L'Gem

by Sharon L Reddy

  Chapter Forty-one

  After the nine got dressed, Case sighed and loosened them. Even Stats, Nev and Blade were fastened chin to toes. Nev said, "uniform button up," had gotten to be a habit fast. Case told him he'd be going home to sleep with Patrick if there wasn't some "glitter amid fur" showing on his chest, and burst into laughter when eight reached up and opened another jacket fastener.

  None of them really expected or planned to spend the night with women. The object was to meet them. They hoped to find companions with whom to have fun, of course, but if sex had been the actual goal, they'd have arrived at a brothel.

  Dinner was good, as advertised. Great was also advertised, "Next block east, well worth the price." The server told them the two restaurants did very well with their we're-different cross-advertising. People didn't compare food or prices. The other restaurant that had opened "on the next corner" had followed their lead and brought more business. It was named, "Just Want a Sandwich." They had both restaurant menus posted under a "We recommend our neighbors," sign, and Highglide had theirs posted in the lounge.

  They got to the lounge early enough a server pushed two tables close together for them. They thanked him and requested recommendations of "beer with character, white wine with sophistication and water with sparkle." When he brought the pitcher of beer and bottles of wine and water, he reminded Bam the computer would "notice" if he "even tasted" the beer. All were pleased, especially Bam. He liked one beer occasionally and was spoiled by their spring water. He'd tasted the city water.

  They knew they'd shopped in an affluent area of the city. When the lounge began to fill, they realized how affluent. They also realized the gliders who couldn't afford the jewel-studded accessories considered those who could as "wearing art for everyone to see."

  Many knew who had created various items and asked to see them. The gliders who bought and wore the designer pieces from the room in Brennon Heights Glides supported a unique art form that was for gliders, and was "proof" gliders were "contributing members of society," and that was how the art form had arisen. A young woman who'd asked to see Bam's "Delvern open chrysalis," a patch, gave them the history.

  "Seventy-two years ago, a politician decided to use gliders as an example in his clean-up-the-city campaign. They were 'trash,' people who didn't work and spent taxpayer money, subsidy, to paint 'junk' glides, that were dangerous on the streets, and spent days drinking and being a problem. That was what most people seemed to think. Gliders were 'ragged' and 'dirty.' The creativity of the vents people made in jackets and pants, and what they made to go under was not appreciated. Six gliders with real good jobs and three with family money got together with two young designers who should have been getting more attention, with the idea of making it real clear 'ragged' was a style and they weren't on subsidy. The gliders bought a bunch of jewels and set up a charity fashion auction. The designers weren't doing well trying to incorporate the gems in the unders. The story may be stretched, but it goes they got in an argument. Breffers yelled the thing Gostleiber had done was just a bunch of strips and threw it on the floor. Gostleiber picked up a piece of cloth Breffers had made a pattern of jewels on, yelled it was just the expensive hunk of material and threw it down. They both suddenly stopped yelling, turned and looked down at the floor, whooped and danced around the room together and the style was born. The charity auction was top-of-the-newscast fundraising-fashion show success and gliders who can afford it have been wearing designer creations for us all ever since. I thought I recognized you, but you wouldn't be sweating."

  "Coral, we're here to not be who we are. How we got here is a discovery we're sure our society isn't ready for yet, partially because very few have the talent required, partially because some who do might abuse it, partially because it's only very generally controllable. But those are all reasons we give ourselves for just being sure it's not its time yet. Transpatial comm damaged our species. If it hadn't been discovered until now, this world wouldn't be overcrowded."

  "Explain that, please, Blade."

