Children Of The Source
Geoffrey D. Condit
Copyright © 2014 Geoffrey D. Condit
All rights reserved.
DEDICATION
I’d like to thank my writing teacher, Nina Pykare, veteran novelist, for her wisdom and friendship. A big thank you to my son, Thierry, for his technical help, constant interest and support. Thank you for my wife, Kathleen, for her unwavering belief and sustained encouragement over many years.
1
They came just before dawn. Judith and I had just finished our rounds of the community guard posts. We stared up at the breaking sky with incredulous awe. The time of lawlessness had been with us for nearly fifteen years now. Maybe their time was due. Two days ago we’d fought off the last band of raider-looters. This now. They came in waves under the moonlight, gliding soundlessly over the Peaks by the dozens. It was uncanny, even though we’d expected them for years - strange giant, wedge shaped spacecraft - aliens. A rising fear stood the hairs on the back of my neck. Images and emotions of a savage war between aliens factions roared forward. Somehow I was in the middle, feeling the gut catching anger and vast hatred toward the other side. Carnage and no quarter devastation. The images and emotions vanished as suddenly as they came leaving me shaken, empty. I knew it was real and had happened. I felt Judith’s reassuring hand on my arm.
The majority of spacecraft went on to circle the town briefly, and then headed north. But a small contingency moved into a spiral circling pattern directly above the San Francisco Peaks. They stayed at a range of forty to sixty-five thousand feet as near as we could tell. Mark Lancaster thought so. He flew. His old ’46 Piper Cub sat in a barn on the road just outside our inner perimeter. Our main physical link with the outside world, it stood gas empty and quiet. Never again, we thought to wing us over the vast western mountains, canyons, deserts, mesas and butts ... But that and this coming heralded the beginning of the last stage of change due in our system. Now I didn’t know what to think. I called a meeting for an hour and a half after dawn, and we went home.
Sitting in an overstuffed armchair in our house I felt Judith’s hands rest on my shoulders. They were cool, good against the skin. “You’re worried?” she asked.
“Yes.” I looked up from my chair. “These aliens had a no holds bar war among themselves. I was involved in it. Each side was completely convinced they were right.” I shook my head. “What are we getting into?”
“Perhaps you’re only getting a small part of the story,” Judith said.
“What do I tell our people?”
“The truth.”
“And I don’t know what that is.”
People began gathering shortly after Judith and I walked over to the airplane barn just this side of the Rio de Flag. All the houses across the Rio had been dismantled or torn down to repair those houses we used in Cheshire. This also made the perimeter easier to defend. The spacecraft continued their lazy spiral circling. Imperturbable, isn’t the right word, but close. Some things have no words. This was one of those.
I watched the people gather, coming in twos and threes, family groups. A few dogs tagged along, tails wagging in the warm July sunshine. About one hundred men, women, and children of various ages made up the community. A skeleton crew manned the outer guard bunkers and guard towers. The two perimeters, the night and larger daytime one, included our cultivated field areas and pasturage which extended out to and across Old Federal Highway 180 on both sides of Fremont Boulevard to within twenty feet of the pine forest edge.
The crowd stood quiet and expectant. Waiting. I pointed to the sky and the still circling spacecraft - silent, massive, and dominating. “They have arrived,” I said. An uneasy shudder moved through the crowd.
“You’re head of our council and see future probabilities. Tell us what you know.” The voice came from somewhere in the back of the crowd.
I spoke carefully, “ Their arrival will awaken memories in many of you. Memories of other times, relationships. Some of them will not be pleasant. The aliens have a history of strife and war. They ruined one planet and almost another before their warring factions killed each other off. The ones you see above us are from a third faction who are said to have built a world without violence. They’ve been observing the earth for many years, and decided to make themselves known. This is the only place I know they are doing this.”
“Why us?”
“Many of us were part of their history. The first planet they destroyed. How many of you were said to have lived with them on Earth when they came the first time?” Most of the hands went up. “They know this,” I said.
“How will we know it?” someone asked.
“By dreams, welling up memories, recognition, telepathy, and inner knowing. These and others. It will vary according to the individual. Some will recognize the language, and take to it naturally. Others will find abilities unknown before surfacing. And all will find something begin to happen within.”
“But what of Bloody Carson?”
“I don’t know.”
Bloody Carson, a regular line Army Brigadier General, was the Commander and Governor of the Southern Utah and Northern Arizona Military region head quartered a little more than three miles down the road in what remained of the town of Flagstaff, Arizona. This was a man you always told the truth to. You had to earn his respect and that wasn’t easy.
“The aliens will make overtures toward us first in dreams on an individual and group level. There, introductions will be made.” I stopped, looked around, waited for questions. None came, so I continued, “The main thing to remember is we are dealing with a lot of unknowns. We have to share everything we get about them. Puzzle pieces. To get a more complete picture.” I nodded to Betty Oberman. “Bring whatever you get to Betty. She’ll catalog it. They’ve come because a time of joining hands is approaching.” I stopped again. There were some questions, but we broke up in positive mood.
