Chapter 1: The July Chief
Ed Rumsfeld relaxed in his most comfortable recliner, located in the center of the Tribe Council Chamber. He closed his eyes and let his mind wonder freely. It was early morning and past early summer on the Giants' Rest Mountain Mohawk Reservation, and his wife Mary and most of the rest of the Tribe were by now outside enjoying the sunshine and beginning their long work day, but Ed remained deep within the labyrinth of Tribal caves, enjoying a few blessed minutes of rare telepathic silence. In recent years this had become his favorite non-activity and time of day.
Even his exceptionally sensitive telepathic ability registered only the slow, deep, reassuringly calm 'feelings' of thousands of interconnected Stone-Coat Ice Giant units imbedded in the granite of Giants' Rest Mountain that surrounded him. He found it soothing, like gentle ocean waves rolling softly onto a sandy beach or gentle breezes rustling the trees of a forest. Other than that he could sense no thoughts: not even thoughts from the nosy telepathic ants called jants that inhabited some sections of the caves. To Ed this relative telepathic silence was heavenly!
"Ready to tackle more problems, Ati:ron?" asked John Running Bear. As usual, the Mohican that had three and a half decades earlier been adopted by the Mohawk Tribe managed to quietly come within ten feet of Ed without his presence being detected. The man's telepathic abilities were wonderfully weak, even after living most of his life among dozens of Tribe telepaths, and being married most of that timespan to Talking Owl, one of the most talented telepaths in Tribe history. Even after years of practice, Ed could only sometimes sense the man's moods, but never his distinct thoughts. It was one of the things that Ed most liked about Running Bear. Only a handful of truly exceptional Tribe telepaths that specialized in humans could read some of his thoughts, and the Mohican couldn't detect the thoughts of humans or other animals at all. The lucky man always experienced a blessed silence, which perhaps helped to explain his calm stoic nature.
The gray-haired Mohican liked to tease Ed by addressing him as Ati:ron, the Mohawk word for raccoon and his tribal name. However when he did that it always caused Ed to nostalgically recall old Mouse/Tsino:wen, Talking Owl's grandmother, who three and a half decades ago mischievously chose 'Raccoon' as his Mohawk name. Even though she died many years ago Ed and the rest of the Tribe still missed her tremendously. She wouldn't like some of the changes that were happening recently to her beloved Tribe, however. And of course thinking of Mouse always caused Ed to think wistfully of others that had died since he lived here with the Tribe, of Mary's Uncle Jack and his friend Doc, and of past Chiefs and other friends. The dying part of life definitely sucked big time.
"Fudge!" Ed exclaimed. "You're reminding me that I'm Northern Chief this month, John! Whatever the problems are, can't they wait until next month?" Next month was August, and John Running Bear himself would again take his turn as Chief.
"Nope," replied Running Bear with a grin. "One big issue is about my grandson Mark Dawn Owl anyway, so I would properly have to recuse myself, such that even next month you would still have to decide the issue."
"You have an annoying habit of finding work for me to do, and you know how comfortably lazy I am!" Ed complained. "OK, so what about Mark? Is he in trouble? Does it involve the Stone-Coat allocated to him?" Mark was one of Ed's favorite Running Bear grandchildren. Even at only thirteen years old he exhibited some of the calm stoic character traits that helped make his grandfather a great Tribe Chief, much of his father's science abilities, and a treasure trove of the telepathic abilities that helped make his grandmother Talking Owl a great Religious Chief and Owl Clan Leader and founder. Plus he was also obviously already far smarter than most adults, including the current Northern Chief-of-the-month.
Running Bear laughed. "Wow! Maybe along with your telepathy you have become truly psychic! Yes there is indeed a Stone-Coat issue involving Mark! There is also the fly issue that needs resolution sometime soon. Since as of this morning you are acting Chief, you need to decide how to resolve both of these issues."
"I'm acquainted with the fly issue and its urgency, but this is the first time I've heard about a Mark issue. How urgent is his issue?"
"A-S-A-P urgent, I'm afraid. A resolution is needed today, preferably this morning. You have an hour or two to work it out, tops."
"Fudge!"
"Sorry! The fly issue also needs resolution soon."
"Really? But my friend, even if it is not your month to be Tribe Chief, you are still officially the Stone-Coat ambassador and Chief Peace Maker! So any Stone-Coat issue involving Mark should be your problem. Plus you were supposed to be working on the fly issue by seeking out input from the Council of Elders including the Elder Council of Mothers. Of course it's admittedly difficult to work with them now that most of the Council resides off the Reservation hundreds of miles south of here, but we had agreed that we should still consider their insights to decide the fly issue."
