Chapter 13: Good Vibrations

With my work accomplished, I walked up to the house. The crew had been hard at work and the living room looked immaculate. I'm sure the entire house did. Alicia was walking through the living room putting out bowls of nuts and candy.

"Dave!" She said when she saw me. "I put the box of cell phones you left down here up in your room for now, okay? They're on the dresser."

"Thanks Alicia." I answered.

"Speaking of cell phones." I said to myself, and I pulled my cell phone out and dialed Sheb's number.

"Halliday." Sheb said succinctly.

"Sheb, its Dave. Is everything ready to go at that end?"

"All set here. Do you need us to disconnect our power feed to the reefer unit?"

"Yes, go ahead. While someone disconnects that, lets do the cargo van. Anyone in it?"

"Nope, do we need a driver?"

"No. Hang on a second." I'd started walking down the hall to the side door near the new pad I"d built this morning. When I stepped out the door and could see the pad, I reached out with my senses in Chocowinity and found the cargo van. I jumped it through, onto the pad with the back facing the picnic tables. "Got that one."

"So I see!" I heard Sheb sort of whoosh out.

I had already let my senses wash over the refrigerated container, and knew exactly where it was. I sensed a knot of people standing near Sheb. I decided to play it safe with the people, and jumped myself to the front of the group. As I appeared, I saw a man about my age walking back to the group from the cargo container. He must've been the one who disconnected the generator.

"Is the group with you everyone who's coming over for the catering?"

"Yes, that's everyone except Violet, and she's headed here from the back porch right now."

I let her join us. As soon as I knew we were all together I jumped everyone through to a spot about 20 feet in front of the pad, between the pad and the picnic area.

"Welcome to Meadow!" I said to everyone. "We'll do the introductions in a minute, but let me get that container here first."

I reached out and jumped the container through, with the doors facing us and settled it onto the surface of the pad.

"Who's been handling the power to the container?" I asked the crowd.

Sheb and the man I'd spotted earlier came forward. Sheb introduced me to Brian Aillard.

The three of us walked up to the edge of the pad and I picked up the R2D2-looking unit and handed it to Brian. He turned it over, inspecting it from every angle. The connector was on the other end of the container, so we walked to the back. There was a large connector recessed into the surface that seemed to match the flat end of ours.

"Go ahead and see if the connector's match." I told Brian.

He lined up the two connectors visually at first, and then pushed the unit into the recessed connector jiggling it back and forth slightly to get the final match up, and as he finally got it to slide in, two little handles popped out of the sides.

"Ah, perfect!" Brian said and grabbed the two handles and twisted the unit easily, rotating it into its locked position. Indicator lights near the connector on the container unit flicked on to green and the needles on a couple of dials swept all the way to the right.

"That's it?" Sheb asked.

"Yup, that little bitty thing is a power cell." I answered.

"How long will it keep the unit powered?" Brian asked.

"You know, I"m not sure! Hang on a sec."

<Con?> I sent my thoughts off.

<Dave?> I got back immediately.

<We've got the power cell connected to the refrigerated container, how long will this cell last?>

<Under constant load? About one year.>

<Okay, thanks!>

"One year under constant load." I answered.

I think that answer stunned Brian more than being jumped to another planet did.

We rejoined the others, and in addition to Brian and his wife Cynthia, I met Walt and Tracey Aldridge, Gene and Olivia Fredrickson, Pat and Dawn Carmichael, and their son and daughter-in-law Wyatt and Abby Carmichael, and Bob 'call me Hoot' Jenkins and his wife Loretta and their two sons Beau and Asa. Once the introductions were complete, I addressed the entire group.

"Folks, you have obviously already seen a few things that you've never imagined, and you will see more. You have two hours to get things ready, so I hope that we've built in enough of a buffer to allow for the occasional lapse of concentration. The best heads up I can give you is to get used to seeing things that float, hover or seem to hang in the air. If you can adjust to that, most of the rest will be pretty non-intrusive." I paused for second, mostly to see if what I was saying was really registering. To their credit, none of these people seemed to be too glazed over in the eyes yet.

"Questions?"

"We've obviously got our storage area defined. Do we have a prep area prepared?" Wyatt Carmichael asked.

"I've got four twenty foot tables we can set up anywhere you'd like them." I answered.

"Running water?" Loretta Jenkins asked.

