The Hyadeans had made the same observations. Having neither supernatural nor secular fundamentalism to defend, they accepted the evidence as meaning what it said and concluded that living organisms were constructed on planetary surfaces from local materials under the direction of genetic information with which space was seeded. These incoming code units were combined into complex genetic programs that built organisms suited to local conditions. Infection was the principal mechanism for spreading new genetic combinations around and establishing initially compatible breeding populations—much faster and more efficient than sexual transmission, the slowness of which was another problem with Terran theory—especially given that the enormous time spans contrived to make it seem plausible were wrong anyway. The programs were ruggedly constructed in possessing a degree of adaptability to cope with environmental fluctuations, and this had been extrapolated into an explanation of everything.
The upshot was that similar kinds of places would originate similar kinds of life. Life did indeed evolve on planets, but not in the way Terran scientists had thought. Chryse was roughly like Earth, even if worn down and not reworked as recently, and that was why Hyadeans were roughly like humans.
Since they had never observed genetic information originating either through a mechanistic or an intelligently guided process, the Hyadeans hadn’t asked how it came together in the first place. About the only possibility they seemed to have considered was that it could be an advanced culture’s way of propagating itself through the galaxy using a radically different form of starship. Where that culture might have come from wasn’t the kind of thing that Hyadeans were going to spend a lifetime worrying about.
Hence, the Hyadeans rejected Terran evolutionary theory as a construct having more to do with Earth’s political religions than scientific reality. What captivated them, however, and came as a totally new revelation to their thinking, even if the Terrans who had first dreamed it up were now rejecting it, was the concept that life itself might have a purpose. So while Terrans were contriving mechanisms to deny all the meaning in, and reasons for, existence that they had once believed, the Hyadeans were discovering questions that it had never occurred to them to ask.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
IN THE ROOM THAT HE had just about taken over as his permanent office in the Hyadean West Coast Trade and Cultural Mission in Los Angeles, Michael Blair hung up after taking a call from Krossig, now established in Australia, and pushed his chair back from the desk to stretch. The Hyadean scientific station was on the outskirts of Cairns, in the northeastern coastal highlands of Queensland, which over the last twenty years had grown into a sprawling, medium-size township of cosmopolitan flavor following “discovery” of the region by wealthy escapees from Asia, the U.S., and elsewhere, attracted by the region’s combination of independence, rugged informality, and the chance of a quiet life. His previous experiences having been limited to the U.S., Krossig was rapturing about the racial variety and contrasts of lifestyle that he was finding here. Blair had assured him there was a lot more of Earth to be sampled yet.
The latest home news was that Texas had declared for the Federation. The Eastern part of the country was staking claim to legitimacy by resurrecting the Civil War term “Union” and threatening the use of armed force to suppress what it insisted was rebellion. Federation spokespersons, by contrast, referred to it as the “Globalist puppet regime” to emphasize its non-American underpinnings and backing. Already, the Union was challenging the Federation’s hegemony by sending armored units forward between the Mississippi and Dallas, and flying provocative military demonstrations over the seceded territory. There were rumors that Mexico was already under Globalist diplomatic pressure to allow supporting operations from the south. To the north, Federation forces, for their part, were advancing eastward to secure a flank along Lake Superior. What Canada would do, nobody knew.
Although it had been threatened for some time, the secession when it finally happened had come with a suddenness that took everyone by surprise. And the Hyadean mission in Los Angeles, due to its being in unusual circumstances at the time, had played a big part in bringing it about.