  "We stopped traveling from world to world. It nearly killed physical interplanetary trade. People stopped just moving to other worlds. No one even noticed we were caged on our planet because no one visited anywhere. 'Hi, how are you? We're fine. Comm out.' There are only three news networks with ships, and Transspace has most, seven. If transpatial comm hadn't been discovered until now, there would be about five hundred space stations, fifty terraformed worlds, thirty thousand ships engaged in trade and delivery of goods, and about twenty more settled living worlds. That's not my theory. It's what every statistical extrapolation said there would be when the discovery was made. Fifty years later, no one went anywhere. License the patent and make it on your world. Do all business by comm. Don't pay anyone to traverse space. In fifty years, worlds seven days apart no longer had cross-trade and tourists. Cruises were only for those who could afford ultra-luxury for twenty to eighty days and business travel and passenger liners that had carried thousands were gone. The attitude had become 'other worlds are too far away.' The only way to overcome it was find a way people were sure they didn't have to 'spend time' on ships, trip chairs so they only sleep on them. Travel has to be reestablished as 'normal' and people must just decide to pack fondest memories in a container and move, or we're going to be two hundred nine races becoming different species. Earth and the nearest worlds and the four alliance worlds will be one each."

  "Havenly is four days away now, but nobody plans to visit. Eight days out of my life just to get there and back? There's nothing there worth that."

  "How do you know? Do their gliders know you have an incredible twelve-day party twice a year? Four days in a luxury hotel, twelve days party, four days in a luxury hotel, for one package price that includes fantastic meals and entertainment. Would you go to a luxury resort here for eight days and consider it wasting eight days of your life?"

  "No, I wouldn't."

  "That's why cruise liners are still in business. Some people still think of them as luxury resorts with an interesting stay in a port of call in the middle of vacation."

  "But you took a shortcut."

  "No, we took a couple days off to play. When we get back on our ships to travel, we'll be going to work every day. We've got about forty jobs on our schedule."

  "Excuse me, please. I've got an idea of how to get one done fast, and it may be why we're here, and why I made a discovery two hundred years too soon."

  "Bard, be careful."

  "If I'm wrong, I'll learn it before I get in trouble, Nev. Agreed?"

  "Yes, I agree. Blade?"

  "Not quite what he expects, but it'll work."

  Bard walked out to the Blast Room, sat down and thought about what he wanted to do. When he had, he wished himself to the right person, and it wasn't who he expected.

  "Hello, Dr. Smith."

  "Give me a moment to widen my view of possible."

  "I've had to widen mine several times. We're correlating with the test scores. It appears to be a quite narrow piece of a broadly defined talent. I wished myself to the person this talent will cause to fix Braverly."

  "And came to me. How?"

  "I don't know, but I'm sure you and I can find the answer."

  "Let's see exactly what the psychologists have said about them."

  "What are they trying to breed?"

  "Perhaps you."

  "Ow."

  "You're not alone, Bard. There are about a dozen others close."

  "Quinn is. That's why I got him listed as space corps testing recommended. He's been aware he's 'too much' his whole life, but like Nev, he had a very good and strong family to keep it from damaging him. Unlike Nev, he used none, so no one used him to damage others."

  "What did you have?"

  "Captivity. One thing was my only value to them. The rest was mine and they didn't realize I had it. I was also always sure they couldn't use me. I
was easy to control because I didn't fear them, and knew it wasn't time to make them fear me, but I would."

  "And you'd help destroy them. 'Help' is the important word in there. Tarse Terschell is older than you are and so is Harim Havadan. You couldn't not-know they existed below the conscious level, and in Tarse were many."

  "He's the manager, and the real leader."

  "Yes, he is. You have two near equals on Liberty Gem. He doesn't."

  "That's not… You didn't tell him everything."

  "We don't have words for it that don't imply divinity. I took them out. Only you could deflect those terms, and you would have been the focus if Danny hadn't named you 'Knight.' You're the bard, but he is the prince. He's the shield of defense and the river of power, unstoppable."

  "Yes, he is. The princess knows it."

  "She knows everything. She just waits for Ronnie to organize it into a brief for her."

  "That's an unusual talent."

  "At that level, yes, but it has to exist at that level, just as your ability to see a mathematical description is incomplete, and the physical object the math describes has to exist at yours. They all have to exist at those levels in someone, but that person may never discover them. Nev wouldn't have discovered his, and neither would Quinn, if their worlds hadn't needed them. Frets and Billie are almost a single talent, but it's Frets who makes it that way. They're as much the result of a population under stress as the people of Liberty Gem, but it's primarily in specific families and it already was."

