Chapter 1
Mary's Last Wish
"Wake up, Ed," Mary Rumsfeld coaxed, as she gently shook her husband's shoulder.
"What is it?" Ed asked in alarm, as he struggled to gather his wits. "Are you alright?" The dimly glowing walls and ceiling allowed him to see that she was sitting atop the covers next to him on their bed, and that she was fully dressed for daytime activities. It must be morning already, he deduced, and as usual, she was up and about long before him. Most important: she looked alright! Old, wrinkled, and gray but alert. Her sparkling eyes were full of morning energy and confidence. She was even smiling!
"Calm down; its morning and I'm as well as can be expected, given that I'm at death's door," she replied.
She had been making many such remarks lately, Ed noted. She was of course referring to the fact that she was in her mid-seventies and rapidly weakening, in ever greater contrast with his own apparently immortal body that persistently appeared to be thirty-five years old. He hadn't aged in over forty years. It was unfair. Weren't women supposed to live longer than men, especially nowadays?
"GIVE US THE USUAL GRADUAL INCREASE IN LIGHT," Ed projected silently via his recent brain implant for the Stone-Coats of the surrounding cave to 'hear'. "OH, AND GOOD MORNING EVERYONE!" he added, using both telepathic and implant voices.
Ed's Stone-Coat manufactured brain implant functioned perfectly, translating his English language-framed thoughts into digitized raw signals and broadcasting those at kilohertz -range frequencies to the Stone-Coat infused granite walls, celling, and floor of the cave. There Stone-Coat developed imbedded metallic wire segments of suitable lengths for resonance captured analog signals that were soon re-digitized and sent via nanotube circuitry to the banks of individual Stone-Coat computing elements that comprised much of Giants' Rest Mountain. The human thought patterns were finally known and understood by them. The whole process of translation and comprehension was concluded within a few milliseconds.
The already dimly glowing cave walls, ceiling, and floor began to gradually glow brighter, though it would take a couple of minutes for the bedroom to reach full daylight levels. Wall hangings gradually became illuminated. Most of these were exceptionally fine examples of Mohawk art, clothing, and weapons: relics of bygone centuries entrusted to Ed as a current Tribe Chief. Such human relics meant almost nothing to the Stone-Coats, but were incredibly priceless to the Tribe.
The term 'Stone-Coat' seemed a somewhat arbitrary one to use for life forms that were mostly solid stone throughout and could assume many shapes and functions, but it was the name for them traditionally used by the local Mohawk Tribe for over ten thousand years to describe them, and the term was now applied to them by most humans world-wide.
No Stone-Coat 'technology' could yet directly sense telepathic signals communicated by some humans and other animals, but with the advent of the implants thoughts formed within the human brain could be sensed. Now humans with implants and Stone-Coats with radio-wave sensing abilities could directly communicate, even if one or both of the parties lacked vocal and/or hearing apparatus and/or telepathic ability. Using them wasn't natural biological mind-to-mind telepathy, only a crudely mimicked imitation, but it worked well.
With the use of Stone-Coat intermediaries and the implants Ed and Mary could even communicate with each other soundlessly, despite Mary's total lack of natural telepathic ability. It took some practice and concentration to pull it off satisfactorily however, just as real telepathy did, in order to ensure that only intended thoughts were communicated and not half-baked, extraneous, or private ones. After only two initially awkward months however, Ed and Mary had become highly proficient at implant use. Currently they had the only two such implants in existence, but Ed had already decided that he was going to recommend that implants such as theirs be made widely available to others.
The telepathic ants known as jants that lived nearby in the Jant Clan Longhouse Cave where Ed and Mary also lived 'heard' Ed's telepathic morning greeting and responded in kind. "GOOD MORNING, JANT CLAN LEADER ED RUMSFELD," they answered. Their thoughts were those of a hive mind that consisted of a million tiny ant minds focused into a single reverberating 'voice' that seemed almost human to Ed.
Meanwhile they physically for the most part did what ants had always done: driven by evolution-honed chemistry and primitive neural circuitry they performed the simple necessary life sustaining chores that ants had evolved to do for over a hundred million years. Only now they each also hosted complex brain matter that comprised ten percent of their tiny bodies, telepathically forming a conscious hive mind that could in turn link into the telepathic network of other jant hive minds that were established throughout the world wherever jants lived.
Overtly jants always seemed to be respectful of humans, but Ed sometimes caught bits and pieces of their internal chatter that provided disturbing: hints that they sometimes told humans one thing but told each other something quite different. Their capability and predilection for deception made them more human-like than Ed was comfortable with. Even Jerry Green, the gene-splicing/editing creator of Jerry's ants, the jants, had on several occasions hinted to Ed that he didn't fully understand or trust his tiny creations.
Several other telepathic Mohawk Tribe members could also understand some of the jant internal chatter and were similarly suspicious of hidden jant motives and intensions. Despite that, the dominant presence and increasing influence of jants throughout most of the land portions of the Earth's ecosphere could not be denied. Throughout the world jants were rapidly replacing other competitive ant and non-ant species.
With Ed's help the Tribe had adjusted to jants. Like the Stone-Coats, jants had been granted Clan status by the Tribe several decades earlier. And Ed, willing sucker that he was and the second human being to ever communicate telepathically with a sentient insect species, was made the Jant Clan Leader of the Tribe. It became his never ending duty to help manage the jant/Tribe relationship, along with sharing Tribe Chief duties with Running Bear, the aging Tribe adopted Mohican hero who was also the Stone-Coat Clan Leader.
"Good morning, Chief Ed," spoke the wall via the vibrating graphene chords and membranes of a small cavity in the wall/Stone-Coat nearby. Like Ed and Mary, the Stone-Coats also seemed to prefer communication with humans using sound, even though they started doing so only a few years earlier. Ed sometimes wondered if Stone-Coats did that to keep jants from listening in. The tiny jants could sometimes sense voices as deep vibrations, but not well enough to distinguish words. Jants were essentially deaf with respect to sound, while Stone-Coats and most humans were telepathically deaf. Between humans, jants, Stone-Coats and their various combinations of natural abilities, inabilities, and technologies, communications within and between each of Earth's three dominant species was a complicated issue.
Ed was glad that neither the Stone-Coats nor the jants immediately reported any status information to him. That meant that there were no urgent issues pending that they felt compelled to tell him about despite the fact that it was not his turn this month to be Chief of the Giants' Rest Mohawk Tribe humans. That was fine as far as Ed was concerned. Let John Running Bear as the current on-duty Chief deal with any issues!
But something urgent was definitely up with Mary. Upon inquiry Ed's internalized implant informed him that it was only eight AM. Mary usually let him sleep-in much later when he was not tasked to be Chief. "Something is really bothering you," he said. Even though they had become comfortable using their implants Ed and Mary also preferred using voice communications with Stone-Coats and with each other. "Despite my apparent youth I'm a grown boy; let me have it."
"I want to go to California," she finally blurted out. "Very soon. Mostly to see the big trees and the Pacific Ocean."
"California? That's right, we never did get out there together, did we!" said Ed. More than forty years ago they had had talked about taking a month-long vacation in California. That was a lifetime ago, when he still taught seventh to ninth-grade his
tory in Virginia and had long idyllic summers off. In Virginia, Mary had a little antique shop that she still spoke of longingly, even though she had hardly made any money with it. Ed hung out with her in her shop in the idyllic Virginia summers, until the changes came.
