by Hep Aldridge
“There will be none and no reason to protect your eyes. Using this technology is a safe and simple process.”
Joe was an excellent welder, MiG, TiG, Oxy-acetylene, he could do it all, so using that analogy, he understood what he was to do.
I said, “Sounds good so far, but I think we need to know a little more about this anti-gravity stuff. I don’t want to go flying off into space or anything.”
Jeannie laughed and said, “Do not worry, Colt. We will practice here; you will see, it is simple and safe.”
For the next hour, we became acquainted with our alien tools and learned how to “fly,” i.e., adequately navigate in an artificial anti-gravity environment—how cool is that? She was right; it was rather simple. The belts with the small silver blocks attached provided the power for everything, tools and flight, and the anti-gravity devices clipped onto our belts as well. The first time I tried mine, I rose to the height of the top level of the platform and then glided effortlessly over to it and lowered myself on top. Damn, Jeannie was right; this was easy. All you had to do was think where you wanted to go, how fast, and go. Don’t get me wrong, it was bizarre, but she assured us these were short-range devices. They could go up and down and move laterally for a short distance. They weren’t meant for extended aerial excursions. Darn!
We loaded up the gear we needed and headed back to the canyon. We picked up the trail camera on the way, so we would have a visual connection with the Citadel. As we were walking to our “lift-off” point, I thought, a little over a week ago, we didn’t even know if the Citadel existed, and, here we were, getting ready to repair some alien power device with alien tools by flying to it using alien anti-gravity technology. This is crazy—absolutely crazy for a bunch who started as amateur adventurers!
We arrived at the lift-off spot and got ourselves ready.
“All right, guys, remember Jeannie said all we had to do was to think up and keep thinking higher, and we would go up. When we get to the top, we can think forward, backward, left, or right, and we will move. Once we’re at the stone, we just think down until we touch down, and then off.” It was supposedly that simple, and it worked. Jeannie had locked these units into slow mode, so they would not be fast or move radically; therefore, controlling them was not difficult.
So, up we went, what a rush even at slow speed. I felt like a scaled-down version of James Bond with his jet pack. We all three made it to the canyon rim with no problem and set to work. Dimitri and I attached the anti-gravity devices to the broken halves of the collector/receptor. We activated them, and the halves lifted off the ground a foot. We had to adjust the power setting to raise it another two feet, so it cleared all the rocks around it. When it did, we gently pushed it back together until the break lined up perfectly.
Joe had the glove and rod in hand and slowly began the process of attaching the two pieces back together. I could see what was happening as he worked. The beam touched the crack, and as he held it there, the crack underneath it slowly disappeared. He had started at the top and worked his way down. This collector/receptor was about five feet on each side and ten to twelve feet long. As he got to the bottom, Dimitri and I slowly rotated the massive stone easily, and Joe continued his “welding” down each side until we had completed all four sides. He stepped back and said, “Now, that’s some nice alien device super-duper welding repair, if I do say so myself.”
We stepped out as the lintel hung in space and looked for the crack. It was gone, nothing to be seen anywhere along the repair. It looked as if nothing had happened to it.
“Nicely done,” I said. “Okay, Dimitri, let’s see if we can get this bad boy back in place. This was a little trickier than just moving it. We had to raise it and ourselves at the same time. One was a manual adjustment on the block; the other was our mental commands for our movement. When we got to the height just above the base, we had to move to one side and think forward as we slowly pushed it over the base. We could see there was a shallow indentation for the block to sit in, and it took us a couple of tries to get it to line up properly, but we got it and slowly set it in place with a solid-sounding thud. We removed the anti-gravity devices and returned to Joe standing on the ground. We looked at one another, grinning. “Damn, we did it,” Joe said.
“We sure did,” I replied.
I got on Comms and contacted Reggie and asked if they were able to follow the repair on the video feed we had set up with the trail camera. She said they did, and “Jeannie said it was a great job, but to leave now. The device would be automatically restarting soon, and she didn’t want you guys near this power source when it did.”
“Roger that,” I said. “Okay, guys, grab the gear, and let’s head down.” We got to the edge of the canyon rim, thought up, and slowly rose about five feet, then forward and moved twenty feet out over the canyon below and then slowly down. That’s when I heard Dimitri’s voice come loudly over the Comm, “To infinity and beyond…”
I looked up, and he was just coming over the rim, heading in our direction.
“Okay, Buzz Lightyear, get your ass down here,” I said as Joe started laughing uncontrollably.
“Knock it off, Joe; you’ll only encourage him.”
We were standing on the canyon floor when Dimitri arrived and stopped four feet off the ground, looked at us, and said, “You guys aren’t planning on walking back, are you?” as he began gliding back to the Citadel.
We soon joined him, and Joe said, “Sure beats walking.”
I agreed but kept quiet as we all glided back to and over the rockpile.
Stepping through the cloak, I called to Doc, “Is it working?”
Grinning like a Cheshire cat, he spread his arms toward the city and said, “You tell me.”
