A Planned Improvisation (4 page)

“I would have been surprised if it did,” Iris laughed.

They set down and got out of the buggy to place more instruments. As they did, Cousin leaped out as well to have a look around. “Don’t let her go too far,” Iris warned Marisea. “We’re on top of the volcano now. Any standing water or mud could be scaldingly hot and there could be hot lava just around the corner.”

“She never strays far away from any of us,” Marisea reminded her.

“She does have a curious side to her, though, and all this is probably new to her,” Iris replied.

 
“Park, I expected yellow rocks everywhere,” Marisea admitted. “Instead, there are a lot of trees here, aren’t there? Why is it called Yellowstone?”

“Not because of the rocks in the area of the caldera,” Park explained, “although there were some yellowish rocks there. The area was named for some yellow sandstone strata along the banks of the Yellowstone River several hundred miles downstream of the caldera. The caldera was actually named, in turn, for the river.”

They spent several days placing instruments around the suspected rim of the caldera. Sometimes the rim appeared to be clearly defined, but most of the time they had to guess.
 
There was an area in the far northwest of the caldera that looked like what Park had been expecting, but with only a dozen recognizable geysers, spouting off at seemingly random intervals. “I guess the conditions here are not as conducive to geyser formation as they were in Wyoming,” Park surmised. The most notable feature was beneath the plume of ash they had spotted that first morning. When they ventured cautiously nearer, they discovered a wide lava field that might have been more at home in Hawaii. It was mostly black basalt, but here and there the cooled rock had cracked and they could see the red hot molten rock that lay beneath.

“I guess the magma dome is not as deep as it used to be,” Park commented. “I’m not a geologist, but that may not be a bad thing. If there were an explosive eruption back when the dome was thirty or forty miles deep, a lot of the matter on top of the magma would have been blown sky high. If the dome is closer, there is less matter to be ejected.”

“It could still be catastrophic, though,” Iris pointed out. “We do have some geologists back in town, though. We should send them up here. It seems to me that a shallow magma dome just means a more immanent eruption.”

“Technically, the volcano is erupting right now,” Park pointed out, “but I will send our experts here. I’m wondering about those geysers now, however. I thought that sort of activity was more closely related to a deep magma dome.”

“They are several miles away,” Iris pointed out, “and this lava field could represent a thin escape of the magma, or else we don’t know as much about this sort of thing as we think. As you pointed out, none of us are geologists or volcanologists.”

“True enough,” Park admitted. “Well, we’re out of instruments to plant. Let’s spend one more night here and then take the long lazy way back home and swing back along the west coast mountains.”

“I see smoke off to the west,” Marisea reported two days later as Iris navigated a course through the foothills that led up to the long western mountain range.

“Another volcano?” Park asked, looking out one of the back windows. They had seen a dozen ash cones since leaving Yellowstone, two of which had been erupting thin plumes of steam and ash.

“I don’t think so,” Marisea shook her head. “It’s coming from down in a valley, not the top of a mountain.”

“Volcanic vents can open anywhere in a subduction zone,” Park pointed out, “but I think you’re right.” He lifted a pair of digital binoculars to his eyes and added, “There’s a house down there. A log cabin. Let’s stop in and say, ‘Hello.’”

Iris banked the buggy off to the right and a few minutes later bought it gently down into a clear area between a large house that, save for its construction from logs and clay, could have been a manor house from the Nineteenth Century and another large building that appeared to be some sort of barn. The large house and barn were surrounded by tall trees, but there were several fields that had been plowed and in which various crops had been planted nearby.

Exiting the buggy, however, Park immediately found himself on the wrong side of several assault rifles. “We’re not going back,” a tall bearded man told him sternly.

“Suits me,” Park replied. “Back where?” He took another look at the people threatening him. “Do I know you folks?”

“You’re Parker Holman,” the speaker told him.

“I know,” Park agreed. “Bill? Bill Bolger?” he asked, finally recognizing the other man.

“That’s right,” Bill nodded. “You aren’t here to bring us back?”

