Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

[Continued from Part One,   Part Two,   Part Three,   Part Four,   Part Five,   Part Six,   Part Seven,   Part Eight,   Parts Nine, Ten, & Eleven,   part Twelve,   part Thirteen,   part Fourteen,   part Fifteen,   part Sixteen &Seventeen,   Title and Art Contest,   part Eighteen,   part Nineteen,   part Twenty,   part Twenty-one]

"The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest, but if it is judged worthy by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the understanding of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content."
—Thucydides, History of the Peloponessian War, circa 404 BC

A Gathering Storm

"Would you please pass the pork?" asked Tyrone at supper.  Eleven people were seated around a large dining table.   To his left were Pete Williams, Clementine Watson, Bill Watson, Mary Sue Watson, and at the far end Bob Nolan.  Next to Bob was his son Little Bob, Sam Smith, then Bob's daughters Amy and Kathy, and finally Susan Nolan was to Tyrone's immediate right.

Clementine picked up a big serving dish of barbecued pork and handed it to Pete, then asked, "Do you like my pig, Mr. Johnson?"

Tyrone smiled, claimed the serving dish from Pete who had passed it along, and said, "Please, call me Ty, or Tyrone.  Yes, I do, it's delicious!"

Bill grunted briefly and said, "When I first laid eyes on you, it crossed my mind that you were Jewish."

Helping himself to a big portion of pork and passing the serving dish to Susan on his right, Tyrone nodded.  Then he looked down the table at Bill and grinned.  "Yep.  My dad's mom was Jewish.  Their family came on a ship from Hamburg, Germany in 1870.  Before the Panama Canal.  Rounded South America and docked in San Francisco.  They were in hotels in Glendale, California until the crash of 1929.  His dad was Episcopalian.  My mom's parents were Baptist and Catholic.  I think, though, her Catholic family were conversos in Germany, many generations ago.  I myself am of the people known as Quakers, who call ourselves the Religious Society of Friends."

Bill nodded.  "That's a long way to come.  Your dad's mom's people must have been getting away from Bismarck ahead of the Franco-Prussian war."

It was Tyrone's turn to nod.  "Yes, Bill, that's right.  And, funny story, my mom's dad's family, the Riesers of St. Louis, descend from a man who also fled the same war.  Her dad's grandfather was living in the Alsace province on the family farm when soldiers showed up in May of 1870.  The French army took all the horses, but left the mules so the farm could continue to provide food.   Their 19-year-old son was also taken, drafted.  But, since he knew how to ride and care for horses, they made him a lieutenant in their cavalry."

Bob looked down the table, "I haven't heard this story, Ty.  What happened?"

Tyrone smiled and continued, "Well, Bob, my great-great grandfather Joseph Rieser didn't mind when they assigned him to train fifty men.  He taught them how to ride, how to care for their mounts, made sure they fed and groomed their animals before eating themselves.  Then they received their rousing speech from one of the generals, and, after the speech, Joe was told that his unit was singled out for special glory.  On the first day of battle, he was to lead his men in a glorious cavalry charge against the Prussian cannon!"

Bill and Bob both looked at their plates.  Pete looked off into the kitchen fireplace which still held most of the wild boar they were eating.  Ty had stopped smiling.  There was a silence.

Little Bob looked around the table at the silent and grim-faced adults.  "You mean, the horses and men would all be blown apart by the Prussian artillery, don't you?"

Ty looked at him and nodded.  "That's right, LB.  So, the night before the big battle, he led his troops to their assigned bivouac where they made camp.  Then, instead of getting up at first light, he woke himself two hours earlier.  He saddled his horse and took a spare, and made his way through northern France and Belgium, riding the rest of the night and through the morning.  Since he wore an officer's uniform and carried his satchel on his saddle horn, whenever he was challenged he would wave the satchel, shout 'messages for the ambassador' and gallop away from the checkpoint.  Leading a spare horse emphasised this pretence that he was a courier.  The Belgians and the Dutch let him cross their borders on the theory that a diplomatic courier for the French ambassador in the Hague should not be delayed."

