Chapter 59

I was awake early and dressed and was out in the main cave before any of the men. I went back to the kitchen and made breakfast for everyone and brought it out to the tables. I had just set the last plate down when all the fence crew and my headmen came out. Along with them, were several women who were there to fix breakfast for the men. I told them to go back and sleep for a while as I had made the meal. They scoffed until they saw a good meal of thin steaks and eggs and fruit. They all looked at me and then shrugged and went back to the kitchens to start cooking for the rest of the camp.

I had all the men going with me that had TAC radios to go get them, and all the headmen who were staying here as well. We loaded up and drove out to the fence area. By the lights from the truck we got everything ready and waited for false dawn. Once we could see well enough we started at the end furthest from the gate. I had Valkorla stay in the truck bed to keep an eye out for anything moving. I stapled the wire all up the post about 2 inches apart after I wrapped the end around the post. I wanted the end piece to be very sturdy. We then pulled the wire over to the first stick, we pulled it tight, and we had someone tie the wire to the stick and stapled it to the rail. Once they got the hang of what I wanted, they told me to go be a lookout. Once they were done with a section, the peg pounders came after them.

We worked for about an hour and I called back to Joulnar and asked if they could hear me all right.

He said, “Bob I can hear you fine, just like the other time. Is it working alright for you?”

“Yes Joulnar, we can hear you fine too. We are making good progress on the fence too. We may only have a few feet left to do this evening to get to the gate.”

“That is very good Bob. I will let you get back to work. Everyone here is watching the big screen again.”

“Thank you Joulnar, and call me if you need something.”

“I will Bob.”

We worked for another 2 hours and then the sun was getting very bright and we could hardly see. So I told them to finish tying off where they were and we would go back until later today. Valkorla and I saw only one animal except for our captured herd. That looked to be a cave bear, but it was going away from us and too far away. We saw it silhouetted in the bright light as it was topping a hill about a mile away. I had my binoculars and sunglasses and could just make it out, as it topped the hill and disappeared from my view. We loaded up and headed back.

Once back we took our gear off and headed for showers. I came back and had a talk with Joulnar, Dignar, Grunto, and Grojan who stayed at the cave. I had Valkorla, Thorf, Teague, and Merthar sit in too. I explained how we had made a lot of progress and that we were within 15 feet of the gate. We should finish up the last 15 feet this afternoon when the sun was going down. We would probably have to do the gate and the controller tomorrow morning.

I went out to the garage and found my solar powered fence controller. It was a ‘Fi-shock solar powered model #440.’ It used a 4 volt battery and developed 7.5kvdc at up to 3 amps. It could last up to 2 weeks without sunlight before a full recharge and battery change. I figured any animal that got too close to that would definitely get the hint that this was nothing to play with. I made sure when I ordered the chicken wire that we used at least 12 gauge wire so it could handle the load. This thing was supposed to handle 3 miles of 3 strand standard fence line. It could surely handle 150 feet of chicken wire. I also had the heavy duty rotary switch as well that was rated at 10kvdc and 5 amps.

I went into my office and closed the door. “Fred, were you able to hear us out there today on the radios?”

“Yes I was Bob. You made good progress, over 110 feet, almost 115. You should be able to finish the job this evening. And you can put the controller on top of the gate post, or any of the posts actually.”

“Yeah Fred I could, but I want the shut off switch by the gate so we can turn it off when we need to. I will run the connection wires down the post to the middle of the wire. I have a couple strips of aluminum sheet I can use as contacts for the gate as it swings closed so we make sure we have good contact between the gate and charger post. I also plan on soldering about 4 wires at the hinge tree to ensure that the wire doesn’t break at the hinge with use. That should take care of any problems.”

“The Trwennkleihjof have received our message and will be here within one week. They think your plan is crazy, put they want to help. They do know the exact location of a black hole that they just might be able to transport to a position whereby the gas giant could stabilize its orbit. Besides their leader wanted to meet the person who came up with such a crazy idea. He said it just might work. I think that is all the information I have for now. Oh yes, lunch is about to be served.”

“Thanks Fred, tell the aliens that it is just a crazy human from earth and what should they expect from us backward, backwoods type of people.”

“Why would you refer to yourself like that Bob?”

“Well earth is in a small spiral arm of a large galaxy on the edge of, to us, known space. Therefore we have always thought of ourselves as backwoods hillbillies in a backwater part of our galaxy in our part of the universe. If you study earth culture, especially American culture, there are certain out of the way places like in the Appalachian Mountains that people are not very smart, because they are poor and even more poorly educated. Some of the communities are so small that everyone is related by incest. These people were called hillbillies. So the name became more of a stereotype of any dumb and ignorant human regardless of where they came from. So when we were first exploring our place in the universe we saw ourselves in a very isolated arm of a spiral galaxy so we associated ourselves with hillbillies in a sense.

“Since then lots of writers saw us as small children, struggling to grow up and become a part of something bigger. We knew that of the billions and billions of star systems out there in the multi-verse, we were but an insignificant speck and were backwards as we did not have but rudimentary space travel; we still had wars and such things as that. We knew that in the universe, there had to be people, who as a race were older than us, smarter than us and to them we would be just hillbilly hicks from earth. That type of attitude still exists because it is not widely known among my people that there really are more intelligent people in the universe. We would still be hillbillies in our own eyes because we do not have the advantages you, the Alertitians and the Trwennkleihjof’s of the multi-verse enjoy.”

“Bob, your people may not have all the things other species have, but they do have something all the other species may not have. I think you call it ‘thinking outside the box’; this is something other species we have run across do not have. Yes, most of the species we have found are more advanced than yours is, but they have been a viable species for so much longer than you have. Most of the star faring entities are long lived, by either nature or science. The shortest lifespan of these species is counted in the thousands of your years. But you short lived species never cease to amaze us; you can do things we would never think of, like this situation for example.

“If we had encountered this situation without you, we would have had two outcomes. One, we would have expired, be dead, or two, we would have left the area immediately and had this star system updated to a danger star. Because of you we were saved from the first option. The second option would have forever left this star system marked as a danger on all the star charts of the known species. But because of you, we have now learned a great deal about this system. This system may still have a warning, depending upon the results of this experiment, but we will have more information regarding the warning. All of this is thanks to you Bob. We have you to thank for knowing what to look for. We also have to thank you for telling us how to set up and dispatch the probes in such a manner as to gain the maximum information with the minimum of risk to our people. You gave a cosmologist and astronomer a task that they had never encountered before, but were able to accomplish. And in turn they realized a greater potential of electromagnetic radiation and some of the harmful effects in both the ultra high and ultra low frequencies. You Bob, and your species are not backward hillbillies, if anything your people are a rare and untapped potential for good in the multi-verse.”

“Wow, you really think we are that much more than other species?”

“Bob, your species are not more than any other, just different from, any other species. Your species, or at least people like you compliment other species, like you have complimented us. Your knowledge extended ours, you filled in the gaps we had in science and practical solutions. Yes we could have figured it out, in time, but you had ready answers and came up with theories, odd they might be, but you had them when we were still struggling to figure out what to do. Your mind was about two to three giant steps ahead of us all along. Once we saw your theories and solutions, it became obvious what the next steps would be. But without that leap to start off with, we would have been lost for a while. That is why your species is unique. Now lunch is about to be served so go, before you miss it completely. You have more work to do this afternoon. I will let you know when you should be getting ready to leave. And we all thank you for your backward hillbilly brain.”