Legend
Chapter 08
Charles W Bird
[email protected]
Astronomers have discovered that the incredible gravitational strength of supermassive black holes can tear planets away from their star systems and hurl them through space at incredible speeds—as fast as 30 million mph.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The story is protected by copyright and may not be reproduced by any means without the express, written permission of the author.
***********************************************************
From Chapter 7;It became commonplace to see a body or two swinging from a rope tied to the branch of a desert sycamore tree alongside the Trader’s Road!It wasn’t pretty, but robberies became almost a thing of the past. It just wasn’t worth a hemp necktie, no matter what cargo Carl was sending as freight and no passenger carried enough valuables to make up the difference!The freight business showed a profit and in less than five years, every major town and most of the smaller towns were connected by daily freight runs.
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CAPITOL CITY
The flight activity of the Flyers was consuming the entire resources of the Schedulers located in The Great Ship. The added Trader Ships and now, the freight and passenger tuggers, the Schedulers were at their wits’ end. They could do nothing to help schedule the cargo and passenger traffic and they were forced to totally ignore the new villages and towns that had joined with them.
They were even stumbling in their assistance to the new hospitals. There simply were not enough of them to go around. Captain Hay had called for a council; the whole system was tittering on the brink of collapse.
Many of the towns and villages sent delegates, as did Tok from Zel and Tok Traders, Carl from Carl’s Tuggers, Toby Walking Deer came representing the Farmers of Green and the South Coast Free Hospital System was represented by Maceo and Teo.
They spent many days proposing and re-proposing plans to alleviate the situation. Finally, Toby stood and said, “Let us take a page out of our history books and elect a president and a parliament to do this for us.” He continued, “If we don’t like what they build, we can always fire them!”
So it was a great election was planned and each faction was to present a slate of officers, with the provision that those who received the highest votes would fill the office, regardless of faction. The campaigning began, the Farmers Coalition selected Toby to run for Council President and he represented his slate as he worked his way across the inhabited areas of the planet, Carl, Teo and Tok were all selected and spent their time beating the bushes for votes.
Captain Hay refused any nomination, but Chief Pilot Cord was selected to lead the Ship’s Slate of officers.
The Cattle Growers selected Tom Hancher to lead their slate and the City of Globe was to be represented by Reg Riordan.
Finally, all the politicking was done and it was time for the election to take place.
The Schedulers collected all the ballots and had the tally posted the next morning. It was hardly daylight when Julia Walking Deer was shaking her husband, as he came up from a deep sleep, Julia kissed him and said, “Good Morning, Mr. Council President!”
Toby shot up, nearly knocking his very pregnant wife off the bed, “Council President?” he squeaked.
Julia smiled at him and told him his Mother and Brothers were waiting for him in the big room and wanted to congratulate him.
A dazed Toby Walking Deer stumbled into his clothes and went to meet his family, his Mother, Mary Walking Deer handed him a notice that had been left by Flyer Courier. Toby Walkingdeer – Council President; Tom Hancher – Council Vice President; Pilot Cord – Council Secretary; Tok Trader – Foreign Relations and Trade Secretary; Carl Mercer – Transportation and Internal Trade Secretary; Teo Lander – Health Secretary and Reg Riordan – Education Secretary.
Toby was shaken to his core, he had no idea he would ever be elected, let alone as the Chief Official of the new government! Just then, he received a “congratulations” from Captain Hay by mind-speak and was told that a flyer would pick him up in one hour to bring him to the Great Ship.
Toby was in a dither, he had no special clothes, his fields needed watering, there was a Tobylope shipment to get ready.
Jan, his next oldest brother held his hand and said, “Toby, we will carry on for you. You must go and carry on for our people and all the people. You go to make our lives better, our children safer and our Mothers and Wives more content.”
Julia gently led the still dazed Council President back into their bedroom and she dressed him in his finest clothing of white deer hide, tanned to a supple softness of butter and his new moccasins that she had beaded herself.
As he was walking out of the bedroom, his Mother presented him with his Father’s ceremonial headdress, that of a Council Chieftain! He was still slightly befuddled when the flyer landed; a new logo had been painted on its side, COUNCIL PRESIDENT.
