TIME AND TIME AGAIN The sequel to 3037 (12 page)

At one point I heard her say, “Oh!  Now I see where we went wrong…yes, that would work, I believe.  So, what we needed to do was to bring this pair around this way and under?”

I noticed that Seth had started calling her Foe, a short version of the name she had given us.  Now she said, “Will you all excuse me?  I’m going to call the others in.  I think we can make this work.”

After she left, Seth turned to us.  He was glowing with excitement, “Y’all can go on home if you want to.  This may take some time.  I have a feeling that they will work on this until it’s finished.”

I looked at Joe but, before I could answer, Foe came back in
,
bringing with her
three other adults
and a girl about Seth’s age.  She introduced them but their names were too long to remember.  I could see that we were going to have to rename them like I had with Joe’s people.

Seth smiled at the young girl and I looked at Joe.  He was grinning and he nodded to me.
  Foe motioned for us to follow the young girl, “We have stacked rooms and she will take you there.  Seth will work with us to build what he calls a
skywheel
.”

“Ashley and I appreciate it but we have our own place,” Joe said.

Foe shrugged and motioned for the young girl to leave
.  Before we were out of the room, Seth was bent over the plans for the
skywheel
and they were discussing it among themselves.

CHAPTER 23

Irene was sitting at the entrance of the cave waiting for us when we came up.  We all started talking at once.  Then we motioned for Irene to talk.

“The cave is acting weird.  Ever since you three left.  First the weather was so hot we all
ended up in the lakes and streams.  Then, all of a sudden, it started snowing just outside the city.  I thought I would freeze to death.

“A few minutes ago, it started moving sideways, like it was trying to sneak along the ground.  The movement was so slow I thought I was imagining it until s
ome of the others mentioned it. 
Then, a few minutes ago I thought it was taking off.  Instead, it raised itself up enough
to get the arm things out from under it.

“Now, every few minutes, it moves its arms round like it is searching for something.  It’s freaking everyone out and they all want to get out but I convinced them to wait and see what you have to report.  Where’s Seth, by the way?”

“He stayed to help them build a
skywheel
.  Wait
til
you see this place, Irene.”

She held up her hand, “Let’s get the others so you can tell everyone at once.”

We all gathered in the large room at the entrance of the cave and Joe and I shared what we had seen and learned.  Joe and I were so excited that we kept interrupting each other until Irene yelled, “Stop!  I can’t take much more of this.

“I think I can see what’s happening.  Has it occurred to anyone else?  Think about it: Another
c
ave, buildings like the ones fro
m Joe’s planet, our cave acting like a teenager with raging hormones.”

We sat looking at each other.  We were speechless.  Then I said slowly, “Our cave was trying to reach out to the other one like it knew the other one was near.
  I wish I could communicate directly with the cave.”

“I think you can, Ashley,” Irene said.  “Remember the time you went into the dark passageway between here and the city, alone and you got messages.  They weren’t words but impressions.  It was the first time we landed on earth.  You knew what we should do.  You need to go back into the dark passage again to get another message.”

I was silent, remembering the first time I had spent some time in the dark passage alone.  It was a very painful experience.  Not physically painful but emotionally painful.  I remembered that I had blacked out at one point.  It wasn’t an experience I wanted to repeat but I felt like I had to do it.

I stood up and everyone hugged me.  They all had tears in their eyes and I wished that they could go with me.

“We’ll be right her
e
, Ashley,” Joe whispered in my ear as he held me.  “I love you so much.  The
cave will not hurt you. 
You know that. 
Just have faith.”

I left for the dark passage and walking with slow steps.  Before, I had not known what it would be like to go through the turmoil but now I knew and I was hesitating.

I hadn’t made it to the center of the passage when I started getting so many messages that I fell to my knees and grabbed my head, “Please,” I said, “It’s too much too fast.  I feel overwhelmed.”

The voices and sensations stopped abruptly and then I heard a whisper.  The voice was soothing, “I am not a cave.  I am more like what you call your jellyfish in your ocean on earth.  I tried to relate to one once but it was impossible.  It was too stupid.

“I am eight thousand years old.  I have been alone for almost all of those years, roaming the galaxies, trying to find others like me.  I thought I was the last of my line and have been taking other beings and trying to fulfill their needs so they will not leave me.

“I left you on earth for a
time because I thought I knew where I could find others of my kind.  I was wrong and so I came back to get you.

“There is another who is similar to me but he will try to trick you.  That’s how you ended up in
all those different universes.  I have tried to give you what you need to be happy.  I did not want to be alone anymore.

“Seth wanted to build a
skywheel
and that’s why I brought him here.  I had no idea that there was another one like me here.  It’s a miracle.  I can see her but I can’t quite reach her.  She is beautiful

“I need to uproot and move gently so that you all will be safe.  Tell the others that we aren’t leaving.  I just need to move closer.  I need her or I will die.”

A sweet peace swept over me and I knew we needed to help this creature.  He had been so good to us.  I was thinking all this but didn’t have to verbalize it.  He said, “Thank you, Ashley.  I still need you humans and I will continue to provide for you, but I want to stay here
for awhile
.  I’m so old and so tired.  Do you understand?  I know you do.  Thank you so much for the companionship you’ve given me.  Oh, you’re welcome.”

