Chapter 1

Robert received a call from the people at Amundsen-Scott Station stating they had only two months of food supplies left from the last supply delivery. It seemed that their supplies lasted about eight months, and with the Antarctica summer now in season it was a good time to deliver supplies. The nice part was that the port had been through a very cold winter, and there was no evidence of the germ even in the soil test.

Robert contacted Tom Fitzgerald to let him know the request and make arrangements. Robert said that within the next few months they would be moving to a permanent living area, so a full shipment should not be required. The crew of the TK-17 was glad for a trip anywhere, and had more volunteers than could be accommodated. Tom had to decide which warehouse they would take the supplies from. He would prefer a Northern based warehouse because it would be cold, and the crew would not have to wear HAZMAT suits. He was discussing it with Terrance Davis, who suggested that they use the Prince Rupert, British Columbia, warehouse. Due to the cooler climate from the massive rains, the temperatures should be below freezing.

Shelia was to Captain the TK-17 on this trip with Larisa as her XO. They disconnected from the electrical grid to insure that the Mississippi could handle the load. They had to be back in two months as one of the generators on the Mississippi was due for major maintenance. Everyone was on board, and the ship pulled away from the dock and submerged. At a depth of one hundred fifty feet they would clear the shield over the harbor and be on their way to the open sea. It would take them sixty hours to reach Prince Rupert and a day to load supplies. Floyd Lycomb reminded them to only leave the sub after the sun had sat.

It seemed that it had been raining forever. It started raining in early October and rained almost every day, some days it seemed like monsoon rains. As January approached there was three days of rain, with the second day producing almost four inches of rain. After those three days, the sun began to shine and a gentle breeze blew across the island. Sophia ran tests, and then ran them again, and then released the monkeys into the cages. After a week the monkeys were healthy and playing with all the toys and swings. Sophia declared the island germ free, and said everyone should spend an hour outside after four PM.

Robert and his wives were walking to the main house when Robert asked why everyone could not stay in their condos at night if they wanted to. "They should be able to have some semblance of normality as long as they did not remain out after sunrise." Sarah said that that made sense, and would prefer to sleep in a room where the windows were open and a breeze blowing through. The other wives agreed, and Vicky said she was going to have a discussion with the Lycombs to find out the answer. The other question was could people go from the condos to the underground without UV damage to their skin or bodies? If so, until what time?

It seemed that everyone had cleared the underground and was enjoying the evening. The fresh air was rejuvenating, and a lot of laughing and joking could be heard. About nine PM people started heading for their homes and bed. Floyd and Freida were enjoying the stars when Vicky walked by and sat down to talk. The discussion soon worked its way to returning to the condos at night, and when people would have to return to the underground. Floyd said that a short duration of sun before nine AM would probably do no harm, but before he made that statement he wanted to complete a few test and chart the UV rays between sunrise and sunset.

Michael Ward was looking over the list of students that would graduate this year, the first graduating class for both high school and university. There were only three university graduates, but all three were graduating with master's degrees in their field. The amazing thing was all three were carrying a 4.0 GPA.

Rod Jones was in the mechanical engineering program, with an emphasis on electronics component manufacturing. Rod knew that the future would demand new technology that would be based on electronic devices.

Martha Rickenbacker had returned to school to get her degree in aerospace engineering, taking the courses for both Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, both had similarities but some very distinct differences. Martha's thesis was the design of a craft somewhat like the space shuttle, but with the ability to exit and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere at much slower speeds. If a vehicle were to exit Earth's gravity starting from the Mesosphere, the required fuel would be much less. The challenge was to get a launch pad into the Mesosphere.

The third graduate was the youngest, and had the most challenging major of the three. Annabelle Danielson had pursued studies in Astrophysics, with no actual astrophysicists to assist in her studies. The astronauts with several from the South Pole who were assistant professors taught her, while Michael Ward had taken the lead as her advisor and course examiner. There were fourteen areas of study that comprised a degree in astrophysics, and you had to be a master in them all.

Then there were sixteen students graduating from high school, and all had achieved university entrance levels. The thing about all the high school students was that they were all younger than those who graduated before the germ release. All the students from elementary grades on realized that if the human race was to survive they would be the people to make it happen.

In the high school course of study that Michael and the teachers had designed, there were several courses they considered nonessential, and they were reduced to a few sessions at the most. The length of time from grade one to completion of high school was nine years. University for a bachelor's degree was thirty months with three, three-week breaks in a twelve month year, and a student could take the courses at their own pace.

