The Adam and Eve Chronicles Book 2

By Stanley Jerrard-Dunne

The Year 2077 Earth time
The Earth spaceship Eden1 is heading for the Alpha Centauri star constellation.
What they find there will change the concept of Earth’s past history forever.
Unknown to them the Earth has been through a devastating nuclear war; but their continued exploration will discover a race of such incredible scientific advance as to change worlds, and human existence into the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stanley Jerrard-Dunne
• Release date: Apr 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311440723

Book preview

Chapter 1: Year 2077 (Earth time)

The spaceship Eden1 was cruising at a modest 25,000 mph; its destination was the Alpha Centauri star complex some four and a half light years from Earth.

Eve sat looking out from the control room quartz windows at the sun shining pure gold in space. It reminded her of a time back on earth. She was sitting looking west from a holiday beach house with her husband John Forbes on their honeymoon. They were on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. The sun was setting on the horizon with the dark blue sea reflecting a golden path across the water towards her. The air was warm with a light wind rippling the water, and in the background a De Bussy piano piece keeping the mood. Her mind would never forget that image; the happiness she felt and the beauty of nature had brought tears to her eyes.

This sun is slightly smaller, and a red dwarf; beautiful! she thought. I wonder what we might discover.

The ship had been in transit for nearly fifty earth years, and having slowed down from its maximum of one third light speed had reached a distance of about ten million miles from the nearest Alpha Centauri Proxima sun. It took up an orbit and settled down to explore for any planets or moons.

This triple star system is the nearest to earth’s solar system. The other two stars being Alpha Centuri A and B on the astronomer’s maps. These two stars were much bigger and brighter and shone very bright against the background of dark space some one fifth of a light year from Centuri Proxima.

The ship had been constructed in Earth orbit as the first of the Eden class.

It was a long cylindrical shape with a meteor cone protector on the front and at the rear the five Ion/plasma engines.

On board the ship were four thousand avatars from earth; each one a replica electronic brain of a person who had passed away as a human person some fifty years previously. The exception to this was the founding group who had founded and developed the transfer copy of the human brain to the electronic computer circuits of the avatars.

Adam and Eve renamed from Joan Cary and John Forbes as the first to be replicated. Douglas Manning, Alan Dufrane and Elizabeth Bentine the other three involved as a group. When the Ship left Earth in 2027 this group of humans was still alive; except for Douglas Manning the neurosurgeon who was the main developer of the replications, he had died in 2025. The group had multiple replications of themselves and had developed a colony on the planet Mars and a station on Europa a moon of Jupiter.

Primitive life had been discovered beneath the waters of the Europa moon.

The Avatars were all designed with robot type construction; saucer shaped about forty centimetres in diameter with camera lens eyes, folding wings, robot hands and full radio and visual interaction contact between any of them. They were fully aware of their surroundings; with their memories intact from their human existence. Their memory retention was nearly perfect.

They could propel themselves through an atmosphere with ducted electric fans mounted beneath their bodies. In space conditions they used steam jets to move around. A coating in black lead lined Graphene material to deflect radiation was covering their outer surfaces. The source of power had been developed as a Cold Fusion reactor unit by John Forbes, (now Adam) a quantum mechanical engineer. This breakthrough as a source of power had transformed conditions on Earth for the better during the early part of the twenty first century. The units could be used as small individual power sources to heat and light homes.

The fusion power was also used to power the avatars giving them long periods of sustained energy. Refuelling was a combination of Nickel and Hydrogen.

Of course under these conditions they did not need food or air to breath. They all looked the same; but recognised each other by their transmission signals.

The four thousand avatars on board the space ship were contained in a honeycomb of cubicles. They did not need to move around unless an individual was required to help with the ships maintenance or control. In fact they were nearly all shut down during the fifty years of travel to conserve power. The result was most of them did not feel any time passing during the years of travel.

All contact with Earth was virtually lost as it would take over four years to send a message and the same to receive.

The Einstein theory of relativity would have slowed down time in the ship as it moved so fast relative to the Earth; putting Earth time ahead of the spaceship as it progressed.