  "They brought it with them. I don't really know who I am. Blade doesn't know who he is either, no grandparents we know about."

  "It can only have been deliberate, Bard. Neither of the surnames show up in any other record on Liberty Gem."

  "I know. Harim is 'old family name,' but there is no family and no Harim."

  "The 'old family' may be someone else's."

  "Braverly."

  "No bloodlines. Let's see if we can figure out why."

  "The mining corps."

  "I think so too. It's a genetic tracking program. They were keeping track of everyone. Your greedy mining corps execs and bureaucracy destroyed it. Someone on Braverly tore it apart in another way. Comm connect Chief Justice Hoschgerten."

  "Hello, Dr. Smith."

  "I think we found a eugenics program. Stolen minerals may have been paying for surreptitious screening. If I'm right, settlements have concentrations of specific talents. The enforced marriage and naming custom is part of the tracking program."

  "What was the purpose?"

  "Technical genius there. Botanical genius there. Art genius over there. Mandolin, Liberty Gem and Braverly were the clues. Mandolin was business genius and the new mining technology was an excuse to load Liberty Gem with techs. Someone on Braverly discovered money was being used to follow bloodlines and broke it in pieces, but that got out of control too. I think they were building 'races' with particular talent concentrations. You've got current settler aptitude test records. See if I'm right and who is actually determining which settlers go to which world."

  "Hang on. I'm not the best that this type of… thing. It was too easy. It was already organized. Aptitudes, life spans, physical characteristics…"

  "Exactly, and Braverly was deliberately diminishing the talent concentration, but it's out of control. It's gotten to the point having your own child is a social oddity. You get a comp-selected gamete that complements your genes implanted."

  "What?!"

  "Natural fertilization isn't recommended, even for couples who are 'appropriate' pairs. A clinic will assure the 'right' mixture."

  "Suggestions?"

  "Find out how the money gets used, where the sorting program is, tell them why they do it, and point out they're creating a race of generalists, which I'm sure was on the list of the people who set it all up."

  "Look for propaganda. 'Other worlds are so far away. It's a waste of so many days of your life to go there. There's nothing there really different. Comm is instant.' You should find a lot of it about the time Liberty Gem began to be settled. That's when transpatial comm 'killed' interplanetary ship travel. They'd have expected it to last at least five hundred more years. By then, small physical differences in planets would cause clear raciation in isolated populations on the older settled worlds. They wouldn't have included physical characteristics in the selection if they didn't expect it."

  Bart walked back into the lounge, smiled when he saw Case and stopped in the entry. He removed waistband, groin panel, sleeves, back and side jacket panels and leg panels, put them in his pouch, then undid the rest of the seam fasteners. When he finished, he glanced at his reflection in the door panel, very obviously intended to mirror, and walked the rest of the way in. Case grinned widely when he saw him, and the others began 'thinning' their costumes a bit more.

  "It's not until you do it all that you see the true genius of the designers."

  "I saw from the doorway, Case. It was good no matter how little, or what piece was undone, but it's 'complete' only when it's all undone."

  "And you're all done, but you almost did something… you'd have been sorry you did."

  "Look for our families, Blade."

  "We're our family."

  "That's what I realized, and… our parents had reasons they chose not to give us. I know mine did. Did they know they'd die before they explained why we didn't have family to visit?"

  "Ow."

  "Bam, we do now. Nev's whoopingly claimed us as 'grandsons-in-whatever-you-call-its' to the whole family. We'd figure out what to call it, but it still makes his mom giggle."

  "It helped to have all our parents and grandparents together at the resort, and the reception, and to have other families that formed too."

  "All those people who came there, just because they were sure they should, and the best-buddy-always-together friends, who suddenly became three families with none of the society bunch in them."

  "They gave it a great deal more credibility, Blade."