“No,” Park shook his head. “We were just out exploring and spotted the smoke from your chimney, so we came down to see who was here. What are you doing out here?”

“You all are the ones who disappeared from Van Winkle Town a few weeks after we came out of stasis, aren’t you?” Iris asked as she exited the buggy. She noted the guns and added dryly, “Well, I can see you aren’t pacifists. That’s probably a good thing out here in the Wild.”

“What going on?” Dannet asked, sticking his head out of the buggy’s hatch.

“He’s got green skin!” one of the other armed men exclaimed, suddenly swinging his weapon toward Dannet.

“Greetings, Earthlings,” Dannet replied urbanely, betraying only a little nervousness. “I come in peace.”

“You’ve been watching too many old movies,” Park noted sourly.

“Where the hell did you come from?” Bill demanded.

“Bill, this is Prince Dannet, the ambassador from the planet of Dennsee. You lot have been out of circulation, I take it. You’ve been missing all the fun. Oh, put those guns down already. We aren’t unarmed, but we also aren’t here to round up the strays either. If you lot want to play Daniel Boone, you have the right.”

“I’ll bet Arnsley Theoday wouldn’t agree with you,” a woman pointed out.

“Leslie?” Iris identified the woman. Leslie Farroff, Iris recalled had been another of the people who had disappeared from Van Winkle Base.

“I would have thought two thousand miles would have been far enough away you would never find us,” Leslie remarked acidly, but she lowered her gun.

“We haven’t had the time to go looking for you,” Iris shrugged. “To tell the truth, I’d all but forgotten you in the rush of events that have happened since you left.”

“Is it safe out there?” Marisea asked, still inside the buggy.

“Slightly safer than Yellowstone,” Park chuckled. “You guys been up to Alaska lately?”

“We pretty much came straight here and have been here ever since,” Bill replied. “What’s that about Yellowstone and Alaska?”

“Continental drift,” Park replied. “The caldera has moved. I’ll tell you all about it over coffee if you like.”

“You have coffee?” Bill asked, unable to hide the longing in his voice. “Real coffee?”

“We ran out of the original stuff,” Park admitted, “but the Mer have a similar bean…” he broke off as several of Bill’s people raised their gun again. “What?” He turned and saw Marisea had appeared in the hatchway.

“Where did you come from?” one man demanded of Mer as she hop-stepped down to the ground with Cousin in her arms.

“Earth,” Marisea shot back acidly. “What planet did
you
come from?”

“The Mer are indigenous to this time and place,” Park explained. “Had you gone all the way to the coast you probably would have met some by now, Anyway, yes we have something that tastes sort of like coffee.”

“So do we, if you like chicory,” Bill replied. “Well, it isn’t really chicory either, but it’s acidic. No caffeine though.”

“Ours has caffeine at least,” Park laughed. “Marisea, why don’t you make a couple pots and we’ll all sit down and catch up with each other.”

“Have them put their guns down first,” Marisea demanded. “I thought your people understood hospitality, Park.”

“They do,” park replied. “I think we just startled this lot is all. Bill, you can put away the guns. If you want you can kill us later.”

“I don’t want to kill you, Parker,” Bill protested.

“All the more reason to put your gun away then,” Park pointed out. “Unless you’re expecting some other attack.”

“No the local critters have learned what happens when they get too close,” Bill shook his head. “You’re right. Let’s put the toys away, folks.”

“Maybe we ought to vote on that,” Leslie commented.

“You can vote anyway you like,” Bill told her. “I’m putting my rifle back by the door and putting on the party hat.”

“Yeah, okay,” Leslie agreed finally, but added to Park and Iris, “but we aren’t going back there no matter who or what lives in those parts these days.”

“No one is going to force you,” Iris assured her.

“I’d like to see them try,” Leslie shot back.

“Give it up, Les,” one of the others told her. “I’d like to hear what’s been going on since we left.”

“It has nothing to do with us, Frank,” Leslie countered.

“I thought we were concerned with all things,” Frank retorted.

“We have always known we would each have different interests and specialties,” Bill cut in suddenly. “Perhaps those differences begin here. Les, if you are not interested in what has been happening, no one will force you to listen. The rest of us will sit in the gathering room and listen to what Mister Holman has to say.

