True to his word, Dr. Stepherson called for a meeting this afternoon in the cafeteria, saying that it might be useful if all of us shared our research so that everyone would understand what the others were doing and so not interfere with the others projects. I caught the subtle insult but said nothing.
We were running through some slight rain at the time, so almost everyone was crowded into the cafeteria. All of the research team members and a good number of the ship’s crew were there.
Dr. Stepherson was setting up something on the TV while Donnie and a short woman were organizing some papers on a table. I recognized her as Aleshia Winters, Dr. Stepherson’s other student, but I hadn’t seen her since the departure party. She hadn’t really been associating with the rest of us so far.
I was at one of the larger, round tables with Patti, Darrin, and Reiko, along with Atiya and her assistant Dr. Anna Chambers. Mitch and Sondra, her other student, were at the next table, along with a few of the crew. Darrin was in a conversation with Anna, and I noticed Reiko glancing in their direction, but she otherwise didn’t seem concerned.
“So,” Atiya was saying. “Which of us gets to present next? Apparently, all of the teams have to present something. And I understand we have you to thank for that!” She glared at me with what I could tell was fake indignation.
I laughed. “Yeah, like any of us need any excuse to talk about what we do.”
“The perils of academia.” She sighed. “But seriously, which of us goes next; you or me?”
“Or all of us or all of you.” I gestured around. “At least we’re running a team effort over here.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She had frowned at that.
I gestured to my team. “We’re working on this together, and I need their help to get my research done. Dr. Stepherson up there…” I tilted my head in his direction. “I think he would be just as happy to not have a full team with him.”
“No,” said Reiko. “He needs his team too. Trust me, he couldn’t have done a fraction of what he’s done. Well, not without Donnie, at least.”
“Yes, but… OK, I kinda suspect he’s been confiding in you a lot. What does he really say?”
I saw her flush slightly at that. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Only that I was a 20-something grad student once too. Trust me, I get it. I’m just… wondering.”
She glared at me for a second or two, then shrugged. “OK. Yeah, he’s kinda upset with Dr. Stepherson. He’s here because this gives him a bunch of credit towards graduation and a bunch of data for his dissertation. But… he’s annoyed because Dr. Stepherson is kinda bad at attributing his sources.”
“Why am I not surprised.”
She paused. “You don’t need a Linguist on your team, do you?”
I laughed. “Not unless he can speak DNA. In which case, there are a lot more people other than me who would be interested in him.
She was about to say something else when Dr. Stepherson coughed, and a microphone squealed. He tapped it once or twice then spoke.
“Can all of you hear me?”
His voice was blasting out of the speakers, and one of the crew ran up and adjusted something. Dr. Stepherson glared until they left then looked back at us again. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes!” someone yelled. There was a bit of laughter, but he continued glaring until everyone was quiet.
“Very well,” he said. He sighed. “We have limited resources here. Specifically, the Arkham itself. It is a shared resource that all of us need access to, some of us more than others. But… since not everyone realizes that…” he was staring directly at me as he said that, “…it appears that I need to explain why my current access to that resource is more important than that of the rest of you.”
He sighed and looked around. Donnie immediately grabbed a stack of papers off the table and handed them to him. Dr. Stepherson shooed him away then glanced through them.
“Yes. Well, for those of you who don’t pay attention, my field of study deals with the spread of ideas. How core concepts, like shared customs, habits, and holidays spread throughout cultures. Specifically, I am trying to record how those were spread before the days of near-instantaneous global communication. Today, someone shares a funny video of a cat falling into a box, and everyone on Earth is laughing at it an hour later. A century ago, stories like that took days or weeks to circulate, and a millennia before that, they took weeks, months, or even years! Those are the stories I am studying. Common threads that are so basic, so universal that they spread around the globe before there was even a network of any kind in place to spread them.”
“Those stories, rituals, habits… those are important. Because their spread wasn’t facilitated, they spread because they spoke to something deep within us. They spread because they are fundamental to us as human beings.”
