L00 Stories Table of content

L01 I
L02 Selfish Genes
L03 The Three B's
L04 The Headless Horseman
L05 Doc
L06 The Blue Planet
L07 Jack and Jill
L08 The Last Day in Paradise
L09 The Tide that didn't go out
L10 The Money Grab

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A12L01 I

Descending gently out of the dark, large snow flakes created light cones on alternate sides of the street under each lamp post. My most recent foot prints were barely discernible as I followed the same route back to the hotel.
The difficulty in finding food compatible with my intestines is one of the reasons I do not like to travel. A gas bubble was forming as I walked into the auditorium to give my lecture and by the time I finished I was very uncomfortable. I didn't go to my room after getting out of the cab at the hotel, I knew exercise was the only way, for me, to speed up relief.
I decided to walk to the train station and back. Several times gas exploded from me, I turned to see if anyone heard it. Each time the street was empty, not even a cab, and each time I quickly resumed my walk to escape the odor.
The sound of a train echoed down the street before I turned at the corner. In the middle of the block a hunched over man followed by a small child saying, 'Daddy can we please go home,' entered a light cone from the opposite direction, that same man had stormed out of my lecture an hour earlier. I was not satisfied with the words I choose in my first attempt to placate him and with each new attempt his anger increased.
As I entered their light cone, another gas bubble exploded from me. The child's head snapped toward me, followed by his hands covering his face. Before I left the light cone I realized the man was still blind with rage and if he continue on his present course he would walk right into the train. When I turned to try to stop him, three people blocked my path. A tall man said, 'Boris Chrenkov is a powerful man, do not let him get his hands on you.' A woman said, 'If you try to stop him you will be risking your life.' A young man said, 'Here use this.'
They parted to let me pass and continued on their way. I walked quickly, I can't run at my age, and as I caught up with Boris, the child was still pleading with him. As we entered the next cone of light I looked at what the young man had given me, a peacock tail feather. I stopped, puzzled, 'How was I going to stop a raging bull with a feather?'
Without thinking I resumed my previous pace, caught up with Boris, held the feather at its very end, extended my arm as far as I could, blocked his vision with the other end of the feather, and commanded, 'Boris Chrenkov, STOP.'
He stopped, walked slowly to the next cone of light. 'Who are you? How do you know my name?'
I waved him back with the feather and he moved to the opposite side of the light cone, I entered it, and took off my hat so he could see me.
'YOU,' he thundered.
The train roared by.
When silence returned he was calm, 'How do you know my name?'
'That tall man told me,' I turned and pointed.
'What are you talking about, the street is empty as far as I can see and only our foot prints are visible.'
'The snow must have filled in their foot prints, I swear to you, I'm telling the truth', I told him what they had said and finished with, 'and I certainly didn't carry this feather with me from the lecture.'
He stared at me, a blank look came on his face, beads of perspiration formed on his brow, very gently he said, 'What message do you have for me?' He was visibly shaken and his small child took his hand to console him.
'We both failed, I choose the wrong words and your "I" blocked your mind's eye from seeing. Why the eye of this feather could have seen better than you. A few minutes ago you were so blind you didn't even see me, me your antagonist!
You didn't see me, hear me, or smell me. That's when I realized you were in trouble. You were blind to every thing except your "I".
At the lecture I needed another chance and you didn't give me that chance. People can only tell one another what they know and how they interpret it. We need dialogue to eliminate misunderstandings and you would not listen.
I can't possibly know which words would upset you. I tried several times, but failed. Each time you interrupted me with, 'I don't ..., I can't ..., I won't ...'
The snow swirled gently around us, the small child tugged at his hand, he said even more gently, 'I was in trouble and I certainly did fail.
Thanks for stopping me.
May I have the feather?' He moved his hand slowly toward me and I gave him the feather.
'It will remind me to beware of my "I"'.

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A12L02 'Selfish Genes'