He was carrying on a conversation with me but I didn’t have to verbalize anything.
  He was getting answers right out of my mind.

I was going to ask him what we should call him and he said, “I am Homan.  Call me that from now on.  I am not a cave.”

CHAPTER 24

When I came out of the dark passageway, everyone looked up.  Joe came over and hugged me, “You look beautiful, radiant, Ashley.  You were gone so long.  What happened?”

By now everyone was in the entrance room of the cave and they were all asking questions at once.

I held up my hand, “I need to get someth
ing to
drink and then I
will tell you everything I learned.”

Marion brought lemonade and we all settled back on the spheres and got relaxed.

I took a big swallow, “First, he is not a cave.  His name is Homan and he is more like a jellyfish than anything else.  He is very old and very lonely.  He thou
ght he was the last of his kind
and he connected to us, giving us everything we needed so that we would stay with him.

“When he left us on earth, it was because he thought he knew where he could find another like himself.  He was mistaken and so he came back for us.”  I finished off my lemonade and caught my breath.

For some reason, I didn’t want to go into the other evil thing that had messed our lives up in New Orleans.  I was wondering how to skip over that and still make sense when Irene said, “Just tell us what he wants now, Ashley.”

I shrugged and said, “He’s in love.”

There was a lot of talking at one time and I held up my hand, “He came here because he wanted Seth to meet these people so he could build his
skywheel
.  He didn’t realize there was another being like him
self
here.  He said he
could see her but not touch her.  H
e tried to feel for her but was unable to.  He tried to move sideways but he upset everyone.

“He wants to uproot just long enough to move over close to her.  He assured me that he would not leave.  He just needs to uproot and move close to her.”

“That’s good,” Joe said.   “That way we won’t have to look f
or the other cave, uh, sorry Ho
man.”

I looked around and didn’t see Seth, “Seth hasn’t gotten back yet?” I asked.

“Someone asking about me?”
Seth said as he walked up to the entrance of the cave and I had never seen him look so happy.

He looked around and asked, “What’s going on?”

We filled him in and he grinned from ear to ear, “The only thing that would now make everything perfect is for us to find Josie again.  Hey Irene, guess what.  We have the
skywheel
designed and a prototype already made.  No one want
s
to try it out and Foe is asking for volunteers.  These folks are on the ball.

“I wonder if they sleep.  It seems like they work all the time.  So, what do you think, Irene?  I’ll do it if you don’t want to.”

She didn’t hesitate, “I think I should be the one to try it out.  I’m an old lady and if something goes wrong, I’ve lived
a good life or I should say
lif
es
.  You have your whole life ahead of you.  Besides, since it was my idea, I should be the one to go.

“So, when is the test day?”

“It’s now.  They don’t wait
til
tomorrow, ever.  Let’s all go down and watch.”

There was an empty field not far from the cave
and, as we walked toward it, Homa
n uprooted and became transparent and rose up and started the swimming motion.  It moved a few yards over and settled back down next to another cave-like creature.

The people on this planet didn’t seem to notice, they were so focused on the
skywheel
.  They were circling around it and talking in excited voices. 
When we got to where they were, they finally noticed us and Foe asked, “Which one of you is going to test it?”

Irene stepped forward
and they all stared at her
.  “Why are you still here?” Foe asked.  “You are old.  You should have left a long time age.”

They all gathered around Irene like she was something they had never seen before and I suddenly realized that I hadn’t seen any old people here.

Foe gently put her hand on Irene’s shoulder and spoke kindly to her, “You are past production age.  You don’t have to do any more.  We’ll let Seth test the
skywheel
and then we will take
you to the village for the tired
people.  You’ll love it there.  You don’t have to do anything.  Then when you want to terminate we will help you with that too.  Would you like that?”

“Hell, no I wouldn’t like that.  What’s with you people?  You think that I need to be put out to pasture just because I’m older than you?  What kind of place is this?”

I had never seen Irene that angry.  She ranted and raved for some time and the whole time Foe and her people looked totally confused.  They stood and watched her until she started toward the
skywheel
.  She got inside and started the thing up. 
The motor was quiet.  It looked a lot like pictures I had seen of a flying saucer, in the first life I remembered, on covers of comic books.

When the thing lifted off the ground, it did so in a graceful movement similar to the way Homan landed, in a sort of rocking motion. 
We started clapping and I noticed that Foe’s people were slapping the sides of their faces.  I guessed it was their way of clapping.

Irene put on quite a show and I think it
was
partly because she wanted to show them how productive she still was.  She made the thing tilt sideways and shoot straight up in the air and then dive straight down so low that I thought she was going to crash.  She saved it just in t
ime and then, from then on out
it looked like a Frisbee that someone was throwing in the park.

When she landed she slide the thing in sideways and it reminded me of a baseball player sliding into home plate.

“Whew,” She said when she got out.  “Seth, you are a genius.  Why that thing is better than ten of the one I used to have.  I don’t see any problems with it except the slow rocking motion during takeoff, but I think I could have han
dled that better.  That might just
be me, trying to
get used to it again.”

She turned to Foe, “
How non-productive is that, honey?”  She walked off toward Homan without waiting for a reply.