Chapter 2

"Sir, I would like to introduce you to Gemma, the head of security; Lisa who is the head of the science department; Ellen who is the political analyst and public relations specialist; Laura who is your personal assistant and also the leader of your body guard; Samantha who is the head of intelligence; Julia who is head of supplies and production; and Rebecca who is council member without portfolio," Louise said, as she guided Matthew down the line of women.

"Council member without portfolio? Was the founder of this base a politician?" Matthew asked with a small laugh; although from looking at Rebecca he thought that the design objectives for her might have been to create a red headed Goddess. She was absolutely beautiful, all 5 feet 7 inches of her body was perfectly proportional and finely toned. Her blue eyes sparkling from the reflection of the few strands of hair falling down her forehead.

Having never seen someone with both blue eyes and natural red hair before, the words forming in Matthew's mind were, "An exotic Goddess."

Returning a small shy smile, Louise explained, "No Sir, it's just that Rebecca can be assigned to any position which you think needs filling. Of course you can change the role of any of the rest of us as well. Just Rebecca was designed to be much more adaptable than most of us."

"As the eighth member of the council my own position is head of engineering and I'm also in charge of the general operation of the base," she added.

"Are all life forms created by this base female?"

"Yes, most of the humanoid life forms so far created by this base, have been female, or they at least have a female form. I will be able to go in more details of the reason for this at a later date; however the basic reason is that each life form is designed rather than left to the chance of sexual reproduction. So there is no need for sperm." Louise smiled as she explained this to him. "Some life forms do have certain male characteristics, such as higher levels of aggression and greater body strength being common in those designed for military roles. Although I believe there will be some surprises for you along the way."

Matthew looked directly into her eyes; his own eyes narrowing," What if I don't like surprises?"

"Most of them, I think you will like and enjoy. The others, you will neither like nor dislike. They will just be, because they were the best way for something to work. In time, everything will make sense. Please remember, Sir, that we are restricted by the founding rules." Louise told him, she could see he was having a hard time believing anything she told him and a even harder time trusting anyone. However, after what he must have been through, it wasn't surprising that he didn't trust them.

It had been nearly a year since the last surveillance team had been sent out of the base, and the report they had brought back had brought Louise to tears. The Gilotts had made life hell for the humans. Humans living in the towns were treated as slave labour and they never knew when a Gilott might decide to make them their new plaything. Those humans who tried to live outside the towns and villages had to deal with the wild beasts that the Gilotts had introduced. Although, to Louise, there didn't seem to be much difference between the beasts and the Gilotts.

"Sir, when someone comes out of stasis, one of the first things they need to do, is to eat. I guess you must be getting hungry too. So why don't we all go and get some food? Then we can tell you a bit more about the base and about our most pressing need. We can also try to answer some of the thousands of questions that I'm sure you have."

With the mention of food, his stomach started to rumble; hungry wasn't the word for how he felt, he hadn't eaten since the night before. "Sure that sounds like a great idea."

With Louise leading the way, the group of naked people made their way to the dining area; "I'm afraid that our selection of food at the moment is limited to a form of soup; its made from artificial meat. It can get really boring eating the same twenty different flavoured soups for two hundred years but it does contain all the proteins and such that a body needs."

Matthew noticed that the two females walking each side of him, kept managing to brush their bodies against his. "Opps, I'm sorry," they would say, with a smile and a flick of their hair. They certainly knew how to flirt and with such human mannerisms.

"I think the first thing we need to explain is about a problem that we need to sort out before we can get most of this base operational," Louise started to explain, as they sat eating the thick soup. "It was believed that the explosion in the reactor, which was used to push us back in time, would have minimal affect on the running of the reactor once we arrived back in time. However whatever went wrong or at least hadn't happened in the simulations, lead to the reactor being inoperable once we arrived here. This is the reason that the rest of the council went into stasis, and one of the reasons why we couldn't conduct a large-scale search for the founder or anyone who matched one of the profiles. We have back up fuel cells but they were never meant to provide power to the whole base."

"What Louise is saying is that we really need to leave the base and capture a new power source," Samantha spoke for the first time. Her voice had what sounded like a Australian accent to it, which Matthew found attractive but strange. Why would one of these people or life forms, or whatever he should call them, have an accent?

Matthew turned to examine this blonde beauty with the Australian accent, "Have any of you been out of this base lately? Or even ever?"

Looking into his eyes, Samantha, was happy to have his attention, no matter what the actual reason for it was. "I have, the last time was about a year ago. Every once in a while, I would be woken up to conduct a surveillance mission."

"So you know about the Gilotts? You know, those eight or nine feet tall bipedal creatures who look like some sort of cross between a deformed bear's body and the head of a hairless cat?" he asked, frustration and sarcasm showing in his voice. "You must know that any sort of power source isn't going to be easy to get hold of?"

"Yes, we know about them," Samantha replied. "And yes we know where a power source is located. The last time we went out, we placed sensors around the area in which this power source is located. These sensors are still active and show the power source to still be in the same place. It's at a Gilott outpost located about twenty five miles from here, they have taken over a small village."

