1
‘You always were a lucky bastard, Jonesy,’ Snake whispered into Jonesy’s ear as the whole group stood transfixed around Noah’s ship.
‘Luck’s what you make it,’ Jonesy whispered back as he loaded a couple of fresh batteries into a Geiger counter. ‘Might as well take one of these. There’s no knowin what we’ll find out there.’
‘Would you all like me to make her disappear?’ Noah asked playfully referring to his spaceship.
‘Yeah sure, oh OK, go ahead, I’d like to see that,’ came the collective, skeptical reply.
Suddenly the ship disappeared right in front of their eyes. Everyone gasped in awe.
‘She’s still there,’ Noah chuckled, ‘you can touch her. But you can’t see her because she’s shining in UV light just outside your visible spectrum.’
‘How did you do that?’ asked Ludwig.
‘I control all functions of the ship telepathically,’ Noah casually replied.
Everyone gasped again. They were further amazed when he displayed the ship’s chameleon function.
‘I often park her in this mode. She just blends into the background, as you can see, and no one notices her.’
There was a collective ‘ooooh’ as a panel opened in the lower hull and lowered itself as a silver ramp, which appeared to be covered in some sort of black, grippy rubber, ending up almost, but not quite, touching the grass on the bank of the lake. Everyone tried to see inside. Seeing this, Noah said cheerfully,
‘In time, I’ll give everyone a ride. It’s a heap of fun but not quite what you might be expecting.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Dirk DeRongo, straining his neck to look inside the ship.
‘It has to do with the sensation of movement when one is inside. There is none. It feels like one is floating in a small room watching everything happening on a screen. It usually comes as quite a surprise the first time one experiences it.’
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‘You mean that you can’t feel the ship moving around?’ asked Ace, the helicopter pilot.
‘No,’ replied Noah. ‘It’s like you’re floating in a cockpit watching a movie on a screen and the movie is showing you that you are travelling at the speed of light squared.’
‘Holy crap!’ exclaimed Snake, ‘and I thought the Vette we rented in San Fran was fast.’
2
Noah walked up the ramp into the ship followed by Jonesy who turned and gave everyone a wave and a big smile just before entering.
‘Look,’ said Snake with a hint of sarcasm, ‘now he thinks he’s the president of the United States.’
The interior of the ship was illuminated in a warm, easy on the eyes glow although Jonesy couldn’t see any of the light sources. The light was just there in the air. The space inside was circular. There were no partitions. In the centre of the ship were two, very comfortable-looking, semi-supine, dark-grey, bucket seats. Between the seats was a rectangular, metal-mesh basket that was about two feet long, one foot across and one foot deep. Incorporated into the front of the basket were two, mesh, water-bottle receptacles, just like in most modern cars. Jonesy could see Noah’s water bottle sitting in one of them.
Around the perimeter of the interior space, all Jonesy could see was one, strapped-down surfboard and a circular row of cupped, metal-mesh shelves incorporating some type of strapping. There were two lap belts, made of the same material, lying loosely across the seats. In the cupped shelves he could see one canvas duffel bag and two sizeable roll bags, all strapped down.
‘You can put the Geiger counter in the basket between the seats here,’ suggested Noah, ‘and your water bottle can go next to mine.’
‘There’s not much in here,’ said Jonesy looking around the interior.
‘That’s because we don’t spend much time in our ships,’ said Noah. ‘The whole idea is to minimize our exposure to the hostility of outer space, so we go as fast as possible.
Actually, Jonesy, everyone fits out their own ship differently, depending on their requirements. If, for example, they were going to spend an extended period exploring a planet, behind the shield of a strong magnetosphere, they might fit out their ship the way you would fit out a Winnebago here on Earth.’
‘Hey, I got one of them.’
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‘Had, Jonesy, had. And I knew that. Where do you think we time chipped you?’
Jonesy looked around. He noted,
‘I don’t see no controls.’
‘All telepathic,’ Noah replied. ‘Come sit in your seat.’ He gestured towards the left seat.
They both sat in their respective seats.
‘You don’t really need the belt,’ said Noah, ‘however I encourage you to use it the first time.’
Jonesy joined the two strap ends. They connected not unlike Velcro but they weren’t Velcro.
Jonesy watched the ramp silently rise up and seal the ship. He watched all the intrigued faces of his group disappear from view. As he sat in his seat, he turned his head and asked,
‘How do you see out of this thing? There ain’t no windows.’
‘Check this out,’ said Noah in a clever voice.
In an instant, the two men became surrounded with what appeared to be a translucent, spherical television screen. Suddenly Jonesy could see everything outside the ship in whichever direction he looked. He could also partially see the interior of the ship through the screen.
‘Holy cow, Noah, this is a trip. Look, there’s the group. We can see them but they can’t see us. Is that right?’
‘That’s affirmative. I’ll just dim the inside light. The screen works better that way.’
As the ambient light of the interior of the ship dimmed to darkness, the screen lost its translucency. It appeared to Jonesy like there was now no ship surrounding them anymore, there was just the exterior, which was perfectly rendered on the most amazing spherical television screen he’d ever seen, and them lounging on the comfortable chairs in the center of it. It was as if they were levitating in their chairs.
‘It’s called a spherical hologram display, Jonesy.’
‘So, you can see everything when you’re flyin around?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s what I like about flyin my trike the most.’
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‘Used to like, Jonesy, used to like. There is a new kind of flying coming your way, I’m pretty sure. There is a guy on Rama that’s making levitation backpacks for non-telepaths like you. I doubt you’ll ever want to fly a trike after you’ve flown with one of those.’
‘You better ease up, Noah, you’re startin to trip me out.’
Noah laughed and replied, ‘You better get used to it, I think.’ Returning to the holographic display he added, ‘The screen can also render in X-ray, infra-red, or ultra-violet if I will it to, all in full colour.’
