An Accidental Alliance (4 page)

     
“I know that, Park,” Arn admitted, “but by the time we figure out what’s going on, you may wish it were.”

     
“I doubt that,” Park shrugged. “Well, let’s go see if there even is still a Central Ops.”

     
Arn led the way deep into the installation until they reached a dimly lit room with several rows of video panels surrounding a console large enough for several people to sit at. “Lights!” Arn commanded in a tone only slightly more emphatic than his normal speaking voice. When nothing in the room changed, he tried again louder, “Lights!”

     
“I think someone forgot the pay the electric company,” Iris commented dryly, adding. “What we have here are running off emergency power. Why didn’t all the stasis units turn off when the main computer went down?”

     
“If they’re still working,” Arn replied, “the central computer is probably not down, just in sleep mode. Had it gone down completely all the stasis tubes would, indeed, have been turned off.”

     
“Then you think it is in standby?” Iris asked.

     
“Something like that,” Arn shrugged.

     
“I’ll see what I can do,” Iris promised, “but if you have any computer experts unfrozen downstairs, you ought to send them up here.” Then she thought of something, “Patty? Do you know anything about this?”

     
“I’m a biologist,” Patty replied. “I can use my pad but that’s about it.”

     
“There’s probably a wake-up command sequence,” Park offered. “These big systems usually have something like that. Arn, as project leader you ought to know what it is.”

     
“I was assured that everything we would need would be in the manuals,” Arn told him.

     
“I don’t see any books in here,” Park noticed.

     
“It’s probably in the long-term databanks,” Iris remarked, “Which we can’t get at with the machines in stand-by mode. Good planning.” She let her hand drop to one of the keyboards. A small white light immediately came on in each of the monitors.”

     
“You seem to have done something,” Park observed.

     
“I probably should have thought of that,” Iris laughed at herself. “It was just waiting for someone to use a keyboard. A moment later several of the screens lit up, including one directly in front of her, requesting a user name and password. “Well, Arn?” she asked.

     
“I’m not really sure,” Arn confessed.

     
“Who had the access keys to this rig?” Iris asked. Arn had no answer so she tried typing in the username, “root” and the password, “password.”

     
There was a small pause and then the screen lit up with a floral display inside of which they could read the words, “Administrator account name and password accepted. Set up users?”

     
“Little too easy for the likes of me,” Iris sighed. “I’ll set up accounts for the four of us, shall I? Who gets what sort of access?”

     
“For now, give Park and me full access to all data,” Arn decided. “Park, I invited you to the project with the idea of making you a team leader in mind.”

     
“I’m not sure how good a team leader I am,” Park admitted. “I don’t tend to rely on others to do work for me. If I see something that needs doing, I usually just get it done.”

     
“You never impressed me as a follower type,” Arn remarked.

     
“I’m not,” Park replied. “I don’t really care to follow anyone. But I also don’t feel the need to lead either. However, our survival could depend on all of us working as a team, so I’ll do what I can. On the other hand, it’s possible that even now there are people coming to find us.

     
“I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting,” Arn told him.

     
“And what sort of access will Patty and I get?” Iris asked.

     
“Is there a standard user template?” Arn asked.

     
“There is, although we can create new templates,” Iris pointed out, “but it might be something to let our IT people handle. Since I now have access, we can run a diagnostic over the whole base and see if we can figure out why power is out and where.”

     
“Do that,” Arn instructed.

     
Iris tapped the typed and waited. Finally she tapped a few more and all the monitors lit up with a large series of dark and light rectangles. Iris studied it for a bit and then typed in a final command and the blocks rearranged themselves slightly. “There,” she reported. “There are ten chambers affected and all are in the southwest section of the base. I suspect there was either an earth tremor, or something like that, that cut the power along that side of the base. In any case I recommend we have our people search those sections pronto in case anyone is trapped in their stasis room.”

     
The searching teams found four more rooms filled with recently released members of Project Van Winkle, bringing the total of awake team members to three hundred. For the time being, Arn decided that was sufficient. They could wake up the others when they had a better idea of what had happened.

     
Arn’s plan to keep the condition of the area surrounding Van Winkle Base a secret did not last an hour after he had formulated it. It turned out there were several other holes in the walls and as the sun rose that morning, nearly everyone got a good look at the river and expanse of golden-silver grass that
 
extended as far as the eye could see.

     
“Any idea where those two rivers came from?” Arn asked Park later that morning as they stood looking around outside the base. Van Winkle Base, from the outside, appeared to be a low, grass-covered hill near the confluence of two rivers. On top of that hill stood the rusty stump of what had once been the elevator shaft. Had the shaft still be under stasis it would have been three thousand feet tall. Instead, it only stuck up one hundred feet or so above the crest of the hill. There were a few scrubby green trees along the rivers, but otherwise most of the vegetation they saw was the same golden grass.

     
“That one,” Park pointed, “appears to be from the northeast and that looks to come from due east.”

     
“Thank you so much,” Arn replied snidely.

     
“I’m more concerned on where the river is going beyond the confluence,” Park told him.

     
“Somewhere to the southwest,” Arn told him in a deadpan manner, giving Park a taste of his own humor.

     
“I imagine so,” Park chuckled, taking the joke better than Arn had, “but whether this is a river we knew in the past all depends on how long we’ve been catching zees in there. The earth is a living system and the longer you give her, the more changes there are going to be. One of those rivers could, I suppose, be the Ohio having meandered this way while we were under stasis. It may not be directly related to any river system we ever heard of, of course.”

     
“How could that be?” Arn asked.

