Chapter 45

Aina time: 7:54 AM, day 0 of 1442 (Festival of the High Sun)

Earth time: 3:40 PM EST, Friday, April 24, 2037

"Hi brother! How's it going?"

Leon looked up and smiled at his sister Lois. They were standing in a large crowd in the center of a huge level and graded field. It was the site for the future city of Athens. The vastness of the city could be seen by the network of roads already in place, but the beauty was still a natural one, square kilometers of wild flower meadows and wild brush in all directions. The tribe was commissioning two fountains that would be at the heart of the new city.

"Hi yourself sis. Thing's are fine with me. How about you?"

"Oh, fine too. I saw Sarah coming home from a date last night. Gosh, she's turned into such a beautiful woman."

"Yeah, my little girl is all grown up. This past spring, you wouldn't believe the number of boys that have been buzzing around her, now that her marriage class has started. It's funny... I know in three seasons she'll marry. I'm kind of looking forward to it, and I'm not looking forward to it... at all..."

"Well, of course. It would break my heart too to have to give her up. But Leon, that's life..."

"Yeah... I know... Uh, did you get your new Hydra yet?"

"Yep, last week. I think it's a bit more powerful than my original. How about you?"

"Yep, last week for me too. We're finally on par with 2010 Earth technology, at least in electronics. It's quite a milestone."

"Yeah. These people are so patient! They choose such long-term goals! Look at Athens. Look at how slowly they're going to build it."

"I know. The layout is for 10,000 residents. It'll probably be hundreds of years before the population is that large."

"Wow. You really think so?"

Leon nodded. "Yeah. I was talking to Mayoni about this just a week ago, when I heard the announcement for the date for the fountain dedications. She says most Hopewell are still shocked at how quickly Earth's population grew in the twentieth century. She said the tribe would never dream of growing their population faster than a half a percent a year. Years are quicker here than Earth, but still..."

"I know. They have a common understanding that rapid growth destroys the process of morality transfer, from one generation to the next. These people are a lot more careful than Earth ever was. Uh, Leon, did you the rumors about these fountains?"

"Sure. My group has worked on the first one. It shows scenes from when Mark and Kara first came here. One is on the Battle of the Gorge, another on the Battle at the Camp, and the last one on the Battle by the Gate. Beautiful scenes, very artistic, very touching too..."

"Brother, I was thinking of the other fountain. I've heard it's about the Battle of Tucker County."

"What?! No, I didn't know..."

Lois whispered, "Furthermore, I've heard rumors all the other expedition members were asked for input for the design, everybody but you and me."

"Huh?! Shit! Lois, this is not good."

"Oh Leon, I don't mind being left out."

"Left out?! Are you serious? Lois, you know what these people are like. Think!"

Lois paused for a moment. "Oh my gosh..." she whispered.

"Yeah... It looks like they're about to start..."

After some brief speeches, the first fountain was unveiled. The first part was a miniature replica of the Battle of the Gorge. Thousands of tiny Hopewell figures could be seen hiding at the top of the gorge. Prominent was Kirahani's exposed firing position, surrounded by ten bodyguards staring at the approach of a Paleo horde. Kara and Pakua, the sole surviving bodyguard, were openly weeping.

The next area of the fountain showed two small children, dressed in traditional Paleo clothes, holding hands and looking very somber. It was a quiet memorial to the women and the unborn children killed before the Battle of the Camp.

The final scene showed the Battle of the Gate. Prominent was Mayoni standing on top of a tree stump on the ledge above the gate, facing the enemy and singing with all her heart. Leon glanced over and saw Mayoni blushing deeply, grateful that her family was offering her some shelter from the cheering crowds.

And then the second fountain was unveiled. The roar of the crowd seemed to fade into silence as Leon stared at the scene. Without even thinking, he walked into the fountain with his shoes still on to get a closer look.

Except for Lois and himself, all the expedition members were present as life-sized statues. They were all sheltered under an enormous umbrella, being held up by statues of Leon and Lois that were at least ten feet tall. Periodically, an array of small, high- pressure nozzles would turn on and create a whirlwind of water above the umbrella, which would then descend and disintegrate upon impact upon the protective shield. It looked just like a miniature tornado. The crowds laughed and roared their approval when it happened. But it all seemed quite dim to Leon and very far away. He was staring at the statues of his nieces, and his mouth was agape.

His two nieces were cuddled on either side of his hips, their arms hugging his thighs and their heads resting on either side of his pelvis. But it was their faces that touched his heart. Both had their eyes were half closed, and the expressions on their faces were ones of complete peace and serenity, the clear message being there would never be anything to fear in their lives as long as they could stand by their uncle's side.

Leon's eyes were filled with tears and he climbed upon the pedestal and began to wander among the statues. Behind his statue's back was a deep bowl filled with golden coins, and Leon reached down and scooped some of them out. He stared at them in astonishment and thought, "My God. They're all real! American Eagles, Canadian Maple Leaves, South African... ah, French Napoleons too... Must be 10,000 coins here... My God, 600 lb of gold, real gold... Must be at least 30% of what we've mined so far in the northern vein... And nobody will ever take it... My God..."