Behaving like a freshman, Joe hesitantly took the only available seat. His desire to sit comfortably at the lecture gave him the courage to push through the standing room only crowd to the front row. Almost immediately my nostrils flared and a quiver of excitement swept over me, something about Joe both attracted and repelled me the moment he sat next to me. "The Uniqueness of Human Beings Can Over Come Selfish Genes", it was the last lecture my uncle would give, two bed ridden years later he died making me the last limb on our family tree.
I missed my uncle very much, Joe partially filled the void. We met many times during the next four years, we were on the same career path, space science. He claimed I was protecting his male ego by intentionally scoring lower on one test so he would be first in any class we happened to share. I didn't, but that was his claim. He had a first rate mind and except for his freshman behavior, a trait he never lost, he was very worldly and like me, he was an extreme loner.
We never did anything with other people outside of studies and work. We might share time drinking coffee or some other liquid refreshment, but never food. We attended public functions, such as concerts, lectures, and sporting events, but we never invited anyone to our apartments nor accepted invitations from others. We chose never to be alone with anyone else.
Unknowingly, we chose to accept grad assistant offers from the same university. Our first meeting at grad school was the classical comedy depicted in many stories. Two months later we had our first date. A short time later he tried to kiss me, followed by a clumsy attempt to caress me. I gently removed his hand and told him politely my interest in him was not a romantic one, he would never be my lover.
He accepted my response with unusual calm. We formed a very close brother sister relationship, we collaborated on everything, studies, work, papers, presentations, etc. Only during astronaut training did we function independently. I think we both would have been suicidal if we had not been chosen for the same mission.
The mission was perfect for us and we were perfect for the mission. Only two astronauts and some robots were needed for a recon mission, provided the astronauts complemented each other and no one on earth complemented each other more than we did. Only two astronauts were needed, each one backed up the other. Our only purpose on the mission was to provide immediate command and control to the ship and to the robots in case something unexpected happened beyond the capabilities of the computer systems and robots.
Even with all of our technological advances, none of our computer systems had the flexibility and problem solving capabilities of a brain. Command and control back up could be provided from earth via radio for short distance solar system missions, but not for deep space missions. The delay, caused by the distance, was to great.
Many unmanned flights were lost because of this delay. Even if people on earth created a solution instantaneously on receipt of the data from a deep space mission, by the time the robots received the reply the mission may have been lost. A fifteen minute delay may not be to late for a planetary mission, but a one year delay would almost certainly be to late for an interstellar mission.
Our briefing was thorough, as usual, nothing was omitted even though we knew exactly where and why we were going and what we had to do. We, like most, had followed the reports from the Dicot colony to the last one with intense interest. The female colonists were constantly in eminent predatory danger and a gruesome painful death.
The discovery of the planet was the sensation of the century. Interest waned after fifty years, but increased again as news of the pending disaster arrived. The star and planet, some thirty light years away, were discovered by accident, neither could be seen from earth. A giant blue star, four light years closer was directly in the line of sight from earth. The planetary system was nearly a duplicate solar system, both geologically and historically.
The first explorers arrived to late to prevent the extinction of temperate zone humanoids and the last of the large animals. The fossil record indicated a history of many large animals. In the tropical regions small bands of humanoids guarded what appeared to be piles of desiccated dung. Each band ferociously defended their widely dispersed territories and made pre-emptory raids against all other groups.
The most striking thing about the humanoids was the absence of females and children. All appeared to be male and nearly the same age. These creatures were intelligent and quickly learned our language and encouraged colonization in the temperate regions. All the humanoid groups chose to call the colonists, 'colonists', but to the amusement of the colonists, each group chose to call themselves 'humans or people' and all other groups 'non humans' or non people' and they called their planet 'earth'.
Before the last of the temperate zone humanoids died, they communicated as much as they could of their oral tradition, but their limited knowledge of our vocabulary prevented them from telling the explorers every detail of their warfare, predators, and oral tradition.
Their oral tradition stressed never travel alone and never leave a female with strangers; a warning about disguise, deceit, and deception; and how to eliminate monsters with a stick and a pit. The explorers and the early colonists adopted the first part of their tradition, but didn't understand the last two. Technology was suppressed by the constant warfare between the groups and by predators, they were at the stage of the wooden plow. The explorers found the remains of many ancient villages and ancient battles, but no signs of any predator.
Colonization spread very rapidly during the following years. By unspoken agreement humans did not enter the tropics. The land was very quickly converted to farming in the temperate zones because most of the land had been cleared by the extinct humanoids. Large trees were found on the crests of hills and ridges or in the mountains, but no where else.
The first sign of predators occurred at the end of the first century, when people began to ignore the traditions of the previous humanoids, they began to venture into the wilderness alone. First, a female hermit disappeared without leaving a trace. Second, a lone baby sitter and three small children disappeared leaving behind only a gold necklace worn by the baby sitter. Third, a widow and her wood house disappeared. Only inorganic objects remained, the dishes, the broken window glass, the pots and pans, the door and window latches, nails, and other metallic or ceramic objects, such as the clay from the shingles.
The disappearance of all organic items prompted the investigators to revisit the sites of the first two disappearances. The hermit and the baby sitter lived in stone houses and no one noticed the absence of organic items at the those sites the first time, now it was very obvious. Any organic item touching the floor was missing, tables and chairs, beds, dressers, and book cases. Only clothing hung from the stone walls or organic items stored on shelves mounted on the walls remained, those over three feet from the floor.
Because of the height limitation the investigators searched the area around each site in ever widening circles paying very close attention to the ground and three feet up the sides of any object. Four things were common to all three sites, they were isolated from other people, they were near the top of a hill, they were near a small creek, and from each site to each creek was a path of sterile ground. All organic material had been removed, even dead leaves, sheep dug, earth worms, insects, fence posts, grass, and trees, including their roots to a depth of three inches. Close examination of the remaining tree roots and fence posts revealed a nearly sandpaper smooth surface created by millions of very small sharp teeth.
Each path meandered, apparently so the creature could consume as much as possible, but the path never went uphill and widened with distance. The creature was growing very rapidly. At the point of entry, the creek was bare for about a three foot radius upstream and three feet up each bank until the creek was more than three feet wide. The creek was sterile, three feet up the bank and three feet from the bank, not one living thing remained. The cattails, clams, crayfish, and turtles were gone, not even alga was left behind. This path of destruction continued all the way to the ocean. The change in sea level caused by the tides made the path difficult to follow, but from the geosyschronous orbiter the path of destruction along the shore was clearly visible until it turned up river in the tropics. Large trees near the river bank blocked a view of the path for long distances, but each path ended in a different humanoid territory among the piles of desiccated dung they so ferociously defended.
Everyone was put on alert. Investigating squads were assembled and on call twenty four hours a day and the people returned to the old traditions. Well not everyone, human nature had not changed, some people never follow the rules all the time. Those people disappeared.
Several months later a boy scout patrol was threatened by a band of humanoids. The scouts retreated and called the local investigating squad via a pocket radio. The squad met the scouts very quickly and continued to the area of encounter in time to hear a woman scream. The humanoids were quickly killed when they tried to stop the squad with life threatening force.
The squad ran toward the sound of the scream. As they crest a hill, they could see a humanoid raping a woman. The squad tried to capture the humanoid, but it fought to death. No one could remember such determination in any creature. The humanoids were always submissive in their interactions with people except when anyone approached their dug piles. Three humanoids were no match for a single adult human male. The humanoids knew it and avoided people, so why were they so determined now?
The woman was examined, she appeared to be heavily tranquilized, her breathing and heart rate were very low and she made no attempt to respond to anything anyone did or asked. A hover craft was called to transport her and the bodies to the hospital. She was tranquilized and she did not respond to any treatment.