Back then despite summer and winter weather perhaps getting nastier and the findings of thousands of climate scientists world-wide, many Americans still denied that climate change was even happening or that it had anything to do with the billions of tons of carbon dioxide that humans had released into the atmosphere. But climate change was unfortunately very real and not a mere construct of religion or politics. The fact that to fast-paced humans it seemed to take hold so gradually simply made it more insidious and subject to denialism.
Summers were just a bit longer and hotter, and winter though a touch warmer packed a wallop with bigger snowstorms. Mother Nature took notice. All too soon the beloved Virginia where Ed and Mary lived was subjected to invading giant snakes and birds, man eating insects, and other invasive animals, plants, and microbes.
Evolution had also become tinged with Lamarckism, accelerating genetic changes slightly. Quirky invading species were often even more quirky than expected. Jerry might have also been responsible for that, he once admitted to Ed, due to work he did back in his early years of experimentation with virus transmission of genes. Scientists world-wide were still trying to determine if the Lamarckian incidence of traits of individuals being fed-back into their genetic makeup was significant enough to be a far greater danger to life on Earth than any of the radical climate changes that had occurred over billions of years due to things like asteroid strikes, volcanism, and changes in solar activity.
Not at first noticed because of inherent political instability to begin with, there was also climate change-caused world-wide sociopolitical upheaval to deal with. In response to historically unprecedented storms, floods, land-slides, droughts, fires, heat waves, cold waves, crop failures, and other events directly related to climate, the incidence of rebellions, wars, terrorism, human and non-human migrations, plague, and anarchy gradually increased, with tens of thousands of humans dying daily in hundreds of on-going conflicts and other calamities world-wide. Already strained governments and public services struggled and collapsed, leading to further chaos and suffering. A much stronger United Nations worked worldwide towards survival and peace despite destruction and chaos, but its internationally focused resources were limited as every nation also struggled internally to address its own pressing local problems.
From the beginning there was no doubt that humans should in principle be able to survive the massive inconvenience of relatively modest climate change - unless they did something stupid. Unfortunately humans always did many things stupid. Ever since they had achieved world dominance as a species thousands of years earlier, humans had been their own worst enemy, and that situation wasn't going to be altered by climate change.
The term 'climate change' became more popular than 'global warming' as it became more clear that there was much more to what was happening than a simple straight-forward uniform warming of a few degrees, including consequences such as drought and flooding that seemed obvious outcomes to climate savvy scientists but mysterious to most other people. A very few regions on Earth were even for a time becoming colder instead of warmer. Eastern Canada and the North Eastern United States including upper New York State, where some of the Tribe still lived at Giants' Rest Mountain, was one of those colder regions.
There were very notable cyclic changes to the nuclear fusion driven weather of the sun also, and these also influenced Earth climate significantly. Two decades of solar dimming had temporarily stalled Earth's carbon dioxide induced global warming until the middle of the twenty-first century, but had accelerated cooling in the North East. Meanwhile Ed and Mary retreated north from steaming hot Virginia to live with the reclusive Giants' Rest Mountain Mohawk Tribe of the New York Adirondack Mountains.
In warming Virginia, while innocently cutting his grass Ed had been attacked and nearly killed by invading mutant army ants. He was saved by his neighbor Jerry Green and Jerry's gene-spliced/edited ants - the jants - but at a price. Ed became telepathic and apparently immortal due to the chemical cocktail that his biochemist neighbor had concocted and injected that day into both himself and Ed.
Like Jerry, Ed could suddenly communicate telepathically with the jants, and became allied with them. But even with jants to protect them it had become too hot and dangerous in Virginia to suit Ed and Mary. When Mary was nearly eaten by a forty-foot mutant python in her own kitchen, that was the last straw. Through Mary's Uncle Jack, Ed found another teaching job in upper New York State where the increasing cold offered some protection from the heat and from tropical invasive species. In the growing cold of the Adirondacks Ed and Mary successfully escaped giant pythons, condors, and most other invasive flora and fauna by living with the Mohawk Tribe of Giants' Rest Mountain.
There they soon became far too busy to think of California vacations. Although Ed had thought that the reclusive Mohawk Tribe was hiring him to school them about white-man history, they really wanted him to use his newfound telepathic skills to try to detect the waking Atenenyarhu - the Stone-Coat Ice Giants of Giants' Rest Mountain. Ed and Mary were soon adopted by the Tribe and Ed eventually even became a Chief.
The Stone-Coats of ancient Mohawk legend turned out to be very real, and the stone creatures in the form of massive Ice Giants became more active as winters lengthened and caused permanent ice-sheets to form in the USA North East and much of South-Eastern Canada. The Stone-Coats fortunately turned out to be rational and mostly indifferent to humans rather than being enemies. Gradually the rock creatures bonded with Tribe humans. With the help of the Stone-Coats part of the Tribe remained at Giants' Rest and preserved some of their long Stone-Coat dominated heritage, but it hadn't been easy.
The last five years had been particularly trying ones for all of humanity. While humans worldwide increasingly struggled with the consequences of climate change including mass human migrations and armed conflicts, they also had to adapt to the reality of Stone-Coat Ice Giants existing on Earth for hundreds of millions of years. Only a few decades earlier the jants had presented a similar shocking blow to human egos. Now humans were forced to face the humbling fact that they shared the Earth with both insects and rocks that were more intelligent than themselves. The jants were new and a human creation, but the Stone-Coats were ancient beyond comprehension, possibly pre-dating multicellular biological life. Not since the advent of the sciences of astronomy and evolution had fragile human egos been so traumatized!
Meanwhile the formerly secretive telepathically gifted Mohawk Tribe was struggling with sudden world-wide fame due to their long and increasingly close relationship with the Stone-Coats. The Stone-Coats were essentially immortal and would probably survive billions of years longer until the sun expanded to engulf the Earth. Not so the Tribe. Ageless Ed Rumsfeld bore witness as tribal culture and traditions long under assault by outside influences now rapidly faded into history. And his beloved Mary too was rapidly disappearing before his own eyes, one age-driven infirmity at a time.
"I have to go on that California vacation very soon, Ed," continued Mary, "before I become a complete invalid."
"Has something happened to cause this sudden urge to visit the Golden State?" Ed asked. "It's because the kids have gone back home to Brooklyn, isn't it!"
Their daughter Mira and their son Craig and the grandkids had recently visited Giants' Rest for three wonderful weeks, but had finally returned to their homes in Brooklyn for the start of the new school year and for Mira and Craig to resume helping the Stone-Coats gain acceptance in the City. Mary and Ed always felt a little down when the kids returned to their homes in Brooklyn. She and Ed could have of course accepted their invitations to move to the Tribe Brooklyn enclave in Green Point in order to be near them. That would have made a lot of sense, especially for Mary.
They had five grandchildren now, little time capsules that would carry forth human genes and a few memories of their odd grandparents to future generations. Especially when in league with Mary, the mischievous grandkids were more fun than a barrel of monkeys. However Mira and Craig as well as Mary all seemed to be unusually upset this time when they parted, Ed noticed. Something unusual seemed to be bothering them all, but Ed chocked it up to the increasing chaos throughout the world and the refusal of himself and Mary to move to Brooklyn to be with the kids.
Ed and Mary both hated cities but the growing Mohawk community and jant and Stone-Coat presence in Brooklyn would make them feel at home, the kids had argued. Though most of the Mohawks had moved south into Appellation Mountain forests, Mohawks had a long history of helping to build skyscrapers in the city of New York. Now they were helping Stone-Coats and New Yorkers adapt to each other. But Ed and Mary were fully dedicated to the Giants' Rest Mountain Reservation now. They refused to leave the Mountain nowadays except for short visits to Brooklyn.