Our daughter Victoria bounded up out of breath with our second son Abe. Quest and Evelyn, our neighbor’s two excellent mutts, completed this arrival in a bevy of wagging tails and prancing feet.
“What goes?” I asked, smiling.
“We can’t find Laith,” Victoria said, worried.
“He’s fine,” Judith said mischievously. “He’s with Helen. I think they went off to be alone.”
“Oh, love.” Victoria sniffed distastefully. Abe grinned. Victoria eyed him. “You gotta crush on June Oberman.”
“I hope she notices.” Abe beamed, ever the optimist. Victoria laughed and playfully punched at her brother. Victoria was twelve, Abe thirteen, and Laith eighteen.
“Where are they?” she asked.
Judith bent down and whispered, “There’s a certain niche in the library where those interested in one another can go to be alone.”
Victoria laughed. “Oh, boy,” and ran off.
I turned to the others: Mark Lancaster with Susan, his wife, and son Derek; Jana and Dick Clayton, and their three children, Krystal, Mark, and Bob; Grant and Rosie Bateman; Betty Oberman and her daughter June, who cast not so secretive glances at Abe. Alice and Greg Lopez and their son Issac walked up. We waited for Mike Roseman, Helen’s father, to join us.
“Morning all,” he said with his usual infectious grin. We greeted him. All of us made an informal group.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“We need to go to Snob Hill Fort for supplies. Also take the wounded soldier in, and see a few people.”
“But the soldier decided to shed the physical body,” Jana said. “Wouldn’t he be better off with us? We can help him make the transition and introduce him to the nonphysical world.”
“True, but he has a brother coming in on today’s
troop train. They need to say goodbye. Some of us will be there on a nonphysical level anyway,” I said.
“Carson’s set one-thirty this afternoon for the hanging of Dregs O’Banion,” Betty said.
“Another reason to go,” I said. “I’ve talked to him several times since they brought him to the fort. He’ll handle himself well.”
“Cruel,” June said matter of fact.
“It’s been agreed to,” Jana said quietly.
I nodded. “You’re both right. A sick society. An agreement to go on.” I looked around. Small groups of people stood talking, casting frequent glances at the spacecraft. “Any rate, what’ d you say to eight-thirty as a time to go in? Sound good?” The meeting broke up. Judith and I headed home. Abe set off with June for the animal barn.
“Laith should be home. He’s coming to the fort with us,” I said.
“But eighteen years old ... ” Judith said and then grew silent.
“I know what you mean. Eighteen year olds aren’t supposed to be the way he is,” I said quietly, drawing her close. “He can help at the fort. Dregs O’Banion has a daughter. With the orphans. He can distract her, considering what is going to happen to her father.”
Judith eyed me. “I had a dream about that. Don’t make enemies. General Carson might not take kindly to what you’re going to do.”
“I won’t. Not intentionally.” Turning down N. Roberta Drive, we saw Laith and Victoria hail us from the front of our house. A little above average height, red-gold hair, sapling slim, he moved with sure grace, and everything he encountered somehow bore his mark. He traveled through a world he knew he created and controlled, like he and everything around him were one - a magnificent fish in an ocean of his creation.
I remember when Laith came. Actually he and Judith had come together. The snows fell heavily that winter, but the temperatures stayed strangely warm. Our survival community at Cheshire held about sixty people then.
The volcanic eruptions of the San Francisco volcanic field of Northern Arizona, sometimes dramatic, had continued on and off for three years. A hot spring opened up at the intersection of Darlene and Lynett Street, destroying our 10 inch main sewer outlet which flowed south to town. We began construction of waterless toilets. We widened the natural pool of the hot spring, lined it with cement and tile and put up a bathhouse. Later we used the steam to heat our houses, greenhouses and operate the cooking facility. Two windmills ran the pumps to do this.
The world had changed. A massive tsunami caused by an underwater landside in Hawaii wiped out the West Coast, leaving only the Coastal Mountain Ranges of California. The tsunami triggered huge earthquakes which wrecked the cities of Oregon and Washington. Then the Great Basin of Utah, Arizona, and Nevada subsided to create an inland sea. People who survived left, making their way back East or banded together creating farming survival communities. Government relief failed for lack of funds and resources. More than a few people took to jay hawking. That sparked vigilante and summary justice. The Federal government opened prisons - forced labor camps which sent their goods all over the country. Living conditions proved very brutal.
That Christmas Eve. Twenty miles south of Salt Lake City. Nearly midnight with a heavy snow falling, the convicts struck silently and in twenty minutes won over complete control of the camp. Communication lines cut, the guards, warden, and prison staff found themselves locked away in a storage tunnel. A vocal minority shouted for revenge, but the iron will of the convict leader, Charles Bareton, squelched that action. A huge bear of a man, with a face of old granite, he held the undisputed allegiance of every man in the camp. Convicted of murdering a man who killed his brother, he had been sent to jail. The prosecutor turned out to be a cousin of the dead man. Bareton was forty-eight years old.
The convicts stripped the camp of anything they needed for travel. In five hours, they headed south. Communications were habitually bad so it wasn’t until the twenty-seventh that authorities discovered what had happened. By then the convicts had moved an incredible forty miles south. Some of the men picked up family members on the way.