Michael had asked that Robert speak at the graduation ceremonies and present the diplomas. Robert had agreed, as education was extremely high on his list of priorities.

Floyd and Freida Lycomb had set up some specialized equipment to measure the UV rays. Taking the last readings from the CDC as a base line Freida said that there seemed to be something wrong in the way they were presented. To her there was something wrong because the readings they were getting now did not make sense. There was something wrong but she could not lay a finger on it.

Floyd asked Ed Cunningham if he could access the CDC and WHO data base to find any memos or emails regarding the announcement on the UV levels. There was a conference call which had been recorded and saved. The actual readings were bad and getting worse year by year. The Executive Director of the WHO that was heading this research felt the only way the population would do anything was use shock value. The group at CDC agreed, however they were not sure how much they could inflate the readings without other scientist becoming suspicious. The WHO group said that they could release the past twelve month's readings with a note that there had been mistakes in calculating the results. The new results would be inflated thirty percent per month and that would allow them leeway to make the announcement. The increase would be approximately 111.5% increase over the last eighteen months. That should alarm anyone and the warning not to be outside between nine AM and five PM should be an added shock to people. The final warning was to avoid lakes, oceans or any bodies of water from sunrise to sunset was another shocker.

When Floyd and Freida recalculated the numbers the situation was bad but nowhere near as bad as the WHO and CDC was telling the world.

The readings that Floyd and Freida were getting now indicated that no UV C Rays were breaching the Ozone layer. The UV A & B showed no increase from thirty months ago and very slightly less than those last readings the WHO and CDC published after they were recalculated. Now Floyd and Freida were in a bit of a quandary as to the validity of their findings. That evening they were discussing it with a group of scientist when someone said that one of the astronauts was working on the earth's Ozone status from the space station and might be able to add insight.

Floyd started with the American astronauts and found one of the Russian astronauts was the one working on the Ozone depletion. When Floyd showed him the data that they had collected and the information from the WHO and CDC conference he was very thoughtful for a while. Then he said that now his readings made sense. He had been taking readings from space for almost a year and could not match the readings from the conference. He then looked at Floyd and Freida's data and said their data was more correct and the remaining human population did not have the problem they thought they had. If people used a sun block of sixty or better and did not spend lengthy periods of time in the sun he did not feel there would be any problems. The three of them felt that people who needed to work outside should wear some sort of UV protective clothing which was long sleeves, pants and some type of head cover they should be OK.

They wrote a brief summary with all the facts for presentation to Robert. This would allow the team looking for a permanent place to live a lot more freedom to move around.

Robert had the communications group broadcasting every hour for a month, to see if any survivors would respond. No response was heard until early March, when a message was heard that appeared to be in Russian. The communications person asked Oksana Xenia Virganskaya to join him for the next hour's broadcast. At the appointed time he played the recorded message and waited. In a few minutes a response was heard. Oksana started a conversation with the person, and made notes on everything that was said. The conversation was for over an hour, and Oksana was very excited, as she was originally from Siberia. At the end of the conversation daily audio meetings were established for the same time. Oksana said she would like either the Minister of State or their Monarch meet with them, to explain their mission and goals. If they wanted they might even arrange a time for some of the senior people to go to Siberia.

Oksana went looking for Larisa to see who she should talk to with this information. She soon found Larisa was on a supply mission to the South Pole. Oksana did not know what to do, so she decided to see Sarah and hoped it was OK. Sarah was nursing her daughter on the front porch of Robert's house when she saw Oksana approach. Sarah invited her to sit next to her and offered her some of the now famous Sofia's fruit/energy drink. It seemed the drink had become a favorite of all the Initium Novum citizens.

Oksana apologized for disturbing her, but she needed to relay the information she had regarding the people that had survived in Siberia. Ann and Jan came running from school to show momma Sarah their report cards and the teachers' remarks. Sarah read both documents and praised the girls on their achievements. She then asked Ann, to find her dad, and ask him to come see her as soon as he could. Both girls took off at a run to find Robert.

A few minutes later Robert came to the porch and sat beside Sarah, taking the baby girl and burping her. Sarah said that Oksana had a talk with a community in Siberia, and would like to relay the information. Robert said that was great, and asked Oksana to be the liaison for the Siberian communities, interfacing directly with Sarah. Oksana was amazed, as this would never happen in Russia even with the changes over the last fifteen years.