Running Bear smiled. "I will be happy to provide my advice and inputs from the Council to you, my Chief, but I'm not going to let you wiggle out of your obligation to then make the decisions. The Council input is only advisory anyway nowadays, unless they unanimously decide to countermand a decision of the Chief."
"Which hasn't happened in decades. Alright, alright; for July the buck stops here with me. So what do the Elders say about the flies?"
"They report that since the first appearance of giant flies in Mexico more than a decade ago, the creatures have been spreading world-wide and adapting to various climates and victims. Their appearance on the Reservation here in the Adirondacks at some point was somewhat inevitable. Oh, and they also note that the flies often carry a variety of nasty pathogens and sometimes swarm in great numbers."
"Swell, but all that and more we already learned via the internet and the telepathic jant network. What we needed from the Elders is their input on what they think that the official Tribe response to the flies should be. Should we treat them as pests to exterminate or as an endangered species to help protect? Perhaps we should even create a fly-based Tribe clan."
Running Bear shook his head. "No fly clan is justified, I'm sure. The tsiks are essentially mindless and definitely not suitable companions to Tribe members. Besides, this Mohawk tribe already has six clans: the traditional bear, wolf, and turtle clans, plus the owl clan my wife started, plus the Stone-Coat clan I lead and the jant clan that you lead. Many of the Elders think that there are already far too many clans. Even though under outside pressures and knowledge the clan system is breaking down with the Mohawk as well as with the other Iroquois tribes, it remains a vital tradition that still helps maintain Tribe and Iroquois Nation cohesion. Increasingly that will be needed in these trying times." "
"I think we should even do more chanting and beating of drums if it helps Tribe cohesion," said Ed. "Of course I was only joking about having a fly clan. But you are right; we do need to do something about the flies very soon. They are evidently drawn to the warmth and life of our greenhouses and increasingly swarm to them."
"More fly larvae were discovered in the soil of greenhouse number five last night," Running Bear reported.
"And the maggots were quickly dispatched and consumed by jants," Ed noted. "The jants informed me of the incident first thing this morning before I left the Jant Clan Longhouse. They also pointed out to me that the flies and their larvae are potential food sources for humans as well as jants. Some off-Reservation human groups have been eating them, especially in China and India, where the food situation is growing truly desperate. The jants eat the larvae world-wide, helping greatly to limit their numbers."
Running Bear shrugged. "Better we eat them than they eat us. There are world-wide reports that the creatures attack and eat almost anything now, including most recently humans."
Ed hadn't heard that they were attacking humans. "So in summary the good news is that further south the flies have pretty much wiped out some nasty invasive mutant species such as the oversized pythons; th
e bad news is that since they are running out of pythons they attack practically anything including humans. OK, my friend, I'll also consider and resolve the fly issue on my watch. It sounds like the biggest problem will be to figure out how the hell to rid ourselves of them. Shotgun armed warriors are only part of a temporary answer, I'm sure, though the warriors certainly seem to enjoy blasting the guts out of those buggers. But the big news the jants told me this morning is that Jerry Green plans to visit us for a while. He'll arrive here today no later than noon."
Running Bear whistled, an act that the stoic Mohican reserved for only the most momentous of events. "That is big news! How is he getting here? Our old ailing Tribe helicopter won't be in shape to fly for another week or two. Do we need to hastily set up a snowmobile convoy to fetch him from the Albany airport?"
"No, that would be too dangerous, slow, and costly. He is coming in some sort of Federal Government helicopter," Ed explained.
"Of course! He used to be a fugitive from the NSA; now he runs the NSA and who knows what else in the Federal Government! It's a classic case of regulatory capture if ever there was one! The NSA set out to capture Jerry as a bioterrorist, and Jerry ended up their leader! Fortunately the landing pad topside next to the Deck is free of snow as-of last week. I'll spread the word to our warriors not to shoot his helicopter down, as that would probably provide a bad first impression of us. Why is he coming?"
"He wants to negotiate directly with the Stone-Coats about some sort of Government project of his. Your assistance as official Tribe Ambassador to the Stone-Coats is of course requested."
Running Bear shrugged his big shoulders. "That should be fun. Our dear friends the Stone-Coats and jants of course already knew about this?"
