The Deep Space Scrolls

By ROBERT F. YOUNG

Illustrated by SCHELLING

Robert F. Young, who has so felicitously mined
the fields of mythology for sf themes, poses a
question about one of our most basic racial
memories—and about the nature of our concept of God.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories May 1963
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Following is a transcript of the closed hearing conducted June 18, 1969 by the Special Senate Committee to Survey Space Progress. Committee chairman: Senator Larch. Committee members in attendance: Senators Kuell, Nicholson, and Hewlett. Witness: Lieutenant Colonel Willard S. Greaves, companion-pilot of the Camaraderie 17.

SEN. LARCH: Before getting down to the business on hand, Colonel Greaves, I would like to congratulate you on behalf of my colleagues and myself on your participation in last week's successful orbital flight of the Camaraderie 17. Yours and Commander Perkins' achievement stands out as a glowing landmark on the perilous path which this country is blazing into space. Also, I would like to point out to you that the governing principle behind this committee since its inception one year and three months ago has not been to bury astronauts but to praise them, and that the present investigation is not intended to cast umbrage upon your integrity but to clarify certain aspects of your experience that both we and the public-at-large have found confusing. Now, to proceed: You and Commander Perkins lifted out of New Canaveral in the supercapsule Camaraderie 17 at 0659 hours on the tenth of June, 1969, and began a three-orbit flight the apogee of which was approximately 1,400 miles, the perigee of which was approximately 1,290 miles, and the purpose of which was to test your reactions to deep space—that is, space beyond the perimeter of the orbital flights thus far undertaken—preparatory to the launching of the first manned moon-vehicle. Is that correct, Colonel Greaves?

SEN. LARCH: Exactly when and where during this three-orbit flight did you and Commander Perkins first sight the ghost ship, colonel?

SEN. HEWLETT: Thank you. It is my opinion, senator, that in referring to the ship boarded by Colonel Greaves as a 'ghost ship' we are lending too large an ear to the somewhat sensational nomenclature with which the press has discolored the incident, and are peradventure implying official sanction to irresponsible reporting. Therefore, I recommend that in the future, or until such time as evidence justifies a more specific appellation, we allude to the object in question by the designation first accorded it by the officials at New Canaveral: 'Spaceship X'.

SEN. LARCH: Very well, senator. I will repeat the question: Exactly when and where during this three-orbit flight, Colonel Greaves, did you and Commander Perkins first sight Spaceship X?

LT. COL. GREAVES: On the first pass, just after we reported in to central control via the Australian relay station. In accordance with instructions, Perk—Commander Perkins, that is—had taken the capsule off automatic attitude control and begun an experimental series of rolls, pitches, and yaws on manual control. We had no idea of the—of Spaceship X's presence till it appeared suddenly upon the periscope screen. Instantly Perk stabilized the capsule in its present attitude and began making the minute attitudinal adjustments necessary to keep the image on the screen.

SEN. LARCH: What was the position of the ship with relation to the Camaraderie 17?

LT. COL. GREAVES: It was about half a mile 'above' and behind us, and slightly to the north of our trajectory. We saw at once that it was gradually overtaking us and that we were gradually rising to meet it.

LT. COL. GREAVES: That Spaceship X was traveling at a greater velocity than the Camaraderie 17, and that its orbit considerably exceeded our own. However, owing to the eccentricity of our orbit, the two trajectories were approaching, and would parallel each other before, during, and slightly after apogee, during which time the two spacecraft would be close enough to each other to permit a boarding attempt.

LT. COL. GREAVES: Yes. It was roughly cylindrical in shape, and constructed of a dead-black, nonreflective metal. Only one viewport was visible to us—a small one just aft of the lock—and this viewport proved to be the only one the ship possessed. Perk and I estimated the vessel's length at about five hundred feet, its breadth at about eighty-five feet, and its depth—as I said, it was only roughly cylindrical—at about fifty feet. In view of later developments, I think it safe to say that these estimates were close to being one-hundred percent correct.

