Chapter 32

The voice of the translator faded as the speaker rose behind the podium, the hologram showing the last page of the diary still hovering above the stage.

"Those were significant excerpts from the journals we found, ladies and gentlemen," the young lady told the packed auditorium. "I realize that the archaic language may be difficult to follow in places, but there are enough remnants of English in today's Spanglish that you should be able to get the gist of what was written. You will find transcripts of the Spanglish translations in your handout packages when you leave. These journals, coupled with the DNA evidence, confirm the identity of the body found at the site as that of none other than Gavin Thompson. We have also identified the site as the actual Citadel. We are still investigating, but the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of this being the archaeological find of the century. If you will hold your questions just a bit longer, these holos will show why we make that assertion."

The scene shifted from the handwritten pages of the diary to a view, from about half a mile away, of a small group of craggy mountains in a dry, desert landscape. An inset showed its position on a map of western American Phoenicia. Dry, uninviting vegetation, and the occasional tree-like plant with tufts of sharp, pointed leaves were dotted about the landscape.

"This is the view of the Citadel that Gavin Thompson and his small band of survivors must have had when they first made their trek across the Mauve desert. They, of course, knew it as the 'Mohave' desert. Even then, they would have seen the Josh Trees, or Joshua Trees as they are called in the journals."

The scene shifted again, winding upward between boulders and rock outcroppings.

"In the intervening centuries, sand and erosion have obliterated the original trail from the desert floor to the lower valley, but we believe it must have followed this course, as this is the only route that wheeled vehicles could have followed to the top."

The holocam continued over the lip of a small valley and into a bowl of sand with strangely shaped dunes crisscrossing at odd angles.

"Those piles of sand are, in fact, the berms that were built for protection against aerial and artillery bombardment. As we cleared away the sand from some of them, we could see that they had been built from rock and the ruins of old land vehicles, and had a layer of soil placed over them. Continuing into the valley, we see the house to the right, near the western edge of the valley. Sun, rain, wind, and sand, of course, have all taken their toll, and all that remains is a sand-covered skeleton. This, of course, being the replacement for the house that was destroyed in the attack by the Russian."

"What is a 'Russian'?" someone in the audience asked.

"Russia was a pre-Sickness nation that spanned most of the northern Urasian continent," the speaker answered. "Apparently, the 'Russian' was an emigrant from that country. We hope to learn more about pre-Sickness geography from the materials recovered at the Citadel."

"As we continued across the valley, we could see where the waterfall had once cascaded down the cliff from the upper valley. This depression would have been the pool at its base. Here, you can see the remains of the waterwheel generator described in Senor Thompson's early journals, and to its left, the ruins of the stable."

The scene shifted further to the left and entered a black hole in the rock face of the mountain, pausing briefly to show a dusty lantern resting on a rock ledge. Inside, the cameraman turned into a wood-framed doorway as the door creaked open. As the holo entered the small space, a skeleton, still clothed in the tatters of dusty, faded camo-fatigues, lay on a bed, a book open beside it.

"As we entered the mine, we found this lantern still resting on its ledge. This must have been the ledge where the snake that gave Gavin Thompson a fatal bite was resting. Further inside, we see that the wooden apartments built to house the early Phoenicians are still standing. The wood is dry and cracked, but the structure is still solid. Certainly rodents could get in, but larger predators and carrion eaters wouldn't have been able to enter. This is probably the major factor in the preservation of the skeleton. The apartment on the end nearest the entrance is where we found the body of Gavin Thompson. There is the pack he carried on his pack horse. That was where we found the remainder of his journals. You can see the final journal resting on the bed and the ancient writing implement still gripped in his fingers."

The holo-cam left the room and continued down the mineshaft.

"You can see the wiring for the lights that were strung in here. Sometime after its abandonment, the power lines that supplied the Citadel must have been cut or broken, but some of the old light bulbs are still in place. This passage goes down to the lower entrance of the mine on the eastern side of the range. As you can see, the old wooden door mentioned in the journals is still in place. Going up this passage, we find what must have been the fire-control room described in Senor Thompson's journals. Further up the passage, past the doors of the control room, we re-enter the main shaft, which ascends a bit from this point. Here, branching off the other side of the main shaft, we found the passages that were used for the archives. You can see that the materials are well preserved, for the most part. Here is the section from which Gavin must have taken the books he intended to take with him to Phoenix. This section is all fiction and, as you can see, some books are missing."

Back out into the mineshaft and further in, the cam turned into another shaft.

"This section seems to have been dedicated to the fifty years or so just prior to the Sickness. Here we found publications describing the political situation and events from around the world right up to, and including, the first days of the Sickness. It seems that Senor Thompson wanted to ensure that we would learn from these publications and not repeat the mistakes of the past. My team is going through these materials very carefully now, and each day brings new revelations."

The holo cam made a quick tour of the rest of the archives as the speaker described its contents, then exited the mine and ascended a winding path up the cliff face beside what had once been the waterfall.

"This is the upper pasture that Gavin described. Here we see the remnants of the fences described in the early journals. We also found the skeletons of two horses here. From the look of the first, the curvature of the spine and other details, we surmised that this was the pack horse that Senor Thompson brought with him on his 'vacation.' This one, then, must have been the horse that he rode. We do not know when the water that supplied this place was cut off, but it must have been long after Senor Thompson's death, because both of these horses appear to have died of old age. That would mean that they had enough water and grass to keep them alive after his death."