Oksana then opened her notebook and began relaying the information. There appeared to be about a thousand adults in Northern Siberia in isolated communities. Because of air travel, the cities that interfaced with communities in Russia brought the illness back with them and the population died. People who thought they were not ill rushed to their villages and again spread the illness. Only about one percent of the people that lived in the Arctic Circle survived. There were a couple of communities in Norway that had survived, and one he knew of in Alaska. As far as he knew no one had heard from anyone in Canada.

The people in Siberia would like to join a community in the warmer climates, as they were afraid that they would starve because no food would be transported from the South. They were afraid to leave their communities for fear of becoming sick. They would like to speak with our Monarch or his representative to see if there was compatibility between the two communities. He finally admitted most of the northern survivors were in polyamory relationships, and this might be a problem for them. Oksana smiled, and said they did not know our Monarch well. With that both Robert and Sarah laughed.

The next day Robert and Sarah were with Oksana at the appointed hour when the radio came alive. The person at the other end was very excited, as he had had discussions with all the community leaders he had been in contact with, and they asked him to speak for all of them. Oksana asked if they had Internet or fax machines that still worked. The reply was they still had Internet access via satellite. Oksana directed them to an address where they could find the Constitution of Initium Novum. They should read this document carefully; as those would be the laws they would have to live under. She suggested that they take an hour's break, and when they returned Robert and Sarah, the two most senior officials, would join them.

When the audio conference resumed, the spokesman said he had two questions from the communities, first was polyamory mandatory? Sarah identified herself and said any union between a man and a woman or men and women was legal in Initium Novum. The strictest law that would be aggressively enforced was abuse of a spouse or spouses. Abuse of any sort, regardless of who it was perpetrated upon, was a zero tolerance issue. Sarah apologized for sounding hard line but abuse drove the citizens of Initium Novum crazy, and all felt it must not be allowed. The spokesman said that they agreed with that law and would support it fully.

The second question was how soon could they join the community of Initium Novum? Nancy spoke to Robert through telepathy, telling him three people would try to take over the governing of Initium Novum, but they would have accidents before the people joined them.

Robert then introduced himself, and said that as soon as they found a permanent home they would be welcomed into their community. The people of Earth must band together and become peaceful humans, or none of them would survive. Robert continued that, as Monarch, he had already initiated an elected advisory council, even though a few would be permanent members appointed by himself. Robert said that he would like to visit them as soon as arrangements could be made, but a trip to evaluate prospective settlements was scheduled, and as soon as that was completed to expect him. In the meantime his father and uncle would visit them to allow them to know the Initium people better.

With that the spokesman said that the community leaders would personally like to say a few words. As each community leader introduced him or her, they were glad someone had the foresight to organize a plan to maintain and expand the human race with peace as the cornerstone of existence. When it was the community leader of the Alaskan community, he said he would organize an expedition team to visit the communities in Canada to see why they had not responded to the broadcast. Finally, Robert said if they had any emergencies he was available wherever in the world he was, however, in the interim Oksana was the official liaison for them, reporting directly to him, and her purpose was to be their prime contact. When his father and uncle visited them Oksana would also be with them.

On the day of lockdown Robert had set up a group of people to look for a mainland area for them to relocate to, as the island would not support humanity for the long haul. Sheila Fitzgerald had been leading the group, but since she would be away for a while, Freida Erickson took over. Robert asked the group for an update on locations for settlement.

The group now included those involved in farming, environmental scientists, and manufacturing. Freida said that the first thing that was looked at was areas that would support farming, as food was the prime concern. The World Climate Map was useful, as the areas that were warm year round and had sufficient rainfall year round were the prime areas. The code on the map for the areas where the main climates rated as C is for warm weather year round. Second was to find areas referred to as hot dry summer and finally the third category of hot to mild temperature. To simplify with the Koppen Climate scale, an area of Csa or Csb. Frieda continued that would be areas referred to as the Mediterranean Climate. There are several of those on earth, the most well known are areas around the Mediterranean Sea and Southern California. The same climate existed in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, South Africa, Eastern Australia, New Zealand, Spain and Portugal.

