“They’re parallel universes,” Irene spoke up. “How did you end up here in this same place with us?”
“Well, after mom disappeared the second time, I felt so alone again. Dad was so old and I was old. I had grandchildren. They all had their lives and I felt so alone. I started taking long walks and one day I walked out a ways away from New Orleans and saw a cave. I thought it was our cave and so I went in, thinking I would find everyone restored to the right time and place. It wasn’t our cave. I was the only one there and there was no city but it had a house for me and everything I would ever need.
“I walked back to get dad but he had disappeared too, along with my kids and grandkids. I went back to the cave and lived there by myself for awhile until one day it became transparent and took off. We landed here and I’ve been here ever since.
“I never left the cave because I was afraid to venture out by myself. Sometimes I would go to the entrance room of the cave and sit and think about how we used to all sit and talk with Irene in the entrance room of our old cave.
“I saw some of the people here from time to time but I never let them see me. I thought they looked strange and I didn’t know if they were friendly or not.
“Today, I was sitting at the entrance to the cave and I thought I heard music coming from down the hill. I was surprised. These people looked like they were so serious and so busy all the time, I would have never thought of them singing. Before I knew it I was humming along and then I realized it was dad singing, and it was the song we used to sing together.
“Without even thinking about it I got up and walked down the hill and started singing along. I have never felt so happy in my many lives. I’m so glad I found y’all. By the way, why are you staying here instead of the cave?”
Joe had been quiet for awhile and now he laughed and said, “The two caves are in love so we decided to give them some space.”
Josie laughed, “Oh! That explains it then. My cave has been making some kind of humming noise for the last few days and the colors of the flowers around my house have become brighter. When I heard the singing this morning, I thought it was still the humming of my cave. I’m so glad we all finally found each other.”
The four of us moved into a suite in the hotel that Foe and her people had provided for us. They didn’t use money on this planet but used a kind of barter system. Seth was paying for our suite by working with Foe. Now that they had built the skywheel and made one for everyone that wanted one, including Irene, they were trying to make some space ships.
As time went on, Foe’s people worked harder and harder and Seth began to complain, not to Foe but to us.
“Why don’t you just quit?” Joe asked. “We can go back to Homan. I’m sure he would welcome us now. I don’t understand why these people work so hard anyway. Why do they need spaceships?”
Seth dropped his head and when he looked up I sorrow in his eyes, “The truth is the reason they work so hard and such long hours is because their planet is dying. That’s why I feel like I need to help them.”
“How can they tell?” I asked.
“Believe me mom if their scientists say the planet is dying, it’s true. Their sun is going supernova and they don’t have much time.”
The next day we decided to move back to the cave. Seth took off work and our large troupe of people made our way to the edge of town and up the hill. When we got halfway up the hill, I began to notice small holes in the ground. The closer to the cave we got, the more I saw.
Soon we were spread out all over the hillside looking at these holes. Josie began to laugh, “They’re babies. The two caves have procreated.”
Seth looked lost in thought. Then he smiled and said, “I wonder how long it will take for them to grow as big as our cave?”
“What are you thinking?” Joe asked.
“If they get as big as our cave, we won’t need to build spaceships. We can use these. If they grow fast enough.”
George, one of Joe’s band members spoke up, “Our cave has always grown big enough to accommodate all the people we have picked up. Why don’t we just ask Foe and her people if they want to come with us?”
I laughed at George, “Do you really think Homan and his lover will leave their babies here?”
He looked embarrassed, “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Well, in that case, we’re all stuck here until the babies get big enough to be on their own. I sure hope they grow up before that sun burns out.”
CHAPTER 27
Every day for days we swept the hillside trying to see any growth in the tiny caves. We saw no growth for weeks. In the meantime Seth and Foe’s people were working long hours, trying to build some spaceships to get off the planet. We helped in any way we could. We women fixed meals for everyone so they wouldn’t starve. Our men did all the heavy lifting that was needed. Foe’s people were smart but they weren’t very strong physically.
Joe and the people from their planet had been technically strong but that had been before the cave had removed all the computer chips from their brains. They remembered a little and were able to help in building a crude computer and that helped speed things up.
Everyone was stressed and I decided to try to communicate with Homan again. I didn’t tell anyone what I had planned in case I was unable to connect with him.
I waited until everyone else was busy doing something else, which was around three o’clock in the afternoon. I entered the passageway and sat on the floor in comfortable position. I took a deep breath and waited. A phrase that I had heard before somewhere came into my head, “When the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear.” I took another deep breath and whispered, “I am ready.”
When Homan spoke, it wasn’t inside my head like it had always been before, but I heard his voice for the first time.
“The babies will be ready long before the sun burns out. Don’t worry, Ashley. Tell the people below to relax. They need to learn to play and not just work. It is important for them to learn this before they get to their next destination.”