SEN. LARCH: Are you positive that they are your original estimates, colonel? Are you certain that you did not revise them in order to substantiate the conclusion you arrived at after boarding the vessel?

SEN. KUELL: Colonel Greaves, I'm sure you realize what a grave bearing yours and Commander Perkins' discovery can have upon religious beliefs throughout the world should the conclusion you arrived at prove to be correct. Therefore, I'm sure that you won't take it amiss if I press this matter of dimensions a bit further. Now a cubit, as all of us present are well aware of, represents the length of the human arm from the end of the middle finger to the elbow—a matter of from eighteen to twenty-two inches. We have, in other words, a variation of five inches. Hence three hundred cubits, broken down into feet, varies from four hundred and fifty feet to five hundred and fifty feet; fifty cubits, broken down into feet, varies from seventy-five feet to ninety-one and one half feet; and thirty cubits, broken down into feet, varies from forty-five feet to fifty-five feet. Now, if we calculate the average of each of these sets of figures, we arrive at the following dimensions: length—five hundred feet; breadth—eighty-three and one fourth feet; and depth or height—fifty feet. Does it not strike you as being highly significant, Colonel Greaves, that yours and Commander Perkins' estimates should have thus fortuitously approximated—and two cases actually have coincided with—these figures, and isn't it reasonable to assume that you revised your true original estimates so that they would accord with your subsequent theory as to the nature of Spaceship X, and that the actual dimensions of Spaceship X may be altogether different from those which you ascribe to it?

LT. COL. GREAVES: Again, I can only say that the estimates I gave you were our original estimates. We had no need to revise them and we would not have revised them even if the need had arisen.

SEN. KUELL: Then why weren't they radioed back to central control coincidentally with your announcement that you had sighted—and I use your own words—'what appears to be a spaceship of stupendous proportions'? Why were they withheld until after you had re-boarded the Camaraderie 17?

LT. COL. GREAVES: They were not withheld in the sense that you imply. Perk and I simply decided that it would be better to wait until we approached Spaceship X more closely before radioing in a detailed description, but when the time came, we were so busy making preparations for boarding that we forgot the matter completely.

SEN. KUELL: Thank you, colonel. Please proceed with your questioning, Senator Larch.

SEN. LARCH: Tell me, Colonel Greaves—why were you and Commander Perkins so determined to board Spaceship X?

LT. COL. GREAVES: Because we knew that this would be our only chance. The difference in the two orbits was such that the forthcoming juxtaposition of the two craft could not occur again for weeks and possibly months and consequently could not occur again at all since our flight was limited to three orbits. In addition, there was the strong possibility that Spaceship X, owing to the nonreflective nature of the metal of which it was constructed, might never be relocated. It had, after all, gone undetected up till now. We felt that the situation had all of the earmarks of a heaven-sent opportunity, and that it would be a shame not to take advantage of it.

SEN. LARCH: Did it not occur to you that the vessel might be an advanced Vostok model of some kind, and that it might be manned?

LT. COL. GREAVES: We knew without even having to discuss the matter that while the Russians would have been capable of building such a ship, launching it with their present boosters would have been out of the question.

SEN. LARCH: But it did occur to you that the vessel might be manned by, shall we say, extra-terrestrial intelligences?

LT. COL. GREAVES: Yes it did. As a matter of fact, we were convinced that it must be manned by beings of some sort—until we got close enough to see the meteor holes in the hull. We knew then that while it might once have been manned, it was manned no more—save, perhaps, by dead men. We also knew that in order for it to have suffered that many meteor penetrations, it must have been in space for millennia.

SEN. LARCH: You assumed this latter contingency—isn't that what you mean, colonel? You couldn't possibly have known it for a certainty.

SEN. LARCH: Let's get down to those later developments, shall we? Suppose we start from the moment you radioed the news of your discovery back to central control. What did you do then?