Autopsies were performed on each humanoid and to the surprise of everyone, all were female. The rapist was depositing eggs not sperm. Her ovipositor still contained microscopic eggs and an unusual fluid. Once outside the ovipositor the fluid became a super glue for organic materials and could only be removed by surgery. It also contained an unknown powerful tranquilizer. The doctors immediately performed surgery on the woman to remove the eggs and fluid. She recovered from the tranquilizer very quickly.
Experiments were performed on the eggs and fluid under code blue conditions and afterward everyone was glad the extreme precautions were employed. No non life threatening agent could kill the eggs or the larva which hatched in three days at body temperature. When the eggs hatched the glue and the tranquilizer decomposed, the larva must have released an enzyme. The larva ate voraciously any organic material on contact even the plastic dish containing them. Fortunately the next container was a steep walled metal pan. They couldn't climb the walls, but they grew very rapidly and had to be transferred to larger and larger containers. Like the eggs, once they made contact with any organic matter, surgery was the only method of removal. If the microscopic larva ever entered any animal's blood stream, it was doomed to be eaten alive.
The researchers rapidly duplicated the natural environment as close as they could. They provided the larva with fresh killed sheep equivalent to the weight of an average woman. The larva consumed the sheep in three hours and began to eat one another until only one was left. It was to small to have made even the smallest track observed. The other larva must have eaten their own mothers, the supposition was later learned to be true. The screams of the victim cause apoptosis to occur in the brain of the mother providing the surviving larva with another guarantied supply of food.
The researchers provided additional sheep and the larva grew to the anticipated size. From the time the larva hatched until it reached water, it had the shape of a tank without a gun turret with a mouth at the end of what looked like an elephant's trunk on each side. The lips and the inside of the mouth were lined with millions of very small razor sharp hook shaped teeth. The hooked teeth of the lips easily penetrated any organic material and held fast while the rest of the teeth ground the material to a pulp and pushed the pulp down the trunk.
The larva moved like a flatten rolling pin, it could move forward or backward but not side ways. It could turn by changing it's size on one side or the other, but it moved and turned very slowly, any mobile animal could easily escape it, provided a mouth had not made contact.
Obviously, the larva moved down hill and traveled in water to conserve energy. It's skin was exceedingly tough, only it's own teeth could cut it's skin. A projectile of any kind merely depressed the skin until the ground deflected the projectile, then the larva resumed it's normal shape. The larva was a sack of concentrated food rolling over the ground. Any waste was transported through it's skin and left behind.
Now, the colonists could understand some of what the humanoids were trying to tell them. The humanoids let the larva take hold of long stick and then pulled it into a pit and let it starve. Starvation was hastened by building a roof over the pit to prevent sun light from keeping it warm and water was sprayed on the roof so evaporative cooling would promote hypothermia.
The researchers let the larva move into a pool of water with a dirt bank. The larva narrowed it's width to reduce the effect of flowing water from moving it to quickly down stream. When the researchers added salt to the water the larva changed shape again, it elongate itself and swam like a leach. When the larva was exposed to fresh warm water, it turned and swam up stream. When heat lamps were turned on, it left the water and rolled up the bank of the pool and cleared a circle of any organic material and came to rest in the center of the circle.
A collective gasp came from the researchers, the mouths were withdrawn, the larva changed color and assumed the shape of the dung like piles seen in the tropics. It weighed nearly a ton. The next day, what looked like a thick golden dinner plate pushed part way through the skin near the edge of the pile. It was removed with forceps and analyzed. It was pure food, no waste. Another question was answered.
The autopsies revealed that the Ovi's as they were now called didn't have teeth or a jaw bone, only cartilage to form the mouth. They didn't swallow their food, they didn't have a digestive track. They held their food in their mouth until it was absorbed directly into their blood stream. They gorged themselves and converted the food into fat, and stored it in their abdomen. Such a large fat store allowed them to travel long distances without eating, they only required a small amount of water. Since they didn't give birth, the females didn't need a birth canal or mammalia glands, hence their male like appearance.
How the larva transformed into adults was answered several days later. If the dinner plate was removed, the next day two appeared, one in the same place and another a short distance away. If both were removed a third appeared and so on until six were visible forming the points of a hexagon. If a plate was not removed from one of the points that section of the pile shrank until it outlined a new Ovi, feet in the center and head on the outside. A seam developed from head to foot and split open. Part of the seam turned into a very fine dust, some of which fell on the face of the Ovi. Now all that was necessary was a small gust of wind to blow the dust into the Ovi's nostrils. The sneeze that followed cleared the lungs and started the heart and breathing. The new individual pushed the seam open, climbed out, ate the dinner plates, and left the skin for the next larva to eat. If the plates were continuously removed from a section, that section shrank until only skin was left without producing a new individual. For this process to be successful, knowledge had to be passed from one generation to the next in chemical form, possibly by DNA, when the larva ate it's mother. This supposition was proven basically true by later experiments.
The colonists were now faced with a dilemma. They could leave the planet until the Ovi starved to death or they could hasten the process by killing all the Ovi. While they wrestled with their dilemma, another surprising discovery was made. During a routine patrol, one member of an investigating squad noticed the hermit's house was occupied. No colonist would live in a house where a person had died so gruesomely so it had to be a humanoid.
Long range surveillance was immediately established. The occupant was a single female or at least she looked exactly like a female colonist in every detail. Her telephoto was processed by intelligence. She was an exact replica of the hermit. The surveillance team didn't have to wait long to discover the rest of the mystery. Several days later several Ovi reconnoitered the hermit's house and the surrounding area without discovering the surveillance team. The next day a single female approached and greeted the first one. Their conversation was a typical colonist conversation between two strangers. The first offered the second a drink and turned toward the house. The second struck her from behind knocking her to the ground. She bound her hands and proceeded to rape her. The other recovered, but instead of resisting, she laughed. The Ovi withdrew her ovipositor and cried, "Oh. No. Oh.NO." She screamed and fell unconscious from pain. Larva were clearly visible on her ovipositor. The first moved a short distance away from the second and fell.
The surveillance team rushed to the first humanoid and dragged her to the top of the hill, she was dead. A hover craft arrived within minutes, responding to an alert signal sent by the surveillance team as they had rushed toward the hermit's house, and transported her to the research center.
The team continued to watch the hermits house and the remaining humanoid. Within minutes humanoids dragged dead animals to the site and created a trail of carcasses from the house to the creek in such a manor as to encompass as much organic material as possible and left the site when the one remaining larva started to move down the hill.
The team ran down the hill and dug a pit in the path of the larva. The larva was dragged into the pit on the end of a stick, covered and refrigerated, and then the lifeless form was incinerated. The autopsy report surprised an already surprised population. The first humanoid was a marsupial and the pouch opened at the bottom instead of the top for obvious reasons and she did not have an ovipositor, but other than that she was identical to the female Ovi. This newly recognized group was named Mars.
Most people were repelled by the Mars and Ovi reproductive method, selfish genes not withstanding, and ignored their own predaceousness. How quickly we forget ham and eggs for breakfast, a chicken sandwich for lunch, and a beef roast for dinner.
Now the other part of the humanoid oral tradition became clear, the part about disguise, deceit, and deception. The Mars and Ovi were masters of all three, the Mars being the master of them all. An urgent message and a plea was sent to earth warning of the danger from these deceptive predators and pleading with the authorities to find and test all prior arrivals from the colony and to test all incoming arrivals. Squeezing the lower jaw would be a quick and unintrusive test. Thirty years later, on receipt of the message, the authorities immediately did as requested. They located all but three prior arrivals and tested everyone arriving from the Dicot colony. No predators were found.
The colony never received conformation of their request. The launch from earth, the journey to the spaceship, and the spaceship start up were very routine. Joe and I relaxed on our couches and watched the beautiful blue planet slowly grow smaller. "Makes you feel depressed and nostalgic at the same time, doesn't it."
"Yes, I feel like we're the last creatures in the cosmos. I've not felt this lonely since my uncle died. I miss him very much."
"Thank God that feeling is off set by a beautiful blue gem against a very black sky. Blue gems are few and far between in the cosmos. I hope the blue gem we're going to is now hospitable."
"It's difficult to understand how such a beautiful sight can also contain so much misery."
"Selfish genes. You must remember, every living thing must follow the directions of their genes or be totally frustrated."
