The Gestation Factor

The point I'm trying to make is that I have the knowledge of thousands of years of my race, millions of memories collected from thousands of beings before me. Our memories never die, they're just passed on to the next being that is born. All of those eggs you have will produce a being with the exact same knowledge that I have; the knowledge of millennia, the memories of millions. From this you can deduce that if I share your mind and body that we will also share memories. You will have all the knowledge about Mars that you could ever want and you won't even have to spend all your resources to get it. As a member of NASA you can help me to get back to Mars and you can help me save my own kind. Are you willing to do that Elizabeth?"

The creature was right about one thing, Elizabeth Rogers was an intelligent person and as she walked up the long sidewalk toward the research lab two weeks later, she was much more intelligent than she had been the last time she had worked at the lab. She had a new lab coat, a new title and a new job. She had expected to see her friend Byran at the door waiting for her with some bit of gossip or maybe some information about some amazing and extraordinary discovery someone had made but deep down inside she knew that she would not see him anymore. She did have his memories and those were clearer than they had ever been. She had memories of green fields, great forests and great rivers that flowed through massive canyons under a bright blue Martian sky. She had memories of a tall, slender race of people that lived there paddling their small skidders (boats in the lingo of the Martians) up and down the rivers and streams. If she managed to live to be a million she knew that she could never relive or recall all the memories that she had access to but she would enjoy as many as she could. After all, that was her job now, to document all the memories that she could and write a historical record of the Martian races and their world. Others had been assigned to the project too. There were geologists, astronomers, astrophysicists and others. They didn't have to do any real research now; all they had to do was record what was in her memory.

Her hand found the small tape recorder in her purse that was slung around her shoulders that she used to record her thoughts from time to time. Pushing the record button she began speaking into the microphone as she entered through the sliding doors and walked down the long hallway toward her new office and a new, exciting life. "The early Martians were a warlike people but after several thousand years they had almost completely relieved themselves of all types of conflict," she said but suddenly stopped and flicked off the recording device. The door that had caught her attention had a sign on it. Martian Containment Lab she read. The door was locked but she had access cards to every door there. As the Administrator of the research lab, she had access to almost everything. Holding up the card in front of the card reader, she heard the lock click and the door slid back and she entered.

On a lab table were several large glass-like boxes that resembled aquariums. The only difference was that there wasn't any water in the containers and there was a screen on top of the tanks to keep whatever was in there from getting out and to provide them with fresh air.