Chapter 89

Time: Sunday, June 3, 2019 1:55 AM

With sunrise ten minutes away, the predawn twilight was providing very adequate light for Aggie’s expedition. As the last of the nighttime stars became invisible, she suggested they all turn off their walking lights. Aggie was walking briskly, both from the coolness of the short night and with her eagerness to finally meet up with her lost party. She felt sure her team would be welcomed as the saviors of her lost group and that would be very gratifying.

Suvarna and Ann had joined the expedition, increasing its size to six, and today was the big day. Aggie breathed in deeply. Progress! And with such lovely weather. The overnight lows were still dipping below 15C and the afternoons peaking at about 25C. It was still a mystery how hot the summer would actually get, but for now it was beautiful springtime. So many flowers! Even the sand pathways were covered with strange flowering dune grasses. The world was alive and bursting with goodness and new life.

And it was also springtime in the Bee Park. Both environments, there and here on the surface, would share their summer solstices in another twelve days. And the fruit orchards and vegetable gardens of the Bee Park were growing food at such accelerated rates, yesterday Fatima authorized Team-6 to replace the graduating Team-4 (herself, Kiyoko and Husna) at the Bee Park. Heather, Whitney, and Amber were the newest candidates for the eight-day enhancement, and the plan was for the remaining three surface members of their society (Ashley, Akiko, and Alison) to join them on June 6^th when Team-5 completed their stay.

The explorations were going well down Wobanakik, both with the group at Manhattan and at the entrance rooms. No hint of an exit had been found yet, but the people there were genuinely optimistic and even seemed content with their purpose of searching the great wilderness. Madison commented yesterday evening that the place really grew on her after a while.

And Mark and his group of developers were making steady progress with their balloon observatory project. They might deliver their first working model to Wobanakik in as little as one week. Supporting the Wobanakik search parties was considered the most immediate need. As more platforms were constructed, perhaps the Society would also try to survey the Black Mall surface area from the air. Diego, Jessica, and either Ricardo or Hernando were still alive, and so far the satellite flybys had revealed no clue to their whereabouts.

Whether the Society should search for them more actively was a frequent topic for the evening conferences. The common assumption was that if it did happen, searching for the lost members of Party #5 would not begin until late July or early August. It sounded like a long time to Aggie, until she reminded herself that late July was three weeks away.

Aggie’s party reached the wedged-shaped building a few minutes after dawn. They entered without concern, even though the entrance would lock from the inside one minute after closing. Aggie was with them and she had the power to override the lock. And besides, none of them would be exiting the building through the entrance door.

The group of six entered the closet area of the trapdoor and a moment later were standing at the top of the equatorial pyramid. They momentarily left the carriage to allow it to reset and provide access to tumblers. Aggie set the controls to X-1 and the said to her teammates. “Remember the return code for X-1 is F-25.” After receiving nods from everyone, Aggie punched the familiar close button with her finger. Six seconds later her team walked out into the transfer room of zone 669 on the 36^th floor. Aggie called loudly, announcing her group’s friendly intentions. And then they all waited and listened for a reply. Nothing. So it was time to start the search.

Time: 3:07 AM

The complete search took almost an hour, far longer than Aggie would have guessed. Including the transfer room, they now knew that zone 669 consisted of seventy-one hexagons, a complex weave of spiraling hexagons that required great diligence to search completely. At first Aggie had high hopes of finding at least some of her lost party here. There was a archway exit from the transfer room, at an offset of sixty degrees from the wall opposite the carriage entrance. And the adjacent room was a kitchen, a perfect match to Aggie’s memory of the tasty smell of bacon. But after an hour of searching, the inescapable conclusion was that they were the zone’s only occupants.

Aggie’s group had stayed together as a group of six during their search, and Aggie was busily weighing the benefits and risks of dividing into two or three teams when they came to a zone. They were now back in the kitchen adjacent to the transfer room discussing their next move.

“There’s every indication in the world that people were here,” said Aggie, “and recently too. There’s considerable drawdown of the food supplies in the kitchen and in several of the nearby pantries. And those four bedrooms in particular! We know a system reset by the servos leaving everything perfectly ordered. This entire zone has the feel of somebody’s home, a whole group of somebodies. Recently too, if not now. I’m sure of it!”

“Should we wait around until they get back?” asked Suvarna.

“Yikes,” answered Ann. “That might be an awful waste of time. What if they don’t come back for weeks. Why not just leave them our note and move on?”

Carla piped up. “Aggie, I’ve been thinking about the fact that there were probably people here two days ago and they’re not here now. Do you think they might have been scared off?”

Aggie turned to Carla with a puzzled frown. “What do you mean? Scared off by what?”

“Is it possible they saw you two days ago?”

“Huh? Well, I didn’t do anything to frighten them. I know that.”

“But could they have seen you, heard you, somehow know of your visit?”

“Hmmm...” Aggie paused for a moment to consider. “I don’t think so. The carriage entrance is not visible from the kitchen archway, and I don’t think I made any sound at all, nothing a human ear would pick up. And the carriage doors are absolutely silent.”

“What about smell?” asked Ann. “You knew of them through smell.”

Aggie frowned. “Oh hell, I don’t know. I did take a shower that morning, but heck, I admit, I did come here after hours of nervous jumping.” She wrinkled her nose. “I suppose it’s possible they smelled me. I wouldn’t think it likely though.” She turned to Tom. “Can you smell me now?”

Tom gave her a big grin. “I’m the wrong person to ask.”

A puzzled stare. “Why’s that?”

“I kind of like the way you smell.”

Aggie’s eyes went wide, and then she realized Tom was teasing her. “Ah, men,” she said in reply, shaking her head. “Such one-track minds...”

Tom continued his smile. “Seriously though, I think Ann is right. It’s time to leave our handout and move on.”

Carla frowned. The issue of the abandoned zone was bothering her but she couldn’t think of anything additional to suggest.

Aggie polled everybody for their opinion. The vote was unanimous. They would move on. After leaving their handout in a prominent place on the kitchen counter, they returned to the transfer room and entered the carriage. Aggie clicked to A-1 on a whim, the unit jump size on the base ring. All zones were equally likely, she thought, the particular tumbler pattern didn’t really matter. They would just keep jumping A-1 until they found somebody. Aggie pushed close and the search continue. Their carriage opened at base ring location 53, zone 519 on the 33^rd floor. They exited the carriage and began searching the new zone.

Eight days later.

Time: Monday, June 11, 2019 6:00 PM GHT (Great Hexagon Time).

After bedding down for the night on the 29^th floor, Aggie’s team rose an hour before local sunrise and began their new day. By 6 PM GHT time, they were ready to head out to their next set of hexagons, location 229 on the base ring, zone 405 on the 31^st floor.

They had learned much and found no one after a full week of searching. All base ring positions between nodes 52 and 228 had been searched, and the probing had been both complete and carefully done. Tom and especially Carla convinced Aggie to search assuming that the lost members of Party #4 might be hostile to their intrusion, so their search patterns incorporated numerous safety features. All six members of the search party would be in the same zone at all times. All six would keep an active Leophone connection to Hilton control.