“I got it,” Randy said, “and the next piece goes right here?”
“Exactly,” I replied, “all the way across the door. Same spacing.”
Randy’s people formed a quick assembly line cutting the angle pieces, attaching the sheet metal and mounting them on the door with the liquid Aluminum.
Tia returned. “The other door isn’t as bad as this one,” she said. “Probably the thicket outside is burning really hot right now.”
We heard a loud thud. Some small rocks fell from the ceiling.
“Large meteorite hit the mountain,” Randy said. “Third one since this all started. I just pray that one that size doesn’t hit the door.”
I grimaced at the thought.
“This looks like it’s working. Thanks guys, uh… I mean lady.”
Tia grinned. “Guys is fine.”
“We’re almost done here. We’ll get the other door right away.”
Tia and I strolled back to the showers. “I enjoy solving problems like that,” Tia said.
“Yeah, me too,” I replied, “I just wish the problems on the inside were as easy to fix.”
“It’s a matter of scale,” Tia replied. “How long did it take to put a man on the moon, or a lander on Mars?”
I stopped and looked at her.
“Fixing you inside is a lot less complicated than those were. It’s not going to take as long as you might think.”
“I hope not.”
She reached her arm around me and squeezed me close to her. It felt good.
CHAPTER 23
That night the nightmares returned. I developed an appreciation for people who self-medicate. I’d have done a lot of things to reduce the emotional pain I was experiencing. Tia pointed out that if I just dull the pain, it never really goes away. You have it forever, so self-medicating simply prolongs the problem, and the agony. The only way was to deal with the issues and seek to resolve them. That was a long and painful process in and of itself. We spent hours each day talking through emotions and changing perspectives. When Tia didn’t have any ideas or approaches, we talked with Nancy. Her insight was amazing. Over the next two weeks the nightmares gradually subsided.
Trying to keep and store fresh produce in the cave was a problem that John had solved by using sprouts. We had taken to visiting the deer in the cave and Tia would sneak a handful of sprouts to them. One doe had become particularly friendly. Tia would hold the sprouts out and the deer would stick her nose through the fence and eat them. Tia was petting the nose of the doe when a loud crashing sound jarred us.
A meteorite the size of a hardball had come through the outer door and careened off the walls of the cave. It landed in the deer enclosure and came to rest in the pile of hay we were feeding the deer. Fire broke out immediately. Tia ran through the cave yelling fire as I tried to get the deer enclosure open. Ed ran up and used his knife to cut the plastic straps that held the deer fence together. By the time we got the fence open flames were reaching the ceiling of the cave. The deer were panicked, trying to get away from the flames.
Ed and I entered the deer enclosure and tried to separate the burning hay from the rest of the pile. People were showing up with buckets of water and handing them through the opening in the deer fence. Several deer escaped into the main cave and were running through the crowd of people heading to the fire. After more than a dozen buckets of water, the fire was contained. Eight more buckets and it was out.
The deer that escaped were rearing up and using their hoofs to attack anyone who tried to get too close to them. John told everyone to ignore the deer that were loose and let them calm down. After an hour, Tia coaxed the deer back into the enclosure with sprouts from the kitchen. Randy and his crew patched the hole in the door.
John came over to me. “Our antennas aren’t working. We’re cut off from the rest of the world,” he said. “My guess is that the forest fire damaged the antennas or the wiring, maybe both. Any way we can use the robot’s head to find out what’s going on out there?”
“When we moved the robot’s head into the cave he reported NETCOMM was weak, but functioning,” I replied. “We can ask if the robots can pick up any of the radio transmissions that may be out there.”
“Okay,” John said, “do it quietly and let me know what you find out.”
Tia and I checked on the robot’s head. It was still plugged into the cave’s power supply and had been functioning all this time.
“Andy,” I said, “can the other robot in Tibet tell if there are any radio signals present around the Earth?”
Yes, guardian appeared on the screen.
“Can you show me a list?”
A list appeared on the screen containing the date and time along with the frequency of the transmission.
“What about content of the transmissions?” I asked.
Immediately the words appeared for each of the radio transmissions. Many of the messages were in other languages.
“Tia?” I asked, “Can you find John. He needs to see this.”
“Sure,” she said as she headed out the door of the new communications room. In a couple of minutes Tia returned with John.
“What are we looking at?” John asked.
“These are radio transmissions from around the world in different languages. They appear to be clustered into certain frequency groups.”
John smiled. “Ham radio,” he said.
“Ham?” I asked.
“Amateur radio,” John explained. “Ordinary people who have radio transmitters and receivers. They communicate all over the world. Can the text of these messages be translated into English?” John asked.
Yes, John appeared on the screen followed by the English translations.
“It knows who I am?” John asked.
Yes, John appeared on the screen again.
“It’s a lot smarter that you think it is,” I said. “Andy, can you or the other robot transmit messages on these frequencies?”
No, guardian appeared on the screen. NETCOMM is the only transmission capability of the system and is not compatible with your current technology.
“Can we receive NETCOMM directly?” I asked.
No, guardian appeared on the screen followed by, Different technology.
“With our current level of technology, are we able to detect NETCOMM signals?” I asked.
No, guardian came in reply.
“Interesting,” John commented. “This gives us the capability to monitor radio communications all over the world without anyone knowing about it.”
“Andy, can you print out the English translation of these messages?” I asked.
Yes, guardian appeared on the screen. Immediately the printer began spitting out pages of the translated text.
John gathered the pages. “Thanks, guys, I’ve got to see what’s going on out there. I’ll get back to you,” John said as he left the room.
Before the meteor storm I had thought the cave would have been a totally silent place, but that turned out not to be the case. Meteorites impacting the mountain sent sound waves through the rock. Lower frequencies were filtered out somewhat by the mountain, which left a strange ringing effect to the sound of the impacts. The impacts sounded more like a “toing” than a “thump”. We occasionally heard a groaning sound from what I assumed were rocks shifting inside the mountain. Since the vast majority of the meteorite strikes were at night, it gave a rather spooky sound and feel to the cave as we tried to sleep.
That night a large meteorite hit the mountain sending a jarring shock wave through the cave. I heard rocks falling on the roof of our enclosure and a loud, low rumbling sound rolled through the cave. The light on the clock went out leaving us in complete darkness. When it subsided everything was silent for several minutes.