Chapter 2
Joen's mind drifted slowly up to the surface of awareness. He gradually opened his eyes, allowing them to adjust to the light. When he could finally open his eyes fully, the first thing he was saw was the carved rock ceiling over his head. The last things he remembered before blacking out were trees, rocks and open sky.
As Joen turned his head to the side, his eyes tracked across the ceiling to where it met with rock walls and a rock floor. A terrifying thought flashed through his mind - he was inside the mountain! And then an even more terrifying thought occurred to him - this was the volcano god's mountain, the god the priests had been willing to risk death to appease.
Joen's gaze scanned the room and saw that it was filled with strange objects. The walls of the room were lined with boxes. The boxes had amazingly smooth, flat sides - definitely not the work of a stone chipper or a wood carver. The boxes had little dots of light on their faces that blinked on and off in many different colors - as if there were fireflies trapped inside.
Then he noticed the threads strung from box to box. Joen wasn't sure they were threads, but since he couldn't see any leaves, he didn't think they were vines. The threads were of many different sizes and colors. Some of the threads were many times thinner than the carefully hand-twisted string on his bow, while others were as thick as his finger. All of the threads were smooth and uniform. None of them showed any lumps or frayed fibers like his bow string. He decided that the threads must be leashes to keep the boxes full of fireflies from flying away.
A thought suddenly occurred to Joen. If he was inside a cave, how could it be as bright as if he were still outdoors? He searched the room for a fire or torches, but neither was visible. The light seemed to be coming from two rectangular objects on the ceiling. This was a powerful god indeed who could capture a bit of the sun and imprison it in a box to light a room deep inside a mountain! A shiver of fear coursed through his mind when he thought of what such a powerful god might have in mind for him.
Joen turned his attention to his own body. As if on cue, he began to hurt all over. He saw that he was lying on a white-covered mattress that was softer and smoother than any pine bough bed he'd ever made. Then he noticed that his left leg and right arm were encased in thick white shells with more of the colored threads tying the shells to the firefly boxes.
Poking around with his one usable hand, Joen's fingers discovered a white cloth, sticky around the edges, covering his chest and abdomen. Sharp pains discouraged further poking at the area the cloth covered. Several threads tied the cloth patch on his chest to the firefly boxes. He peeled up the edge of the cloth patch and was filled with dismay at what he saw. An angry red scar ran from the center of his chest all the way down his abdomen. He remembered the elders telling about demons who would remove the heart of a man and hide it away in a secret place. From then on the victim was the helpless slave of whoever possessed his heart. He knew he was now a lost soul.
Seeing that the colored threads passed through the cloth and into his body, Joen grabbed one and gave it a yank in a fit of helpless rebellion over the loss of his soul. He felt a searing pain from the spot where he'd pulled the thread from his body, and terrifying noises filled his ears. He recognized the sound of a bell clanging rapidly, but the rest of the sounds were like nothing he'd ever heard before. The thought occurred to him that what he was hearing must be the howling of demons heralding the arrival of the volcano god.
Joen's worst fears were confirmed as a door opened in the rock wall, and in walked a most terrifying creature - a metal man. He remembered the stories of the elders telling how the metal men had come and enslaved the people, and how many great warriors had perished driving them away in the Time of Troubles. The metal men were supposed to have all been driven off into the sky, but here was one, and it had already cut out his heart!
The metal man spoke but Joen couldn't understand what he was saying. This was puzzling. Having taken his heart, the metal man should have been able to just will him to do his bidding. At least that was what happened in the elders' stories.
After failing to communicate verbally, the metal man walked over to one of the firefly boxes and touched some bumps protruding from its face. The noise suddenly stopped. The metal man spoke again, but Joen couldn't make sense out of the sounds. As he watched nearly paralyzed with fear, the metal man moved over to another firefly box and touched some more bumps. Joen's fear began to ease. He felt a soothing, calming feeling come over him, pushing his fear and anxiety aside. He tried to fight the feeling, but it was too strong - and besides, it felt good. A feeling of lethargy crept into his mind and he felt irresistibly sleepy. He felt so warm and comfortable that before he realized what was happening he'd slipped back into a deep sleep.
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Joen slowly awoke and opened his eyes. He saw that he was in the same room as before, and the metal man was still there. But he didn't feel the paralyzing fear he'd felt before. In fact, he felt pretty good, and decided it must be some kind of trick. Then the metal man spoke, and Joen was amazed that instead of the unintelligible babble he'd heard before, he could now understand every word.
"Hello," began the metal man. "My name is Hubert, in honor of the man who built me, Hubert J. Wisbrock. And what name might you go by?"