By the time the flyer had returned to The Great Ship, Toby had calmed down and was outlining in his head, the steps he needed to take to put the new Council to work. He stepped out of the flyer with considerably more confidence than when he had left his home in Green and his step was purposeful as he strode into the Council Chambers.
He was the first to arrive, Captain Hay welcomed him before scooting out the back door when Chief Pilot Cord entered the room, accompanied by Reg and Tom. The rest soon followed and Toby called the meeting to order.
Toby announced his first agenda, Education and Health. He said, “We need a systematic school system that meets the needs of all our people, many cannot come here for college, so we must send college to them. The same for health care, many of our people must rely upon folk remedies and hope; that is not acceptable, there must be health care readily available to all our people, regardless of where they live.”
He continued, “If we accomplish nothing more than these items in our first term, we shall be accounted a success. It is time for our people to rise out of the rubble and ruin left by the Cosmic Wave and bring the fruits of civilization to us all, to that end, we must labor.”
He sat down to a standing ovation from the delegates and those who had come, as audience, to observe the first meeting of an elected Council.
THE WORK BEGINS
Toby, Teo and Reg began a marathon of visits, spreading out individually to every town, village and cluster they could find, gathering information on that community’s needs.
Some did not even have access to lower schools and were trying to educate their children in homes, using books and relics from before the destruction caused by the Cosmic Wave.
Toby was in a tiny village next to the Ohio River, there were about 20 families living there and a mother had volunteered to teach the children to read. She was using damaged books, old magazines and parts of some text books she had dug from the wreckage, to teach the children.
He stepped out of the room and mind-called Tane, Senior Clerk for the Council, “Tane, go over to the High School and ask for books and some volunteers to teach young children to read and write.” He had sent Tane a mental picture of the materials that the local teacher was trying to use. Tane was horrified and he raced over to the high school to speak with the Principal, Reg’s wife Helen.
Tolly Hancher and Jonas Riordan were in class that day, the minute Tane asked for volunteers, the two boys stood and put their books away, “We will go, we both have been there and done that!” Jonas exclaimed. The students collected two flyers full of books and four more students volunteered to help, it took three heavy lift flyers to transport everyone and the materials to Oakhaven.
The young children at Oakhaven looked in awe as the heavy lift flyers landed and four Big Boys and two Big Girls stepped out of one of the flyers. One of the Big Boys knelt beside the children and said, “I am Jonas and my partner here, Tolly, are going to help you learn to read. That Big Boy over there is Mik and his friend is Dok and they are going to help you with numbers.”
One little boy said, “Me Gos, what those Big Girls do?” Jonas replied. “They are Sal and Der, they are going to teach you how to write words.”
Gos said, “REAL WORDS, words that tell things?”
The little boy was so excited that he ran to the other children and told them what all those Big Boys and Girls were going to do.
The little children were anxious to start right away. There were eight children in the class and they were pushing the new teachers to get them in the room faster so they could teach them read’n writ’n numbers, RIGHT NOW!
The children were frantic to learn, they would be waiting outside the small house that had been assigned to the visitors shortly after daybreak and they had to be shooed home in the afternoon.
One little boy, Charli, soaked up the knowledge like a sponge, especially the numbers. Charli was only 11 years old, but, by the end of the third week, he was doing complicated word problems, long division and was well into fractions. He was pushing Jonas, who was trying to stay ahead of the younger boy.
Charli gobbled up fractions and decimals were a breeze. The boy cried when Jonas had to tell him that he had gone through all the number books they had brought with them. He and Tolly were lying on their bed one evening when Tolly said, “Love, do you think we could bring Charli home with us, he does not have a Momma or a Poppa, could he be our ……?”
Tolly choked up before he could spit out the word, “Son”
Jonas knew only one way they could find out, he mind-spoke with Helen, “Momma Helen, Tolly is listening, we have found this little boy, he is 11 years old and is a math whiz. Do you, eeer, ahh think….”
Helen cut him off, her laughing coming through mind-speak, “So you two have found a son, have you? Bring him home with you, one more boy in this zoo won’t make any difference and I will make sure the Ship Council accepts him as your son. What is his name, by the way?”
Both Jonas and Tolly mind-screamed, “His name is Charli!!!!”
