Free Odyssey One 5: Warrior King by Evan Currie

with the term. Do you mean by God?” Eric asked.
    “Possible, though I have difficulty believing in the idea of an interactive God,” she said with a frown. “At least if we’re talking about the Christian god.”
    “You have something against Christians?” Eric asked mildly.
    “No sir. However, the Judeo-Christian god is atypical in our cultural history,” Miram said. “Most ancient gods were just . . . us, but more so. Thor, Ares, Kali: these are all people with godly powers. Even the modern incarnations of those religions share those traits. Those gods have flaws, limits. Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah: that god was different, unique really. A single deity that incorporated all the disparate gods before it, a supergod if you will.”
    “I’m really not following,” Eric admitted.
    “The supreme creator has an inherent . . . problem,” she said. “By definition, such an entity must exist outside our frame of reference. You can’t create the universe if you’re part of the universe, so I have a problem with the idea of such a creator getting involved on a personal level.”
    “You don’t have a problem with the other gods?” Eric asked, genuinely curious.
    “Not at all,” she answered. “Speaking philosophically, any of the other gods you care to name is really nothing more than a human with power. Go back four thousand years with this ship, Captain, and you could proclaim yourself king of the gods and all of us your children . . . and not a soul on the planet could argue.”
    “Fair enough,” Eric conceded.
    He wondered how that fit into the puzzle he was trying to figure out, but frankly didn’t have a clue.
    “So, when you say guided evolution, you’re thinking something like those other gods?” he suggested.
    “Yes, more or less. The theory that someone has tinkered with our evolution isn’t a new one, though it’s not really been one of the most respected of hypotheses. Mostly only fringe types believe it, largely because it’s based entirely on little more than wishful thinking and questionable pattern recognition. People don’t like the idea that they came from random chance.”
    Eric smiled. “So maybe they have some evidence now?”
    “Maybe. However, it’s still circumstantial. Right now we only have two correlating data points with no causal link as of yet,” Miram said, “and in all the years since we mapped the human genome, and the genome of countless other animals on Earth, we’ve found no sign of any tinkering. If someone had come along a hundred thousand years ago and decided to elevate us, we’d find evidence of it, sir.”
    “Certain of that?”
    “Yes sir,” Miram said.
    “That just means someone did it earlier,” Eric said, “ much earlier.”
    Miram considered that for a moment. “It would have to be . . . seven million years ago, or more, Captain? The half-life of DNA is a little over five hundred years . . . total obliteration is in a maximum of almost seven million years.”
    “So if someone wanted to elevate us, and do it without a trace, they’d have to have done it over seven million years ago,” Eric said.
    Miram pursed her lips. “In theory, yes, sir.”
    Eric shook his head. “That’s a long time to wait for a plan to come to fruition.”
    “And it doesn’t explain the Priminae not having any early history,” Miram said.
    “Don’t I know it,” Eric replied. “Which leaves me back at square one.”
    “Why the sudden interest, if I might ask, Captain?”
    “I told you, Commander,” Eric said, “something just doesn’t sit right about the Priminae.”
    She looked at him evenly for a long time, then slowly nodded. “Aye aye, sir.”
    Eric turned back to his research and stared for a moment before saving the search to his personal folder and flicking the display back over to the navigation telemetry for the ship.
    He’d try to figure out Central and Gaia another time. Right now, they had a real mission to work on.
    Three hours