Joen could see no harm in telling the metal man his name. "Joen is my name, of the Tillave tribe. I only came to your mountain to live and hunt during my manhood year. I didn't know the mountain was sacred until your...your..."
"The flame, smoke and explosion?"
"Yes."
"That was the unsuccessful test firing of the booster engine I spent the last two years building. The explosion was caused by erosion in the thrust nozzle. With the limited technological base I have here, I can't seem to get the metallurgy right for the nozzle linings."
Joen stared blankly at Hubert. He could recognize the words Hubert was using, but he didn't have any idea what they meant. That in itself puzzled him - how could he know these words if he didn't know their meanings? "Booster engine? Thrust nozzle? Metallurgy? Forgive me, Oh Great Hubert, I don't understand. I am but a humble warrior candidate not yet wise in the ways of the elders."
"Oh, I am sorry. Guess I got carried away there. I haven't had anyone to talk to for some time now, and forgot what humans from the outside were like. I can see I'm going to have to do a little explaining. First of all you can drop the 'Great'. I'm Hubert, nothing more, nothing less."
"You're not the god of the volcano? The priests were sure there was a god in this mountain. You said you made the flames in the air and shaking in the ground. It would take a mighty god to do those things!"
"No, not a god. In fact, in some ways I may be more worthy of your pity than your worship. I'll tell you my story sometime when you've recovered further, but for now, try to think of me as you would a man. I am the product of men, and one man in particular. That man, Hubert J. Wisbrock, programmed my brain to be an exact duplicate of his own. I was part of an experiment in self-aware robots that was interrupted by the Time of Troubles. You've heard of the Time of Troubles?"
"Oh yes! The priests and elders of all the tribes gathered together to fight the evil scientists. The priests and elders killed many scientists and destroyed their laboratories. The last scientists and their metal men escaped into the sky..."
"Yes," replied Hubert sourly. "Hubert J. Wisbrock was one of the scientists who stayed behind during the great exodus. He couldn't bring himself to abandon the Earth, and in the end the mobs killed him and destroyed his laboratory. From the first day of awareness, I've thought of myself as man with part of my brain, and known I was a machine with another part. I like to think that Hubert J. Wisbrock lives on in me. Anyway, I'd appreciate it if you could manage to treat me more or less as you would a fellow human."
"All right. I'll treat you as a man if you like, even if I don't understand why you want to give up the status of a god." Joen thought for a moment and then exclaimed, "If you're not a god, what have you done with my heart? And what about all the rest of this?" Joen pointed at the shells on his leg and arm, and the many colored threads leading to the firefly boxes .
"What are you talking about? I haven't done anything with your heart. You wouldn't be talking to me if it wasn't still in there!"
"I looked under the cover and saw where you cut me open to take out my heart. I saw a wound from chest to groin - a wound that would kill any man who wasn't enchanted. The elders told how demons cut out the heart of a man to make him their slave."
"Oh my goodness. You do have some superstitions to overcome, don't you? Believe me, your heart is a blood pump, nothing more. You could no more live without your heart than I could without my power supply. You suffered substantial internal injuries in your fall from the rim, and I had to make the incision to repair the damage. I had to do a lot of plumbing repairs to the organs in your abdominal cavity, but I didn't do anything to your heart. You also had a broken arm and leg. After setting the fractures, I encased them in casts to hold them in place while the trickle of electric current in the wires stimulates the bones to knit back together. The rest of the wires are sensors to monitor your vital signs. I know you won't understand everything I've said, at least not without some more education, but you really have nothing to fear from me."
"If I'm not as fearful, I'm a lot more confused," responded Joen. "How come when you first came in, I couldn't understand anything you said. Now your words sound familiar but I still don't understand most of what you're saying?"
"I'm afraid that's another explanation you probably won't understand. I'll try to make it as simple as I can. Have you noticed the band around your head? Well, that band has the contact electrodes for an organic programming machine - a teaching machine, if you will. The machine stimulates the formation of neural connections in your brain - in effect imprinting knowledge directly into your brain.
"Unfortunately, I only have a very basic machine. At one time there were teaching machine programs for nearly anything anyone might want to know. But all I've been able to salvage have been basic lessons in language, mathematics and science. You may use the programs if you like when you've recovered further. It'll be a lot easier for us to talk after you've acquired least a basic understanding of science and mathematics."
"You speak of the future. What is to become of me? You say I'm not your slave. Will I be free to leave after I've recovered and you've taught me your science and mathematics?"
"If you wish to leave, you may - but there's a catch. It's my hope you'll become so attached to science and mathematics that you'll want to stay. If you decide you must leave, I'll have to erase all memories you have of me and this place - and that includes anything you learn while you're here. I have to do this to protect myself and my project from outside interference. So yes, you can leave at anytime, but you'll have to pay what would be to me an unacceptable price. After tasting reality through the eyes of science, I fully expect you to find it impossible to go back to your former world ruled by superstition.
