ENCOUNTER by Hep Aldridge (bill gates books recommendations .txt) 📕

around the campsite. Not too bad, I thought, and tomorrow’s another day in an amazing paradise…

Chapter Twenty-Seven

We arrived at the meeting room the next morning with the strange crystal in hand. Ever since it was given to us by Father Gonzalez, along with the cryptic notes he had found with it, we had wondered about its origin and use. There was a table set up in the meeting room, and when Jeannie appeared, we were instructed to place the crystal on it. And there it sat for the next three days as our questions about it went unanswered.

Jeannie did spend the time, as promised, educating us on the ancient history of our world and telling us more about hers. She obligingly answered our questions and provided information we so anxiously awaited, except about the crystal. We learned her home planet was called Theria, and it was over eight thousand light-years from Earth. She also explained, in basic terms we could understand, the functioning of their Star drive. They used the Zero-Point Energy to create a bubble around their ships that bent time and space and allowed them faster than light speed, but it required a tremendous amount of energy. She said our scientists were on the right track with the concept of space being malleable and not just a linear concept. The drive they created, powered by Zero-Point Energy, allowed them to fold space and travel in a non-linear fashion. The time it took to cover that eight thousand light-years from her planet to Earth was therefore accomplished in days, not eons.

We understood the basics of what she was saying, but she had to stop her explanations when she got into areas beyond our comprehension. She did, however, let us know our static laws of physics were one of the things holding our scientific advancement back, and it would take some time for us to realize that our laws were constraints more than benefits.

Joe got all excited and said, “I knew it! Remember when I told those scientists at Fitz’s lab that maybe our laws of physics didn’t apply to our understanding of the silver cubes? I was right, Ha.”

She also informed us that there were many space-faring races; many of them had, and still do visit Earth. When questioned about their mode of travel, she answered that it is as varied as their cultures are to our own.

We found out that her planet’s scientific discovery of increasing life expectancy quickly led to an overpopulation crisis, and necessity was the driving force behind the creation of interstellar space travel tens of thousands of years ago.

I felt like a kid watching a Sci-Fi movie as these revelations and concepts bombarded my brain, yet some of them seemed very familiar.

Jeannie said that the first group of visitors to our planet were scientists and colonists. They found humanoid lifeforms but observed them from afar for thousands of years, not wanting to interrupt the evolutionary development here. They established outposts and flourished without interference or intrusion in either direction, totally unknown to the indigenous races. Many planets were found to be habitable, so their civilization was able to expand without destroying their home world. A balance had been achieved. Unfortunately, not all expansions or population resettlements went smoothly, she pointed out.

She projected a 3-D image of Earth in the room. As it slowly rotated, red dots began appearing on its surface in every continent, including Antarctica and the North Pole. She informed us that these were the locations of the early outposts. Over the millennia, many outposts had to move due to severe climate change and rising sea levels. Some became too inhospitable for them to continue, so they were abandoned, and the settlers moved to other areas.

I asked Jeannie, “How large were the outposts, and are there any remnants or buildings left?”

“Some were large and some smaller, from thousands of settlers to a few hundred. The larger ones did leave structures intact, but they have been ravaged by time, and little if anything remains. Some have been covered by water and others by ice, shifting sands, and earth, and others by the jungles and vegetation that has engulfed them.

By the end of our first day of “class,” we were all going into information overload. Our minds were having to make room for these new revelations and try to build mental bridges between what we had been taught and what we had just learned from Jeannie. More often than not, we were introduced to contradicting concepts or facts as we knew them.

We were standing around, shaking our heads, and trying to sort things out when Jeannie informed us Dimitri was awake and ready to rejoin the group. Now, this was something that we could easily grasp, and we turned our attention to seeing him as we excitedly headed to the medical building.

Jeannie, of course, had beaten us there and had Dimitri sitting up. She was still looking at the display overhead as we entered but seemed satisfied as it winked out.

“He has done well, and his recovery is complete,” she told us as a grinning Dimitri greeted us.

“Hey, guys, miss me?” he jovially asked as we greeted him with hugs, handshakes, and a couple of kisses from the ladies.

He had been cleaned up since we saw him last. His clothes had been swapped out with a long tunic and pants of a pastel blue color and slippers. His old clothes, those that could be saved, had been cleaned and were next to him, folded in a neat pile with his boots.

“Welcome back, you crazy Cossack,” I said, “you’ve got some catching up to do.”

“Naw, I’m up to speed. Jeannie has kept me in the loop, even when I was sleeping. I have heard and seen everything you have, so I’m good to go. Pretty cool, huh?”

I looked at Jeannie, who was smiling, and back at my good friend, whom she had snatched from the arms of the Grim Reaper himself and said, “Yeah,