‘Jesus H, Noah.’
‘Are you ready to go?’ Noah asked.
Jonesy gripped the sides of the seat and replied, ‘Let er rip!’
3
Noah could have done one of his zero-to-thirty-thousand-feet-in-a-nanosecond take-offs however he resisted the urge despite the fact that he derived a mild pleasure at impressing the uninitiated. Instead, he chose to rise very slowly, about five feet per second, giving Jonesy time to absorb the experience.
‘Hey, I’m floatin, sorta, an I don’t feel nothin.’
‘That is because we have been rendered massless, Jonesy. I’ll explain it to all of you one night around the campfire. Basically, the upper and lower hulls of the ship control the flow of gravitons through the ship. The same thing that causes gravity causes mass.
By eliminating mass, we eliminate the annoyances of momentum and inertia. Thus, we do not feel any movement inside the ship. No acceleration or deceleration.’
‘Yeah,’ Jonesy agreed. ‘It feels like we’re in a flyin simulator watchin a screen. What you climbing out at? It looks about 300 feet a minute. That’s about what my trike can do in calm air.’
‘Could do, Jonesy, could do. 300 is pretty close actually.’
‘I used to do some flyin not far from here,’ said Jonesy scrutinizing the terrain. ‘I’m pretty familiar with the general lay of the land. I used to pick up some screamin thermals above the slopes just west of here. Got so high that I had to bail out of em cause I was freezin my nuts off.’
‘How fascinating,’ said Noah with a smile. Although he did not personally choose Jonesy to be a time shifter, he felt that he was certainly a good choice. He did, after all, manage to pull sixteen others through time with him, and he was certainly, through his deep involvement with LSD, super primed for the wave of extraordinary experiences to
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come. Many time shifters were chosen for that reason alone because they were better prepared to deal with everything telepathic. To a non-telepath, the telepathic mind plane manifests in ways that closely resemble acute schizophrenia.
The flying felt like it wasn’t real. It felt simulated. The only real thing seemed to be the very odd sensation of the absence of mass and, as a consequence, weight.
‘Tricky gettin used to this massless flight,’ commented Jonesy.
‘Yes, it can be, but one adjusts quite quickly, and you will really appreciate it when we start doing some real flying, right about now. We need to go much higher to get a proper perspective of what I want to show you. I think that you better brace yourself for a shock.’
‘Not much shocks me these days,’ Jonesy replied with a hint of smugness. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, they shot straight up and froze in a hover sixty miles above Pike’s Peak. ‘Holy crap!’ exclaimed Jonesy. ‘What just happened? Are we really this high? I never felt a thing. Where’s the valley? It’s all ocean! All that’s left are some islands.’
Jonesy’s shock was palpable.
They began to fly out in a southwesterly direction. Jonesy, looking into the distance, exclaimed, ‘San Fran is gone!’ He was beginning to hyperventilate, mildly panicking at the dramatic change to what used to be his home turf. Noah began to actively calm him by telepathic means. Jonesy remained completely unaware of this. As Jonesy settled, Noah very calmly suggested,
‘I thought we might fly down the new west coast.’
Jonesy might have been artificially chilled, however the mini volcano of anxiety, rumbling deep down within him, did not want to stifle easily. His eyeballs were nearly popping out of their sockets as he looked for the towns of his youth. ‘Modesto … Turlock
… Merced … they’re all swimmin with the fishes!’ he exclaimed.
‘Yes, Jonesy, regretfully the whole valley has subsided. The San Andreas, and probably every other fault in the region, must have let go in the off-the-scale earthquakes that followed the comet strike.’
All of a sudden Jonesy understood everything. All in one go it all became clear to him and he almost instantly reverted to his natural, laconic calmness. Ninety-nine percent of this rapid re-centering was the result of Jonesy’s mind being actively manipulated by Noah who was looking up ahead because he really wanted to see the state of the southern
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California coast. ‘It’s the southern part of the coast I’m interested in,’ he said, ‘seeing as that is where the nuclear plants are.’
‘See that big island out there,’ said Jonesy pointing, ‘the one with the double peak?’
‘Yes,’ said Noah focusing on the island.
‘I’ll bet my mother-in-law that it’s what’s left of the Diablo Range. The peaks used to be Mt Diablo. The smaller island to the west of it is probably the peak of Mt. Zion. And the islands to the west of that must be the Santa Lucia Range. The biggest island of those must be Cone Peak. That was over five thousand feet high. I flew around that peak in my trike.
It looks like parts of the coast sank as much as three thousand feet.’ Jonesy said the last part as cool as if he was describing an afternoon shower, thanks to Noah.
‘I’m still having trouble getting past your mother-in-law, Jonesy.’
They both had a hearty laugh.
‘Nobody ever takes that bet. I wonder why?’
‘Oh, I can’t imagine.’
More laughter.
‘Wow,’ exclaimed Jonesy, ‘look how the Sierra Nevada drops off into the ocean to become a string of islands. The old San Jacquin Valley is a sea now. And there ain’t no L.A.
no more. Can’t say as I’m too upset about that. I gotta say, though, the coast is lookin a might more interestin than what it used to. There’s so many islands. It makes you think about gettin a boat.’
‘That would be right except for the radiation in the ocean,’ said Noah.
‘And the three-eyed fish,’ added Jonesy.
They were still flying sixty miles above the ground. Noah began drifting west and losing altitude. He noted,
‘Well, there can be no doubt that the Diablo Canyon power plant is at least two, maybe three, thousand feet under the sea. And judging by the look of it, the San Onofre plant, further south, is submerged as well. The ocean will be keeping them cool, however they will be poisoning the waters for miles around. I definitely will not be looking for surf anywhere around there.’
‘There was one more plant you mentioned,’ said Jonesy.