Tyrone paused to drink a small amount of red wine.  Then he looked up at Little Bob and said, "Once he as in Holland, of course, he headed for Amsterdam, not the Hague.  It took him altogether three days to get there.  He sold the horses and saddle, bought himself some clothes in a second hand shop, and took passage to New York.  While he was waiting for his ship to board passengers, Joe bought a French-language newspaper and a French-English phrase book.  The newspaper confirmed his fears.  It held a report from the front.   His entire unit had been wiped out, every single man listed as killed in action.  So Joe decided not to write home until he got to New York.  He did keep the cavalry sword, though, which hung over my grandfather's mantle when I was a child.  On the sea voyage, he taught himself English by reading the phrase book and talking with the other passengers in steerage."

Kathy looked up at this word. "What's steerage? " she asked.

Amy interjected, "That was the cheapest way to travel by boat back then.  There was a small part of a ship's deck where they could take the air, mostly they were in the hold of the ship, bunk rooms and little privacy.  But cheerful about getting across the ocean."

Amy looked over at Tyrone. She added, "Your ancestor was conserving his money, not travelling in a second class berth. "

Tyrone nodded.  "That's right, Amy.  When he got out to Missouri, he bought a city lot in St. Louis.  Set up a livery stable.  Made a good living, doing what he knew."

Amy nodded, "Ty, do you mind saying more about the mural downstairs?  Clem was saying earlier how you thought it was too optimistic or something."

Tyrone looked at Clementine, smiled, and looked back, saw that Kathy was also attentive so he smiled at her before addressing Amy. "It isn't exactly that the mural is too optimistic, only that it shows the ascent of human progress from Stone Age culture through modern times and on to our contemporary culture.  That is quite correct and accurate for the part of the story it shows.  But there have been a great many human civilisations on Earth over the last 420,000 years."

There was again a silence.  Bob smiled down the table. "Now, this one I have heard!  You mean ancient Mu and ancient Atlantis and so forth, right?"

Tyrone had taken up his fork to eat more, and simply nodded.  Since he had adroitly put fork to mouth while Bob was talking, he now had the excuse not to talk with his mouth full.

Mary Sue looked up and frowned. "Atlantis! We were taught in school that's a myth, just a story one of those old Greek philosophers made up to support his ideology about hierarchy.  Plato, wasn't it."

Tyrone had used these moments to swallow his food and sip from his water glass.  Progressing through meals was often challenging when he was expected to share his knowledge, but he was quite used to it. 

Wiping his mouth with his napkin, Tyrone continued, "That was the view not so long ago, but people also thought there had been no human settlement of North America prior to the Clovis culture of 13,000 years ago.  In fact, there were two very serious impact events that bracketed a cooling period that lasted a thousand years or so.  One asteroid or comet struck the Laurentide ice sheet in Greenland, and put so many ice crystals in the air that there was a global cooling event.   The other impact hit the ocean and raised global temperatures catastrophically 11,600 years ago.  In a few short weeks, all of the ice melted off the Cordilleran, Laurentide, and European ice sheets.  Sea level rose by hundreds of feet."

It was Bill's turn to wipe his mouth with his napkin. Then he said, "A few short weeks.  Maybe ... forty days and forty nights?"

Tyrone nodded.  He was again keeping himself fed during this discussion.  After a few moments he said, "Yes, the story of Noah.  Which is very close to the same story told in ancient Sumeria in the epic of Gilgamesh.  It is also a story told on this continent by several of the native peoples.  A great flood took place.   Globally, about 90% of the population still lives within 100 miles of the coast, many inland are on rivers that would become tidal bores in a tsunami or in a general rise of sea levels.  Here in North America, one of those impact events, probably the earlier not only changed the climate, it created a firestorm that raged across the forests and slaughtered most of the megafauna that used to live here.  Of course, the ash and smoke from all those fires helped reduce sunlight reaching the ground, adding to the cooling effects. Most of the people, too.  Whatever civilisations were on Earth were devastated by these events, of course.  We fell back, and not for the first time."