"We can talk about it later when you've recovered further. What you need now is rest. I'll be back after you wake up. The sensors will tell me when you're awake, so you don't have to yank out one of the wires to let me know."
Hubert left the room. Joen, his mind full of confusing thoughts and doubts about nearly everything, took a long time to fall asleep. If Hubert spoke the truth, it sounded like an ideal situation. He could taste of this strange new world, and if he liked it, he could stay. If he found he preferred his previous world, Hubert would make him forget the world he didn't like. In the process of deciding, his manhood year would be passing, so at the worst he could go back to his people as a warrior. It seemed he couldn't lose. That is if Hubert could be believed...
When Joen awoke again, he thought at first he must have dreamed it all. Then he realized he was still in the rock-walled room. He looked around and everything was as he remembered it. The only difference Joen could identify was that his body had fewer aches and pains. The door opened and in walked Hubert - Joen was surprised at how easy it was to think of him as Hubert now, not as some kind of evil metal men.
"Well now, how are you feeling today?" inquired Hubert.
"Much better, thank you," responded Joen. "At least my body feels better. My mind is troubled by what it has seen and heard. I don't mean any disrespect, but I've been wondering why you're doing all this if I'm not to be your slave."
"Let's just say I'd like to have some company around here - that and it's often useful to have an extra pair of hands on my project."
"Project? What is this project?"
"You'll see when you're able to get up and move around. For whatever it's worth, I've spent the last 300 years building a starship."
"A starship! A ship that sails among the stars?"
"Yes, that's more or less what I mean, but it couldn't sail to the stars - that's why I need a booster engine, among other things."
"But why the stars? The elders say the stars are just bits of sun dust that the sun god leaves behind on his passage across the sky."
"After you use the the teaching machine you'll understand about stars. For now, just take my word for it that the stars are places as real as this one. I was left behind during the great exodus when the scientists and robots departed for the stars. There has been nothing for me here since the Time of Troubles, when the Antitechs destroyed the last vestiges of science on Earth. I hid out for a couple of years after the Troubles. Then I came here and started building my starship. I've now lived for 300 years in a world where I have to hide my activities and even my very existence. Among the stars are worlds where I can be free."
"You're 300 years old? That can't be true. The oldest Elder in my tribe has only seen forty-five winters. How can you have lived 300 winters?"
"Actually I'm 327 years old, but I round it off to 300. By the old way of counting time, I was built in the year 2040, and it is now 2367. I've lived so long because most of my critical components are replaceable. You'll learn more from the science programs, but you might be interested to know that among the people of the stars, a human life span of 120 years isn't uncommon."
"In that 300 years, am I the first? Have you made this offer to others before me?"
"There have been a number of humans who have taken me up on my offer. Sometimes there has been more than one human living here. While I have a need for human company, it's not an unmixed blessing. Human lives are exceedingly short compared to my almost limitless life span. It seems like no sooner do I become attached to them than they grow old and die. Sometimes I wonder if the grief of their passing outweighs the pleasure of their company. But then here you are, and I find myself hoping you'll stay."
"Do you get all your humans the way you got me - thrown off the cliffs by the priests?"
"Heavens, no! I really am sorry about what happened to you. I came here to get away from the religious fanatics. The human population outside must be growing again for them to have returned to this area. I wish there was something I could do to stop them, but I can't be responsible for their irrational acts. If I stopped my testing just because they misinterpret what is happening, that would be the end of my project - and what would be the advantage? They would just misinterpret the reasons my testing stopped.
"I learned a long time ago that I can't concern myself over people who can't or won't understand. No, most of my humans have just wandered by and discovered the entrance to my tunnels. Curiosity is an attribute I look for in a companion."
Joen was silent for a moment and then asked, "You say the flame and explosion were tests of your starship, not the volcano god demanding sacrifice like the priests thought. The elders said the metal men were evil and that they enslaved men. You say you will offer me great knowledge if I will be your companion - but I can leave if I want. The elders said that the stars were dust. You say they are real places where you can be free. The priests say the Time of Troubles was a time of great triumph when evil was banished from the world forever. You say it was a time of catastrophe, when all that was good in the world was lost. Everything you've told me goes against what I've been taught all my life. Who is right?
"When you tell me things, what you say seems reasonable, and I want to believe you. But when the priests and elders told me different things, everyone else seemed to believe them and so did I. Now I'm more confused than before we started talking."
"Sorry, can't help you there. Those are all questions you're going to have to answer for yourself. But I do have a suggestion. Why don't you use the teaching machine, and then see which explanation of the world best fits what you actually see around you? I'm betting if you give it a fair try, you'll find that science fits every time."
