Ikeda sat down in one of the chairs of the craft and rested his hands flat on the console in indentations that appeared to be custom made for him. As soon as his hands made contact with the console it emitted a soft green glow. Ikeda shook his head as he smiled. “It's been a long time since I've sat in this seat. I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed it.” He turned to look over his shoulder. “Adam, come sit here.” Ikeda directed as he stood up.
Adam sat down and curiously ran his fingers across the small hand prints on the console. Ikeda grabbed his hands and pressed them firmly into the indentations, and as he did so, the green glow returned.
“This is how the ship is flown. You merely think about what you would like it to do and the craft immediately responds.”
Adam felt his pulse quicken. This console looked much different from the crude stainless steel control panel of the ship at XenTek. There were no gauges, no buttons, only the two hand-shaped indentations, a direct and instant interface between the craft and the pilot.
Ikeda clasped his arms behind his back and began to pace back and forth like a college professor giving a lecture. “My people are called the Ahpla, and we have been with you since the beginning, we are so similar enough in appearance to you that we can blend in if we’re wearing your clothes. We have subtly guided you at certain times throughout your evolution but have been careful to only rarely step from the shadows into view. Long ago your people drew pictures of us on cave walls, referred to us as angels that descended from the heavens, some even worshiped us as Gods. There are some of your cosmic relatives have a different physical appearance, depending upon where and how they evolved.”
“In reality, we are all flesh and blood just like you, but many of our cultures are billions of years older, thus we have had the time to acquire more knowledge and more wisdom. Your leaders have known about us for quite some time, but they purposely withheld the knowledge from you because they were afraid they would lose their control if you were ever to piece together the big picture of the universe. All this time we have been eagerly waiting for you to learn your lessons so you could join us. After all, is it not true that you must learn to crawl before you can walk? You must learn how to become a responsible citizen of your own world before we can expect you to be a responsible citizen of the universe.”
To Adam, Ikeda’s words were more of an affirmation than a shock. It all seemed so more plausible than the story they heard from their government. At that moment all he wanted was to soak up every bit of knowledge, hoping Ikeda’s flow of wisdom would never stop. As he glanced at Bear and Evelyn, he noticed that they seemed every bit as transfixed as he was.
“The Ahpla is only one of a group of highly advanced civilizations from different parts of the universe who are joined in an organization called The Order of the Law of One. A fleet was dispatched here to more closely observe the moment our sensors picked up the first nuclear explosion on your planet.”
Adam, being the tech geek he was, began to study the inside of the ship. He would’ve given anything to be alone with it for a week, to take it apart and try to figure out how it all worked. It was like nothing he had ever seen. In his best estimate, Adam surmised that the technology of this craft easily surpassed anything that could be found at XenTek by several thousands of years. Every inch of the interior exhibited elegance of engineering that was so perfect it seemed organic, grown on a molecular level instead of built piece-by-piece.
“Ahem!” Ikeda cleared his throat as the group snapped to attention.
“As I was saying, it all began when our long-range sensors picked up the very first nuclear test-explosion on your planet.”
“When this occurs, our group pays a little closer attention. You see, when a civilization discovers nuclear energy, it’s truly a race against time because at this stage in a civilization's evolution there is usually only one of two outcomes. As the weapons spread, if you don't destroy yourselves right away, the weapons can be a catalyst for peace. They can spark a quantum leap in your spiritual evolution as you begin to realize that your spiritual and moral growth must keep close pace with your technological growth. To our great joy, your people eventually learned this lesson.”
Ikeda smiled briefly, but then his expression again turned serious. “But you see, if you're not careful to maintain balance, there are easily a thousand different paths to extinction. Your fate took a turn that we had rarely seen before. Your civilization became absolutely overcome by greed and materialism.”
“You spread an economic system around the world that relied on infinite growth, but you failed to realize early enough that you live on a planet of finite resources. This economic system quickly became like the cancer of your world. Every planet has a tipping point, and as population grows, if balance is not found, a people will quickly destroy themselves. From our perspective, it can be very frustrating, we can subtly guide, but there are strict laws that prohibit us from influencing the natural course of your evolution.”
“It seems like a dangerous situation for you, too,” Adam said.
Ikeda sat up straight in his chair. “Yes, but as I said, my time here with you has taught me much. It has shown me that, in the case of your civilization, the logic of my people is flawed. I have seen from those I've come to know that the majority of your people are good and innocent. Their very souls are held captive by an evil deception carried out by those who are in power. The Order of the Law of One claims to have complete reverence for all intelligent life, and yet we stand by and observe, doing nothing, as a righteous people like yourselves are unwittingly led to their slaughter. The last few months I have been in communication with the Ahplan Council, begging them to intervene to try to save your planet and its people. They finally agreed to very limited involvement. You see, one by one, they have been visiting people at night. They are opening their chakras, which greatly speeds up their spiritual evolution, but they have refused doing anything more directly, citing the laws as their excuse. When I continued to plead with them, they banished me from ever rejoining them for questioning our laws.” Ikeda’s eyes turned down toward the floor of the craft.
Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for new episodes of Alarm Clock Dawn! The final episode including a ENORMOUS plot twist will be read by yours truly live at the first annual SteemFest in Amsterdam on Saturday, November 12th.
Alarm Clock Dawn is the first novel of a trilogy. The sequel entitled, Truth Is Stranger, will be published in the Spring of 2017.
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