“Use for what? I’m sorry that I don’t understand.”
“How do you pay for things, kid? That’s what dollars are. It’s how we pay for things that we need or want.”
“Oh, I guess we haven’t gotten to that point yet. When one of us needs a house, we just pick one to live in I suppose,” I said, “Thatcher and I already picked the one with a fireplace near the northern road. We haven’t told our parents though because they seem to get upset every time we talk about getting married someday.”
He laughed and nodded. I could hear Doctor Tina snickering behind me as well.
“But what about food?” he asked.
“We never have to pay. Some of us work in the corn fields or the potato fields. Some work with the chickens and eggs. Some grow beans, wheat, barley, and tomatoes. We even have a guy who spends every day fishing. I work in the vineyards,” I explained, “Didn’t you notice that we didn’t ask you for dollars when we gave you something to drink?”
“Wait, something is a little odd here,” he said, looking around the room curiously, “It makes no sense, but I have to ask anyway. Is this the CP-4 colony?”
“Yes!” I said, “My mom originally came in on the CP-4 and my dad joined the colony later by hijacking a ride through the wormhole!”
“You mean Commander Rigel Knight?” he asked wide-eyed.
“Yes!” I nearly screamed, “You heard of him?”
“Well, of course I did! Everyone knows the history of KMA. But your colony was destroyed in a thermonuclear blast caused by an improperly contained black hole. We can’t go anywhere near the continent where you lived,” he stated.
“Where we lived?” Tina asked.
She had been standing near the foot of the bed ever since Brian started to talk about our colony. She was as amazed by his recognition of us as I was.
“We still live where we’ve always lived,” I argued, “You are inside one of the houses that the USN-SD built for us during the week they were here. We converted it into a hospital which happens to be where I was born.”
“This is impossible. I’ve seen the satellite images,” he said, “I’ve seen the live images. I couldn’t have drifted to the shores of Valhalla.”
Chapter Six
I lost my chance to hear about the cities of New Sumter and Murphy-Stark. I lost any opportunity to learn if there were chrome structures that reached to the skies in other nations of KMA. He started getting the shakes as though he were freezing, so Tina insisted that I leave and let him rest. Unfortunately, the next morning, I told my father what had happened. He then told the others and then even before I had finished my omelet, the elders of our village were crowded in the hospital to hear all that the man had to say.
And as for me, I had to hurry off to work to make up for the fact that Thatcher and I had left early yesterday for some quality beach time. Thatch and I took the hopper to the northeastern red vineyard where we were still harvesting and sorting the crop. We’d be spending time at the green vineyard after our upcoming shadow break. The five-day shadow period each month where Tau Ceti was eclipsed was a time of rest for our community since it was a period of permanent nightfall. Today would be our last full day in the red vineyard before the shadow period.
“So, we are living inside a radioactive crater right now?” Thatcher asked.
He set another basket down at my feet. We’d spent the morning picking the ripest grapes from the vines, filling a total of ten baskets. Now we were sitting on a bench near the vineyard’s tool shed sorting the grapes by potential usage. The most attractive ones were obviously chosen to be table grapes, which were those familiar grapes that you kept attached to the vine and refrigerated to eat as a snack. The less attractive ones were used for juices, wines, jellies, and raisins. If we ended up with too many table grapes for our village to consume within the two weeks that they would be most prime, we would be forced to ‘raisin’ or ‘wine’ some of those as well.
Our vineyards were in a constant state of harvest because of the timing with which we planted each of the quadrants. It was the same with a lot of the other fruits and vegetables our people grew. While one field of corn was ripe for the picking, the next field may not be ready for another month.
“Apparently,” I replied, “You should have seen the fear in his eyes when he realized he was in a land he called Valhalla.”
“Valhalla?” he repeated, bringing another basket and placing it where he had been sitting, “I never heard of that word before, but as far as I know, our parents never did take the time to name our ‘nation’.”
“It sounds funny calling us a nation instead of a village,” I added, holding up a large bushel of grapes and inspecting it, “How big do you suppose they are? The other nations, I mean.”