‘Yes, that is correct. That is the one I’m really interested in because pretty for sure it is still exposed on the surface. It’s the Palo Verde plant near Tonopah, Arizona, about 45 miles west of where Phoenix used to be.
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4
They flew directly over the spot where the San Onofre Nuclear Plant was submerged. There they changed heading to due east. Jonesy observed, with amazement, how what used to be the eastern shore of the Salton Sea was now part of the new west coast of North America. As they crossed the coast and began flying over the parched, desert environment, Noah speculated,
‘I don’t expect there to be anything left of the actual structure of the Palo Verde plant. The windblast from the comet strike was something like nine hundred to a thousand miles per hour. The plant was blown out of existence by that.’
Jonesy’s eyebrows were competing for real estate with his hair on top of his head as he listened. Noah continued,
‘Any radioactive material that was located above the surface, like the core and spent fuel rods, will have been blown downwind all over the desert, contaminating hundreds of square miles, maybe thousands. The subterranean stuff should still be there, white-hot-molten, burrowing its way to China, not really, but you know, the movie. Well, that molten core will be spewing out mega radiation that will be carried for hundreds of miles in the prevailing winds. And don’t forget that the half-life of Plutonium is 240,000 years, give or take. You do the math, Jonesy.’
For the first time since he met him, Jonesy detected a distinct tone of anger in Noah’s voice. Noah went on,
‘There should be a hole in the desert where the Palo Verde plant used to be. Out of the hole will be spewing massive heat and radiation. I’ll activate the detectors. I wouldn’t be surprised if they go right off the scale as we fly over the spot.’
‘So, this must have happened to every plant in the USA,’ said Jonesy in a haunting voice.
‘Every plant on the planet,’ replied Noah. ‘I imagine that Europe and America are largely uninhabitable. It is my guess that the only places reasonably conducive to life are Australia, New Zealand and some South Pacific and South Atlantic islands, although we are not completely sure about the latter. We will have to scout them out.’
Jonesy sighed deeply, ‘Wow! I belong to one dumbass, sonofabitch species, don’t I?’
‘Well … don’t be too harsh … you know, it is what it is,’ said Noah trying to sound philosophical. ‘One thing is for sure, though, there was 100 percent certainty of all the nuclear power plants on Earth eventually melting down for one unforeseen reason or
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another. It was never going to end any other way. That is what makes Earth humans … er
… marginally less than genius. What can one say? One can’t say much.’
‘Einfrigginstein,’ suggested Jonesy.
‘You said it!’ Noah replied exasperated.
As they approached the location of the now-defunct, Palo Verde plant, the display began to turn patchwork red. Over the plant location the colour turned solid yellow.
‘One wouldn’t survive but a few minutes anywhere near there,’ said Noah. Jonesy could see that he was upset. Noah continued, ‘You know, Jonesy, I believe that Palo Verde was the largest plant in the United States. As well, they even stored depleted fuel rods from other plants there.’
Jonesy stayed silent. Noah swept his hand across the screen.
‘Do you see the radiation pattern? See how all those fuel rods got blasted all over the desert downwind from the comet strike?’ They shot up to 100 miles above the Earth.
The most prominent feature in their field of view was now the 220-mile-wide impact crater, which was still smoking in the centre after 100 years. Noah continued, ‘The pattern is clear. All the radioactive material got blown in a south-south-westerly direction directly away from the crater.’ Jonesy was stunned at the size of the crater. This was the first time he had a proper look at it.
‘That is one mother of a hole there, Noah. How high are we now?’
‘100 miles,’ Noah replied. He waved his hand again and added, ‘All that ground south of where the plant used to be, all the way through Mexico, is completely lethal. Let’s go lower again and fly towards the crater. I’d like to scan the radioactivity upwind of the plant.’
‘We’ll be flyin towards Vegas. We ought to check out Hoover Dam an see if it survived the impact,’ suggested Jonesy.
‘Capital idea, Jonesy. Would you like to navigate? Is the ground familiar to you?’
‘Fairly, except there’s no sign of any civilization,’ said Jonesy. After a moment he exclaimed, really surprised, ‘Hey, there ain’t no Lake Mead! There’s supposed to be a huge lake down there, just east of where Vegas is supposed to be. An there ain’t no Hoover Dam either. It musta got pulverized to dust an then got washed away by the drainin lake. An there is absolutely nothin left of Vegas. Holy crap!’
‘That lake water would have boiled away in seconds,’ Noah suggested.
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Noah flew the ship lower as they flew further north. He turned the ship back towards the sun and hovered it about twenty-thousand feet up. He made an observation.
‘See there, Jonesy, when you get the angle just right, how the sun reflects off the ground in patches like the patches were made of glass.’
‘Yeah,’ said Jonesy in a mystified voice.
‘Well, I think they are patches of glass that are not covered by the shifting sands. It would appear that the heat of the comet strike melted all the sands of the desert into glass. It’s quite amazing. Don’t you think so?’
‘Mind blowin,’ replied Jonesy.
They continued to slowly fly in a northerly direction paying attention to the levels of radioactivity on the ground. The edge of the giant crater was about four hundred miles to the northeast of them, around about the location of where Salt Lake City used to be.
Salt Lake City was vaporized in the impact blast. Noah was suddenly distracted by something unrelated. He announced, slightly dramatically,
‘Hold it, hold it, I’m picking up a time chip on the ground.’
‘How you doin that?’ Jonesy asked.
‘Telepathically,’ said Noah. ‘The device registers as an icon in my mind. I will display it on the screen.’
‘Is it like mine?’
‘Yes.’
A red icon began to glow on the spherical display. It appeared superimposed on the ground in the distance to the northwest of them.
‘It’s up-blast-wind from here so at least there should be no fuel rods scattered there,’
said Noah. ‘However, the environment there should nonetheless still be extremely hostile to anything alive.’
‘We gonna check it out?’ asked Jonesy.