Joen felt a stab of apprehension when Hubert offered him the teaching machine headband. Out of all he'd been through since being thrown off the crater rim, this was the first time he'd had any say in what was going to happen to him. "It won't hurt?"
"Did it hurt the last time?"
Reminding himself that he was nearly a warrior, and that Hubert had used the machine on him before, Joen stiffened his resolve. "All right, hook me up..."
Joen relaxed on the bed while Hubert adjusted the machine. Joen felt a warm soothing feeling wash over him as he drifted off.
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Joen's mind was so full of new ideas and concepts over the next couple of days that he hardly noticed what was going on around him. He felt as if he'd awakened to a new world and was conscious for the first time in his life.
Memories and long-familiar thoughts took on new dimensions and depth of understanding, and that new understanding led to whole new areas of consideration. He often paused to wonder at the thoughts flowing through his mind, and the convoluted chains of mental connections his mind constructed as fast as he could think them. Like a starved animal suddenly offered an endless feast, his brain seemed to be at once bursting with new information, and yet thirsting for more.
Each time he awoke from a session with the teaching machine, it seemed at first like his mind was lost in an alien land. In a few moments islands of familiarity would start to appear, providing points from which to approach the edge of this new unknown. But as soon as his mind anchored itself in comfortable familiarity, its next thought would step off into the new alien knowledge. The act of exploring these new alien areas of his mind, using this new knowledge in some way, seemed to also make it a familiar part of himself.
The most wrenching change was the total shift in perspective required to accommodate the sweeping metamorphosis of his mind. It had always bothered him that the response of the elders to many of his questions was that he was somehow having impure thoughts to even think of such questions. As a typically rebellious youth, it seemed to him that there were many contradictions in the teachings of the elders. He'd been punished many times for offending the elders when he thought he was just asking reasonable questions.
Coping with the flood of new information implanted in his mind by the teaching machine required that he question everything, letting his mind freely venture wherever his exploration took him. It didn't do any good to try to predict what parts of his former world-view would be turned upside down by any given exploration of his new mental landscape. While his new knowledge shattered many of the elders' strictures that had so dominated the way he'd previously lived, his greater understanding reinforced and enhanced others.
The day finally arrived when Hubert disconnected the tubes and wires, and removed the casts on his arm and leg. Joen's newly freed limbs felt stiff and weak but whole. The scars from his incisions were still tender, but if he was slow and cautious, he could move around with only slight twinges of pain. As he considered his recovery, it occurred to him that if he needed any further confirmation of the power of Hubert's science, it was demonstrated in the fact he was alive at all. He'd watched strong hunters who returned to camp with far less extensive injuries slowly sicken and die - in spite of all the incantations and rituals of the elders.
The hunger for knowledge awakened by the sessions with the teaching machine compounded Joen's basic desires to be up and around after being confined to his bed for too long. The discomfort of exercising muscles that had been held immobile by his casts, and stretching the fresh scars on his many incisions, was a small price to pay in order to get a glimpse of what lay beyond the door to his small room.
Hubert began the grand tour as soon as Joen could walk farther than the hallway outside his room. Much of the solid rock core of the volcano had been carved away to house the extensive complex needed to build a starship. The overall layout of the complex resembled a spiked wheel. At the hub was the main assembly area. Radiating outward from the main assembly area were spoke-like access corridors leading to the encircling main gallery. The main gallery connected the various workshops radiating outward from its rim to each other and to the main assembly area.
Only a short time earlier, Joen would have thought everything Hubert was showing him was magic. On one level, it all still seemed a magical world far beyond his wildest imaginings. But on another level, his newly implanted knowledge added to both his understanding of what he was being shown, and his appreciation of the efforts that had gone into its creation.
Hubert was an enthusiastic tour guide, and tended to get carried away in his explanations. Much of Hubert's commentary was still far over Joen's head. But he could at least grasp the basic concepts, and capture a glimmering of how all of these new wonders fit together as parts of the grand plan.
Beyond the immediate sights and sounds of Hubert's guided tour, Joen found that each new object he encountered triggered new forays into the uncharted reaches of his newly implanted knowledge. The claustrophobic horizons of his former mental world expanded further with every turn, and he felt almost drunk with the exhilaration of discovery both within and without. Best of all, the more he exercised his mind and explored his implanted knowledge, the more these new dimensions became an integral part of his mental self.
Saving the best for last, Hubert's guided tour finally arrived at the main assembly area at the center of the wheel of shops. Joen didn't grasp the immense size of the space until he looked up and realized they were standing at the bottom of a tall cylinder. Occupying the center of the cylinder and towering overhead was the starship. The ship was a smooth cylinder over 100 meters in length, tapered to a point at the top, and covered with a silvery skin that sparkled and glistened.