"Their returning to Brooklyn isn't the problem, Ed," Mary claimed. "I have simply come to realize that for me our dream trip to California is now or never. It's very different for you, Ed. You visited there before we met. You've told me about it many times longingly. I want so see those places too, especially the live big trees and the Pacific Ocean."
Mary was a huge tree fan, but locally most trees were dead and buried under more than ten meters of ice. There were small pockets of wonderful live trees atop nearby mountains that they visited in the summer, but nothing to compare to the last great stands of forest giants in the West.
She also wanted to see the Pacific Ocean and its coastline. The oceans and their deep secrets fascinated her. As a youngster she had even imagined becoming an oceanographer and exploring the oceans herself. The eastern coastline she had occasionally experienced in New Jersey and Virginia was flat, peaceful, and bland compared to the western one, she reckoned, and most traditional Eastern coastline towns had been recently ravaged by raising sea levels and raging storms, somewhat tarnishing the romantic allure of the Atlantic for her.
"And since you don't age you could probably visit California again sometime in your distant future," continued Mary. "But someday very soon I'll be spending all my time in bathrooms and beds and with bed-pans and won't really be able to go anywhere, if I live even that long. Besides, after all these years of work you need a break also, Ed. You work too damned hard!"
"But California is a real mess now," Ed protested. "I vacationed there as a young man over fifty years ago, before the big droughts and the social disorder set in, and before we met. It's even more F-ed up there than here in New York State. I'm not even sure that California is a state anymore. Besides, there are few if any commercial airline flights to most parts of California, including Los Angeles. The railways and the interstate highway system hasn't yet been fully restored by the Stone-Coats so we couldn't easily get there via land either. Ships might be our best bet, but that would take weeks, what with the Panama Canal shut down for Stone-Coat upgrade and repair. To get to the West Coast ships have to travel all the way around through either Arctic or Antarctic waters! So how would we even get to California? We simply can't get there from here!"
"I talked to our old neighbor Jerry Green about that. He says that he still has strong influence over some parts of California and that he can fly us to even Southern California on a Stone-Coat maintained military airplane. He has also set us up with an expert guide that will manage our entire trip! Jerry just has a few minor things that he wants us to do for him during our visit."
"Swell; that figures!" said Ed. Ed didn't know exactly how he had managed it, but Jerry was now the shadowy leader of the entire United States Federal Government. If anyone on Earth could get them to California it was Jerry. "If Jerry arranged it I suppose it will be alright. After all, what could possibly go wrong with him backing us? But our dream trip through much of California would take weeks! I can't leave the Tribe for that long, Mary! What about my Tribe Chief duties?"
"I already talked to Chief John and Talking Owl about that," said Mary. "They both agree that we should go now while we can."
Yes, Ed had no doubt that the Tribe could get along quite well without him. After all, he had been telling them that for many years though they still insisted that he be their Chief half of the time. But that wasn't his greatest concern. "I honestly don't think that you're strong enough for such an adventure, Mary!"
"Well I'm not going to get any stronger, Ed," countered Mary. "Not in this lifetime, anyway. It's now or never, Ed, and I say it's now. Call it my dying wish."
Ed fervently wished that she would stop talking about dying. "Damn but you're bossy! OK, I'll work on the arrangements."
"They've already been made by me through Jerry Green. We leave for Los Angeles first thing tomorrow morning."
"So soon? Crap! I'll have to pack my duffel bag!"
"I've already done that. Today we're mostly saying our farewells to our Tribe friends."
"Ann is getting back today too," Ed noted. "She'll want to let us know how things are going at the UN. I'd sort of like to know myself."
"She got in already a couple of hours ago. I've already had breakfast with her. Things are generally going alright with the UN and the outside world, or at least things aren't any worse than usual. Ann will get by perfectly fine without your advice for a few weeks."
That was probably true, Ed realized. Since joining the Tribe five years earlier the ex-news reporter Ann Richards had become the world-recognized expert on the problem of peacefully and productively integrating Stone-Coat and jant interests with those of humanity.
"Your usual breakfast with Tribe friends is waiting for you topside on the Deck," said Mary. "I'll start up now and meet you there. This morning Ann will be explaining the UN situation to you and other leaders of the Tribe."
"Situation?" asked Ed. "There's a UN situation?"
"There's always a UN situation," said Mary, as she tottered a few steps to her walker and grabbed at its handles to steady herself. "I'll see you topside. You get your lazy butt out of that bed!"
"Hey!" exclaimed Ed. "Why are you all dressed up?" He had finally just noticed that Mary was wearing her old formal Mohawk tribal gear: long homespun cotton and wool dress and leggings, with high leather moccasin/boots, and everything hand-dyed colorfully. Anticipating the chill of the caves and the Fall weather outside, she was topping things off now with a heavy poncho-like jacket-thing that she hadn't worn in years. "Is somebody getting married this morning? Do I need to dress up in my formal Mohawk duds too?"
"No Ed; you should wear your normal clothes. I just felt like dressing up today."
"Good," said Ed, relieved. He hated getting dressed up.
He watched Mary with dismay as she moved off far too slowly, step by step through the curtained doorway and out of their living quarters, moving the light-weight walker along with her less than a foot at a time, each laborious step an immense struggle against the unrelenting forces of gravity. It wasn't fair. He didn't age at all, but she was clearly in rapid decline. Application of jant controlled med-ticks every few months ensured that she had no serious diseases such as cancer, but that still hadn't kept her from aging. She was a shrunken, wrinkled, disintegrating shell of her former self, but she was still one hundred percent Mary, the love of his life.
The Tribe Lead Scientist Frank Gray Wolf had once explained aging to Ed as ultimately a consequence of the uncertainty aspects of quantum mechanics, without which there would be no randomized breakdowns of gene protective caps and cell reproduction chemistry that led to aging and cancer. However Frank also said that without quantum mechanics there would be no positive things such as molecules, chemistry, life, consciousness, emotion and free will. Life was wonderful but there was no free lunch, Frank had explained, as inevitably there was also aging and death.
Mostly Ed had no idea what the hell Frank was talking about, except for pe
rhaps the no free lunch part. What he did know was that his beloved wife Mary was ever more rapidly disintegrating before his eyes and there wasn't a damn thing that anyone could do about it.
He estimated that while Mary's laborious struggle to get topside and outside to the Deck through the Tribe Caves would take her at least twenty minutes, his own effortless stroll topside would take less than five. He could also be up and dressed and out the door in five, so he still had at least ten minutes to kill so that she would get topside ahead of him. He decided that he would briefly stop in at the Stone-Coat Information Center on the way topside. He wasn't Chief this month but he still liked to stay informed, including maintaining his knowledge of Stone-Coat progress world-wide.
He first relieved himself in their suite's little bathroom and noted with satisfaction that all human excrement and toilet paper disappeared almost immediately in the black cloud-like puffy pile of Stone-Coat nanotubes that filled the toilet bowl. In seconds all water and carbon-based organics were absorbed and distributed within the Mountain to whatever nearby Stone-Coat entities needed them.
"Don't say I never gave you nothing," he remarked to the toilet when he finished, not for the first time. After a couple of decades of confused but amusing replies there was no verbal Stone-Coat response via either sound or implant. Ed took it as a sign of real Stone-Coat progress towards understanding humans, including even the subtleties of his attempts at humor. Even the stationary Stone-Coats that formed his bathroom toilet, walls, and floor seemed to know when he was just messing with them.