“The way Leah talks, they’ve had an open doorway to this world since the time we were born,” he said, “I’d imagine they could have cities over there just like the ones you’ve seen in the Earth images.”
I plucked a grape and tossed it into my mouth. I thought about the concept of Earth-like cities on this world. I thought about cities close enough that someone could get there by using an old wooden ship or even a floating raft.
“Let’s go see New Sumter,” I said, turning to Thatcher, “Let’s see Murphy-Stark.”
“What? Are you kidding?” he asked, turning to me with a look of confusion.
“We’ve got the hopper,” I said, “And everyone is back at the hospital.”
He set down the long portion of vine that he’d been breaking apart. For a moment I wondered if he was actually mad at me for making such a suggestion.
“Henley, you know I’d do anything for you. There’s nothing you could ask that I’d deny you,” he said, looking a little too serious for my daydreaming session, “But I’m not risking a trip over an ocean of unknown size. Especially to take you to a place we know nothing about. We don’t even know where it is. We’ve got nothing.”
“We’ve got Brian, though,” I explained, “He could tell us where his home is. He’d need to be returned there eventually anyway.”
“You’re seriously suggesting that we take him aboard our mini-shuttle and have Brian act as navigator so that we could take him home? And what happens when the people of this chrome city meets two people from the destroyed nation of Valhalla?” he said.
He often got this way when we discussed things he disagreed with. His tone made me feel like I was the one stuck back in our childhood daydreams and that he was the only one who grew up. I don’t think he meant to make me feel childish, but he did. And besides, this wasn’t a daydream of mine. I really saw it as a possibility.
“I’m just saying that there might be giant chrome cities within our reach. These aren’t places on Earth – on a planet twelve light years away from us. These are places just a hundred miles away,” I said.
“More than that,” he said, “Mom said that KMA has a circumference of about nineteen thousand miles. We could be talking about a city that’s maybe ten thousand miles away.”
I took his hand in mine and then tucked my leg under me and turned to him.
“We used the hopper as a floating dock before. So the floating skids will keep us afloat should we have to stop along the way. And besides, it’s got a maximum speed of twelve-hundred miles per hour, so we’d still get there by nightfall,” I explained, pleading with him to stop looking at me like I was just a child, “And you said yourself that fuel was never an issue on a shuttle powered by hydrogen. As long as we keep the water tanks filled, which wouldn’t be a problem over an enormous ocean, then we’ve got all the fuel we need. What am I missing here, Thatch?”
He groaned, then closed his eyes. His hands were still in mine, resting on my lap. After a moment, he opened his eyes and met mine.
“You need… we need to talk to Brian. I want to first know where this place is. And this isn’t something we just get up and do right now,” he said, squeezing my hands in his, “Darkness is probably our friend
in a case like this, so we’d be best leaving immediately following the setting of both Kepler and Tau Ceti. If we kept our speed down to around nine hundred and fifty miles per hour, we’d probably match the rotation speed of KMA. I’m basing this on our twenty-hour day and a circumference of nineteen thousand miles. Keep in mind that if this place is three thousand miles from us or more, we’d be looking at a three hour flight there and a three hour flight back.”
“You’d really consider this?” I asked, my voice higher than I’d intended, “Like truly consider this? I don’t want you just talking about it this way just to shut me up.”
“I honestly don’t want to do this, but if it would satisfy your curiosity and settle you down a bit, I think it’d be worth going.”
I wrapped him in an intense hug.
Chapter Seven
“Can I see your tablet?” Brian asked.
It really raised my spirits to see him sitting up in his bed. Granted, he was propped up against about four pillows, but it gave me hope that he truly had a good chance of survival. I scooted my chair closer to his bed and then handed my tablet over. I assumed he wanted to see the photos of Earth cities that I had just been talking about.
“I especially like the one where it looks like the moon is resting on top of the building,” I’d said, handing it over to him, “And it’s so cute the way the lights inside the building are random.”
“I had a tablet just like this back when I was a kid,” he said, tapping in some functions that cleared the screen.
