are also puzzled. They looked in specific spots and came up blank, also. We are progressing now, however. This expedition is our tool, though they are not aware of the fact. We have to keep the true secrets out of the hands of the Americans at all costs."

"Miles, are you sure the computer you now own is safe if it is not grounded?"

"Positive. It still will leak FM but we can always pick our spot."

"I have some software that a colleague and I came up with years ago to crack languages. Maps deal only with the simplest concepts, and the software has not been in a computer for twenty years. All the existing equipment then was really too small."

"Let's meet in the usual place in an hour. Get a disk copy of that map and bring your decoder."

It did it. Some symbols still in use by man were the key, symbols that could be traced back through cuneiform, and into early cryptographs and glyphs from the land of Shinar for that was the type of language the map was depicting. Man language base history took a giant leap backward. Man had known about writing for a long time. Man and the owner of that map must have formed their sounds the same way.

Someone had taught us how to talk, and we had seen their writing before, enough to copy the system.

Just when man was exposed to this was still unknown. From languages, Doc brought something up. He reflected that Catal Huyuk had been the oldest discovered city, and Cain's first born supposedly had built a city long before that. Where were the oldest recorded mines at? Africa, Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Greece. The oldest stone building was found off the coast of France.

Someone was building Stone Hedge about the time Moses was collecting his laws. The Mycenaens trade for Tin in that country, and knew of post and lintel design. Who else was there?

Doc scratched his head. "What now, George?"

"Now we think like a Hebrew on a mission. I brought some old photographs and a diary I want to read to you. It is written in Turkish. George cleared his throat and began...

"We stopped in the mountains to camp for the night, fully intending to continue onward into Kaseri in the morning. My men were tired, the war was about over, and the British had roughed us up well. I personally will not miss the Ottomans when the time comes for progress.

I noticed something out of the ordinary by a formation of three round rocks with a leaning flat rock slab against two of them. Formations of three were supposed to be lucky so I decided just to look around the area. There were some funny markings scratched on the inside of the flat slab. Under them in the base soil was something have round protruding out, appearing as a lid of some kind.

It turned out to be a simple lead storage cylinder and I opened it. There was nothing inside except some odd markings on the bottom. The marks were the same on the stone. I had already photographed the site before I started digging. Disappointed, I gave the cylinder to one of my men for personal storage. It was too heavy for my use."

Miles just waited expectantly for George to continue.

"Some years back a piece of baked clay tablet came my way from a student traveling the Holy land. The fragment was deciphered and turned out to be a contract to carry ten men and a special plain lead cylinder to the coast of what now is Turkey. The fragment had some other symbols in a separate grouping I had never seen before, that is until six months ago. Look at the old photos the Turkish officer thoughtfully took."

"Identical," Doc Muttered.

"Now look at the map before it was translated."

"The same symbol..."

"I ran that symbol through the Try-Omega system and guess what?"

Miles thought for a second, then replied, "We had it all the time."

George just glared. "It had been in a private museum for years. It also was stolen about the time you came home from Alaska, Miles. The man who stole it disappeared, but this was the position where it was last seen."

"The Aleppo area?"

"One other detail. I do not know where Try-Omega got this information, but it was military classified from the document number. Our thief was an Israeli, a suspected Mossad agent."

We showed get matters cleaned up and be in Aleppo in three or four days, Miles thought. They had the general location, but the map was more specific.

"The thing that has hurt us was the fact the first casting was the detail. There were two sides to the map. At the moment, we only have access to the first side's general information. We have to find another possible map source, or find the original."

It was only three days to Aleppo, but is was two tough weeks of living in the Syrian hills before they finally struck pay dirt. Luck had a lot to do with the discovery. They almost camped on a dried up body that had been partially uncovered from the sandy soil by wind.

Doc was inspecting the cadaver. "I would say this guy has lain here no more than a year at best, and most likely less than that. The salts in this soil are so concentrated he is cured like a fish in brine. That is why the animals and birds left it alone."

Miles and George carefully examined the meager belongings. There was virtually no identification papers but something was sticking out of the seam in the back of the pants belt near the buckle. They split the seam and found a paper with some numbers on it, and ten American one hundred dollar bills.

"Doc, we found some money and telephone numbers," Miles called out.

"I found a bullet hole. The corpse didn't sour because there was no blood left in it!"

"How close are we to Iraq, George?"

"A few miles, at best. Are you thinking Sadam's men got him?"

Miles scratched his head and looked around carefully at the rocks and hills. "They would not have taken the time to bury the body... Hmmm.. Can you get his boots off?"

"I get the message... Nothing in the boots... Wait a minute. There is something under one sock." Doc unfolded the paper he had found. "A diagram with some symbols on it."

George hurried over and took the paper from Doc's hand, quickly scanning the diagram and symbols on it. "Hebrew... and latitude longitude numbers..."