‘Absolutely,’ replied Noah with a renewed verve.
5
Noah and Jonesy descended rapidly as they zeroed in on the icon glowing red on the spherical screen. They came to a silent hover above a small body of water located about 90 miles west-northwest of where Las Vegas used to be.
‘Water!’ exclaimed Noah. ‘It’s an oasis in the desert.’
Jonesy knew something about it.
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‘It might be the ol Ash Meadows Springs,’ he suggested. ‘There’s like an aquifer under the desert for hundreds of miles an the spring water seeps to the surface in a few places. It’s supposed to have saved the odd life or two over the years the ways that I’ve heard it.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Noah. ‘It looks like our time shifter is a horse.’
Two hundred feet below them they could see a horse standing next to three, what appeared like, small tents. The horse was grazing on a tuft of grass growing on the bank of a crystal-clear pond.
‘You think there’s anyone in them tents, Noah?’
‘I’d say so, Jonesy.’
Noah almost immediately became distracted by the radiation readout on the screen.
‘Notice the radiation levels around here.’ He pointed them out to Jonesy. ‘They are definitely elevated enough to prevent us from walking on the ground. The problem is not so much about us being exposed for the short term, it is that we would track the radioactive dirt back into the ship and contaminate the interior. It would be a nightmare to try and clean that out. We must therefore be very cautious as to how we go about things here.’
‘Sure, I understand,’ Jonesy replied sounding all business. He observed, ‘Look, the horse ain’t even noticed us yet.’
‘That is more than likely because we are absolutely silent and we’re coming from out of the sun. He’ll see us soon enough though. I’ll make an attempt at calming him when he does.’
‘How?’
‘Oh, telepathically.’
‘Can you do that?’
‘Er, actually I hope I can because I am not that good with horses. We’ll see as soon as he looks up.’
‘If this is Ash Meadows,’ said Jonesy sounding all knowledgeable, ‘then this would be the Amargosa part of the Mojave Desert. That water is fossil water that entered the groundwater system tens of thousands of years ago.’
‘If that is the case,’ replied Noah, ‘it would mean that that water is absolutely pure and completely uncontaminated by radiation. You certainly seem to know your geography, Jonesy.’
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‘Well, I spent years flyin my trike all over this damn desert. It was some of the best times of me life.’
‘I’ll bring us around 180 degrees,’ said Noah.
As the silver disc silently flew a half-circle in the clear, blue sky, Jonesy immediately observed,
‘They’re not tents, they’re half-tents, bivouacs, and there’s people in em, looks like asleep. Why are they sleepin in the middle of the day?’
‘They must be sheltering from the heat,’ suggested Noah. ‘They’re probably travelling during the coolness of the night. OK, let me try to come down really slowly in front of the horse without startling it too much.’
‘Looks to me like a quarter-horse stallion,’ observed Jonesy. ‘Pretty big too, maybe seventeen hands. Black as the ace of spades.’
As they approached cautiously, in a gradual descent, they both noticed one individual crawl from under their bivouac and kneel down next to another in one of the other bivouacs.
As the horse looked up to see what was going on, his attention was immediately distracted by a bright glint of sunlight reflecting off a shiny, silver object silently hovering in the sky no more than a ‘good-size paddock’ away. His initial instinct was to react and maybe back away, however he almost instantly calmed and just watched the fantastic, flying craft descend towards him.
‘The person is completely covered by an overall with a hood,’ said Jonesy. ‘They even got some kind of facemasks on.’
‘Yes, I see that,’ said Noah. ‘I don’t see any part of their skin exposed.’
‘Who are they?’ said Jonesy mystified.
‘And what are they doing out here?’ added Noah.
‘Lucky for them they found water.’
‘That is right, but where did they come from? And how long have they been walking?’
‘Yeah, and where did they get the fancy duds?’
‘Precisely,’ said Noah. ‘This is turning into a far more interesting reconnaissance than I originally envisaged.’
The levitating duo observed the overalled individual appear to attend to another overalled individual lying on their side curled up.
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‘The impression I’m getting, Jonesy, is that the person lying down is not well and that the other person is trying to help them.’
‘They still haven’t spotted us,’ said Jonesy.
‘The horse has,’ replied Noah. ‘I’ll park us ten feet off the ground about thirty feet away. The person will notice us when they turn around. Unfortunately, you will not be able to leave the ship. I will have to get dressed in my levitation suit to go outside and I will refrain from making contact with the ground. I will communicate with them in that fashion. You will be able to speak to them from the hatch. How does that sit with you?’
‘Good plan, Noah,’ replied Jonesy. ‘Definitely don’t want to crap up the insides of the ship.’
The intergalactic cruiser silently settled into its hover-park mode. They felt their mass, and the gravity within the ship, return to normal. Jonesy observed with amusement as the interior illumined, reverting the holographic spherical display to a translucent appearance. Noah stood up out of his seat and stepped towards one of the metal-mesh shelves in the back. He asked Jonesy to let him know if the people noticed them while he got changed into his suit.
While Jonesy kept a close eye on the people outside, Noah stripped down then clothed himself in his levitation suit. By the time he pulled the hood over his head, Jonesy announced,
‘I think they just seen us.’
The person on the ground stood next to the horse and froze in a stare. They called out to a third person who immediately rose to their feet. Jonesy and Noah could hear the call via the ship’s internal sound system.
‘That sounded like a girls voice,’ said Noah.
Although the two people on the ground were not dressed in absolutely skin-tight overalls, it quickly became obvious to the men in the spaceship that they were women.
The third person lying curled up in the half-tent, upon noticing the spaceship, struggled to his feet and placed himself between the ship and the girls.
‘I think that’s a dude,’ said Jonesy, ‘an he don’t look the best judgin by the way he’s hunched over.’