Again there was a silence.  Susan looked at Tyrone's plate, which was still the fullest of those around the table.   So she said, "Well, if we go back from 11,600 years ago to an even earlier cataclysm, there was a super-volcano that went off in what is now Indonesia, that was about 73,000 years ago.  I read that book you sent to Bob as a pdf, all about ancient Mu.  And how the Greek alphabet tells the story of the destruction of Mu.  That would have been over 100,000 years ago when it was around.  Back then, there was land between New Guinea and Australia, and up into Malaysia."

Tyrone nodded.  He had finally cleaned his plate of food.  Looking down the table he saw that Mary Sue was already up clearing the plates from in front of herself and Bill.  Clementine took her own plate and Pete's, whereupon Tyrone stood up and took his plate and Susan's.  Within a few minutes, half the table had cleared all the dining places.  The rest of the group grabbed up serving dishes, hauling them to the kitchen counters.  Now Mary Sue brought out two blueberry pies from one of the ovens.  These were taken to a counter, sliced and served, and Little Bob pulled a half gallon tub of vanilla ice cream from one of the freezers.  Soon everyone was seated again and enjoying pie a la mode, coffee, and milk.  These activities were given a suitable attention without further discussion.

Finishing his pie, Bob leaned back from the table and looked at Mary Sue. "That was delicious, thank you."  There followed a chorus of gratitude from everyone around the table. 

Bob looked at Tyrone and said, "So, what you're saying suggests that all the stories we have in our mythologies, the flying craft the Egyptians and Homer and the ancient Hindus talk about, the portals the Sumerians described, the powerful beings and the terrible demons, all of these tales have elements of truth within them."

Tyrone nodded.  "Yes, Bob, that's right.  We live at a time when mankind is once again powerful and, clearly, is once more being tested.  I believe Mu was destroyed because it was corrupt.  Atlantis was destroyed because it was very aggressive, and seemed to be especially violent toward children.  Parts of our world have descended into tyranny, slavery, and child sacrifice.  Today, we did what we could to fight back.  But, as you know, there is a storm gathering against us."

Bill stood up.  "Well, since we've finished dessert, I'd like to convene the council of war.  Shall we light up the screens and see who has connected?"

A general chorus of assent followed.

Council of War

There were no windows in the Nolan lab, because it was entirely underground.  It had power from a natural gas well, water from the spring-fed stream through the cavern Pete and Tyrone had come through, and a buried fibre optic cable connecting to a modest industrial building in Newport many miles away, which had various connections to the Internet by cable, satellite, and dirigible.

Bob and Bill worked the tech side of things, getting all the view screens turned on.  Tyrone, Mary Sue, Susan, Clementine, and the children arranged furniture.  Soon they were all gathered in a semi-circle around a set of screens.  Four militia teams were represented by their senior officers.

Bill took the lead to introduce David Bradford, Wendy Miller, Aaron Bartlett, and Juan Perez to the assembled crew in Bob's lab.   After some brief exchanges of pleasantry, Wendy Miller cleared her throat.

"You folks won't mind," she said, "if we get to the business at hand.  My husband Phil was killed in a firefight in Princeton, West Virginia earlier today.  I'll have to go soon.  Our children need me."

Tyrone nodded, "Yes, Wendy, we understand.  You have our condolences of course.  Phil was a good man.  He'll be missed.  I'm hoping we can start with the analysis Aaron sent along of the images and video Bob took from that encounter in Maryland. "

Aaron spoke up, saying, "There are a number of things about those events that are quite odd.  As you all saw, there was nothing at the site to support the output end of that portal.  So it was remotely projected to that location.  We've no idea how.  There was an enormous amount of energy coming through from the other side which seems to have created a sort of quantum teleportation tunnel.  Its macroscopic proportions are, as you know, unprecedented.  Bob's scans in x-ray and other frequencies of light showed the power concentrated in that glowing object at the centre of the field of view through the portal.  However, something screened off that energy from affecting the beings that appeared there.  Whatever that screen was became overloaded by the detonation of that power reactor, or whatever it was."

