Second Chances (61 page)

“Yeah, you could say that,” Mitch said softly as well. Her fingers caught his and wrapped around them. He brought them to his lips and kissed them gently.

There was a bit of silence as they shared the tender moment. Then Jim grew increasingly uncomfortable. He finally cleared his throat impatiently.

“Mitch about Noel, hello,” he said snapping his fingers to get their attention. They reluctantly looked at him. “Noel and Omar are working on a radio network. Ham radio to tie into your network. What's this about a satellite?”

Noel and Omar Bradley were twins in East Village. They had yet to meet them, but the brothers were into the radio network and apparently Jolie had a bit of a crush for one of them. At least his “sexy voice.” Noel wanted to skip the recon satellite and go straight to a full-blown general purpose satellite. Mitch had the blueprints in his database, but he wasn't sure the investment was worth it on an untried rocket.

“Yeah,” Mitch said, clearing his thoughts. “I want to get a series of communications satellites in orbit. Eventually I mean. That will let us communicate, keep an eye on the weather and map the planet.”

“I see. You do realize though, not everyone has a damn satellite radio right? Or a ham radio?”

“No, but they have cell phones. If we can set up a ham radio network to go with the satellites, we can rig a cell tower to work with the ham radio and satellite dish. So far-flung communities can talk to another, exchange info...one of the critical pieces of survival is communication. Right after the basic four,” Mitch explained, leaving out that his self-contained radio towers could already do all that and more.

“Food, fire, shelter, water,” Jim said nodding.

“If they haven't gotten those four worked out in the past three and a half years, they are dead. We've got a general map of where people are; the alien robots marked it down for us. But it's...hard to interpret. They aren't making it easy for us,” Mitch said, making a face.

That was too true. They'd spent weeks trying to puzzle the damn map out. Even when they compared what the alien had done with copies of the map it still hadn't made sense. They'd figured out it meant something about each population but not what. There was no Rosetta stone to make sense of it all.

“Is that where I come into this?” Adrian asked. They looked over to him. Adrian was techy like Arby and the Bradley twins. But he specialized in computers and programming. He'd been pretty depressed in Copper Town all winter until he'd hitched a ride with Angie back to base. He'd quickly renewed his friendship with the recovering Arby and formed a new one with Brian.

Mitch nodded. “I've got a lot of AI and some intuitive computer systems, but this is far beyond any of that. What we need is a running dictionary. Something that can say, read the symbology, and as we or the computer works, find common variables and create the dictionary and then apply what we've learned to the rest of the data.”

“Okay...”

“The map is old too. They gave us a snapshot in time of where people are...at that time. So...”

“So, the longer we take to find them, they may not be there when we do finally get into the area.”

“First you have to get there,” Jim cautioned.

“True,” Mitch replied. “We're starting with the nearest communities first, those we know and moving outward.”

“All roads lead to Rome. Or base in this case,” Sandra said. “We need a better name for this place,” she said, looking around.

“We'll discuss it. Waterfall city...”

“This is so not Dinotopia! So don't go there!” Sandra mocked. He shrugged.

“Like I said, we'll figure it out. It's not a big issue. As to transport, well, first we'll try to radio those areas, then send in an airborne team. But, well, first we've got to figure this map out. The first frame of reference is important, the starting point.”

“Seven coordinates needed to move from point A to B in 3D space,” Jim paraphrased with a faraway look. “The six coordinates, two per axis to plot the destination, and then the seventh the origin,” he said.

“Thank you Dr. Jackson,” Mitch teased.

“Huh,” Jim said, then shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Not a problem. But yeah. To know where we're going, we first have to know where we are on the map. The starting point. So, figure it out.”

“I'll do what I can. And I'll try to clean the code up. I'll need a dedicated server. Probably a farm.”

“Well, we'll see what we can do,” Mitch replied.

Chapter 32

A series of warm days kicked the thaw into action. Piotr made it clear they were entering early spring. “Hurray!” Janet said, chasing the kids outside. She grumbled when they came back in, tired and covered in mud and muck.

Janet passed second trimester but started having early contractions. Sandra ordered her to take it easy, reduce her stress level and cut back on her work. She was under orders to reduce bending over too. “Like I can,” Janet said, trying to squat backwards to pick up a towel on the floor. “Can you...”

“Not on your life,” Sandra chuckled.

“Hang on,” Janet said, straightening. She turned and kicked the towel with her foot. It floated up into the air to land on the counter. Before it could slither off she pounced on it. “Ha!”

“Very good,” Sandra chuckled. “The next thing you'll be doing is playing soccer for both teams,” she said.

“I think someone else is doing that now,” Janet said, putting a hand to her belly. “Mommy's sorry,” she said, pulling her shirt up over her swollen belly. Sandra watched with fascination as the woman's belly rippled like some alien thing was inside, which technically was true. “Okay, okay, settle down young whippersnapper,” Janet said lovingly, cradling her belly. She stroked it gently, singing softly.

Sandra and Tina noted the babies that had been born were growing faster. She hadn't really picked up on it with Rozerita Estaban's little Ricardo Junior; he'd been a bit premature. But she had noticed something was up with Aimee Fen. The little girl was the spitting image of her mother and was not only walking on her own, she was well on her way to being potty trained before she was even a year old. She'd figured out how to dress...or in her case
undress
herself. Her family frequently had to chase the little impish streaker down. It was cute as hell, seeing her giggling like a maniac as they ran after her, little pudgy legs walking as fast as she could. Sandra shook her head wondering what her little one would put her through. Plenty no doubt, she thought, stroking her own tummy gently.

Anne's twins were four months old but had not only gone through a very brief teething spell (much to their mother's relief) but they had spent three weeks crawling before they'd started pulling themselves up to stand. It had only taken a few falls and a couple more tries before they'd gotten their first wobbly steps. Sandra had been startled by the development. She took careful notes of her own fetus, scanning it whenever possible. She did the same with Janet's.