LT. COL. GREAVES: We estimated when juxtaposition would occur and how long it would endure, then radioed the information back to central control together with the information that this was the only time during our flight that it could occur. Finally we requested permission for one of us to board the other craft.

SEN. LARCH: I understand that you stated that in view of the fact that the ship was unmanned and that its attitude was relatively stable, the danger involved would be negligible. Was this entirely true, colonel?

LT. COL. GREAVES: Entirely. As you know, senator, orbital rendezvous have been achieved many times, both by this country and by the Soviet Union, and in several instances actual transference has taken place. The instance in question seems dangerous merely because the rendezvous was fortuitous rather than planned. Fortuitous or not, however, it posed no unusual problems, and there were two possible means of entry virtually staring us in the face.

SEN. LARCH: During your press interview, you referred to one of these entry points as a 'boat bay'. Will you elaborate further?

LT. COL. GREAVES: Yes. It was a large recessed area in the hull where the auxiliary craft used by the passengers and the crew when they disembarked had been moored. A lock gave onto this area, and I was reasonably certain that I could burn my way into the ship with the small acetylene torch that was part of the Camaraderie 17's hardware. This seems a rather naive assumption on my part in the light of the analysis of the fragment of metal I brought back, but I had no way of knowing at the time that the hull, however susceptible it might be to meteors, was utterly impervious in a number of other respects. In any event, as matters turned out I didn't have to use the torch, for the boat-bay lock had been improperly sealed by the last person to disembark.

SEN. NICHOLSON: Senator Larch, I would like to have the floor for a few moments.

SEN. NICHOLSON: To return to this sample piece of metal you brought back with you, Colonel Greaves: During your press interview you described it as 'a fragment of gopherwood'. In all honesty, colonel, don't you think that this was a rather flippant and ill-considered remark, and that by making it, you lent undue credence to what was—and is—at best, an exceedingly tenuous theory?

LT. COL. GREAVES: I do not consider the remark to have been either flippant or ill-considered. I was asked what I thought the metal was, and I gave an honest answer. Furthermore, my immediate superiors agree with me. Gopherwood has never been identified, and the term could very well refer to the alloy that went into the construction of Spaceship X.

SEN. NICHOLSON: I shudder to think of the blow our international prestige will receive should the scrolls you brought back with you fail to validate your conclusions. Our space program will become the laughingstock of the entire world. I simply cannot understand why greater secrecy was not employed in this matter.

LT. COL. GREAVES: Too much of the story had already been made public through radio and television coverage to make denying it practicable. In any event, I'm certain that the scrolls will provide the necessary proof. According to Dr. Noyes, they contain similarities to one of the early Mediterranean alphabets, and this certainly suggests that the descendants of whoever wrote them must have had something to do with the development of that alphabet.

SEN. LARCH: I will proceed then. You and Commander Perkins are of equal rank, Colonel Greaves. May I ask how you ascertained which of you would do the boarding after authorization to do so came through?

LT. COL. GREAVES: Flipping a coin was out of the question of course, and we had no straws or matches. Finally we agreed that since our wives were of similar build and height, each of us would write down his wife's weight on a slip of paper, and that the one of us whose wife weighed the most would do the boarding. We promised to be completely honest about this. I won by a margin of three pounds.

SEN. LARCH: I see. And have you apprised your wife of this ... ah ... modus operandi?

SEN. LARCH: A wise decision indeed. And now, colonel, will you tell us what you did and what you found after boarding Spaceship X?