‘He looks sick,’ Noah observed, ‘and look how he has placed himself in front of the women, to protect them. I find that particularly admirable. I like this guy already.’
‘The horse looks like he don’t know what to think,’ said Jonesy.
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‘That is because I’ve got him on a very short tether, mentally speaking,’ replied Noah.
‘Do you think they speak English?’ Jonesy asked.
‘One way to find out. I’ll open the hatch.’
They were still parked ten feet off the ground. The translucent display faded into thin air. The hatch silently opened and lowered to a horizontal position. Suddenly the environment of the exterior washed over their senses. They immediately felt a surge of hot, dry air and heard the peculiar silence that is filled with muted sounds, so typical of a desert landscape. Just for a brief moment they became entranced by the haunting gusts of the wilderness wind and the glaring radiance of the blazing sun.
The desert was an environment Jonesy loved with a passion because he found his freedom there. ‘Any place that’s got no people in it,’ he used to say. Most folks would have considered a place like that to be hell on Earth, but to Jonesy it was heaven itself. He had never been a joiner, in fact he harboured a pathological aversion to any kind of group. He reveled in solitude. After a couple of fat ‘doobies’, while maybe sitting around the evening campfire in the company of some other ‘lunatic’ that he might have accidentally crossed paths with, he philosophically proclaimed, Sartre like, ‘Hell is other people, man.’ That concept came to him during a particularly enlightening acid trip.
Noah pulled his goggles over his eyes. The goggles in combination with the hood completely covered his head.
‘How do I look?’ he asked.
‘Like a bloody alien,’ replied Jonesy.
They looked out through the hatch. They couldn’t see the faces of the trio on the ground because they were wearing their facemasks to protect their eyes from the sun. If they had been able to see their eyes, they would have seen them nearly popping out of their sockets out of sheer amazement. Noah called out as calmly as he could,
‘Do any of you speak English?’
With bemusement, he telepathically heard the horse reply,
‘I do, but I can’t talk. Have you seen my precious?’
Noah turned to Jonesy and whispered,
‘That’s no ordinary horse.’
‘He’d look a sight better cleaned up,’ replied Jonesy.
‘We all speak American,’ the young man replied.
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‘We are not hostile,’ declared Noah. ‘We are scouts on a reconnaissance who have found you by accident. Why are you completely covered?’
The young man pointed towards the sun and replied,
‘Our eyes and skin burn under the great light.’
‘The Sun, Griffy,’ said one of the masked girls.
‘Yes, of course, the Sun, it burns us. We cannot remove our masks when the Sun is in the great nothing.’
‘The sky,’ said the other girl.
‘Yes, of course, the sky.’
The horse shook his head. Noah heard him think,
‘Right now, I’d give up a paddock full of fillies to be able to speak.’
Noah barely controlled a huge belly laugh. He didn’t want to unintentionally offend the trio however he was most bemused by the horse. Right at that moment, he was more mystified by the group than at the initial encounter.
Noah thought for a second, then enquired,
‘Would it help if we moved our craft over you to shade you from the Sun?’
The trio looked at each other, nodded, and the young man replied,
‘That would help heaps, although we would still need to stay covered up. The glare is enough to hurt our eyes and burn our skin. But it would make it much easier for us to talk out in the open.’
Without the hatch closing, and without Noah or Jonesy even budging an inch, the silver ship silently drifted closer, lifted to about twenty feet, and again hover-parked itself casting its shadow over the group on the ground.
Noah’s levitation suit changed colour from black to a mid-grey. It was now similar to the colour of the outfits worn by the trio on the ground.
‘You changed the colour of your suit,’ said Jonesy. ‘I suppose you did that telepathically.’
‘Affirmative,’ Noah replied. ‘I want to startle them as little as possible. They will anyway be quite taken aback by my levitation.’
‘And you fly telepathically too?’
‘Certainly. It’s the only way to fly.’
Jonesy experienced a brief micro-mindspin after that comment as he made an attempt to validate trike flying to himself.
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Noah lifted off the ramp and slowly floated out of the ship. In order to be able to better see the goings-on on the ground, Jonesy lay down on his stomach with his head at the end of the ramp and his chin resting on his folded arms.
Noah gently floated down to ground level and placed himself in a hover in the midst of the group. ‘A proper greeting,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I cannot convey to you how surprised we are to find you out here,’ he looked around, ‘in this vast desert.’
‘Not half as surprised as we are to see you,’ said the male in a struggling voice.
‘I gather that you are unwell, sir,’ said Noah sounding sympathetic. ‘First, let me introduce myself. My name is Noah and my companion up there,’ he pointed at Jonesy,
‘his name is Jonesy. We are on a reconnaissance scouting out the terrain for residual radioactivity.’
‘Hello, ugh, my name is … ugh … my …’
The man slumped over and placed his hands around his stomach. He turned to the side and attempted to vomit but nothing came out. He dry-retched. One of the girls aided him by placing one arm around his shoulders and one hand over his forehead. The other girl spoke to Noah.
‘His name is Griffin, my name is Fin and she is my sister, Tip. Griff has been ill for three days. He is actually better today however he was very sick for two days before. The creature’s name is Horse. He saved our lives three nights ago, back at the lake of light.
And it was Horse who led us to this pool of water. How are you floating like that?’
‘That is a technical answer that I would like to leave till later,’ said Noah. Then he asked, ‘Which of you owns the horse?’
Noah figured that the horse got time shifted during the comet strike. He further assumed that the man and his two female companions were time shifted with the horse through some form of connectedness.
‘None of us owns Horse,’ replied Fin. ‘He befriended us three nights ago when he rescued us from a pack of nasty, hairy, big-tooth, rat things.’
‘Really? You didn’t come with the horse? Now I am completely mystified as to how the three of you find yourselves out here in the middle of nowhere. Are you sure you met the horse three nights ago?’
‘Positive,’ groaned Griffin.
