Gus

by Terry Smith

  Evin suggested that the group maintain some of their normal operations such as their daily prayers to give the appearance that their life is normal and they are looking forward to continuing life on their planet. They all agreed to this plan and gathered for a special prayer for the success of their plan. Evin ended with “I think we are mainly in agreement that Gus is God, so I am wondering about our prayers. I know he said he would not help us against the Rescuers, but did wish us well in our pursuit of our goals. He is obviously conflicted, but probably will not stand in the way of our efforts as long as we are not harming the Rescuers and their planet. So, let’s continue with the prayers if nothing else than to keep our thoughts and desires together.”

  The Group went back to work dealing with their research projects and tending to their animals and their garden. They wanted for things to look normal when Thad and his group returned to The Neighborhood. When the vehicle arrived the next morning carrying Thad and some others from Wonderland they were enjoying breakfast including fresh eggs from their chickens, fresh milk and fruit. Thad and his group were invited to join them. They exchanged some general chit-chat including how they make butter from their fresh milk, various ways to prepare eggs and how they enjoyed eating outdoors in a family setting. They seemed at ease talking with each other and didn’t sense any concerns about the newcomers to their planet.

  After breakfast it was time for some more discussion about the future of the group and how they would interface with the Rescuers. Thad recommended that they remain where they were for the present but visit the communities to see how they lived and how they could assist each other in making improvements. Thad acknowledged that the newcomers had some unique experience that could be used to make life better, and that the Rescuers could provide some resources to help the newcomers. Then Thad went back to the big issue, their desire to return to Earth. He said that they had discussed this issue in more depth and continue to oppose their return as they could expose their planet and the people from Earth may move to their planet and create many of the same problems that existed on Earth.

  Evin said that they had also discussed this situation and agreed with Thad’s people that this could create a problem. He acknowledged that they felt better being on a planet where these problems did not exist. Evin did note that they missed their loved ones and felt depressed about not being with them. They felt bad that their loved ones did not know that they were safe and alive, but contact with them could unleash an attempt to locate them.

  Thad said that they would be invited to their communities for single days on a periodic basis to get a feel for their lifestyle and what resources were available that could be used in the Neighborhood. During those visits they would meet with representatives of the Rescuers to talk about their research and any knowledge they could share that would help them. He said that they were anxious to learn from the group and looked forward to working with them.

  Thad asked where they came up with their names for their group, and what did they want to be called. Of course, Evin did not disclose all of the entertaining options that were discussed. So Thad asked, “What do you want us to call you?” Dianne noted that their mission is named Able3, and their planning group was called The Dream Team which was probably not a good name to use under the circumstances. Their settlement was called The Neighborhood, so “how about Neighbors, but maybe we should discuss this among ourselves before we come up with a name that they will have to live with for a long time.” Thad agreed that they should probably discuss it too for the same reason.

  Thad suggested that maybe about three of them could visit the next day to look around and meet some people. Their vehicle could pick them up in the morning and take them back to the Neighborhood in the afternoon. “Don’t worry.” Thad said, “We won’t blindfold you for the trip. It isn’t that big of a secret.” Thad thanked them for the delicious breakfast and they were off.

  The Group thought the visit went well and decided to discuss what they wanted to be called. The options were almost as funny as what they discussed for the other group, but they finally settled on Neighbors for the group and The Neighborhood for where they lived. They were used to that and felt it gave some sense of permanence to them. They drew straws to see which three were to visit the communities the next day. The three chosen would be Wanda, Dave and Larry.

  The next day when the vehicle arrived only Thad was in it. They were anxious to learn what they wanted their group to be called and their community. Thad said they had quite a discussion and preferred to be called Friends and their communities Friendship Garden, or just The Garden. Wanda, Dave and Larry immediately began to visualize what they would be seeing which in their eyes would be green and flush with vegetation. They were anxious to see it and meet some of the rest of the Friends. They boarded the vehicle with Thad and were off to The Garden. It turned out to be quite a trip lasting almost an hour and the landscape changed from desert to forest and finally to a large green field as far as the eye could see, with a large river running through it. The place was beautiful and even more than they had envisioned.

  Upon their arrival they were met by the original group they had seen before plus several others, ranging from young children to older men and women of all colors and appearance. They stood still with smiles on their faces waving as the vehicle approached, which the group recalled was the traditional greeting for them. Wanda, Dave and Larry were nervous, like the first time meeting future in-laws, but returned the smiles and waves. The group moved forward and Thad introduced Wanda, Dave and Larry to the group.