LT. COL. GREAVES: As I mentioned earlier, the boat-bay lock had been improperly sealed. Consequently I had no trouble opening it. The inner boat-bay lock proved to have been improperly sealed also, and I concluded from this that the action in both cases had been deliberate—that Spaceship X had not only been abandoned, but that it had been abandoned in such a way as to make future use of it impossible. After entering the ship proper, I found myself in a short passageway. I floated along it, pulling myself forward by means of this protuberance and that and propelling myself, whenever possible, by pushing against the bulkheads with my feet. There was no light save for an occasional ray of starlight seeping through the meteor perforations, and my only effective means of illumination was the electric torch I had brought with me from the Camaraderie 17. It left much to be desired. Presently the passageway gave into a large chamber which, judging from its rows of bolted-down benches and its centrally located dais, was a meeting hall of some kind. I did not linger there—Perk and I had estimated that at most I had only fifteen minutes to carry out my explorations—but turned, and proceeded aft, entering another passageway, this one much higher and longer than the first. On either side, compartments were arranged in tiers, and each of the tiers above deck-level was fronted by a catwalk. I entered several of the compartments and looked around, but I saw nothing in each case but a bunk-like bed and a small chest. The beds were bare, and the chests were empty. Continuing on down the passageway, I came to another chamber, this one, judging from its bolted-down tables and benches, and the utensils drifting about, a combination dining room and galley. Again, I did not linger. My primary interest was the power source that had once propelled, illuminated and heated the ship, and had provided it with artificial gravity, and I reasoned that I would find this source in the stern. I was right, but before I located it I came to still another chamber. This one was huge, and it was filled with cages. All of them were empty, but they set me to thinking. For one thing, there were hundreds of them. For another, they ranged in size from tiny to titanic. For another, each of them struck me as having been built to accommodate not one animal, but two or more. I remembered the innumerable meteor penetrations, and the great age they implied. I remembered that in the vacuum and in the absolute zero of space, corrosion and decay are unknown and that under such conditions objects can be preserved for millennia. I remembered the dimensions of the ship. It couldn't be, and yet—

SEN. LARCH: Please confine your account to what you saw and what you did, Colonel Greaves.

LT. COL. GREAVES: Very well. The chamber housing the power source, when I finally located it, proved to be quite small. The source itself was an ion motor. It had been thoroughly and deliberately smashed, and both its condition and its advanced design prevented me from being able to tell very much about it, but I could tell, nevertheless, that while it had been capable of powering the ship in space, it could never have launched the ship from a planet, assuming that said planet's gravity approximated Earth's. Launching a ship the size of that one took some doing, and I take off my hat to the technicians who accomplished it.

LT. COL. GREAVES: I have reason to believe otherwise, but if they had, I'd still take my hat off to them.

SEN. LARCH: All of which indicates, does it not, that we are dealing with a race of people scientifically superior to our own.

SEN. LARCH: Then, assuming for the moment that your theory is valid, doesn't it strike you as highly improbable that the sole survivors of so scientifically advanced a race would, immediately after landing on Earth, take up primitive husbandry?

LT. COL. GREAVES: No, it does not. I think that in undertaking the voyage to Earth, the passengers and the crew of Spaceship X meant to leave far more behind them than the natural catastrophe—probably a tectonic revolution—that had occasioned their exodus. I think that they meant to leave behind them a way of life which they had come to loathe because it had supplied them with false gods, and I think that once they landed on Earth and dispersed, they threw this way of life over their shoulders and deliberately reverted to the thoughtworld and the religious cosmogony of their remote ancestors. In other words, I think that they used the natural disaster that forced them to migrate to another planet as an excuse to begin all over again, and that they burned their bridges behind them so that they would have to begin all over again. Probably they blew up the auxiliary craft, or lifeboat, and every technological gadget it contained the very same day they landed.... Earth, in those days, must have seemed like a promised land indeed. Green, fertile, relatively unpeopled.... They had no way of knowing, probably, that inter-marriage with the natives would soon decimate their average life-expectancy.

SEN. LARCH: Wouldn't you say that you're indulging in some rather wild surmises, Colonel Greaves?

LT. COL. GREAVES: Not at all. I think that the find I made shortly after returning to the forward part of the ship justifies everything I've said.

SEN. LARCH: You're referring, no doubt, to the 'dove'. Very well—go on, Colonel Greaves.