They knew the position was correct. Their pocket satellite navigators confirmed that to fifty feet. The metal detectors were valueless as some battle had been fought in the area during WWI, and the trail, though not a major one, had been used for centuries. Tin cans were the wild animals of the day. Then they detected what turned out to be another pocket navigator in the boulders.

George looked at the instrument and glanced around in the rocks. "Look for the symbols, boys. This has got to be the place."

Doc spotted them. It was his height that made the difference. At least he spotted the symbol group. It had been done quickly and cleverly, and the man had to stand on two rocks to do it. He had evidently rolled the top rock down after placing the cylinder in the high hidden crack.

The symbols had been worked over with soil so they looked natural. It could not have taken the agent more than three minutes at the outside to do his work. Doc's hands were shaking as he set the lead casing down in front of Miles and George.

Miles hurriedly brought the Geiger counter out. Nothing was registering above normal. "Shall we take the top off?"

"Carefully, Miles."

"Right."

Doc held the other end of the tube while miles worked the locking system over, placed a few drops of Marine PAL penetrating oil around the edges from his handy pocket bottle, and removed the top slowly. "Crazy" was using the Geiger counter. "No radiation.."

"It's empty!" Miles took out his small high intensity light. "Hey! Someone has worked the inside lip over. Hand me my knife, Doc."

Doc gave Miles the blade and watch as miles carefully began to expose a seam. He curled back a thin piece of lead sheeting and the counter began to click in George's hands.

"I have it set to go off very low, Miles. Please continue."

Miles had not stopped anyway. Suddenly a bronze ring came into view and Miles removed it from the lip. The counter, though clicking faster and harder, was still acceptable, giving off no more radiation than an old radium dial watch. The map was inside...

They knew not the eating of bread,

Knew not the dressing in garments;

Ate plants with their mouth like sheep;

Drank water from a ditch...

"Shaggy with hair is his whole body, he is endowed with head-hair like a woman... He knows neither people or land; garbed he is like one of the green fields; with gazelles he feeds on the grass; with the wild beasts he jostles at the watering place; with the teeming creatures in the water his heart delights."

faced him at the watering place.

When the hunter saw him,

his face became motionless...

His heart was disturbed, overclouded his face,

for woe had entered his belly.

Enki issued instructions: "Mix to a core the clay

from the Basement of Earth, just above the Ab.zu

and shape it to form a core. I shall provide good, knowing young gods who will bring the clay to the right condition."

Enki selected a young god: "Let Primitives be fashioned after his pattern, blood will I amass, bring bones into being. I will prepare a purifying bath. Let one god be bled... from his flesh and blood, let Ninti mix the clay."

Seven she deposited on the right,

Seven she deposited on the left.

Between them she placed the mold.

The birth goddesses were kept together.

Ninti sat counting the months.

The fateful 10th month was approaching;

The 10th month arrived;

The period of opening the womb had elapsed.

to a unity brought together:

So that to the end of days

the Flesh and the Soul

which in a god have ripened

that Soul in a blood-kinship be bound;

as its Sign life shall proclaim.

So that this not be forgotten,

Let the "Soul" in a blood-kinship be bound.

In pairs they were completed in her presence.

The creatures were People,

Creatures of the Mother Goddess.

"Miles! Over here!" Doc called out as he watched the day dreaming engineer put a pottery piece down. "The cab will be here in five minutes."

The Neanderthal was skirting the area by way of the coast, the sea levels low during that period of time, and moving up the river systems into Europe. Family unit after family unit, clan after clan.

His speech was rudimentary sounds and sign language as he did not have the physical system that would allow him anything else, but he had been using fire for thousands of years. He knew stones with certain sharp edges could cut. He could and did make those first cutting edges, employing the logic system that was ingrained by the passage of time in him.

He was in tune with his world, taking no more than he needed to survive. Leisure time was unknown when the weather was good and the days were long. He could and did eat just about everything. His numbers were dictated by his life span of forty years, food availability, and his sex drive which was similar to the Great Apes thousands of years later.

The sad part was the fact he would not progress much farther as he just did not have the tools to work with. Later such a person would be called retarded. For his day he was the top of the line, almost.

The world had it's own rules for intelligence. The smartest and strongest survived, period. It was true for each species and adaptability was the key. Every generation of mammals had it's top of the line and bottom of the line, it's smart and it's dumb. Dumb cats still had a chance to catch dumb mice.

He who would be called Adama was different from the rest, never holding to traditions of the clan, uttering strange noises from his throat when he was excited, and sexually making an unwanted pest of himself when females were ovulating.

The only reason the clan had not driven him out was his cleverness and his mother. Tribal members with odd shaped heads had been born before but other than appearance, had been for the most part normal. Adama was tall and much more lightly built. His quickness kept him out of serious trouble, and was a noted clan asset.

