The BridgeBook IV: To Qwell the Tideby euhal allen |
Table of Contents Book IV, chapter 1, part 1 appears in this issue. |
Chapter 1: The Skeltz |
part 2 of 3
* * *
Natasha Borisovna, standing at stage left, waited for her cue to go out again and become the Dream Singer to the people of Starhell. Tonight she would sing the “Coming Home Song” once again. Only this time there would be a change in the verses, for with the new threats from the Galactic Council’s now knowing where they were, and the threat of punishment from the Council’s fleet, it became very necessary that, should it be discovered, the planet look as empty of intelligent life as possible. Sending a portion of the population back to Earth would be a great help in that matter.
Then, the enhanced Door from the Qwell, which allowed easy access to Earth despite the Council’s englobement technology, now made it possible to sing a verse that talked of going home to the mountains and valleys of Earth.
Many, she knew, would find that verse strange, for they had come not from Earth but from the different planets in the Cernon Sector or from Dreamer’s World. Too, others, those who had worked hardest to make Starhell into its own version of a Blue Planet, home was here. Natasha Borisovna, herself, was one of those.
Still, many held love in their hearts for the old planetary home, one they had thought would be forever closed to them. These would appreciate the verse and hope that they could return there. Many in her old village longed for the smells and tastes of their old home and, she knew, they would be among those returning when the time came for such a return.
Her cue came, and Natasha Borisovna stepped out of herself and became The Dream Singer as she, once again, sang of the hopes and dreams of her people.
* * *
Jo’Eya opened the Door and entered the committee room. Only Sean and Olga Shapirov were there with Hi Tinker.
Looking up, Hi was the first to see their visitor. “We were wondering when you would come back. We have been watching this communicator for weeks now and have had no word from Katia and Cyr. Why?”
Olga and Sean, anger in their faces, almost shouting, added, “Katia is our mother. I thought you Qwell’Na had great respect for families. As long as he lived, Jonkil never separated her from us. How can you call yourself his granddaughter and do this to us?”
“Our people believe that ’For life one must breathe out as well as in.’ Sometimes that which is life calls on us to do a negative thing so that we may repeat the positive. In fact, without the negative, the positive is not possible. It is the goal of your people to survive and prosper. To do this you, if you believe in those goals you say you have, you must be willing to give something of yourselves.
“Your people, in their own wisdom, have such a saying, also. My grandfather told me of it when I was very young and wanted him to stay with me instead of doing his duty as the et Sharma of Earth. He looked at me and said, ‘Na’Eya, there is no such thing as a free lunch.’ It was many years before I understood what that meant.
“I have come here today to talk with you and to give you news. But, here I find anger and contention. My people believe that ’Gentle water feeds life; angry water kills’. I shall return and talk with you when your waters have calmed.” With that she stepped back through her door and disappeared.
Sean looked at the other two and, finally spoke, saying, “We just seem to be steeped in diplomatic successes, don’t we?”
* * *
Charlie Philips had never been so busy in his life. Since the outworking of his ideas had been so often positive, he found that he never had time to be lonely.
Sometimes he missed it.
If nothing else, it had been quiet, for the most part, at his cabin in Alaska. Still, without the stars shining down on it he knew that the little old place could never be home again. That had been one of his favorite things in life, to step outside his cabin door and stare at the stars. He still did that here on Starhell as often as he could, and it was still a comfort.
Then, as he was thinking these things, a new idea came into his head.
“Well,” he thought, “think I’ll go bother George with this idea. He always seems to like it when I come up with something hard for him to do.”
Minutes later, Charlie walked into George’s office and, since George had been working with his back to the door and hadn’t had time to escape into a meeting, any meeting, Charlie caught him.
“Well, George, I got me a new idea. Of course I know that you can’t do it yourself, but maybe you can ask those Qwell folks how to do it next time you see one.”
“Charlie, I never see the Qwell ‘folks’ unless she shows up at an Oversight Committee meeting that I happened to have been invited to, so I doubt that I will have any such opportunity to ask her anything.”
“You mean those Qwell only have one person working with us? Then how does anything ever get done?”
“I guess, Charlie, it is that we are the junior partners and they give us only what they decide we need. Anything else we have to figure out for ourselves. Jo’Eya, the Qwell contact, says that way they are only advisors. We will do better if we look to our own needs instead of developing some sort of dependence on them. I agree with her.
“Now, Charlie, what is this so-called, harebrained idea that we can’t solve ourselves?”
“I don’t know if it will do any good to tell you, but I was thinking: now that we can get so easily past that globe force thing, we ought to see if there is any way to make it like one of those one-way mirrors. You know, keep it looking like it has us trapped on the outside but letting us see through from the inside. A lot of people set real store by seeing the stars out at night.”
George grinned and sat down and put his feet up on his desk. “Well, Charlie, it’s interesting that you thought of this. It is a good idea. Of course you are not the first one to think of it. Hiram Tinker’s wife came up with it several months ago. She told us, being an woman of peasant stock, what the return of the stars would have meant to her people.
“You know what else, Charlie, a crew of extra hands have been modifying the force module units with the fix for a couple of weeks now. In fact, next Friday they are going to be finished, and by Saturday evening every place on Earth will be able — barring cloudy weather — to see the stars again.”
Charlie Phillips just stood there with his mouth open and silent. It was one of the best moments George had experienced in months.
* * *
Li Guo-fan, as a number of others did, got the message through his communicator. It was the very thing he had been waiting for: the final proof of who he now was. Soon he was with the village elders again, telling them how they could be a part of a great new world civilization that was rebuilding right there on Earth.
And, as usual, they did not believe him any more than they had believed him before. Then he dropped the bombshell. In just six days his people, the combined people of Starhell and Earth, were going to bring the stars back into the sky.