Adam was working at the controls of the ship; checking for any malfunctions or other problems, and Alan was setting up the electronic telescope ready to start the search.

The golden light from the sun was streaming into the control room giving a soft and warm feeling to the ship, a pleasant change from the fifty years of dark space. An atmosphere of heated carbon dioxide circulated inside the ship to keep the electronics from freezing

What do you think Adam? said Eve. She was looking through a small telescope at the star. Are we close enough to this dwarf star? It is hundreds of times cooler than our Solar sun and will probably start to expand in a few million years due to its core gravity reducing as it cools.

Adam looked up to see the others looking at him.

I think we could venture nearer. We have to check the gravitational pull is not too strong on the ship. I don’t want to start having to use the chemical rockets if I can avoid it. The Ion/Plasma drive has been very satisfactory over the last fifty years with very low maintenance. Let’s continue to reduce our orbit and see how we get on.

I will start scanning around and see what I can find, said Alan. I have picked up a few bright planets rotating around this sun."

As they got nearer it was decided to waken all the Avatars to let them see they had arrived at their destination.

On awakening they started to communicate with each other and asked Eve to fill them in on progress. She gave them an update and they were able to look through her eyes at the sun outside..

The Avatars on board were from all walks of human life back on earth, many of them had been selected with the knowledge of a multitude of subjects ranging from palaeontology to electronics and the arts and crafts. The memory of their past life on earth was embedded in their electronic brains and future vision or communication would be unforgettably stored and retrieved as required.

There were a few Avatars whose circuits could not be awakened due to electrical faults. However their memory chips were intact and could be replaced with new circuits when things had settled down.

Alan who had been searching for some time with the electronic telescope spoke up

"I think I have found something, it’s within about three million miles of the sun.

It’s a planet about twelve thousand miles in diameter; with surface temperature reading of around twenty degrees centigrade on the side facing the sun. It has a light atmosphere of carbon dioxide with a little oxygen. It’s smaller than Mars but the gravity is about half of Earth. It is not rotating so one face is always facing the sun."

That sounds like a possibility, said Eve. It would be a stroke of luck to have found somewhere so soon with the prospect of a landing.

Adam called together some of the avatar passengers; Astronomers, Biologists, and Metallurgists among others to study the planet.

Alan was scanning the surface with the telescope. There appears to be a green belt of what looks like growing plants or bushes. These are concentrated around the equatorial area facing the sun. The width of this belt stretches for miles.

Fascinating, said Ron Stafford a retired biologist avatar from Oxford University in England. If that is true it means there is plant life of some sort down there. Anything green would probably mean Chlorophyll, photosynthesis plants. It would explain the oxygen and carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere.

Adam was able to bring the ship to within fifty miles of the surface owing to the low gravity; giving a perfect view for the crew and creating great excitement among them.

It is hard to get my mind around this at the moment. said Ron Stafford. "In a human body there would not have been the slightest chance of me or anyone else reaching so far out into space. There must be thousands of habitable planets for us avatars in the Milky Way galaxy. It really brings home the great work done by Professor Douglas Manning and his team way back in 2017.

I would like to be one of the crew to descend on to the surface of this planet and explore what appears to be flora."

Chapter 2: THE PLANET

A discussion was being held to decide the next move.

I think, said Adam, we should send a small group down to the surface to start with. We do not have sufficient information to risk more than an exploratory team. Anyhow all vision and sound can be transmitted to all of us as we proceed.

I agree, said Eve. Let’s choose a small group of different experts; say six avatars to descend in one of the Lander modules.

General agreement was reached, with six chosen including Ron Stafford. Adam and Eve decided to stay with the ship at the start in case problems arose.

Of course, explained Adam, you could descend and land under your own individual power; but you would not have sufficient power to takeoff and regain orbit to the ship with just your steam jets.