‘I make it the 28th of September today, Jonesy,’ Noah said to Jonesy.
‘If you say so,’ Jonesy answered.
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‘That would make three nights ago the 25th, two days after the shift. How are you guys here?’ Noah asked again.
‘We climbed up a ladder out of the base,’ replied Fin.
‘Griff led us up to the surface,’ added Tip.
Noah gasped in astonishment. It began to dawn on him that this trio might have been the remnant of the human race that actually somehow survived the extinction. He also rapidly deduced that they must have been about the fifth generation post the apocalypse and that all the original survivors must have died many decades ago, but not before producing their offspring. And this must have continued for five generations, for a whole century. These thoughts, powerful as they were, were nonetheless overshadowed by the presented crisis, which was the prevalent radioactivity and all its associated complications. So instead of asking more questions about their survival, Noah focused on Griffin’s malady.
‘I really would love to hear your story, however that will have to come later.’ Noah pulled the goggles and balaclava off his head, revealing his face, and let them hang behind his neck. He turned to Griffin and said, ‘You have been ill for three days, you say, and today you are feeling better?’
‘A little,’ Griffin replied.
Noah knew about radiation sickness. He looked up and asked Jonesy to hand him the Geiger counter. Jonesy did as he was asked and passed it down to Noah.
‘Do any of you know anything about radioactivity?’
Griffin, Fin and Tip looked at each other. They even looked at the horse. They all shook their heads. Griffin groaned,
‘I’ve never even heard the word. What is it?’
‘By Rama, where do I start?’ said Noah in an exasperated voice. He thought for a moment, then explained, ‘Er, it is a confounded story so I’ll save it for a later time. The main thing to know right now is that it can make people sick and that it may be the cause of your unwellness, although we are certainly not certain of that yet.’ He showed them the Geiger counter and explained, ‘This instrument is for measuring radioactivity and I must take some readings with it.’
6
The girls helped Griffin lie back down under his bivouac while Noah took measurements of the ground around the spring.
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‘The activity around here is definitely elevated,’ he said, ‘although not critical.’ As he came close to the girls the Geiger counter came to life in a burst of crackles. Noah homed in on the source of the radiation, which seemed to be the girls’ overalls. The loudest crackles came from their boots. The crackling continued up the legs of the overalls in a gradually decreasing intensity.
‘Your clothing is highly contaminated by something,’ Noah explained while levitating a foot off the ground around the girls and holding out the Geiger counter.
‘Judging by the pattern of the radiation on your clothing, I envisage that you must have walked across some ground that was much more radioactive than what it is around here.
You must have kicked this material up and got it on your boots and clothes as you walked.’
Noah sounded very studious as he attempted to analyze the situation. He passed the Geiger counter over Griffin and found him similarly contaminated. He then gave a suspicious look at the horse then floated over to him. The stallion tried to back away thinking,
‘Careful with that thing, two legs.’
Noah telepathically calmed the beast as he passed the instrument over his body. He found his legs, and even his underbelly, similarly contaminated.
‘You are all covered in radioactive contaminant that will eventually make you all sick.’ He looked at Griffin and spoke to him directly. ‘I suspect that you must have ingested some of the poisonous material somewhere along the way. That would certainly explain your current symptoms. Can you remember any time when you might have ingested something off the ground?’
‘Yes,’ Griffin replied in a sickly voice, ‘I tasted the salt from the lake of light.’
‘How long ago?’ Noah asked.
‘Three absences of the Sun,’ replied Fin sounding concerned.
‘The lake of light?’ Noah enquired further.
‘Yes. We came upon it in our walk westward,’ said Fin.
‘It glowed and we didn’t know what it was,’ added Tip.
‘So Griff tasted some and found out it was salt,’ said Fin.
‘We set off to cross it,’ said Tip.
‘But the ugly, big-toothed, hairy, rat things attacked us,’ said Fin.
‘But Horse rescued us,’ said Tip.
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‘By the time we walked off the lake of light, Griff was already starting to feel a bit queasy,’ Fin finished up.
‘I see,’ said Noah in a curiously suspicious voice. He speculated that the radioactive fallout must have gotten washed into the lakes during periods of rainfall and concentrated there over the previous hundred years.
Noah had a rudimentary knowledge of radiation sickness. He took an interest in the subject when he became aware that the Earth humans had discovered atomic energy, although his interest was fueled primarily by the ancient, ongoing, shrouded activity of the mysterious and reviled Dark Ones. Upon commencing his research into the nuclear phenomenon on Earth, he quickly began to suspect that it was not the native Earth humans who ventured into the suicidal science, but the sadistic Dark Ones who lived their accursed existence through the bodies of the Earth humans via telepathic means.
Noah looked at Griffin as he lay doubled-up in his bivouac. He estimated, from his past research into radiation sickness, that, without help, Griffin would be dead within twenty-five days and that his death would be as horrific and agonizing as can possibly be imagined. Many victims of radiation sickness went completely screaming-mad towards the end of their lives as their brain slowly decomposed to slush. To them, death came as a welcome, merciful friend.
Noah’s mind was swift and his ability to process information was even swifter. He looked around and observed that there were a number of crystal-clear pools. He spoke with sincerity.
‘Look, it is plain to me that the three of you are in danger from radioactive material stuck to your clothing. By what you have told me, it is, in the main, salt, so it should wash off your clothing quite easily. Same goes for the horse.’ He looked at each of them directly and asked, ‘So, may I help you?’
Tip and Fin looked at each other, nodded, then looked at Noah. Fin answered, ‘Yes please, Noah.’ There was gratitude in her voice.
