Chapter 18

Two years later

The snows were beginning to thaw for the third time since the twins had moved to the caves. They had survived and flourished through three very harsh winters and significant progress had been made by their little society.

The most significant progress was regarded as the birth of their children. Some quirk of the 'seeding' process perhaps explained why all of the girls' pregnancies had produced twins. It may have been that the way they themselves had been created meant that twins would be 'the norm' for their society.

As well as giving birth to the first set of twins, Elizabeth had also had another set eleven months later so she and Thomas had four children - two girls and two boys.

Sarah and Hannah had both been pregnant within months of Elizabeth in the first year and had delivered twins too. Each of the girls had followed that up with yet another set of twins each. In total that meant that there were twelve children ranging from between three months to two-years-old.

More of the caves had been opened up so that each set of twins and their children could have their own private space - with the original cave being retained as a communal place where they could socialise together and hold meetings.

The most notable achievement after the children was down to Thomas. He had continued to tinker with electronic parts, often disappearing into a cave he had commandeered as a workshop. After almost fourteen months of such secretive activity, he announced to the group that he had something to show them.

When the twins all trooped into Thomas' workshop it was to find a huge structure - easily over eight feet high - with wires and micro-chips all over it.

"It looks great, Thomas, but what is it exactly?" Ben dared to ask.

Thomas' chest puffed out with pride as he answered.

"It's a bigger replicator - I built it up from scratch."

There was a stunned silence from the group and Thomas began to hop from foot to foot nervously. He had expected a much more positive reaction than this to his grand creation and didn't realise the silence was more to do with amazement than anything else.

"Aren't you all impressed?" he demanded.

His tone broke the spell and the group hurriedly tried to re-assure him.

"Of course we're impressed, it's an amazing achievement!" said Adam.

"It's absolutely huge, how did you possibly manage to work out how to build it?" asked Ben.

Thomas' agitation receded and he began to talk at length about the technical detail of what had been involved in putting together his design. Glazed looks were rapidly appearing on the faces of the others and it was Ben who interrupted to try to halt Thomas' flow.

"What's the huge thing at the back?" he asked.

"That's the bin for the raw materials - it needs a lot more than the smaller models. I've been slowly topping it up for the last year or so, so it should be ready to go."

"You mean you haven't tried it out yet?" asked Sarah.

"No," said Thomas, "I wanted you all to be here for that."

"Well, go on then. Do the honours," Ben urged.

They could see that Thomas was suddenly very nervous indeed and he was looking pleadingly at Ben.

"I'd rather you tried it out first," he said to the other boy.

Ben looked around at the rest of the group and there was a mixture of shrugs and nods. He took that as an indication that they were happy for him to be the first to try out the huge unit and he took a deep breath and let it out again, as he prepared to place his order.

"Okay, stand well back everybody," he said. "Replicator, produce the biggest class A replicator that you can."

A large, shiny, new replicator appeared just as Thomas' creation began to explode with popping noises, hisses and bright sparks. Thomas howled and tried to run forward only to be stopped by Adam.

"It's too dangerous, don't go near it," warned Adam.

"But I've spent fourteen months working on it. I can't just let it burn! Help me!" cried Thomas.

The rest of the group could see that it was a lost cause. Thomas' structure was already collapsing to the floor of the cave and there was nothing that could be done to save it.

"Thomas - its job is done. Look! Instead of worrying about how unstable yours might have been, we've got a brand spanking new, class A, replicator. What more could you have asked for? This is a huge leap forward and you should be proud that it's all down to you!" consoled Sarah.

"Sarah's right, with this thing we can start to replicate much bigger objects. We should even be able to make components and assemble them to make even bigger things. Thomas, you're a genius!" added Ben.

There was general agreement that the much bigger replicator gave them untold possibilities. As he gradually became more and more aware of the excitement within the group, Thomas' anguish at the loss of his creation dimmed and he began to realise how lucky they were that Ben had asked for another replicator as his first request.

Over the course of the next few months it had been something of a struggle to pull together all of the raw materials needed to keep feeding the new unit. The hunt for metals in particular was left to Ben - he had proven time and time again just how good he was at finding ore.

Necessity - in particular the need for metal - led to a relaxation in Ben's determination not to let any of the others use his nuggets. There was no way he could physically travel to all of the locations he knew of to gather minerals and that meant he had to use the power of the metals. That in turn meant that he couldn't make his 'trips' with anyone else other than Sarah or the full extent of the metals' abilities would have been revealed.

The water twins discussed the problem and how they could get around it.

"If we're going to get the maximum benefit from the new replicator then I'm going to have to gather up as many different resources as I can. You know that means I'm going to have to use the metals to do it, there's no way I could walk to each of the locations I know about."

"How are you going to do that without the others finding out about what you can do?" asked Sarah.

"I thought that I would pretend to make trips - you know, pack up and take the pod and then set off. In reality what I'll be doing is maybe walking for a day and then using the nuggets to help me gather what we need using my mind. After another day or so I can then return and it will look like I've gathered the resources naturally."