  The group started their tour and Thad led by describing buildings and other areas as they passed. Of particular interest were the facilities handling certain manufacturing operations which included a walk thru of one of the buildings. It was surprising how quiet the operations were and the number of people working diligently on their parts of the operation. They would look up – some smiling and even a few waving – but continued to work at a constant speed. Some of the machinery and products being manufactured were familiar to Wanda, Dave and Larry, but some of the items they had never seen before. Thad stopped at one location and introduced a product that he described as an oven on Earth, but would cook and prepare meals in much less time. The oven would sense the preparation and turn itself off when done. It would prepare a complete meal, including meat, vegetables and other items at the same time at various degrees of temperature and production time. Since it was time of lunch, Thad offered them meals which included a number of options, which they found to be delicious. They were informed of exactly the number of calories and nutritional ingredients that they actually ate after they had completed the meal, not just the amount served. Dave glanced over at Wanda and Larry, and said “Don’t even think about making a comment about that. I can tell by the smirks on your faces what you are thinking.”

  They looked for any sign of a building or any other structure that looked like it was the base for communications outside of their planet. Everything looked normal, clean and orderly. There were no other large vehicles on the road, but some small vehicles that looked something like an electric 3-wheel motorcycle with an attached enclosure. People were walking throughout the community, sometimes couples holding hands, some families with children, some people walking or running for exercise and some apparently just out for a walk. The weather was ideal, which it always seemed to be – a question the Neighbors needed to ask the Friends, or maybe even Gus. Everything was very interesting. They apparently were staying within a single community, but did take a short drive out to see the farming and ranching areas. There were birds flying about and singing, butterflies, some wild animals wandering around but didn’t either seem dangerous or afraid of the people in the vehicle and still there was this quietness that seemed very calming.

  On the drive (if you could call it a drive, as the vehicle seemed to float across the ground) back to the Neighborhood Thad asked if they enjoyed the tour and i
f they had any questions. Larry commented on how quiet the community was, the cleanliness and the organization of the community. That is when he thought to himself that there was no police presence, and no signs on buildings identifying any commercial presence. He asked Thad if there were any stores selling food, clothing, materials, restaurants or any other commercial establishments. Thad had a thoughtful look on his face and stated that “the people in the community simply share what is needed. Many of the buildings had the things that Larry asked about, but there was no need to have signage as everyone simply knew the stores that had the various goods and services. He noted that the community was not like a commune on Earth, but more one of just sharing. Everyone does things that they both like to do and that they are good at, and it all just comes together. Occasionally they have a shortage of some goods or expertise and the government works with the people in the community to fill the void. Thad noted that “it just seems to work, and so we don’t try to change it.”

  As they arrived at The Neighborhood, Wanda, Dave and Larry realized that it had been a long day. Thad said he would be back in two days for the next group, and “I hope your visit was interesting and answered some questions about the Friends.” He indicated that the people that had some contact with Wanda, Dave and Larry seemed very comfortable with them, as initially they had all been wary of these visitors from Earth and what they could do to their happy life. “See you in a couple of days” and they exchanged their wave. The watched Thad drift away in the vehicle and continued to be amazed that it basically drove itself.

  The group immediately came together to get Wanda, Dave and Larry’s impression of their visit and what they saw. Wanda said that she was extremely impressed and commented specifically on how quiet and how clean the community was. That is when Larry noted that “did you notice that there were no police – anywhere?” Dave talked about the manufacturing operations and noted that they did not seem to have as much automation that would be expected of a people that seemed to have such an advanced culture. They discussed their position on commercial stores. All of the people seemed happy and carefree as they observed them both at work and moving about the community. It did seem like a wonderful place. They wished they had been able to talk to some of the individuals but everyone from both groups seemed a little intimidated.

  Woody asked if they had observed anything that would indicate a source of communications. Dave replied that he looked for such a building or structure everywhere he went and there was nothing. There were no phones, no satellite dishes, no flashing lights, or anything that seemed to indicate that there was any form of communications either from their planet to the outside, or even within their people on this planet. “It was kind of spooky that people were just moving around and everyone seemed to know what they were doing and where they were going. No one was talking on a cellphone like everyone is doing on Earth. In the factories, everyone seemed to know what they were doing and the entire operation was streamlined and flowing efficiently.”

  Larry stated “I looked for anything that could even resemble a weakness in the entire functioning of the community, and I couldn’t see anything. I was comparing it to Earth with our traffic jams, people walking about seeming anxious to go someplace, and just a mass of chaos. It didn’t even seem real.” Wanda couldn’t help but mention the meal and the measurement of calories even, looking at Dave and smiling. “I think we need to learn how they do that for Dave.” Of course, Dave gave her the evil eye and threatened to get even with her. It felt good for the group to have a good laugh, even if it was at Dave’s expense. They were a little concerned that they really didn’t learn anything to help in putting together a plan to return to Earth, but recognized that they had time – maybe a lot of time.