When it came time to go back to Globe, Mik and Dok asked to remain in Oakhaven, so it was that only Sal and Der, Tolly and Jonas AND CHARLI who climbed into the flyer for the return. Jonas asked the Flyer Pilot to make a loop around Globe as they returned home so that little Charli could see the town. He sat there with his nose pressed up against the window and all they could hear from him was “WOW, JUMPIN’ GHOSTS, WOWEE!”
They landed at the port and Helen was there to meet them. She had a piece of paper in her hand that she handed Jonah. Jonah looked at it and screamed, “WHOOPEE!” as he handed the paper to Tolly. Tolly’s eyes got big and then he knelt beside little Charli and showed him the paper. Charli didn’t understand all the big words, so Tolly translated the Magistrate’s Order making Charli the adopted son of Jonah Riordan and Tolly Hancher!
Little Charli was dancing right there at the Flyer Port, “I am a real boy, I gots two poppas! I am a real boy now……”
Jonah and Tolly settled down in a house near Helen’s and Charli started school. His teacher complained to his Fathers that she was running as hard as she could, just to stay ahead of the little boy. She told them that Charli was definitely a genus and needed better schooling than she was able to provide.
They went over to the Great Ship and spoke with Professor Holi, the head of the Gifted Children Education Department and he agreed to test Charli and make his recommendations.
Charli was scheduled to be tested the next day. Both Jonah and Tolly waited in the Cafeteria, gulping down coffee in their nervousness.
A haggard Professor Holi came out to speak with them, “I was unable to test Charli to his fullest.” Both Jonah and Tolly looked at each other in concern but the Professor held up his hand and continued, “No, No, it is not bad, it is just that I have no test that presents a challenge to the boy! Did you know that he also has the power of levitation and his shields are virtually unbreakable?”
The concerned fathers asked, “Wha aa what do we do now?”
Professor Holi replied, “First, love him like a delightful little boy he is. Then, let’s enroll him in the Gifted and Talented program here on the ship. I want him to live at home, he needs you two guys to keep him grounded and it would be a disaster to remove him from you both!”
He thought for a moment before continuing, “Charli is a treasure for all of us, we can point him in the right direction, but I know of no one capable to teaching the boy. We will give him the materials and guide his education, but he is so far advanced from the rest of us, I would not presume to teach him!”
So it was that Charli Riordan-Hatcher was enrolled in an expedited course of studies and turned loose to explore whatever knowledge caught his fancy. At the age of fifteen, he was awarded his Master of Science Degree and his Doctorate came a year later. His interest in energy and power systems led to orders of magnitude changes to the Flyers and the Great Ship itself.
Next, Charli attacked electric power distribution and was able to dispense with the spaghetti nest of wires that carried power across the country and, finally, he developed a solid state generator that converted thorium directly to electric power without losses.
By the time he was twenty-five, Charli’s name was a household word and nobody was surprised at a news release that he had developed a propulsion system that defied gravity, and was no larger than a shoe box. Immediately, steam engines, horses, sails and thrusters were obsolete and internal combustion engines became a historical curiosity in a dusty museum.
Despite his fame, however, his all-consuming loyalty to his two Poppas remained paramount and he made sure his Poppas’ Education Project was fully funded and they were able to continue bringing knowledge and schooling to peoples across the planet.
GREAT ADVANCES
With Charli’s help Jonah and Tolly founded the Education Institute that provided schools and teaching materials to anyone who asked. There were Institute Schools in every town, city and village on every continent and they had their own printing presses that turned out text books in every language and for every educational level.
After a few years, Charli’s face was known around the world and he could no longer visit a school “incognito”. Even his Poppas’ identities were known and, wherever they went, they were besieged by parents and teachers about a “special student” in a classroom.
After giving it some thought, the three of them devised a program to test promising students and to provide classroom training for them at a new facility in Globe, The Education Institute School for Advanced Studies. They hired the best teachers that could be found and enticed Professor Holi away from the University to be the President of the school.
The school initially had space for a hundred students, but the doors were hardly opened when they discovered they need more room. They went on a building spree that did not finally stop until they had space for fifteen thousand students!
Professor Holi had insisted on providing an education for gifted students from Grade One through Doctorate level. The campus was a sprawling group of buildings and grounds just to the east of Globe, nestled in a quiet canyon that contained a small lake and new growth trees. All of which were the result of the Cosmic Wave.