Aaron paused and looked at his own various screens in his home office.  He sipped some water.  Then he continued, "As well, there was something extremely odd about those staves.  The one with the loop must have extended a great distance to reach Little Bob the way it did.  I've done some frame grabs, and you can see that happening as the staff is pointed toward LB.  The loop of the ankh expands and contracts, almost as if the staff was a living object.  I would love to know more about how it was made.  Or even what it was made of."

There was a silence all around the gathered leaders.  

Tyrone broke the silence, saying, "Their faces were familiar to me.  This evening, I was able to find some images from ancient Egypt of Bastet or Baast as they would have said, that seem similar.  Human bodies, cat-like faces.  Wherever they are from, whatever place is on the other side of that portal, they seemed aware of everything on our side, possibly before they even opened the portal.  That suggests either some surveillance technologies, or some remote viewing capability."

"Aaron," said Pete, "Can you estimate how much energy was involved from the scans Bob took?  The reason I'm asking is that it might be possible to estimate how far away their side of the portal could be, based on what we know of quantum entanglement principles."

Aaron was shaking his head.  "No," he replied, "I'm sorry, but most of that energy was dampened or shielded by whatever was protecting those mystery beings from it.  That's a really good thing, though, because everyone on our side of the portal would have been fried if they had been directly exposed to all the energy involved.  As it is, everyone picked up about twenty rad in the second after that reactor device was hit and before the portal blew apart.   We have no idea what principles were used to create those shields - possibly electromagnetic, possibly some sort of insulating aerogel.  Their cloaks might have been part of a system of different kinds of shielding.  The most advanced quantum teleportation experiments we've done extended just over 300 kilometres, but with nothing like these macroscopic effects.  It's all a house of cards built on sand, speculations layered on speculations at this point."

Tyrone said, "Well, that brings us to the other happy news.  Pete and I were shot down by sky rods during our trip here.  Our approach to this area in response to Bob's request that we come as fast as possible clearly has drawn attention to this location.   We're pretty well shielded, but those owner military units that were on the Interstates earlier today seem to have been deployed to this region for the purpose of seeking us out.  Of perhaps greater significance, we have very limited space capabilities with which to fight back."

David Bradford spoke up, "Well, colonel, that's about to change.  We have a series of launches planned for tonight from alliance units in the Rockies and Andes.  Twenty space vehicles are going up, with an average of three people in each one.  We were able to track the orbiting platforms that targeted your hypersonic vehicle.   The trajectories of their sky rods pointed right back at them, of course.  By this time tomorrow, our teams should be able to rendezvous and get hands on up there."

Tyrone raised his eyebrows and turned to Bob.  "Bob, you didn't tell me these launches were in the offing."

Bob shook his head and gave a chagrined smile.  "That's because they weren't.  We had to speed up our timeline because of all of today's events.  Otherwise we risk losing some of the launch sites to enemy action.  It wasn't just your trip here.   All the attacks we made on the slave camps have stirred up hornets' nests from sea to shining sea."

[End part twenty-two, continues in part twenty-three]

 

Jim Davidson is an author, entrepreneur, actor, and director.  He is the cfo of KanehCN3.com and the vision director of HoustonSpaceSociety.net  You can find him on Twitter.com/planetaryjim as well as Pocket.app and Flote.app also as planetaryjim.  He appreciates any support you can provide as times are very difficult.  See the Paypal link on this page, or Flote.app for crypto options. Or email your humble author to offer other choices.  Please visit Kaneh's IndieGoGo and please help him get to Paradox Colorado with a small gift if you are able.