     
“I just said,” Park reminded him. “Earth is a living system. Those rivers aren’t as amazing as the fact that three thousand feet of bedrock has been washed away from on top of us, possibly by those rivers or by some other action”

     
“It takes more than a few centuries to erode a half mile of bedrock,” Arn noted.

     
“That’s why I knew it had been at least a million years,” Park nodded. “Probably two or maybe even more. That’s what Iris and her team are trying to find out. We’re going to have to send out scouts to figure out where we are and what is all around us.”

     
“We should still be in Ohio,” Arn replied.

     
“Yeah?” Park countered, “but is Ohio still there? For all we know the human race has been out-evolved by the cockroaches. We need to send out as many teams as we can spare and get the lay of the land for a thousand miles or more around us.”

     
“I can’t afford to let you tie up more than a dozen,” Arn told him. “The rest are needed to help wake up and let the others know what’s happened.”

     
“We don’t even know what’s happened ourselves,” Park reminded him. “How soon do you want to bring us up to full strength?”

     
“Over the next two weeks, I should think,” Arn decided. “It took almost a week to get us all in our stasis tubes. I can’t imagine it will be a faster process on this side of the journey. And we don’t appear to need to rush.”

     
“You don’t know that,” Park told him. “There could be a thriving metropolis just over the next horizon. Did the powers that be… or were, I suppose, see fit to grant us some all-terrain vehicles?”

     
“We should have some in deep storage,” Arn admitted. “Also a few boats and a helicopter.”

     
“Helicopter?” Park mused. “Now that’s more the ticket.”

     
“We can’t afford to waste fuel,” Arn warned him. “It’s going to be a while before we can produce sufficient alcohol for unlimited travel.”

     
“We absolutely need to know if we have neighbors,” Park insisted. “We’ve already had enough surprises.”

     
“Very well,” Arn shrugged. “Pick a team and start assembling the chopper. It will be all crated up. Did you hear about the empty sections?”

     
“There were four of them, right?” Park asked. “Were they ones where the power was out?”

     
“No, they were still fully functional,” Arn replied, “or would have been had there been anyone inside.”

     
“Someone saw fit to let them out then,” Park decided. “Do we know who was in them?”

     
“Not yet,” Arn admitted, “but it isn’t a top priority for me either. I’m more concerned with the current situation than in speculation as to why some of my team isn’t here.”

     
“No, I suppose we’ll have plenty of time to wonder about that too,” Park told him. “In the meantime we need to know where those rivers come from and even more important where they are going. Once we’ve scouted out a wide perimeter, I’ll want to explore the river to our south. If there’s a civilization left it ought to have settlements along the rivers.”

     
“You think there’s intelligent life out there?” Arn asked.

     
“Could be. Intelligent life adapts its environment to suit it, though,” Park mused, “and I don’t see any signs of that from here. On the other hand, we could be in the middle of a nature preserve. We need to erect an antenna, a network of them, really, and see if we can pick up any external radio signals.”

     
“Would an evolved species continue to use radio?” Arn wondered.

     
“We do,” Park replied. “It’s a place to start and we’ll need the antenna to stay in contact with our scouts, don’t you think?”

    
 
“I suppose we will,” Arn nodded, “I’ll put a team on that right away.”

     
Iris poked her head out the hole in the stairwell and told them, “I think I’ve managed to answer some of our questions, at least. It’s all in Central Ops.”

     
A few minutes later, Iris played the record she and her team had found in the central computer for Arn and Park. A middle-aged man appeared in one of the screens. They all recognized him as the President of the United States, although as the camera panned back they also recognized the British and Canadian Prime Ministers and the President of France. There were still others wherever this recording had been made but they did not appear on camera.

     
“To Colonel Arnsley Theoday and his team at Project Van Winkle,” the president began stiffly. “It appears there has been a change of plans. When you reported for duty, it was expected the asteroid known as 2089JL43 would move past Earth harmlessly and that the various tensions within the international community would ease off.

     
“I am happy to announce that 2089JL43 has indeed missed our world and is now moving off into interplanetary space where we are assured it will never threaten Earthly interests again,” the president continued. “Further we are once again at peace and valuable and meaningful dialogue has been once more established across the globe.

     
“However,” the president continued.

     
“There’s always a ‘but’ isn’t there?” Park commented sourly.

     
“Shh!” Iris hushed him.

     
The president continued, “by international agreement it has been established that our need for Project Van Winkle has not yet passed. In this post-modern age, crises often come on us without a moment’s notice and while we may seem to live in peace with our neighbors, it is feared this could change at any time. Therefore, we are choosing to activate Clause 43 in the agreements you and your entire team signed and are extending Project Van Winkle indefinitely. Know that the world thanks you and your team for your sacrifice. You will all be remembered in our hearts.” The image abruptly cut out.

     
“Remembered my Aunt Fanny,” Arn growled. “They completely forgot about us!”

     
“Sort of like the old fairy tale,” Iris remarked.

     
“Sleeping Beauty?” Park chuckled. “You fit the part.”

 
    
“Thank you, but I always had the notion Beauty was half my age,” Iris laughed. “No. I mean about the little boy who was given the power to move forward in time along his own lifeline. Since he wanted to be a bit older so he could do what he wanted, he moved forward to his teenage years. But in high school he had to do what the teachers told him, so he moved a little further forward again. But College was hard work so he moved forward again. Working for a living was still worse, but he figured with a promotion or two… and so on. He finally stopped when he discovered he was an old man with grandchildren and just a few years left to live, because he finally realized that he had wasted most of his life, the good and the bad, and had better just enjoy the life he had before it was gone entirely.