"Hold on, the eight of you have this base with technology from the future and you have been out and done surveillance missions. So you know what has been going on out there. Yet none of you did anything to try to stop the Gilott invasion? Nothing to stop them from doing their best to destroy the earth and the human race? I guess as none of you are human, that we didn't matter to you?" He shouted, as he threw down his spoon. The shock of first losing Anne, Simon and Katie and then of suddenly finding himself inside this base, was now starting to wear off. In its place he felt anger. Anger with himself for messing up the mission that morning, anger with himself for running away and leaving Katie in the hands of those creatures. Anger with himself for allowing one of these females to blow him off and anger with these people -or whatever the hell they were- for just watching and sleeping through most probably the worse events in the history of mankind.

"I guess when the Gilotts killed my mother, it didn't matter because she was just another human," he added, in a much quieter voice.

None of the eight council members knew how to respond to him, they too had wished so many times that they could have done something. When the Gilotts had first came to the attention of Louise, the other council members had been woken and informed of the situation. Since then Louise had cried so many times; the feeling of helplessness was something she hadn't been designed to cope with. She wasn't sure if the founder and creator hadn't thought about them being in a situation where they might feel helpless or if it had been intentional, so that they could be that bit closer to being human.

With tears flowing from her eyes, Louise reached out and touched his hand, "Sir, I can't say anything to make you feel better or anything to excuse the fact that we did nothing. It's just that the founding rules do not allow us to make decisions to get involved in anything, without the orders of the base commander. The only things they allow are a small range of actions to try to locate someone who matches the DNA profiles. We pushed those rules as far as we could, when the surveillance missions to locate a power source were conducted. We just wanted to be ready for when we did find a matching human. I can't tell you of the number of times that I have cried when hearing about what those Gilotts have done; or the number of times I have cried from the feeling of being helpless while people fight over the scraps of a dead dog's body."

The anger in Matthew's eyes started to fade and his look softened, "I'm no better, this morning I chose to run and save myself, rather than attempt to save my sister."

"Sir, you know you had no choice. If the Gilotts had your sister and you had tried to do anything to save her, you would be dead right now. At least now you have the chance of making a difference and with you in command, the eight of us also have a chance of making a difference."

Wiping away a tear from Louise's eyes, Matthew started to think about those founding rules which kept being mentioned, "Why were these founding rules made so strict in stopping you from helping? Can I see a copy of them and those other rules you were talking about? The ones I'm allowed to change."

"I can't allow you to see the whole document. As it also contains the rules and guidelines about how much of this base and its technology you are able to use during each stage. They lay out the conditions which must have been fulfilled, before you can progress to the next stage. What I can show you, I will get the computer to print out later."

"If I'm either the founder or one of his trusted friends or family, why does it sound like he doesn't trust me?"

"The founder was scared of releasing technology on an unprepared past. He was most scared of the governments and military getting hold of the technology. During his life, he had done what he had thought to be the right things. It was too late by the time he realised how much damage he had been the cause of. People he had trusted had really been controlling him. Sending this base back was his way of hoping to change the mistakes he had made. He hoped that by using the power and technology of this base, his younger self would be able to stay out of the control of those people, but he wanted to be sure. If this base and its technology came under the control of those very people the founder had came to hate, then instead of correcting his mistakes and the misery they had created, he would be making them worse. So he came up with the idea of parts of the base and its technology being released to the commander in stages. Some of those stages are based on things you will do. For some of them you need to show certain knowledge and skills. While some stages have a year set before which they will not be available."

"I guess it kind of makes sense, but it doesn't really help us in the current situation. It would be nice if there were a government which could try to get control of the technology. So tell me about this power source and the village where it is located."

It seemed like the conversation of the last ten minutes hadn't left a dry eye in the room. Wiping away her own tears, Lisa knew that she was the one who should answer the first part of his question, "We don't know that much about the power source or how it works until we can take a closer look. Although from sensor readings, we do know that it is nuclear powered and should be able to provide enough power for most of this base. At least enough power until some of the later stages become available."

"As for its location, as we said, it's in a village about twenty-five miles from here. We are not entirely sure what the Gilotts use the village for, but it seems to be some kind of small supply depot. There are never normally more than thirty Gilotts based there," the unmistakable voice of Samantha continued.

"Well thirty of them is more than nine of us. And I hate to tell you this, but one Gilott should be counted as about five humans at least. Also if we attack, they will just call for help if they need it. Most importantly, even if we did get this power source, how would we get it back here? Once the Gilotts know that one of their bases has been attacked and a power source taken, they will start ripping this whole area apart."

Samantha replied gently, "I don't know if you know this or not, but the Gilotts are not one big happy group. There are a number of groups on this planet, in this country even, that are all competing with each other. We will make the attack look like another group of Gilotts were the ones that attacked the village."

This one fact from Samantha -if it was true- showed Matthew that she knew more about the Gilotts than anyone he had ever met.

The way Louise had told him that her brain wasn't as large as a humans, had made him think that this meant that she and the others weren't as intelligent as humans were. Now, he discovered, the more he got to know them, the more he thought this to be untrue.