I hadn’t even looked around until then and was blown away. The Citadel was lit up like a Christmas tree. Multi-colored lights were everywhere; the fountain had color-changing lights underwater. There were blue paving stones lighting up the main street, and most of the buildings had lights on inside. I could see the strange, engraved lettering on the front of most of the buildings was glowing bright blue. But the most amazing thing was Jeannie, hovering ten feet off the ground in front of the first obelisk, arms outstretched and head thrown back, glowing so brightly it was hard to look directly at her.
As the three of us stared at the surrounding scene, I said to no one in particular, “I’ll take that as a yes.”
We made our way down the steps to our friends who were still staring at the transformation that had occurred in the Citadel. I now noticed the tops of all four of the obelisks positioned in the center median of Main Street were glowing bright blue, as was the capstone of the pyramid building across from our campsite.
You expected to see people coming out of the buildings and walking down the street at any minute. The Citadel looked alive.
“Wow!” Joe exclaimed.
Dimitri said, “I can hardly believe how different it looks.”
I had walked up next to Doc and said, “When did this happen?”
Without looking at me, he said, “Just a couple of minutes before you got here. Jeannie let us know it was going to be exciting when the power device re-started, but…”
I was staring at Jeannie, floating in the air. “Exciting seems a little inadequate.”
As we watched, Jeannie’s glow began to diminish, and she slowly descended and touched down in front of the obelisk. Her arms dropped to her sides as she turned her head to look at us. Slowly, she floated over to us with a beautiful smile on her face and said, “You have done a magnificent job. I have re-connected with the source, and the Citadel lives once again.”
Chapter Thirty
Jeannie began briefing us on what it meant to her and the Citadel to be re-connected with the outside world and once again have full use of Thalian technology on planet Earth.
Of significant importance, she was now able to sense and connect with other outposts around the world that still had functioning power
.
We were happy and tired. It felt good to see what our work had accomplished and that we mere earthling mortals had been able to, in a significant way, repay Jeannie for embracing us. Jeannie was genuinely ecstatic. She was more animated and smiling a lot, not as serious as she had previously been. She insisted we go back to the, I guess I’ll call it the “restaurant,” and dine. We readily agreed. After securing the gear, we all met there, greeted by a table laden with food and music playing softly in the background—melodic and yet unidentifiable, but very relaxing. We had all picked up goblets and were filling them with a new beverage from the flagons on the table. Our chatting abruptly stopped when Jeannie entered the room, now emitting a lovely teal-colored glow. I choked on my drink, not because of her lovely appearance but of what flew in behind her. Hovering over her right shoulder, glowing golden, about the size of a large parrot, was a dainty, humanoid figure. It had fluttering wings like a dragonfly and landed lightly on Jeannie’s shoulder, quietly observing us.
Dimitri was coughing uncontrollably; Joe had dropped his goblet. Luckily, it was empty. Somewhat awestruck, Doc said, “My God, it’s a fairy.”
Jeannie laughed out loud and said, “This is Lithel, my friend. She has come out of stasis now that power has been restored. She is from my home world. Her telepathic abilities are not as strong as mine, but she can communicate with you if she chooses. A number of her kind came with us when we brought the second wave of colonists to this planet.”
Doc was still grappling with his words and stuttered again, “She’s a fairy.”
“Not actually, Doc,” Jeannie laughingly replied, “but her race became the basis for the legends that your world has about fairies. She is, however, much more than that; she is a changeling. Lithel, show them, please.”
Lithel’s wings extended as she lightly lifted off Jeannie’s shoulder and moved a few feet away. A golden cloud began growing around her until it was almost five feet in diameter. As it began to clear, a large cat-like creature was sitting there. It was golden in color with the faintest brown irregular stripes on its body and a long tail with three distinct pointed tips of hair at its end. Her ears were large with a three-inch tuft of black hair sticking straight out from the ends, like a bobcat’s. They matched the color of the tips on her tail. Her head was very much the head of a saber-toothed tiger, only more elongated, with huge fangs and rows of sharp teeth clearly visible.
We were all staring at her as she slowly stood up and, with beautiful feline grace, walked over to us and sniffed us one at a time. Not sure what to do, we all stood perfectly still as this majestic, five-hundred-pound cat walked among us. That is, all except Eduardo, who, as she approached, reached out his hand and scratched her between the ears. This cat stood four feet at the shoulder, so that put her head at five feet, even with Eduardo’s chin in height. He was grinning as he stared into her brilliant amber eyes. We heard a low guttural sound that you could almost feel coming from her as his hand rubbed her head. Then, I swear, she started purring. Eduardo continued his scratching as Lithel began to nuzzle him with her head.
I think I heard everyone let out a huge sigh, and I looked at Jeannie, who was smiling broadly.
“I think Lithel has made a new friend,” Jeannie said as the big cat laid down next to Eduardo and leaned her head against him.
Jeannie continued, “Please, sit down; enjoy your meal. I have some new things to share with you. Much has changed now that you have repaired the power source. Some of this you will remember after you leave this place… and some you will not, for your own safety and that of your planet…
For the next two days, our world was “shaken and stirred,” sorry, J. Bond, as Jeannie continued educating us on the history of our planet from her Thalian perspective and experience. Everything from the advanced worldwide civilizations that were here and thrived thousands of years before the last ice age, the builders of the great pyramids of Egypt, Mexico, Central and South America, Europe, Near East, Antarctica, and the other continents and countries. She detailed the exodus from the planet that occurred and the initial colonization of Mars. That’s right, Mars! She also shared that Egypt had indeed been a fertile, forested land when the pyramids were submerged in floodwaters for hundreds of years, caused by the self-inflicted explosion that destroyed Attalia.