  "Stats, they're clueless."

  "Nev, Blade and Bard aren't any more, Case, but we're all severely out of practice."

  "Which is why we're here. Excuse me, gens. I think she wants to dance."

  "So does her cute friend, Bard."

  "Two. Nev?"

  "Later, Case."

  "Three."

  "Four, Case. Bye."

  "And now you four."

  "I'm going to ask Coral."

  "Go, Bam."

  "Labs, let's ask those two women not in glider outfits."

  "They obviously want to meet some, Topper."

  "Quinn?"

  "Woman dilemma, Case."

  "First, family and friend's companion?"

  "You're good. None really confusing, but I'm… just seeing half the people here are women, not noticing it."

  "Do you want Danny, Loopy and Frets to all thump you?"

  "Ow, no."

  "That table?"

  "Lead me. I, quite literally, haven't done this before. They have."

  "Cloverlea was a safe place to be young."

  "It still is, but now most others are too. They're leaving."

  "No, Quinn they're coming. They just told us they'd decided to ask us."

  "Good. I was worried."

  "They were waiting for the table to break apart. Hi, Case and Quinn."

  "Kips and Mookie. We're 'Ooh, them!' so partners are a toss."

  "Why bother. Let's go."

  "Sweet!"

  "Vow studs, my cuz said west region is one wide smile and he's got a bet it goes right around the ring with a Corkanellan who hopes he loses."

  "Mookie's cousin is a space trader."

  "There are going to be many of them soon. It's going to be a fun and profitable life."

  "He never minded the ship time. He says the going gives him time to paint and makes money, not costs for a studio."

  "Sensible artist, much
more unusual than trader."

  "Point on that, Quinn. Kips, Vinti kicked the red!"

  "They're going after the record!"

  "Record?"

  "Heat it up to strip down soonest, Case. Now we watch Nolo. If he kicks a red panel, there won't be a break until the place boils or the bartenders yell their shifts are over."

  "We're stubborn?"

  "Nah, but you've got to be sweating enough to need more air. Nobody does a challenge without a new song. These guys are ready to go planet tour. Red kick two!!"

  "Kips, I'm supposed to introduce our new song."

  "So introduce the song, Nolo!"

  "Red Kick Two!!

  It started as a steamy bass-heavy grind beneath the laughter, cheers and applause. Nolo spoke the beginning, deep and throaty.

  "Red… kick, I-need-the-place-a-steamin'. Red… kick, t-huh t-huh. Red… kick, I-need-to-hear-some-screamin'. Red… kick, t-huh t-huh. Red… kick, I-need-the-place-a-steamin'. Red… kick, I-need-the-place-a-steamin'. Red… kick, I-need-the-place-a-steamin'. Kick-kick!!"

  The lead screamed in and board, bass and drums pounded into a driving rhythm. It was the wildest music any of the nine had heard. It drove people to dance, then it suddenly went back to the grind and the lyric. The second time the lead screamed in, it was the boards. It was different, but just as wild and driving, then it dropped to the grind and lyric.

  Two screamed into a third wild and driving piece, Stats yelled, "Damn!!" and threw his jacket onto his chair. Case whooped with Vinti. Blade leapt onto a table and tossed his jacket over the crowd onto his.

  Nev walked to the table, hung his on the back of his chair, and dumped a glass of ice water on his head. His partner held her head over the table. He poured water while she removed jacket, then she took off boots and leggings. Nev watched her do it and dumped the whole pitcher on himself.

  The music dropped to the grind, and Nev's removal of his leggings was suddenly a very watched strip. So he did one. Bard howled and pulled his jacket up from the back and over his head.

  Case tossed Kips onto a table and jumped onto one. They stripped down together. Labs and Topper efficiently stripped Bam. He said, "Much cooler, thanks." Quinn suddenly realized there were eight men and two women headed for him. He yelped and pitched jacket, boots and leggings onto his chair in very rapid succession. The crowd laughed and cheered.