The real asset was his mother. She had organized the females of the unit into an efficient work force. Her only surviving offspring was Adama as all other issue from her never finished living out the first crucial month of life.

When she was taken by a lion, Adama became impossible to live with. They decided he was no longer an asset. His choice was banishment or death. It was the same thing.

They started the clan dance of death, Adama standing without any processions, the fire flickering on the beach. It was at this time the Light came and a voice was heard inside of all heads, a voice that drew pictures and told of their spirit. A voice that told of creation in the simplest way possible to grasp.

A Light so bright in the night that it could not be looked upon, and when it was gone, so was Adama. The Neanderthal was now aware of something it could not see, something beyond their comprehension.

This all occurred in the land between Turkey and Greece, during what was known as the false ice age 115,000 years ago.

The clan never saw Adama again.

The head man grinned as he simply stated, "One in the morning. You can be a very sound sleeper, Miles. I have been shuffling through papers for over an hour. By the way, we confirmed your entry into Syria and your exit from the country. I am not even going to ask you how you got the map case past customs..."

The president of the United States just looked at him until Miles felt uncomfortable. "Ankara was the next stop. That is when the killing began."

George hung up the room phone and looked at the other two men. "We are going to have company. I asked for an expert in languages to assist us over a month ago and it seems he has arrived now. We got ourselves another Israeli..."

Doc looked up and grimaced. "How very timely."

Miles nodded. "A little too timely. That body in the Syrian desert was also Israeli. I don't like this."

George nodded in affirmation. "Let's play this one close to the vest, shall we?"

There was a knock on the door and when Doc opened it, an average sized man with sandy brown hair and glasses stood before them. He looked very European, right down to the light blue eyes.

"Please let me introduce myself. I am David Meir from the Israeli Language Institute. Would one of you perhaps be Dr. George Landau from the University of Washington?"

George strode forward and shook David's hand. "You have the correct room, Dr. Meir. Come in and be seated."

David sat on one of the comfortable chairs. He knew instantly who the three men were as soon as the door had opened. After all, he had been studying intelligence photos and videos of them for over three months.

Accepting a glass of ice water from Miles, he started the game with the proper words. "How might I be of assistance to you, gentlemen?"

George began to fill the man in with just the right amount of information to warrant David's presence, leaving out many facts but ending the story in the room in Turkey.

"Gentlemen, you must understand that this area has been picked over for evidence about the Garden for a long time. Some maintain the answers to all of our questions lie under lake Tuz, a salt lake, I might add. The entire plateau is so eroded..."

"We intend to dive," George quickly interjected. "It has been done before, but not for a long time and technology has come a long way since then."

"I wish I had your backing and time. I will answer any questions that may help you, we scholars have to stick together, right?"

Miles leaned back and looked over at Doc. He didn't trust this guy. Anyone who classified him as a scholar was highly suspect. He could see Goldstein was of the same persuasion.

George took a sip of coffee and settled back. "What are the latest findings for the period starting about 1190 B.C.?"

David frowned. He expected questions about the Christian book of Genesis, not this.These men were on to something and they had the funding to get it. Maybe they knew too much. He must be careful with them.

"Most likely as much as you do. Ashes and brick churned and shattered beyond recognition. More excavating and more of the same thing. Same old story all over that level of civilization in the area."

"Like every place that might have had a record of creation on file?"

"I suppose the subject could be looked upon in that light."

"Where was the original Hebrew record?"

David felt sick. His instincts had been correct."In the Ark of the Covenant."

"Tell me, Professor Meir, are you looking for the Ark, or do you just want the map?"

The Israeli was speechless. How could this man have guessed so well? "I don't understand..."

"You don't have to answer that. Maybe you can answer this for me, though. How badly were the written instructions distorted by the Greeks?"

David breathed a sigh of relief. He was back on firmer ground. "This is why we still wish to find the Ark. We want to find where our records are not accurate. Now explain to me about this interesting map I know nothing about."

The Israeli was finally gone and the room began to darken as the sun set out their western window. The three men were tired and it showed. It had been a mental game of wits for hours. Theology had played a big part...

Doc was sitting in the shadows and they really could not see him, just a shape that suddenly spoke.

"Looking at it from the perspective of the universe, if the laws of all life applied everywhere, after life would come knowledge, and after knowledge would come immortality. God gave man immortality and a place, with instructions how to get there. This was in the spirit."

"He who shall believe in me, "Miles softly intoned.

George smiled. "Maybe it takes more energy to maintain the body physically as a shell for the spirit, or soul, on this dimensional plane."

Doc continued, "For the physical universe, if two species become immortal while bounded by time and space, one or both must perish. He who reproduces fastest wins, or he who destroys the other wins, he who starts first has the best chance. Two people cannot occupy the same space at the same time, can they?"

Doc leaned forward into the light. "What if one had it and another wanted it. Both of them created by God. Will Cain kill Able again, or has he learned his lesson about immortality?"