"Or worse, be insane or commit suicide."
"We can vary or change a little of what our genes tell us to do and we can delay or vary the degree of what our genes tell us to do, but in the end we will do as we are directed."
"You're right, we don't have as much free will as we would like to think we have." Joe had a good mind and I always enjoyed talking with him. We reviewed our mission, again for the next hour and fell silent until the earth shrank to a speck.
"Speaking of your uncle, do you remember his last lecture? His conclusion definitely helped me mitigate the depressing effect of the meanness and misery brought about by our selfish genes."
"Continue."
"He began by summarizing the reasons why meanness and misery are brought about by selfish genes. He said, 'DNA is only concerned with creating another individual to create more DNA. It is completely indifferent to everything else. DNA is nothing more than the instructions to create and operate a living system, it contains only a very limited amount of knowledge. Every individual is responsible for learning the collective knowledge of its species and most of us do a very poor job of learning our collective knowledge. DNA has know way of knowing the results of its directions, it doesn't even know if more DNA was or was not created. Only a living system can gain knowledge and know the result of what the DNA brought about."
"Yes and then he summarized the usual capabilities of humans that most people accept as making people different from other animals."
"Like sight, touch, heel, speech, thinking, etc."
"He named some animals with more acute capabilities in all of those areas except the heel, speech, and thinking."
"An elephant on a bicycle was the most efficient animal, but only humans could lift more than their own weight or carry sixty pounds up the side of a mountain."
"But the capability he thought was most unique was the capability of concern. People were the only animals to display concern for their prey. Concern can lead to change. Concern does not cause change, but without concern, changes in behavior are seldom made."
"It's unfortunate, most people don't understand how lucky they are. Human beings are truly blessed, they can at least mitigate a little of the effect of their selfish genes." We watched the stars for a while, "Don't you find it odd that the three groups of humanoids on Dicot and some people have the same tradition?"
"Which one?"
"The one about, 'And your descendants shall number with the stars.'"
"That's just the collective ego talking."
"What do you mean, Joe?"
"It's the corollary of, 'Small people talk about people, medium people talk about things, and big people talk about ideas.' Small societies are more concerned about individuals, medium societies are more concerned about the society, and big societies are more concerned about the biosphere. Likewise the ego of the individual and the group follows the same pattern, more people is better, more things are better, and a balance is better." With that comment we went about our separate tasks.
Several days later I was aroused from a deep slumber, my hands were bound to the head board and my night clothes were being removed. "What do you think you are doing, Joe? I told you before you would never be my lover."
"I know, but you shouldn't sleep with your hands over your head. I couldn't resist, selfish genes, you know."
"Untie my hands and feet."
"NO. You said you would never be my lover and you are right. You and I will not be lovers, you and I will feed my babies. My name is Josephine, Jo not Joe and my time has come, my eggs are finally ready." My nostrils flared, excitement swept over me as she proceeded to rape me. "I'm going to get even with humans for killing all my people. I have programmed the robots to separate my larva when some of them are large enough, place them in separate cocoons, return them to earth and release them. I will have my revenge."
"No you won't. I anticipated your fiendish plan and programmed the computer to over ride your commands to the robots. My larva will be transported to the blue star for destruction. Turn on the lights and you will see. Jo moved toward the light switch.
"Why?"
"You and your kind killed us not the humans. Your kind was so egotistical, you wanted to take over the entire planet, you would not control your population as we did, you were the best, the most important, everyone else be damned. Well, you did and you killed all the large animals, we would have starved to death if the humans had not come. Their coming just postponed the inevitable. You killed yourselves and my kind also. Why should I do you any favors? Selfish genes you know."
"NO. No. no." Then Jo screamed. I laughed as I listened to her scream until I died, knowing her death would be painful and mine peaceful.
Norg snapped Maxine's diary closed and fell into a chair with a thud. His memory of the last months returned unwelcomed. Each day the reports from the colony became more and more discouraging until the colony commander delivered the final blow. His voice was weak and he stopped several times, "Don't ask questions, just listen. I have personally destroyed all launchers and launch vehicles. Don't descend to the colony no matter how desperate the plea. If you do you will not be able to return to the orbiter.
When we killed the Mars and Ovi and destroyed all of their cocoons, we must have destroyed a link in the control chain of the food web. We were to impatient, safety should have been our prime concern. As you know, each link keeps all living things in balance at the level of each link and if a link is broken all living things in the food web above the link will die.
Several fungi have run amuck. We must have weakened or destroyed some mechanism that kept them in check and we can't stop them. Everyone and every living thing is infected. Our drugs don't even slow their growth let alone kill them." After a long pause, "Remember don't come down ...." Norg could hear his body hit the floor. Within minutes frantic pleas for help were received.
The pleas continued day and night until the orbiter crew could not take it any longer. They decided one should remain in orbit and send messages to earth until confirmation was received. They drew straws and descended to join the others in death. The messages kept coming and in his unbalanced mental state Norg smashed the communications controller in attempt to preserve his sanity. Later he realized they should have blocked all communication channels from the colony immediately following the commanders message.
Several weeks later he repaired the controller, he could receive, but he could not transmit. Many years later Norg was on the verge of a mental break down when he received a computer message from the recon spaceship. He waited eagerly for his solitary confinement to end. He watched the control panel impatiently as the ship drew closer and closer and finally a transporter carrying an inspection robot docked with the orbiter. After the inspection was complete the robot took him and the remaining supplies to the recon spaceship.
Once on board the robot informed him he was once again alone. He instructed the computer to return the spaceship to earth. For days he walked the decks in a daze. When he finally accepted his fate, he inspected the entire ship and interrogated the computer and the robots to learn as much as he could. He found Maxine's diary when he searched her cabin.
He could only read a few pages at a time, the story was to gruesome and boring and brought back to many memories. He did other things for several days until he had the mental stamina to read a few more pages. He hoped he could learn more about the Mars and Ovi than he already knew. He could easily fill in what Maxine had not included in the diary.
He followed standard procedure and transmitted his version of the diary every ten pages in case the ship was lost the data may still be received. He read the last pages while pacing the floor. Maxine had written the last entry before it occurred, she knew what was going to happen. She wrote, "I can't help myself, I'm not like human beings, I must follow exactly the directions of my selfish genes. Selfish genes must be eliminated. I took advantage of the only freedom my genes would allow. I could not destroy my own larva, but I could program the robots to destroy her larva even though I knew the robots would not be able to tell the difference. I knew they would follow the rule of safety, when in doubt protect humans and destroy the danger. They would follow my instructions and place the remaining larva in the transporter and send it into the blue giant star for destruction. My selfish genes would finally be destroyed."
Norg sat until hunger made him move. He ate with little enthusiasm, in fact he did very little with enthusiasm for the next two weeks. He could not discover what was bothering him. Absent mindedly, he put Maxine's diary into storage, went to the observation deck, and when he looked out at the stars he knew. Blue planets were to few and far between, he must do what ever he could to save them and the creatures on them. He ran to the console and created a condensed version of the last days of the Dicot colony and the last pages of Maxine's diary. He ate as much food as he could and while his digestive system was working, he created a weekly computer schedule.
The computer would shut down all transmissions and any device emitting electromagnetic radiation or anything else that might interfere with his task for four hours, then transmit the condensed version on all frequencies, and then resume normal operations. He used every effective relaxation technique and when he was as calm as he could be he went to the observation deck hoping the view of the heavens would keep him in the best mental state for his task. The radio transmissions would take to long, most of the blue planets were more than a thousand light years away. The possibility of loosing another during that length of time was to great. He had to use mental telepathy, because it was not restricted by the speed of light, it was instantaneous.
He transmitted on a nonverbal channel because the odds of another living being on another blue gem would speak his language was nearly zero. At the end of each three hour telepathic transmission he remained quiet for one hour, hoping he would receive a reply. He never did. For the rest of his life, he executed this weekly ritual. At the end of each session, he always had a haunting thought,