“But the babies haven’t even grown an inch and it’s been months.”
“Growth is not linear either, Ashley. Even with human babies, don’t they sometimes have growth spurts? You will get up one morning and the, what you call caves, will be ready to swim into outer space. There will be plenty of room for everyone. But you must teach these people to play instead of work. Think of way to help them, Ashley.”
When I left the cave I was so lost in thought that I didn’t even hear Joe calling to me. I was trying to think of things we could do with Foe’s people to teach them to relax and have fun.
“Honey, are you okay?” Joe asked when he caught up with me. “You were in the passageway a long time. What did Homan have to say?”
“The caves will be ready long before the sun burns out. In the meantime, we have to teach Foe’s people how to relax and have fun.”
CHAPTER 28
I walked over to the building where Foe was working with my son. “Can I take you to lunch?” I asked her.
She looked confused, “Take me to lunch? What does that mean? You’re going to physically pick me up and carry me to get food? No, we eat while we work. Your people have already made us waste too much time. We have to keep busy. We have a deadline here.”
“This is going to be even harder than I thought,” I was thinking to myself. “Look, I only need about ten minutes of your time.”
She sighed and laid down the piece of metal she was trying to bend. Seth watched us the whole time. “Oh all right,” She said, “Come this way.
I expected her to lead me to a private office and was surprised when she led me outside. We stood there and she looked up at the sun. “Go ahead and talk,” she said, “You don’t have much time left.”
I felt panicky. How was I going to say what I needed to say in such a short period of time? “What if there was another way?” I asked and, as I asked it, I wondered where it had come from.
“Another way for
what?”
“What if you already had a way to transport yourself from here without building the spaceships?”
She looked both confused and impatient, “But we don’t.”
“You don’t but we do.”
“You live in caves. How can you know anything? You’ve lived in caves for years, apparently and have only recently come out of them and began to communicate with us.”
“Is that what you think? That we were always in the caves?” I laughed and thought to myself, “Of course she would think that. She never saw us arrive and she’s seen no spaceship. To her logical mind, that would be the only explanation.”
She looked at the sun again and said, “Your time is up. I’ve got to get back to work.” She spun on her heels and walked off without looking back. All I had accomplished was to make her angry at me for wasting her time.
I was lost in thought going back to the cave and met up with Joe. “From the look on your face, I take it things didn’t go so well.”
“She gave me so little time and spent most of that time telling me, basically that we didn’t know anything, that we were cave dwellers who only recently came out of the caves. She thinks we have been here the whole time, Joe.”
He stared off into space for awhile and then said, “Let’s take a break from this and go home and make love. Then we’ll think of something. We always do, or I should say, you always do.”
After the wonderful lovemaking we always had together we were dozing off and I kept getting a mental picture of Seth holding hands with the young girl after the picnic. I sat up in bed and Joe reached for me.
“Lay back down, Ashley. What’s the matter, baby?”
“Joe, in every major change throughout the ages and on all planets we have been on, who are the people who started change?”
“Well, different people. I don’t know what you’re asking.”
“It usually happens through rebellion or revolution, Joe. Think about it. I’ve lived in the sixties on earth. I remember all the changes that took place and all the turmoil? It is usually the younger people who start the unrest that ultimately leads to change. I think Seth should bring his girlfriend home for supper tonight.”
CHAPTER 29
It turned out that Seth had the same idea. He left work earlier than usual and got home at 8:15 bringing the young woman with him. We were sitting around drinking wine, having just put the smaller children to bed. Some of the older ones were playing games or swimming.
They were holding hands and the girl looked like she was in a dream as she looked around the city. “This is Sig,” Seth said. “It’s what I call her. Her real name is one of those long scientific names that everyone here has.”
He introduced all of us and then went off with her to show her around. They walked off into the hills and we watched them go. “Maybe together they can convince the others to go with us when the time comes,” Joe said.
When they came down out of the hills, both of them were weighted down with fruit and vegetables.
Sig smiled when they came within shouting distance and yelled, “I’m taking these to some of my people. I want them to see what’s here so they will come and visit, if that’s all right.”
“It’s perfectly all right,” Joe yelled back. “They are all welcome here and always will be.”
The next morning when we came out of the cave, we saw the hillside covered with what looked like inflated balloons in every color you can imagine. As we watched, they lifted off the ground and started floating through the air and I realized they were the offspring of the two caves.
They were so beautiful they took my breath away. Joe hugged me and we grinned at each other.
Seth had left for work before we had gotten up and now he was leading a big crowd of young people up the hill and they all gazed in amazement. They were talking so fast I couldn’t keep up with what they were saying.
Seth came over and said to us, “They want to know if they can really leave here in these things and I told them that as soon as they were big enough we could all leave in them. The adults won’t even come out look at them. Foe said it was illogical that they could ride in those things.”