The lights came up as the holo-display faded, and the speaker turned to the audience. She had been surprised, on seeing the attendee list, how many people from outside the University had joined the faculty and students who signed up for the seminar.

"I will take your questions now," the young lady said, stepping out from behind the podium.

Hands went up throughout the auditorium, and the speaker chose the first one she saw.

"If these really are the journals of Gavin Thompson, what effect will they have on our idea of history?" The grey-haired gentleman asked.

"As you can see, in general, they seem to corroborate most of what we know about post-Sickness Phoenician history. As most of you are well aware, the basis for most of that history comes from the stories of Jamaal Warner as transcribed by his daughter, Susan Chen-Thompson. While there are some variations between those stories and the accounts in Gavin Thompson's journals, the significant facts seem to be the same. More time and study will be needed to determine what, if any, revisions will need to be made to our history texts."

"Is there any possibility of anyone besides your team getting a look at the contents of those archives?" a bearded young man asked when recognized. "I specialize in pre-sickness history, but what remains in the ruins of the old cities is very sparse, thanks to the heavy-handedness of the scavengers after the Sickness."

"Those archives are in remarkably good condition, thanks to the conditions in the mine shaft in which they were stored," the speaker answered. "They contain computer equipment and ancient optical media as well as paper books and news publications, as you saw in the holo. Those materials, or at least their contents, will be made available to researchers once they have been catalogued and preserved. Despite the dryness of the desert air, almost three hundred years has left many of them in fragile condition."

"In his journals, Gavin mentioned his personal notes on Government," another asked, "Have those notes been found? How do they correspond with what we know of our history since the ratification of the Constitution?"

"I'm glad you asked that question, because it leads me to my next topic," the speaker smiled. "In a nutshell, while time and global expansion have necessitated some amendments to the Constitution, its original provisions have held up remarkably well, and yes, Sr. Thompson's notes were included in his journals. They vary only in detail from the actual constitution that was passed. It is astounding how many of his original ideas on government are represented in the Constitution and in our present Government. Even the monetary system that, according to these journals, came about almost accidentally, has held up incredibly well. As you are all aware, thanks to nearly three hundred years of inflation, each of us now commands a salary of three Credits per hour. Considering what we have learned about pre-Sickness economic cycles, this represents a level of economic stability that would have been unimaginable to people living before the Sickness."

"I seem to see a continuation of Gavin Thompson's policies on expansion in our current global presence, as well," someone in the back of the room said.

"This is true," the young lady at the podium replied. "Instead of engaging in trade with emerging groups, we offer them annexation. Given the head start we have in technology, and the obvious benefits that our citizens enjoy, this policy has brought more than three-quarters of the population of Earth under Phoenician authority. We do not expand into countries where we are not invited, so we avoid the stigma of aggressive imperialism, but neither do we tolerate aggression upon us in any form. We do not trade in technology or arms, but freely offer membership in our society. We do sell fuels to other nations at reasonable prices to keep them from resurrecting the old petroleum refineries, but our policy of keeping the technology to ourselves means that we have no enemies that can threaten us on a significant level."

"But isn't it true that some countries, like Nippon, have resurrected some of the pre-sickness technologies?"

"Of course, but because we have had so much more time to build upon those technologies and evolve them, those countries are not a serious threat. In fact, we have been approached by several of the Sino-Asian countries that had tried that route, and are now making overtures toward annexation. Hokong and Singpor, in particular, have realized that their attempts to resurrect the old technologies will still leave them at a tremendous disadvantage, and are now negotiating for annexation. Our advantage in this area is a direct result of three fortuitous circumstances: The first, of course, is Gavin Thompson and his single-minded determination to prevent a slide into barbarism. The second was his location on the west coast of the old USA, a place where both technology and agriculture were to be found in such abundance before the Sickness. The third, of course, was Scott Simmons and his group who preserved so much of the old technology at its cradle in Sillyvale. Some scholars include the decision by Sr. Thompson to annex Sillyvale in this list, but most historians agree that annexation would have taken place sooner or later, regardless of what happened at that first meeting."

"But wasn't that meeting and the subsequent annexation crucial as far as the timing went?" someone else asked. "As his journals describe, Gavin was getting old, and that annexation, perhaps spurred by the death of his wife, was the catalyst that drove him to have the Constitution drafted."

"Don't forget that what you have seen here is only a set of significant excerpts from those journals. Other parts of Sr. Thompson's journals reflect the fact that he was already well along in the planning and preparation for building a Constitutional government before the annexation of Sillyvale, so our scholars believe that the annexation of Sillyvale and the death of Amanda Chen-Thompson accelerated the process by, at most, a few months."

"I want to explore another aspect of this revelation if I may," a young woman in the front row interjected. "That is the direct line between our current military structure and training and those first years in the Citadel. This is never really touched on in Susan Chen-Thompson's books, and historians have assumed that it was simply a matter of necessity that became institutionalized. From these journals, now, we see that it was, in fact, by design, specifically, Gavin Thompson's design."