Our newfound focus was not just inward. Telepathy allowed us access to all of New Eden, including its recorded history, and we soon discovered the aliens’ society had been a dichotomy of existence.

Long before we arrived, the world we had named Xibalba had been a planet influenced by two distinctly different cultures. The first was the transhuman race responsible for constructing the floating city. The dwellings, the landscaping, the agricultural pods and environmental controls—all were designed for these beings. Little was known of their origin, but it was obvious they had cultivated their domain over thousands, perhaps millions of years. They were space travelers, masters of genetics, and were far superior to us in every way.

At some point in Xibalban history, a fantastic scientific discovery was made that allowed these ever-curious transhumans to transcend their third-dimensional physical world and enter the realm of the spiritual. The decision to pursue or ban this science would split the Xibalban race in two. The group that rebelled against the discovery would leave the planet, traveling to God-knows-where, while the other group remained behind, intent on evolving beyond their physical forms to walk in God’s shadow.

Self-programming, immortal, and unlimited in power—the group that remained behind would evolve into the posthumans. The beings held within the cryogenic pods were their physical remains.

It is the traces of posthuman DNA, Jacob, that makes us Hunahpu.

Professor Ian Bobinac was the most accomplished geneticist in the colony. On Earth, he had pioneered the use of ‘Vee-Gees,’ vaccine genes—genetically engineered cells used to produce antibacterial, antivirus, and anticancer substances directly into the human body. On Mars, his work in genetic manipulation would have been applied to alter reproduction schedules among cloned livestock.

Bobinac was a genius even before his brain had been affected by transhuman metamorphosis. Having ‘evolved,’ he now spent most of his time living inside his own brilliant head. What finally brought him out of his self-evolving ‘funk’ was the mystery surrounding the alien lines and glyphs flashing along the exterior of the great posthuman hall.

Bobinac soon discovered a communication emanating from the structure—an audible communication—translated at a refresh rate of 267,000 cycles per second. By comparison, the spoken word is transmitted at a mere 16–20 cycles.

What Professor Bobinac had discovered was a posthuman language, composed of 212 distinct graphemes (English uses only forty-six phonemes). Most bizarre, the posthumans’ collective mind was still dispersing their communication across the planet.

But to whom?

The moment I heard of his discovery, I asked to be transferred to Bobinac’s team. As marine geneticist Bill Raby, I immediately recognized the 267,000 harmonic cycle as one shared by a sea creature back on Earth—

—whales.

While the effects of our genetic metamorphosis were universal, our newfound powers affected each of us differently, magnifying our own unique personality traits.