Gaia Dreams (Gaiaverse Book 1) (40 page)

Rachel, sitting next to Alex, had a bemused
expression on her face. She offered, "Yes, that's Mother, all right. You just
never know with her." Then as Alex looked at her quizzically, she continued, "She's
my mother, and to tell you the truth, I'm as surprised as you are that she's in
there cooking for all these people. Considering she's had a cook in her home
for the past twenty years, I never even knew she could boil water!"

"Well, she looks happy doing it," Alex replied.

"Yes, but what is she up to, I wonder," Rachel
asked, a slight frown on her face. "She's been really quiet, too quiet, about
all that we've learned since we got here. I just don't get it. I thought she'd
be flipping out by now!"

As John and Jessica entered the room crowded
with people, some at the large table and some eating at the counter, John did a
double-take when he saw his mother at the stove. He looked a question at
Rachel, and she just shrugged. "Don't ask me," she mouthed the words to him.

He spooned food onto his plate and heard Clay
asking, "So what's the plan for today?"

Jessica began, "I wonder where Mrs. Philpott is,
I told her to come over for--" Then she stopped as Mrs. Philpott appeared
through the back door.

"Yes, I'm here," she said, holding the door open
for Perceval and carrying a laptop. "Oh my, you have quite a crowd, don't you?"

Jessica half-frowned, half-smiled, and accused, "You
knew they'd all show up last night, didn't you?"

"Well, yes, dear, of course I knew, with Perceval
and the little talk I'd had with--well, yes, I knew," she replied, a bit
flustered.

Jessica laughed and said, "Everybody who doesn't
already know her, meet Mrs. Philpott and Perceval the cat. Our resident
scientist--Mrs. Philpott, and one of our leaders--Perceval."

Various calls of "hello" and "nice to meet you"
could be heard with Abby's voice floating over them, "Did she say our leader
was a cat?"

While Mrs. Philpott set up the laptop for
Perceval on a table in the entrance to the den, Janine walked into the kitchen
area. Everyone stopped talking for a minute, staring at the beautiful, slight
young girl standing before them, and Andy said, "Wow, Janine, you really
cleaned up good!"

Lisanne scowled at him, saying, "Andy! Don't
embarrass her--but, Janine, you look great!"

Janine tucked her head at the compliment and
almost ran from the room, but Jessica grabbed her elbow and brought her
forward. "This is Janine, the last of you to arrive late last night with lots
of horses. We were letting her and Samantha sleep in. I guess Sam is coming
down soon?"

Janine looked uncertain. "I don't know. She was
still asleep when I came down. She was tossing and turning last night, and woke
up with a dream...."

Everyone looked surprised at that. Even Perceval's
ears pricked forward and he stood at attention.

John looked around the room, and then asked, "Did
anyone else have a dream last night? You know the ones, I mean, about a
disaster?"

Negative headshakes all around. John inquired, "Janine,
did she say anything about it?"

"No. I woke up because Harry barked once and was
kind of whining. Then he jumped up on the bed with Sam and they both settled
back down. So maybe it wasn't that kind of dream."

"Maybe it was just a repeat of the flood dream,"
Mrs. Philpott offered.

John took a deep breath and let it out. "Well,
whatever it was, let's not all bug Sam about it. If there was anything we need
to know in the dream, Sam will tell us, but I don't want anyone questioning
her."

They all nodded. "Sure." "Okay." "No problem."

"Well," began Mrs. Philpott, "I'm glad you all
made it here without injury."

Lisanne interrupted. "I got injured. A tree
attacked me."

"What?" Rachel demanded. "Attacked you?"

"Lisanne," Andy said in a long-suffering voice. "You
know that branch just came down off the tree due to lightning and it fell on
you--it didn't attack you!"

"Whatever," she replied. "I still got injured."

He sighed.

Mrs. Philpott looked concerned. "This is
worrisome because of what I was thinking last night. Lisanne--when was your last
tetanus shot?"

"I don't know...did I ever get a tetanus shot? Is
that one of those shots you're supposed to have?"