The lander a small rocket propelled carrier manoeuvred out of the side of the ship, the glinting reflection of the sun on its metallic surface picking it out as it descended and slowed down towards the planet. They had chosen a flat area near the equator and the green belt. The lander stopped and hovered just above the surface disturbing a cloud of sandy dust, then slowly touched down.

There are no high spots near here, said Ron, Just shallow hills and valleys; this should be interesting.

He opened the exit door and checked the atmosphere. It’s as we said, mostly carbon dioxide. The oxygen content is very small; in fact the whole atmosphere is only about one thousand feet deep and very thin. There is no weather on this planet and so far no sign of water. How do these green looking plants exist?

That’s a good question, said Martha Goodman, an American professor of Geology from Texas. She had floated down from the lander to get a better view. There must be water to produce this type of growth. The heat from the sun is heating the surface to around twenty degrees centigrade, and as the planet is not rotating would maintain close to this temperature during its orbit on the side facing the sun. The far side would be well below freezing at all times.

Martha Goodman realised she was looking at something very unusual in the green growth around her. These shoots rising from the ground are like giant rhubarb stalks with leaves to match, she thought to herself. They must require water to grow like this; and yet there is no water present above ground or weather to produce rain.

She turned to the rest of the group. Have any of you any ideas about these plants? How did they get here in the first place? There is no sign of any other life that we have seen from the ship or down here so far.

Another of the group Yuri Vladimir a Russian Chemical scientist spoke. I suspect there must be moisture below ground. I suggest we dig down around one of the roots to investigate.

From the lander they brought out a ground drill for the purpose of testing the soil.

Sure enough when they had drilled a few feet the sandy soil came up damp.

Amazing, said Martha. "There must be a large water basin below ground; but the question is how did these plants get here and are growing in such an orderly fashion?

It’s as if they have been planted; not just a random seeding."

It seems to be so! said Ron. We must explore further.

Because of the very light atmosphere their ducted fans and wings were of little use, they had to resort to using their steam jets to move around; this reduced their area of search as they would require water refuelling. They decided to split up into two groups and search in opposite directions along the green belt.

From the ship all eyes were focused through the group on the surface and a discussion was going on among them as to how these plants could have developed.

Mark Clifford, a naturalist from Canada one of the surface groups had been examining the leaves of the plants. They are very broad; obviously to catch as much of the sun as possible, he thought. "Someone or something must have planted them here. Maybe whoever they were may have been trying to create an atmosphere in an attempt to Terraform the planet.

Before these plants I imagine everything was just sand and rocks with no atmosphere at all, although there must have been water underground."

As the group continued the survey in two directions the telescopes on the ship were following their every move.

Everything seems to be the same throughout this green belt, said Ron. I don’t know that we can glean any more information,"

Just keep searching around for the time being, said Eve, from the ship. We are scanning whole sections of the area.

As the hours passed and the daylight was continuous, the group were becoming bored with the sameness of the scenery and were thinking they would like to be back on the ship. Of course they could contact others on the ship and set up some virtual reality scenes to keep them happy; but Adam and Eve wanted full concentration so nothing was missed.

Then results; Alan had located something unusual from the ship among the greenery. He directed three of the group about a half mile in to the spot.

It took them some fifteen minutes to reach the area.

As they approached they sighted a large pyramid shape rising from the ground hidden among the greenery. It reflected dull against the sunlight; but looked metallic of some type.

It was about twenty feet in diameter but only about fifteen feet in height.

This is definitely a man made type structure, reported Martha. I can see a square entrance like door on the side,

Approach with caution, said Eve. This is fascinating to see, something alien to us.

It looks very old and dull on the outside, said Martha; but not threatening. There is a collection of weird looking machinery scattered around the building. They look like they may have been for digging and planting the greenery. They have an aged look about them.

The three of them, Ron, Martha and Mark approached the structure. It had been well hidden in among the leaves and would not have been easily visible at ground level.

Martha placed her robot hands on the surface. It feels like it’s made of solid metal of some sort. The door if that’s what it is; is square and sitting on the surface wall just above the ground. There are no handles or keyholes of any sort that we can see.

Frederic Heinzl an electronics designer and engineer