She checked over little Wekesa. The boy was a trooper, already talking. His mother insisted the boy looked like his father. She was eager to return to the Iron Village. “I don't know why,” Sandra said. “What is it, spite? To get under Mike's skin?”

Sarana flashed her white teeth in a grin. “That's part of it. He's a hard man. I like that. He's not getting rid of me that easily,” she vowed. Sandra chuckled.

“Well, we're still trying to get a handle on what's going on with the kids’ development. I'd say pregnancies have been shortened by a month to six weeks, which in my eyes is a blessing,” she said, cradling her growing tummy.

“Definitely,” Sarana said. “You still aren't sure if the time change has anything to do with it though?”

Sandra shook her head. “No. Diet has been changed. We're all eating differently now, but a balanced diet is hard. Development should slow or we should see problems...but we don't,” she said hastily as concern flashed in Sarana's eyes. “Sure the longer days are a factor, but I took that into account,” Doc shook her head. “It's a mystery.”

“I see,” Sarana said, bundling her stuff up. “Well, I'm betting the Meme aliens are at the bottom of it. It would explain some of the alterations they mentioned right?” She asked. Sandra frowned thoughtfully. “Is it just us or are the animals breeding faster too? That could explain the food chain...” the African woman suggested.

“I'll shoot an e-mail off to Mags. She may be keeping records on that score. Maybe we should compare notes,” Sandra said. “In the meantime, why don't we take this fella off to some lunch?” She asked. The little boy nodded enthusiastically as they helped him off the exam table.

“Thought so,” Sandra chuckled as the boy instantly went to his mom and put his hands up to be picked up. His mother picked him up and settled him on her hip as she followed Sandra out.

------*------

Once they were certain the snows were gone for the next three seasons, Mitch sent Paul out with the new trucks on the first convoy of the season. They headed up to Iron Village to trade with them and return an eager Sarana and her baby boy. They also made the first truck and trailer deliveries. Each truck was a stripped down version of Mitch's trucks Paul drove. Iron Village and Copper Town had traded for two each with four trailers.

One of the trailers was a flatbed, one was a cargo trailer, one was a dump trailer, and the last was a fuel or chemical container made out of plastic. They planned on replacing the plastic containers with aluminum in the future. For now they were filled with ethanol fuel to keep the trucks and surviving local vehicles moving. The trucks and trailers were well received.

Iron Mike sent them back loaded with timber but only a ton of raw iron ore. A lot of it looked like slag Mitch judged. That wasn't a problem for the molecular furnace, but it wasn't going to get them any closer to making all the equipment everyone wanted. He called Mike on the problem.

“Look Mitch, you have to understand. Mining that shit is a bitch by hand and even harder in the snow,” Mike explained over the radio. “That's all we did in the past week before Paul showed up. Hell, if I was going to dig when the ground was frozen,” he grumbled.

Mitch forced himself to take a deep breath and then let it out slowly before he responded. “I understand. But you and the others have to understand I can't make something from nothing. If you want more gear, you need to get me the raw materials,” he said.

“We need to work out some sort of, I don't know, compensation for this,” Mike grumbled. “My people are wearing themselves out just in the mining. And every day they are mining they aren't cutting trees or planting. Not to mention putting their lives on the line with the damn dinos and aliens,” he grumbled.

“The herds aren't back yet,” Mitch responded.

“Yet
.”

“Okay well, let's take advantage of the window while we've got it.” Mitch said patiently. He turned at a noise behind him to see the chief and gunny entering the radio room. He nodded to them. “Now's the time to get stuff done before they show up.”

“What do you have in mind?” Mike asked warily.

“Well, we want to explore the mountains, and we have some places to check,” Mitch said, nodding again to the two men. “We can get people on that, run as many convoys as we can, and expand the base as much as we can. Ivan is after me to quadruple the farms. Lisa wants the garages she was promised; she and Maggie have already had words when Lisa jumped the gun and started moving in too early.”

“Yeah, I heard about that,” the chief said.

“Mike, Gunny Hodges and Chief Roberts are here with me,” Mitch said, putting the radio on speaker.

“The more the merrier,” Mike replied with a snort.

“Mags wants not only the barns but also five times more pasture lands for the animals. She's going to double or even triple her breeding. Plus we've got the dinosaurs she has.”

“Okay...it seems like we're going through growing pains. We can't do all this at once you know,” the chief replied.

Mitch smiled slightly. “Weren't you after me a while ago about delegating? Angie and Jacklynn have the flights under control. They've got Giles and Jamal flying now.”

“Yeah, Bob's thrilled about losing Giles,” the gunny said, shaking his head. Bob had bitched up a storm when Giles had made himself scarce flying with Angie.

“Are you going to let Paul head south to the East Village?”

“I'm not sure,” Mitch mused, rubbing his chin. “Evan hasn't reported sighting any of the herds yet. If they hustle, they might make it.”

“But with the spring melt swelling the rivers and creeks?” The chief asked.

“Yeah, that's a problem. They are complaining about it just going to Iron Village and Copper Town,” Mitch sighed.

“Tell me about it. We've got mud everywhere,” Mike interjected.

Mitch smiled. Janet had been seriously pissed over the mud everyone had tracked in. Mitch had done his best to sooth the pregnant woman's tantrums, even going as far as adding additional mats in the doorways and benches to remove footwear at the doors. That wasn't a perfect solution but at least it mollified her a bit.

“I'd like to take a group to our old stomping grounds and finish clearing it. There may be a few things we can still use. At the very least, we can ship it all here for recycling,” the chief said, “in trade for stuff the Mountain Village will need,” he said quickly.