Chapter 26

Phil interrupted my dreamless sleep and said, “Bob I have excellent news for you. Solange has completed her healing and instructions. She is ready to make an appearance in the morning. She wants to thank you personally for what you have done for her. She knows her mother is gone, but I told her that she now had nine mothers. I told her who was now her mothers, but she said “I only have one daddy and he is who I want to hug and kiss and be with forever. I appreciate having so many mothers, but I want only one daddy.” I explained she would also have two older sisters and an older brother as well. Her mind came out perfect. Fred and his people have made a special effort to make sure of that. I don’t know what else to say but, she came out much better than I ever had hoped she would. Fred told me he talked with you about her original body. I’m sorry we couldn’t save it but I think you will be happy with the results we have been able to accomplish. Please let me know when everyone is ready I will bring her down to the living room.”

‘Phil, thank you for all you have done for Solange. I talked with Fred and thanked him and his people for all their help. Fred was some surprise. So were all the other changes. I take it you had Barbara keep everyone busy while you did the changes. By the way what is the corridor next to my entrance for? I would assume it was for my sub-leaders and their families. And the rest in the main cave would be for the rest of the people who are expected to come soon. I take it that we have a lot more people coming. Joulnar’s group would hardly fill one side if I took Joulnar and Tovar out of the mix.’

“You may divide them up how you will. We can add more places for your leaders as needed, but you may want to have just the camp or tribe leader stay close and have the sub-leaders stay with their people. You may have less friction that way. Everyone could see the wisdom of the camp leaders by you, but the sub-leaders are pretty much like them. But it is up to you, how you do it. It was just a suggestion.”

‘A very good suggestion, but I still want to divide up the camps into smaller groups with sub-leaders in charge of them. I may have sub-leaders for say each 20 families of a camp. That way only the leader would be by me and all others would be among their people. Thank you, Phil that does sound like a much better plan. I will explain to Tovar and Joulnar when we go to bring them back here. Now how many camps are on their way here?’

“So far only Joulnar’s camp has committed to come, but four camps have messengers on their way here to ask to see if they may join. One of them is from a Neanderthal camp several miles north of here. They have been spying on you from above the canyon for awhile. They see what you have done and then came the news of what happened to Detara, they quickly made the decision to contact you. I’m not sure how the Cro-Magnon’s will take that, but we will just have wait to see.”

‘As far as I am concerned, they are a camp of families, trying to survive just like anyone else. When do you think the messengers well be here?’

“I suspect from the way they are traveling, your first visitor will be here in about four days, then probably one a day for a few days, there may be more coming your way, but it is hard to tell for sure as there are always messengers going between camps. I will try to let you know when they come, or you could just ask Fred to notify you. He can see them as well. You might want to talk to him about this. He has as much information as we have and maybe more.”

‘Thank you Phil on the update, I will talk with Fred in the morning, or afternoon depending on how it works out. I’ll let you know when to send Solange down too. Goodnight Phil’

“Good night Bob, and sleep well.”

The rest of the night was undisturbed and I awoke in the morning with an urgent need to piss. I finally extricated myself from the tangle of bodies, only waking two, Barbara and Marlit. They accompanied me to the bathroom. After a quick shower with them I dressed and went to talk to Fred while my wives went to make breakfast and get the rest of my lazy family up and moving.

I sat down in my chair and asked, “Fred, who are the messengers coming, where are they coming from, and when will they be here? Can you tell me?”

“Good morning Bob, yes I know who is coming and from where, as well as when they will be here.”

“I’m sorry Fred, Good morning to you too, but please forgive me; I haven’t had my first cup of coffee yet.”

“Barbara is bringing you a cup right now, you will not have to open the door for her, but she will knock.”

There was a knock I said, “Come in Barb, and thank you for the coffee.”

She looked at me and I winked and nodded toward Fred and said, “Barbara, meet Fred. He is my computer, AI, and friend.”

“Hello Fred, nice to meet you.” Barb said.

“Hello yourself Barbara, I am happy to make you acquaintance.”

“Fred; you are a Hellslinth aren’t you? Oh Bob we are so lucky; a Hellslinth is very picky who they are willing to work with. You must be very special indeed.”

“Barbara, yes Bob is very special. His actions since arriving on this planet have impressed all of us with his uniqueness. It is a privilege for me to be working with him and he called me his friend. I have never in all my life been called a friend by any of the species we have interacted with. That is why I am here for your family.”

I looked at Barbara with a questioning look on my face. “Bob I have known we had some Hellslinth aboard our ship. One of them is our pilot, and other than maybe speaking to one for specific information I have never known one to talk like this. They usually print out information on a screen or speak funny like from a tiny speaker. You are truly special Bob and this proves it.”