"Yes," Ed replied. "It was arranged by the Stone-Coats and jants via both the internet and the jant telepathic network."
The Mohican shook his head. "Sometimes we humans of the Tribe are the last to know. I'm almost surprised that we are being let in on this at all."
"The Stone-Coats actually require the presence of several of the Tribe as well as the jants," said Ed. "Evidently they wisely trust us more than they trust other humans. Besides, Jerry wants to see me in person about other more personal issues. After all, we do share a common malady."
"You are both immortal," Running Bear noted.
"We both apparently haven't aged a day in over thirty-five years, but I doubt that means that we're truly immortal," said Ed. "Prick me and shall I not bleed?"
"Yes, over the years I have seen you bleed profusely many times," remarked Running Bear. "But you do heal absurdly fast. Between that and staying young and healthy you're close enough to being immortal to be called an immortal, in my opinion. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Even with Social Security payments reduced to half what was paid out in the good-old-days, you'll really make out like a bandit if you live for hundreds of years. Good for you!"
"I suppose there are worse things," Ed admitted, but it was a very disturbing topic for him that he didn't want to think about. He wasn't aging, but Mary and his friends obviously were. He and Mary even had two children living in Brooklyn that already appeared to be older than he was. It was very confusing for the grandkids. "So what is Mark Dawn Owl's issue?"
"Mark is of age and needs to start his spirit quest the first day of the next full summer month. That's today."
"Swell." After being part of the Tribe for over three decades, Ed was well acquainted with spirit quests. Mark would be expected to survive on his own for a minimum of two weeks in the wilderness that surrounds the Reservation, and commune with his clan animals, the owls, as well as with other animals. After he 'found himself' spiritually Mark would then return to the Tribe and be declared to be an adult and full Tribe member. "We had his birthday celebration three months ago so I should have realized that his spirit quest was due now. But why is there an issue with it that I'm just hearing about now?"
"It's something that came up over the last week or so. I could have told you about it brewing days ago but I know how you treasure ignorance of such things during the time you are not chief."
"True! Ignorance is indeed stress-free bliss. Thanks for treasuring my false sense of well being, my friend! But male Tribe members have been doing spirit quests for thousands of years, even long before they joined up with the Mohawk and adopted most of there culture. So what's the issue this time?"
The old Mohican shrugged his wide shoulders. "The quest is supposed to be done alone. The Council says he should go on his quest without his monitoring Stone-Coat."
"Fudge! That would break our treaty agreement with the Stone-Coats that requires that a chosen few of us be monitored 24/7 for life by a Stone-Coat!"
"The Council says that by having the Stone-Coat with him on his quest he wouldn't qualify as being alone, breaking with our traditions, and he would have an unfair advantage for survival."
"But Mark's companion is only a very small Stone-Coat: only a measly ton or two of animated granite! Besides, the Stone-Coat simply follows him around and observes him; that would be more of a hindrance than a help to Mark on his quest. What does your wife say about this? She's supposed to lead the Council of Elders and she is Owl Clan Leader!"
"She is Council Leader in name only, I'm afraid. With ninety percent of the Tribe now living in the mountains of Virginia, most of the Elders have fallen out of Talking Owl's sphere of influence, despite her monthly trips south to visit them in Virginia when the weather permits."
"Damn!" exclaimed Ed. "Tribal politics again! I hate Tribal politics!"
"Tell me about it!" lamented Running Bear. "Increasingly, I have to help deal with rising Tribal discontent in Virginia. Many of the newer generation Tribe members resent or even reject their Tribe assignments as Forest Rangers, and the Council members down there are increasingly sympathetic."
"The Council is sympathetic towards any view that gets them votes to be part of the Council. But such issues were supposed to be smoothed over by White Cloud!"
"Southern Chief White Cloud is overwhelmed," explained Running Bear.
"How is he holding up health-wise?"
"Not so good. Even the medical ticks supplied by the jants have been ineffective. He apparently doesn't have a disease, he's getting old."
"But he's younger than you are!"
"We're both still in our spry sixties, which you silly whites used to claim was the new fifties, but White Cloud is physically in his upper seventies in terms of wear and tear. To put it simply, he is working himself to death. Establishing the Tribe in Virginia has been an enormous high stress task. I do what I can to help when I'm down there, but it isn't enough. You and Mary have had it easy by sticking it out here in frozen New York, despite the nasty regional change of climate towards cold."
"We've had our share of challenges," noted Ed.
