Chapter 3: Therefore I am

The Cataloochee House, as we referred to our new home, did become a focus of activity, but it was not the business of the Legion which focused there, it was the business of raising our gifted children.

Every member of the Legion had shared my memories, as well as Ginny, Eru and Con's, of Aya, Kes and Beloth, the Ancient Guardians we had so briefly rescued from their fate. They remembered, through us, their stories of how the children of the Choctowineh were raised 'within the Light'. As much as possible, with only five Light-aware adults to share the load, we worked to give that experience to our children. The reality of it was that they soon were forcing us to live within the Light in ways we hadn't anticipated.

<... Three. Two. One!>

Andy finished counting, and began trying to find Zaia and Riah. They always found the most interesting places to hide. He went back to the place he found them yesterday, but of course they weren't there. He turned and took a new, unfamiliar path, reaching out with his senses for some trace of their passing.

The fact that this game of hide and seek was taking place entirely within his own mind didn't bother Andy at all. The seven year old was already familiar with his mind, and was discovering more every day. He knew that these games he played were as much about learning as they were about fun, but he liked to learn. Learning about things was easy. Learning about your mind was much more of a challenge.

A hint of something registered on his senses, and in an instant he was off in hot pursuit.

Felicia Poole stood in the doorway and watched as Maia and Jeni sat in the cool shade of the patio, looking at chalk markings on the patio tiles. Maia picked up the piece of chalk and added a little to what was there.

<How about that?> She thought to her companion.

Jeni looked at it for a bit, rubbed out a bit at the end with her shirtsleeve and picked up her chalk, adding a new figure to the end.

<How about that instead? Then we finish like this!> And she added three more lines to the bottom.

"Perfect Jeni! Lets try it!" Maia said out loud.

"Okay, I'll play, and you sing the lead part. You sing better than me."

Jeni jumped up and grabbed her Sonox. She stood above the simple score chalked into the tiles, and activated the Sonox, driving it with her thoughts. The simple but clear and pleasant tune was soon joined by Maia's voice, as she sang the words. With Maia singing, Jeni joined in. Together they sang in two part harmony.

Whether its day,

or whether its night

The Light is there

to make things right.

Light is Life

Life is Light

At work or play

Awake or dreaming

The Light is there

Constantly streaming.

Light is Life

Life is Light

In the darkness

Light will guide you

Safe and warm

Light will keep you

Light is Life

Life is Light

As soon as they ended their song the two six year olds grabbed each other in a hug and jumped round in circles, giggling and laughing!

"Jeni Jean Anderson and Maia Poole! What do you think you're doing?" Felicia Poole's voice called out sternly from the doorway to the kitchen behind them.

The two girls, still in mid hug froze at the sound and turned their heads towards Felicia. All three of them stood still for a moment, before finally Jeni, giggled. When that brought a smile to her Mom's face Maia started giggling too.

"We were just making music, Mama!" Maia said finally. "Did you like it?"

"Yes I did girls. I liked it so much I had Ava record it, so we can let everyone hear it at family dinner tonight! Come inside now, its time to get cleaned up for lunch."

Sarah Parkin found her twins Ian and Grace sitting with Serenity McKesson in the sandbox near the raspberry bushes. Th three of them were sitting silently, focused on the sand between them.

"Kids? Its lunch time! Go get washed up." All three of the children looked up.

"Okay Aunt Sarah!" Serenity said. "We'll play some more tomorrow, okay?" she said to her companions. "Grace is ahead 3 to 1, don't forget!"

"Okay 'Ren!" The twins said simultaneously, as they jumped up and ran for the house.

As she watched her twin five year-olds run into the house, Sarah asked Serenity.

"What was the game you were playing?"

"I pick out a grain of sand, and they have to find out which one."

"Isn't that hard?" Sarah asked.

"Well Yeah!" Serenity said, as if it was obvious. "Looking at small things is hard enough, but then you have to get the part of the sand that is Light to show you what else is connected to it. That is really, really hard!. Andy says we need to get good at it though."

Sarah stared at the six year old as she disappeared into the house. She looked at the sandbox again and shook her head.

At dinner that night, the recording of Jeni and Maia's performance was received with great enthusiasm. When asked about the Sonox, Jeni said "My fingers are too small, so I couldn't make the music in my head come out right, so I asked Uncle Constantine if he could make me something."

Serenity's explanation, at Sarah's prompting, of the game that she had been playing with Ian and Grace received a very different kind of attention.

"Andy, having you been keeping secrets?" His mother asked. But from his dad it was "Andy, please share your thoughts with me."

After a brief mental huddle with Andy, Dave announced.