"Is anyone out there listening?"

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A12L08 The Last Day in Paradise

I walked out on to the deck after clearing the breakfast dishes and looked out over the Paradise River. A low thin fog lay over the entire river valley as far as I could see in both directions, but thick enough to block my view of the water.
My great great grandfather bought this land because he enjoyed the view and the sunsets and all the generations after him appreciated the same. Our home was located on gentle slope eight feet above the river about three miles down stream of one of the last large earthen dams.
The river was more than five hundred feet across with vertical banks two feet high, the river was very shallow except when the flood gates were opened in the spring. Most people used flat bottom boats on the river below the dam, as we did. The valley sloped gently to a very steep escarpment about a mile from the river and extended down stream about fifteen miles on both sides of the river.
The village of Paradise lay against the escarpment on the east side of the river a short drive north of our home. The dam was built where the escarpment turned into low hills on both sides of the river. At this point the river valley was a mile across and the dam, a two mile arc fifty feet high, the spillways and the flood gates were the only concrete and steel parts of the dam.
Many studies had been made to replace the dam, but all arrived at the same two conclusions: one, if the dam ever failed it would not be replaced, it would be removed because the dam could not be any higher and because the bed rock was fifty feet down and two, it would not be removed until it failed because it had a very large reservoir that provided irrigation, recreation, and wild life habitation.
Thousands of people golfed, camped, hunted along the shore or fished and swam in the many small bays along the irregular shoreline. Boating was popular in the broader expanses of the reservoir. Most of the people of Paradise were employed by government agencies or the tourist industry north of the dam.
The main roads to and from the recreation areas were north and east of the dam, only local roads connected each side of the valley, crossing the river on top of the dam and meeting at the next bridge more than twenty miles down stream. Since the main tourist area and the main roads were north of the dam very few people used the local roads, making the valley below the dam a very peaceful place to live.
Because the dam would be removed when it failed, a monitoring system had been established many years ago to ensure the safety of those living below the dam. The county emergency preparedness department in cooperation with the village police, fire, and 911 centralized their functions in dispatchers office in the village hall. Water level gauges, one above the dam and one below, and a flow meter in the spillway were monitored on a continuous basis from this office, plus a closed circuit TV provided continual visual inspection of flood gates, the spillway, and the water above and below the dam, alternating every fifteen seconds. A warning siren was tested the first Saturday of each month at one o'clock. The people of the lower valley felt very safe.
My wife joined me a few moments later, her hair finally fixed to her satisfaction and we walked down the stairs, boarded our boat and drifted down stream to the wedding and brunch reception of one of our neighbor's daughter, we planned to leave right after brunch, by then we would both be tired.
They had a very large family and a large circle of friends, and almost everyone from the village would be there, we expected their road to be jammed with cars and we were right. When we arrived, people were walking more than four blocks.
It was a very pleasant affair and we enjoyed talking to many old friends and their families. The time passed very quickly and every time I tried to leave, my wife found someone else, she just, had to talk to, she was still talking as I turned the boat around and pulled back into dock.
All docks were built on the bank and parallel to the river, so the spring floods would not wash them away. I became alarmed when I could barely make headway against the current. I grabbed a post, secured the boat, scrambled onto the planking, and looked at the river.
Something was wrong, very wrong, the spring run off had dissipated a month ago, but now the water looked like chocolate milk. I interrupted my wife's conversation and we all looked at the river and agreed that something was wrong, none of us could remember anyone saying anything about opening the flood gates or of any testing to be done.
We went back up the stairs and each of us asked different people to see if they knew if anything was happening at the dam. All responses were negative and very few showed any concern. I decided to call 911, but every phone in the house was being used. I walked outside and looked down at the river, the fog still blocked my view, so I walked down the stairs. There was no apparent change, but I didn't like the color. I ran back to my wife, she could sense my agitation, and she followed me as I went next door, called 911, and explained the situation.
The dispatcher said, "The monitor shows only fog and all the readings are within the normal range. A severe thunderstorm upstream has raised the water level, but not unusual. There is nothing I can do because if I can't measure it, I can't report it."
I couldn't convince her to put out a level one alert. She did agree to have the patrolman check the water upstream to find out what caused the color change. I decided not to wait and took the first car that was not blocked by another car and had keys in it. We drove toward the dam. About a quarter of a mile from the dam I caught up with the patrol car stopped at a low spot in the road. The flood gauge along side the road indicated that a car could not pass. The patrolman got out and came over, "What's going on?"
"I don't know, but what ever it is its not good." He went back to his car and called dispatch. She still could not see the river on the monitor and all readings were still normal. Dispatch called the state police and asked if they would check the dam, they said they would, but it would be some time before a patrol car would arrive in the area. We told dispatch we would check the road south of the village. We both drove down the valley, again water blocked our path about three miles from the bridge. The patrolman called dispatch, "We have a problem."
"Yes, but what do we do about it? I ran a test mode on our equipment and everything checks out."
"You better sound the alarm."
"I can't until I hear from the state police, besides, I will sound the test alarm in another minute and no one will think anything of it."
"Better put the first stage warning into effect."
"What good would that do almost everyone is at the reception."
"We'll go back to the reception and tell them."
"OK."
The test alarm sounded as we drove back. When we arrived many of the guests had had to much to drink already. We talked to as many people who would listen, but very few showed any concern. A few would walk outside and look down at the fog and say, "Well the water is not above the fog yet and the road always floods after a storm, so what's there to worry about, it will recede by morning."
We finally gave up and left. The patrolman agreed to check the water level and color every hour.
"You're so nervous, what are you going to do to calm down."
"I don't know. I don't like it."
"Let's rest a bit, then pack a picnic dinner and go to Paradise Park. If the it gets worse we can climb the path to the scenic overlook."
"Not at our age, but that is a brillant idea. If it is a bad as I feel it is, we could use the old elevator at the rock climb. Maybe we should go to the top anyway and see if we can see something."
We rested for a hour, packed our dinner, I called dispatch, and told her where we were going. She must have sensed my uneasiness because when we got there the patrolman was waiting for us. "That was an excellent idea."
"What idea?"
"To go to the top to see if you could see something."
"That was my wife's idea."
"Well, good for her. Why don't you go to the top now. I'll pull you up.
Why don't both of you go, take your dinner and yell down if you see something."
I helped him pull my wife to the top and he pulled me to the top. I hadn't been on the old rope and pulley elevators in many years. It was fun. Two old elevators, a lift on each side of pulley, as one lift went up the other came down, were kept in operating condition so rock climbers could come down if they were too tired to climb back down or go down the steep path nearby and for old people like us to reach the top of the escarpment and return if there was someone who was willing to pull them up. Going down was not a problem, a braking pulley controlled the descent, gravity did the rest.
We chose one of the picnic tables at the scenic over look with the best view and looked up the river. From our angle we could see through the fog, but we couldn't see anything that would indicate what was wrong. I yelled down to the patrolman and he yelled back that he would check the river, the flood gauge, and return in an hour.
Before he returned, a cold breeze blew from the north and cleared away the fog. Within minutes the warning siren sounded. Quickly, we looked down at the river. We could not see it before because the fog obscured the difference in the color of the water, but now it was clearly visible. A short distance from the dam an inverted 'V' of chocolate milk contrasted against the darker clear brown color of the water around it. Water was under cutting the dam.
Between the trees to the south we could see the patrol car speeding from Paradise toward the reception with lights flashing and siren sounding. Then the alarm siren sounded for one minute and silent for one minute and continued to alternate on and off. Then we could see a few cars moving about and shortly thereafter we could tell they were heading toward Paradise Park.
Before the first cars arrived below, more cars were moving, but now they were moving fast and we could see and hear the police cars and the fire truck driving up and down the streets and roads in and around Paradise, their bull horns sounding an alarm and telling people what to do. A few minutes later a few cars were moving on the other side of the river, those who were not at the reception, they were going south, the road on that side was high and rarely was blocked by water.
Next we heard the patrolman using his bull horn to tell people where to park their cars so everyone could get to the path and the elevators, followed by another voice on a bull horn yelling, "Pull together, pull, pull,pull,.... pull together or half of us will drown."
Not long after that the first of the women, babies, and toddlers got off the elevators followed by the older children who could climb the path. Then the infirm got of the elevators followed by the weak and the weary, and finally the strong came up the path followed by the police and firemen.
The people spread out along the edge of the escarpment and watched with fear and amazement as the chocolate milk inverted 'V' turned into an artisan well at the point of the 'V'. It grew larger and higher and turned into a geyser and moved toward the dam. They let out an eerie sound as the geyser cut right through the dam.
Within seconds the entire dam gave way and a wall of water rushed down the valley. The sound of the water drowned the sound of the people which didn't stop as they watch their homes, cars, and other possessions tumble down river in front of the wall of water and then bob like corks for a few minutes in the flood and disappear.
But the most sickening thing of all was for the people of Paradise to watch in horror as those unfortunate few who were on the water above the dam fight for their lives as their boats and watercraft were swept down river, only to watch them, helplessly, go under the churning water.
The whole event last only minutes before the water receded, but for those watching it, it lasted a life time. Many people passed out, those still standing were weak and trembling, no one had a dry face. Eventually, a few with clear heads told the others to come away from the edge. Some began to walk down the road toward the highway some ten miles away. They were met by aid workers before sunset.
The people of Paradise were lucky. Very lucky a breeze blew the fog away before the patrolman went to check the flood gauge, he could see across the river, clearly. He never could explain why he did what he did. After he checked the flood gauge, a truck could not pass, he sat down on his heels and aimlessly tossed small pebbles into the river and then, before he stood, he looked at the river, he could see water upwelling in the center. When he was standing he couldn't see it, so he sat down on his heels again, again he could see the water rising from below, the parallax was to small to see from any other elevation.
Lucky because a warning system was in place so once the danger could be seen they had time to warn other people and have time to escape, if they had waited until it could have been measured it would have been to late.
They were unlucky, also. Everyone lost everything they had, their possessions, their homes, their community. Some lost friends and loved ones, those who would not listen or who were on the river above the dam.
But most unlucky was watching them, helplessly, die. An event that would haunt all of them for the rest of their lives. Maybe if they could have put a name on it they could have healed, but they didn't know what it was so they couldn't put a name on it. It was the indifference of the rushing water, it was completely indifferent to its effect on anything else as it followed the instructions of gravity to seek a lower level. It was this complete indifference that the people could not comprehend.

