Zee summoned me to her ready room, as she liked to call it. This wasn’t her main office, but was a smaller room situated near the new Hub where she could relax and keep a breast of activities on her workstation, while still being close at hand if she was needed.
I buzzed her door and she called out, “Enter.”
The door opened and I walked inside. Zee was standing with her back to me watching the latest scenes of deserted cities playing out on the large back wall monitor.
“I wanted you to see this … The road to destruction is wide and many walk its path,” she said without turning round.
“That’s sounds like something C would have said.”
“He did many times, sometimes in reference to his religious faith, and sometimes referring to what we see now. I wish he’d lived to witness this for himself. It seems that most survivors left the cities to live in more rural areas. With the greater percentage of people having fallen to the virus, which as we know consumed their bodies within days, there are plenty of houses to choose from should one wish to relocate.” She turned around to face me. “How is Anna?”
“She had a scan a few days ago and everything’s fine. Chief Medical Officer Toren said the baby could come anytime. She’s having a girl.”
“That’s wonderful. You know we’ll need to run tests on the baby soon after the birth don’t you?” Zee noticed my concern. Trying to put my mind at rest, she continued reassuringly, “Don’t worry, it’s nothing intrusive or unpleasant. This baby could teach us a great deal about the genetic codes of Jumpers’ offspring. I’ll call in on Anna after I finish here.”
It was nice that Zee had mellowed a little since we had moved into the caves.
She added, “I’ll walk with you to the meeting in the Hub.”
Not wishing to be late, a few last minute stragglers pushed past us as we walked down the long corridor and up a level to the meeting place. They turned and apologised when they realised they had pushed past Zee.
I stood at the back of the Hub and looked around to see if I could spot Anna, but as I couldn’t I took the last remaining seat, which as usual was near the front. Zee called the meeting to order and the cavern became quiet.
“The last part of the operation has taken six weeks, and is finally complete,” Zee informed us. “John please fill us all in on what your department has been doing.”
Dad walked to the front and addressed us, “Good morning everyone. Phases one and two are now complete. All remaining European and American Jumpers have been transported here and converted to energy, which has been stored in a containment field deep within the cave system.
“Of the original forty thousand Jumpers, only twelve thousand seven hundred and sixty-three remain, ranging in age from sixteen to thirty-two years. Incidentally, of these only two thousand five hundred and fifteen live in the Europe and North America catchment areas and are stored in our containment field. The rest are stored in other containment fields at various locations around the world.
The number of surviving Jumpers is much lower than we ever envisaged, but at least we know that eleven thousand years from now the human race will still be living in such numbers as to be a sustainable population, albeit one living in cave systems, so all being well our Jumpers shouldn’t find themselves on an empty planet.”
Stefan, the young technician I first met just before he sealed the entrance to the shelter, stood up. This was the approved way of letting the speaker know one wanted to ask a question.
“Yes Stefan?” asked Zee.
“My question’s for Mr. Blakely. What happened to the rest of the Jumpers?”
“I was getting to that,” Dad answered. Stefan sat down as Dad continued, “Some were murdered by Earthsong, a few were lost in isolated accidents on jumps or in natural time, and a few refused the anti-virus, but by far the biggest number of deaths were caused as a result of receiving the exchanged vaccinations. However, the remaining Jumpers are safe. We transported them from the surface on the day of our relocation. On arrival, they were scanned for signs of the virus and amazingly a few were located who hadn’t yet received the vaccination, yet were still in good health. These were vaccinated by molecular transfer during the conversion to energy process.
“It would be unfair to bring people here and put them in stasis without explanation, so we have been working through their numbers—fifty or so at a time— materialising them in the lower chamber and explaining what has been happening to them since they were six years old, the reasons for it all and the necessity of keeping them in energy containment. This was Phase two.
“The simple truth is that it wouldn’t be practical to keep this many people in the cave systems in physical form; the amount of food needed would be immense, to say nothing of clothing, washing needs and providing living quarters etc. Therefore, energy conversion and storage is necessary until we are ready to send them to their permanent futures. They have been assured that their time in containment will pass as a second and during this containment they will not age, so won’t be using up their allotted life spans while they wait in stasis.
“Section Directorship has decided that the Primary Jumpers will not be stored as energy but can carry on with their work designations unless they object and would prefer to join the others.
“Phase three will come into effect after my granddaughter is born and we have run tests on her. After this we are going to start sending the Jumpers on their final jump. This has to be a one-way jump because a return journey travelling that far back through time, even for Jumpers, would cause advanced premature aging and would prove fatal, as some of us witnessed when the visitor ran back through the return vortex on the eleven thousand year jump. It is hoped that all Jumpers will be sent to the future during the next six months.”
I was still trying to spot Anna in the crowd. As the expectant mother of the first Jumper baby she’d become quite a celebrity and had been allowed to join us for the meeting.
“Any more questions,” Zee asked.
Vanessa stood up. “Yes Vanessa,” said Zee.
“Commander, why is the final jump being staggered over a six month period? Surely we have the ability to send them all in one go.”