"And we can all justifiably be very proud of our tremendous accomplishments here on the Reservation. We have over ten meters of ice and snow in most of Mohawk County now all year, yet with the help of the Stone-Coats we've been able to maintain a presence here at Giants' Rest, where we continue to study the Stone-Coats as well as the jants."
"And they study us," noted Ed. "Don't forget that part."
"Unlikely," said Running Bear. "I get to pay their monthly internet bill with the money we get from diamond sales. The Stone-Coat digital exploration of humanity increases yearly. That concerns me; there is far too much useless and malicious drivel on the internet, and though they access much useful information also, I fear that they lack understanding. But at least we remain a part of the Stone-Coat interaction with humanity. The jants are world-wide and integrating with humans world-wide. Both Stone-Coats and jants study humans intently."
"Well if they ever figure out humanity I hope they'll explain us to us," said Ed. "They're trying to understand a moving target though; the off-Reservation outside world seems to get crazier all the time, especially the human part."
Running Bear l
aughed. "Crazy compared with what life was like when we were youngsters, perhaps, but a lot of folks living off-Reservation would doubtlessly think that living with Stone-Coats and jants like we do is as crazy as hell!"
"True enough, my friend, and they would be right," admitted Ed. "But there is a constant bombardment of bad news from the outside world about problems that we thankfully don't share. Here we have established an essentially sustainable existence while the outside world struggles with climate change and other issues. And nuclear war is a greater threat than ever! Frankly I expected more of our human institutions."
"You remain comfortably naive, my friend, with regard to human nature and institutions, despite your background as a middle-school history teacher. Human institutions are under enormous strain, Ed. Drought, floods, heat, cold, and attendant migrations, hunger, wars, political unrest, radicalism, scapegoating, tribalism, groupism, and so forth, have brought out the worst in humans as well as the best. There is ten times as much armed conflict in the world as there used to be. On top of that there is pollution, the graying of the population, resource shortages, and a bunch of other things that have snuck up on humanity while we apparently weren't looking, because not much was ever done about most of them.
"Still, most human institutions would be OK but for one truly fatal flaw," noted Running Bear: "they are all made up of humans. But we have our own local problems here on the Reservation, including our old friend Jerry coming here today. I'll go topside now and arrange for Jerry's visit, and leave you to ponder issues worthy of your wise chiefly concern."
"Thanks, John. And on your way out, send for Dawn Owl and I'll talk to him first."
"I brought him with me; he's outside in the hall now waiting to see you," said the Mohican. "His monitoring Stone-Coat is of course literally cooling his heels out there also."
"You are annoyingly efficient. I'll talk to him A-S-A-P on my way topside."
"Thanks, Chief. I'll see you topside on the Deck shortly. There you can ask my wife Talking Owl for her inputs on both flies and her favorite grandson's spirit quest."
"Swell," Ed responded, as he watched Running Bear make his way out of the Chamber. The good news was, while he was on duty as Chief, Ed was exempt from having to perform manual chores. Therefore Mary didn't wake him early and drag him topside with her to toil in the greenhouses. She let him sleep in. The bad news was that he much preferred doing manual chores to having to perform as leader of the Tribe.
Leadership sucked. Why so many people sought it on purpose remained an unfathomable mystery to Ed. He figured that most people had the sense to refuse the Chief job, but the required level of sensible resolve needed to do that was apparently lacking in himself. The telepathically gifted Tribe knew a sucker when they met one. Hence a couple of decades ago he was made a Chief.
His blissful quiet time was apparently over already; it was time to get to work. He stretched in his recliner and twisted himself off of it without bothering to raise it to an upright position. It was a flipping acrobatic move for a man chronologically past seventy, but not overly difficult for someone with the body of a fit man in his mid-thirties. He walked to his nearby chest of personal belongings and picked out a jacket and boots to take along with him just in case he decided to brave the elements. Then he headed out.
He admired the Council Chamber as he walked out of it. He loved this room, which is why most mornings he dragged himself out of his own Jant Clan Longhouse early to come here. The largest such room in the Tribal cave complex, it was a forty-foot in diameter circular room with a twenty-foot high domed ceiling. It was a much smaller replica of the domed longhouse chamber that the Tribe had to abandon to the ice two decades ago. Much like traditional longhouses, the caves were vented. At the top of the Council Chamber dome was a yard-wide vent opening that extended all the way to the top of Giants' Rest Mountain. Heat from the Stone-Coats embedded in the Mountain above caused an updraft in cave vents that pulled a constant stream of fresh air through the cave system.
