Chapter 98

Three weeks later, forty days till the winter solstice.

Time: Sunday, October 3, 2019 6:43 AM

A small three-person team had left the southern vertex of Black Mall’s home complex at daybreak, and now a half-hour later they were halfway up the pink tower and about to reach the elevated surface of the crescent maze. Amber as leader was out in front followed closely by Kiyoko and Whitney. Before climbing the last three meters of the stairs, Amber sat down and signaled for her two companions to do likewise. She then surprised them by starting to unclip all the supplies attached to her body and storing them in her backpack, everything except her water bottle. She signaled Kiyoko and Whitney to do the same.

“This is absolutely our last chance to turn back,” Amber said as she worked, “both physically and logically. From what Jenaro told Doug, once we start this maze, we won’t be able to return. And once we walk up to the top of this tower, we’ll probably be visible to Ricardo.” In their mission planning, they had decided to assume Ricardo had access to his building’s sensor arrays that were described in Mark’s logs.

Amber continued. “It makes absolutely no sense to reveal our presence and then turn back. Would you both link with me for a moment?” Three pairs of eyes formed a triple link and in accelerated subjective time, the world around them seemed to come to a stop.

“Okay, let’s go!” Amber said out loud three seconds later in objective time, echoing her last thought within the link. To the people monitoring the expedition through the Leophones, it seemed that Amber had asked her companions one last time whether they wanted to turn back, asking within a link where it would be impossible to hide true reluctance to continue. A moment later the group resumed climbing the last of the stairs of the pink tower. The expanse of the crescent maze was huge and daunting, and Amber thought that Doug’s description was perfect in its analogy. The foam moguls looked exactly like pale green shaving cream.

Jenaro had communicated to Doug in sign language that the foam could be deadly and descended far below the surface of their narrow walkway. Doug himself had commented that he felt vaguely revolted by the foam and Amber had no wish to play with it. With a curt nod to her companions, she led the way single-file along the curving walkway and away from the pink tower. Diego had said repeatedly that the maze could not be retraced, but there was no sense of movement in the foam hills as they walked. After about twenty minutes of walking, Amber wondered when they would reach the point of no return. Unknown to her, they had already passed it.

The maze would take about two hours to traverse, leaving plenty of time for reflection. The long linear building to the south was an obvious place to watch, and they made no effort to avoid looking at it. Their intent was to give the appearance of a simple exploration team. Amber felt herself working to keep a look of dread from her face. In spite of all their work and accomplishments, a feeling of impending doom had descended on her Society. They were trapped in a box with no apparent way out.

To be fair, there was significant progress on many fronts. The exploration of South Africa had revealed an ideal hiding location about a hundred kilometers from the equatorial pyramid, a natural cave system with internal spring water and entrances covered by a thick canopy of fruit trees. A surprisingly large number of the fruits and nearby vegetable roots too had proven to be edible, delicious in fact.

At maximum speed, the six stair-cats could make two preprogrammed round trips per day, delivering 1.8 metric tons of goods each day. Tom and Carla and few other people were stationed at the cave site now, scouting the area and unpacking the stair cats as they arrived. It was Tom and Carla’s opinion that living in the area indefinitely would be quite doable. Giving up the vast benefits of the hexagon’s technology was of course almost beyond comprehension to most people, especially in the issue of health care, but conceivably humanity could survive on this planet without technology.

The Society had studied the orbiter’s sensor logs and discovered that the circum-equatorial continent of Africa had a truly fascinating ecology. Within a hundred kilometers of the highly elevated equator, the terrain had a seasonal cycle of 168-days just like the rest of the planet, but with a slightly different phase. Snow would built up on the northern slopes while the sun was south of the equator, and then at the spring equinox with the sun directly overhead, the snow would rapidly melt and create a lush environment full of life. Temperatures would actually dip a bit at the summer solstice, with the sun a full forty-five degrees removed from the overhead position.

The areas within two hundred kilometers of the coastline had a much different ecology, having two complete ecologic cycles each year. Peak warmth would occur on both shores near the solar equinox positions, and a very mild mini-winter would occur when the sun was at its extreme solstice positions in the northern and southern hemispheres. And finally the bands of land between the shores and the mountains were transition areas, four lopsided seasons per calendar year. Africa would indeed be a fascinating and diverse place to live.