LT. COL. GREAVES: I had some five minutes remaining when I got back to the large hall from which I had begun my explorations, and I knew that I would have to hurry if I expected to see the rest of the ship. Crossing the hall, I passed through a wide entrance and found myself at the base of a spiral companionway. I propelled myself up the metal stairs, and a few minutes later, found myself on the bridge. The first object my torch beam picked up was a huge viewscreen. When activated, it must have provided a splendid view of space, but now of course the screen was blank. Next to the screen stood a long desk, and on this desk lay the ship's log—the metallic scrolls which had been left behind (deliberately, I believe) and which are now being deciphered by Dr. Noyes and his staff. In addition to the viewscreen and the desk, the bridge contained a complex sextant, and an instrument panel so intricate that compared to it, our panel on the Camaraderie 17 seemed like a primitive abacus. To the right of the panel, a doorway opened into another sequence of compartments. As there were only four of them and as they were obviously much more spacious than the previous compartments I had found, I concluded that I had blundered into officers' country. One of the compartments appeared to be considerably larger than the other three, and believing it to be the captain's, I looked into it first. I learned nothing beyond the fact that two people, not one, had occupied it. I found this to be the case with the three remaining compartments, and concluded that the four officers had had their wives with them. Finally I returned to the bridge. I had only two minutes to go now, and I probably would have propelled myself straight back down the companionway (I had already taken possession of the scrolls) if the 'dove' hadn't caught my eye. That's exactly what I thought of when my torch beam picked up the object bracketed to the bulkhead—a dove. A dove in flight. Investigating, I learned that it was a streamlined telescopic camera the lens of which were probably located somewhere in the ventral region of the hull. The 'wings' were merely a device for centering the image and focusing the lens, while the 'body' provided the housing for the automatic developing unit and served as a receptacle for the finished photograph. The final photograph to have been taken and never been removed, and it stood out vividly in the beam of my torch. It was a photograph of an olive grove. By now, my time had just about run out, and I removed the photograph from the 'dove', returned to the boat-bay area, picking up a fragment of meteor-dislodged metal on my way, and regained the Camaraderie 17.

SEN. KUELL: It is imperative that I interpose a few words at this point, Senator Larch.

SEN. KUELL: Colonel Greaves, I am of course familiar with this photograph you brought back, but, while the general trend of your reasoning is apparent to me, I cannot comprehend how so insignificant a discovery could have set so unorthodox a train of thought in motion. The fact that the photograph depicts an olive grove means absolutely nothing, even when brought into juxtaposition with the concomitant fact that the camera used in taking and developing it was shaped like a dove. How could you possibly have arrived at the conclusion you did?

LT. COL. GREAVES: Because my 'train of thought', as you call it, was already in motion and had been in motion for some time. The camera and the photograph were merely the final clues in a whole series of clues: the ship's dimensions, its obvious age, the cages, the large compartment in the officers' section, and the three smaller ones.... With the discovery of the camera and the photograph, everything fell into place.

SEN. KUELL: Everything, colonel? I can think of any number of details that your theory does not explain. What of Xithuthros, Prithu, and Ut-napishtim? What of Deucalion and Pyrrha? Would you have me believe that they were aboard this streamlined space-scow of yours?

LT. COL. GREAVES: In a sense they were. All versions of the legend are based on handed-down memories of the voyage of Spaceship X from Planet X to Earth, but the concept of space being beyond the scope of primitive minds, the two planets were made into one, and the survivors of the disaster were pictured not as fleeing from one planet to another, but as sweating out the debacle in a craft that never left Earth. The religious cosmogony which the survivors reverted to after spreading out among the early civilized sectors of the world was adapted in various ways, but the most authentic version, I believe, comes down to us through Genesis, since it was in the region that later became known as Judea that the captain of Spaceship X and his three officers settled down.

SEN. KUELL: All of this is pure conjecture, colonel. You haven't so much as a single fact to go on.

LT. COL. GREAVES: You're forgetting—are you not, senator?—that a blow-up of the photograph of the olive grove revealed several pieces of pottery in good condition that the experts agreed dated from the late Neolithic Period.