  Nolo began the lyric and Bard, Blade and a lot of women stripped down. When he reprised it, more men did. When he yelled, "Kick-kick!!" very few were still in leggings and no one was wearing a jacket or boots.

  The non-gliders had participated. Labs' and Topper's partners were wearing open shirts over minimal swimwear. All non-glider-costumed people, including bartenders and servers, were in swimwear of some type, with or without shirts over. There were many. It was a great place to dance. The gliders appreciated their aid assuring the lounge could pay great bands, and a lot really wanted to be backrider to a blowout.

  Topper and Labs were sure they weren't the ones to give the two women rides. They were just dance partners through the long song that ended when the last few stripped off their leggings during the next grind and Nolo shouted, "We kicked!"

  Mookie and Kips joined the bunch. Nev's partner, Rundy, joined him. Over the evening, more people, not just women, joined the group and a couple tables were pushed over.

  The band didn't cool down. By the beginning of the third set, everyone knew Grazerlock was "going planet tour." They'd play at Highglide again, but they'd be special guests, for a night. They were ready for the "high stage" in huge places that had many dance floors, many monitors, tech and service staffs of hundreds and a capacity of thousands.

  When they left the club at about one thirty, Nev went with Rundy and Stats went with Jib. The others went to the Blast Room and home, except Case, who stayed in case someone knocked. It was near noon in Teal Valley and eight thirty at Ricky Lake when the men got there. The women hadn't been gone long, but the shed lights had been on several hours and there were a lot of materials and equipment in it.

  Danny, Loopy and Frets could have had a great deal more help, but they wanted to build the place themselves. They'd gotten a list of the types of games and the description of blowouts "in the old days," from a woman Danny 'found,' a fat rider who owned a coffee, tea and herb shop.

  They were building a place for a blowout of the type there wasn't room for anymore. The two big blowouts were held on fairgrounds, winter in the north and summer in the south of the southern hemisphere continent.

  They weren't 'endangered.' It was the get-out-of-the-city-and-play type that were becoming fewer. The "cabin parks" and open land were full or disappearing under buildings, as the huge southern city expanded. The north wasn't "as bad," but a fourteen hundred K ride to have a party "chopped" those who only had one evening or day to play, and sudden decisions by a bunch to run for fun and comm many on the way were "gone," even "just ground" had to be arranged in advance.

  The three women were changing that. They wouldn't say, "only blowouts" or "only gliders," but the place wouldn't be for rent and only gliders could decide to loan it to some other group. They expected they would. Kids' clubs and elders' groups were having difficulty finding places to get out of the city too.

  By local dawn, Danny, Loopy and Frets had drilled the well, installed the waste treatment plant, zapped all the structures, cabins and dance pavilion into existence and hung the 'curtains' that could be unrolled and fastened to make walls around the pavilion in winter, or in summer if it was too hot to dance.

  Danny moved all the equipment but the georgie and they took a break. All that was left was greenscaping. They knew where they'd get big trees, but they had to wait for businesses to open to get a vehicle to move the big trees and get young trees, hedges, flowers and sod from a nursery. They'd already fenced and installed sound dampers around the place.

  It had been severely overgrazed by cattle. Since there weren't any cow piles to use as fertilizer, the owner of the cattle knew it. The women didn't intend to provide free pasture and the profit made from selling manure. If it hadn't been grazed to bare ground, they'd have just sound dampered and hedged, leaving a gap and making a path for cows. Loopy had said it was obvious the ranch all around was "managed" and the land around the shed had been used any, and every, time the rancher wanted to give an area of the ranch growth time.

  They were sodding with the type of high-traffic evergreen grass that grew to an even height of seven cens, and didn't need mowing, used in public parks in the city. The grass was usually planted as plugs, but one large nursery advertised sod. It was very expensive, but that wasn't a problem. Lack of topsoil and erosion were. The thick-base sod was advertised as a solution to both.