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A12L09 The tide that didn't go out

Like most people you were feeling euphoric because it was the first cool crisp autumn day following a long hot summer. You went in early because of a phone call about a rising tide in New Zealand and Australia, there was a tone of urgency in the callers voice. On the way in you reviewed some recent rising water stories.
During the spring, the ice stream of two glaciers in Alaska and two in Norway slid into the ocean leaving ice canyons behind. The canyons were interesting to look at, but the resulting sea level rise could hardly be measured, so interest faded quickly. In early July, the West Antarctic ice shelf collapsed, but because the ice shelf was already floating it did not raise the water level and it was another ho hum event. The summer heat wave was the continuing story.
When you arrived at the studio, you were welcomed by a handful of bulletins. The first was from New Zealand saying the tide came in and kept coming in and no one had an explanation, especially when an old salt said, 'The tide is not due for four more hours'. The second was from Australia, followed by Indonesia, South Africa, and India.
An eye witness from a low lying area of New Zealand said she was awakened by the sound of lapping water. When she looked out her window she could see waves lapping at her patio wall. She woke her family and they went outside. A full moon allowed them to see that the water was not receding after each wave. She said it took awhile before they realize that something was wrong. Then they woke their neighbors and everyone went to high ground. Millions of other people were not so lucky.
This same story was repeated many times, the witnesses said, each wave about an inch high came in but it did not recede because the next wave was an inch higher than the one before.
Before you finished reading the first stack of bulletins, reports were coming in from all around the world. Your assistant told you that so many phone calls were coming in that the switch board was tied up and calls to other sources received busy signals. The reports indicated that the tide was moving north at about six hundred miles an hour. That indicated a tsunami, but the seismic stations did not report any major earth quakes, only an anomalous signal from West Antarctica. A call to NASA revealed that the space station could not see West Antarctica because of a snow storm, but they would check each time they made a pass. Time went quickly as everyone was busy trying to find out what was happening.
Everyone froze when a report came in saying Miami was under water. It took awhile to recover, but by then operations were in a near panic mode because now reports were coming in from every low lying area. The northward movement of the tide was obvious. Everyone was asking everyone else, 'Would it reach NY?'
The full impact of what was happening did not sink in until a reported said that the gulf coast refineries were shutting down because of the rising water. Stock markets around the world crashed. Communication with flooded areas ceased, only remote satellite relay messages were getting through.
Everyone stopped doing what they were doing to listen to a report from the space station, the whole world that was not effected by the water was watching TV. The snow storm had cleared and they could see the fast moving ice streams in the West Antarctica glacier were sliding into the ocean leaving ice canyons behind. Mile wide ice bergs were slowly moving out to sea, about one a minute, first from one stream and then from another. Like heavy boxes in a chute, the lower ice bergs were being push out to sea by the weight of those higher up the chute.
Now almost all activity ceased, everyone watched TV for the next report, with anticipation, and they came like clock work. Each city along the coasts from south to north reported rising water.
A few knew what to do and did it. Emergency crews and the military were activated, but their efforts were soon swamped by the magnitude of the problem. Others got their families together and moved to high ground. Soon traffic was jammed.
The lights went out. The emergency lighting system kick in, but you like most people moved to the windows. You first looked at the sky, it had not changed, still a bright blue. When you looked down you expected to see traffic grid locked, but something unusual fixed you gaze, people were running.
From what? Your question was soon answered, water.
You stood there transfixed watching each small wave move up the avenue, each one higher than the one before until the water was three feet deep. The streets were now deserted except for abandon vehicles. The scene was surreal. The sight of floating bodies jolted you back to the reality of the situation. You joined the others in trying to formulate a plan of action. The cafeteria and snack bar were flooded and dark, vending machines were quickly emptied, it was going to be a long cold hungry night. It turned out to be much longer.
I can assure you that those responsible for this catastrophe will not take responsibility, most will not even understand that they were contributors and those who do will deny it.
As long as the glaciers stay grounded we have time, if they don't, we don't.

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A12L10 The Money Grab

Talk about a money grab, almost every character in this story, myself included were driven by money to some degree. The Fontaine's were trying to get something for nothing and the Perrier's were trying to keep it. The Fontaine's were trying to break Evelyn Fontaine Perrier's last will and testament so they could get some of the money that went to the Perrier family after her husband was declared mentally incompetent five years after her death. They claimed that Joe pushed her into the raging river. Her body was never found.
The judge and his staff were paid from court costs calculated by the day so they had no reason to have the trial end quickly. The jurors were paid a stipend for each day, most of whom were unemployed and needed the money. The lawyers were paid by the hour for preparing and presenting their cases so naturally they dragged the trial on as long as possible. Only the two families were interested in a quick trial.
If the last witness had been first, the judge would have to have ended the trial on the third day, although there was a definite reason the last witness was last. As it was the trial began in mid January 1931 and didn't end until mid April after nearly eighty witness had been called, about equal number for both sides. The judge always had some excuse for being late, always took a long lunch break, and the defense and prosecution made sure that it took at least a day for each witness. If they failed to do so, the judge would recess the trial till the next day.
A letter from the court requesting my presents as a potential juror began my involvement with the case. I was dismissed because I knew one of the lawyers, but after hearing all the rumors about the case, I decided to listen to the entire trial with the hope of writing a story I could sell. Like many people during the Great Depression, I needed money.
I had moved away from home two years before, but as a matter of survival, I was forced to return home after the factory where I worked closed. By going to the trial each day, my dad could bank the coal stove and save some fuel during the day while the house was empty. I ate my noon meal at the soup kitchen. The house would be cold when I got home and it was my job to restart the coal stove. I wrote on every square inch of my note paper and when I rewrote my notes, the original was used to restart the fire.
After reorganizing the fractured story presented by the witnesses into a coherent whole I tried without success to sell the story partly because the complete testimony was printed each day in the local newspapers. My manuscript was passed from one family member to another, each editing some part or offering a different approach. The following was my final rewrite.
Evelyn and Joe were strong minded, egotistical, money conscious people drawn to each other like moths to a flame. They had a fiery relationship of love and hate. They were always arguing about something only to be followed by a torrid make up. It was no different on the day of her death.
They had walked to the 'Swamp', it really wasn't much of a swamp, a short distance from their home which was near a bend in a large river. They both enjoyed sitting on a bench they had placed near the end of a point of land from which they could watch the sun rise or set as the case maybe over open water. Further from the water they had placed several picnic tables, between what few trees there were, to encourage other people to enjoy the place.
To the north, about thirty feet, the river could not be seen because the 'Swamp' was created by a thin vertical clay layer about five feet high which prevented the 'Swamp' from draining directly into the river. The small creek that created the 'Swap', came from the south, flowed through a culvert under the road, that ran in front of their home, and then from the 'Swamp' it flowed east parallel to the river until it made a small water fall to join the river. From an airplane it would have been obvious that the 'Swamp' was nothing more than a small sand pit covered with about three feet of water formed by an old bend in the river that had deposited the sand behind the clay layer as the river carved a new path. The farm land to the east and west ended where the wet sand would not hold the weight of farm animals. From there to the open water only small bushes and a few small trees along with cattails and the like grew.
That day they were arguing about how to reinvest Evelyn's inheritance, money was the most frequent reason behind their arguments. Joe had made the last reinvestment decision against Evelyn's wishes and she knew he was wrong but he would not admitted it and she would not let him forget. She had made money on the previous reinvestment, but he was so sure he knew a way to make more, but it didn't.
First one would walk around the bench arguing their point while the other sat, then they would trade places. This time they were very heated and they could be heard a long way off causing the few people present to move further away from them. Joe had sat down and she was walking around the bench. As she walked around toward the tip of the point she walked to the end and this is where the story differs between the two families and what the jury had to decide. According to Joe and his family, when he heard the roar, he jumped up and ran to catch her, according to the Fontains, he pushed her into the raging waters.
Prior to that instant a very unusual event had occurred. Up stream the river divided into three branches, each of the three water sheds had heavy rain fall, not enough for anyone to worry about, but no one anticipated that the surge of water from the three branches would all converge at the same time eroding the base of the thin clay layer holding back the 'Swamp'. The event didn't occur until after the flood waters had passed. That is when the five feet of water and sand behind the clay layer was not balanced by the high water in the river and it burst through the weaken clay layer with a roar and the tip of the point slid down into a swirling mixture of sand and water. The event created a new bend in the river and a new sand bar and during that instant, Evelyn disappeared.