Many new products came out of the School’s Laboratories and the students were constantly challenged for new ideas and theories. There began a time of rapid advancement, the drudgery of mere survival was fast becoming a chapter in the history books.
Perhaps Charli’s most stunning contribution was his design for a huge Radio Telescope. He built his telescope out on the uninhabited desert east of Globe. It occupied a vast space, hundreds of miles in diameter and required the total output of one of Charli’s newly designed power plants.
Just a little over two years after it went on-line, they detected electro-magnetic emissions coming from the direction of Sagittarius. The news electrified the entire world and news services screamed, “LIFE FOUND IN OUTER SPACE”
Charli asked a group of the world’s preeminent scientists to form a committee to study the matter, making sure that they were not dealing with life forms hostile to Earth and its people.
After two years, they decided they were ready to establish contact. Charli had come up with the idea of a Cosmic Lens that would propel their message through a wormhole. Not only would it speed it along its way faster than the speed of light, it would also make it impossible to trace its origin.
Another year would pass before two-way communication was established with a people who called themselves the Sasqua’ia. They were a fairly advanced race, although they had spaceflight, they had not done much exploring. Theirs was a planet-wide culture and they had never gone through the warfare stage of development. They had been broadcasting their message for many hundreds of Earth years and had never received a response until now.
The Sasqua’ia had also survived the Cosmic Wave and they were rebuilding their planet. Their planet was older than the Earth and many of its resources had already been expended. Charli sent them his designs for power stations and the Sasqua’ia put them into use immediately, they had been desperate, they were struggling with power shortages and their people were suffering.
The new power source was a gift of life itself.
The exchange between the two cultures became so routine that it was no longer news. Life settled back down, they never were able to contact any other life forms, the universe open to their gigantic Radio telescope appeared to be mostly devoid of life.
The scientists working with Charli made improvements that changed everyone’s lives, the newcomers as well as the native humans. The two races were becoming one, they knew why newcomer and human DNA was so close, and proved a common ancestor, they were the same people.
The People’s efforts to discover any survivors from their lost planet proved futile, what little they were able to discover indicated their world of origin had failed to survive the Cosmic Wave, leaving their home a shattered and broken collection of stones circling a burned out star.
Already, there was significant intermingling of bloodlines between the People and the New Humans, in a few more generations the two races would become one, once again. Human lifespans were approaching those of the newcomers, four hundred years was not uncommon, while the newcomers lived an average of five hundred years.
New inventions, processes and improvements continued to emerge from The Institute’s laboratories and medicines had, for all intents and purposes, wiped out the many diseases that had plagued humans since they had emerged as a race.
Even the once incurable common cold was known only in the history books and with the discovery of cell regeneration technology, broken bones and violent injury no longer meant long recovery times or permanent disability. The few birth defects that remained, could be corrected in early childhood, leaving the children blemish free.
The steady stream of new plants coming from the laboratories insured an abundant food supply for all and plants could be made compatible for any place on the planet. Deserts and barren lands became clothed in green vegetation, altering the climate and soothing the wild beast of storms.
Lands that had been deforested almost since time began; became vacation spots.
Wild animals flourished, genetically altered to fit the new climates and conditions. Many of the higher forms became semi-intelligent and it was common to see children playing in the ocean waves while conversing with dolphins or young whales.
Not everything was perfect; human nature is difficult to change. Criminals continued to engage in crime and there remained the social element that had disdain for the rights of others.
A law enforcement group was still needed, crime was still alive and well. Those who held beliefs counter to the general public, religious zealots, and misfits remained a problem and no amount of re-education or counseling was going to change that. Prisons did not flourish, but, also, they did not disappear, either.
The equilibrium of society held together for nearly two thousand years, until the strains began to show. In all that time, they had maintained contact with the Sasqua’ia, trading information and science.
At about the time human society was straining against unrest, the star that supported the home world of the Sasqua’ia began to go unstable as they resisted the attack of a race known as the Ka’aa and they feared the worst.
Abruptly, all communication ceased between the two worlds. Human society continued to decline and soon, terrible bombs were dropping out of the sky. Vast areas of the Earth were made uninhabitable and once more, civilization dropped into a pit of barbarianism.
The light of humankind was fading fast.
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The End.
Look for the continuation of this story in Legends Book 2 the story of the Sasqua’ia.