"Andy and I will be joining you at the sandbox tomorrow, Ren. Please give me a thought when you are ready to begin the game, okay?"

"Okay Daddy!" Serenity answered back.

Ginny, Con and I had begun using the little craft we called a hopper for our new facet expeditions just before Andy was born. Ginny had said we need to give her a name the first time we used her, and we had.

We called her Dare.

It was something of an accidental discovery, but we eventually noticed that the facets I picked were more wildly varied from Earth normal when we were airborne in Dare.

This is how we found Archipelago.

Imagine a world without major landmasses. A world of endless ocean, sprinkled thickly with endless chains of islands. That was Archipelago. There were a couple islands that were approximately the size of Madagascar, as well as a couple dozen the size of Taiwan sprinkled here and there. Smaller islands the size of Hawaii on down were too numerous to count.

Two years of satellite survey data made Archipelago seem a paradise. The lack of major open oceans in the tropical regions must have had some effect on weather there. Not a single major storm was detected over the two year observation period. Steady breezes and light rains were frequent, and became heavier during the winter months, but major weather disasters seemed to happen rarely, if they happened at all.

In my mind I saw it as a sailor's paradise, so when Uncle Ambrose and Ia Sardic announced their plans to get married, I decided to give it to them as a wedding present.

Okay, I wasn't going to give an entire facet to someone as a gift. First of all, it wasn't mine to give. But I did immediately make plans to give them access to it.

Step one of my plan was to introduce Archipelago to the Hurlon. Our new friends were not suffering from any kind of population pressure. They did not need to settle new worlds out of any kind of political or social pressure. They were simply endlessly curious and adventurous.

The delicate negotiations to give the Hurlon permanent access to the oceans of Archipelago were only delicate because they had to be kept secret from Ambrose and Ia. We were able to keep the secret, and conclude the agreement in plenty of time to build our first underwater jump gate, keyed to the unique Hurlon gravity signature.

When we first made contact with the Hurlon, we had thought them to be about as intelligent as a the average 8 to 10 year old human child. We discovered very quickly that we were actually dealing with the Hurlon equivalent of young adolescents. The adult Hurlon did not frequent the upper depths, and as a general rule, the truly old and wise Hurlon restricted themselves to the very deepest reaches of Cloudburst's oceans. They weren't obsessive about it though, and as word reached them of intelligent beings from the 'not-wet', they came up to say hi.

The Hurlon did not use names, as we would think of them. They knew each other as unique thought and memory 'signatures'. We were not so adept, so were forced to make up names to use as a sort of shorthand that we used when we spoke of them amongst ourselves. The elder Hurlon who was assigned the duty of being our liaison we called 'Socrates'.

Socrates asked us, shortly after we had met him, if we were from another one of the worlds in the sky, or if we were from 'another eddy in the currents of the world'.

How many times now, had our self-assured assumptions crumbled around us when we were forced to realize that what we thought we understood about our discoveries proved incorrect, and that we were living a reality quite a bit different and more wonderful than what we thought we knew.

The oldest and wisest Hurlon elders gathered in the darkest, deepest parts of the sea, and they slowly cruised the depths, feeding and thinking, linked together in thought. They were perhaps the universe's longest running program of theoretical research. As a pure exercise of mental perceptiveness and sheer, utter wisdom, without benefit of a single machine or tool, with nothing but their own existence to build upon, and utterly lacking in sensitivity to the Light, the Hurlon had long ago theorized the existence of the Light, and the facets.

Talk about deep thinkers!

The thought-sensitive interfaces of our Legion armor and devices like the jump bracelets and even the Sonox that Con had built for Maia and Jeni, were easily adapted to tie in to the Hurlon communications. With that connection made, we were able to turn our very good orbital survey maps of the oceans of Archipelago into perfect, accurate and detailed navigation maps of the oceans of Archipelago.

It was merely a matter of time and commitment. With the Hurlon 'eyes' to assist us, we built detailed and accurate oceanographic navigational charts for an area five hundred miles across, centered on an island retreat with a cluster of palm-thatched buildings and a dock that we built for the honeymooning couple on one of the many tropical islands, complete with a fusion reactor and modern appliances.

Our charting crew had been fifty Hurlon 'youth', whose work for us in this alien ocean was going to serve to complete their citizenship service. We were interested to discover that moving from youth to adult status in Hurlon society required a formal commitment of service to their society. This usually was completed by serving as messengers and as babysitters for schools of Hurlon young, as well as defending against what few predators existed that were willing to attack a Hurlon. Three of that crew were going to stay on, and provide escort service to whichever craft the newlyweds chose to sail in.