He paused, fumbling with a remote until an image appeared on the screen. It was a map of the world, with about a half-dozen places marked. He continued.
“What I do is look for commonalities. Common myths, legends, cultural mores, and urban legends, where their commonality cannot be explained by normal trade or communication routes. These things seem to be older, based on some… connection that is now long gone.”
He pointed at the TV. “These places all share a relatively unique but common ritual. In all of them, members of the local area, whether it be a village, a tribe, an ethnic group, or something else, all have a peculiarly common mating ritual. All of them only mate with people from outside of their own local group. There is a specific ritual that takes place at a specific time of the month. During that ritual, the inhabitants of the two villages meet, and, well… procreation is performed at that time. Then, when the children of one village reach a certain age, they always leave to go to the other.”
He flicked a slide. “I have identified nine locations where this particular practice takes place. Two are in the south-west Pacific, one of which is the island we are going to. The others are all along coastlines; in Chile, Costa Rica, Japan, southern Alaska, the northern coast of France, and even an abandoned fishing town in Massachusetts.” He paused, looking out at us.
“Most of these are around the Pacific, so I believe these traditions were spread by seafaring people. The ones in the Atlantic may be explained by occasional ships that found their way around Africa or South America, or they may have been ‘echoes’; ancient rituals someone rediscovered and applied to their local culture.”
“I believe this indicates the existence of an ancient, unknown culture centered among the islands of the Pacific. This would be the sixth ‘original’ culture known to exist. And we may see evidence of it in a few days. That is why it is so vital that we get there on time!” He looked at me as he said that.
“So… what is this culture? Why haven’t we ever heard of it before?” That was someone I didn’t recognize in the audience.
“I believe that this is the culture that gets referred to as ‘Atlantis.’ Or ‘Lemuria’ since it is in the Pacific.”
There was general laughter at that, and I had to suppress a chuckle myself. Seriously?
Dr. Stepherson frowned. “No, I don’t believe that there was a lost continent that somehow vanished in the Pacific. Or any ocean for that matter. But… a civilization that had existed before the ones we know would have left remnants; people would have remembered. And those stories got passed down to us as ‘Atlantis’ or ‘Lemuria’. There was no ‘lost continent,’ but there was a forgotten civilization!”
“And… your evidence for this?”
He pointed at the display angrily. “What do you think I just showed you? There are certain cultural traditions–very specific cultural traditions–that exist around the globe in near-identical forms. These could only exist if there was a single underlying culture that spread them. That is what I want to find?”
I raised a hand. “Maybe it’s just… coincidence?”
“I just told you! These are very specific and very consistent activities. The odds of them being a ‘coincidence’ are so small as to be insignificant.”
“So…” someone else asked. “If this globe-spanning society existed, then why haven’t we found any physical evidence of it? Where are the roads? The ports? Hell, where are the cities?”
He sighed. “Again, I’m not talking about an incredibly advanced culture. I’m not talking about a globe-spanning empire. No, I’m talking about small tribes or communities that had the means to go further than we give them credit for. You’ve seen the longboats used by Polynesian cultures, right? Those things are open-ocean capable. How many of you have been to Hawai’i?” Several people raised their hands, including me. “Well, you no doubt saw their pontoon longboats. They can travel from island to island in those. Actually, they probably got to Hawai’i in boats like that.”
“Every time I talk about a pre-historic global civilization, people think I’m talking about ‘magic’ or ‘space aliens’ or something like the Roman Empire. No. I’m only suggesting that our ‘primitive’ pre-historic ancestors actually had a better understanding of our world than we give them credit for, and were actually capable of traveling greater distances than we commonly believe. I’m not suggesting a new, undiscovered civilization. I’m only trying to give evidence that we were more widely spread, that we were more widely in contact with each other in those pre-historic years than is usually acknowledged. Unfortunately, most places I have tried to present my research treat me as if I am on a History Channel Ancient Aliens series or something. I’m not trying to claim anything extraordinary, only that humanity has had some form of civilization, some kind of contact, for much longer than we have believed.”
