Jay and Willie drop me off at the camp where the library has been moved to. I leave them with another bottle of Hennesy as a goodbye gift and I’ve added a couple of names to my Friends List.
It’s time for me to get back into the cyberworld. I introduce myself to the site foreman and he introduces me to the cyberconnection area.
The landline links to this part of the world are still miserable but big bucks have been spent beefing up the mobile links. I’m comfortable with the results even if Jalena isn’t.
No sooner am I online than she’s knocking.
“Come in, Jalena,” I say. I decide the first order of business is transforming that Rhapsody scene I captured on the trip into a virtual reality. I’m working on that as she appears.
“Any touches you can add to this?” I ask. I’m feeling relaxed and accomplished.
She looks, adds nothing, and finally says, “What is it?”
This I wasn’t expecting, then it hits me: This scene is no more real to her than any other scene in cyberspace. It is, if anything, less real so she has no empathy with it.
“The face of the Rhapsody Glacier, where the lab was removed from. I find it quite striking in a stark, wilderness beauty sort of way,” I explain gently.
I respect her enough and I’ve gotten to know her enough that I choose not to sneer at her lack of appreciation for the scene.
“What’s up?” I say.
She draws her breath as if she’s about to go into a tirade or a laundry list of stuff but thinks better of it.
“A lot has been happening while you were on-world, cheri.
“I passed on your hypothesis that the librarian was cyborg, supported by a lot of data I collected, and it seems to be strengthening. Jackson asked me to congratulate you when you got back online.”
“Wow! And thanks! I didn’t do any more than say the idea. You must have added a lot of data.”
“I did, but you were the one to think of it.”
“There’s likely to be a lot more out there, Jalena. I think the Rhapsody may have scraped off a city, not just a random library.”
“That will be nice, but let’s see what our part of the project can reveal. I’ve had the protoshops recreate the bag contents as best we can and the results are at the library now.”
As she says this the foreman comes up to my station carrying a rough cotton bag.
I spill the contents out on the desk. Now that I see them in person one object clearly dominates the contents: The heavy metal object partly covered with plastic sides. It fits into my hand, but awkwardly.
“How much do we now know about Homo sapiens anatomy?” I ask.
“This library has added a lot,” replies Jalena.
“Let’s map this handle part—that’s what it feels like to me—to match our anatomy. How long?” I say.
“Thirty minutes.”
For the next thirty minutes I fool around with the various pieces.
Jalena and I discover that the complex metal part is meant to be taken apart. Once it is apart, most of the other contents of the bag make sense: They are for cleaning this main object. Whatever it does, it gets dirty.
By the time I get it reassembled the modified form has arrived. The reassembling requires some physical strength and dexterity—there’s a powerful spring to be compressed while a latch is set.
When I handle the modified device its orientation becomes perfectly clear. It fits in my hand like it belongs there. The plastic parts are hand grips and there’s a finger-activated switch at the upper front of the hand grip. This thing … whatever it is … feels good. I get this odd sense of power when I hold it in my hand.
I pull the top slider back. It’s a stiff pull; there’s a solid feel as it slides back … and it sticks open. There’s an opening in the top of the object … staring at me…
“It’s waiting for something, Jalena. I feel it.”
“Try that black metal box. Try it at the bottom.” She is excited with anticipation as well.
The black box slips into the opening at the bottom of the hand grip, and slides up inside it with a pregnant click. I pull the slider again … it’s still stuck!
“I felt sure that was right,” I say.
“Fill the box,” she says. “But now take it outside before you try to close it again.”
We’d figured out the box was filled with the oxide-salt-filled metal cylinders. What was she thinking? I fill the box, disconnect from the cyber link, and go outside.
This time the top slider closes with authority. It’s ready … ready for what? It feels like it should be pointed. I point at a tree and pull the switch.…
There’s a ringing click as a small part at the back moves, then nothing. I look the object over. Something should have happened. I pull the top slider back again; the first metal cylinder ejects and another takes its place in the chamber as I release the slider. It’s fun to watch.
I point and click again … a click and nothing special.
This is not right … these ancients might be inefficient, but they weren’t that inefficient! This device is not built just to go click.
The third try produces a huge noise and my hand has been slapped hard by the device! It takes seconds for the pain to swell but now my hand is as sore as blazes! I drop the device and howl!! It attacked me! Then I look at the tree. My gosh … the size of that hole! Then the thought hits me! With my good hand I pick up the device and walk back in to the cyberstation.
“Jalena … it’s a weapon … a hand-held projectile weapon.”
“That powder makes some kind of explosion, right?” replies Jalena.
“It’s fearsome, actually. It nearly took my hand off. And it put a huge hole in the wood of a tree. If you were on the business end of it, it would knock limbs off a person.”
“Well, that’s what was missing from the Teller’s tale: Violence,” says Jalena. “These Homo sapiens were experts at violence. We’ve just found a tiny piece of their skills in that specialty but it’s clear from the sophistication of this little piece that violence was thought about long and hard among these people.”
“How could that be? They had so much in those days! Like you said earlier, oil just bubbled out of their ground!”
Jalena sighed, “They were the first. There was much to learn, I guess.”
“Do we reveal this?”
“I’d say … not yet. This will be very disconcerting … very unsettling. Let’s keep a lid on this for a while. I’ve altered our records of this so anyone who tries to reconstruct this device will have something unworkable and I’ve erased all records of the modified device you have in your hand. It will be the only one built for now.”
“I concur. This is most distressful and distasteful. But I don’t feel good. I’m going outside for a break.”
The sun has finally set and the sky has darkened. Above me, the southern lights are putting on a fine display. Thousands of years ago those same lights were on display but the world they shone down on was different … very different indeed.
The End