Scholar Arrive to Help, An Attack Foiled…
The early morning sun lit up the workroom as Simon and his crew introduced the visitors from Refugio to the mass of papers they had found. The windows were a mixture of crab glass and sand glass, so the room was filled with a distorted but bright light. The scholars from Refugio were like children offered sweets Simon whispered to Sarita as they passed out extra paper and pencils. The men were constantly making notes and consulting with each other. They had been joined by a couple of instructors from the university.
“The old books we found with descriptions of how it was like on Terra before we left seem more real now,” one of the Utopian instructors said. “I had been told that it was fiction, and they didn’t have vehicles that flew above the mountains. The story my great-grandfather told of riding to Refugio in an airplane was just a bedtime story, not true. Now, I find it is not only possible, but his story was true. Here is a report of it happening.”
***
The peaceful investigation was interrupted by a crowd yelling about an abomination. They were carrying small pots of oil and censors of hot coals. They ordered the people working in the room to get out.
“All this must be destroyed before it destroys our civilization!” They approached the stacks of papers with their pots of oil and stood there waiting for the people to leave before they began burning the documents. When the people in the room recognized the hesitation, they quickly began blocking them and yanking the pots out of their hands. The invading elders seemed startled that they were getting resistance. The Rangers arrived and the pots of oil and the hot coals were collected and taken out of the building. The invaders were escorted out.
The Refugio scholars were shocked but unhurt by the invasion of angry men and women. It was obvious no one had any intention of doing damage to the people in the room. They wanted to destroy the maps and boxes of papers. The assault on any form of information was more of a shock than any personal danger the scholars felt. Simon was almost in tears. “Gentlemen, please forgive us. I have no idea what got into these people.”
“Papa, haven’t we dealt with these people every single rotation? Mama Morianan told us that the previous families converted just about everything to manual,” Sarita said. “I am old enough to remember the problems we had when we followed them to Twenty-Two?”
“Well, yes, you are right. I try to forget,” Simon sighed. “I didn’t realize it was an indication of the way they view our society. I just thought they were just foolish. I didn’t realize they were serious about this.”
“Is this widespread?” One of the scholars asked.
“Not really, there are only three families that have the reputation of being backward,” Sarita said.
“Not backward, Sarita,” Simon scolded her. “They want to preserve what the Founders wanted. It didn’t work even in the beginning, but sadly, they keep trying.”
***
As the day wore on in the workroom, Simon began to realize that the maps and reports held a treasure trove of information, just as he had expected. One of the visitors seemed emotionally upset so Sarita approached him and quietly asked if she could be of help.
“Sera Morales, all my life I struggled to learn what these terms meant and fought my teachers saying that it was totally useless to learn them. I so wish I could speak to my science teacher and ask forgiveness. He was correct, the day has come when what he insisted I learn is useful.”
“Does he still live?” she said softly to protect his feelings.
“No, Sera, he long ago joined the ancestors, but he was correct. With what he taught me, I can see here are the places where we can find the metals we need to make repairs to the electronics. I have much to do.” He turned back to the thick stack of printouts and began again to copy the locations of possible minerals. Each of the scholars, both the visitors and the Utopians had a similar reaction. There was so much they had not known; so much they now needed to do; all to help the settlements survive.
***
Prince Sean heard the yelling in the hall. His security detail was trying to keep a group of angry people from invading his office. He had already been alerted that they had invaded the workroom where Simon and his helpers were introducing the Refugio scholars to the maps and reports from the shipping containers. It had been all they were able to do to keep the invaders from setting the building on fire. The traditionalists he had thrown out of his office the previous week were back with reinforcements. Fortunately, bows and arrows were not good weapons at close quarters.
“I will see the prince!” Lord Ludden, one of the elderly men he had met with the week before pushed past one of the guards. The guards were having problems not hurting the elderly men who were in charge of the invaders. At least some of the old traditions were being honored, Sean thought, respect for your elders.
“We demand you stop this abomination,” Lord Ludden was getting very red in the face and panting. That was all I need Sean thought, have the old man die of a heart seizure here in my office.
“Lord Ludden, please calm yourself. I have called for a healer.” Sean grabbed a chair and set it behind the angry old man.
“We warned you that what you are proposing will cause the people to rise up against you. Now you see they have.” The old man almost collapsed into the chair. The security let him know it was mostly older men, but from several families. “We have most of the members of the Thomas More society here to stop this change before it permanently damages our settlement.”