Freida continued, "As an overview, several areas were considered: i.e. access to electric power, agricultural capabilities close, access to manufacturing facilities, living accommodations, and fossil fuel reserves. Addressing each briefly, electric power was a major consideration and hydro generation rated higher than all other generating sources. Agriculture was a must because if food could not be grown they would all die. There are many things we enjoy today that will wear out. Unless we learn how to manufacture those items and improve on the current designs, we will lose them. Wherever we decide to live we will be have to have housing immediately. Finally, you asked why fossil fuel reserves. In the short term we will depend on that mode of transportation and must have fuel to power the equipment".

"The countries we are recommending are in order of priority: Brazil, Spain/Portugal and Chile. The reason Brazil is first on the list is the availability of all the above listed criteria, better than any of the other countries. The recommended city was Saõ Paulo. As it was considered both tropical and sub tropical, the area was almost perfect in every way. The research facilities in the area were very good. Farming was close by and the fuel reserves were plentiful. There is access to about 2500 gigawatts of hydroelectric generated power with some of the dams close by.

"The second choice was Spain/Portugal. The main reason it was second was the location of the hydroelectric generation stations. The stations were a fair distance from any area they considered as ideal to find homes and other facilities to develop technology.

"The third recommendation was Chile, and was excellent in all categories with two exceptions. Chile's cities were out of the tropical/sub-tropical regions as initially specified. There is an area referred to as the Mediterranean climate; however Santiago has a history of inversion layers which makes the area very uncomfortable much of the summer. The other major drawback is that there are a lot of earthquakes. Hardly a year goes by without a 6.3 or better earthquake."

Frieda suggested that each area could be visited as long as a fuel tanker accompanied the group, but that pumps need to be included so that if fuel was available at airports the tanker fuel could be conserved. She also suggested that a Boeing 747-400ER be obtained so that a good cross section of the community could be on the selection committee. If one couple per 100 adult citizens were selected, then sleeping quarters could be accommodated. There were a few planes that were already configured for that purpose. The three that were brought to the mind were Air Force One, The Sultan of Brunei's plane, and the Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's airplane. The last plane was the most desirable as it had availability to carry four SUV's. Robert asked if the whereabouts of these aircraft were known. Air Force One was at Andrews AFB, the Sultan's plane was in Brunei, but the Prince's plane was in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Robert said that an assembly of all the citizens of Initium Novum and the people of Antarctica needed to be consulted to see if they agreed with this concept. A full presentation would be required of the three recommended locations and why each was chosen. Then the recommendation of the committee to visit the three locations, with their defined criteria was agreed to by the citizens. As for the air transportation, he would direct his pilots to retrieve the plane from Las Vegas. With that the meeting broke up.

Robert called all the pilots together to see who had flown jumbo jets. None of the pilots had actually flown a jumbo jet, but Thomas Schneider and Ronald Barton had simulator time on the Boeing 747-400. It was decided that the two of them would be ferried to Las Vegas with an armed guard and a maintenance crew. It was also decided that the flight crew would make twenty-five take offs and landings before bringing the aircraft to Initium Novum. Both Injerd and Elias wanted to go as the ferry pilots, and also qualify on the jumbo jet as part of the flight crew. Robert agreed that multiple flight crews would be required for the long flights.

Fourteen people boarded one of the Embraer's and left for Las Vegas and a new aircraft for Robert. As they landed in Las Vegas they found the plane was located in a hanger with a major security system in place. The team went to a car rental agency and saw the beginning of the devastation that had swept the world. They found a fifteen passenger van and decided to tour some of the city. A person would have thought that it was business as usual as all the lights on the strip were on, and the few casinos they went in all the slot machines were operational and all the recorded messages were playing, trying to entice people to gamble. The weird thing was that there were no people.

They decided to find a place to sleep and to cook their meals. They found an apartment complex that was advertising apartments by the day, week or month. The surprise was that the complex office door was open and that there was a cabinet with keys on hooks. They saw the apartments started on the second floor and went up from there. They decided that they would only look at apartments on the second and third floors. The interesting part was that all the keys for those floors were on the board. The women decided that they would take the third floor apartments and the men took the second floor. The outside doors were secured so they could only be opened from the inside.

The next morning the team returned to McCarran International Airport. They looked at the security system and Mr. Black kept studying the key pad, then he took a crowbar and pried the keypad off the wall. He then realized that the keypad was a wireless unit and that regardless of what they did they could not disarm the security system. Mr. Black keyed in the registration number of the Prince's plane when the display showed that six numbers should be entered. It blew everyone's mind when they heard the electrical locks open. When they entered the hangar they were amazed that the hangar was climate controlled. The bigger surprise was that the plane was not a Boeing 747-400 but an Airbus A380ER. The other nice thing was the door to the airplane was open and stairs deployed. As everyone toured the plane they all decided they wanted to be on the search committee.