[email protected]
Astronomers have discovered that the incredible gravitational strength of supermassive black holes can tear planets away from their star systems and hurl them through space at incredible speeds—as fast as 30 million mph.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The story is protected by copyright and may not be reproduced by any means without the express, written permission of the author.
***********************************************************
From Chapter 7;It became commonplace to see a body or two swinging from a rope tied to the branch of a desert sycamore tree alongside the Trader’s Road!It wasn’t pretty, but robberies became almost a thing of the past. It just wasn’t worth a hemp necktie, no matter what cargo Carl was sending as freight and no passenger carried enough valuables to make up the difference!The freight business showed a profit and in less than five years, every major town and most of the smaller towns were connected by daily freight runs.
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CAPITOL CITY
The flight activity of the Flyers was consuming the entire resources of the Schedulers located in The Great Ship. The added Trader Ships and now, the freight and passenger tuggers, the Schedulers were at their wits’ end. They could do nothing to help schedule the cargo and passenger traffic and they were forced to totally ignore the new villages and towns that had joined with them.
They were even stumbling in their assistance to the new hospitals. There simply were not enough of them to go around. Captain Hay had called for a council; the whole system was tittering on the brink of collapse.
Many of the towns and villages sent delegates, as did Tok from Zel and Tok Traders, Carl from Carl’s Tuggers, Toby Walking Deer came representing the Farmers of Green and the South Coast Free Hospital System was represented by Maceo and Teo.
They spent many days proposing and re-proposing plans to alleviate the situation. Finally, Toby stood and said, “Let us take a page out of our history books and elect a president and a parliament to do this for us.” He continued, “If we don’t like what they build, we can always fire them!”
So it was a great election was planned and each faction was to present a slate of officers, with the provision that those who received the highest votes would fill the office, regardless of faction. The campaigning began, the Farmers Coalition selected Toby to run for Council President and he represented his slate as he worked his way across the inhabited areas of the planet, Carl, Teo and Tok were all selected and spent their time beating the bushes for votes.
Captain Hay refused any nomination, but Chief Pilot Cord was selected to lead the Ship’s Slate of officers.
The Cattle Growers selected Tom Hancher to lead their slate and the City of Globe was to be represented by Reg Riordan.
Finally, all the politicking was done and it was time for the election to take place.
The Schedulers collected all the ballots and had the tally posted the next morning. It was hardly daylight when Julia Walking Deer was shaking her husband, as he came up from a deep sleep, Julia kissed him and said, “Good Morning, Mr. Council President!”
Toby shot up, nearly knocking his very pregnant wife off the bed, “Council President?” he squeaked.
Julia smiled at him and told him his Mother and Brothers were waiting for him in the big room and wanted to congratulate him.
A dazed Toby Walking Deer stumbled into his clothes and went to meet his family, his Mother, Mary Walking Deer handed him a notice that had been left by Flyer Courier. Toby Walkingdeer – Council President; Tom Hancher – Council Vice President; Pilot Cord – Council Secretary; Tok Trader – Foreign Relations and Trade Secretary; Carl Mercer – Transportation and Internal Trade Secretary; Teo Lander – Health Secretary and Reg Riordan – Education Secretary.
Toby was shaken to his core, he had no idea he would ever be elected, let alone as the Chief Official of the new government! Just then, he received a “congratulations” from Captain Hay by mind-speak and was told that a flyer would pick him up in one hour to bring him to the Great Ship.
Toby was in a dither, he had no special clothes, his fields needed watering, there was a Tobylope shipment to get ready.
Jan, his next oldest brother held his hand and said, “Toby, we will carry on for you. You must go and carry on for our people and all the people. You go to make our lives better, our children safer and our Mothers and Wives more content.”
Julia gently led the still dazed Council President back into their bedroom and she dressed him in his finest clothing of white deer hide, tanned to a supple softness of butter and his new moccasins that she had beaded herself.
As he was walking out of the bedroom, his Mother presented him with his Father’s ceremonial headdress, that of a Council Chieftain! He was still slightly befuddled when the flyer landed; a new logo had been painted on its side, COUNCIL PRESIDENT.