Frank said that Stone-Coat life and thinking abilities were perhaps evidence that the chaotic behavior and ghostly quantum effects related to organic life appeared even within the comparatively ordered world of crystal-based structures. He also said that the gradual progress of Stone-Coats towards understanding human jokes once again demonstrated the lack of a 'singularity point' where it could be said that self-awareness was fully achieved by a thinking being. Ed decided that if there was also some sort of a 'singularity point' at which he would abruptly better understand what the hell Frank was talking about he hadn't reached it yet and perhaps never would.
Frank also often likened the two thousand Tribe and other humans that lived in the Stone-Coat constructed caves within Giants' Rest Mountain to the two to three pounds of tiny microbes that normally lived within each human body. Microbiomes, he termed the whole distressingly disgusting mess. Stone-Coats and the humans living within them were engaged in what Frank called a mutualistic symbiosis where both species generally benefited. Ed wasn't sure that he liked the notion that humans living inside a living mountain bore similarities to microbes living inside human bodies, probably because he found the reality of several pounds of microbes living in humans to be nauseatingly revolting. It was a natural intuitive yuck-feeling that no amount of reasoning from Frank could succumb.
It's a good thing that Stone-Coats liked poop immensely, Ed figured; to him it seemed to be inadequate payment for all that they did for the Tribe and were starting to do for all of mankind world-wide. Fortunately oftentimes someone's crap was someone else's treasure. There was some sort of surprising and mysterious cosmic balance and irony to that notion that Ed rather liked.
Frank explained that biological lifeforms such as humans efficiently gathered together dozens of chemical elements that were used by the Stone-Coats to dope silicon and other crystalline structures to alter their electrical properties. This in turn supported Stone-Coat intelligence, mobility, and other vital abilities. Especially in mobile Stone-Coats, carbon was used extensively, in its three dimensional crystalline diamond form for skin and bone-like structures, in its two dimensional graphene form for structures analogous to human tendons, ligaments, nerves, digestive and circulatory systems, and as an element that bonded with others in complex ways to form organic molecules.
In biological life complex carbon-organic molecules dispersed among surrounding stable water molecules was the fundamental structure. Within water-dependent biological lifeforms absurdly complex chemical processes and structures had evolved over billions of years. With Stone-Coat life, computer-like processing structures within numerous types of crystalline lattice frameworks had similarly evolved. Both methods of achieving life and self-aware intelligence worked! Frank said that both human and Stone-Coat theorists speculated that still other basic forms of life might be possible, and that life was likely to be present throughout much of the universe!
Ed was glad there were science-inclined humans like Frank who could make some sense of Stone-Coat physiology and the universe at-large. He didn't much understand such things himself but he felt much better knowing that at least some smarter humans did. It was reassuring to him that despite all the crazy things happening in the world around him the universe was to a significant degree understandable to people like Frank.
Ed once told Frank of his reassurance that scientists understood so much and Frank laughed so hard and long that Ed feared that his usually stoic friend had gone mad. "Each scientist understands only bits and pieces of the universe, and far too superficially for them to ever be satisfied," explained the Mohawk scientist.
"The more we understand the deeper and more inscrutable the remaining mysteries appear to be," Frank said. "It turns out that to understand this universe and ordinary matter there is even theoretically a need for things unseen such as multiple universes and so-called dark matter and energy. Even when restricting ourselves to parts of the world we directly sense there are complex systems within systems that we may never fully comprehend. And lately there are also intelligent stone creatures and insects for science to consider. Science struggles greatly and endlessly to make heads and tails of it all! However if our thin veneer of understanding comforts you I am in turn also comforted."
Ed glanced at a portion of the cave wall that the Stone-Coats had made into a large mirror. The required silver had been gathered by the Stone-Coats using a vast root-like system of carbon nanotubes that extended for miles into the Earth's Crust around Giants' Rest Mountain. The nanotubes selectively transported desired elements atom-by-atom electromagnetically and assembled them in whatever structures were needed.
Not even Frank know exactly how they did that, though human scientists suspected that it involved stripping off or adding electrons to make normally neutral atoms positively or negatively charged so they could be transported through carbon nanotubes by varying electric voltages in a manner similar to human particle accelerators and rail guns. The Stone-Coats themselves didn't know how they did it. As was the case with humans, the blind watch-maker that is evolution gave them abilities that they didn't understand but performed subconsciously. Largely in response to human science they were only recently beginning to understand themselves in a scientific sense.
In the Stone-Coat constructed mirror Ed's thirty-five year old self stared back at him. He was of medium height and slim but not skinny, muscular but not muscle-bound, not ugly but not handsome. He currently sported well-trimmed brown beard, mustache and head-hair. He looked exactly the same as he did over forty years ago in the year 2025. But now his chronological age was more than twice his body's apparent physical age. Even his teeth were all holding up with no cavities ever, and when two teeth were accidently knocked out a decade ago they quickly grew back!
Ed dressed in one of his usual blue-jean/flannel shirt combinations, along with light-weight hiking footwear. He carried a nifty lightweight nanotube reinforced jacket with him to wear outside when he was close to the ice sheets. That was one advantage of the Tribe no longer being isolated from the outside world: decent clothing manufactured off the Reservation was much easier to come by. What he wore was assembled in nearby New York City, using mostly Stone-Coat generated raw materials including diamond buttons and graphene-based synthetic fabrics that felt like cotton but were stronger than Kevlar.
Thanks to Stone-Coats, diamonds were becoming as 'cheap' and common as plastic used to be. Many humans were particula
rly impressed when they learned that Stone-Coats could turn poop into diamonds. There was some deep-seated aesthetic and philosophical meaning to it, Ed supposed, though he had no idea what it might be.
As he walked through the community hallway that ran down the center of the Jant Clan Long House Cave, he was joined by several Tribe members and outsider crew people that walked along with him towards the Tribe cave system's central hallway. He noted that most of them were also wearing clothing assembled off the Reservation using Stone-Coat provided materials rather than traditional Mohawk home-spun clothing.
No doubt about it, life was changing very fast for the Tribe. In five short busy years the formerly ultra-reclusive Tribe had needed to transform itself greatly to deal with being a center of world attention. Ed wasn't sure that he liked the transformation. But at least here deep in the Tribe Caves the walls and ceilings were adorned with reassuring traditional Tribe art and artifacts, reminding the Tribe of their long proud Mohawk and pre-Mohawk heritage. The Tribe had lived here at Giants' Rest Mountain since the previous glaciation period ended over ten thousand years ago, long before they joined the Mohawk. The Tribe remained a unique group of remarkable people, and Ed felt honored to be one of them.
As Ed continued along the central cave hallway that interconnected all the Tribe caves and led up and out of Giants' Rest Mountain he was greeted and joined by several more Tribe workers. Some of them exhibited a touch of inbred telepathic abilities and a few of the more gifted even exchanged greetings with him telepathically. Most Tribe people thought and spoke using English now, but many of the elders stubbornly used mostly Mohawk. Some admonished their peers to onkwehonwehneha sata:ti: to 'say it in Native American', while others responded by saying tiohrhen:sa sata:ti: 'say it in English'. The Tribe was in transition.
