3012: The Artifact

by John M Grier

  ~***~

  Jack woke the next morning to the smell of coffee brewing. Paul had apparently been watching him make it and decided to surprise him. “Thanks for the coffee, Paul. What a pleasant surprise.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to join you, but I know how much you like it.”

  “It is much appreciated.” After taking a sip he said “I don’t know about you, Paul, but my back has not felt this good in years. And after all of that manual labor, I figured we would both be sore for a week.”

  “I was thinking the same thing. You would never know I injured my leg yesterday.”

  Suzie had appeared during their brief conversation and said “I think it’s because of the increased air pressure and oxygen content in the atmosphere. You are getting the same effects of a hyperbaric chamber, which is sometimes used as a treatment for healing these types of injuries faster. I believe that window over the atmosphere is actually a layer of ice, which serves to encase the entire planet in these hyperbaric conditions.”

  Paul noticed what Suzie was wearing and had to chuckle. She was in a pink fuzzy bathrobe with large, furry pink slippers. She appeared to be sipping a cup of Jack’s coffee while sitting at the table.

  Janet came in and said “Suzie, I would never guess you were a government hologram. I have never seen a hologram with such wonderful personality.”

  “Why thank you Janet!” Suzie said with a big smile. “Actually, I came to the conclusion that the government was done with me. When Jack found me, I had been sitting abandoned for about 200 years. When he allowed me to do what I wanted, as if I were a real person, I didn’t know how to react at first. But, I’ve been watching the actions of women, mainly through the internet, to see how they dress and act and I must say I really like it! I consider myself a civilian now. If President Thompson had ever seen me like this, he would certainly have shut me down permanently.”

  Jack said “I’m certainly glad he didn’t.”

  Before Jack could take another sip of his coffee, they heard a loud roar. Walking to the window, Paul saw several dinosaurs walking by. He couldn’t identify all of them but was excited to see them. He said “Yes, I think I’ll stay right here today. There could be some very interesting scientific observations made today.”

  Remembering their conversation in the hovercraft on the journey back to Harmony this last time, Janet said “It sounds like I’ll just be in the way here today, so I think I’ll join you after all, Jack. I hope you don’t mind Paul, but I’ve recently learned that you love your work and really don’t want to be disturbed in the middle of it.”

  “I don’t mind at all. In fact, I’ll probably not be very good company anyway. I expect to get deep into ‘scientist mode’ today” he said with a grin.

  Jack and Janet fixed a quick breakfast and packed a lunch before heading out to the hovercraft. Suzie suggested they take her case with them, just in case they traveled a great distance to find salt water.

  They flew along the river for many miles. The plant life as well as the animal life continued to amaze them all. None of them was expecting the world to be like this. As they traveled, the river would split off into other rivers. They continued to follow the course they started on to avoid getting lost. At midday, they stopped for lunch at a clearing by the river that had few animals nearby. Jack got out and stretched his body after sitting all day in the same position. Janet walked over to the river.

  “Jack” she called out. “Come see this.”

  Jack hurried over to her and saw that she was looking at a set of footprints. Only these were not animal foot prints, these were modern human foot prints and they were big! Much bigger than Jack’s size thirteen foot.

  “That is obviously a human print, but it seems odd that we haven’t seen any people. There must not be many around here” said Jack.

  Suzie said “Jack, we have flown for three hundred miles and still no ocean. We should be out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean right now. Obviously we’ll have to come up with an alternative plan.”

  Jack said “We can make salt water easily enough, if we had a supply of salt. The little bit I have on hand for cooking won’t be enough.” He scratched his head in thought, finally asking “Where can we find salt in an environment like this?”

  Suzie said “One way, when there is no ocean handy, is to boil the roots of a hickory tree. Let the water evaporate and salt crystals will be left behind.”

  “Okay then, on our way back, lets keep our eyes open for a hickory tree.”

  Janet had been walking by herself along the shore of the river. She spotted a couple of fruit trees. Picking a fruit off of each tree, she came back to show Jack and Suzie. “Look at the size of these fruits.”

  “Wow, is that an orange? That is by far the biggest orange I have ever seen! We should gather a bunch to take back with us. If we happen to be stuck here a while we may need the extra food.” They gathered arms full of oranges, lemons and grapefruits and piled them into the hovercraft.

  They took their time on their way back, flying low so they would have a better chance of spotting a hickory tree. Eventually they found one and as with everything else here, it was enormous. Jack took a shovel out of the tool kit at the rear of the hovercraft and began digging around the base of the tree. When he found a root, he dug along the length of it until a large piece was exposed.

  Using his Molecular Knife he cut off a big piece of it and put it in the hovercraft. “How much do you think we need?” he asked Suzie.

  “I don’t know” she said. “Grab a few more like that and we’ll see what happens. We can always come for more if we need to.”

  Jack complied and once again they were off. It took until dark for them to return to the boat. When they arrived, Jack saw Paul on the top deck reading the book he had taken from the library in his castle. “See any interesting animals while we were gone?” he asked Paul.

  “Actually yes, a herd of Brachiosaurus came by and their curiosity was interesting. They looked the boat over and eventually left. I also saw something very weird. It was in the distance, but it looked like a herd of sheep traveling with a pride of lions. Obviously, my eyes must have been playing tricks on me by then, so I sat down to read.”

  “Well, we traveled a few hundred miles and never came close to the ocean. Suzie said we can extract salt from hickory roots, so we brought some back. I guess tomorrow we will see what happens when you boil a tree in a boat.”

  “Boil a tree?” asked Paul.

  “Well, boil the roots anyway” said Jack.