  At eight local time, seventeen forty-four in Teal Valley, they picked up the "lorry" and trailer they'd reserved, went to the construction site Danny had 'found,' purchased all the big trees that had been carefully removed and began moving them. The trees were loaded two per trailer load with the crane. They took them off the trailer and planted them one at a time with the georgie.

  Danny was "in love" with it, too. She called Jason Andrev and told him they wanted one of the five hundred he'd ordered for the neighborhood. He told her they had three. The "boys" didn't usually need more than the smaller equipment they used, but they wouldn't need to rent any specialty equipment smaller than a construction crane after the first shipment of georgies arrived and neither would anyone else in the family, or West Side.

  The first thing the boys wouldn't need to rent things to do was move trees to family yards and around golf courses. They were a bit behind starting their schedules, but everyone knew why, and Drand was doing prep work on several, primarily mowing and getting power systems ready to hook up. Several of Gant and Joel's friends were delighted with off-day jobs assisting.

  Danny, Loopy and Frets finished at fourteen-twelve local time and Da
nny went home to sleep. The next day was a big occasion. Five hundred forty-eight were gathering in the mine, bringing their families, to celebrate a year of freedom. The mine would be opened at the end of their celebration, all but the work area people thought they were seeing through field walls.

  When Danny awoke, she whooped and went to work on rewrites. Nev had somehow found time to finish editing the book. She got done with the minor changes he'd suggested, sent them to him and got them back approved before time to leave for the reunion. She sent the book, titled: Our Wizard Is Evil, to the publisher, and called Nev.

  "How?"

  "What's sleep? I couldn't have if you hadn't gotten so good, and done so much work on self-editing and rewrites."

  "Thanks, and I'll take credit for all the dictating. We wrote it together. Are you about ready to go?"

  "Yes, and Patrick decided his harness was preferable to home. We're amazed."

  "Smart cat, and the preference is unusual."

  "We know. He's as special as Gerta said."

  "Nev?"

  "Go to the blowout tomorrow, Danny, all three of you."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know. I just got the feeling you should. It's a change, I think."

  "All right, and I agree, a change. Something happened. Comm out. Comm connect Frets. Hi, sudden change and Nev says go to the blowout tomorrow. It's weird and he's bothered."

  "It's weird, but I'm not worried."

  "Neither am I, but I'm bothered."

  "And extremely curious. I am. Who or what could cause us to go from sure we shouldn't to sure we should, fast."

  "Add Loopy."

  "Good morning. What happened?"

  "You've got an opinion change too?"

  "Quinn said we shouldn't stay home, Danny, and I know it was a surprise."

  "I'm going to see if a wish for a reason gets me somewhere. Comm out."

  Danny arrived beside a med vehicle under bright lights. She walked around it and gasped. Two women were being loaded into it and a man rider was being treated. A third woman sat on the curb crying over the remains of four sleeks. Danny sat down beside her.

  "I'm a sleek rider. Talk to me."

  "We'd just parked. A lorry driver swung a trailer into us. She said it was an accident. I don't believe her. Not all of us. The police aren't talking, but I think they agree."

  "I can see damage to hearts. Bodies?"

  "Mookie and Kips will be physically healed in a few hours."

  "Shit! Comm connect Nev. Your 'sudden change' is four smashed sleeks and Mookie and Kips going into healing units for hours. Opinion, something snapped in the head of the person who slammed them with the trailer as they parked. You are and he is?"

  "Bridder and Gat."

  "Bridder and Gat. He's battered, but quick-heal's enough. I can see she's had some smeared on. Destroyed beauties. Insurance?"

  "For about half their value in about ten days, more if the police decide the driver snapped. The insurer will wait for cause to determine liability. We'll get more from the victim fund, but not soon."

  "Too damn long and not enough. Thank you. Comm out. There are white knights on sleek steeds on the way. Don't let anyone move the sleeks until they get here. They'll have cams to record the damage for insurance and equipment to load and haul them to the glider workshop three of us just finished building and equipping. It's ninety-eight K out in ranchland, but it's got everything needed to get those rebuilt in time to go to the blowout."