By the time the flyer had returned to The Great Ship, Toby had calmed down and was outlining in his head, the steps he needed to take to put the new Council to work. He stepped out of the flyer with considerably more confidence than when he had left his home in Green and his step was purposeful as he strode into the Council Chambers.
He was the first to arrive, Captain Hay welcomed him before scooting out the back door when Chief Pilot Cord entered the room, accompanied by Reg and Tom. The rest soon followed and Toby called the meeting to order.
Toby announced his first agenda, Education and Health. He said, “We need a systematic school system that meets the needs of all our people, many cannot come here for college, so we must send college to them. The same for health care, many of our people must rely upon folk remedies and hope; that is not acceptable, there must be health care readily available to all our people, regardless of where they live.”
He continued, “If we accomplish nothing more than these items in our first term, we shall be accounted a success. It is time for our people to rise out of the rubble and ruin left by the Cosmic Wave and bring the fruits of civilization to us all, to that end, we must labor.”
He sat down to a standing ovation from the delegates and those who had come, as audience, to observe the first meeting of an elected Council.
THE WORK BEGINS
Toby, Teo and Reg began a marathon of visits, spreading out individually to every town, village and cluster they could find, gathering information on that community’s needs.
Some did not even have access to lower schools and were trying to educate their children in homes, using books and relics from before the destruction caused by the Cosmic Wave.
Toby was in a tiny village next to the Ohio River, there were about 20 families living there and a mother had volunteered to teach the children to read. She was using damaged books, old magazines and parts of some text books she had dug from the wreckage, to teach the children.
He stepped out of the room and mind-called Tane, Senior Clerk for the Council, “Tane, go over to the High School and ask for books and some volunteers to teach young children to read and write.” He had sent Tane a mental picture of the materials that the local teacher was trying to use. Tane was horrified and he raced over to the high school to speak with the Principal, Reg’s wife Helen.
Tolly Hancher and Jonas Riordan were in class that day, the minute Tane asked for volunteers, the two boys stood and put their books away, “We will go, we both have been there and done that!” Jonas exclaimed. The students collected two flyers full of books and four more students volunteered to help, it took three heavy lift flyers to transport everyone and the materials to Oakhaven.
The young children at Oakhaven looked in awe as the heavy lift flyers landed and four Big Boys and two Big Girls stepped out of one of the flyers. One of the Big Boys knelt beside the children and said, “I am Jonas and my partner here, Tolly, are going to help you learn to read. That Big Boy over there is Mik and his friend is Dok and they are going to help you with numbers.”
One little boy said, “Me Gos, what those Big Girls do?” Jonas replied. “They are Sal and Der, they are going to teach you how to write words.”
Gos said, “REAL WORDS, words that tell things?”
The little boy was so excited that he ran to the other children and told them what all those Big Boys and Girls were going to do.
The little children were anxious to start right away. There were eight children in the class and they were pushing the new teachers to get them in the room faster so they could teach them read’n writ’n numbers, RIGHT NOW!
The children were frantic to learn, they would be waiting outside the small house that had been assigned to the visitors shortly after daybreak and they had to be shooed home in the afternoon.
One little boy, Charli, soaked up the knowledge like a sponge, especially the numbers. Charli was only 11 years old, but, by the end of the third week, he was doing complicated word problems, long division and was well into fractions. He was pushing Jonas, who was trying to stay ahead of the younger boy.
Charli gobbled up fractions and decimals were a breeze. The boy cried when Jonas had to tell him that he had gone through all the number books they had brought with them. He and Tolly were lying on their bed one evening when Tolly said, “Love, do you think we could bring Charli home with us, he does not have a Momma or a Poppa, could he be our ……?”
Tolly choked up before he could spit out the word, “Son”
Jonas knew only one way they could find out, he mind-spoke with Helen, “Momma Helen, Tolly is listening, we have found this little boy, he is 11 years old and is a math whiz. Do you, eeer, ahh think….”
Helen cut him off, her laughing coming through mind-speak, “So you two have found a son, have you? Bring him home with you, one more boy in this zoo won’t make any difference and I will make sure the Ship Council accepts him as your son. What is his name, by the way?”
Both Jonas and Tolly mind-screamed, “His name is Charli!!!!”