Great Uncle Hiram

Great uncle Hiram was Evelyn's grandfather's brother and since his legacy to Evelyn was a common cause for their arguments the prosecution went into great detail about Evelyn's relationship to 'Uncle' as Evelyn called him in order to establish that Joe was jealous and therefore had a motive to kill Evelyn.
Uncle was a colorful character, very likable, very helpful, but he had a very strong wanderlust. From the time he could walk, he spent every available moment exploring. He just had to see over the next hill or around the next bend. Several times before he graduated from high school he would be gone for three or four days because his exploration took him farther from home than he realized. As a result he learned to live off the land, hunger is a strong motivating force. He became an excellent marksman and learned how to fish. He found a six foot hard wood limb that became his walking stick, it also served as a fishing pole. He kept a length of line and a hook in his bed roll along with a pan and a spoon.
His father gave him a brand new rifle for his eighteenth birthday, his brother gave him a hunting knife. Both realized that he would never be a farmer. Uncle told his father to give his share of the farm to his brother because he didn't know when he would be back and he left the next morning.
Uncle literally walked across our country. He had a knack for being in the right place at the right time and doing the right thing. He could repair or build almost any thing. As a result he made many very fast friends very quickly. He could tell stories about his adventures for months without repeating himself. His travels took him around the world. He spoke seven languages and could write fluently in three of them. Unlike the rest of the family he never wanted wealth, but it found him against his will. He would give his money to who ever needed it whenever he had some. In the process he helped create the fortunes of many people and they did not forget. In fact, he was such a character that anyone who met him even briefly, never forgot him. They would swear that they could recognize him walking over a hill a mile away. These same people would bend over backwards to help him should their paths ever cross again.
Because of his life style he needed very little and wanted even less. He was a large man and walked very fast for long periods of time, thirty miles a day on level ground was nothing. He used boats, horses, and mules when needed, but he gave them away when he no longer needed them. Most people would force him to take something in trade.
He had been sick many times and the last fever forced him to return home after more than thirty years of wandering. In his last years he used trains and boats much more often. When he returned he still had his rifle and hunting knife, but a different walking stick and bed roll. He also had one additional possession, a large hump top sea chest. His sister offered him a second story bedroom over looking the river which could be seen from a comfortable rocking chair. He was quite content, even his wanderlust left him.
He was no sooner settled than the mail began to arrive, how it found him was anyone's guess. He wrote several letters each day and received a like number, but arthritis in his writing hand quickly prevented him from writing and this is how his relationship with Evelyn began. Evelyn had a very good hand, all her teachers praised her writing. Evelyn stopped by one day to find no one at home and left a note on the kitchen table. When her aunt read the note, the precision and clarity of her writing sparked a thought in her aunt's mind and the next time Evelyn came to visit her aunt said, 'Evelyn why don't you write Uncle Hiram's letters for him?' Evelyn liked the idea and went to uncle and asked him if he would allow her to write his letters for him. He said yes almost before she finished her question. As uncle's eye sight began to fail, she read his letters to him as well. In the process she learned several languages as well as geography.
Uncle never discarded the letters he received, he dropped them into his sea chest. Evelyn was surprised how heavy the sea chest was when she tried to move it once. The top had four wide straps that held uncle's few clothes in place when the top was closed. The walls of the sea chest were thick, but the top was very light, how could the top be light and the chest heavy when it contained nothing but letters, a fact that puzzled her, a puzzle that would be answered later.

Evelyn

Evelyn was status conscious by the time she could choose her own clothes. She had to have the best, the newest, the most fashionable. Her hair and make up were impeccable. She was average in stature and looks with a small, but very clear voice. She enunciated and projected her words so well she could be understood across a crowded room. She was not athletic, but very graceful. She did most things very well. She developed an obsession for wealth over the years. She had to have nice things, as she called them, about her.
After her grandfather retired from farming, her father's wealth steadily increased, so much so that he stopped farming and created a bank. His business sense was a newly found gift. It seemed as if everything he touched turned to gold. He married the daughter of a wealthy land owner about a year after he took over the family farm. She was a very likable woman, but she was very demanding and fortunately for him his income always stayed ahead of her demands, so family life was very congenial, but almost always money centered.
Evelyn had a bank account at age ten and quickly learned about compound interest when the time came. She did odd jobs for her dad at the bank and by the time she graduated from high school she could do the books for the bank. Bookkeeping and accounting were a snap for her. She became the chief financial officer of the bank two years after college graduation, Uncle died the year before, his health failed very rapidly during the last year. He left his bank account to his sister and his sea chest and all of its belongings to Evelyn. Two strong men carried the sea chest to her bedroom, she removed his clothing and there it sat. She didn't go through the letters until after she was married.
Her cousin's father bought him a car and the two of them became one of the first college commuters. They drove ten miles to the next town to college four days a week and that allowed her to continue to read and write uncle's letters. School work was easy for her, much credit had to be given to the education she received by reading and writing uncle's letters as well as her work at the bank. She knew arithmetic, bookkeeping, accounting, French, Spanish, and geography as well as her instructors.
She knew all the right people in town and they knew her. She thoroughly enjoyed her status and position and if anything threaten it, she would be all over it like a duck on a June bug, she protected it vigorously. She was a member of all the right organizations. She could talk about many topics and gave talks to selected groups. Obviously, she was in demand for almost every social occasion and it was no wonder that she blew Joe off his feet. He couldn't believe the capabilities of this woman. The only thing that disturbed Joe when he learned about it was her preoccupation with money. Why it disturbed him is a mystery, so was he. Talk about two people being a like, they only differed on where and how they would spend their money. She gave up her bank job the day after Joe purposed so she could spend full time on planning their wedding. What a wedding it was, a gala event for the whole town, but she didn't spend one cent of her own money, daddy did.
A year after the wedding she finally sat down and sorted Uncle's letters by person by date and then proceeded to read the letters he had put there before he came home. She was pregnant and had a lot of spare time. Sadly, she aborted a week later. After she recovered emotionally, she proceeded with the reading of the letters. She was surprised to find bank account books in three of the letters, the accounts were opened by people uncle had helped, in his name with large opening amounts, but had not been updated since. When she wrote letters to each of the banks she was again surprised, the donors had continued to add small amounts over many years making each account a small fortune in its own right. Each of the banks hoped she would leave the money in their bank after they put her name on the account and she did until she recovered. It took several months before she could think about it rationally and of course Joe didn't help the situation, he was always trying to tell her what to do with the money.
In order to clear her mind she returned to Uncle's letters, finished reading the last of them and turned them over to the local historical society which was a bonanza for them. Several members consolidated the letters into a book and it was a publishing success. The society never lacked for funds after that. She couldn't make up her mind about what to do with the empty chest, she still could not figure out why an empty chest was still so heavy.
One day she was idly wiping out the chest when she noticed that the inside bottom of the chest was much higher than it should be compared to the thickness of the walls. She didn't think much about it before, but there was a small offset all away around the bottom of the chest like it might be a bottom tray and sure enough when she press against the off set on opposite sides and raise her hands, it came with her hands. She almost passed out when she found neatly stacked twenty dollar gold coins filling the entire bottom of the chest. Slowly, she put the tray back and closed the top, lay on her bed and tried to think. She didn't know what to do, she would have to wait for Joe to come home.
Joe knew what to do, the next day two strong men carried the chest to their truck and took it to the bank. The bank employees transferred the coins to several protective cases and placed them in the vault. Between the three bank accounts and the gold plus their own personal assets they were now very wealthy and the arguments increased.
The find also explained two things that had puzzled her. First it explained why the chest was so heavy and second it explained a story Uncle told her, the ending of which seem trivial, but now was monumental and the cryptic letters he received from someone in New Orleans. In one letter completely out of context, it said, 'Ace, duce, tray.' Another said, 'Did you get to the bottom of it, yet'. A third, 'You need two hands to raise it up'.
During his travels through the mountains following his penchant to see what was around the next bend, uncle found a middle aged prospector unconscious, his legs were badly bruised, but no broken bones, his mule dead. He must have dove to get out of the way when he heard the rock slide coming, but the mule was not so lucky, it was hit by the bulk of the slide.
Uncle set up camp not far away, made the prospector as comfortable as possible, wet his lips with water, and waited. While he waited he explored the valley the prospector was going into when the rock slide hit. Using the prospector's pan he quickly discovered why the prospector was there, he had discovered gold. Uncle followed the small stream, checking every smaller stream joining it. Before the end of the next day he discovered the mother lode. When he returned to camp the prospector was regaining consciousness. Slowly, uncle nursed him back to health, but he still could not walk. The prospector told uncle where to go to find the next town and where to go from there to file a claim. By then uncle had panned enough gold to buy a mule and supplies.
The first thing uncle did was to file a claim using the prospectors map, but he filed the claim in the prospector's name not his own. Since he was in a mining town he could sell his small amount of gold without starting a gold rush. When he left he made sure no one followed him, he returned, and stayed with the prospector until he was able to establish the gold mine and when every thing was under control his wanderlust returned and he had to leave. The prospector was dumbfounded when he discovered that uncle had placed the claim in his name and swore he would pay him back some day.
Well, that day came on uncle's return home. When he got off the boat in New Orleans who should he run into but the prospector waiting for his nephew. The prospector would not hear of it, he had to come and stay at his estate at least for a while, which he did. Uncle turned down all his offers to split his wealth and refused all gifts. He finally condescended to accept the sea trunk and train fare home.