The problem with hiding out there was that the technology they left behind would eventually come hunting for them. How long would it be before Director of Security Ricardo discovered the capabilities of the orbital telescope? Mark had no authority to destroy it or shut it down, and once Ricardo had eyes in the sky, how long would it be before they were discovered? One picture of a human through the trees, perhaps one stubborn and rebellious child, that’s all it would take. Would they have a month, a year, ten years? And it all their time in hiding, Ricardo would be studying and adding to his capabilities. There seemed only one way the game of hide-and-seek would end. The Society was facing enslavement, torture, and death. It seemed inevitable.

So the Society decided to act aggressively and stop Ricardo by any means possible, and the deadline for success was the winter solstice. Amber’s official mission was one of preliminary exploration and probing. Her group was to circle the linear building and test and record accessibility at each of its doors. The group would then head further south and join up with Diego. With Kiyoko’s authority as Black Mall janitor, perhaps they could find an underground entrance into Ricardo’s lair and surprise him. Amber thought the plan had a very low probability of success, an act of desperation, but she vigorously supported it. And she kept her reasons private.

Meanwhile progress was being made in other areas. Madison, Amy and Margaret had completed their boost assignment ten days ago, at the end of the second week of the Bee Park’s three week autumn. It was good timing for two reasons. On their last day, the Park’s servos were clearly waiting for them to leave so they could do the final autumn harvest.

And Farideh earned her authority as Yellow Mall Janitor the next day. She and the three women from the last boost team took on the mission of searching Yellow Mall’s surface area for the last four missing members of Party #6. They had found no one after a week of searching. But interesting discoveries had been made.

In the basement of the administration building at Yellow Brick University, Farideh activated an elevator and linked it with the jump grid. The Society now had quick access to the University from any elevator. A second discovery was made soon afterwards. Just a few meters from the University elevator was simple corridor running north-south, with a trapdoor-sized closet at each end. Exploration revealed they were bidirectional trapdoors leading to small buildings at the precise geographic north and south poles.

So far the polar islands themselves remained unexplored, but the views out the windows there were extraordinary. The sun was just crossing the equator and both poles were in twilight, a cold gray mist at the north pole from a warm ocean, and a south pole full of sparkling ice with the tip of the orange sun orbiting the horizon. In spite of the busy schedules, everyone who had the chance had taken the time to see it. By walking quickly, one could make a complete circuit and examine both poles and be back home within a few minutes.

Toshi and Kiyoko had made a brief inspection of the Bee Park just yesterday. As expected, the Park was at the beginning of its winter slumber, and the storage bins at the small lodge were full of fruits and vegetables. The Society was struggling with the issue of transporting the food and enough honey down to Wobanakik and allowing Jada’s team to attempt to boost outside of the Bee Park. The risks were completely unknown. There was no immediate rush, and Jada’s opinion was that they should wait.

Time: Sunday, October 3, 2019 8 AM

With a final check of her watch, Jessica began hunting through the numerous little cubbyholes that were imbedded in the artwork along the northern wall of her bathroom. Finding her eight o-clock prize was easy today, and a quick sniff with her nose informed her that her first cookie of the day would taste like bacon and eggs. Not bad at all. Jessica opened her mouth happily and ate half the cookie in a single bite. All the cookies were good, and this one was no exception. Of course, it wasn’t her all-time favorite. She only got one of those every other day, a sweet lemony cookie that Jessica would nibble on slowly with her eyes closed.

The setup was so strange, but Jessica in a flash of instinct had decided weeks ago that there was a message buried in the strangeness. She would only get her hourly cookie if she already eaten the previous one, no hoarding allowed. And the food was enough to sustain her but not enough to gain weight. By being diligent, she could get a maximum of eighteen cookies a day, from 8 AM to 11 PM, with the last one having the remarkable ability of leaving her mouth and teeth feeling fresh and clean ... The first part of the message seemed obvious: Stay here and be fed and cared for. The second meaning was deeper: You are not being provisioned to leave. Do not leave the bathroom.