Miles looked up."What do you mean, Doc?"

"Let us try to visualize the concept of the Cain and Able story from the standpoint of two planets. Able died, ending his line. What happened to Cain? We are all the children of God..."

George got up and went to the door. "Interesting but cyclic, Doc. However since my sleep cycle has come up, maybe I will find the answer in my subconscious, rattling around somewhere in there. Finding records that would end the speculation would sure be a blessing to man. There is an answer, of course. All life in the universe would in reality be the same species, just taking different physical form. Some sort of a record depicting this would help."

Would it? Miles thoughts were not so sure anymore.Would he feel like the man who handed an idiot a loaded gun?

How he had gotten to the place was lost in his unconsciousness, but he felt no fear stemming from his position. By the time a week had gone by, he was building himself a shelter of sorts from brush and tree boughs. Fire man had carried with him for over a million years, but building one without hot coals was another trick.

If he were with the clan, they would find another source of flame from another clan in the area. This is what had been done for thousands of years. Fire had not been created by man nor had he figured out how to create one from nothing. He found it where it naturally occurred, took his heat source and kept it burning.

Adama began to look for fire. To do this, one first had to find smoke with his nose and eyes. He had no smoking mountains to help him. Before long he realized he was the only man in the area. He could not ask for fire from another group for there were no other men. His mother would have known what to do but she was dead, and he was not that old as to draw from the clan experience.

Sometimes the sky created fire when it landed on the ground or hit a tree. This is why most creatures stayed clear of higher ground when the sky was acting up.

As for the abundant food, some of the plants and trees were unknown to him. He had gotten sick sampling the wrong thing before, and almost had died. Adama stayed away from strange plants.

He had been into puberty for a year before the incident on the beach, and strange instincts triggered by his hormones kept him seeking his own kind. He was killing himself trying to find a way out of his huge cage. It did not go unnoticed.

The Creator worked in strange ways. As time was nothing to Him and all life in the universe was one of His tools to draw upon, He arranged for other men he had created to change their landing spot...

This was not their first trip to the inner most life supporting planet, nor would it be the last. The process by which they could sleep for centuries or even thousands of years if need be, they called "stasis". Immortal they were not. Long lived they were. Certain animal proteins insured the longevity needed for space flight.

If they were to use the Earth, they either had to change the planet to accept them, or change themselves to suit the new world. It was far easier to adapt their body chemistry and above all, change their immune systems. In short, many of the planets micro-organisms were lethal to them. They also were oxygen breathers and that was a major hurdle they did not have to contend with. They knew oxygen was fuel that kept them going and ultimately burned them out, but they were dependent upon the substance.

They had to locate their lab in a protected area, one that had the perfect growing climate for food plants necessary to their survival as a race. This time they were really going to try to permanently colonize and not just explore and mine Earth. The needed an area they could put environmental controls on. Anatola was perfect.

Adama heard it before he saw it coming. It appeared to be a flying tree, shaped like a conifer, and it lit the grass on fire around it when it touched down. He was not afraid of it, for it posed no threat to him from his position, but curious he was. Above all, he wanted the fire which had gone out. Adama watched for days, totally fascinated by the activity taking place in the open clearing. What he did not realize was the fact the men on the space craft were also watching him.

"Curious, isn't he?"

"All the animals are, captain Enlil. When will the supply vessel arrive?"

The captain and leader of the expedition looked at his executive officer brother and smiled. Enki still resented being second in command and he always showed it with undue formality. "In two days. How are ground preparations going?"

Enki just shook his head. "The ground equipment shuttle should have landed with us. Three shuttles and a mother ship is not going to be enough for this job."

"That was all the council would allow us. Our numbers are diminishing all the time, and they would not risk anymore people. Supply vessel number three has the mechanical labor force and it will be in one day after vessel two. We can wait one day."

"That's what they said the first time we came." Enki kept studying Adam in the monitor. "I wonder how bright they really are. They are almost identical.."

"Does it matter under the circumstances?"

"Not really, I suppose... This one is different than the one that tore up the biologists traps in the grasslands toward the polar area. He is lighter and taller, more refined..."

"When, Mr. President? Back in the days when our technology was limited? When no one would fund such an expensive project? How many road blocks were set up to stop exploration in this area, either by the Turks or others? We really did not expect to find anything earth shaking on the surface or under the lake water for that matter. Now many of the trade routes and natural passes are covered with water because of the dam on the Tigris."

"What were you looking for?"

"Core samples with indicators of radioactivity and anything else that might point to high tech. Traces of explanation, if you will."

Enlil watched the earth creature just beyond the sonic fence copy his crew.

Adama seemed to be a great mimic, trying to copy everything they did with the materials he had at his disposal, including the sounds of the crews' voices. They had taught him his name. He would come when they called because they were feeding him by then, also.