Joen was transfixed. "It's beautiful!" he exclaimed. "It glitters like a fine jewel!" Part of him was moved to almost reverent awe at the sheer size and grandeur of the towering ship. Another part was just as moved seeing the ship as the focus and purpose of Hubert's grand project. While he couldn't as yet understand all of the details, his grasp of basic principles allowed him to see the ship as the product of all the components assembled in the surrounding shops. Being able to see the ship as both a whole and a collection of individual parts gave him a depth of appreciation and understanding far beyond anything he'd ever experienced.
When the tour finally ended, Joen had so many questions he didn't know where to start. At last he asked, "How much more is left to do?"
"Except for the booster engine to push the ship out of the Earth's atmosphere, the ship is finished," replied Hubert.
"Finished except for the booster!" repeated Joen incredulously. "You said the hyper-drive is powerful enough to take the ship to the distant stars. So why do you need this booster engine? And how soon are you going to leave for the stars?"
"The hyper-drive could lift the ship all right," explained Hubert. "But unfortunately, there isn't any way to contain the radius of the drive field to just the ship. If we tried to lift off with the hyper-drive, it would also try to lift half the mountain as well, causing a power overload on the generator. That's why we need something as primitive as a chemical booster engine. We need to get out into space that's thin enough that the chunk of it we take with us on a jump is within the capacity of the drive.
"As for when - that's a good question. If the last booster test had been a success, it would be possible to launch in a couple of months. Since the engine failed, I don't really know."
"You said you spent two years building the last engine," observed Joen apprehensively. "Does that mean you could build another engine - and if it's successful - launch the ship in two more years?"
"Actually, I have a plan, which with your assistance, might move the launch date up a lot closer! We'll have to discuss it at length later on, but I think the ship could be ready to launch within a year."
"Would I be going with you...to the stars?"
"That would be your decision, but I hope you decide to come along. Of course, if you stayed behind, there wouldn't be any reason to erase your memories. My project would be over one way or another."
"I think I should go back to my room now and lie down for a while. I don't know if it's the exertion, or the thought of going to the stars in a year, but suddenly my legs are feeling very weak."
Hubert led the way back to Joen's room, and after serving dinner, left Joen alone to contemplate what he'd learned so far. When Hubert had talked about spending 300 years working on his starship, Joen had been comforted by the thought that, like building a great temple, the work would go on forever. His mind rebelled at the possibility of being transformed from simple hunter into voyager to the stars in one short year. Still, considering how thoroughly his expectations regarding nearly every other aspect of reality had been turned topsy-turvy of late, he couldn't dismiss the possibility out of hand.
As Joen's strength returned, his mind was filled with troubling contradictions. He decided he needed to talk, and found Hubert in the machine shop. "Hubert," he began, "all these things you've been showing me...were they all common before the Time of Troubles?"
"Actually, technology reached even higher levels at one point in Earth's history," replied Hubert. "But by the Time of Troubles, the level had already started to decline. I didn't start collecting equipment until after the Time of Troubles was nearly over, and almost all of the best machines had already been destroyed. The Antitechs were based mainly in the cities, so that was where most of the destruction took place. Unfortunately, the centers of high technology were also clustered around the cities, and were all too easily destroyed. I found the equipment I have here in what had been small town machine shops, abandoned outlying farm repair shops - or made it myself. All this equipment may look impressive to you, but at the height of technology here on Earth, it would have been considered hardly worthy of the scrap heap."
"I've seen many things here that could be used in other ways than just building a starship," observed Joen. "Many of the machines could be used to make everyday life better for all the people in my tribe. And yet the priests and elders say that to do these things is evil."
"Technology itself isn't evil," responded Hubert. "It's just a tool that can be made to do good or evil, depending on the motivations of the humans using it. To further confuse the issue, good intentions often turn out to be better servants of evil than overt malevolence. And regardless of what actually happens, history only records the interpretation of whoever wrote it.
"It isn't technology itself that the ruling elites fear - it's what their subjects might do with technology that terrifies them. Most technologies have at least the potential to empower the individual, and that threatens the status of the ruling elites.
"It takes powerful tools in the hands of individuals to build an advanced industrial civilization - tools with the potential to be as effective at destruction as at construction. A civilization that empowers its participants to such an extent must also employ powerful constraints on the misuse of those tools.
"The only truly effective way to discourage powerful individuals from misusing their capabilities has always been to bind them through the internal constraints of enlightened self-interest. This requires that individuals both understand and value their personal over-riding enlightened self-interest in the ongoing success of their civilization.
