“So, Hussain has a magic carpet?”  Alexis appeared to know something, but she did not seem sure what was safe to say. Lord Baba resolved that issue.

“Three sons of Sasan.  Hussain, Ali, and Ahmed.  Hussain found the carpet that used to belong to Mithras.  He was a lazy god.  Maybe the god of laziness.  Ali found a light scope left here by the guardians.”  Baba waved off the questions.  “The guardians are people, of a sort, from the end of the fifth age in the universe.  Four and a half billion years of Earth existence fits into the fifth and sixth ages—mostly the sixth age.  Think of it like this.  From an Earth perspective, the fifth age was planetary formation, and the production of water and other compounds.  The fifth age ended with the creation of planets, like Earth, where life as we know it became possible.  The sixth age is the age of life as we know it—material life, you might say.  Life grew from microbes and invertebrates, like single-celled life, to multi-celled life, plants, and animals like fish and amphibians, leading to reptiles and birds, and us mammals.”

“We met all, or most of those as aliens in our travels.” Katie said.  “Certainly, bird people, reptiles and amphibians.”

“Lincoln Jell-O-Blobs were mostly plants,” Alexis added.

“All sixth age people,” Baba said.  “Maybe people from 6B.  The sixth age might be divided.  6A might be eons of singe-cell life, and 6B plants and animals like we normally think of life.  So you can grasp things more categorically, Earth is four-and-a-half billion years old.  Life on Earth covers about four billion of those years, with 6A covering about three-and-a-half billion years and 6B, the last half-billion.  But keep in mind, the universe is nearer fourteen billion years old.”  Baba pause to think.

“The first age was energy, simple energy, expanding from the point of creation.  Natural law began at that point, including the moral law, but I don’t want to quibble about that.  Within that context there were at least three forces that began at the beginning.  We call them time, gravity, and electro-magnetism.  The energy slowed.  No other way to put that.  “And there was light,” as they say.  Photons: little non-particle/particles that were still energy-like or contained the energy within.  The second age, the age of light went on for a long time.  The age of light ended with the formation of the first stars.  The third age, what some call the age of time, when there became night and day, saw the production of some heavier elements, the formation of neutron stars, and so on, and the first mini explosions, what you might call supernovas, like universal recycling.  The universe began to noticeably age, and the third age, the age of time, ended when the first stars died.  The fourth age, the age of gravity, saw black holes and galaxies formed around them, further slowing the energy.  The fourth age also saw the production of heavy metals and ended with the formation of the first planets, basically gaseous giants, like Jupiter planets, somewhere between planets and almost stars.”

“And the fifth age produced the light scope,” Lockhart said.

“Fifth age beings actually, yes, but in the sixth age.”

“So, what age are we in?” Lincoln asked.  

Baba continued.  “The fifth age would be the age of magnetism, or electromagnetism, like lightning, which is a natural EMP.  The fifth age that formed compounds, in particular water and ammonia, continued up to the production of proteins and other life building blocks.  It happened much earlier on older planets and is only happening now on younger planets.  Then the sixth age produced life as we know it, beginning with microscopic life through single cells and up to multi-celled life, to plants and animals, and finally independent movers and thinker, or what we call people.”

“So, intelligent life is a product of the sixth age,” Tony said, though it was really a question.

Baba shook his head.  “Life that is conscious and intelligent has been since the beginning, mostly just not life as we understand it.  The guardians at the end of the fifth age understood the fifth age, from compounds like water to the development of life’s building blocks, like protein, went on for a long time in some places.  They watched the single celled life that formed the sixth age produce some species that we might call people.  The Arania, for example.  But mostly people formed from multi-cellular life.  We might call 6B the age of people rather than simply part of the age of life.  The guardians at the beginning of the age, however, recognized material life as something fragile, in need of guarding, you might say.”

“So, all of the aliens we have run into, including the Blobs, are age 6B people,” Lincoln said, trying to understand.