Most Tribe members were on their way topside to work in the greenhouses. Ed had toiled in the greenhouses himself in the past but hadn't had time to do so in the last five years, not since the Tribe and the Stone-Coats went public. He found that he missed the manual work; or he at least missed gardening in the greenhouses with Mary. Nowadays Mary herself seldom went to the greenhouses. She didn't have the energy to do that sort of work anymore and she wasn't happy about it. Age-forced retirement sucked big-time.
Ed met and exchanged greetings with more and more people as he successively walked past the entrances to the Stone-Coat, Owl, Turtle, Bear, and Wolf Clan Longhouse Caves. The clans were extended family units that reached across the Tribe, the Mohawk Nation, and even across the entire Iroquois Confederacy. Everyone in the Tribe knew everyone else, and they trusted and respected each other, especially people within their respective clans. The Tribe was extended family, while the clans were family. Ed and Mary were Tribe adoptees, and happier for it.
Now the centuries-old Iroquois Confederacy of tribal nations depended even more on clan relationships that spanned across all tribes. Just as most of the local Mohawk Tribe had fled south to escape the icy advance of climate change, the rest of the Iroquois Confederacy had also fled south from New York and Canada into the southern Appalachian Mountains. In addition to the Mohawk, the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida and Tuscarora tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy had assembled there to help each other adapt and survive.
Here at Giants' Rest there were only a half-dozen Stone-Coat Clan members: their clan leader Running Bear and the five teenagers that were each paired with a mobile Stone-Coat since birth. For men and for chiefs to be clan leaders and for Running Bear not to adopt the clan of his wife went against Mohawk and Iroquois tradition, but in these troubled times tradition was rapidly giving way to expediency for the Tribe and for everyone else in the world. Ed didn't envy his old friend Running Bear's job as Stone-Coat Clan Leader, but he felt that his own leadership of the Jant Clan was even more challenging.
There were only about two dozen Jant Clan members in the Tribe besides Ed and Mary. Most Jant Clan members petitioned to join it after having to use jant controlled medical ticks for health reasons. Instead of giving up their med-ticks after being cured of disease, many people chose to keep them permanently - or at least for the two-year lifespan of the med-tick. Though he was officially the Jant Clan Leader Ed couldn't imagine allowing a huge three-inch long blood-sucking bug to permanently live with its head buried deep into his back, particularly a telepathic bug controlled by jants that tapped into the spine and into thoughts as well as physical body functions. Ed had tolerated a tick for a few minutes when he got his Stone-Coat implant, and hoped never again to need one.
"THERE IS TROUBLE AT THE STONE COAT INFORMATION CENTER, CHIEF ED," announced a jant thought, just as Ed coincidentally reached the entrance of the side-cave that housed the Stone-Coat Information Center. He stepped into it through the hanging black nanotube fabric curtain strips. This cave totally lacked the Tribal artifacts that adorned most of the other caves. Instead it looked much like a modern white-man open office space. In it were rows of Stone-Coat made desks and tables with computers and wall monitors that accommodated the usual complement of three dozen visiting human scientists, engineers, reporters, and politicians and the dozen Tribe members that served as their collaborators and hosts. Usually this big room was relatively quiet, with most people setting at computers and wearing wireless earphones or goggles. Today there were more people and much louder voices than usual.
"Ah, here's Chief Ed now, Senator!" said young Mark Dawn Owl, when he noticed Ed. "He can better deal with this incident." The teenager, his Stone-Coat companion Walking Stone, and several Tribe security men and researchers appeared to be facing off confrontationally with visiting Senator Dug Hagfeld, two Congressmen, and three of their aids. Ed had never yet personally met the Senator but recognized him from news reports.
"THIS GUY'S A REAL A-HOLE," added the teenager telepathically for Ed's benefit. His thoughts were English-language in form. Particularly since the Tribe went public five years ago, the Mohawk language was seldom used by most young people of the Tribe any more. The young Tribesman was angry, Ed noted, which was very unusual for him. The eldest grandson of Chief Running Bear, Mark was the fast rising young star of the Tribe. Though he was not quite nineteen years old, the multi-talented young man already excelled in science, telepathy, diplomacy, leadership, and his understanding of the world outside the Tribe.
Ed stepped forward to face the Senator. The middle-aged legislator was a squat rotund man, over-sized at six-feet tall and well over three hundred pounds. But even this big human was dwarfed by the Stone-Coat that stood motionless behind him. Although Walking Stone was one of the smallest mobile Stone-Coats, he was over six feet tall and weighed more than a ton and a half. The Stone-Coat's bear-like form and over-sized teeth and claws contributed to his intimidating presence. Nevertheless by human standards the Senator was a big, imposing individual more than twice the size of Ed.
Ed was just now recalling who this man was. The previous fall Hagfeld had been elected to the United States Senate on an anti-Stone-Coat, anti-jant platform. As with many other politicians over the ages and across the world, his popularity depended on human ignorance, fear, and hate. He was the leader of a small but disruptive minority that vowed to utterly exterminate all Stone-Coats and jants on Earth, despite those being both physically impossible and morally hideous goals. What a crappy visitor for the Tribe to have to put up with! Poor Mark!
"WERE YOU AND WALKING STONE ASSIGNED BY CHIEF RUNNING BEAR TO ESCORT THIS MAN?" Ed silently asked Mark telepathically.
"AFFIRMATIVE," answered Mark. "ALONG WITH HERB AND KEN."
Ed glanced at Herb Sly Fox and Ken White Owl. Both were big, burly, young, dedicated Wolf Clan Tribe security warriors. They lacked the ornate haircuts and tattoos of their forefathers but were fit and well trained: members of a sort of 'special forces' security group for the Tribe. Chief John Running Bear had wisely picked some of the Tribe's best people to accompany the Senator and his party. And of course Walking Stone could be counted on to digitally record and t
ransmit everything that happened.
Over-all the Stone-Coat resembled a stout white bear with beaver-teeth and giant clawed feet and hands. The mobile Stone-Coat was covered in diamond scales that were between quarter-sized and baseball-sized, and elongated diamond crystals that at a distance looked like thick tuffs of hair. On his head he had sophisticated visual and acoustic sensors. The eyes were dark round circles two inches across and the small ears were made of shaped diamond. Underneath his diamond armor long crystals of various hues and functions connected by dark nets of carbon graphene nanotubes could be glimpsed. The internal nanotube networks of this mobile Stone-Coat served multiple purposes, and even supported a keen sense of touch.
"Senator! Welcome to Giants' Rest!" Ed told the man, as he shook his hand and attempted to probe his mind. Ed could telepathically sense only seething and overwhelming fear, hate, and anger. Hagfeld wasn't a telepath, but was weakly empathic. His handshake was firm; far too firm for comfort. It was a failing attempt at personal intimidation, Ed judged.
"You're that white man Indian Chief! A traitor to your race, God, and humanity that sold your own soul to stone and insect gods!" Hagfeld spewed. "As one of the ringleaders here in this insane looney bin you can sure as hell answer my questions and fix this so-called incident, all right! That's the law; you have to answer my questions and respect my authority!"
Ed forced a smile. "Yes, here at the Center we are happy to answer all meaningful questions from all of our civil visitors. You could also ask questions and receive answers anywhere in the world via the internet, but here you can directly meet with specialist Stone-Coats and Tribe people that can help us all better understand each other. You have no special authority here however, and we are not prepared to put up with hate speech or intimidation."
"I say what I please," Hagfeld retorted. "This is still the United States of America! This is a federal facility and it's infested with insects, and I'm going to have it fumigated, by God!"
