The Event Series (Book 3): The Archive and Beyond Read online

  “A First Hatched will live between four and five thousand of your Earth cycles (years) under normal conditions.”

  “So how long has KHriz been the First Hatched?” Asuna raised the question I was going to ask.

  “KHriz has been First for 2178 of your Earth Cycles.”

  “And the other two?”, it was my turn.

  “BAiju was First when we left the Home Place, he went to sleep at 5407 of your years, and LLarr was First for 3741 of your years.”

  “LLarr died young by your standards” I suggested.

  “It was not unheard of, and his was an unfortunate sleep. He was summoned to an engine inspection in which a discharge occurred. Some felt it was an intentional release. It sent a few of the technicians to their sleep, but LLarr escaped the initial illness, but cycles later he became weakened and blighted.”

  “Wait, what, you’re saying there may have been sabotage or worse, an attempt on the leader?” I was shocked. This ship, these creatures always seemed so hive or group oriented.

  “There was a ….. an inquest, …is that the correct term? But those who could best answer questions about the leak were sent to sleep when it occurred, so there was no issue that could be found. The idea of an intentional act was unacceptable.”

  Wow, just wow.

  “So KHriz took over and things changed?” asked Asuna.

  “Affirmative.”

  It was now late in the day cycle and we decided enough exploring for the day, a bowl of mush (I could go for spaghetti or deer stew), and then to bed. But with what we had learned, I think sleep will not be easy.

  March 27th

  We have been roaming through the Hive area looking at more rooms. There have been a bunch, but most had nothing notable in them. We found rooms from the Viking Era, a Yurt from Mongolian, I might not have even known what it was if I had not thought to study them for our own needs back on Earth. There was an Iroquois long house, and a Navajo Hogan, this one was an octagonal shape, and although there are no compass bearings on the Sky Crystal, the door would have faced the East at home.

  None of the rooms we visited had any markings or writings to show visitors or ascension to the ship. But then these cultures really had no written language.

  I asked Winston about the residents who occupied the rooms, he told me that they were all brought about for short periods, usually about a week as the Sky Crystal approached and then looped around the Earth to start its trip back toward Mars. They did not do the full orbital cycle like we are.

  As we were sitting down for our meal mush tonight RRqil came by. She told us that KHriz (she, of course, referred to him as First Hatched) has invited us to dinner again tomorrow night if we would like to attend. That is a no-brainer on so many levels. We both have a ton of questions about events and his history and that of the ship.

  March 28th

  We did a little more searching today, and we moved to a different area of the Hive. In this section it was much more modern, than it was in the early to mid-20th century. We really only had two that we checked on today.

  The first was a tent, in looking around it. There was not much to see, a few cots, some work tools (shovels, axes and such), an old style hardhat and some posters and flyers about working hard to create infrastructure for the future. “Great oaks from little acorns” was the tag line. It appears that this was a CCC Citizen Conservation Corp camp, FDR depression era.

  The other was clearly English (Victorian era). It appeared that the room was both a library and writing room. It had a stale smell of tobacco smoke kind of permanently attached to it. There was a writing desk set up in one corner.

  At first I was very excited because there were books, hundreds of books on the shelves. The titles looked impressive, and the authors, the greats, Darwin, Marx, H.G. Wells, Kipling. But I was disappointed when I opened the first volume and the pages were blank. I checked more and more and they were all blank.

  “Winston, this is a re-creation isn’t it.” I muttered with frustration.

  “Yes, but how did you determine this? He queried.

  I explained about the books, and how if it had been the real deal they would have had print in them.

  “Tom, come look at this,” said Asuna standing at the desk.

  I walked over.

  “Whoever this was seems to have been a sort of philosopher or writer.”

  I looked at the papers on the desk, and I felt the hair stand on the back of my neck, I sat down heavily in the chair, it creaked and groaned.

  “Asuna, I, this, it, …….Winston, who was this guest?”

  “It was one called Orwell.’

  My breath caught. I was at a loss. I had read him; I found his works so fitting, in the later 40’s with ‘Animal Farm’ and then with ‘1984’. He was a brilliant seer of the future; his only error was he got the year wrong.

  “Asuna, this was one of my favorite writers, he was brilliant, he saw so much. He predicted so much, the pigs, Big Brother, it was all as if he moved ahead in time.”

  She smiled at me, “I’ve heard of him, but never read him. Something about all the creatures are the same, just some are more same than others.”

  “YES, YES, that is it, but it was all the Animals……..”

  I sat at the desk for the next hour or two, I don’t even know just reading every scrap of paper or manuscript that was there. It was not that much, but it was from him. The most interesting was:

  “I awakened from my rest, I was in my room, but my room was not my room. I had moved, I had been taken, taken to another place.

  I have met my captors; they are kindly, though not what I would expect. I know that I will awaken from this dream and it will drift from my mind as Kublai Khan drifted from the mind of Samuel Coolidge. But I will try to record as much of it as I can. But I know that I am not in Xanadu.