Suddenly the elders paid more attention. “Could this be true?” they asked each other. If so, then Master Li was telling them the truth and they no longer needed to fear their enemies, the barbaric hill tribes that ever sought their goods, their crops and their women.
The village head stood and spoke to Li Guo-fan. “We will watch with you six days hence. If the stars do indeed once more fill our sky we will walk with you. If the stars do not come, then you must leave our village and never come back with your stories again.”
* * *
All over the Earth, in each little knot of civilization the story had been the same. The people would believe if the stars came back. All over the world, those who were the contact people prayed and wished for clear skies. Most got their wishes, others got sent away because their promise could not be seen.
Still, they did not go far, because they knew that once the clouds left and the stars made their appearance again, those who had been so hasty to send them out would come out to find their only contact with this new future that the reappearance of the stars promised.
And, in Alaska, at a little cabin in a wooded area, Charlie Philips waited excitedly for the evening to come. He had practically had to throw a fit to get permission to be here to see the stars come back. He had made himself such a nuisance that, finally, the Oversight Committee granted him permission to spend a week at his cabin. They, reluctantly agreed that he had earned a little vacation and that he should have the right to spend it where he wanted to.
Right after getting through the Door that had appeared near his cabin door he took a deep breath and realized how he had missed the smell of the woods and mountains. Then he headed for the woodshed and the chopping block to cut some wood for a fire to warm up his cabin.
When he got there, he found the wood shed full and plenty of kindling already chopped. Grumbling aloud, but secretly pleased, he grabbed an armload of wood and headed for the cabin door and opened it only to find a fire already lit and the cabin already warm.
On the shelves were stocks of food enough to keep him several days longer than planned and there was new bedding and quilts on his old bunk. Even the pillows had things this cabin had never seen before: pillowcases. Still mumbling and grumbling aloud, Charlie realized that he had something in his old age that he had never had before: good friends.
As evening came on and the sky darkened Charlie sat in his old chair on his old porch and waited for the stars to appear. Darker and darker grew the night sky and Charlie began to worry that his watching was in vain.
Coming down the mountain, drawn by the smoke from Charlie’s chimney, the Kilmer boys were sure to get that old man now. They had been watching for his return for sometime and had almost despaired of it. No one, they thought, would live as the old man did unless he knew where were things nearby that were valuable, and they were going to make that old man tell them where those valuable things were.
As they were almost to the cabin they heard the old man do a “wahoo” yell and the sky lit up with stars. It was too much for those Kilmer boys to take. They just turned around and ran up that mountain as fast as they could, vowing never to come to the old man’s cabin again.
Charlie stood for a long time and enjoyed the beauty of the Alaskan night sky. He couldn’t remember when he had seen it so clear. Eventually, tired, he went into the cabin and headed for his familiar old bunk. He could not think of anything more restful than, after being entertained by the stars, a peaceful night’s rest.
The next morning, when George planned a surprise visit with him to find out how it looked when the stars seemed to turn on as if a switch was thrown — not too far from the truth — he found Charlie sleeping late in his bunk.
They let him stay at his Alaskan cabin, buried under the old tree that he had talked about so often.
Back on Starhell, by unanimous vote, the area until then known as Central Control was renamed Charlestown and Charlie’s coffee mug, the old familiar one he always had with him, was put into a case next to his picture in the town hall.
* * *
There were times when it was not fair to be a digital person. The times you could not shake hands with a friend or hold a loved one. The most succulent of dishes could still tempt the organic mind but not the taste buds and, sadly, electricity did not come in flavors.
The advantages, though, were astounding. Especially for an ambassador to the Diet of the Tunnel Worlds. Dressing in the uniform of the day was one of them. Cyr and Katia could appear immaculately dressed for some formal occasion — the opening ceremonies, for example — and, seconds after that saunter casually into a room where formal attire was definitely not in style.
And, it was not just dress. When attending the Diet sessions a little gray in the hair and a few experience caused wrinkles in the face seemed to bring respect while appearing a little on the youthful side for the general populous gave the impression that they were vibrant and energetic in serving the Tunnel World’s needs and goals.
While Cyr did these things with a studied manner, Katia had fun. It was a joy to change from the dignified Ambassador to the Tunnel Worlds invited to a party because of her position to a svelte woman twenty years younger than a pompous and boring hostess who would then strike her name from a list of welcomed guests.
Others, the more amiable ones in that society, would invite the Human Ambassadors to their parties just to see what kind of things they would do. Some would even invite those pompous and boring hostesses and set them next to Katia and Cyr to watch the fireworks.
One would think that dinner parties would be especially dull for cyber people like Cyr and Katia, since they, of course, did not eat. That was a problem Katia solved before it even appeared. Just as she could cover her holoform in the latest of virtual fashions, she could conjure up the most elegant and, tastefully fattening of dishes.
Anyone eating the traditional Gorkal stew would look wonderingly at the chocolate mousse on Katia’s plate and the dreamy look on her face as she consumed it, bite by fattening bite. Indeed, Katia became somewhat of an actress in feigning a slight freeze of the tongue when consuming an elegant frozen parfait or a slight sweat on her brow in the act of eating a peppery enchilada.
Cyr, who just tried to duplicate visions of what others were eating, played along at the request of Katia and learned to affect a red face at her antics. Knowing what it meant, Cyr found it to be one of the easier things he learned.
The humor of it all did not escape those of the more serious bent in the government as they watched the deflation of some whose ambition as ambassadors of their peoples consisted of — like many politicians in other places — being seen often in the company of those of greatest power. Knowing that Katia had been at least as powerful as any of them as Grand Minister of the Galactic Council they appreciated her lack of pomposity and her obvious sense of humor. And Katia knew it.
Copyright © 2005 by euhal allen