After the earth regained its equilibrium and the floodwaters receded, the reforming of civilization as we know it on all the major continents began anew, helped along by the teachers and scientists of Thalia.
The unbelievable historical record grew and grew. Jeannie informed us she was just covering a portion of it; the full record was recorded and kept in the library.
That was my cue, “So, Jeannie, when will we be able actually to see this library?” I asked.
“Tomorrow, we will take that next step in your journey,” she said with a smile.
It was late in the day. What’s one more day, I thought.
We thanked her, left the chamber, and headed to the “restaurant” where we had started taking our meals. As we walked over, I noticed Eduardo and Lithel, who was in her cat form, were walking together. They’d been spending a lot of time together, even when we weren’t being briefed. She would hang around the campsite after meals, and he would spend time quietly talking to her, and I guess she responded in like telepathically. Sometimes I would see them sitting quietly, staring at the fountain and city lights, while he gently rubbed her head. Nothing being said, but the bonding was palpable.
“That is true,” the thought came blasting through to me as I saw Jeannie approaching.
I flinched and said, “I’m never going to get used to you being able to see our thoughts, Jeannie,” and laughed.
“I am sorry if it upsets you, Colt,” Jeannie replied.
“No, no, it doesn’t upset me, please, no offense meant. It’s just sometimes startling; that’s all. I don’t mind, really,” I said, smiling. “I mean it. I’m just glad to see Eduardo happy. He seems to really enjoy Lithel’s company.”
“And she, his,” Jeannie replied. “There is something I need to speak with you about, Colt. It is rather serious and very important.”
“Sure, what is it?” I thought, somewhat concerned.
“It is about Eduardo. Now that I have regained my full abilities, I have been going out into the outside world for the first time in almost five hundred years, and I see the world has changed dramatically.”
“That’s an understatement,” I thought.
“I agree,” she said, “it is hard for me to adequately put into your words my concerns and feelings about it. I fear for your future as a civilization. There is hope, but the dangers are mounting. Many of my people left to allow this world to develop on its own. But they did plan on returning one day when your world was ready to advance and take your place as another of the space-faring worlds. But I realize that day is still far off. My Watchers have not been able to assess the outside world as effectively as I have needed. Thus, my surprise and sorrow when I visited outside the cloak for myself. There is still so much war and hate; it is not the world we had hoped to help create, but such evolution of societies is not unusual.” She paused, “I need someone who can go out and blend in with this world, someone who is smart and willing to learn. Someone who, if needed, could act as my emissary in that world. They must be able to adapt and be strong enough to survive in it. With the right training, I think Eduardo could be that person.”
I stopped in my tracks and looked at her, “Are you kidding?”
“No, not at all. I have learned much about the boy; he is confident, accepting, resourceful, compassionate, and very brave. His mind is always questioning, wanting to learn more about everything. He has no family and few ties to his life in the city. His roots are here in the mountains. He understands nature and the importance of balance in all things, yet he can find his place in this modern world and survive when necessary.”
I could not argue with her; I had seen these same qualities in him.
The time we had spent together over these few years was great, and I had watched him grow and develop. He was a great kid, rapidly growing into a fine, strong young man, but he was still just a kid in my eyes.
“You know he thinks of you as the father he never had,” her thoughts shook me, “and your team as his family, Joe the big brother, the rest aunts and uncles, even an older sister. In his mind, you are his family. He loves you all.”
I had to admit, I was and wasn’t surprised. Eduardo had grown up around us and with us. I guess I did have similar feelings for him. “But why tell me this now?” I asked.
“Because when I approach him with this offer, he will seek advice from his ‘family,’ and I thought you should be prepared. Also, I needed to know if you had reservations about him accepting my offer.”
My mind was racing, running the multitude of growing up scenarios in my head: Would he, could he adapt to this world? Would he be happy here? Could he handle the responsibility that would certainly come along if he accepted this role? I had to shake myself out of this morass. As a child, he grew up in these mountains. When old enough, he went to the city alone and survived on the streets for how many years? Then, when the opportunity came along with Sean, he was smart enough to seize it and had done well for himself. He was indeed a survivor.
I took a deep breath and looked Jeannie in the eye, “With your guidance and protection, I think if this is what he wants, he will do fine. More than fine.”
She smiled at me and said, “I agree, and you have my solemn promise I will protect him always.”
A little later, I saw Jeannie and Eduardo, away from the others, engaged in a serious conversation. Lithel had changed back to her “fairy” form and was standing on Jeannie’s shoulder. The discussion lasted for some time. When it ended, Eduardo bowed ever so slightly to Jeannie, and Lithel began flitting around both of them.
Eduardo turned and headed my way, smiling yet serious, with Lithel following him, still flitting about excitedly.