When it came time to go back to Globe, Mik and Dok asked to remain in Oakhaven, so it was that only Sal and Der, Tolly and Jonas AND CHARLI who climbed into the flyer for the return. Jonas asked the Flyer Pilot to make a loop around Globe as they returned home so that little Charli could see the town. He sat there with his nose pressed up against the window and all they could hear from him was “WOW, JUMPIN’ GHOSTS, WOWEE!”
They landed at the port and Helen was there to meet them. She had a piece of paper in her hand that she handed Jonah. Jonah looked at it and screamed, “WHOOPEE!” as he handed the paper to Tolly. Tolly’s eyes got big and then he knelt beside little Charli and showed him the paper. Charli didn’t understand all the big words, so Tolly translated the Magistrate’s Order making Charli the adopted son of Jonah Riordan and Tolly Hancher!
Little Charli was dancing right there at the Flyer Port, “I am a real boy, I gots two poppas! I am a real boy now……”
Jonah and Tolly settled down in a house near Helen’s and Charli started school. His teacher complained to his Fathers that she was running as hard as she could, just to stay ahead of the little boy. She told them that Charli was definitely a genus and needed better schooling than she was able to provide.
They went over to the Great Ship and spoke with Professor Holi, the head of the Gifted Children Education Department and he agreed to test Charli and make his recommendations.
Charli was scheduled to be tested the next day. Both Jonah and Tolly waited in the Cafeteria, gulping down coffee in their nervousness.
A haggard Professor Holi came out to speak with them, “I was unable to test Charli to his fullest.” Both Jonah and Tolly looked at each other in concern but the Professor held up his hand and continued, “No, No, it is not bad, it is just that I have no test that presents a challenge to the boy! Did you know that he also has the power of levitation and his shields are virtually unbreakable?”
The concerned fathers asked, “Wha aa what do we do now?”
Professor Holi replied, “First, love him like a delightful little boy he is. Then, let’s enroll him in the Gifted and Talented program here on the ship. I want him to live at home, he needs you two guys to keep him grounded and it would be a disaster to remove him from you both!”
He thought for a moment before continuing, “Charli is a treasure for all of us, we can point him in the right direction, but I know of no one capable to teaching the boy. We will give him the materials and guide his education, but he is so far advanced from the rest of us, I would not presume to teach him!”
So it was that Charli Riordan-Hatcher was enrolled in an expedited course of studies and turned loose to explore whatever knowledge caught his fancy. At the age of fifteen, he was awarded his Master of Science Degree and his Doctorate came a year later. His interest in energy and power systems led to orders of magnitude changes to the Flyers and the Great Ship itself.
Next, Charli attacked electric power distribution and was able to dispense with the spaghetti nest of wires that carried power across the country and, finally, he developed a solid state generator that converted thorium directly to electric power without losses.
By the time he was twenty-five, Charli’s name was a household word and nobody was surprised at a news release that he had developed a propulsion system that defied gravity, and was no larger than a shoe box. Immediately, steam engines, horses, sails and thrusters were obsolete and internal combustion engines became a historical curiosity in a dusty museum.
Despite his fame, however, his all-consuming loyalty to his two Poppas remained paramount and he made sure his Poppas’ Education Project was fully funded and they were able to continue bringing knowledge and schooling to peoples across the planet.
GREAT ADVANCES
With Charli’s help Jonah and Tolly founded the Education Institute that provided schools and teaching materials to anyone who asked. There were Institute Schools in every town, city and village on every continent and they had their own printing presses that turned out text books in every language and for every educational level.
After a few years, Charli’s face was known around the world and he could no longer visit a school “incognito”. Even his Poppas’ identities were known and, wherever they went, they were besieged by parents and teachers about a “special student” in a classroom.
After giving it some thought, the three of them devised a program to test promising students and to provide classroom training for them at a new facility in Globe, The Education Institute School for Advanced Studies. They hired the best teachers that could be found and enticed Professor Holi away from the University to be the President of the school.
The school initially had space for a hundred students, but the doors were hardly opened when they discovered they need more room. They went on a building spree that did not finally stop until they had space for fifteen thousand students!
Professor Holi had insisted on providing an education for gifted students from Grade One through Doctorate level. The campus was a sprawling group of buildings and grounds just to the east of Globe, nestled in a quiet canyon that contained a small lake and new growth trees. All of which were the result of the Cosmic Wave.