He moved through a few screens that I hadn’t seen before and then returned to the folder of my saved files. He didn’t open up any of them, which kind of surprised me since I’d just been talking about many of those. He then switched to another unfamiliar screen.
“Wait a minute, Henley. What do you even use this tablet for?”
“I use it to look at a lot of different things from Earth,” I explained.
“But… You see, you’re just using a visual encyclopedia. It’s all you’ve ever used,” he said; almost as a reprimand.
“Well, I sort of like it,” I defended, “Thatcher likes it too.”
“What I’m saying is that you’re missing the point. You never even linked it to the satellite so you could get updated information,” he said, turning the tablet to me.
He was showing me a screen I’d never seen before. Nothing on it made any sense to me. He tapped the screen, bringing up three icons.
“You’ve got three satellite connections you can use. I prefer Ceti Global,” he tapped something and then changed it over to another screen, “Now that you’re connected to the global network, you can get so much more. And if you’re really hooked on your encyclopedia, you can update that as well.”
“It won’t get rid of what I’ve saved though, will it?” I asked, worried all of a sudden.
“No, come look at this,” he said, showing me the screen where I usually accessed the information I used, “There’s the icon you typically hit and I promise you everything is the same there. But I added several other ones you may want.”
He hit one icon and it brought up a woman who was suddenly talking to me, and it looked like I’d missed the first half of her conversation. I pulled back suddenly, startled by her presence. She spoke of a thunderstorm, and then she showed me some arrows on a screen behind her.
“Here is the weather for southeastern New Sumter. You can hit this icon to always get the updated news from where I live,” he said.
“News?” I asked, “I like the way she paints her eyes and her lips.”
“Listen,” he said, looking to me to make sure he had my attention, “I’m not showing you this so you can see the lady. I’m giving you an encyclopedia that updates you all the time on new things happening in my nation. She is telling everyone that there is a thunderstorm coming tomorrow.”
“That’s amazing. Ooh, and look at that!” I pointed to a bridge similar to one of the images I’d saved, “You also have those kinds of bridges with the metal cables everywhere!”
“These aren’t just pictures, though. She’s explaining that there was an accident earlier today that backed up the traffic there for more than an hour. You can learn more about my nation just by watching this whenever you get bored,” he said, “You don’t need to go there.”
I watched, amazed at the images this woman liked to offer everyone. She was now talking to another person about a questionable medication that might be causing deaths.
“Do you hear me, Henley?” he said, getting my attention, “You don’t need to go to New Sumter. You can see everything right here and it will always be new and updated information.”
“No, I want to see it for real with my own eyes. I want to visit this place,” I said, “I want to walk on that bridge and-”
“No you don’t!” he exclaimed, “Don’t you realize what my people gave you? They gave to Valhalla exactly what they’d always wanted and I didn’t even realize it until today.”
“You’re confusing me, Brian,” I stated, “You’re talking about our colony, right?”
“Exactly. Your people shut down the wormhole because you wanted to be left alone. You told me yourself that you know nothing about the concept of money and dollars. Your people rely on each other. You feed each other and make sure everyone has clothing and a home to live in. Sarai told me today that you all still meet together as a community to eat dinner with each other every single day. Your village… your nation is one giant family that cares for each other,” he said, “It’s beautiful and I’m envious.”
“That’s how everyone is everywhere. Society would collapse if we didn’t look out for each other,” I argued.
“It’s nothing like that anywhere. Anywhere except here in Valhalla anyway. Look at this,” he said, changing to a different screen on the tablet.
He brought me back to the screen where he added more icons for me. He tapped a different one and after a moment, it pulled up a map.
“This is a satellite image of the whole world. This is New Sumter over here and up here is Murphy-Stark,” he said, pointing to the green little continents, “Now over here to the right is Valhalla. When we zoom in…”
He moved his fingers, causing the land forms to get larger and larger. Eventually you could see a good representation of the western beach where Thatcher and I spent many days. It even turned inward to a nice little cove about a mile north, so I knew where the map was showing us. He then moved to the east, toward our village but immediately after leaving the beach, it started showing tumbled, charred trees, broken portions of land, and even some bubbling lakes of lava.
