Richie did not like that last word, yet. as the lift opened he was astonished to find a huge area with machinery whirring and a huge tubular structure that resembled the earth's latest nuclear reactor.. similar to those being built jointly by the Australian government and a local corporation in order to reach a a net zero emissions target with the closing of fossil fueled electric plants in his nation. "Follow me Earth creatures said the tall, spindly blue skinned Mr Smith and all will be revealed"..................
Wow! That's a big Reactor Professor! And all the other ones too!" exclaimed Terence. Terence goes on to whisper to his party: "Maybe his 'Yet' is now since we're this close to the silo sized banks of reactors and Jappers knows what else. Lord help us.... , I don't want to be experimented on neither, nor never turned into a Zombie neither... I still have my gun though; see, I pulled my shirt out to cover it. Ssshh." " "Jessica, is that your nice camera poking its lens just out of your bag?" "And what's the deal with Capo?"
Capo worries me. He is not the simple Indian farmer he makes out. How does he know Mr Smith too? Keep the gun hidden Terry for goodness sake. These people have a whole field of bloody nuclear reactors, and unless I have it wrong those tall structures are nuke rocket silos so that does not spell friendly to me. Mr Smith may we take photos, requested Jessica holding out her camera to show the humanoid. I think not miss. The next moment there came a shrilling, ear piercing scream and.....
......Capo was on the floor with the prongs of my tazer attached to his neck, he was shrilling in pain but at least he was no longer a danger to us as I didn't give him a chance to reach for the hunting knife hidden in his waistband. Professor, I screamed, we are in danger here, Terrance and Victoria agreed, we have to get away now.....
Terence drew his gun and pointed it at the tall blue alien called Mr Smith saying "You're with us Bluey, bind his wrists with this cable tie Victoria please." "Let's take the lift back to the surface, Professor? With Smith."'
Our only way out of this is to take Mr Smith hostage somehow and have him take us to the surface. Hell the expedition has turned into a dreadful calamity. We are in the middle of an isolated strip of Ecuador with no transportation out other than by donkey.Terry access your GPS phone and see if Eduardo can get his plane here asap.There are some bare areas for him to land north of here according to the map........
"No signal down here Professor, maybe upstairs?" Mr Smith was very obliging taking us up in the lift to the surface. On the way up he said "I think you may have over reacted dear humans." As the doors opened the bronze statue of the godess Venus was walking around the dining table clearing up after our meal! "What!" cried Terry. Tall spindly blue Smith turned around to face us while the naked bronze statue of Venus put plates down and stood by Smith's side. "It's a guardian robot" said Smith "and will not harm you." Smith continued: "The reason we're here is to save your planet from your human induced Global Warming. The giant reactors below power a giant filtration machine that is sucking out the excess CO2 from your atmosphere. Without it your species and all other life on this planet would be extinct within two centuries and develop a green house atmosphere like your neighbouring planet you call Venus. That's your "Yet!" We chose this remote location thinking it might remain undiscovered, until you found us. It was inevitable I guess. Capo is the only other person who knew of this place and he joined us seven years ago vowing to help us seeking ways to save your planet. He has been a great asset to our common cause and has senses beyond what you humans deem normal. So there you have it. You must keep our secret and if need be, I can wipe your memories of this place and its function. Do I need to do that? Or join us as agents like Capo to have intelligent contact with your world?" Feeling confused and nervous Terence cocked his revolver saying "You won't play with my head Mister John Smith!" As he uttered those words the bronze Venus pointed a finger at Terence's gun which turned to dust that slipped through his fingers leaving him startled and fumbling at the dust.
She could have just as easily turned you to dust , Terence. But we don’t wish to do any of you any harm. Sit and dine with us. I will explain why we are here. We sat at the table and Venus placed our plates before us. Smith began: We are from another planet in a distant galaxy. We learned a million years ago that our sun was dying. We began searching for another planet that would support life. We found others but they already had sentient life forms. Then we found Earth. It contained all the things needed for life but we had to do some adjusting to it. We separated the water from the land, made the oceans and rivers. We planted trees and other plants. We made the fish and fowl. But when we finished, we found that your sun was too hot for us to survive here. We decided to alter some of our genes to create a life form that could survive here. We were successful in that and human life began on Earth. We found other planets that could support our life forms and moved most of our race to them. We have watched humanity evolve over the eons. We met with some of your ancestors to further adapt them. They made cave drawings of us. We had to wear space suits because of your sun. From time to time we have had to do some cleansing as humans became too sinful. Thus the tales of fire & brimstone, pillars of salt, and floods in your bible. We called Moses to the mountain top and gave him a message for humanity. We created a son and sent him with a message to you. The messages were taken to heart by many of you. So mostly we have left you to carry on. But now the planet and you are in dire danger. We are removing CO2 as best we can but that is only temporary. We are trying to find an alternate source of energy but we are limited by Earth’s natural resources. We have developed some ideas, however, we need time to do further research. If we succeed, we will reveal it to one or more of you by telepathy as we have with “discoveries” in the past. In the meantime, we need you to keep our existence secret. Can we trust you to do that? Our planet was Gaud. You are all our brothers, the children of Gaud.