Dad answered, “A jump of this magnitude takes an enormous amount of power and will drain our reserves, so we have to send a few at a time, allowing the reserves to build up again before the next jump. Also, we don’t know what’s on the other side of the jump, so in sending a few Jumpers at a time we don’t be risking loosing them all in one go. You could say we’re making sure we don’t put all our eggs in the same basket. Coming from a farming community I’m sure you understand that analogy.” A few people laughed and Vanessa sat down.
“Any other questions?” asked Zee. A young Asian man stood up. “Yes Nawaz?”
“How will you select the Jumpers for each jump?”
Zee answered this question, “Initially we will need to send people with the necessary survival and construction skills to prepare the way for others. Afterwards we will choose people based on their profile information, taking into account that there will need to be a cross section of Jumpers in each group: men and women of varying ages, occupations and ethnic groups. Although no one can come back to tell us what it is like on the other side of time, we plan to send audio and visual recording devises through the vortex with the Jumpers. They will use these to record information, and will exchange these devises for new ones when we send the next group of Jumpers. In this way we will know of the conditions twenty thousand years from now and if the Jumpers require any additional items to aid their survival.
“Incidentally, we have also transported a great deal of equipment to the future location to help the Jumpers build their new society, including building materials, communications devises, and the necessary provisions for the manufacture and storage of electricity. All equipment will initially be stored in a complex of huge storage buildings.” Zee paused and smiled reassuringly. “We aim to give our people the
best possible chance of survival.
“They will have to start civilisation again with basics such as learning to extract metals from mineral compounds to make everyday things—things that we took for granted when we lived on the surface—and finding and producing the chemicals needed to manufacture medicines, should they come across a native population. There is a good cross section of people with such knowledge within the Jumper community, but this is just a start. Imagine, for instance, that you need a new pair of jeans or shoes. You wouldn’t be able to go to the shopping arcade to buy them.”
A few people laughed at that thought, but I was more concerned about having to leave Anna.
I stood up. “Yes Steve?” asked Zee.
“Could any Jumper stay here longer than the suggested six months?”
Dad knew I was thinking so answered, “No. Although Section will not force any Jumper to go through the vortex, unless they remain in stasis, staying in this time will eventually cause him or her to age prematurely. The rebel Jumpers aged rapidly after missing only one jump, most of them resembling eighty or ninety year olds within a few weeks. The ones who returned to the programme regained some of their youth, but still appeared at least twenty years older than their true ages.” Dad paused, “And I know all about premature ageing.”
Suddenly Anna cried out in pain. Everyone turned to look in her direction.
“Ahhh,” she cried again. “Sorry.”
Squeezing past rows of people, I made my way over to her seat, where Toren quickly joined me.
“I’ve been having pains all morning but that one was much worse,” she said.
The Doctor gently replied, “The baby’s coming Anna, we need to go to the medical centre.”
“I’m ok,” she said, then grabbed her stomach and cried out in pain again. Several people stood up and moved their chairs so we could get past. Anna’s waters broke.
“Oh no,” she wailed in embarrassment as the amniotic fluid ran down her legs and splashed onto the floor. Toren and I took an arm each and helped her to her feet, then guided her onto an emergency stretcher, which had hurriedly been brought in by a quick thinking medic. Fortunately the medical centre was on the same level and only a couple of minutes away.
Eleven hours and a lot of panting later the midwife handed a screaming bundle of life to Anna. The baby was perfect: she had dark hair and blue eyes. We called her Lillie.
I was so proud of them both. While Anna slept Dad took Lillie into the next room for a small blood sample. He pricked one of her heals with a small sterile blade. She screwed up her face and cried out at the sharp pain, but in a few minutes was sleeping peaceably again, and was returned to her mother and me.
Dad said, “We’ll do most of the tests on the placenta, this will be better for Lillie and we can find out all we need to know from that at the moment. She’ll have several scans over the next few months, but nothing intrusive.”
Dad and his genetic research team initially had concerns that any Jumper offspring might be genetically unstable, but tests showed that their fears were unfounded … so the final phase began.
Fourteen Jumpers were sent to their future lives the first day. The rest of us would have to wait until the next jump to be certain that they had survived and everything was all right.
Three anxious days later, when sufficient power reserves had built up, Zee, several temporal scientists, Dad, and I met in the vortex room. Vanessa handed us all dark goggles, explaining we should put them on at her prompting.
“You won’t be able to see through these until the vortex appears,” she explained, “They work like a welding shield.” I tried mine on; she was right: I couldn’t see a thing. “This vortex is much more powerful than anything we’ve used before so if you don’t use the glasses you could get arc-eye, like welders sometimes do, or you could be permanently blinded.”
Vanessa typed the code into the vortex interface and gave the instruction, “Put your safety goggles on now please.” I’m sure they all did, but I couldn’t see because I was already wearing mine. We heard the familiar hum of the vortex system starting up, although it was much louder down here as we were a lot nearer the primary vortex core than we had been when we lived on the surface.