"No you are not. This is private Tribe property and part of sovereign Mohawk Tribe territory," noted Ed, "and jants are protected by both Federal and Tribe law, as well as notions of common decency. What is the incident that you speak of?"
"A minute ago he killed three jants," said Mark. "Without provocation he attacked and killed them on purpose."
"It was a perfectly healthy reflex action," said Hagfeld. "The damn things are right here in your caves! I'm a human being, something that you've all apparently forgotten how to be. I step on any bug that crosses my path! Besides that, one of the damn things bit me!"
"I would bite you too, if you stepped on me," Ed retorted. Jants were very large and robust ants: their brown bodies were an inch long and they had unusually strong exoskeletons and mandibles. But they were still tiny and fragile compared to any human. Jants didn't value the lives of each individual the way that humans did, but they wouldn't be pleased by this. "WHAT HAPPENED?" he asked the jants telepathically.
"UNPROVOKED THIS HUMAN DELIBERATELY KILLED SEVERAL OF US AND ONE OF US MANAGED TO BITE HIM," pathed the local jant colony, with their usual directness and clarity. "OUR INJECTED VENOM OPENED SOME OF HIS THOUGHTS TO US. WE ARE MONITORING HIS CONFUSED ILLOGICAL THOUGHTS AND CONSIDERING FURTHER ACTIONS."
"We could arrest you on the spot," Ed told the Senator. "Deliberately harming jants is unlawful anywhere in the USA, and against international UN laws. Doing it here in this Center is triply unlawful. You have committed and confessed to International, Federal, and Tribal crimes."
"You'd never prove that, and I have a legal right to be here," said Hagfeld.
"Not if you break the law you don't,” said Ed. “The Tribe has a federal legal responsibility to maintain order and safety here for Stone-Coats and jants as well as for humans. Fortunately this Information Center records videos 24-7. Let's see the videos of the incident."
On a big nearby wall monitor a video of the last few minutes of Senator Hagfeld's activities replaced the usual charts and graphs that summarized world-wide Stone-Coat activity. Recorded sound emanated from several small wall cavities that served as both speakers and microphones. The monitor showed that Hagfeld, his party, and his Tribe escorts entered the room and looked around for a few moments until Hagfeld abruptly stared intently at the floor nearby and gasped. "It's some of those devil bugs!" he shouted angrily as he rushed across the room and started stamping his feet to kill jants while they scattered and fled. Moments later he bellowed in pain. "One of the damn things bit my leg!"
Most of the other humans present were too stunned to immediately react. Only Mark's quick actions prevented further calamity. He ran to Hagfeld and pushed the bigger man away from what remained of the small entourage of jants that had been marching single-file on the floor along the cave wall. Despite the fact that the senator was nearly twice as heavy as he was, Mark pushed him back to the canter of the room where the teenager was soon aided by burly Sly Fox and Ken. Fortunately Walking Stone stayed out of the scuffle; the powerful Stone-Coat could have too easily badly damaged the Senator.
"See! Those bugs attacked and bit me and then this young savage and his goons attacked me!" said Hagfeld. "You've doctored that video some, shuffling some ones and zeros to change what appeared to happen, and I have eye witnesses that will testify to what I’m saying!" He turned to stare pointedly at the others in his party.
"And there are a dozen Tribe members including me and many independent guests from all over the world that will gladly testify against your fictionalized account and attest to the authenticity of the video record," countered Mark. "Those are the indisputable facts. Note also that everything in this Center continues to be recorded and publicly broadcast world-wide in real-time."
"And no doubt also immediately distorted," Hagfeld retorted.
Ed shook his head. This man was a delusional zealot. There was nothing that anyone could say or do to change his bigoted fear-driven beliefs. For him facts were merely something to overcome through force of will, persuasion, and even physical force if necessary. The truth was what he decided it would be. Facts and even fact-based science were evil conspiracies that opposed his delusional beliefs.
The congressmen and aids stared wide-eyed at Hagfeld and whispered among themselves. Finally Jack Morison, the elder congressman, stepped forward. "I think we can come to an accommodation, Chief Ed. To the effect that if you don't charge the Senator he won't charge the young man. We should all forget that this whole thing ever happened."
"Impossible!" said Ed, shaking his head. "Jants have been killed and we have credible jant, Stone-Coat and human witnesses and recorded evidence of it happening deliberately, not accidently. It is also obvious that Mark and the other Tribe escorts acted responsibly. Plus the Senator confessed! Besides, all that happens here is broadcast live worldwide as required by the Treaty and is part of a public record that won't be forgotten. Millions of humans saw what happened and what is happening now. We have additional standard security procedures defined in the Treaty that we must now follow. Sly Fox?"
Sly Fox stepped in front of the Senator and showed him his badge. "We'll be moving to another cave and taking official statements from you and all witnesses, Senator. Hold out your hands please."
"What?" Hagfeld asked, as he held out his hands while in an instant Sly Fox slapped a pair of steel handcuffs onto his thick wrists and told him his Maranda rights. "You can't do this to me!" He sputtered, as he was led away by Sly Fox. "Who the hell do you heathen monkeys think you are?"
"The law." Mark responded. "SAY HELLO AND WELCOME HOME TO ANN FOR ME, CHIEF ED; I'VE BEEN TIED UP BABYSITTING THESE YAHOOS ALL MORNING."
"SURE THING, MARK," Ed replied as he returned his attentions to the others at the Center. He was going to reassure them that the nasty incident was past and suggest that they return to their normal activities, but he could see that they had already done so. The jants had already removed their dead and were nowhere to be seen. Scientists and other specialists from several nations eagerly stud
ied information centralized here by the Stone-Coats about what they were doing world-wide to fulfil their agreement with humanity to repair and improve infrastructure, machinery, and other things, and to help with other human needs.
In return Stone-Coats were being distributed across the world and fed information and physical materials by humans. Though they preferred granite and cold temperatures where they were most mobile, Stone-Coats were able to 'live' anywhere, particularly if they could rely on humans to help feed them materials they needed, and to give them internet access that they used to communicate with each other and with humanity.
"I hope that the Senator has not too seriously disrupted things here, Chief," Ed heard, as he started to leave the Center himself. He turned to recognize and shake hands with Dr. Clinton Farnsworth, the lead British envoy at Giants' Rest and a firm supporter and co-signer of the Treaty between Stone-Coats, jants, and humans. "I assure you that both world-wide and here in your own country the extraordinary things that the Tribe has done for humanity are greatly appreciated." Clinton smiled just a bit too widely. He was playing to the broadcast cameras, Ed realized.
"Thanks Clinton," Ed replied. "And your efforts are greatly appreciated by us, and by our mutual friends in Washington, New York, and London. Without support from you and a few other key people, the Treaty, the Stone-Coats, and jants would not have been so widely accepted and established throughout the world."
"Stone Coats and the prospect of space exploration have to a healthy extent gotten the minds of many people off of climate change and other negative news items, Chief," Clinton remarked. He was still facing a camera as he said it of course. "But you doubtlessly have a breakfast date with your Tribe, Stone-Coat, and jant friends; don't let me hold you up."
Ed exited the Center and walked briskly up and out of the Tribe Caves that the Stone-Coats had built to shelter the Tribe through the long harsh winters. He paused to scan Giants' Rest Valley as he slipped on his jacket. It was a bright morning in late September. Without the ice sheet that averaged over a dozen meters thick in the valley below, it would be at least seventy degrees Fahrenheit now and would reach the low eighties later in the day. Due to the ice sheets, even here on the ice-free Deck it was now still in the fifties and would probably not even reach seventy.