Then the first real birth woman landed on one of the shuttles and the beast man went crazy. Adama knew the female was attracted by bright colors, the clan had taught him that by observation. He brought the woman flowers and kept trying to make sexual suggestions with his body language. Enough was enough. Enlil had to do something about it.

"Did you manage to capture a female for him?"

"Yes captain, but she is not very responsive to him. The female bit him severely the other day. The geneticists claim they are not the same species, which should have been obvious from the first. It would be like man trying to have sex with a gorilla. In fact, they can't find a female anywhere that is like him."

"A natural mutant?"

"They occur, sir. He might be a hold over from our earlier experiments. We think our pet is a outcast because of it. Why else would he be alone?"

Of course, why else? Maybe they could finally come up with the perfect Adama. One who could take their imprint, and keep it for longer than one full ice age cycle. It had been brought up in the council again about finding a substitute worker for the mining community in underworld or what would later be called Africa.

His brother had told him the men were ready to riot again if things did not improve, and they had to get the gold and radium out of the ground. Maybe they could give it one more try. He turned to his engineering minded brother and told him what was on his mind.

"A good point. It seems a shame to use him for this experiment. I like him."

"We all do. We want to try to clone a female from him."

"Clones don't live very long, they are highly restrictive. What you are suggesting is not impossible, but don't expect instant results."

"He deserves an evolutionary chance. Do we have your help?"

Enki agreed to give it a try.

Enlil leaned back from his console. "Maybe we can learn something from this that will help the other adaptations that we have to complete. Give it your best shot."

My best "shot" will be perfect, brother, he thought to himself. I'm not just going to build you an acceptable beast of burden to work the council's mines, but a true colonist suited to this unstable world. He turned back to his brother/captain. "I have a lot of work cut out for me. Call for the Chief Biologist."

"Getting a little formal about your spouse, aren't you? After all, we are brothers even if I am in command of the ground forces and transport ships."

"You won that position when you pulled Anu's chips out of the fire. Someone always has to be in command Enlil, just as I have full command of the water craft and sea research. As far as formality is concerned, when it comes to my wife and during working hours, she is the one that insists I call her by her title. She is right, of course, so I have gotten into the habit. This project is going to be right up my pleasantly gay Ninti's alley... or as she would call herself, Chief Biologist Ninhursag."

"I'll have her meet with you on the bridge."

There were problems... serious ones. The female clones were sterile. The first seven were useless, and even the males were barely more than beasts of burden, simple ones at that. The biologist kept asking for special equipment and the chief engineer and his staff kept designing and refining lab equipment.

Such was their personal involvement that Enki and his pleasant biologist wife even went so far as to donate blood and tissue from their own bodies, and the gay and smiling Ninti decided to use her own womb to nurture the embryo and bring it to term...

When Adama awoke, he had not realized any great deal of time had passed. He had been sleeping when he was taken, he awoke to a new day. He didn't even notice his missing ribs, at first. Through genetics he was now a hybrid, and directly related to those who had built him. Later when he ran his hands down his sides and thought about it, he would inquire why his body felt strange and incomplete. They had imprinted him but he would not realize that he had drastically changed in many ways, that he now looked like an Offworlder.

He had no way of knowing they had cloned him over and over to build a quick labor force, and had no inkling their work had taken decades and was subject to failure after failure.

They had placed him in stasis while building him a mate, and used his copy to build a world...

It was not easy, even with their technology. Tissue had to be grown, DNA had to be coded and because of the fact Eve was a woman, the issues of hormone balance had to be faced. She was built and she wasn't. She was grown and she wasn't. In short, she was born and yet never knew a beginning such as an earth child would, though a good portion of her start had come from the reproductive organs of the female biologist who ran the project under Enki. Eve was unique. Then came time for the implanting of memory. She either had to grow up as an infant or go through all the processes while sleeping, but what processes?

This implanting had always been the trouble with clones. They were unique as their images, no two alike unless they shared every circumstance together. Eve was not a true clone. She was just as much of a mutation as Adama was. To raise her as if she were one of their own and wake Adama after the job was done was out of the question. She would not accept him. They needed memories, child memories.

Their implants were based on the crew's culture, not Adama's. To do this, the brain had to be literally rewired or formatted might be a better description, to accept the implants.

Language was another problem. Adama was unique due to the fact he was born with vocal cords and a brain that could use them, a gift from his mother. He had been taught words, yet he was bounded by his upbringing. He spoke two languages, and with the passing of time, neither one of them very well. He had too many other interests and had lived without language all his life. He was used to compensating with his hands and body instead of his tongue.

They decided to gamble. Adama's aging was halted at sixteen and they began to rebuild him. As for Eve, they gave her their infant language base and Adama's memories to a point about four years old.

The woman in charge of that section of the project began to make up a female tape, putting her feelings to a visual recording they had made of earth human culture. This was not much to start with and what the local female species on Earth currently had to put up with from the wild males offended the biologist due to the scientist's own up bringing. Sexual conduct definitely would not be the same.

