“Whoa!”
71
The other three followed Clay in as a rush of stale air blew past, forced outside by the light breeze behind them. Inside, the room was large, reaching well above their heads. Its depth and width quickly disappeared into the darkness. But they barely noticed the room’s size. It was the contents that stunned them, leaving their mouths agape.
The room was radiating a bright green glow. The color looked almost fluorescent. Yet the most startling of all… were the tubes: rows and rows of thick clear tubes, standing nearly ten feet high. Hundreds of tubes. And each was filled with what appeared to be a bright glowing green liquid.
Side by side, all four of them stood in awe, slowly scanning the room.
“Okay,” Caesare murmured. “This is pretty much the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”
“What in the world is this?” whispered Borger.
They stepped further inside, approaching the closest tube. Inside, they could see the glowing liquid, swirling around ever so gently.
Clay looked at the smooth stone floor, appearing green from the hue of the tubes. He brought his right boot forward and gently placed it onto the floor in front of him. He then raised it up again revealing a deep footprint beneath.
Alison peered down and did the same thing, creating a smaller print in the thick layer of dust. “This place,” whispered Alison, “is really old.”
“What are these things?”
Clay shook his head at Borger’s question, dumbfounded.
The green ambient glow revealed a stone ceiling several feet above the top of the tubes. Their clear casing appeared to be thick glass. When Borger reached out to touch one, a ripple of light burst from the glass, and he drew his hand back quickly. “Ouch!”
“Is it hot?”
“No, it’s ice cold.”
Clay moved forward and closed in, just a few inches away. The green glowing fluid was clearly moving. But there was something inside that the fluid was swirling around.
“There’s something in the middle of this tube.”
The others joined him and peered inside. “They look like bubbles,” Alison said. Her voice echoed softly against the thick walls.
“Or tiny spheres.” Caesare raised his head, following the spiraling strands of spheres to the top of the tube. “There’s thousands of them.”
Borger stepped away and examined the next closest tube. “They all have them.” He looked closer. “Wait a minute, there’s something inside of the spheres. It looks like little dots.”
“And different sizes.” Clay slowly circled around the first column and peered at the strands from the other side. “Very different sizes.”
Borger looked more closely, staring intently through his eyeglasses. “You’re right. Some of these are bigger.”
“What do you think they are?”
Borger looked back at Clay. “I think they’re seeds.”
The four moved deeper toward the back of the room. Every tube appeared to have strings of spheres wrapped inside, twisting in a way that reminded Clay of a double helix shape. Although these contained ten or more strands each. “There are no machines in here,” he remarked to the others.
“I don’t see any either. Unless they’re behind the walls.”
“I don’t hear anything. You’d think there would be some kind of sound, even if it were behind a wall.”
Caesare considered it. “If there are no machines, then where’s the power source? What’s keeping all of this cold? And what’s causing the glow? A chemical reaction?”
“That would last this long? You’d have to add more chemicals, but these tubes look like they’re sealed on both ends.”
The four fanned out quietly, examining more of the columns. A few minutes later, Borger called out from the other side of the room. They ran to find him back near the door in the cliff.
“Look at this!”
They peered down at the floor near his feet and could see a faint jagged etching through the dust, making its way to the door.
“What is it?”
Borger touched his finger to it then raised his hand and sniffed. “I think it’s water.”
They turned around and traced the tiny stream back to one of the nearby tubes.”
“Is it leaking?!”
Clay crouched down and checked the glass. “I don’t think so. In fact,” he stood up, looking all the way to the top, “I don’t think it’s the fluid at all.” He spotted a tiny flash near the ceiling. “I think the water found a way inside this cavern, and it’s dripping down this tube and onto the floor; then it trails to the door.”
“I think you’re right.” Borger careened his neck to the ceiling until he saw the same reflection from a drop of falling water. “That’s how it’s seeping back outside and changing the soil.”
Both Clay and Borger observed a tiny flash emitted near the top of the tube each time a drop of water hit the glass.
Alison stared through the tube nearest to her. “So, maybe this glowing liquid is some kind of power source. Or maybe some kind of nutrient.”
“Or maybe it’s both.”
“Hey,” Caesare called from behind them, “come take a look at this.”
They found him a few aisles over, examining some of the spheres. “Take a look at these bubbles right here, closest to the edge. Tell me what they look like to you.”
As soon as they saw what Caesare was pointing at, the others froze.
“Oh my gosh,” Alison whispered. “Those look like some kind of embryos!”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
Instinctively, they all took a step back and scanned the glowing room with a very different expression. One by one, they backed up, retreating toward the door. When they reached it, they made sure it was still open and remained near the exit.
“Alison,” Clay spoke softly. “How old do you think this place is?”
“I have no idea.”
“Just a ballpark.”
She shrugged. “Well, judging from how worn the boulders are outside and the amount of undisturbed dust inside, I’d say pretty old. I don’t think this thing has been opened for hundreds of years, maybe thousands.”
“Will and Steve, in your opinion, is there any possibility that something like this could have been made by us?”
Caesare looked at Borger then shook his head. “Are you kidding?”
Clay nodded pensively. “So, does anyone believe this place is not storing an extraordinary amount of DNA material?”
“DNA that doesn’t belong to us,” added Caesare.
Borger gasped. “Holy cow! It’s another vault!”
“What do you mean ‘another’ vault?”
“I mean the seed vault. In Norway. On the island!” Borger gave them a sarcastic stare when he saw their questioning faces. “You don’t know about the seed vault? The Global Seed Vault! It’s a large complex on a Norwegian island that has been stockpiling copies of seeds for years, from all over the world.”
“Why?”
“To protect them in the event of a major catastrophe. It’s got something like a hundred thousand different seeds, all from different continents. The complex was supposedly built to last hundreds of years.” Borger waved his arms emphatically in front of himself. “That’s what this is! It’s another vault!”
“Whose vault?”
Borger turned to Clay. “Well, clearly not ours. Someone else. An alien race.”
“Another alien race?”
“Why not?” Borger asked. “Remember what Palin said. The amount of water that Earth has is not common, which makes us stand out to anyone who can see us. Like a beacon.”
Alison frowned. “But why would some alien race put copies of their seeds on Earth?”