Mrs. Philpott gazed at the rest of them. "I
think that anyone who can't say for certain they've had a tetanus shot in the
last couple of years needs to get one--soon. We don't know how bad things will
get, but they could get very bad out there. We may not have access to some
medicines and medical care. So we need to get vaccinated for as many diseases
as possible--quickly."

Nathan spoke up. "Alex and I got a bunch of
vaccinations before we left for Africa a year ago, so we're probably good. But
I agree--it's better to be safe about this sort of thing. Do we have a doctor in
the group?"

John shook his head. "We have Clay here, Jessica's
dad for those who don't know him." Clay waved from his seat at the kitchen
counter. "He's a vet, so we know the animals will have a doctor."

Janine glanced up and said, "I need to talk to
you this morning at some point. A few of the horses should be looked at."

Clay nodded in agreement.

John continued. "But even though Clay could
probably help out us humans with some injuries and maybe even illnesses, it
would be better if we could get a medical doctor, a nurse, a paramedic, someone
like that. I think we'd all feel a lot safer."

"Absolutely," Clay approved.

"Maybe Doctor Shapiro," Jessica suggested. "He
was the one that took care of all those people when the apple pie incident
happened with Harmony. He was really very nice to her through all of that."

"The apple pie incident?" Nathan asked,
grinning.

"You don't want to know," Jessica said firmly
while Max started laughing. He'd heard about all of Harmony's escapades by now,
regaled by her as they traveled around the region buying supplies. But he
choked back his laughter as Nathan turned around to look at him, perched on a
bar stool in the corner.

"Tell ya later," he said quietly.

Mrs. Philpott said thoughtfully, "You know,
Jessica, you may be right. He was very open-minded about that whole thing. And
we are going to need someone open-minded." She looked at Perceval for a moment,
and then continued, "John, if you and Harmony would go talk to him, Perceval
says he'll go with you--to offer a demonstration so he'll believe you."

John nodded.

"The other medical issue is eye glasses. Do any
of you wear them, or wear contact lenses?" Mrs. Philpott asked.

John snapped his fingers. "That book, the one by
Pat Frank about a nuclear holocaust. The doc in the book had his glasses broken
and there was no way to repair them."

"Exactly," Mrs. Philpott replied.

Rachel wailed, "My contacts! I left my back-up
pair in New York!" Facing her brother, she protested, "John, why didn't you
tell me to bring them? Why didn't you tell us to bring a lot of things?"

"Because," he explained, "you wouldn't have
believed me--would you?"

"Well, no, probably not...but still!"

Gracie spoke up. "I told you last year to go
ahead and get the laser surgery, dear, but you were always too busy." She
motioned to her own eyes as they looked toward her. "I had mine done and don't
need glasses anymore."

"I wonder if there's time to get mine done,"
Andy said thoughtfully.

"Andy! You wear glasses?" Lisanne said in
disbelief.

"Contacts, I wear contacts all the time," Andy
said sheepishly.]

"Well, there's nothing wrong with wearing
contacts as long as we can get them for you," Mrs. Philpott suggested. "The
problem is--you all know what the problem is--we may not be able to get them for
long."

"I'll handle making appointments for anyone with
glasses or contacts, and I'll find out about the laser surgery," Rachel
volunteered.

John looked around the room, pleased by how they
all seemed to be on the same track finally. Faces were interested and engaged
in problem-solving, which was far better than what he'd feared for this morning...that
they'd all be scared out of their wits. "Hey, if everyone is done with
breakfast--and thank you to Gracie and Abby for that! Let's move into the den
and I'll set up the white board. We can write up assignments for people for
today and work on planning."

"Who's gonna do the dishes?" Janine asked as she
took a stack of plates to the sink.

"We'll assign clean-up crews, so everyone has a
chance to participate in keeping the kitchen clean. How does that sound?" John
offered.

Janine just smiled at him, but Lisanne could be
heard as she left the kitchen, "Housecleaning was never my strong suit."

Merlin growled at her.

"Yeah, I know, I'll take my turn. Don't get your
fur ruffled."

Washington D.C., the Oval Office

Dr. Sheffield Hutton stood in front of the
President's desk and swore to himself that if he had to answer the question one
more time, he'd say something the Secret Service guy by the curved wall wouldn't
like at all. Taking a deep breath, he started again.

