The Realm: A Novel - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

3145.4 AD

Humans have a knack for turning the extraordinary into the mundane and the mundane into a nightmare.

- The Great Gramps

Jack had sat down. He wasn't hungry or tired yet, but eventually he would have to find shelter to eat because the suit could only provide water, breathable air, and elimination services. Although he had in his suit pouch some rations, Maxwell was carrying most of them, it would be best to find a shelter from the caustic dust driven by the wind. He didn't want to inhale it while trying to eat.

His mind continued to wander, he had his eyes closed for some time before he realized it was light, or as light as it gets on Maripol, which was almost dusk-like.

Jack focused his eyes and realized he could see maybe a hundred feet in each direction. He appeared to be sitting on a narrow ledge beside a path that was skirting a hillside. The hill was on one side, a drop of some twenty to thirty feet on the other. Jack was glad he had waited until light to move.

But where was Maxwell? Then Jack realized he hadn't keyed his mic recently. That wasn't good if Maxwell was still trying to find him. And maybe this hill wasn't helping either. The question now was which direction should he take? Should he try to get back to Maripolis? He thought that to his right lay Maripolis and Maxwell was to his left, but he was no longer sure. And now he wasn't sure whether to seek Maxwell or Maripolis. Jack just sat there for some time.

Eventually, he decided to try to find Maxwell and the ePod, that's why he had left the settlement in the first place. He proceeded in the direction he thought he was going before he had sat down. Once he had cleared the hill the path broadened out, actually the path disappeared, and Jack had several directions he could choose. After a minute of indecision, the view cleared momentarily, and he began walking to what appeared to be some hills in the distance.

Hours later he was still walking and very hungry. He was strongly tempted to try and eat out in the open, but he knew it would be foolish to risk scaring his lungs with the ever-roiling atmospheric dust. He hoped at least Maxwell would find the ePod, Jack was resigned to just find someplace he could eat. Almost to the end of his strength he arrived at the hills. He turned to walk along the hillside, looking for some shelter. He stumbled and fell.

Jack roused himself in a few minutes and continued walking along the hillside looking for any opening or cover. He eventually noticed the small hole, only slightly wider than is body, maybe large enough to squirm into and eat something. He started into the opening, after crawling for what seemed an eternity the hole enlarged and started sloping down. Jack slid down the slope headfirst only just managing to turn his body so that he didn't land on his head.

As he recovered, he turned on his light. His refuge wasn't very large, but it was big enough to take the food out of his pouch and have his suit uncover his face briefly while he took a bite. He ate without thinking much about what he would do next.

3159.2 AD

Erin Jones had grown up in the Maripolis settlement without her dad, he had disappeared when she was six years old. But she had adapted well and was quite self-sufficient. She had always kept her blonde hair short to minimize the fuss.

Her mother had said her dad had gone out in search of a way to save the settlement. Erin had become aware early in her life that the settlement was in trouble, as its technology had begun to fail.

She was trying to repair one of the old robots that dated back to her Great Gramps (actually Erin's great-great granddad). It had been found by a search party that had tried to find the ePod also, it hadn't been powered in years. The robot was humanoid in appearance but shorter than most humans, even shorter than Erin.

“Okay Maxwell, how does that feel?”

“Well, I should say that it will do Miss Erin.”

Maxwell was moving the effector, essentially his hand, through its many degrees of freedom.

“Well, it's probably only temporary Maxwell. I fixed it with scrounged parts that are almost as old as you, so I don't expect them to last.”

“It's the best you can do Miss, and I thank you,” said Maxwell.

“Why you wasting parts on that thing?” said Tommy Jones walking up to the pair.

Eighteen-year-old Tommy Jones actually had a crush on the older Erin, but she paid him no attention. Without some encouragement from her, he had turned on her constant companion, that old, slow robot Maxwell. Tommy was determined to turn him off some day.

“I'm not wasting parts Tommy. Maxwell is a very important member of this settlement. And he is very useful,” Erin added.

“My dad says we need to just maintain the essentials and let these old relics go. He says it's a waste and I'm going to tell him what you did.”

Tommy stomped off to find his dad.

“Tell him, I don't care,” yelled Erin.

“I hope you are not in trouble Miss.”

“Don't worry Maxwell. I've been in that kind of trouble before. Tommy is an overgrown adolescent who can't think for himself.”

Maxwell had told Erin how he had searched for the ePod and her dad for almost a year. At first, he had searched to find her father and after failing had stayed out to search for the ePod. He hadn't succeeded at either and was forced to turn back to Maripolis but he ran out of charge.

“I wish we could see the stars, Maxwell.”

“Yes, Miss they have been hidden by the planet's dense atmosphere since Great Gramps landed. I think we will have to have a spaceship to get us above the atmosphere.”

“Gramps' ePod could do it, right?”

“Yes, Miss if it is working or can be repaired, it does have an engine that could boost it into orbit.”

“How close do you think you got to finding it Maxwell?”

“I think Miss that I came within a hundred miles of the ePod although that was the easy part. That still left a lot of land to be searched, and I had no good strategy for the search.”

“What about now Maxwell? Could we find it?”

“I don't know Miss it might take years of searching.”

“Years,” thought Erin.

Tommy had the same effect on his dad as he had on Erin and everyone else. He irritated him into bringing up the subject of Maxwell and other old robots at the next council meeting.

“I'm just saying Council Head Williams, that we don't need to be wasting time or material on a piece of machinery that has no immediate use to us. These older robots like Maxwell and other machinery should be mothballed. I'm not saying destroy them. We'll keep them in reserve until they or their parts are needed.”

When Erin heard about the council meeting, she winced at the word parts. If Thom Jones convinced the council to use Maxwell for parts, she would never be able to put him together again and Maxwell, besides her mom, was her only connection with a father she barely remembered.

Erin decided she wouldn't stay around for the council's decision. It was time for her to finish her dad's work. She had been preparing ever since Maxwell had given her his estimate of how long it would take to find the ePod. She was ready, she would miss her mom but hopefully would see her again when Erin brought back hope for the settlement. She was convinced that if Maripolis was to have a future the ePod contained the information it needed for that future, knowledge that had come down through her family for generations. Such things weren't repeated for over one-hundred and fifty years if they weren't true. And Erin believed.