Many new products came out of the School’s Laboratories and the students were constantly challenged for new ideas and theories. There began a time of rapid advancement, the drudgery of mere survival was fast becoming a chapter in the history books.
Perhaps Charli’s most stunning contribution was his design for a huge Radio Telescope. He built his telescope out on the uninhabited desert east of Globe. It occupied a vast space, hundreds of miles in diameter and required the total output of one of Charli’s newly designed power plants.
Just a little over two years after it went on-line, they detected electro-magnetic emissions coming from the direction of Sagittarius. The news electrified the entire world and news services screamed, “LIFE FOUND IN OUTER SPACE”
Charli asked a group of the world’s preeminent scientists to form a committee to study the matter, making sure that they were not dealing with life forms hostile to Earth and its people.
After two years, they decided they were ready to establish contact. Charli had come up with the idea of a Cosmic Lens that would propel their message through a wormhole. Not only would it speed it along its way faster than the speed of light, it would also make it impossible to trace its origin.
Another year would pass before two-way communication was established with a people who called themselves the Sasqua’ia. They were a fairly advanced race, although they had spaceflight, they had not done much exploring. Theirs was a planet-wide culture and they had never gone through the warfare stage of development. They had been broadcasting their message for many hundreds of Earth years and had never received a response until now.
The Sasqua’ia had also survived the Cosmic Wave and they were rebuilding their planet. Their planet was older than the Earth and many of its resources had already been expended. Charli sent them his designs for power stations and the Sasqua’ia put them into use immediately, they had been desperate, they were struggling with power shortages and their people were suffering.
The new power source was a gift of life itself.
The exchange between the two cultures became so routine that it was no longer news. Life settled back down, they never were able to contact any other life forms, the universe open to their gigantic Radio telescope appeared to be mostly devoid of life.
The scientists working with Charli made improvements that changed everyone’s lives, the newcomers as well as the native humans. The two races were becoming one, they knew why newcomer and human DNA was so close, and proved a common ancestor, they were the same people.
The People’s efforts to discover any survivors from their lost planet proved futile, what little they were able to discover indicated their world of origin had failed to survive the Cosmic Wave, leaving their home a shattered and broken collection of stones circling a burned out star.
Already, there was significant intermingling of bloodlines between the People and the New Humans, in a few more generations the two races would become one, once again. Human lifespans were approaching those of the newcomers, four hundred years was not uncommon, while the newcomers lived an average of five hundred years.
New inventions, processes and improvements continued to emerge from The Institute’s laboratories and medicines had, for all intents and purposes, wiped out the many diseases that had plagued humans since they had emerged as a race.
Even the once incurable common cold was known only in the history books and with the discovery of cell regeneration technology, broken bones and violent injury no longer meant long recovery times or permanent disability. The few birth defects that remained, could be corrected in early childhood, leaving the children blemish free.
The steady stream of new plants coming from the laboratories insured an abundant food supply for all and plants could be made compatible for any place on the planet. Deserts and barren lands became clothed in green vegetation, altering the climate and soothing the wild beast of storms.
Lands that had been deforested almost since time began; became vacation spots.
Wild animals flourished, genetically altered to fit the new climates and conditions. Many of the higher forms became semi-intelligent and it was common to see children playing in the ocean waves while conversing with dolphins or young whales.
Not everything was perfect; human nature is difficult to change. Criminals continued to engage in crime and there remained the social element that had disdain for the rights of others.
A law enforcement group was still needed, crime was still alive and well. Those who held beliefs counter to the general public, religious zealots, and misfits remained a problem and no amount of re-education or counseling was going to change that. Prisons did not flourish, but, also, they did not disappear, either.
The equilibrium of society held together for nearly two thousand years, until the strains began to show. In all that time, they had maintained contact with the Sasqua’ia, trading information and science.
At about the time human society was straining against unrest, the star that supported the home world of the Sasqua’ia began to go unstable as they resisted the attack of a race known as the Ka’aa and they feared the worst.
Abruptly, all communication ceased between the two worlds. Human society continued to decline and soon, terrible bombs were dropping out of the sky. Vast areas of the Earth were made uninhabitable and once more, civilization dropped into a pit of barbarianism.
The light of humankind was fading fast.
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The End.
Look for the continuation of this story in Legends Book 2 the story of the Sasqua’ia.