"Most ruling elites gain their power and prestige by usurping the self-interest of those they rule. Since they can't rely on their subjects' internal enlightened self-interest, they inevitably seek to restrict access to any technology that might undermine their own power and control. Their privileged positions inevitably become far more important to them than the well-being of their individual subjects. They nearly always decide they'd rather deny their subjects the benefits of technology than risk losing their own power and privilege.
"Societies where status isn't earned through individual merit are particularly threatened by technologies that empower individuals to question the ruling elite's undeserved positions of power and privilege. These societies must be particularly vigilant against any technology that would allow individual subjects to effectively resist the ruling elite's abuses of their undeserved power. Your priests and elders are just continuing the pattern they learned from the Antitechs."
"You keep talking about the Antitechs," questioned Joen. "How could they convince people to destroy themselves?"
"In the beginning they didn't call themselves Antitechs," explained Hubert. "Most of the early Antitechs saw themselves as activists for idealistic causes like social justice and protecting the environment. They inherited a world where most of the great scourges of humanity's past had already been solved through the hard work and innovation of their ancestors. They were indulged and pampered by the well-intentioned efforts of previous generations to create an industrial civilization capable of producing the peace and plenty that had been so rare and precious in their own times. The misguided generosity of those previous generations also relieved the early Antitechs of the traditional necessity of learning how to responsibly handle the enhanced personal power of citizens in an advanced civilization, before being entrusted with the power to destroy that civilization.
"Having only known the soft nurturing world made possible by technology, these pampered children took the benefits of technology increasingly for granted. Lacking a compelling need to understand their world, or to struggle to survive, they were encouraged to emulate the idle dilettantes who had been the envy of previous generations.
"Deprived of meaningful direction and purpose by the generosity of their predecessors, they sought replacements in increasingly artificial abstractions. Lacking a meaningful understanding of their world, they become easy prey for charismatic leaders promoting superficially attractive causes.
"Even as their understanding of the benefits of technology faded from their consciousness, the costs of technology became an increasingly visible target for their attention. They became obsessed with the costs of technology that, in the absence of the larger issues that had already been solved by technology, appeared deceptively large and threatening in their relative isolation. By abandoning the historical memory of what life was really like before technology, they'd deprived themselves of the ability to appreciate the real value of the technology that made their soft, pampered lives possible.
"These disconnected and confused products of plenty viewed the bloody violence of the natural world from the sanitized safety of an artificial world that was becoming increasingly beyond their understanding, and fantasized about a natural utopia. Having aggressively rejected the history of their ancestors' struggles to escape the natural world, they came to see technology as more of an obstacle in the way of reaching their imagined natural utopia than a protection from its hardships.
"Humans tend to fear what they don't understand. As they lost their understanding of the advanced civilization created by their ancestors, they began to fear and resent the technology that made their lives of comfort and plenty possible. It became popular to condemn technology for creating a world that was incompatible with the mythical 'natural state' of humans.
"Since they lacked any real understanding of what they were doing, it was all too easy for the early Antitechs to ignore the inconvenient contradictions in their vision of a kinder, gentler, natural utopia. Their blind passion also allowed them to ignore the early evidence of the disaster they were creating while there was still time to reverse the collapse.
"The early Antitechs wanted to believe that they were saving the world from the mad scientists and evil technologists. While their initial efforts crippled or destroyed whole industries, the effects of their activities were localized and limited. Industrial civilization was robust enough to survive these early distortions, but the collapse became inevitable once the Antitechs turned their ignorance-fueled fanaticism on industrial agriculture.
"Perhaps the most tragic aspect of the Antitechs was their refusal to consider the effects that forcing the abandonment of advanced technology would have on the productivity of agriculture - and its ability to continue feeding the existing human overpopulation. The 'natural' agriculture demanded by those who styled themselves environmentalists may have satisfied the imagined spiritual hungers of the idealists, but its sharply reduced productivity wasn't capable of feeding the physical hunger of even a small fraction of the human population at the time.
"It had already been established, during an earlier descent into barbarity, that a declining caloric intake degrades the ability of a civilized society to continue functioning. Civilization breaks down completely if caloric intake drops below the minimum threshold level. In their desperation, the starving flock to any source of hope, and turn against even the most specious of perceived causes for their situation - often in the process incoherently destroying their most effective means of limiting the disaster.
"In the hysteria of the collapse, the Antitechs managed to convince the starving masses that the crisis was due to the incomplete elimination of technology. The desperate mobs destroyed every trace of technology they could find in the irrational expectation that the Antitechs' promised natural world of milk and honey would magically appear the moment the last of the evil technology was destroyed.
