The Khellen Gift
by Innovative Language Learning
2020-08-25 14:29:56
By 2157 Humans had established bases on Luna, Mars, Altair-4 and Epsilon Cygni-5 and their latest exploratory voyage under the command of Captain Susan N'gami had reached the binary Jhoonan system. On Janus, a moon of Jhoona-5, a rock fall killed one...
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By 2157 Humans had established bases on Luna, Mars, Altair-4 and Epsilon Cygni-5 and their latest exploratory voyage under the command of Captain Susan N'gami had reached the binary Jhoonan system. On Janus, a moon of Jhoona-5, a rock fall killed one crew member and seriously injured computer scientist and navigator James Balfour who was rescued and saved from death by the Khellens. The Khellens, from the Cygnus Arm of our galaxy, were on their own voyage of exploration following the path of an ancient race who traversed the galaxy 100,000 years before, establishing bases on several worlds along their path. The Khellens believed these bases included the planets Khellen, Traggha, Khandor, Epsilon Cygni-5 and Terra (Earth) and that the Old Ones had intervened to establish oxygen rich atmospheres and may even have influenced the evolution of selected species. In repairing Balfour, the Khellens had altered his DNA so that he could now use their cell regeneration process to prolong his life and, on his recovery, they met with Susan and the rest of the Terran crew and followed them back to -Cygni-5. There, they offered Humanity the gift of a process and biological agents that would enable humans to greatly increase their longevity through DNA modification. Balfour now a hybrid creature, more Khellen than human, left with the Khellens accompanied by friend and electronics engineer Elias Whitfield who also underwent the DNA changes made to Balfour. When they returned to Terra five years later, having searched for traces of the Old Ones in the -Cygni system, they found chaos. The DNA modification process had not been applied with due care by the six major political Federations on Terra, resulting in 106 million deaths in the Americas, India and the Sino-Asian bloc and there had been mutations and the refusal of some humans to participate leaving Terra with two genetically different "Human" populations. Unable to help resolve the disaster which some humans regarded as an alien
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