“Is that so hard to accept?”
There was a pause. Finally, I spoke.
“Do you believe you will find evidence for this on the island we are going to? ‘Paloma,’ is it?”
He nodded. “Absolutely. If we can see this ceremony. Even record it. Then we have proof. Proof that this matches recorded ceremonies from France in 1940. From Costa Rica in 1937. From Chile in 1932. And from near home in Massachusetts in 1928. Those many recorded instances, combined with the fact that those ceremonies are taking place even today in Polynesia, will be enough to convince enough people to start taking this seriously.”
I thought for a moment. I wasn’t convinced that there was some kind of pre-historic globe-spanning culture that we weren’t aware of. On the other hand, I was confident that he was convinced. Plus… I couldn’t think of anything that I could immediately use to declare him wrong.
“Very well, Dr. Stepherson. I now understand the urgency of getting to Paloma. I won’t request any more delays in our journey.”
“Thank you, Dr. Ferris. I… am glad to hear that you now understand.” He turned slightly. “Dr. Parimala?”
She shrugged. “It never mattered to me. As long as after you get to see this ‘ceremony’ that you don’t insist that we immediately rush back to Boston and allow Kalen and me… Dr. Ferris, to have time to perform our research.”
He shook his head. “Of course not! It isn’t like we are isolated out here. As soon as I get my evidence, I can send it to my colleagues back at Miskatonic. After that… take all the time you need.”
A few others started asking questions, but I really wasn’t listening. I knew that what was being sent back was filtered. Would his report get through? How would Dr. Stepherson react when his report wasn’t immediately accepted? I didn’t know.
My thoughts were interrupted by Atiya. “You aren’t taking any of this seriously, are you?”
I shrugged. “He didn’t say anything that sounded implausible. Why?”
She shook her head. “It’s just that…” She paused, then waved a hand. “Never mind.”
“What?”
“I said, ‘never mind.'”
I frowned at her for a moment, then shrugged and turned my attention back to Dr. Stepherson. He answered a few more questions that didn’t provide any more information that we hadn’t already heard, then ended the presentation. A few people went up to him as he was shutting down, but I turned back to my now warm beer.”
“Do you think he’s being serious?” Reiko asked.
I shrugged again. “Like I just said, he hasn’t said anything that sounded implausible.”
She paused, her brow furrowed in thought. “So… how much credence do you give his ideas?”
“Again, I can’t think of anything that might contradict him. If he’s right… good for him!”
“Would you care to listen to an… alternative theory?”
I frowned at that. “What? You know something about this?”
She hesitated for a second, then nodded. “Yeah. I knew about all of this. Donnie told me. He… can’t help talking sometimes.” She smiled. “Anyway, I have a few ideas of my own. I just need to… get them in some kind of order. Mind if I track you down in a bit and talk to you for a while?”
“Well, sure… I’m your professor and advisor, after all.” I shrugged. “But I basically know nothing about anthropology except how it relates to DNA spread, so I’m not sure what I can say about this.”
“I’m not wanting to know what you think as a scientist; I’m more wanting to know what you think as a person.”
I frowned at that. “You just completely lost me.”
“I’ll explain once I’ve had time to think about it myself.” Before she could say anything more, Donnie came up.
“Hey!” he said. She stood up and gave him a quick hug and kiss.
“You did great!” she said.
He seemed unhappy. “Yeah, well… I wish he had said who had done all of his translations for him.”
“If he doesn’t give you credit when he publishes his results, then we’ll call him on it. Until then… don’t worry about it.”
He sighed. “I hope you’re right. And… You should get some credit too! You helped me understand…” He stopped abruptly and looked around.
Reiko quickly gave him another hug. “Hey… It will be. Listen…” she leaned closer and whispered something. He visibly blushed but smiled and nodded vigorously. She put an arm around him and turned to me.