‘OK then. What I suggest is that the three of you take a swim in the small pool over there. I am afraid that it is necessary for you to do it fully clothed. While submerged, rub each other’s clothing and shoes as vigorously as you can to wash the radioactive salt off as best as possible. After you have done that, lead the horse into the pool and wash it as well. I do not envy you that task, although I sense a great intelligence in the horse and feel that he shall pose no trouble for you.’ Noah paused for a moment. He levitated over to the
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horse and looked him square in the eyes. Suddenly he laughed. He turned towards the girls and said in a slightly more lighthearted manner, ‘Do you want to know what he calls us in his mind?’
‘How could you know that?’ Fin asked.
‘Er … I can read his mind, telepathically. I can hear him think, sort of.’
‘How?’ asked Tip.
‘Would you like to know what he calls us?’ Noah asked again.
‘Yes.’ The girls replied in unison.
‘Two legs. He calls us two legs and it is meant to be a derogatory term. Like four legs is a whole lot better.’ Noah laughed. ‘And he let me know that his name is not Horse, but Fury.’
The girls laughed.
‘Ohh, Fury, our saviour,’ said Fin.
‘Fury, the magnificent,’ added Tip.
‘I am sure that he enjoyed that,’ said Noah, ‘because he understands English, and he speaks it in his mind. He is a very intelligent horse, as horses go.’
‘Fury the intelligent,’ said both girls in unison as they hugged his neck.
‘He don’t mind that, I reckon,’ said Jonesy from above.
Noah returned to the problem at hand. ‘You must all wash the contaminant off yourselves. I suggest you go in the pool and stay in it as long as you can. While immersed, clean each other’s clothing underwater, and clean the, I mean, clean Fury as well. It being such a hot day, it will not take long for you to dry off. After you have dried, I will re-measure you all for radioactivity. After washing, be sure not to drink any water from that pool because it will be contaminated. You will need to help Griffin in the pool.’
While the trio and the horse washed the radioactive salt off their clothing and off the horse, Noah returned to the ship. He spoke to Jonesy with some seriousness.
‘Griffin is a dead man if we don’t help him. Probably even if we do.’
‘What can we do?’ Jonesy asked in a low voice.
‘I will begin the same way with him as I did with all of you. I will give him the Mana.
That will help however I am sure it will not be enough.’
‘Tough way to cash in your chips, radiation,’ said Jonesy.
‘Not many ways tougher,’ replied Noah.
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The Earth human and the alien could feel their bond of friendship strengthening through their shared experience. They were so different, with such disparate histories, yet there it was, the genesis of a long and deep friendship.
7
After they had all washed the radioactivity off themselves, and dried off somewhat, Noah re-measured them with the Geiger counter and found their readings to have come down to background levels. He returned the instrument to Jonesy then retrieved the gold container and tiny ceramic white pipe. He gave each of them a smoke and told them that the length of their lives would be doubled by just that one ingestion. He told Griffin that the Mana would alleviate most of his symptoms for a while, however he would require more specialized treatment to fully heal. He refrained to mention the high risk of Griffin dying from his poisoning. He didn’t forget Fury either. He took a tiny grain of brown crumble, about the size of a grain of sugar, and placed it in his mouth. He whispered into his ear,
‘Live long, brave stallion.’
Noah stayed with them as the hours passed, never making contact with the contaminated earth. He moved the levitating ship, from time to time, in concert with the westward movement of the blazing sun, thus keeping the small camp in shade. He also brought the ship closer to the ground so that Jonesy could more easily participate in the conversation. And what an interesting conversation it was. Griffin, Fin and Tip told many stories of life in the base, Jonesy talked about his group’s survival and Noah told magical tales about Rama and the vast infinity of the cosmos. By sunset, Griffin’s symptoms had almost completely abated.
As the twilight set the western horizon ablaze, Noah broke out the Mana for the second time that day.
‘Just to fortify the healing,’ he said. Then he added, ‘There will need to be a second part to your healing, Griffin. It is my belief that you will need to pass through the Fish. To do this you will need a master guide. I only know of one Fish adept currently living on this planet. Her name is Thebe, however I am not sure that radiation poisoning falls within her scope. There is a legend of a grand Fish master that lives among the Ilf people on my planet. It is said that she is a woman of wisdom more ancient than thought itself.
Her name is Mimo, the wise, and she lives in the fashion of a bird, as do all the Ilf. I do not know her. I have never met her or even seen her. Hardly anyone has. I have only heard
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magical tales of her, and attempted descriptions of her fathomless wisdom. She is said to be older than any living Rama, yet it is said that her appearance is youthful. She is said to be a mystery within a mystery. The only person I know who might know her is a man called Rion. I shall be able to contact him as we are good friends. Such is my plan then for Griffin. I shall contact Rion who shall hopefully be able to take us to Mimo, the wise medicine woman of the Ilf. You three, Fin, Tip and Fury, should require nothing further than the Mana to be fully healed. Such is my judgement.’
When it became dark enough, Griffin, Fin and Tip were able to remove their facemasks. Noah and Jonesy were both awed by their elegant facial features. As it became very dark, Noah caused the intergalactic cruiser, hovering just above their heads, to glow in a soft, yellow light. Noah mapped out his plan.
‘I shall contact my friend Maximillian of the Eos valley. Although they live some distance from one another, he is well acquainted with a very interesting man, called Powter, the boatbuilder, who lives on the island of Engadine. I know that Powter owns a large transporter ship. We shall need to borrow it for the purpose of evacuating everyone from the North American continent. After the evacuation, we shall need to decontaminate the ship before returning it.’
Jonesy’s ears pricked up.
‘You intendin to evac us all outa the USA, Noah?’
‘I am beginning to have doubts about the environment here, Jonesy. Australia is much friendlier. We’ll be able to transport your container, and everything in it, and you will be able to choose a place to settle. There are many ideal locations.’ Noah looked at Griffin, Fin and Tip. ‘I recommend an evacuation for you three out of this contaminated desert.’ Then Noah looked at Fury. ‘Of course, we won’t forget you.’ Then he focussed on Griffin. ‘You, my new friend, will have to come to Rama with me. While there, we’ll meet up with Rion who will, hopefully, take us to Mimo. This in itself will be daunting enough.