  "They're scrap."

  "No, they're damaged dreams and injured loves. If the only thing recognizable from one was a piece of trim, your sleek would be rebuilt under it. You two can go?"

  "Yes, we just got off work. We're bartenders. We were going over there for breakfast with Mookie and Kips."

  Joel and Gant walked out of the shadows and sat down, one by each of the bartenders. Danny walked into the shadows and went home. She was with Case and Stats on the way to the mine when Frets called.

  The driver of the lorry had 'snapped.' The man she'd been seeing was now seeing a glider. She had a drug in her system. It wasn't what she thought she'd taken. The police were hunting and so was Quinn, for a way to lead police to the garage lab he'd found.

  Labs was sure the people in it didn't know the caffeine and herb extract would combine into an irritant that had already caused one woman to "go over the edge," if exposed to sunlight. The woman had left the cap she'd taken in the window tray of the lorry, while she'd slept that day.

  When the three got out at the mine, Case gave Danny a quick kiss on the cheek. The one he got in return wasn't quick, or on the cheek. She laughed. Stats looked almost as surprised as Case did.

  She grabbed a hand of each and towed them deeper into the big central cavern where the ones they'd freed to help free their world were gathering. Ronnie was right. Being the princess and the woman wasn't worth being left behind, when they all went out to play.

  Families were introduced and babies were admired, a huge dinner was fixed and they talked about the year that had passed and all they'd done in it. It was a very social late morning through early evening reunion.

  One vehicle for each of the eleven adits remained capable of becoming invisible, in case the need arose for many to aid in building something again, but the mine would not be secret after the newscast that evening, and no one had hidden the many cars that drove into it that day. When the only vehicle left in the mine was the mobile unit, Jace panned around the huge cavern and stopped when Bance was centered in the image.

  "For over one hundred years, the people of this area thought this was inaccessible, closed by rockfalls. The six who prepared it, and brought all they'd freed to it, knew it couldn't be. They found the records of the design and materials used in the main accesses and knew they were closed by doors, not cave-ins. One year ago today, they brought five hundred forty-two most wronged by the government to this sheltering place, this unknown haven to plan and work to end the abuse of us all. Today, five hundred forty-eight brought their families from far and near to celebrate what they, and we, have done in that year. Now, they've returned to the homes and lives they've built, and given us all this place, where our freedom was born. Beginning tomorrow at ten local time, this place will be open to the public at times specified by the Planetary Parks Department, and managed and staffed by them. This is our Museum of Liberty, and it will grow in exhibits and use, as we add to our history as a free people, but this area behind me will never change. It's the first exhibit. Walled by fields maintained by the power stores designed and first created in it, is the workplace of those who led us to liberty. This is the final paragraph of the text beside the exhibit. 'We didn't work alone. Every person who wanted this world freed worked with us. Every person who wrapped a path, every child who practiced a blowgun, every woman or man who picked up a rock to defend a neighbor, every IS trooper who drove just a little too slow to 'catch a rebel,' then turned and walked away, helped free us all. Defend your freedom with your vote, and teach our children the meaning of 'neighbor,' we had to learn to the depths of our souls, to become free. Never let us become us and them, remain respectful of each other and our world, for the rock, wood and plants of it aided us in our time of need. We know some of who guided us to freedom now, but they gave us examples, not orders. We chose, each of us, to follow them to bring freedom to our world together. A united people, we created our Liberty Gem. Bance Neardon, for Channel Forty-eight, deep in the heart of the Northwest Range, in the Museum of Liberty."

  "That stylus is going to drive people crazy, Bance. It's perfect."

  "I know, Jason. I've reminded myself it's not there two dozen times today, and seen many people laugh at themselves when they bumped a rope going to pick it up. Let's go home."

  "There were also pleased someone would harvest the fruit and vegetables now."

  "They were the 'first taste of freedom,' as the text says."<
br />
  "It's going to bring tears to the eyes in two hundred years, and swell hearts with pride. I'm sure of it."

  "So am I, Jace."