Chapter 3.1

The first trip to the surface of the planet was interesting. In the lander was Rhoda at the controls, John, Marc, and me.

Marc was an expert in engineering and scanners. So was John, and I was an apprentice at both. I was sitting at the scanners for this trip, and John and Marc were watching to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

We weren’t using our radios because the gas that wasn’t palatable to human life also scattered the signals. At ten feet away, it would be as if you were thousands of miles away. It just wasn’t effective.

Line of sight was about the only way we could search, so we weren’t expecting much. We were shocked when we came through the cloud cover to see some kind of vehicle moving on the ground.

I pointed it out to Marc, who was babysitting me at the scanners at that moment. John came over and stared at the screen. It wasn’t like any earthbound vehicle, but a moment later, we received a call on our radio. What kind of power they were using to boost their signal was beyond any of us.

“Rover 15 to Neo22 lander. Are you receiving us?”

They were one of us! John quickly keyed the mic. “We’re receiving you, Rover 15.”

Again we heard, “Rover 15 to Neo22 lander. Are you receiving us?” I guess our transmitter just didn’t have the power for this environment.

Rhoda got us done to within a hundred feet and used an old, universal signal and waggled our wings.

“Once more if you are receiving us?”

As John attempted to answer, She did it again.

“We definitely heard you key your mic that time, but your voice was too faint. Come into half your distance and try again?”

We did and they heard! “Are we able to dock at your facilities?”

“Yes, we have provisions for it. If you follow us, we’ll be glad to meet with you.”

“We were just on a scouting trip. We’ll return to our ship and get our commander and a few other people and return.”

“That’s not a problem.”

They gave us redezvouz coordinates then Rhoda spun us around and we hurried back out of the atmosphere. John signaled our ship, and we prepared to pick up a few more people, including Carla and Paula.

A little while later, we were seated in a conference room. Paula and Gina were wondering if the governor of this city would be someone they knew.

The city was quite interesting. It was underwater, and their vehicles were designed to be able to drive straight in. There was a snorkel that broke the surface not far from the airlock.

The door to the room opened and a man walked in. Paula saw him and exclaimed, “Rick!”

Gina quietly explained that Rick Johnson had been the man she appointed commander of Centaurus when she left on Neo22.

“Hello, Paula.” He smiled and looked around the room. Is Fredrik on the ship?”

She sadly nodded. “Yes. He’s buried there.”

Rick frowned. “I’m so sorry to hear that. He was a great man.”

“Thank you.”

Rick and his entourage sat down across from us and introduced his people. He was accompanied by his wife Marcy, his chief engineer Doug Hillman, and Boris Ho, his finest doctor.

"As you probably guessed, I'm the mayor of this city, Atlantis."

"Atlantis," I asked?

Paula had not introduced us yet, so the mayor of this city gave me a curious look.

"I should probably introduce my people." She indicated me; "This is Rose Carlson."

Rick's mouth dropped open for a moment. "So you found them!" He looked at the rest of us, as Paula finished introducing them.

"John Carlson, Marc and Carla Dodson, Jack and Sylvia Hurst, our doctors, my husband, Winston Reese, and of course you know my daughters, Gina and Rhoda.

"Carla is an engineer, and Winston a jack of all trades."

"It's a pleasure," he told us. "I'm guessing that you are wondering what happened to our ship." I know Paula and I both nodded. "It was so stupid." He sighed and took a deep breath. "You remember that we used some older computers to be a spare if something happened to our main one?"

"Yes," Paula told him.

"Well, when we backed up our information to it one day, it must have written some kind of virus into our mainframe. Our nanites started messing with us again."

"'Total Fun'," I said quietly.

"No, Mrs. Carlson. Much worse. It was fear, yes, but rather than selectively fearing other genders, we were afraid of everyone else. We all entered into a murderous frenzy. Most of us killed people outright during that time.

"I locked myself into the command center for safety. Finally, I was able to realize that I shouldn't be afraid of all these people. It was so hard. I knew it, and I knew this was all Wallace's doing, but it was a fight the whole way.

"I eventually realized what had happened and prepared to turn off the computers. We were already close to the planet, so I waited until we were close enough to the planet to make it with the air we had left. Of course, gravity and heat went off as well.

"When I turned them off, all of us passed out. When I awoke, I was still afraid, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been. It slowly dissipated, and we were finally able to think rationally. I opened the door to the command center and allowed others in. We decided that we had to risk the landers. Hopefully, their computers weren't affected.

"We shuttled the people down and realized that to raise kids, we would have to build some kind of sealed habitat. We originally built one on land, but we found that the gas was generated by radiation entering the atmosphere. It was good that we had nanites as they kept us safe as we worked.

"The only animal life is in the water, so we moved our habitat underwater. We've been here ever since."

"Why didn't you reprogram… oh, yeah," Winston cut off his question when he remembered our problem years ago" When we reprogrammed our computers was when the ‘fun’ began.

Rick nodded. "We looked at the ROMs. There was nothing on them anymore. Somehow, they had been wiped. We had no way of turning our computers back on."

"How many were killed?" Gina asked.

"Almost half of us."

"Oh no!" I had gotten much better since my sessions with Mara, but my feelings were still near the surface at all times. John put an arm around me and I fought to keep the tears from welling up.

"How long have you been here?" Marc asked. “On the planet, I mean.”

"About seventy-five thousand years."

A few weeks later, John and I were sitting on our porch swing, relaxing. We had discussed things we could give Atlantis and they had things to give us in exchange.

One of our best contributions was Trent Carr's wonderful holographic illusions. The people of Atlantis had nothing like it. One of their engineers had been working on shaped fields, however. It was something that Trent had been trying to incorporate into his illusions, to allow them to feel solid. He had limited success, but the two spent a few weeks together and came up with a working, if somewhat crude version.