  When Thad arrived for the next group he was met by Ivan, Billie Jo and Woody. Thad got off his vehicle and said “Hope I’m not late for breakfast.” Although the rest had already finished eating they were able to put together some breakfast for Thad. He ate like he hadn’t eaten in days. As he ate he said “I guess you are wondering how we know so much about life on Earth since we have never been there. Our ability to hack into life on your planet, I believe that is the term you use, is advanced and we are able to use your google tools, and can actually see and hear people and groups on Earth. We do this to both learn about life on Earth, and about your people. As I have mentioned, we are amazed at the lack of ability of people on Earth to live together in a peaceful and cooperative way, and to use their scientific knowledge on how to eliminate the damage they are doing to their planet and make changes to correct this damage. Our concern is that they have determined that their best alternative to the environmental problems that have been caused is to escape them and find a new planet, or planets, to inhabit. They have worked diligently, as you know, on what would be needed to change the new planets, and the anatomy of the people that would be sent to these planets. We feel if they would place as much interest in fixing life on Earth that they would not need to leave it.”

  “We are also concerned that with the propensity of the people of Earth to use war to take away resources from other countries, that they would eventually use this same process to take new planets away from the discovering country. As this would progress, the forces of the newer tools of war would one by one destroy the newly discovered planets. We don’t want to be one of those planets.”

  “We have not had any actual communication with people on Earth. We observe and analyze life on Earth, but nothing more. There has never been any indication that people on earth have been aware of our ability to observe what is happening there. We have often heard attempts from Earth to contact other planets and universes and we have never responded, nor have we heard any other planets or universes respond. If has amazed us that the noise from these attempts to contact others has been so primitive, which seems to indicate that they probably couldn’t communicate with us even if we wanted that to happen, which we don’t. We are not ready to have anyone from your group witness our technology to watch life on Earth for reasons I have already explained to you.”

  “So now, if you are ready I can take Ivan, Billie Jo and Woody to see our community. We will show you a different community and different things than we showed to Wanda, Dave and Larry, and you can get together and compare notes. We are sure you talk about us after your trips, as we do after your groups that visit us. So, let’s get going” and they waved as they left the Neighborhood. The trip went along the river and past the lake and when they arrived they were met again by the original group of twelve plus a number of people from the community they were visiting.

  The tour was similar to that provided to the last group with the exception of what appeared to be something like a city hall from the outside. Thad identified the building as their communication center and there were a number of people that were observing what looked like computer monitors and were listening on headphones. Woody looked for any form of communication equipment that could be receiving some video and audio from outside of the planet but saw nothing of that nature. When they left the building he looked around and again saw nothing to indicate any type of receiver or transmitter for communications. Thad had a smile on his face probably realizing what Woody was looking for but finding nothing that would help him.

  For lunch they had fish plus a number of vegetables the same it was served to the first group. The others in the area thanked them for introducing fish to their planet and to their options for a delicious and healthy meal. They were placed at different tables to allow them to talk to others from the community and were amazed at their knowledge of events that were occurring on Earth. They asked questions about the individuals and their specialties that bought them into the group landing on their planet. They were a little nervous at first about Woody knowing that he was a member of the Air Force but his demeanor was peaceful and his smile was contagious. They didn’t ask him any questions about his specialty with the group for obvious reasons.
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  The tour went outside the community to visit the farms and ranches but this time they also saw a large foundry that was producing various metals. Thad mentioned that he would need to bring Wanda back to visit the foundry as she probably could teach them a number of things about metals and how they could be used within Friendship Garden. Ivan said that their foundry would be like a toy store for Wanda. He looked at Thad and asked “You do have toy stores here, right?” Thad said “Of course we have toy stores. We even have variety stores that provides things like fishing gear.”

  Their trip back to the Neighborhood was a happy trip with the group laughing. Thad was more outgoing wanting to know if they had nicknames for each other, but the group still wanted that to be a big secret as some of them even the individual didn’t know yet. Thad asked “when you get to know some of our people better maybe you can find out what they call me. I know they have a nickname for me as I can see them whispering it to each other. I just hope it isn’t anything too bad.” Billie Jo said if they couldn’t find out what it was they could come up with a nickname for him, like Big Bad Thad.

  Arrival back at the Neighborhood was again met with the rest of the group wanting a review on what they had seen. Wanda was really excited about the foundry and the chance of visiting it in the near future. Woody talked about the communication center but again he couldn’t see any systems on how the communications were received and transmitted. He noted that “There has to be something. I could see some of the images on their screens and they were really clear and some of them were obviously of Earth, like it was right around the corner.”