"No, sir, no, that woman in the desert cannot be
telling the truth. She's just some psychic trying to get attention. You've
heard the reports from meteorologists and from other technical advisors, and
nobody believes this woman's claim that the Mississippi is going to flood.
Remember, sir, we have satellites that can warn us and the conditions in
general just aren't right for it," he explained.

President Colter leaned back in his chair and
regarded his science advisor. What a prick, he thought, but I had to pay back
that favor for all the campaign funds and Dr. Hutton was the price.

"Tell me, Doctor, how do you explain the fact
that my wife has had dreams of the Mississippi flooding?"

Dr. Hutton sighed. "Sir, most likely your wife
saw the news report of that irresponsible journalist--Maria Santiago I think is
her name--and your wife dreamed about it later."

The President shook his head. "She swears to me
that she had the dream before the news report, Hutton. Hell, we've got a few
members of Congress who are saying the same thing."

"Sir, all I can say is what I've been saying.
That you need to trust your experts on this. We know what we're talking about."

"So you say. And what about all the other
natural disasters that have occurred in the past month? Don't you think it's a
bit odd so much has happened? That so many people have died? This is the
highest amount of deaths in a month from natural disasters in our entire
history! The numbers are staggering. Or don't those deaths bother you, Hutton?"

Dr. Hutton grimaced and managed to put a
conciliatory tone in his voice. "Of course, we are all bothered by those
deaths. It's a sad, tragic series of events. But, sir, those were just what you
called them--natural disasters. Earthquakes happen--we've known for decades that
eventually there would be a big one in California. It finally happened. We
could wish that quake retrofitting of buildings had worked better, but we
couldn't prevent that fault from letting go. Tornadoes happen every spring,
sir. These reports out of Oklahoma that the tornadoes seemed to have a strategy--that's
tommyrot, sir. Nobody can control a tornado. The sunny-day dam failures, like
the one in Maryville and the other, these are events that have happened before.
I think if you look at it from a scientific perspective, instead of listening
to new-age poppycock, you'll find that every one of these events can be
explained rationally."

The President stood and said mildly, "I don't
consider my wife to be spouting new-age poppycock, Dr. Hutton."

The science advisor groaned internally, but
outwardly remained calm. "Of course not, sir, that's not what I meant."

"I think I know what you meant." Walking around
his desk, the President motioned the other man to one of the couches and sat
down. "So how do you explain, rationally, what happened to Las Vegas?"

After settling on the edge of the couch,
Sheffield stated, "Sir, that was a confluence of weather phenomena never before
seen, I'll grant you that, but there is nothing to indicate that it was out of
the ordinary in any way."

"A pyramid of ice? Not out of the ordinary?" The
President's voice rose.

"No, sir, not in the realm of what is possible
in nature."

President Jeb Colter sat back and struggled with
his urge to punch out his science advisor. This guy, he thought, could talk
himself out of a pile of horseshit and come up smelling like a rose. "So," he
ventured, "nature is responsible for all this? All these disasters?"

"Yes, sir, that is correct."

"And you see no need to warn the American public
about the potential flood, to evacuate any areas?"

"No, sir, not at this time. The conditions for a
flood do not exist at this time."

"But they could in the future?"

"Sir," Sheffield began, "we know that the
Mississippi is capable of flooding. We had a major flood back in the nineties,
you'll recall. But not now, no, sir. And, sir," he started, but then stopped.

"What? Spit it out!"

"Yes, sir. The costs involved of evacuating such
a large area, only to have no flood appear--well, sir, I can't see how that
would sit well with the voters."

Now the President grimaced. He was up for
re-election in a year and a half. To guess wrong on this would be campaign
suicide. And much as he disliked the man sitting in front of him, he knew
Hutton's voice was well-respected. If he ordered an evacuation and the
Mississippi didn't flood, Hutton would be the first one on all the Sunday talk
shows to condemn his judgment.

"All right," he decided. "No evacuation for now.
But I want all the boys in lab coats working like busy bees to give us warning
if it looks like a flood might happen. I want to know the
instant
you
have any indication of potential flood conditions."