"The irrational destruction by the Antitechs sent the last traces of civilized life into a freefall collapse, as mass starvation and disease killed off all but a handful of survivors. The end result was the beginning of a dark age that regressed the remaining humanity on Earth back to the early bronze age."
Joen considered these new revelations for a long while before he responded, "My people have lost much. But most tragic is that they've also lost the memory of their past mistakes."
Joen was struck by the paradox that the knowledge he'd gained in just the last couple of weeks was a greater treasure than anything his tribe possessed. And yet, as long as they clung to their self-destructive superstitions, his tribe would never allow him to share this treasure with them.
Unable to see any way to resolve this paradox, Joen moved on to his next major cause for concern. "You said you had a plan where I could help finish the ship. I've learned a great deal, but compared to you I still know next to nothing. What help could I possibly be?"
"Ah, but you can make an exceedingly valuable contribution," responded Hubert. "First of all, our ship is actually nothing more than a standard passenger lifeboat mounted on top of a chemical-burning ballistic missile. I had to redesign some of the components due to my limited technology base, but the overall design remains the same as was used for thousands of similar ships built during the great exodus.
"Most of the ships launched successfully. However, towards the end of the exodus, people fleeing the Antitechs got increasingly desperate, and mistakes were made. A couple of the ships blew up or crashed. One of the ones that crashed came down about 90 kilometers from here. If the booster engine wasn't damaged in the crash, it could easily have survived any natural forces that it's been exposed to since then. Do you begin to see what I'm thinking of doing?"
"You want to go to the crashed ship and recover the engine," guessed Joen easily. "Ninety kilometers is a long distance. How can we carry the engine that distance? From the size of the place where it goes, I can see that the engine is too big for even a large horse to carry."
"Yes," laughed Hubert, "you'd need a dozen horses just to pull a wagon carrying the engine. But in theory at least, moving the weight won't be our main problem.
"There's a coal-burning generator in the lower levels. I use it to provide power for equipment like the electric furnaces that need more than the solar collectors can provide. I've had to refill the coal bunkers several times over the years from the overgrown fuel stores of a wrecked power plant not far from here. I modified a large crawler tractor and trailer to move the coal, and they could easily be modified to carry the engine.
"While the tractor can only do a little better than five kilometers per hour over rough ground, it can go nearly anywhere. It weighs over fifteen metric tons, and is powerful enough to either climb over or plow through most physical obstructions.
"The problem that has kept me from going that far in the past is human interference. I can't risk the humans wandering around out there spotting me or the tractor - which means scouting out a path that avoids any humans that might be in the way.
"I can't drive the machine and scout ahead at the same time. What is needed is someone on a horse riding ahead and scouting for human camps, hunting parties, or other insurmountable obstacles. In the old days, I could have just sent out a drone, but a horse and rider is the best that today can offer. Do I hear any volunteers for a nice horseback ride in the country?"
"Of course I volunteer," agreed Joen. "I was beginning to wonder just what my meager talents had to offer, and here is a job I've been training for all my life. But tell me something. Why didn't you make this journey before, when you had other humans here?"
"Up until the booster engine exploded, we didn't think we would need anything from the wreck. The dangerous journey and possibility of damaged parts didn't seem worth the risk if we could make new parts here. I thought the booster engine nozzles were so primitive that they would be easy to build. That has not proven to be the case. The nozzle linings are made from a metal-laced ceramic, and my best efforts with the limited technology available here have proven unsatisfactory. The rest you already know."
"How soon would we be leaving on this expedition?"
"Let's see. The equipment will have to be gone over and checked out, and you'll need a horse. I guess we could be ready in about a week. You should have regained your strength by then. There is, or at least there used to be, a semi-peaceful tribe to the west of here that traded in horses. You'll have to hike there on foot and barter. My human companions have acquired horses from this tribe in the past without any trouble. However, it's been several years since our last contact, so you'll have to be cautious."
"Yes, there is still a tribe of horse traders to the south," confirmed Joen. "My tribe has had dealings with them. They are known for the quality of their horses. Many tribes depend on them for horses, so they are left alone to pursue their livelihood in peace."
"Good, good! At least that much of the plan is working out in our favor. I propose you retire now. I'll take you down to the garage in the morning, and show you the heavy equipment. You can set off for the horse traders the day after tomorrow. At an easy pace you should be able to reach the traders' camp in two days, buy your horse the next morning, and be back here that same evening."
Joen retired to his room to consider these latest developments. Even in the short time he'd been inside the mountain, he already felt a part of the project. He wasn't quite sure what was happening, but he could also feel a sense of attachment growing toward Hubert. Hubert was so easy to be around, he enjoyed each new encounter more than the last.