“Yes,” Baba said. “The ages are not defined by hard and fast lines.  The age we are calling 6B on Earth began about five-hundred and fifty million years ago during a thing called the Cambrian explosion.  Mammals, however, only begin somewhere around one-hundred and fifty million years ago.  The Diplodachus, with many mammal-like traits, but still mostly reptiles, fit about the middle of that frame, say two-hundred and fifty million years ago.  We really don’t need to go earlier than that.”

“Diplodachus?” Katie wondered, having heard that name, but unable to pinpoint the reference.

“The mass extinction event, at the end of the Cretaceous, happened when that asteroid pounded the Yucatan, some sixty-six million years ago—when the dinosaurs mostly died off.  The Diplodachus were moved off the earth at that time.”  Baba shrugged.  He did not need to get into that long story.

“What about the flood?” Nanette asked.  “That event would put us in the seventh age?”

Baba shook his head again.  “I didn’t mean to suggest that universal ages should be determined by transient events on this little backwater planet; not even when the gods went away in the time of Christ.  Earth has been through several extinction events.  I was just suggesting the last big one as an option for pointing to the modern or mammal part of the sixth age on Earth, specifically.  Just so you can get an idea of how long these ages go on   Out there, in space, fifth age planets are still forming, and sixth age life is still developing.  It isn’t a hard and fast line.”

“So, what about elder and younger races?” Katie asked.  “Elder Stow has called his people an elder race.  How is that determined?”

“Again, not hard and fast lines.  The Gott-Druk and Elenar barely qualify as elder races, even to us Homo Sapiens.  There are many, even before the Diplodachus, that are much older elder races produced on this genesis planet.  Some consider all mammalian derivatives part of the younger races related to the 6B animal life, and some suggest 6B as a seventh age, though six ages are fairly well accepted, universally.  Personally, I hope the seventh age might be an age of rest, when we get there.”  Baba paused to let that idea sink in.  “Anyway, Ali found an abandoned guardian light scope.  With it, we can see what is happening anywhere on the planet.  It isn’t hampered by solid matter.  It sees through trees, rocks, underground, to the bottom of the ocean, or whatever.  The remarkable thing is, after a half-billion years, it still works.  It is how we saw you heading toward the Wolv trap, which you managed to avoid.”

“Lucky us,” Lincoln said.

“So, Hussain found a magic carpet and Ali an eye piece,” Alexis said, wanting to get back on topic.

“You said there were three sons,” Katie remembered.

“What about the third son?” Lockhart wondered.  He could not remember the name.

“Ahmed,” Baba said.  “He found a medical device from the end of the 6A age.  I thought Devya rounded them all up and sent them to Avalon, but he found one.  It is just a round little thing.  They call it an apple.  It has an extensive learning and diagnosis program and heals with a combination of sound and radiation.  It kills viruses and hostile bacteria, typical 6A age life, and regenerates good tissue—healthy single cells—among other things.”

“Cure cancer?”

“Easily,” Baba said.  “The point to remember is it does not belong here in this age.  Something like this can distort the whole course of natural history.  The deeper law says we mammal-like people, us primates, have to make our own way in the universe, discover our own understanding when we are good and ready, and fight our own fights.  People need to learn and earn the future for it to be worth anything.  Just to be given things, free this and free that, is always damaging to the soul.”

“But when something can do so much good,” Alexis began, and seemed to shake her head.  “It must be hard.”

“You have no idea,” Baba said.  “There is room in this universe for miracles, but for the most part, even if the gods have gone away, the rules of the gods still apply.  The gods could lead, guide, encourage, support, and point to the source so people were without excuse; but they could not do it for us.  Too little encouragement and the human race sinks into hopelessness and despair.  Too much, and we become like sheep, unable to think for ourselves, or care for ourselves or one another; expecting everything to simply be done for us.  Too little leads to things like suicide, and floods.  Too much, and we remain two-year-olds for eternity, expecting to be taken care of, always wanting more stuff, never satisfied, and throwing temper tantrums when we don’t get our way.”

“That must be a fine line to have to walk,” Lincoln said, and Alexis agreed.

“The narrow way,” Nanette called it.

“We live by faith, not by sight,” Lockhart said, and Katie agreed.