"There are two taps with standard fittings on this side of the house, beside the stairs. They're labeled hot and cold, and the label is accurate. There's a second hot water tap available on the other side as well, but the cold water tap is already in use. Hot water usage is not a problem, and we do not get an electric bill from the local utility, so do not worry about conserving water or electricity."

"Restrooms?" Walt Aldridge asked.

"Those are on the other side of the house as well. Tell you what, is there anything that needs getting done immediately? If not, lets make a quick tour of the grounds so you know what's where."

I started with the side we were on, walking by the stairs where the outside water faucets and hose were, and then around to the back where the patio was set up, pointing to the kitchen doors.

"This is the quick way into the kitchen if you decide you need it. You'll want to check with Ginny or Felicia before anything major happens there though."

The back yard and patio area was the most extensively landscaped area around the house, and thanks to some small trees and shrubs still seemed isolated from the goings on around the rest of the house. As we rounded the opposite corner everyone's eyes went to the cruiser of course.

"This is the cruiser. We haven't given her a name yet, but she's our local transportation. By local, I mean anywhere on Meadow. I will be using her to pick up the guests from Chocowinity, but that is a special case. We will be offering brief rides to the guests later, and I know you all may find yourselves too busy to take advantage of that so let me make this invitation now. When the picnic is over, tomorrow or the next day, we will have all of you back to have lunch as our guests. We will take a nice long ride then, so please do not feel left out if you do not have time for a ride today."

I let them stare at the cruiser a bit before proceeding.

"If you'll turn around, you'll see the answer to your question about restrooms. These 'guest accommodations' as we so politely refer to them are the Legion's version of porta-potties. You'll probably be asked about them as you are serving guests, so please feel free to give them a quick inspection."

Once everyone was finished with their quick examination, We continued around to the front of the house. This finally gave the crew their first really good look at the picnic tables.

"Damn! You weren't kidding, were you?" Hoot Jenkins said, staring at the array of seemingly free-floating table tops.

"No, and this is a good chance to get a change of perception established. I know these table tops and benches look as if they are floating in air, but they really aren't 'floating'. Beau, Asa, Wyatt, why don't the three of you go over and try moving something. Feel free to climb on and jump up and down on anything you want."

The three younger men took advantage of the opportunity to have a little fun, and were quickly grunting and groaning as they attempted to budge the table tops and benches.

"These things are really about as immovable as a thing can get. They are gravitationally locked into this specific spot on Meadow, and it would probably require blowing up the planet to get them to move without the right equipment. Speaking of which, lets get back over to where we started and get those prep tables set up where you want them."

When we got back to the spot in front of the container and van, I grabbed one of the 'activators' that I'd left sitting next to them and handed it to Olivia Fredrickson. Olivia was a tiny, petite little thing, which is why I picked her of course.

"Olivia, do you see the little blue button?"

"Yes sir." she answered.

"Okay, before I continue. What's my first name?"

"Dave." I got back.

"Good, that's what I want to hear you calling me." I turned to the rest of the group. "We are all strictly on a first name basis here. Okay?"

"Okay Dave." They answered in unison, and then all laughed at themselves.

"Okay, Olivia, put the flat disk on the surface of this table top and push the blue button." I watched as she did as instructed. "Now lift the table." She did, and the table rose up smoothly as she did.

"Move the table to where you want it. When its exactly where it needs to go, hit the blue button again."

"Lets set up the first table over by the faucet." Violet said, and Olivia led the table over to the side of the house and slowly aligned it to Violet's satisfaction. Once she had it there, she looked at me for a second, then pushed the blue button. The disk separated from the surface and a second later the table shimmered and was locked in place.

"Just that easy!" I said. If you decide to move it later, you can just use the activator."

"Can you move 'em while they're loaded?" Abby Carmichael asked.

"Yes." I said." That got me a smile from Dawn Carmichael.

"It sure would be nice to have a couple of smaller ones to use for carts." She said.

"Funny you should ask." I added, turning and pointing at the remaining small stack. "These should do. Lets check them out."

The 'carts' that I had brought weren't fabbed items, rather they were standard tools in the Hall, and I had just appropriated a few for the day. They were 4 foot by 3 foot flat surfaces with a slight raised lip running around the edge. A handle like you'd find on a piece of luggage hung from the long ends of each, and each handle had a blue glowing button on one side of it. It took only seconds for the crew to have them figured out.