Passing through the Fish, which is altogether another story, will be the most challenging experience for you. It will alter your mind forever, and it is hoped, cure you of your radiation poisoning.’
Noah spoke to Jonesy.
‘I think our reconnaissance is complete, Jonesy, and my plan is formulated. I must now set it in motion.’
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Noah levitated some distance from the group and set himself in a meditative pose.
He slid into a trance and entered the mind plane. There, through their shared mind thread, he established initial contact with Maximillian.
Thus, the rescue of the Mojave Desert and Pinecrest Lake survivors was set into motion.
8
It was not long after midnight in the morning of Wednesday, September 29, 2123. A softly-glowing, almond-shaped ship hung lazily, like a Chinese lantern, above the arid Mojave. Its dim iridescence drew a tiny island of light out of the fathomless blackness.
Above, an infinite cosmos, speckled with uncountable stars, expressed its illimitable vastness. Below, a small campfire flickered in the variable wafts of the fickle desert breezes. At the edge of this island of light was a pool of black water with tufts of reeds growing around its perimeter. Around the fire sat the three survivors from the base, their faces warmly illumined by the firelight. The pitch-black horse, standing by the water, was almost invisible except for a pair of campfire flames burning in his eyes.
Levitating amongst them, Noah was moved, again, by their attractive features and their noble demeanour. He also admired their inner spirits, which to him appeared as clear and pure as water from a mountain spring. He contemplated on how far from the telepathic realm these three could possibly be because he understood that virtue and honour were qualities invariably associated with the emergence into the mind plane. He thought about the nature of the society in the base. He guessed that it must have remained very civilised and benevolent to its children, placing high value in preserving their precious gift of innocence.
Above the campfire, stretched out on the partially-lowered ramp of the spaceship, Jonesy could occasionally be heard snoring as he had fallen asleep. Each snore elicited a quiet chuckle from all of them.
9
About an hour and a half before dawn, Noah, for the second time, slipped off to one side and entered a meditative trance. He, once again, linked up with Maximillian via their shared mind thread. Max had by then already contacted Powter who immediately responded to Max’s request for the transporter ship. Together they remotely flew the ship across the sea, over thirty-two islands, from the Island of Engadine to the Eos Valley.
From there, Max remotely, through telepathic control, sent the empty ship from the
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Andromeda Galaxy to the Milky Way Galaxy following the linked mind thread between himself and Noah. In telepathic terms, it was as if the transporter ship followed a golden stream of linked consciousness. Noah, while in his trance and linked to the ship and Max, took over remote control just outside the outer reaches of the Milky Way. At that point, Max was able to release his telepathic control, which allowed Noah to guide the empty vessel all the way to the Mojave Desert.
All Rama technology is controlled telepathically. Their space ships may be controlled equally well from the exterior as the interior, and the distance between the ship and the operator is irrelevant because the mind plane, within which telepathic control occurs, is in actual fact a singularity, a situation where zero space and time, and infinite space and time, coexist.
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Jonesy stirred from his slumber as the eastern sky lit up in shades of purples and reds. The group became more animated. Tip and Fin rose to their feet and meandered over to Fury who was standing by the water munching on a morsel of juicy grass. They hugged his neck and spoke to him in loving tones. Noah floated back to the campfire and parked himself next to Griffin.
‘If everyone looks up,’ he said, ‘you will see the transporter ship approaching. I’ll bring her in from the west so Jonesy can see it as well.’
It appeared high in the western sky as a bright star. It descended out of the fathomless darkness and grew in size as it approached.
‘’You flyin that thing, Noah?’
‘That’s affirmative, Jonesy.’
‘Now I’ve seen everythin.’
‘Far from it, I assure you,’ Noah replied.
The 180-foot diameter, almond-shaped, glowing, intergalactic transporter parked itself opposite Noah’s ship. It settled into a hover about a foot above terra firma. They all, except for Noah, observed in awe as a broad hatch opened on the underside of the hull and a ramp lowered itself, almost, but not quite, touching the ground, revealing the vast emptiness of the transporter’s illuminated interior.
Noah invited Griffin, Tip and Fin to have a closer look. They walked up the ramp while Noah continued to levitate, ensuring that he did not come into contact with any contaminated ground. Once inside he explained,
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‘I shall be in here with you during our flight to Pinecrest Lake. There are no seats so you’ll have to stand over there.’ He pointed to one part of the perimeter wall. ‘You can hold on to the vertical bars there although you will feel no movement as you’ll become weightless, a feeling not unlike floating in water. I would request that you girls keep Fury calm.’ He grabbed one short length of strapping from many of varying lengths, which were hanging around the perimeter of the interior and were used for tying down cargo, and handed it to Fin. ‘It might help to place this around Fury’s neck,’ he suggested.
After answering a few questions about where they were going and who they would meet there, Noah led them all outside again. He explained to Jonesy that he would fly both ships from the interior of the transporter and that Jonesy would be alone in Noah’s ship for the return journey.
The trio packed away their bivouacs, dressed for daylight and entered the big transporter. The girls spoke softly to the horse as they led him up the ramp.
Jonesy sat in his seat in Noah’s ship and waited for something to happen. He watched the hatch close, the light dim and the spherical display appear. He felt himself become massless.
Noah levitated next to the others at one side of the interior. The ramp closed and sealed the big ship. A spherical display materialised in the air around all of them. They felt themselves become massless. Fury agitated for a moment, however Noah quickly calmed his mind via telepathic means.
There was no one there to witness the two glowing discs rise silently into the sky just as the first, long, golden rays of the rising sun kissed the tops of the parched hills to the west of Ash Meadows Springs.
…….
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