“Catch up with you later, Doc, OK?”
I waved a hand in her direction. “Not going anywhere.” She waved back, and the two of them left.
Atiya turned to me. “So… do you think any of this has any merit?”
I frowned. “I’ve said a few times now that he didn’t say anything that sounds wrong. Why? Do you know something I don’t?”
“Well… Maybe. I’ll talk to you about it. Later.” She smiled a bit at that.
“It’s a date!” I turned to Darrin and Anna. “So… what do you think?”
Darrin had been watching Reiko but quickly turned back to me. “Yeah… I’m with you. It seems a bit… odd, but I can’t see anything wrong with his theory.” He frowned. “It seems an odd thing to fixate on; one report of a single event from almost 80 years ago.”
“Yeah, I agree.”
He shrugged. “But I’m not an anthropologist either. So… Does this mean we aren’t making any stops on the way out?”
“Yeah, I guess.” It was my turn to shrug. “We’ll have plenty of time on the way back. If Dr. Stepherson’s research requires that we get to one specific place right away? Fine, whatever. We’re scheduled to be out here for three months anyway. He can get his research done right away then be bored while Atiya and I do ours.”
“And if he demands to go back to Boston right away?”
“Then we pull the same thing he’s pulled on us. We need the Arkham to perform our own research. We can just use our own arguments against him.”
He sighed but nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Why? You have a problem with what he is doing?”
He sat up straighter and shook his head. “What? No! Of course not!”
“OK, then. We all have our own reasons to be here. As long as we all get our work done, it doesn’t matter.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Of course.”
“Good.” I wondered what had set him off.
He stood up. “Well, I guess I’ll head out.” He glanced at Anna. “Want to stretch your legs a bit?”
“In the rain?” She was smiling as she spoke.
“Why not? We can dry off later.” She stood up, and the two of them headed for the exit.
I watched them leave then turned to Atiya. “So… what were you wanting to tell me?”
She frowned. “Maybe later. OK?”
I was a bit disappointed but shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.”
“Fine. So… which of us gets to present tomorrow?”
“Maybe not tomorrow; we’re still several days out from Paloma. So, you give your presentation on Friday, and I’ll do mine on Sunday. We should get to the island Monday or Tuesday, so that should fill out the time until then.”
“Yeah, that sounds OK.” I had no idea what I would present, but I figured I could come up with something before then.
“Great!” She looked around. A few people besides us were still in the cafeteria, mostly crowded around the TV that was now showing some music contest show. The others had braved the rain to go back to their cabins or back to work.
“Another beer?” I asked, standing up and starting towards the cooler.
She stood up as well and shook her head. “No, I’ve got to get some reports together to send back. Maybe next time.”
“Yeah, sure. See you.” She nodded and headed for the exit. I went to the cooler, paused, and then went outside myself.
It was raining a bit harder, but I headed aft towards the minisub, climbed the slick ladder to the top, then opened the hatch and dropped inside. The main seat got wet before I could close the hatch again, so I grabbed a beer from my stash then dropped into the aft seat.
I turned off everything except the instrument lighting. I wound up sitting there in the near-dark for a while, drinking and listening to the sound of rain. I now knew what everyone’s projects were, and… none of them seemed to warrant the importance or concern that Dr. Pickman seemed to have placed on this trip. I knew my research would be of use to people in my field, but couldn’t imagine it of general interest. Atiya’s work might also catch the attention of the general science fan, but not much beyond that. And Dr. Stepherson? While he seemed convinced that he was on to something it was more likely to start a few new conspiracy theories than any real scientific ones.
Maybe it was just a result of getting my slot on the ship and having to rush to get ready, getting asked to do the reporting on the trip at the very last second, and then Dr. Pickman’s cryptic comments since, but… something seemed wrong. I don’t know what we are going to find at Paloma, but I don’t think it is what anyone is expecting.