Starting three decades ago the sun entered a dim cycle, a cyclic event that temporarily stalled global warming and helped accelerate cooling on the Reservation. But a decade ago the cool-cycle began to abate as sunspots again formed on the sun's surface. Now for most areas on the globe warming was expected to accelerate faster than ever. The cooling phase of the solar cycle was only about two decades long while gas-emission caused global warming would last for hundreds or even thousands of years.
The Deck was a broad flat Stone-Coat constructed area outside the cave entrance. It included a picnic/eating area and entrance ramps that led down and out to a half dozen long greenhouses that stretched out over the ice covered valley atop massive stone pillars. Like the caves, these had been made for the Tribe by the Stone-Coats over a period of several years. The structures were actually Stone-Coats: crystalline forms laced with computer-like logic elements networked by imbedded metal and nanotube wiring, designed to grow and self-repair themselves as necessary.
Across Giants' Rest Valley where once virgin forests and Tribe cultivated fields flourished, the ever present fogs of summer blanketed the ice sheets. Within another month the annual melting period would be over, and the snows would return with a vengeance to add to the yearly thickening of the ice-sheets that now covered New England and Eastern Canada. While most of the Earth was getting warmer, there and in a few other regions on Earth, climate change was causing significant local cooling.
Cold air from the arctic bypassed Alaska and Western Canada and dipped further south here. Meanwhile increased moisture was being pumped north from the Gulf of Mexico and from the increasingly warm Atlantic Gulf Stream, causing record Mid-West and North-East regional snowfalls, particularly in the Fall. Here in the North-East where mega-hurricanes from the South met arctic air blasts from the North, ten-foot snowfalls sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving weren't uncommon.
Frank the Tribe Chief Scientist explained regional cooling to Ed by likening it to leaving a freezer door ajar. The over-all room and freezer got warmer as the freezer worked harder and created more over-all heat energy in the room but just outside the door it got cooler but a lot of ice formed in the door opening. The Arctic was in a defrost cycle and the North-East was sitting at the freezer door.
Despite Frank's clever analogies the whole thing still didn't make sense to science-challenged Ed but the weather undeniably was what it was nevertheless. Much of ice covered inland Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Northern New York had been abandoned by most humans, as had much of Eastern Canada, which was even colder but due to being far from the moist warm Atlantic had much less snow and ice.
The Stone-Coats of Giants' Rest Mountain took advantage by sending their Ice Giants out across the ice to colonize all the rock outcroppings that they could find. Nowadays in fulfilment of the Treaty many tons of immature Stone-Coats were also shipped world-wide by humans to populate the Earth, usually in the form of stone cubes weighing more than a ton each. As a result the immense granite dome that was Giants' Rest Mountain was shrinking significantly; already it was more than two hundred feet shorter than its original five thousand foot height.
The Stone-Coats were not the only ones migrating. Even as people in the Northeast fled south to escape the cold, many Americans fled north from the far Southeast to escape the stifling heat and the worst of the invasive tropical animals and plants. States in-between were overflowing with displaced migrants that overwhelmed public and private resources and triggered panic and hunger driven demonstrations and riots. States had earlier attempted to restrict and regulate migration between states but such measures quickly became overwhelmed.
At Giants' Rest the Tribe was under stress due to their vital role with the Stone-Coats and jants, but at least they didn't have to worry about food or many other things that the rest of the world did. Their six huge Stone-Coat produced greenhouses fed them all very well and their Stone-Coat friends could make almost anything else they needed in terms of living spaces and material possessions.
Ed sat down with Mary and their friends at their usual Deck table and had a shock when he realized that like Mary, they were formally dressed in their ornate tribal gear! "I'm clearly under-dressed this morning; what's the occasion?"
Several of the people at the table glanced around at each other uncomfortably as Chief Running Bear smiled and replied. "As you plan to leave early tomorrow morning we celebrate the lives of Mary and you today, Ed. Though a Mohican, the Tribe adopted me to become one of them, and to even help lead them through troubled times. This they have also done with you and with Mary. It is a rare honor that we three share. Both of you have served the Tribe extraordinarily well and will always be very warmly remembered."
They were immediately served plates of acorn mush drenched in maple syrup and covered with strawberries. It was a favorite breakfast for both Ed and Mary. The strawberries were locally grown but the mush and syrup were rare delicacies imported from the Southern Mohawk Tribe members that had migrated hundreds of miles south to the warmer Appalachian Mountains.
"Wow; we're sure getting the royal treatment today!" Ed remarked, as he and the others dug in. "This mush is certainly yummy and memorable," said Ed. "Maybe we should go on vacations more often. Where is Ann? I wanted to hear what's going on at the UN."
"WE APPROACH, CHIEF ED," said Talking Stone via Ed's implant. Ann's Stone-Coat companion came into view as he exited one of the greenhouses, accompanied by Ann Richards herself. Talking Stone wore a reflective parka that hid most of his spectacular gemstones but helped keep him cold enough to freeze and melt water within his hydraulic locomotion system.
Ann wore a sweatshirt and shorts that showed off her curves and l
egs, which the men at the table greatly appreciated. She athletically sprinted the last few yards to the table and gave Ed and Mary warm greeting hugs and kisses. "It's wonderful to be home!" she gushed, "and with my favorite people!"
"Except for Mark," said Ed. "He is still busy escorting Senator Dug Hagfeld around the Reservation. He sends you his greetings."
"I hope that Mark keeps the Senator clear of me," Ann said. "I already see far too much of him in New York and Washington. The man is a force for chaos and corruption."
"That's what he claims we are," Ed noted. "Say, isn't the UN still in session until next week, Ann? Not that I'm not glad to see you, but I don't understand why you and Talking Stone came home several days early. How does the UN function without its Stone-Coat ambassador and his human partner?"
"We wanted to see you and Mary off to your vacation, of course," said Ann. "Yes, there are always issues at the UN but they can all wait for Talking Stone and I to return."
"But you could have just as well have waited to see us when we return!" Ed noted.
"But you are here now and we're happy about that," Mary interjected. "So please sit down and tell us about the UN!" She patted the empty bench spot next to herself and Ann promptly sat there.
"Has something happened at the UN that we should be aware of?" asked Chief Running Bear.
"Nothing new that is Earth shattering," said Ann. "As I've already told Mary, the UN continues to effectively coordinate dozens of international military, humanitarian, and legal efforts, aided by Stone-Coats and jants. I did however want to take this occasion to again thank all of you for making me feel at home here and helping define and set in place the Treaty, and everything else." She paused and with more affection than usual turned to Mary and give her yet another hug.
"We understand," said Talking Owl, who sat on the other side of Ann.
The aging Mohawk princess was dressed in her formal traditional Mohawk attire, and Ed again for a moment felt under-dressed in his everyday jeans and flannels. On the other hand he hated getting dressed up for anything and all of his friends knew that, he reassured himself. "So Ann, what's happening at the UN?" Ed again prompted her.
"The most significant thing is that many of the humans are beginning to treat the Stone-Coats and jants almost as equals. It's probably because of the positive reports they keep getting from their respective countries. Jants continue to heal the sick better than any human doctors by using med-ticks, while Stone-Coats repair buildings, bridges, roads, and too many other things to mention. There are significant pockets of human resistance where Stone-Coats and jants are still steadfastly rejected, but those are becoming fewer, despite the fear-mongering Hagfelds of the world."