SEN. KUELL: You're forgetting—are you not, colonel?—that a vast difference exists between an olive grove and an olive leaf. And how do you explain why these ancient voyageurs of yours brought animals with them? More important, how do you explain what became of these animals? Surely if they had been landed, some evidence of them would remain, and just as surely, that evidence would have come to light by now.

LT. COL. GREAVES: Maybe they were brought along out of compassion. More probably, they were brought along because the survivors were flesh-eaters. In either case, you can be certain that they were transported from the mother-ship to Earth. As to why no evidence of their existence has ever been found, isn't it reasonable to assume that Planet X paralleled Earth in lower, as well as higher, forms of life?

SEN. KUELL: Only if you're trying to shore up a theory that is about to collapse. But it will do you no good, Colonel Greaves: the text of Genesis confutes your entire contention.

LT. COL. GREAVES: On the contrary, the text of Genesis substantiates my contention. Let me quote one or two passages by way of illustration. '—the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.' This is race memory coming to the fore in the form of an imagery so strong that it survives translation, and with the aid of a little imagination, the passage can be interpreted to mean that all is in readiness for the launching. 'And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth: and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered'. If you will substitute 'distances' for 'waters' and 'over' for 'upon', you will obtain a fairly clear mental picture of a planet fading from sight in the viewscreen of a departing spaceship. And how about the 'stories' referred to in the building specification? '—with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it'? Those weren't 'stories', senator—they were stages. Rocket stages. The number of rocket stages that would be required to launch a ship the size of Spaceship X into space.

SEN. KUELL: I submit, colonel, that your reasoning is defective. I submit furthermore that it is not the sort of reasoning which normal well-adjusted Americans indulge in, and I hereby recommend to this committee that both yours and Commander Perkins' qualifications be reexamined at the earliest possible opportunity and that both of you be relieved from duty until such time as it can satisfactorily be proven that both of you have recovered from your hallucinatory experience.

LT. COL. GREAVES: But the scrolls I brought back aren't hallucinatory, senator. Neither is the fragment of—of—yes, of gopherwood. And certainly the photograph is real enough.

SEN. KUELL: Granted. But I have grave doubts about some of the other items you have called to our attention. I'm afraid you're going to be in for a rather rude awakening, Colonel Greaves, when Dr. Noyes and his staff finish deciphering the scrolls. Gopherwood indeed!

SEN. LARCH: Excuse me, senator. I have just been handed a telegram from Dr. Noyes. It—it would appear that they have deciphered the scrolls already. I will read the telegram aloud: 'Deep Space Scrolls prove Spaceship X to be Noah's Ark beyond vestige of a doubt—Noyes'.

SEN. NICHOLSON: I hereby resolve that this hearing be adjourned and that a transcript of the proceedings be made public immediately.

SEN. KUELL: Gentlemen, I implore you not to act hastily in this matter. Don't you see that if we accept Dr. Noyes' word as final, we will be obligated to accept as fact that the concept of one God did not originate on Earth, but somewhere out there in the wastes of space? We will be obligated to admit that Earth was not the purpose of all creation, but only a sort of afterthought?

SEN. HEWLETT: Gentlemen, I emphatically disagree. We are now obligated to do what we should have done before: to really accept God as the creator of the universe as we have come to know it. I hereby move that we shed our geocentric cloaks once and for all and start looking upon space not as a bête noir which circumstance and the Soviet Union have forced us to come to grips with but as a great star-flowered sea upon which we should have ventured long ago. That God is far beyond the pale of our picayune conception of Him is a fact that we have known all along but which we have refused to live with because we would have had Him be as small and as petty as we are. Let us resolve from this moment on that when we say 'Almighty' we mean 'Almighty' beyond peradventure of a doubt. Gentlemen, we have roots among the stars! Let us lift off from this dust mote on the doorstep of reality and wing our way into the majestic hall of universe and go asearching for the planet of our birth!