Leon dropped the coins back in the bowl and took a closer at the front of his statue. His face had a playful smiling expression on it. His right hand was holding the umbrella with Lois. His left hand... Ah, Leon could see why his statue was smiling. His left hand held five poker cards. The fifth card was half buried, making it cleverly impossible to see the suite. But as Leon looked closely, it was quite clear he was holding five aces.

Aina time: 5:15:00 AM, day 254 of 1449

Earth time: 5:40:12 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Wednesday, June 17, 2043

The calm voice of a male technician came from the intercom. "Time mark. Path minus ten minutes."

Kara looked at the blast door in front of her. It was currently closed, and separating her expedition team from the horizontal hexagonal tunnel. There were numerous diagnostic instruments pointing down the tunnel. Kara had made the decision to let the scanners have a first look before exposing any of her people.

Kara looked behind her and smiled at her team. Half the team consisted of twelve men, including Mark and Leon. The other half was twelve women, including herself but not Lois. Lois was judged by the Congress to be a little too old now for such a mission. Kara had decided to wait and spend some time making sensor and radio sweeps before deciding how to deploy her teams. She stretched her body to relieve some the tension, thinking of the honor being given her to lead the expedition...

"Not bad, not bad at all... My body is still pretty limber for 54 Earth years. Well, all the physical training certainly helped. I haven't been in this good of shape in years... And Mayoni, she turned forty-nine Earth-years yesterday... We're less than five years apart... But she always treats me as a mother, never a sister... Her heart is so clean and pure... Hiapo and Kalea are what, sixty-four Earth-years now... You'd never guess it to look at them... All three of them now, totally focused in the Blue Spirit operations room..."

Kara looked at her two teams and decided to give a last minute review. "Right! Let's review the timeline. We're fortunate to be opening so close to Earth's summer solstice. Sunset today on Earth will be at 8:46 pm EDT, and civil twilight will last until 9:19 PM. We'll have almost three hours of daylight left when the Path opens. And we're catching a very good phase of the moon. First quarter moon was three days ago, 79% of the lunar surface should be visible tonight. The moon rose over an hour ago, and will set at 2:58 AM tomorrow morning. We should have lots of light to deploy the teams for night traveling, depending on the weather of course..."

The teams waited in silence for the remaining moments of the countdown. There were a few quiet gasps as the time elapsed to zero and the TV monitors showed the Path winking into existence. It was quite dim outside the Grotto, and pouring rain. "Oh shit," thought Kara. "Forget about the moon. Here we go again..."

Five minutes went by as the mission control room went through the first phase of their scanning. Then the intercom came to life by Kara's side, and she recognized Hiapo's voice. "Sensors show no hazardous chemicals. However, artificial radiation levels appear ten times higher than the last opening. Be advised acceptable mission parameters are limiting anyone's stay on Earth to ten days. Kara, your teams are cleared to exit to Earth."

Kara thanked Hiapo and her two teams spent the next twenty minutes assembling an array of radio antennas in the Grotto, just inside the lip and protected from the rain. During the work, the rain began to taper off and the sky appeared to brighten a bit. "What's the weather like back on Aina?" Kara called into the comm link.

Leon's daughter Sarah was majoring in meteorology, and Kara heard her reply, "Raining here too, but much more foggy. Cooler temperatures here, the top of Spirit House is registering 56F, a typical rainy spring day. Radar shows the rain here will last another hour or two, and then clear later this morning. Your temperature in the Grotto is 81F. Must feel very muggy."

"Yeah, you got that right, just like our last trip. But it's mid June now. This would be normal for a rainy day here, this time of year..."

After the radio antennas were set up, their reception was piped into the new server arrays in Spirit House. Unlike their last trip, Kara was told they were receiving lots of radio traffic in the area, and she decided to wait another half hour for some analysis before deploying her teams.

It was at 6:40 PM local time (EDT) that the intercom again spoke to her. This time it was son-in-law Leo on the line, Amy's husband. "Kara, our first pass at analyzing the radio traffic indicates the airwaves are filled with signals from what we think is the WFM, military transmission. I heard one snippet sign off as first army. A lot of the chatter it is quite close, less than a hundred kilometers for sure... One burst might have been within ten kilometers..."

"What?! That would put it inside the canyon!"

"I know. If you deployed another antenna some distance away, we could triangulate. One kilometer away would be sufficient. It would give us an accurate location for the foreign signals."

"Thanks Leo. Let me think about this for a bit..." Kara looked at the sky and tried to weigh her options. The rain had ceased, but she was unsure if it was really clearing up or would start up again. She definitely didn't want to just sit here in a cave and let trouble walk up to the front door. At 6:50 PM she summoned two of the female team members to her side and planned a small excursion.