Chapter 51

I said goodbye to Fred and George and left them to recharge and get my requests up to the Alertitians. I then went out to the main cave and found a few souls back in the corridors, or peeking out of doorways to their rooms. I called them to come into the main cave and take a seat, I would get the others. I walked into the practice cave and it was bedlam as soon as I walked in. Everyone was trying to get answers. I said loudly, “People of this camp, please calm down, I have more information, but we can all be in the main cave now, So I will tell you there what progress has been made. Now come along we can all hear the news together.”

Once out in the main cave, the lights were a little brighter than normal so we could all see very well. “People of this camp, I have talked with the sky spirits and we are working on a solution. It may take some time to get answers and fix the problem. I have however found out that the sun can not harm us except for our eyes. The Sky Spirits are rushing around trying to get us some sunglasses for us to wear. If you go outside for any reason, then these will be worn by everyone, once the sun is up each day; unless we are in direct sunlight, we cannot do any of our work during the middle of the day. The sun will not harm your skin however, so we can go out dressed as we usually are. But the glasses are a must. We will have a pair for everyone, plus some spares. It will probably be tomorrow before we receive them as it is getting toward sun set.” It was almost 7:00 pm and many of the children and even some of the adults were restless, due to no lunch or supper. “When this meeting is finished we will have our cooks fix us a very large and nice supper. Then we will go to our furs like normal. Tomorrow morning we will rise early and start work as soon as possible. As we saw this morning we have about 5 hours of time to work in the morning and then we will have to see if we can continue with the new sunglasses.

“Yes we are in a little trouble, but it is nothing we cannot recover from. Because of my knowledge, the sky spirits have asked for my help. I am giving them every bit of help I can. Also my computer will be asking some questions of the oldest of you that just might help us with this problem, so anyone over 25 years of age may be called upon to come to my office and be questioned. If you are called by one of my wives or by me, please come. It is nothing scary and you will not be harmed. Ask the people who were scanned earlier; they felt nothing except maybe some tingling, that is all I have for now but rest assured, if I know anything, you will know it soon after. And thank all of you for being so good about all this and not panicking.”

“Now would Teague and Conpire please follow me and we can get your information before supper. The rest of you please carry on and help with the supper if you can. Thank you all.”

Teague and Conpire followed me into the office. Teague said, “Nice place you have for yourself, open but nice and cozy too.”

“Yes, it is very close to what I had at home.”

“Now, Fred here is going to talk to you about what you know of your past. Please let him know anything that might be of interest of this case, no matter how small an item, memory, or event. Ok now I will leave you here as I have some other chores to do, but I will return shortly.” Fred and I had decided that he would hypnotize them and then ask questions as well as scan their minds to see it they could recall anything like this happening before. I stayed out of the room long enough that Fred had them in a trance, and then went back in. Fred asked them many questions and scanned as well. We found out that when they were somewhere between 4 or 5 or about 30 years ago. They were living in huts and the local shaman said they had to stay inside during the day, and this went on for a long time. Fred found from the scans it was about a month by their reckoning. He woke them up just as I came back into the room again and we talked for a few minutes and I escorted them back to the main cave. Ok so only the oldest would be giving us any clues.

Well Newlander was 38 and there was a really old man in Valkorla’s tribe, he had to be close to 45 or 50. Maybe with them being older when it occurred, we could get some decent answers. I called Newlander over and asked her to follow me to the office. She said she would cooperate as much as she could, but she didn’t think she could help much. I took her back to the office and introduced Fred and stepped out, waited about 2 minutes and stepped back in. Sure enough it was approximately 30 years ago when a similar event took place. Newlander had some more information, but it certainly wasn’t enough.

I figured I would ask Lamanr next, but Fred asked for Fretonto, the old man from Valkorla’s tribe. He said he would like to get his views as he was about 17 when it happened. I said his mind had gone, he was senile. Fred said it didn’t make any difference. The memories were there in his mind; his brain couldn’t make the right connections anymore, but that he might be able to help him remember better.

I went and helped Fretonto into the office and Fred scanned him and I saw a flash of light by the old man’s head. Then his speech was less slurred and his eyes were much brighter. He still talked nonsense for a couple minutes and then stopped speaking altogether. He looked at me and said, “I know you, you are the leader Bob, the sky spirit; and he is a sky spirit too!” pointing to the computer.

“Yes Fretonto, I am a sky spirit and so is this one. I would like to have this one we call Fred talk to you and see if we can find out about something that happened a long time ago. OK?”

‘OK Bob, you want to know about the bright time don’t you. I was a young man when we had the bright time. It lasted...” and you could see him counting on his fingers by their movement, “about 14 or 15 days. We waited in our cave at the time and we almost died because we could only get water very early in the morning or late in the evening. We had enough food, but it spoiled quickly. One of our hunters went out at night and came back with a young auroch and it was enough to keep us fed. It was a very bad time for us. One day it just ended, and the next day was just like before the bright time. For many years when summer was almost over we brought in more meat, smoked it and we gathered water and roots and berries so we would not have to be out during the bright time anymore. But it did not happen again until today. Bob, do we have enough water and food for all these people? We will not die because of sickness or not eating will we?”