While I loved the idea, I was a bit disconcerted about grass that crackled as you walked through it. Although they were trying, they hadn’t been able to make the field react to physical objects. They could make a shirt, for example, but it would be a cage rather than a garment. Any skirt would become a hobble skirt simply because it wouldn’t move as you walked. The grass was a bed of nails if the field was too powerful. A building could be made, and very effectively. The only concern with that was a power fluctuation allowing someone to slip partially through a wall. If the field came on with someone where the wall was supposed to be... Well, you get the idea.

It was a step in the right direction, but couldn't be used practically for the moment.

We were able to give extremely powerful computers that should be impervious to Wallace's interference. The Centaurans helped us increase the power of our radios very efficiently and effectively.

We offered a place on our ship for all those in Atlantis, but few accepted. They had been there for a long time, and most had no wish to go on. It was a successful colony, no matter what happened to us.

In the end, about a hundred people added to our population. We would eventually come back here if we didn't find any other place to settle. Our primary motive for going on was the question of what had happened to the nineteen other ships. Were they afflicted by the same problems? Did their people start killing each other as the Centaurans had done?

In reality though, we had spent so much time aboard our ship that it was strange to leave it. We had become travellers. Explorers who wanted to discover what had become of the rest of humanity, although some of our people decided to stay and become Centaurans. Not many, however. It was pretty much an equal exchange.

If we found them, and they needed or desired it, we could offer sanctuary. While our ship’s space was not infinite, we had enough to take on more passengers. We could conceivably take on another ten ships worth of people without modifying our interior beyond building new homes.

John, Rik, Frieda, and I were working feverishly to make a banquet for the leaders of Atlantis. Once things were going smoothly, John and I hurried and changed so we could sit down along with the higher-ups in both communities. I was sorry that I couldn’t sit with my sisters, but each of us had our own table of people to keep entertained.

After the dinner, which I was pleased to note, everyone seemed to enjoy, I had a light jazz band play for dancing and background music. I had worked with them from their inception as a group, and they performed flawlessly.

Somewhere during the evening, I found myself dancing with Rick Carr. I must say, he was an excellent dancer, but I was looking forward to getting back to John. While we were dancing, I said to Rick, “I really wanted to know why you chose the name Atlantis for your city.”

He chuckled as he told me, “It was really somewhat of a joke. You see, I’m from the eastern seaboard of North America. The area where Atlanta Georgia used to sit. As such, our land-based habitat was called Atlanta.” He looked a bit embarrassed as he said, “I guess the people wanted to honor me, their commander, and now governor. When we moved underwater, someone joked that Atlanta was becoming Atlantis. It had a dual meaning. One, that the city had sunk under the water, and two, they sounded so much alike. The name simply stuck.”

I laughed as well. “That is wonderful!” I said. “Who came up with that joke?"

He looked somewhat sheepish before answering, "Umm… I did."

I couldn’t help it. I lost it. I laughed like I hadn’t in a long time. I'm certain that people were staring at me, but it was as if something had broken loose and I couldn’t stop it.

Finally, I was able to calm down, and I sat down with my husband. Rick sat across the table from me, and he explained to John what I was laughing at. John laughed as well, but I don't think he found it nearly as funny as I did.

I had found a release, though. Somehow, I felt so much better after laughing that hard. I know I probably looked quite silly to all those people, but to me, it felt like something I had needed for a long time.

Eventually, things wound down, and John and I found Frieda and went home.

On the way home, Frieda kept looking at me strangely. Finally, I asked her what was wrong.

"You embarrassed me tonight."

"Oh?"

"You were out on the dance floor and burst out laughing."

"In the first place, it wasn't a dance floor; it was a street. How can it be a floor when you're outside? In the second place, why should I, being happy, embarrass you?"

"You were dancing with a strange man, whom you aren't married to, and you seem happier than you've ever been!" With that, she took off running to the house.

I didn't know how to react. There was nothing between Rick Carr and me. For goodness sake, John had danced with Marcy, Rick's wife. What did I do wrong?

We stepped into the house and I started to go toward Frieda's room. John stopped me. "Let me talk to her, Rose. Okay?"

I was shocked. My mouth dropped open and I couldn't seem to get any sound out.

John kissed me on the forehead. "Please?"

I stared at him dumbly for a moment. I couldn't decide if I should scream at him, or acquiesce. Finally I just nodded and walked back out to the porch and almost fell into it.

I felt guilty because I wasn't crying. I still felt like something had released, and even though my daughter and I were apparently having a fight, I felt better than I had in years – For centuries!

My mind kept searching for what had happened to me. Why did that laugh break something free? I backed up for a moment. Broke free! That's what it felt like. Like I had finally broken free of the depression.

I wasn't naive enough to think I was free of the depression permanently, but I felt like I had passed a milestone.

"Mom?" It was my daughter's voice, sounding unusually timid.

"Yes, Sweetheart?"

"I'm sorry."

I held out my arm and she sat down beside me. I put my arm around her and told her it was alright. I was still unsure of what I had done, but I figured I could get the details from John.

It was strange holding my little girl as we sat in the swing. She was in her fifties now, and I was around eleven hundred. To anyone who saw us, we would like two siblings, maybe even twins. We looked very much like me. She had my build, honey blonde hair, and my face, but John's eyes. Those beautiful brown eyes of his! If anyone were to compare their eyes, there would be no doubt they were related.

The swing slowly moved back and forth, and she softly cried. I wasn't sure if it was embarrassment or shame making her cry, but rather than hurt her trying to figure it out, I just held her.