“But…” I started to say before he waved me off.
He continued further and further east, through the burned and shattered land until he showed me a blinking red dot. He pointed to it.
“That’s us. The satellite can locate your tablet any time on this map. According to this, you are in a radioactive wasteland of smoldering lava. See, we’re right next to a bubbling pit of lava,” he chuckled.
“Why does it show this?” I asked.
“Someone somewhere must have thought that your people earned your little slice of heaven. Valhalla, after all, means heaven. Someone programmed a false image into all the satellites around our world. They decided to make it so scary to the rest of KMA that no one would think to ever bother you,” he smiled at me, “While you were all expecting the people of Earth to be mad at you, they instead totally understood and appreciated what you stood for. But you need to accept this gift and realize what it is you have here.”
“I accept it and I think it’s awesome,” I said, looking down at the tablet he still held out toward me, “But don’t you understand my desire?”
He reached up and touched my cheek, “Of course I do. Your father is Rigel Knight – the man who told Doctor Nguyen that he wanted to resign from the Navy because he needed to break free and explore. He didn’t join the Navy just to stroll around the Earth’s backyard. You’ve go
t your father’s blood in you.”
The more he talked, the more he seemed to confuse me.
“Where’d you hear about that? And who’s Doctor Nguyen?”
“When you get a chance, look up the story of Europa on that tablet. Your encyclopedia’s been updated, so now you can find out everything that’s happened in the past seventeen years,” he said, yawning mightily, “And please try to quell that desire in your heart. Explore the rest of Valhalla if you want to see other places. You don’t want to explore the wild cities of New Sumter. Innocence is a beautiful thing… a fragile thing. You’re beautiful and fragile.”
I looked at him and noticed that he was getting sleepy as he spoke those final words. He reached behind and tugged out one of the pillows. His eyes fluttered as he struggled to hang on to consciousness. I scooted away as he lay down and turned toward me. He held the pillow to his chest.
“If you don’t mind, I get exhausted easily,” he said.
I stood and drew the bedspread up to his shoulders. His eyes were already closed and his breathing already getting deeper.
“Sleep well, Brian,” I patted him on the arm.
Chapter Eight
“And look at this,” I said, showing another image to Thatcher.
We sat together at dinner, mostly ignoring the food on our plates as I relayed everything I’d learned from Brian. Now I was showing him the story of Europa and the fact that my father was famous back on Earth just because of Doctor Tuan Nguyen’s fame.
“It says right here ‘when asked about what motivates him, Dr. Tuan Nguyen said ‘I shared a few days with a man, the captain of the USS South Carolina, who expressed to me a desire to explore other star systems and other galaxies. While he told me this, I didn’t see the look of a man who was just daydreaming. I saw a man who was very dissatisfied with his life and the way his job had prevented such a goal from ever happening. But I also saw a man who accomplished his goals. In the short time I knew him, he even managed to fall in love and get engaged to a woman. He saw a goal, her heart, and he captured it in a few short days. I’m motivated by Commander Rigel Knight because he married that woman and then commandeered a Navy vessel. He took his wife and two others with him to the wormhole, and then he went to another star system like he’d always wanted. No one could have known that the problematic black hole would have imploded inside that faulty containment unit and destroyed that colony. But even so, Rigel Knight accomplished every goal he ever had. He made his goals happen even when his job and his life stood in the way. When I went down into the ocean beneath Europa, I believed there was more than just that crystal clear water. I believed that the submarine specifications were accurate and that we could withstand going deeper and deeper. I didn’t want to leave until I found the ocean floor. Mile after mile, I refused to give up. Rigel Knight would have done the same thing. And like me, Rigel would have found the hydrothermal vents that littered that ocean floor. Like me, Rigel would have discovered life on Europa. If I could give him anything that would show my gratitude for the inspiration and motivation he planted in my mind, I would give him Valhalla.’” I read aloud, then looked up at Thatcher.
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