"That mostly sounds very hopeful," said White Cloud, Frank's wife and daughter of Chief John Running Bear and Talking Owl.
"Significant changes to human attitudes will take lifetimes," cautioned Running Bear, "though human adaptation to Stone-Coats and jants seems to be off to a very promising start. It will be a very long time before people are comfortable with sharing Earth with intelligent stone creatures and insects."
"Agreed," said Frank. "In this case the Tribe seems to be mostly following logic and staying ahead of the curve compared with most other people, but even we harbor residual fears and doubts."
"Yes," agreed Talking Owl. "But as a people we have good reason to believe that change is possible. How can we not? Our own Tribe opposed the emergence of Stone-Coats for many millennia, but now the Tribe is allied with them. Could our fore-fathers have been so wrong about them?"
"No," said Talking Stone, from the nearby cold chamber where he stood comfortably in a cooling bath of dry-ice created mists. "We have also changed significantly. When we first detected human radio signals more than a century ago logic dictated that we reconsider our relationship with warm, water-based lifeforms. Up to that point we had considered plant and animal lifeforms to be merely useful concentrators of the diverse elements that we need. We looked for and found additional signs of human sentience when we recently became mobile due to the return of limited glaciation in this region. We discovered sensible thought in many humans and then in jants. But it took several further steps to reach our current status with you warm-life creatures, and we expect that status to continue to evolve. The nature of our relationship with humans remains under our constant review and renewal."
"That's understandable and sensible," said Running Bear.
"Though perhaps a bit tentative," said Talking Owl. "Is it our lack of trustworthiness?"
"Or our irrationally violent, warring ways?" asked Mary.
"Perhaps you have feared that we might destroy you?" Frank asked.
There was a pause before Talking Stone replied. His human companions correctly assumed that to provide a reasonable answer the small Stone-Coat was communicating with thousands of Stone-Coat entities within Giants' Rest Mountain and beyond, bringing to bear the computational abilities of millions of tons of self-aware rock. "All that you suggest, to some degree," he said at last. "But mostly conclusions we reach with regard to our relationship with humans are driven by practical concerns for our continued self-growth including the fact that our recent interaction with humans has stimulated our thought and growth processes more than anything else in our long history."
"That sounds pretty much like the reason I put up with the Mohican," Talking Owl quipped about her husband.
"Or men in general," said Mary, as she elbowed Ed. "Can't live with them but can't live without them."
The humans around the table laughed.
"An apt enough analogy to actually be useful," said Talking Stone, "and one that even a decade ago we Stone-Coats would not have so much understood or appreciated. Our logic circuitry is evolving rapidly due largely to human influence. We don't view those progressive changes to be negative ones, despite the fact that human thought is unnecessarily convoluted and influenced by many things foreign to us."
From there the conversation shifted back towards human concerns and continued for hour after hour, focused largely on greenhouse crops, children, and other every-day things, most of them very positive topics. Individuals took breaks but then returned. In the afternoon Mary disappeared for a two hour nap and the group dispersed, but they quickly regrouped when she returned.
Meanwhile hundreds of other Tribe members stopped by briefly to speak with Mary and wish her well; everyone in the Tribe actually, Ed noticed. Many gave Mary little gifts: chiefly ornate traditional Tribal necklaces and bracelets. The table in front of Mary was soon covered in traditional and non-traditional Mohawk finery.
Running Bear and Talking Owl presented Mary with a wheelchair. "If you two are going to run around in federal parks that require mobility for considerable distances I'm afraid that you're going to need this," Talking Owl explained. It looked to be mostly metallic but of odd construction. For one thing there were no visible nuts or bolts; the entire thing appeared to be one continuous object.
"HELLO!" the chair said to Mary and Ed via their implants.
"Why this chair is a Stone-Coat!" Mary exclaimed. She cautiously sat down in it in while Ed grabbed the handles and took Mary for a spin around the table.
After that the chair took Mary for another spin around the table with nobody pushing. "I AM SELF PROPELLED," explained the wheelchair.
"Open up the right armrest," said Running Bear.
The chair right arm swung open easily for Ed, revealing what appeared to be a small flashlight. He picked it up and found it to be surprisingly heavy.
"YOU HOLD AN EXTENSION OF ME," said the wheelchair via the implants. "THERE ARE ALSO EAR-BUDS THAT YOU CAN WEAR TO RECEIVE INPUT IN THE FORM OF SOUND, INCLUDING A WIDE VARIETY OF RECORDED HUMAN MUSIC."
"INCLUDING BRAHMS AND TCHAIKOVSKY?" Mary asked. She had been listening to a lot of that lately, Ed had noticed. Ed was more of a Mozart and Beethoven man himself.
"AFFIRMATIVE," replied the wheelchair.
"It's the
latest in Stone-Coat technology," continued Walking Bear. "The chair and that extension of it hold the current record for being the smallest sentient Stone-Coat unit. The Stone-Coats have been adopting various implementations of quantum computing from human designs. And as you have already seen, the chair can also wheel itself for limited distances by means of atomic and solar power."
"You and Mary get to Beta test it," said Frank, as though that was a good thing.
"I'm sure it will come in very handy," said Ed, "though it doesn't have a cup-holder. But a self-moving, sentient wheelchair is a really nifty idea! I'll need to have my turns at riding in it too of course."
"Boys will be boys," noted Mary.
"I guess we should have gotten Ed a chair with wheels also," said Walking Bear.
"I could duplicate myself within a day given adequate raw materials," volunteered the wheelchair, this time using sound to communicate. "With cup-holders."
Swell, thought Ed; the chair also talks aloud! "No thanks, one of you will hopefully prove adequate," he said, "Thank you my friends!"
Ed wasn't particularly surprised to see a small wallet-sized box slowly move across the table towards him, without any visible means of locomotion. He could sense the mental chatter of the dozen out-of-sight jants that carried it from underneath.
"WITHIN THIS BOX AND LYING DORMANT THERE IS OF COURSE A NEARLY FULL-GROWN MED-TICK," the local jant colony informed Ed telepathically. "EITHER OF YOU MAY AT SOME POINT HAVE NEED OF IT DURING YOUR TRIP. WE SUGGEST THAT YOU HIDE IT IN A WHEELCHAIR ARM FOR SAFE-KEEPING."
"ABSOLUTELY!" Ed replied. "THANK YOU ALL!"
"This wheel-chair is also to help you assess and perhaps remedy an anomaly of Stone-Coat behavior that we have noted at Yosemite," said Running Bear. "The Yosemite Stone Coats were supposed to populate the mountains and all of Southern California with Stone-Coats. The Stone-Coats at Yosemite have not been in communication with other Stone-Coats or with our Stone-Coat Information Center and we do not know their status. Humans in the region apparently generally lack communication abilities and have unknown intensions."
"We'll check on them," said Ed.
Food and drink was provided without limit, and the party went on even after nightfall, spurred on by the introduction of strawberry brandy. Ed participated but remained befuddled by the whole thing. People were acting as if they had nothing else in the world to do but sit around and enjoy each other's company. He didn't understand why he and Mary going on a vacation had resulted in such a huge Tribal event.
At last Ed using the new wheelchair took Mary back to their longhouse-like lodgings for much needed rest before their big trip to California. "We'll have to name our chair friend something," said Ed as he maneuvered the chair. "How about Wheels?"
"SATISFACTORY," agreed the chair silently. "WHEELS IT IS."