“My lord, we published the results of the election to make the changes we have made, and it was almost universally positive. More’s book describes voting as part of the freedom in society. As for the storage containers, we need to know what kinds of resources we have on this planet and where they are. Returning us to More’s time is just not possible.” Shouting began outside the building, “Free Lord Ludden! Free Lord Murphy!”
“More was right, to be authentically human, we must free ourselves from these machines!” The healers entered the room and immediately began calming the elderly lords.
“Lord Johnson, we have several of the crowd who have collapsed. These old men should not be doing this!”
“I fully agree, I do not wish anyone injury, but these elders will not listen.” Sean had reports from the security that the workroom had been cleared and nothing was damaged except the pride of the men and women invaders.
***
“So that is where the air car hanger came from!” one of the visiting scholars said. “I have had students question about it and wonder why we don’t have more like it. I wonder if there is more of that building material hidden around here like these electronics.”
“It is a part of our history that is not widely known,” Lord Kelly came into the room on the arm of his grandson. “I have come to apologize to our visitors, Lord Kearney.”
“Lord Kelly, I don’t think that is necessary,” Simon said.
“Of course it is necessary, Simon Kearney, I am the leader of the Thomas More Society here on Higgins.” Simon grabbed a chair from the edge of the room for the elder who waved it away.
Lord Kelly rapped his can on the floor to get the attention of all in the room. Simon wished he could warn the visitors. Lord Kelly, as one of the oldest settlers, could be very long winded. Today, he explained that the original settlers had few members of the NeoUtopian Society. It took so long to raise the financing for the planet that most of those people had died. A small group had preserved the goals of the Society. They recruited people who wanted to live a simpler life of farming and stock raising. Few of those recruited even knew about the original goal of the NeoUtopians. They agreed to the Charter to get a place on the transport without really understanding the implications of its rules. They wanted to escape the overcrowded and highly mechanized planet, Terra.
“Unfortunately, the NeoUtopians were the ones in charge when we first landed. They were convinced we could survive without any mechanical help or power. As Lord Kearney, with help from your archive, has shown us, the original members did not understand what More had written. The small part of the book they had showed a fully agricultural society they believed was able to sustain itself with no outside help.
“I heard your comment sir, and I doubt that you will find metal like is in that shelter in Refugio,” Lord Kelly said. “But I am sure you will find plans and directions for building more of the air ships and repair parts for some of this electronic equipment. Some settlers were convinced we could reestablish contact with Terra and be able to trade. The folks from Port made it clear that a message had been sent about the destruction of the ship. Once they were rescued, we could work on getting things fixed.”
“Lord Kelly, one of our elderly astronomers explained to Ser Morales that the message never got past the debris,” one of the visiting scholars said. “They found some photos taken just before the transport ship was pushed out of orbit that shows the message capsule being destroyed. The astronomer had known of it for many years but was afraid to speak up.”
“It is no matter now, sir,” Kelly said. “We are now people of Higgins and need to work to make the best of it. I wanted you to know that these storage containers have many items deemed unnecessary or even dangerous by those first leaders. The rest of the families set up what they could to keep everyone alive and I look forward to seeing what was stored away. I will leave you to your work, but understand, those who tried to destroy this material are a small segment of our people. For their actions, you have my sincere apology,” Lord Kelly motioned to his grandson, caught his arm, and hobbled out of the room.
“Simon, I don’t understand how your settlements work. Does each family try to be self-supporting?” A Refugio scholar said.
“For the most part, that was what was planned, but it never worked.” Simon replied. He went on to explain how it was quickly apparent that no group was able to grow enough food or make enough cloth even for their own family, so each farm began to specialize and share. “For example, the farm my family moved from this rotation has meadows and milk producing animals. That area is a bit wet and not good for growing more than the grazing plants. Where we have gone now, there is a near constant wind, and we have good electrical generation, so we have sewing machines to make the suits we all wear. It is difficult to grow much more than trees there.”
“But Lady Sarita said the family before you had taken out the motors,” Shauna spoke up.
“Unfortunately, that is true, and we follow them in the rotation. By the time the three rotations are done, many things don’t work at all. When they left the previous location, we had problems with no refrigeration for the milk. Some of the young adults from those families have been banished because they tried to keep the machines. We hope to make some changes. Keeping the machines and technology functional is one of our goals. It is clear if you read the complete book, the original Utopians had extensive trading with the mainland. We have to adapt if we are going to survive.”
| ← Chapter 15 | Chapter 17 → |
Should you want to read the whole story…
Book One
Book Two
Amazon.com: Surviving Higgins World: Change or Chaos? eBook : Gibson, Patricia : Kindle Store