Joen had always been at odds with the elders and rigid traditions of his tribe. As an outcast, he hadn't had many friends, and always felt distant from the others of his tribe. The distance seemed to increase before he left on his manhood trial. He knew his treatment wasn't any different from what the other boys received. The tribe didn't want to get attached to someone who might not survive his trial. Attachments made it that much harder to forget those who didn't return. Understanding the reasons hadn't made the situation any easier to bear, and the last couple of years had been very lonely. Into this loneliness walked Hubert.
Joen understood that the robot had in many ways been alone in a kind of prison for 300 years. He thought of all the generations of his people who had lived out their lives of hunting and fighting, loving and dying, while Hubert struggled inside his mountain to build his starship. An image appeared in his mind of Hubert standing on top of the volcano on a clear night, staring up at the stars just out of reach, knowing that what he wanted was there spread across the heavens, so near and yet so far. Joen felt his eyes grow moist as he thought of Hubert's plight, and wanted more than anything to help him on his way to the stars. Then he remembered what he'd agreed to do, and a cold chill of fear sobered him right up.
Joen thought he could ride well enough. But since the young boys in the tribe moved with the main bulk of the camp when the tribe changed hunting grounds, he'd never done any scouting before. In fact, he'd never traveled farther on his own than his journey to the volcano. And now he'd agreed to scout a 90 kilometer route through unfamiliar territory - and that was just one way!
Joen knew why he'd agreed to do the scouting. All through Hubert's tour, he'd been in awe of the work that had already been done, and had grown increasingly concerned as to what he could offer. After seeing the starship towering on its tail fins, Joen wanted very much both to be a part of this undertaking, and to help Hubert on his way to the stars. When Hubert suggested the scouting job, he'd jumped at the chance without even thinking. Now that he'd had time to consider what he'd agreed to do, he wasn't sure he could deliver on his promises.
Joen considered telling Hubert that he couldn't do the job after all. His fears kept reminding him that he didn't even know how to go about bargaining for a horse, let alone find his way to the distant crash site. He struggled with his fears a while longer before deciding that since Hubert really needed his help, and since he didn't know for certain that he couldn't do it, he would give it his best try. Hubert was the first to make him feel wanted and important. As he turned out the light, he was determined that somewhere he would find the courage to do his part, and not let his first real friend down.
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As the door to Joen's room closed, Hubert stood in the hallway staring at it for a longtime. "Well Hubert, you've gone and done it again," he said to himself. He thought back to all the other humans with which he'd shared his project. He also remembered the sad times. When one of his human companions died, no matter whether it was after a long decline due to old age, or a sudden catastrophic accident, Hubert felt like a part of himself died as well. He tried to remember how many it had been. Some of them lasted only a short twenty years or so - having arrived late in life or dying young. But some had lived with him for a long time. It seemed to Hubert that there had been ten different humans. Ten bittersweet memories. And now there was to be an eleventh. Or at least he found himself hoping so.
Hubert thought of the five years that had elapsed since his last human companions died. They'd been a pair, Hewon the male, and Piow the female. Life had been happy when they were alive. Slowly but surely, in spite of everything he could do, the ravages of age crept in and took them away. Hewon and Piow had been with him for the longest of any of them - it must have been over seventy years - and he had grieved for a long time after their passing.
But Hubert also remembered how the loneliness had weighed heavily on him over the last few years. The complex seemed much too quiet and empty. He found himself listening for the sounds of human laughter, and his own footfalls echoing off the walls only made the place seem even emptier. And then Joen quite literally fell into his life.
With Joen to fuss and fret over, Hubert found a spring in his step he'd forgotten. He bustled around the complex as if his power supply was overcharged. While Joen was still unconscious, he'd busied himself cleaning up and dusting off all the machinery in the shops - a task he hadn't bothered with for years. Soon after the emergency surgery was completed, he'd taken a brain path analysis. He considered this to be cheating in many ways, but he couldn't resist. Using the analysis, he could feel what it was like to be Joen, and he was pleased with what he found. Before Joen opened his eyes for the first time, he knew more about Joen than Joen knew himself, and already thought of him as an old friend.
Hubert worried that he'd pressed his friendship too hard, that he'd been too familiar too soon, and turned the young man off. He understood the tremendous changes Joen was experiencing. He also knew he had a tendency to ride roughshod over the feelings of others when he was intent on something. "Well, only time will tell", Hubert told himself. "He's agreed to join the project, and the brain path analysis indicates he ought to be able to handle it. So the probabilities seem to be in my favor."
By this time, Hubert's unconscious wandering had brought him to the main assembly chamber. As he stood gazing up at the glimmering shape of the ship towering above him, Hubert found himself saying, "Soon...maybe it will be soon..."