  I have tried to speak with my captors, and they speak back. They are funny little creatures, large salamanders I believe. If I were still in India I might believe it was possible, that they do exist. But I am in England, and we are at war, such things are just not possible.

  I have been here three days, I am hot, it reminds me of Delhi in the summer. I am well taken care of, although I could go for a cigarette, a scotch and something to read. What a curse, the books are blank and I lack the other two items of my wishes.”

  That was it. That was all he wrote. No great insights, no harbinger of the future, just a few snippets from his future works.

  “Winston, when was Orwell returned?”

  “He spent three of your days with us in 1943, June. His home in Newcastle was bombed during that time so we were fortunate to have saved his life, but there was a big question raised about doing that. We were not certain on how we may have altered history or time.”

  I looked around the room and saw Asuna stretched out on a small and uncomfortably looking sofa, napping, I guess my explorations and readings took longer than I thought.

  It was nearing evening meal so we wandered back to our room to prepare.

  Asuna and I dressed and headed off to dinner with KHriz and HYlon. We needed no escort this time and when we arrived, we tapped the call button. HYlon opened the door and greeted us.

  KHriz arose from the sofa to greet us also. I had not thought or noticed it the first time we were there, but the sofa, and for that matter the chairs, had been built along Earth designs, but had been modified to allow for the short stumpy tails of the QUalz.

  We settled it for a glass of wine and spent about an hour of chit chat before dinner. Well, actually chit chat is a little too light a term for what we talked about.

  “KHriz, we have been going through the Hive looking at the rooms that have been used to house your guests over time. I have so many questions.” I began.

  “Yes, I know, readpad 37z, Winston as you call him, has kept me appraised of your progress, you are a most curious pair I must say.”

  I was a little taken back with the idea that we were being watch
ed, but then it made perfect sense and really, we had not been hindered in any way. It made me wonder if Orwell had gotten the idea of ‘Big Brother’ from this same action.

  “Tom, I know for example that you are a big fan of the Orwell, he was very, what is the term, dystrophic?”

  “Yes, I found his works very accurate in where our future was headed” I answered.

  “You seem like you did not have a great deal of faith in humanity before the calamity” he suggested.

  “No, I’ll be honest, I saw a lot of things wrong with where our species had gone and was going, we raped the planet and feel, felt that as Orwell said, ‘All the animals were equal, but some were more equal than others’……. “

  “Okay, not to dwell on the negative, so let me ask you this then, if you were to start all over, for humanity, where would you begin?” asked KHriz.

  I had to stop on that one, I looked at Asuna, then HYlon, and thought, and what would I do differently.

  “That is a difficult question, and shooting from the hip is hard, I am not sure. I think that in many ways the native races, the aboriginals, the Native Americans and so many peoples had it right, living with enough, but somewhere, it changed and I am not sure why, we drifted away from what we began as and became, started to think of ourselves as gods and that the Earth was ours to use as we wished rather than live in partnership with it.” I answered.

  “But could that be done in the old days, before the calamity?” HYlon asked.

  Asuna jumped in here; “No, we were too far over the top, too much greed, too many opinions of what was right and wrong. There became no central unifying point for humanity”

  “Like God?” asked HYlon.

  “There were those who lived on the discord, be it by creating problems, or cultivating them to their own needs.” I added.

  *I should note that this is the condensed version of the discussion; it was actually much lengthier with examples given of individuals and movements in recent society that held culpability. I do not add them or the issues they created to this record because at this point it no longer matters.

  “Well, I think that we have whipped that dead horse long enough” exclaimed KHriz, “I think it is time to move the mouths with food rather than solving the problems of a world that no longer exists.”

  We moved to the dining area and found that once again there was spaghetti and sauce with wine. They did have bread, Wonder Bread with the dinner, but there were spots of mold on it. We passed on the bread.

  “I have found another beverage that I hope is to your liking, although I am not sure who it is to be served” added HYlon.

  She placed cups of hot coffee with some form of creamer in it before us. We looked at the coffee, it was hot and creamy but there were brown things floating in it. We sampled it and the problem became immediately apparent.

  “HYlon, this looks good, but I think we need to go to the food prep area and re-examine the beverage making process” suggested Asuna.

  “I have errored in recipe?”

  “Well, perhaps, I think you may have made a common error that occurs in making this beverage. Let’s go take a look.”

  While the ‘girls’ were in the kitchen KHriz and I talked further.

  “Tom, do you believe that humanity, your species will get it right this time? I mean you are starting over.”

  “I think that there is a chance, at least for a couple thousand years, if they keep to the basics.”

  “What about religion? Will that help?”

  “I think that the idea of religion is a thorny one, spirituality is a good thing, the idea of a god, or being, or even just a solid ethical code, goodness is fine. Even a oneness with the Earth. But it is with the development of interpretations of that spirituality that things go astray,” I suggested.

  “So it is kind of a variation on the Tower of Babel, everyone was trying to get to God, but then there was a problem in that the tongues were developed and no one could communicate” KHriz said.