Park began the story but Iris, Marisea and even Dannet added their own parts as they tried to explain what had been happening over the last few years. It took them most of the afternoon to tell about the launch of the first human-built satellites and the repair mission that nearly ended in their own deaths, about the next mission in which Park and his crew effectively disarmed the Alliance base on the Moon and the subsequent battles that finally established Earth as a probationary member of the Alliance of Confederated Planets.

As he spoke, Cousin made her way from person to person, rubbing up against their legs or sitting for a while in their laps if they allowed it. Most of the people
 
found the little creature endearing and even Leslie spent some time cuddling her.

“We have yet to build a successful star drive, though,” Park told them. “Ronnie Sheetz had a chance to analyze two working ones, however, so it is only a matter of time. We have another test coming up next month, though.”

“And you found this little lady in Africa, you say?” Bill asked. “She looks more like she might be descended from a lemur than a monkey. I would have guessed Madagascar.”

“There’s no trace of Madagascar,” Iris responded. “I don’t know how the plate tectonics worked in that part of the world. It may have merged with Africa or been subsumed. We don’t really know what Cousin descended from for certain, but our biologists agree that she seems more lemur than monkey. Of course by now she could have descended from just about any primate.”

“So, tell us about what’s been happening to you,” Park requested after a few moments. “Why did you leave Van Winkle base in the first place?”

“Part of it was we were in shock,” Bill began. “We expected to wake up either just a few weeks after we went into stasis or maybe a century or two at the most. We were prepared for a world in the wake of a disaster, but still a world we knew and understood. When it became apparent just how long it had been, we were confused at first and then we felt betrayed. Someone should have woken us up.”

“Maybe there was no one left to wake us up,” Park commented. “You left before our explorations got very far.”

“Do you think the disaster was that bad?” Bill asked.

“No,” Park shook his head. “The base computer was monitoring the world above us. There are no records of high radiation or any indication of a large asteroid strike for the first ten thousand years after we went to sleep. After that the computer’s link to the outside world failed. To tell the truth I’m surprised it lasted that long. The sensors were outside the stasis field, after all. I think the initial crisis passed without incident and someone decided to leave us where we were rather than risk having to round us all up again. After that we were forgotten. Van Winkle was a secret project and it’s just as possible that after a generation or two there was no one left who even knew we were there.”

“That was our conclusion as well,” Bill agreed. “We just came to it sooner than most, maybe. There were fourteen of us. We did not all know each other before, but we all knew two or three within our group and we started talking quietly between ourselves at dinner, in the evenings when on break. We were not being secretive, not intentionally, but you know how people tend to form clubs and cliques and other small groupings… This was our group, that’s all.

We looked around and as we got over the shock, it occurred to us that this was a fresh new start – not only for us but all Mankind. Colonel Theoday did not see it that way. He was obviously trying to rebuild the Twenty-first Century and was trying to draft everyone into his private army.”

“It never seemed that way to me,” Iris commented.

“Of course not,” Bill laughed. “You and Parker somehow managed to set up your own chain of command. We figured it was only a matter of time before you and Theoday had to butt heads and we’d have our first war.”

“Hardly!” Park scoffed. “I don’t want Arn’s job and he wouldn’t be happy with mine. But I don’t think Arn ever really tried to rebuild the world we left. Our first priorities were to find comfortable shelter for our people, to explore the world we were in and to secure a reliable food supply. After that, well, it hardly matters. I told you how we met Marisea and her father. Even had Arn been doing as you say, everything changed then.”

“I will give you that, but we were already trekking across the plains by the time that happened,” Bill pointed out. “Our biggest fear was that you would find us and drag us back.”

“I did tell my explorers to keep an eye out for you,” Park admitted, “but we didn’t even know which way you had gone and so far as I was concerned, if you wanted out, you had the right. You left just as we were starting to discover some of the more dangerous critters Pangaea has to offer. My main concern was your survival. If we ever came close to you, you stayed well hidden.”