To say that Eve was turning out rather colorful would be an understatement. She ended up with two sets of ancestral memory for one thing and vague glimpses into two totally different cultures.

They didn't know it, but they created something that would give the new version of man a run for his money for the rest of his life.

When Adama was wakened and introduced to Eve, he was the first thing she saw when they woke her up in his shelter. The implanted memories held and they kept the pair isolated from the crew for a short duration.

Adama was over joyed. He did goofy things like pick flowers and make faces. There was a courtship of sorts, and companionship. They worked together in the plant center, learning to pick out certain strains of plants that adapted and seeded in Earth soil.

They helped with animal domestication and breeding. There really was no concept of time for them as they did not age as long as they were eating the same food the crew did.

The time came when they were noticed trying to reproduce, being prompted by one of the well meaning medical staff. The female members of the crew were incensed and went directly to Enlil and Enki. When questioned, Eve pointed out the Seeker of Knowledge, called a serpent or doctor by the Offworlders, and told of his involvement. The pair were getting into other things they were supposed to leave alone, causing more problems...

Enlil called Enki to the bridge the day after the meeting. "We have to move them out of the lab area, and the female members are insisting upon clothing for them."

"We can move them to the east of us, and they will need clothing for protection just due to the fact they will not be in a controlled weather area. Ninti and I discussed this last night. It is time to move some of the plants out also, and they can take care of them. They are still children, Enlil..."

"They will start to breed soon, and make sure the offspring are color coded for their designed areas. We need workers, Enki. Good intelligent miners to replace the clones as soon as possible."

There was only one problem and that was the fact Eve could not carry a fetus longer than eight weeks. Blood chemistry was the culprit. As time wore on, she became unhappy. It was in her instinct to have young of her own.

Adama's sperm was implanted into female volunteers but the primary pair never saw the result as all of the offspring were taken to the underworld, the land below the Equator that would be known to the Sumerians as the Ab.Zu, a land rich with gold and radium. Eve saw this much with her own eyes when the young were shipped out, and Eve was not stupid, she was just ignorant, untaught...

In was in her ancestral memory to call on help from the inside of her.

Her prayers, if that was what they could be called, were answered with Light and Voice from within. Something happened inside her body and it changed. She knew the Creator and her body excepted the new surprising mutation. The biologists did not know exactly what had happened, but were overjoyed with the result and were not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. The entire crew waited with baited breath...

She became pregnant again. She had the best of prenatal care as always. The baby was carried to term and she had it without much pain due to the crew's medical technology.

The entire expedition was pleased and celebrated the birth. The first born, a male, was named Cain. It was at this time it was noted and recorded Eve started making music, a genetic trait plus the imprinting from the sky beings.

When Cain was two he was weaned from mother's milk. When he was three, he was introduced to his brother Able. They would only age to sixteen as long as they were eating the manufactured rations supplied by the crew.

His childhood before his brother came along was filled with wonder. He could speak at an early age and was full of questions. He was the apple of Enki's eye and fared about the same with all of the crew. After Enki, his favorite was Enlil, much to the captains embarrassment.

When Adama and Eve switched attention to Able, Cain was crushed. Enki became his father figure. He copied every move the engineer made.

What the potential colonists did not know was the food was making changes in the pets' metabolism. A small portion went much farther for the earthlings than it did the crew.

Enki received word they had to return to the mother ship as their work was finished for awhile and other matters were pressing at home base where the ore was being processed. It was decided to leave two of the three ships in Anatola, so they left the supply ship and the flying lab.

Sonic fences were still up and the garden would stay isolated. They told Adama and his family they would have to leave for a long time, but would be back. Adama did not know what that meant. What was time?

He understood they could remove stores of food from the dispense at the base of the supply vessel, but they were to stay out of the lab. It was dangerous and might kill them, they were warned.

They also had instructions for the cultivation of the eastern "garden".

Adama and Eve watched from the distance as one of the flying Trees rose into the sky, its thunder diminishing until it was no more. They were saddened and didn't even know why.

Eve had her first female child within a year of the ship's departure, and experienced the pain of childbirth for the first time. This event that would immensely surprise the Offworlders, and Cain loved the girl as much as Able hated his sister. Sibling rivalry was ingrained in all species. Adama loved all of his children. What he did not realize that he had many by now, if the clones could be called such, all working in the underworld mines in what would later be called Africa.

These offspring were not the same as the issue from Eve. Those in Africa were genetically half breeds, and would slowly revert back. Insemination of earth male to heaven female did not permanently work, but it eased the labor crisis for Enlil and the other officers. The next step they had planned would be the trial breeding of heaven male to earth female...

Doc just looked around and finally whispered out,"Sea water?"

"What's left of it. There are salt lakes all over this section of the world."