  “I had never considered it that way, but you’re right, if you look at the tongues as the various sects and cults of religion, although as I recall, supposedly it was God who laid the tongues on them, not those building the tower.” I replied.

  “But why would God not embrace his, what is the term, flock? I think that the idea may have been a modification in the writing of man. I am certain that God, would have welcomed his creation.”

  “I agree, but then over time it reached a point where science and philosophers became part of the later day issues that faced men, questioning the very existence of God himself.”

  “Do you believe in God, Tom?”

  “Yes, I believe in something, a goodness, a universal truth, that we’re capable of being something wonderful, with the help of that goodness. Do I believe in the bearded white old guy we see in art, no, but I believe in something good.”

  “Is it enough?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  The girls returned with four steaming mugs. This time it was proper coffee. It appears that what had occurred was that in the watching of TV commercials HYlon had misapplied the idea of ‘instant’ coffee with ground roast coffee and used ground roast coffee like you would instant.

  The meal was once again wonderful and we enjoyed each other’s company a great deal. As the evening wound down, KHriz seemed to quiet a little.

  “Tom, Asuna, I have something we need to talk about. Krezz has found a cure for the Changing illness.”

  “Wow, that is great.” I smiled.

  “Well maybe. There is a production issue that needs to be talked about.”

  It is funny, I had never really noticed it before, but he, they, change colors a little, like chameleons. It is a subtle change, that seems to show a little of their emotions. When we arrived it was that standard kind of leaf green that we see so many of the QUalz. And as we were having deep conversations the color gets a little darker; or when we are talking funny, they get lighter, and when making that weird laugh they are almost fluorescent green. But right now they both were a hunter green.

  Asuna and I exchanged glances.

  KHriz continued; “there are two ways that we can make the large quantities that you will need for your return to Earth. What needs to happen is that we must grow the cure in your bodies.”

  “Okay, we are good with that” said Asuna.

  “Yes, that is fine with us.” I added.

  “It is not quite so easy. There are two ways that we can do it. We could just let the process go naturally and harvest the serum to produce the cure on a weekly basis. But to create enough of the serum we would need a much longer time period.” HYlon added.

  “How much longer?” Asuna asked.

  KHriz and HYlon exchanged glances; it was as if they were trying to pass the bearer of bad news to the other. Finally KHriz said; “You would have to do another full rotation around great loop.”

  “And the other option?” I asked.

  The other is that we put you into a state of stasis, kind of a coma for the balance of the trip home. That will allow us to accelerate the process of extraction and triple the output of the cure.” Explained KHriz

  “Do we have to answer right now?” I asked.

  “No, No, I would not do that to you. And besides we will be making our pass around the Red Marker Stone in a couple of days, so I want you to see your sky neighbor.

  The skin hue changed; the elephant was out there, in front of us, and we had not gone crazy, screaming or shouting, I think that was what they were concerned about. The elephant shrank and they became light again, not leaf green, but lighter.

  “KHriz, I think that we would like to take the night to talk it over and decide. The question of whether we want to produce the medicine that will save people from coming back to life as Zoms is simple, but to do that we need to sleep for 6 months or spend another year and a half awake, and in space; that is a little more complex” I said.

  “It is as we expec
ted, and your assessment sums it up effectively” said HYlon.

  “I think we know what the answer is, but I think Tom and I would like to have the night to talk it over” added Asuna.

  “Understandable, shall we meet for dinner tomorrow night again to finish this discussion?” said KHriz; he was back to normal hue, maybe even a little lighter in color.

  “Yes, but there is a condition. We would like to cook the meal if you will grant us access to your cupboard” I said.

  They looked at each other, and then there was that hiccupping and silly grimace.

  “YES, Earther food made by real Earthers…that would be wonderful. We have not had that since Julia visited us.”

  “Julia?” Asuna asked.

  “Yes, Julia Children, she was so funny, but it, the meals, tasted extraordinary.” HYlon replied.

  “Whoa, that is gonna be a tough act to follow, Julia Childs…..wow.” I said.

  “Childs, Children? I thought Children was the same as Childs.” KHriz said slowly, a little confused.

  “It is, but this is one of those special cases.” I explained.

  “Ah, well we accept, and cook you may.”

  The dinner ended and we headed back to our room, we decided that maybe a cool night in the Cro-Magnon cave would be the best place to sleep and talk.

  “What do you think Tom, sleep or extra time?”

  “Well, before we decide I would like to talk to Krezz, I want to know that the cure is safe, that the status process is safe. I mean I trust KHriz and HYlon, but I just would feel better with a little input from Krezz.”

  “That makes sense, I’d like that little bit of insurance, knowledge, but I think we’re good with doing this. And for the record, I am bored and the idea of the sleep on the way home seems good to me.” Asuna told me.

  “I agree, so let’s talk to Krezz in the morning, and then we need to figure out what to make for dinner for them.”

  “Okay, but I think it is going to be a kind of deal from one of those cooking shows with surprise ingredients.” She said.

  “Yeah, with a really tough act to follow, Julia Friggin’ Childs.” I said with a grin.