"It will look suspicious if you try to make the trips on your own, that breaks the rule about always going around in at least pairs. How are you going to get round that?" asked Sarah.

"I've been thinking about that. The only one I can logically take with me is you."

"The group won't agree to that. It was you that said that one of us should always be with the group so we could use our ability to communicate with each other."

"I know and I think the only answer is to relax on letting somebody else use one of the nuggets," Ben replied.

Sarah's expression grew worried. They had discussed this issue off an on for over two years now. Her position had started out as being uncomfortable about not sharing the full powers of the metal, but she had gradually grown to fully agree with Ben that they shouldn't take the chance on trusting the others.

"Is that wise? After all this time, do you think we should run the risk of the others finding out that you have the ability to control them?" she asked.

"I don't think it should be that much of a risk, not now that I have all the metals that exist."

Ben had used the abilities the nuggets gave him to systematically 'visit' all of the points of light that were ringed with the golden coloured circle. He now had a grand total of sixteen nuggets - four of each colour - and he believed that was all that existed. There might be some further metals of power on the planet, but if so, they were buried so deeply that they didn't register on his 'worldview'.

"How do you figure that it's not a risk?" Sarah asked, still nervous.

"I've been thinking. If we let Hannah have one of the silvery-white nuggets then we can talk to her while we're away from the group. She might never realise that, as well as allowing her to communicate with us; the nugget also has the power to control people. If she does find that out, I can just control her so she can't tell anyone. Remember, you have one of the silvery-white nuggets too, but that leaves me with two and they're also re-inforced by the other metals."

Sarah could see Ben's argument, but she still didn't like it.

"I don't think that removes the risk at all. You might be able to control Hannah, but you might not. If the others find out what you have been doing, there will be an almighty row."

"Can you come up with another way of getting the raw materials for the new replicator? Don't you think it's worth taking this little risk to have the chance of producing all kinds of useful things?" Ben asked her.

Sarah weighed that up. She could see that the bigger replicator had huge potential, but only if it had the elements needed to make the components they would require. She balanced the significant progress they could make against the risk of the group finding out about the real power of the metals and decided that Ben was maybe right after all. The risk was worth taking.

"Okay, I agree, but only Hannah - not any of the others."

The twins broached the subject of Ben gathering the necessary resources for the new unit over a meal in the communal cave. Just as they had suspected, the remainder of the group strongly opposed Ben going out on his own and were even more set against the twins going together.

"To be honest, I'm sick of Ben taking these trips and being away from me," argued Sarah. "None of the rest of you have to put up with your mate being away for days at a time and I think you're all being selfish."

"But we all agreed that we need to have one of you here so Ben can keep an eye on David and warn us if there's any danger!" replied Elizabeth.

"But David hasn't done anything to make us worried for more than two years! There's little chance that he's going to rear his head now!"

"Stop it! There's no need to argue about this. I can just give Hannah one of the nuggets and I can communicate with her instead of Sarah," Ben interjected.

That brought the conversation to a halt. Ben had never considered the possibility of one of the others being allowed to use a nugget and that had been an ongoing bone of contention with the other twins. His offer to allow Hannah to use one now was a major concession and the group was all thinking about the implications of it.

"Why have you decided to let someone else use the metal now? And why Hannah?" asked Adam.

"It's like Sarah says, we don't want to be separated any longer and we realise I'm going to have to make quite a few trips if we're going to feed the new replicator. This seems like the best solution," answered Ben.

"Yes, but why Hannah?" Elizabeth pressed.

Ben had thought this point might come up and he had worked out how he was going to respond.

"Sarah and I have talked this over. When we use the nuggets to link - it's a very personal experience and it could possibly open up all kinds of issues. We've agreed that we need an answer that everyone feels comfortable with. So, what we've come up with is that Sarah will be the one linking, not me. If Sarah does it and does it with someone she'll be comfortable communicating with, then it's less likely to cause a problem. Sarah and Hannah are the two that are closest so Hannah seems like the perfect choice."

The group knew that Sarah and Hannah were close (though they didn't know just how close!) and Ben's explanation made some sort of sense. They had no experience of what the linking involved so they had to take Ben's explanation at face value.

For the other two sets of twins, the fact that the exclusion over them using the nuggets at all had been lifted was a major breakthrough. There was no further argument and it was agreed that Hannah would be the one to use the nugget on Ben's next trip.

Not surprisingly, there was a lot of intense discussion within the group about what they should use the bigger replicator unit to produce. Woden had mastered the production of personal hover vehicles and transport was a key item on the group's list of priorities.

They had made attempts to try to capture some horses over the previous two summers, but without any success. Being able to travel longer distances and transport heavy things was regarded as a major prize and the replicator should be capable of producing the craft to allow that.

All that remained was to fill up the huge resource bin that would feed the new unit and the group felt they would have their first means of transport. Ben found himself coming under pressure to make a trip as soon as the snows had all melted away.

The weather was still cool and the ground damp when the water twins set out with Ben pulling the pod behind him. The arrangements for looking after their four children while they were away had been agreed - the children all seemed to sleep wherever they liked anyway so they wouldn't miss their parents for a few days.