The first few sparkles of the vortex appeared in front of us, quickly growing to the usual size, before dimming.
“You may remove your goggles now,” said Vanessa. I took mine off and looked through the time portal. Two of the Jumpers we’d sent three days previously were standing under a large tree. They had been shielding their eyes, but now, realising it was safe, looked back at us. I smiled recognising Carla’s boyfriend, Geoff, whom I’d met in the football stadium the day I met Carla, and Tim Hall, the young lad Gemma and I had met in the shipwreck on the four hundred and ninety year jump. Geoff and Tim had been put in charge of collecting data with the recording devises, known as RD’s. They were to send the RD back each time the vortex opened and collect another one from the new arrivals.
Zee spoke, “You both look well, how are you feeling?”
“Great,” said Geoff, “everyone else is fine too. We felt a little light headed when we arrived but that soon wore off. We’ve taken the readings and the photographs you requested, but haven’t seen anyone native to this time frame yet.”
Tim cautiously approached the vortex, placed the RD on a flat stone and passed it back to us, carefully making sure his hand didn’t pass through the time portal. The recorder landed gently on the vortex floor. No one retrieved it for a few moments as it had become quite hot in the time transition.
After it had cooled a little, one of Dads work colleagues picked it up and linked it to the main computer system for analysis.
Vanessa checked the information and announced, “All Jumpers’ vital signs are normal, air quality is excellent and much cleaner that we’re used to in natural time, and there’s no evidence of any virus. Commander, it’s safe to send today’s Jumpers.”
Satisfied that all was well with the programme, Zee gave the instruction for the next fifty people to be materialised from the containment field. Like the vortex, they firstly appeared as sparkling light, then gradually as their lights dimmed their physical forms became discernible and a few seconds later they were standing complete at the back of the vortex room.
“Today’s the day,” said Zee smiling at them.
A medic used a portable scanner to take a few life readings from each person and announced, “Everyone is in excellent health.” The Jumpers appeared apprehensive, which was to be expected, but seeing Geoff and Tim through the vortex seemed to put their minds at ease a little.
Commander Zee addressed them, “Today is the beginning of your new life. I wish I could be a part of this excellent opportunity. Your orders are simply to live and enjoy your lives. Build homes and towns, marry and have children. Educate them and teach them to consider other people and cultures, and try not to repeat the mistakes of our past. All you have to do is walk through the vortex. Your new life awaits and may God be with you.”
She gave one of the Jumpers a new RD to pass to Geoff and one by one they stepped into the future. A few of them sat down for a couple of minutes, probably feeling a little dizzy, then got back up. The vortex faded and disappeared, and the Jumpers were gone.
__________
Eager to spent time with Anna and my new daughter, I returned to our cave. Gemma had walked Anna back from the medical centre and had arranged for lots of baby things to be brought over.
The two women must have worked very hard: the cave had been transformed into a nursery; baby lotions and creams and all manner of baby things had been placed on the natural ledges above the cot, and an extra set of draws full of baby clothes and nappies had been placed next to the cave doorway.
Anna was dozing on the bunk, Lillie lay sleeping in the cot, and Auntie Gemma was disposing of a dirty nappy.
“Ssssh,” she said as I entered the cave, “I just got them both off to sleep.”
“
I don’t suppose it took long to get Anna to sleep. She’s been exhausted since the birth.”
“No, she was the easy one. How did the jump go?” asked Gemma quietly.
I spoke in little more than a whisper, “It went well. We saw Geoff and Tim through the vortex. Both are fine and said, ‘See you in twenty thousand years’. They haven’t met anyone from that time frame as yet, but from their perspective they’ve been there less then twenty four hours.”
“I might volunteer to go in the next jump, there’s nothing to keep me here,” Gemma said.
“Oh Gemma, how can you say that?” I said a little too loudly, then checking myself spoke more quietly. “What about Anna, Lillie and me? We think the world of you; you’re my jumping partner and my oldest friend.”
Anna had awakened and now sat up with her legs over the side of the bunk, “And one day you might mean much more than that to each other,” she added with no hint of jealousy in her voice. I thought that’s what selfless true love is like. It thinks of the other person’s needs before it’s own.
Gemma looked a little uncomfortable at Anna’s comment and spoke to her, “I wouldn’t do that to you, and anyway, Steve loves you. If anything was meant to happen between us we had lots of chance before you two met.”
“You wouldn’t be doing anything to me. I’ll have been dead for nearly twenty thousand years. How long do you think a guy should wait before he moves on?”
“Anna,” I said, walking over to her and gently taking her in my arms, “you know I could never love anyone the way I love you.”
“Not now, no, but in the future maybe. I want you to be happy.” Turning to Gemma she added, “Gemma, promise you’ll look after him.”
“I promise.”
Gemma said she’d wait and jump with me, and then left as Lillie woke up crying.
The following week a further two hundred Jumpers were gradually sent into the future, each time taking RD’s, which were swapped at the following jump. This information kept us up to date with everyone’s progress.
Empty Planet Page 31