Miles whistled softly through his teeth. The plateau was surrounded by mountains four thousand feet high except in the west, and was three to five thousand above sea level itself.

He looked to the west. "A two thousand foot wall of water?"

George chuckled."Right idea, wrong direction of the primary wall. How does the theory of a meteor strike in the Indian Ocean grab you? It seems much more valid then something left over that long from the thaw, even plugging up the channel to the sea from the Black sea area would not do what this one did. Meteor showers that the tribe of Noah could not see could cause the tremendous rain."

Miles laughed. "We had a good portion of a planet and most likely part of a comet to work with, and the Antarctic ice cap may have slipped. I'm sorry to laugh George, but you never take the easy way out, do you?"

Landau smiled."Maybe I see things you have yet to see. I have seen one thing though, and that is the fact we have to get back to our map work. Total input, gentlemen, before we go to bed. Food for the subconscious."

Miles scanned the men and the room for surveillance equipment in the form of electronic bugs. They were clean but the room had four devices. It had only two that morning before they left. Business was picking up.

Doc watched for the signal and then turned on a prerecorded tape that the carried with the just for this purpose.

There was a knock on the door. Frowning, Ken looked at his watch. The relief was normally late and today was no exception. Walking across the room and opening the door, he met death...

Four men rushed into the room and quickly checked it out before putting away their silenced pistols.

Kling looked down at the body on the carpet. "Work fast, men. The relief will be here in five minutes and Tri-Omega does not like failure..."

Chris Sandoval walked out of the elevator and quickly made his way to the listening post. Knocking the code on the door, he waited for Ken to open it. There was nothing. He must be in the bathroom, Chris thought as he knocked again with no response. Frowning, Chris slipped in his key and opened the door, took one glance and quickly shut it.

Hurrying down the corridor, he quickly opened another room and ducked inside, locking the door behind him. It was his own room and the phone was still intact. Dialing, he waited impatiently for the connection to be made. "Get me David Meir," he said into the receiver...

Doc pulled out another map and looked back down at the written instructions again. "Let's pick the entire text apart."

And the name of the second river is Gihon; It is the one encircling the entire land of Cush. And the name of the third river is Hidekel; it is the one going to the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."

Doc looked up at them. "Now the Kizil Irmak river that winds by Kaseri, which is the area the cylinder was discovered in, could be the river spoken about. It has three additional tributaries joining it before it dumps into the Black Sea. It fits the criteria for the area, and has four head waters in the direct sense."

"There is only one river that flows to the east of Assyria and the location is close to the 40th parallel. Today it is called the Aras river. It's head waters are close to Erzuram and it winds passed Mount Ararat and dumps into the Caspian Sea close to Lenkoran."

George interjected, "We are given the Euphrates. The Tigris is not mentioned. Specifically so, I believe, and the other has to be the Nile of today. Now we know there is dispute about that, some factions favoring the Indus, but the Indus just does not fit in with the given information. I think it is just a case of publish or perish for some one."

Doc continued. "This information, if one has the right map, defines Eden. We get this by merely projecting a line down the average course of the rivers. The four heads that define the rivers coming out of Eden "as it were", could imply tidal or sea, could define water moving back and forth to define average, thinking of this as an encryption someone hoped would get through. The lines diverge very close to Ankara, Turkey. I will let you take the first paragraph, George."

George arched his eyebrows. "The tough one?

Let's take Onyx next. What is it? Chemically it is silicon dioxide. The mineral calcite is considered onyx. Onyx is banded, usually white with some other color, or quartz. There is also black onyx. You see it most often as a cameo.

Now we have to ask ourselves what we use it for. What made it precious or important to those people? It's work ability. Try cutting and polishing minerals some time. Seals, gentlemen, seals. Polished stone does not stick to clay when wet or greased. Important people out did themselves with the fanciness of the material.

It was hard to counterfeit and all seals were registered. They were like gold, they were like credit cards."

Miles grinned. "Tough to work and only one to a wallet. Why some types in particular?"

"Quartz onyx, the type found in Arabia and India, is not the most workable. Diamonds and sapphires became precious because they could cut quartz onyx. A knife, even a steel one, cannot scratch anything six or above on the hardness scale. They knew what they were looking for, that could be the reason they found and learned to ultimately work copper. What can you cut with a copper knife? Stone knives cut copper, but stone was a difficult medium to make into useful shapes, copper was malleable. When they hit iron and then steel, they could carve calcite onyx, such as what is known as Mexican type. Some bronze alloys could work calcite onyx and marble, a lower grade of calcite."

Miles nodded. He really did not know that much about geology. "How was the stuff formed in the first place?"

"Calcite deposits are marine in nature or old seas. Old seas are also associated with alluvial seas or gold seas. Gold nuggets, the first and easiest working gold. That could also be considered "good gold", I suppose."

Miles broke in,"Don't forget earliest found metal working sites were north and west."

