“Itseemed as if we had gone several thousand years back from our present, to atime when Humans did not yet exist. Some of you”—he gave a slight nod toPatrick—“thought that this was in fact the future, but that it wasn’t theEarth.
“Somethought it was one hundred years later, as it was supposed to be, but anenvironmental catastrophe had happened to Earth and we couldn’t recognize itanymore.
“Somethought our cryo-sleep had lasted a very long time indeed, and as we acquiredmore information about our new surroundings, we realized that this was in factthe case.”
Heturned away from the fire, the orange light drawing patterns on the beige shirthanging down his bony structure. He walked back to his seat, turned to thecircle, and slowly sat, folding his legs underneath him.
“Everytime we lit the bonfire, everyone would tell something new that they’d foundout or discovered, and we would all work together to find out what that meant.We also talked about our fears, our wishes, and our sorrows. Although we werealive, for some people, this also meant sorrow.” And with that he gave asideways glance at the man from my Vision.
Ilooked at him then and realized he wasn’t looking at the old man at all. He waslooking at me.
“Withtime,” the man continued, “we learned to live in our new wild world, far fromany advanced standard of living we had known in our time. Cutting wood,building houses, making bridges, fishing, farming… everything we used to beable to buy, we now had to make ourselves. We were all fortunate that many ofus had jobs or hobbies that weren’t necessarily linked to electricity and technology,and we made use of that.”
Iwas quite sure he wasn’t telling this for the first time. This was for us—forthe Jumpers. This was for me.
“Afew months ago, we started getting visitors.” He smiled, his cheeks foldinginto half-circles around the corners of his mouth. “We welcomed the Humanteleporters—Jumpers, as we fondly call them—and in these few monthswe learned so much more than we had in the last nine years.
“Welearned about the News and the first Evacuation flights of Humans who wouldbecome Descendants. And we also learned how long ago that was… and that was somuch longer than any of us could have imagined.”
Hesighed as he spoke the last word.
“Welearned a lot about the future, actually, about the present, and the people inthis new time. And we learned where Humanity is placed in the Uni hierarchy.”
Hisvoice was cracked and low. He didn’t look at me, but I still lowered my gaze tothe ground. I was the only representative of the Descendants at this gathering,and there was a part of me that felt ashamed.
“Thereare still many mysteries,” he continued in a new vibrant tone, “and we will discoverthem along the way. For now, something we, the Old Earth Humans, want to do—need to do—is to get some of our prehistorictechnology back.”
Hesmiled slightly at the thought of whatever he was about to say.
“Thereis a certain charm in living purely with nature—wooden houses, cottonclothing, bio-organic food—but some of us miss certain products oftechnology. Like… light bulbs.”
Therewas an appreciative laughter all around.
“Thereis a… was a technical university a few days’ journey south of this village.” Hisvoice changed again, becoming louder and more authoritative. I wondered who hehad been before his beauty sleep.
“Wewent there, two years after our de-freeze, and though most of the buildings areruined, one of them in particular is extremely well preserved. We think thismight be a computer facility, perhaps even with its own self-contained powersource. But – we couldn’t get in, although Patrick here worked therebefore going cryo.”
Helowered his gaze.
“However,it seems we got some high-tech support in the last teleportation jump, and Ihope that with this new knowledge, we just might figure out how to get in and,if we’re lucky, find something useful.” He smiled again, radiating enthusiasmand hope.
“Allright, enough talking! Let’s eat whatever’s been crisping in this fire. Itsmells delicious, and it shouldn’t be ignored any longer.”
Andwith that everyone laughed and started conversing again.
Iglanced down, gathering the courage to look at my Vision man again. A fewmoments later, I looked up.
Hewasn’t there, though his group still was. I looked around to search for him andfound him talking to the old person who had just spoken.
Hewas squatting, leaning his elbows on his knees, his hands hanging between hislegs, and that’s when I noticed he was only wearing shorts. He wore nothing on top.
Thoughhis body was crouched, the fire in front illuminated his frame. My eyes followedthe lines his muscles made under his skin, slowly sliding over them from hischest down to his stomach, ending up at the string that held his loose beige shorts.And that was…
—irrelevant!
Why am I doing this?
Ihad no reason to look at the suntanned skin stretching over his abdominalmuscles at all! But I just couldn’t detach my gaze. My nanoprobes promptlysignaled an alert: my heartbeat was a bit faster than normal, and it did not correspondwith the level of motion I was doing.
Thisdid not make any sense. I did notmake any sense!
Ipeeled my gaze from his body and looked up at his face again and saw himlooking straight back at me and—smirking?
Iclosed my eyes and swallowed.
Moons of Senthia! He must have seenme staring.
Iquickly stood up and made my way out of the circle, carefully avoiding peoplesitting in smaller groups and occupied with their own conversations. My headwas bent down, and I made sure my eyes looked nowhere but the path beneath myfeet on the way back to the village.
Ihad so many questions on my mind. Who was he? What was his name? What was hedoing here? What did that old person have in mind when he mentioned a high-techJumper of the last port? Did he mean me? Did he expect me to help them? Could I help them at all?
Onone hand, I wanted to turn around and get my questions