All this was getting too much for me, I didn't reckon on all this when I volunteered for the professors expedition, I was looking forward to the dig and the experience would've looked good on my CV but I'm regretting it now, I need to get in touch with the British authorities to get me out of this mess. We only have my tazer now with Terrances gun being turned to dust, maybe it's time I split from the group and make my way to the nearest community and ask for help.....
"No, please don't do that Jessica! It would be unwise and unlikely to succeed. Please stay." said Terry looking at the bronze Venus, "I'm inclined to following Mr Smith's story. Gaud, God, ... Gawd indeed! I know my bible being a good Irish Catholic and don't discount at all Mr Smith's tale, that ultimately his species are our progenitors. I feel its the truth. Our parent race that has come back to save us from ourselves." Blue Mr Smith nodded and smiled. "We are happy to let anyone of you leave, but we'll erase and alter your memories to protect our secrecy. We'll even make you rich and a little famous to compensate you but we'd prefer you considered being agents for us, as Capo and others are. The totally safe oversized Nuclear reactors were deliberately designed and made with the greatest finesse of your current technology, so that one day soon this power complex can be handed over to you, our Human offspring and replicated on a Global scale, and even that may not be enough to save your Earth, your garden of Eden turned into a garbage heap on fire.... wars, famines ...., what a mess." The aspect of our strategy, making ourselves semi public in order to hand over this power complex and design plans, is now looking immanent and we sorely need intelligent humans such as yourselves to act as our go-betweens (agents). Especially now with Humans on Earth, with all its life, teetering on the edge of Extinction."
Victoria spoke, “It is very difficult to keep a secret like this. We will inevitably feel the need to talk about it among ourselves at some point. It is also inevitable that we will be overheard by someone. I think it would be in the best interest of you and Earth people if you alter our memories and let us go.” “Yes,” replied Terence, “perhaps return us to a different area and let us continue our search for the ancient city.” “Very well,” said Mr. Smith. “You will go to sleep. When you wake up, you will be waking up in your tents near Puyo. It will be morning and you will continue your journey.” Good luck locating the city you are looking for.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Victoria yawned and stretched. Daylight was just breaking through the thick canopy of trees above. She stepped outside her tent and smelled coffee. Capo had a fire going and the coffee pot over the flames. “Hola, Miss Victoria.” You are the first one up. Coffee’s ready. Food will be ready soon.” Victoria poured herself a cup of the hot brew and took a sip. “Ummm, good,” she said. She heard the sounds of the others moving in their tents. Soon they were all around the campfire.
You are an early riser Victoria, beat me even, said Richie yawning and wiping his eyes as he left his tent. "We will explore the Mayan temple today. You can join us or conduct your research in the forest, the choice is yours." At that moment Jessica joined the other two and offered to make breakfast. "I have already made coffee, is hot and strong," said Victoria. "I'll take a cup of that" said a sleepy looking Terry. "Sorry I am last up as I slept terribly. I had a nitemare about finding our lost city and discovering it was inhabited by a strange race of people that took us captive."
Terry drank his coffee and soon forgot about his dream. More concerning was the thought of shifting 16 tons of dirt today for the Professor, by shovel. At least Terry had a fine shovel and honed it sharp after any days work with it. Silently he hoped his very hard physical efforts and digging skills would tip Professor Wentworth to give him a B grade for this practical. Maybe?
Put the shovel away Terry. I must see what is inside the Mayan temple first. An hour later the four with LED lanterns entered the darkness of the temple. At the end of a small empty room the found a long corridor which finished with a set of steep steps. At the bottom they shone their lanterns and were confronted with a smallish room. On the far wall was an inscription, clearly Mayan the professor determined and which after a few minutes of deciphering he read as 'enter and find paradise'....
"There has to be an entry point somewhere," said a frustrated Richie. "As the Mayan and other pre-Columbian central American civilizations were influenced by ancient Egypt who is to say that they did not copy the same procedures the Egyptians used to enter or exit the tombs of dead Pharaohs. Most were operated by a sand and stone block method." The Professors theory paid off and later that day after some painstaking trial and error the door was opened and the secret room revealed. Shining their lanterns the four archaeologists were confronted with something that took away their breath. Lining the wall of a large room were the statues of Mayan gods and godesses. Richie later recognized them as Itzamna, Ixchel, Camazoz, Chaactl, Kulkulkan. It was what adorned each of the statues that most mesmerized the four. They were coated in pure gold and adorned with the precious gems, rubies, saphires, emeralds.......