Judith was Charles Bareton’s daughter. Mary, Charles’s wife, was a big motherly woman with silver hair, and an unflinching determination and drive to succeed.
Judith. How can I describe someone more handsome than beautiful with the determination of her mother and presence and wisdom of her father? Like a Spring breeze. Judith and Mary joined the army just north of Zion National Park in southern Utah.
That’s where the U.S. Army caught up with the convicts. The army expected to make short work of them. But there were many veterans of various wars among the convicts. On Charles’ orders they fired to disable the helicopters, managed to turn back five of the six. The sixth crashed. Charles knew the less violence they used, the less the authorities might feel inclined to use against them. So after the first skirmish they made their way further south - all hundred and fifty of them. Fifty of these were women and children.
Bad weather gave the convicts time. When they ran into federal forces again it was at Glen Canyon Dam on the northern border of Arizona and Utah. A hundred federal troops guarded the bridge and dam complex. The town of Page on the east side of the gorge held the technicians, soldiers, and their families.
They came in the dead of the night. No moon. A force of twenty-five men using two rafts crossed to the east side, and made their way to the Navajo Generating Station. There they launched a diversionary operation which drew most of the guarding forces from the bridge and dam. As silently as possible they took the western defenses and managed to take the whole bridge with only five wounded. After crossing the bridge, they linked up with the diversionary force at Antelope Pass.
They traveled U.S. Highway 89 south, crossing the Little Colorado River at Cameron, buying sheep from friendly Navajo shepherds. The long hill from Wupatki to Sunset Crater took four days. Sharp ribbons of dried lava flows made the crossing treacherous. The weather had stayed overcast and uncertain, keeping the Army away.
There they found four to five inches of patchy snow. Bareton held a council and decided to cross Shultz Pass Road to avoid the army newly set up in Flagstaff. It was fourteen miles to where the dirt road ended at the old country club, and the town’s two fifty million gallon reservoirs, the water maintenance crews called ‘the Northend’. Cheshire was just across the Federal Highway 180 from these huge reservoirs which we still used.
It took three days to make it through Shultz Pass. Fortunately we knew of their coming. Several of us dreamed of hordes of people descending on us, but most of us thought it was symbolic of something else. Except a young girl, Helen Roseman, who knew all along. She told us they would come. Gifted in a down-to-earth fashion without guile or ego, she sat on our council. Bareton had taken the courtesy to send emissaries. We met them, heard their story, and decided to help. There were some surprises in store. They made it to our community two hours before sundown. We fed and settled them in as best we could. It took most of the rest of our winter stores. The sky kept its welcome blanket of clouds.
Bareton stayed with me by mutual agreement. We could arbitrate any trouble. But he had another motive. The next day dawned to scattered clouds and after the chill wore off, it rose into the upper forties. The sun shown bright and the sky the incredible blue that only a seven thousand foot altitude can give. The Peaks lay coated with confectionery white. We fed everyone again, which wasn’t much. Joint hunting parties brought in four elk and made everyone breathe easier.
Bareton’s meeting with his captains broke up. I saw him talking with a young woman I’d never seen before. He saw me and they walked over. “Jamie, my daughter, Judith. Judith, Jamie.” Each of us later said we heard the introduction as though in a dream. Time ceased for us. We saw Charles study us and nod with satisfaction. He left. We began to talk. It must have been about noon when someone brought us plates of food.
The next two days we spent making up provisions for the convict army. They rested up for the next
leg of their journey. They were headed for the Chiricahua Mountains to get lost. To make a life for themselves away from the prying eyes of the Federal government. Judith and I hardly noticed the passing of time, but others watched us with amused curiosity.
On the evening of the second day everyone gathered at a great meeting. There had been no violence, only sharing and understanding. Gifts were given and provisions checked with a few short speeches of hope and thank you. Then there grew a hush over the crowd as Charles Bareton rose to speak. His face, carved with a certain haunting, could smile and his eyes sing with life, and tonight he was smiling.
“This night before we leave, two of our company will be staying with you,” he said. I was mystified until Judith’s hand slid into mine. The second person I didn’t know.
“Your leader, Jamie, and my daughter have decided to stay together.”
There was scattered laughter and cheers. “I don’t know about legal marrying, but if two people were meant to be together, I’d say they are.” He dropped silent for a moment.
“Laith.” As he said the name a strange silence settled over the people. It was unreal. A young boy walked forward out of the crowd. There was something about him, a certain peace, completeness. He must have been about five. The people held him in reverence. I’d heard of people being healed by him and other strange things which I discounted.
“Judith. Jamie. Would you come here, please?” We walked over and the boy gave us an engaging grin.
Bareton took our hands and joined them together, the three of us. “I would say you’re family.”
After the meeting, I took Bareton aside and we walked. “Bareton, I understand about Judith, but what about Laith? I admit there’s something about him. Don’t know if I’m ready for instant family yet. What do you know about him?”
Moonlight played on the creases of his face as he smiled. “You’ve seen Laith. That’s no immature self-concerned little kid. What was your dream two nights ago? Tell me the rest of it.”
Children of the Source Page 1