"A good point, and the fact the first areas looked over were coastal and river routes, right into the mountains."

"Your talking Greece and right up the Danube river system."

"It was a nice area during the ice age. The Mesopotamian area was a desert.There is another thing to consider, and that is the nature of man and what was going on when the Bible was transcribed. The easiest access to the Anatola highlands is to the west in several spots. During the ice age Greece was connected to Turkey. All defenses to Eden mentioned were to the East. What was going on West?"

"After the Mycenaens got clobbered, who moved into Greece, Doc?"

Doc spoke up."The Hellens, the hill people, northern tribes moved down and filled the holes in the population."

George nodded. "A woman's name, is it not? We are suddenly dealing with history in another gender. It seemed that some tribes were predisposed to honoring women.For the most part all the Hebrew tribes are male gender, from the decent of Adam. There is only one line that could be different if the Bible is correct. Cain, gentlemen. The tribe of Cain revered their women. They honored them. Their women stood with them in battle. Look over art work found in Europe 35,000 years toward and up to modern times. Women with child, young women, old women."

"It wasn't that way in Southwestern Asia, and still really isn't in the present cultures. The test of time and man's general earthy lust created serious problems, especially since ancestry dictated the movement of wealth and power. They made their women cover up. How many Asian women have you seen carved in stone? Nude..."

"If you had a hand in writing the Bible, you surely would not tell the world you were Cain. Incest had to be. It was also a taboo subject when the Bible was written. Nowhere do you see any female lineage, except Eve, and yet there had to be. Call it what you will gentlemen, but I personally think Cain killed Able because of his sister. Jealousy, not of sacrifice or signaling, but of love. Lust is where they fight to the death to mate, love is a much deeper emotion."

"And where was Cain banished? To the mines, gentlemen. Someone needed a lot of something and the labor to get it. Cain may have given us metals, but we had mining first."

"It may have not been incest, either. The lineage from the bible does not give any specifics about the first women other than Eve. I think the "gods" were breeding with us even at that time, possibly using their women." Doc stated. "Now the mining part fits..."

Miles suddenly flinched. He was asking about atomic and forgot to check out uranium ore deposits, mainly pitchblende. If someone was going to make a long trip, they needed fuel."Fission?"

"We still don't have a fusion power source ourselves, nor are we using atomic for propulsion. They were in a hurry to get out of the way. Remember the gigantic explosion in Siberia which occurred in the early 1900's from a meteorite?

Maybe the star in the east for Christ was the impact of the other planet with something else for that matter, or maybe they just blew themselves up."

"Maybe they were after copper, that would fit also."

"Who knows? Maybe they needed all metals to build something too big to land on a planet, but something in orbit. Check it out, Miles. One god banished man into the Earth for killing his brother, and yet he came out on the top of the heap. Could another god have rewarded him for something else?"

"The mines have always been known as the ultimate punishment besides death. God didn't kill him but he did the next best thing. He put Cain into a hole in the ground, into the darkness.What do you think, Doc?"

"There were Nephilim in the Earth in those days, and Cain's wife went with him. Again the fact the story of Vulcan was Greek in origin, is something else to kick around, even if the roots resided with the Hurrians. Remember old mythology and Tartaurus where offspring of the gods and earthlings were banished until they escaped."

George looked pleased. "At least we are flexible. Where was Havilah? Draw a line off the Euphrates and extend it up the Danube. Is it not about the average for the Danube river system? It was easy, wasn't it? Now try it without a map. Try it without an Aries map from how far up? Looking at it from a distance, all coordinates cross just about in this hotel room. The message got through after being encrypted twice. That is what Moses wanted. We were not supposed to get the message until we could fly, unless we had the map."

Doc looked stunned."If The Ten Commandments are the Universal Laws, God would look at this as someone coveting us?"

"He would and He would deal with them in His own kind way. One piece of His spirit at a time, if need be. That was the deal with Adam, remember? It works the same for anyone else, and that includes lessor gods or Nephilim as you will."

"Are you saying the sons of God could be considered lessor gods?"

"It depends on your standpoint. How does your dog feel about you? We were told our planet is under our dominion and we were responsible for it. We were given a code to live by. All things that know the difference between right and wrong have to live by that code."

"He knew we would have a hard time living up to it because He built us. He engineered us. We were doing as He wished, until we were changed. He warned us about the Tree of Knowledge, and what it would do to us. We were told to stay out of it twice. One other thing and it was stressed many times everywhere and that is the fact we were built in God's Image. That is Spiritual as well, that is where love comes from, the Spiritual male/female Image of God."

"The sons of God took females when they wanted. They found them comely. They lived in the ground. They could fly. They had offspring. These were called the Old Ones, The Ancient Ones, The Long Lived Ones. The Men of Fame. Man knew them, he lived with them, he ate their food. He mined their ore, and he resented them just as he sometimes resented his brother."

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