We continued to watch the colorful offspring and Joe slowly said, “You know, Ashley they look just like our spheres that we sleep on and sit in. I’m wondering if what we use as furniture is, in fact, eggs. These things here have no opening but are spherical. Do you think they will have an opening later on?”
“Hmm I hadn’t thought of that, although I did wonder where we would enter these babies. Maybe the opening comes later.”
Throughout the day we would walk outside and look at the offspring. Toward sunset some of Foe’s people became curious and wondered over and joined the others.
We took blankets and picnics for Foe’s people and eventually Foe herself came to look. She joined Joe and me on our blanket and accepted the wine and sandwiches we offered her.
“I don’t understand,” She said as she watched the sky. “It seemed so illogical and yet I’m seeing it with my own eyes. Seth told me that you and your people came here in one such as this. There’s no technology involved. You’re traveling in a living thing. I’ve never heard of anything like it.”
We remained silent while she thought some more and then she looked at us and asked almost timidly, “You think I could test drive one of these?”
Joe and I grinned at each other and then Joe said, “I don’t see why not, as soon as they have finished developing. As you can see, right now they have no openings.”
As soon as he said that, there was a flash from the sky and it looked like someone had set off fireworks. But it was much brighter than that. It hurt the eyes to look at it directly. Then there was a loud whinny noise so high pitched that we had to cover our ears.
The whining noise gradually died down and then it was deadly quiet and dark. It was like someone had turned off the sunset that we had been watching, along with the babies, earlier.
Then it was as if someone had turned the lights back on and silhouetted against the sunset were all of the babies making the same rocking motion that Homan made when he landed.
They looked exactly like Homan with the opening at the bottom and the tentacles hanging down from all the way around the opening. They had lost their color and they were about the same size as Homan.
I looked at Foe and she gazed upward with her mouth slightly parted and with tears in her eyes. “It makes me question everything I’ve ever believed,” she whispered.
CHAPTER 30
Foe and her people had many meetings to discuss their plans. Some were totally against traveling through space in the creatures saying that they had always trusted technology above all else.
We were invited to these meetings by Foe but some of the others resented us being there. In one meeting, a man stood up and pointed a finger at us, “Ever since you people came here with your lazy ways, we’ve been unable to concentrate on our work. It’s your fault if we don’t have time to build the spaceships before our sun burns out. You should be held accountable.”
He ranted and raved for quite some time until Foe interrupted him. She called him by his long scientific name and said, “You’ve had your say and now we’re going to hear from Ashley. She has told me her story and I want you to listen closely to her. Not only has she had to rethink all of her beliefs but she has seen many others rethink what they believe also.”
They all slapped their faces as I stood and I almost laughed. I didn’t think I would ever get used to this kind of clapping.
I usually told my story then called on Joe to tell his and then some of the Mansonites, etc. But since we didn’t have much time, I told it all like a continuing story. As I told the story, I stressed the fact that we had rethought everything we had at first believed, not once but many times.
They were all very polite and attentive and I could see that some of them were deep in thought. I finished by saying, “I know it’s difficult to question your
beliefs. If I hadn’t been forced to see things differently, I probably would have been just like you.
“Sometimes it’s easier to stay in your comfort zone and live in denial than to face the truth, but you’re all scientists and I think, when faced with the truth as we know it at the moment, you will have to admit to it.
“I suggest that we all go take a ride in the offspring. Homan, our creature, has agreed to this, but he has stressed over and over again that, until you people learn to relax and have fun, no one is going anywhere. So, what do you scientists say about having an open mind and trying out this experiment?”
They finally reluctantly agreed and the whole of Foe’s people, except eight hiked with us up the hill. Some of these people had been refusing to even look at the caves and these skeptics scoffed. The man who had accused us of ruining everything said, “All I see are a lot of caves.”
Joe took my hand and squeezed it and grinned. He whispered in my ear, “I think he’s scared but won’t admit it.” I nodded. I agreed.
Joe held up his hand, “Listen up everyone. Go into any of cave you want and we will have a little test drive.”
Joe and I didn’t go with them but most of our people did. We watched below as hundreds of jellyfish looking things swam through the sky. We could see the people looking out of the transparent creatures and the look of their faces said it all. They were now true believers. There were still eight of them who had stayed home and refused to come with us.
When they landed, the man who had caused all the trouble ran over to Joe and shook his hand. “Why didn’t you tell us what this would be like? This is wonderful. I think we should leave the planet right away.”
Joe shook his head, “You have to learn to play and relax first.”
“Well, let’s get to it. I’m a fast learner. I learned two sections of chemistry in one night when I was in advanced study.”
Joe laughed, “Well, this lesion may be even more difficult than chemistry.”
TIME AND TIME AGAIN The sequel to 3037 Page 9