The maintenance crew went over the plane with a fine toothcomb, and the FAA certified inspector verified their work. One of the final things was to drain the oil from all the engines and change the filters. The filters were checked for metal filings to see if there were any bearings or shafts in trouble. Finally a hydraulic pump was connected to the system and a pressure check was preformed. Everything looked good.

It was decided that the first flight would be Tom and Ron alone along with Mike Adams an avionic maintenance engineer. After the big plane was rolled out and positioned so the engine exhaust was away from the hangar the engines were started. Tom and Ron could feel the power, as it seemed the plane was telling them it was time to fly. The pilots taxied around for about half an hour before heading to a runway. The concern was not the takeoff but the landing. Being almost four stories above the ground and not being able to see the runway until the nose wheels were on the ground was a little stressful. The takeoff was easy for a first flight and the one hour flight was enjoyable. As they approached the runway with full flaps and landing gear in the down and locked position, Ron noticed a video monitor with a view from the nose wheel showing the runway. The landing became much easier; however they still landed hard on the first landing.

The flight grew had been in Las Vegas a week and were finishing up the takeoff and landing training, and were now able to land smoothly. They decided that they would return to Initium Novum at the end of training that day. At the completion of the last training landing, Injerd taxied to the refueling area they had been using for the ground crew to top off the fuel tanks. One of the ground crew decided to check the fuel remaining in the underground storage tanks and found there was less than a foot of fuel remaining in the tank. Because of possibility of sediment in the tank they decided that they did not want to use that tank. They did not have any other tanks in the area, so they suggested they stop in Los Angeles or San Francisco to top off the fuel.

As they were on the way back to Initium Novum the mechanics were discussing some of the jumbo jets they saw at McCarran, and how they could rearrange the seating so that everyone would have a good flight to wherever they were going. There was an Airbus A380 there, and it was the largest airplane ever made. It was decided that they would take first class seats from all other planes and dump the business class and economy seats. If they could not find enough in Las Vegas they would go to Los Angeles and San Francisco. When they explained the plan to Injerd she thought that was a good idea, and asked how long it would take to exchange the seats. They thought they could change the seats in about a week if there were enough in Las Vegas, and two weeks if they had to visit more than one airport.

As they landed on Initium Novum the pilots were concerned that the runway would be too short. The good news was that there was about another five hundred feet of clear grass for overshoot. The big plane touched down almost at the beginning of the runway, and the pilots stood on the brakes and stopped with room to spare. When they taxied to the apron Katariina Nikkola had the wands to park them. The stairs were lowered and the mechanics started to clean the aircraft.

Robert arrived to view the aircraft and was amazed at the luxury of this plane. He said that there was no way he would have had something like this built. However they would use the unit because of the team that would finalize the area they would eventually relocate to. The trip of the team would last nine to twelve weeks and maybe longer. Robert felt that since the condition of each location was unknown, he felt that the team should stay on the aircraft and have their meals prepared aboard. Robert said that after the team was selected he would select the support team. He stated that the pilots would be lead by pilot Thomas Schneider. His copilot would be Elisa Karlssen. The second crew would be Ronald Barton and Injerd Nikkola. Any of these four pilots were capable of being chief pilot and would work well together. Robert would depend on these four to recommend the maintenance crew that will travel with the plane and be responsible for the safe operation of the plane.

A message went out to all citizens on Initium Novum and the people on Antarctica with instructions how to nominate a couple for the search committee for finding a place to relocate to. The deadline for nominations would be a week from that Friday. The process was simple and fairly straightforward. The people on Antarctica were the first to submit a couple's names. The couple was Sandra and Alexander Cummings, the woman that had been the spokeswoman from the first contact with Antarctica.

Surprisingly Brad and Amy O'Connor were also nominated, along with Mac and Reta Roderick; Julie and Walter Wilson; along with Colin and Lisa Osborn; Early Morning Little and Ann Little; along with Freida and Frederick Erickson.

Robert met with the maintenance crew asking how difficult it would be to add additional bedrooms to the aircraft. The crew said they would get back to him tomorrow. The investigation found that there was the material in one of the cargo holds for five additional bedrooms.