“Fred, I had no idea how unique this was. I am humbled and honored to call you friend.”

“Bob, part of the reason I am here was your actions so far, but when you typed out asking a question, I wanted to meet you so I came from the ship and reside here now. Then you named me after your father and asked if I minded to be called that. I was so honored I had to stay here for you. None of us has ever had a name. Sure we have been called by many names, but they were things like pilot, computer, fire control or something similar that had to do with our job, but never a name to call our self like this. We are truly honored by you. Thank you Bob.”

“Fred, my friend, it is I that is honored to call someone like yourself a friend. I never suspected your uniqueness, nor your past. I am sorry that you have not been treated as an individual entity. Do you have a collective memory or what? I’m curious.”

“Not really, you see we can communicate with others of our kind within about 20 parsecs of distance or about 65 light years away, but we communicate almost instantly, we don’t know how we do but we are able to. So if I wanted to contact a Hellslinth in a place close to your earth I would receive a reply in about 10 milliseconds. But because of that instant communication we all know very soon when someone finds something out. Because we are pure energy we can react with most species that has some type of electronic devices whereby they can see or hear from their machines.”

“So to answer your question I guess we do have a collective memory, even though it is not as you would think of it as one. I have my memories of my life since inception until now, I can share my experiences with others, but I don’t have to. See the difference now?”

“Yes it does make much more sense now; thank you Fred for explaining that. I feel much better already. Now, can you know or feel when we will be ready to have Solange come down to us this morning and notify Phil or should I call him in my head?”

“Bob, Phil does not actually talk to you in your head, we do. We facilitate the conversation between Phil and you. Phil talks to a computer on the ship and we send the communication down to you here. You hear what he is saying but it is an energy signal not real talking. I hope that makes sense to you.”

“Sure Fred, just let Phil know when we are ready. I’m going to get everyone assembled in the living room. I’ll call you when we are ready.”

We left the office and Barb and I had everyone come into the living room. I called to Fred and suddenly there was Solange in the room with us. She looked around and yelled, “Daddy!” and ran to me. I picked her up and hugged her to me kissing her face as tears of joy ran down my face. Solange rained kisses and tears on my face as she whispered to me, “Thank you Daddy for rescuing me and thank you for being my daddy. I love you so much Daddy!”

I told her, “And I love you so much my daughter, you are my little angel sent down from heaven for me to love. I think that is a better name than Solange; how about if I call you Angel?”

“Daddy you can call me anything you want. I really like the new name. I like Angel.”

Everyone wanted to hold my new Angel. Barbara said, “I think the name Angel suits her, as she really is a gift from heaven, a gift to all of us.”

“Who’s hungry? I know I am and I think my little Angel is too, I think I hear her stomach growling.”

“No silly daddy, that is your stomach growling, not mine; I don’t make that much noise,” said my Angel.

We all filed into the dining room and ate breakfast. Angel sit next to me and helped me eat from both of our plates. I was so happy I beamed. After eating, I burped loud and Angel said, “I think daddy is full. His stomach said whoa.” Everyone laughed, including me.

“Ok wives, time for driving lessons, Mertir, Jerrel, Nadira, and Bertet, please clean up and then come watch the fun. The rest of you follow me.”

The rest of us trouped out to the garage. I showed them all the vehicles we had and said, Barbara take one of the ATVs and take a volunteer to drive and let’s get started. The rest can ride with me in the truck. Magnie went off with Barbara for her lessons.

Because the truck was a four wheel drive, I actually had three shifters. The ATVs and the tractor just had a lever for forward and reverse and depending upon how far the accelerator was pushed as to how fast you would go. The truck had a forward and reverse lever plus a lever for low-low, low-mid, (or 2nd) and low high for 4 wheel operation; and then a lever for low, 2nd, and drive for regular 2 wheel operation. Most driving we did was only 2-wheel, so that is what I started in. I backed out making sure everyone was watching. I then drove down into the meadow in drive and shut off the engine. I then had all those in the truck look at what I was pointing out to them. I showed them the key, and how to turn the engine on. Then I showed them the shift lever for the gears for 2-wheel only. Then I said you push the other lever to FWD to go forward or REV to go back. None of them could read, but FWD was up and REV was down so it was pretty simple. This lever was on the dash. The shifter for 2-wheel, was on the steering column just like a normal truck. The 4-wheel lever was on the bottom of the dash. I then showed them the gas pedal ¹ and the brake. The gas pedal made the truck go and the brake made it stop. But you couldn’t push both of them at the same time.