Joe

Joe was, pardon the words, an average Joe. He had no exceptional abilities except for one, he instinctively recognized a good investment when is saw it. His life followed nearly the same path as Evelyn, except his family had been in the banking business since they came to this country and he lived in the college town so he didn't have to commute. He was not an outstanding student and struggled to keep his grades up high enough to graduate. Like Evelyn, he did odd jobs around his father's bank and after graduation he was the chief loan officer of the bank. Again like Evelyn, he was not athletic, a good dancer, but not outstanding. He also was a member of the town country club and knew all the right people and belonged to all the right organization. He was not a good speaker, so he was seldom asked to do so, but he sponsored and hosted many events. Many organizations tried to enlist his help with fund raising activities, some were successful.
It was during one of those activities that Evelyn swept him off his feet. Many well know people had been invited, one was a wealthy banker from Mexico who could not speak English and his aide and interpreter fell ill at the last minute and could not come. He came anyway and was like a fish out of water. He had great difficulty trying to get people to understand what he wanted and needed or even who he was. The hosts, including Joe didn't know what to do, it was already very embarrassing. Evelyn noticed the discomfort of the people around him and came over to see what the problem was. Evelyn had been in several of the same classes with Joe in college, they knew each other, but they were not friends. Neither had dated during school or college they were to preoccupied with money and neither attracted the opposite sex.
She could hear the banker talking as she approached and immediately answered his questions and the two of them launched into a long conversation while the others stood there dumbfounded. Joe could speak French, his family's language, but not Spanish. He and the others waited patiently. Finally, Evelyn began to translate what he said so the others could understand. Evelyn stayed with him and the situation returned to normal.
During dinner the banker and Evelyn sat across from Joe and his father and after the usual pleasantries the banker began to ask questions about banking, loan losses, accounting, cash flow, etc. Not only did she translate the questions and answers, but she also told of her experiences at the bank, she was perfectly comfortable with any topic of discussion. Joe could not believe what he was hearing and he made a point of getting her to dance with him. She declined several times, but Joe finally managed to get her into a position where she could not refuse. He had enlisted the help of another hostess, he convinced her to dance with the banker from Mexico, leaving Evelyn alone.
The following week Joe drove to her family's bank on some pretext and managed to visit with her father for a few minutes hoping to get the chance to ask her to go to dinner with him. He could not believe his good fortune when her father invited him to have dinner with them at their country club. She couldn't refuse to dance with him and agreed that he could come and visit her at her home. Thus began the courtship of Evelyn.
It was not a story book romance, they talked about business, they seldom touched one another except when dancing. There were no words of endearment, no kissing or hugging that didn't happen until after they completed the financing of a project that was tow large for either bank to handle alone. Both had been instrumental in getting their fathers to agree that it was a good deal and after all the signatures were applied to the contract they happened to meet in an empty hallway and embraced. After that they were very formal when with other people, but when they were alone they were very passionate. Both would return home sweaty. After one very passionate evening when both ended up nude, she pushed Joe away so she could cool off, he jumped up and said, 'I guess I had better propose. Will you marry me?' Without hesitation she said yes and pulled him down on to her. They didn't sleep that night and had a lot of explaining to do the next day when both were late for work. The arguments began the very next date only to end passionately. From then on until their wedding the people around them would claim the temperature increased by ten degrees when ever the two of them met.
Both fathers were afraid their arguments would hurt their bank business because during the arguments they frequently accused the other for causing the events of their love life in order to cast more blame on the other or to bolster their point that they were right and other was wrong. After each argument the grape vine was very busy, but contrary to the fathers fears the gossip didn't effect business. Many new customers and some old customers asked that Joe or Evelyn handle their business, a fact that bewildered both fathers.

The Last Witness

I will say almost nothing about the trial because in was long and boring, but at least I had a warm place to spend the day. At the end of a day when the details of their sex life had been presented in great detail the reporters caused a stampede. I always remained seated until the rush to get out the door was over.
The last witness had to persuade the defense lawyers to put him on the stand. They finally agreed when several of the other witnesses who were present at the 'Swamp' on that day said they would be willing to testify that they saw him get out of his truck and walk toward the picnic tables. He testified that as he walked from his truck toward the picnic tables he had the best angle to see Joe and Evelyn. Most of the other witnesses said that they had not seen what had happened because they had been walking away from Joe and Evelyn and only looked back after the roar by then only Joe was standing on the point.
The last witness lived far enough away that he did see the local newspapers and wouldn't have know about the trial if he had not made a special delivery to the local hardware store, the same as he was doing that day. His truck blew a tire and he was walking toward the people at the picnic tables to ask for help. He could hear Joe and then Evelyn the moment he turned the engine off, so he was watching them as he walked. He stopped walking when he heard the roar, he saw Evelyn disappear and said Joe was still sitting. Like everyone else, no one moved for a short time. Joe ran to the sloping tip but didn't go further because he started to slide. When he regained his footing, he stood looking at the water for a short time, then he turned and walked back to the bench and collapsed, covering his face with both hands.
Joe never recovered, he progressed from shock to grief to depression to insanity. Joe's father got power of attorney in order to handle Joe's affairs when it was apparent that Joe could not take care of himself. It was shortly thereafter that he learned of the details of both their wills. Both wills gave very specific instructions, there was nothing vague about them. Certain people were to receive certain properties, most of little value, and small amounts of money, the large bulk was to go to the surviving spouse and if no surviving spouse then to the family of the last survivor. The Fontain's claimed that that was not Evelyn's intentions, but the wording of the will was very clear, if she died first Joe was to get almost everything and then it would be determined by Joe's will. When the grape vine learned the details and eventually, the Fontain's, the money grab began.
The trial did settle two things. It made it possible to declare Evelyn dead, putting her will into effect and put an end to the Fontain's claim that Joe pushed her to her death. But since Joe was not yet dead, Joe's estate could not be settled, it was placed into a trusteeship and so the legal wrangling continued.

Greed

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