A half-dozen massive fifty-foot Stone-Coat Ice Giants had vacated Giants' Rest Mountain to help form this spacious cavity; in total several hundred of the strange creatures had moved themselves out of the Mountain to allow relatively rapid construction of the Tribal caves. This room, like most of them, was adorned with Tribal mats, blankets, and hundreds of other Tribe artifacts that covered floors, ceilings, and walls: all largely for aesthetic reasons since the Stone-Coats maintained the surrounding granite of the caves at a constant seventy degrees for the comfort of the Tribe humans. The cave walls also shielded humans and jants from radiation emitted by the radioactive materials that helped power the Stone-Coats.
The old artifacts were the most important things in the room; they helped historically ground the Tribe within a world full of unimaginable change. The outside world was arrogantly addicted to present-ism and had abandoned the lessons of history, though they did seem to remember grudges. Not the Tribe. Here there were wooden bows, iron hatchets traded from the Dutch for beaver skins, dear-skin clothes that the entire Tribe used to wear, copper necklaces, bracelets, and arrow-heads, reed baskets, wood masks, feathered headdresses, corncob dolls, drums and flutes, lacrosse equipment, and hundreds of other items from their long past. Some Tribe objects were carbon-dated to be over ten thousand years old.
Children were wisely brought here by the older Tribe members to be taught about Tribe history within the Iroquois Confederacy, about the gods Tharuhyawa:ka (Sky-Holder) and her evil twin Tawiscara (Flint), and about the heroes Hiawatha and Running Bear. And of course they learned about the Atenenyarhu/Stone-Coats. The Tribe had a past rich in pride and integrity. Thanks to their strong roots in the past Tribe members were largely immune to much of the senseless drivel and alarmism that motivated the outside world.
Ed stepped out into the main hallway that terminated at the Council Chamber. As had been stipulated as a requirement by the Tribe, the Tribe cave habitat was laid out like a gigantic mega-longhouse, with side tunnels reminiscent of traditional Tribe longhouses that branched off of this single main hallway/tunnel. The Mohawk were of course one of the six Iroquois tribes, who still called themselves the Haudenosaunee - the people who build the longhouse. There was a massive side-tunnel longhouse for each Tribe clan which generally housed those members of the Tribe belonging to each of the six Tribe clans. There were also numerous side-tunnels dedicated to specific purposes, such as food storage, equipment maintenance, and scientific study.
Mark Dawn Owl was sitting on a nearby granite side-bench and stood up respectfully when he saw Ed emerge from the Council Chamber. The kid looked anxious, Ed thought, and he could sense his anxiety telepathically. His Stone-Coat monitor lumbered out of a nearby cold-chamber where he had presumably been cooling off and recharging his electrical system. His stone feet clunked and scraped noisily on the hard granite floor of the hallway, but his graphite-lubricated joints were as silent as his mood, if he had any mood. Like all individual Stone-Coats, this one had even less of a telepathic signature than Running Bear did.
"Good morning, Chief," greeted Mark. The youngster was growing faster than a greenhouse weed; to Ed he seemed to be a couple of inches taller than the last time he saw him only days ago. He was already nearly as tall as his grandfather, but unlike John Running Bear, Mark was thin instead of stocky. However his voice was starting to change and he was beginning to put on some muscle, Ed judged, and that would certainly be helpful on his spirit quest. The boy also had the sharp staring eyes of his grandfather, as well as much of the telepathic ability of his mother and grandmother, and the science knowledge of his father. All of that would soon prove useful to his survival, Ed felt.
"Good morning Mark, Walking Stone," Ed replied, also speaking aloud so that the Stone-Coat could hear them. Unlike jants and some humans, Stone-Coats completely lacked telepathic abilities.
"Yes, this day would in sum be considered by local humans to be good from a weather perspective," confirmed Walking Stone,
in crisp, precisely annunciated English that emanated from one of his small ears. The Stone-Coat's ears had been designed with carbon graphene membranes and cords to both detect and produce sound. The closed mouth had huge beaver-like diamond teeth designed to munch trough wood, the primary carbon source material for Stone-Coats. The mouth had the ability to ingest materials or expel them, but had nothing to do with speech. "The morning weather conditions fall within recent historic norms and no existential threats to the Tribe or to my young human companion are detected," Walking Stone concluded.
"Thank you for that report and its underlying analysis," replied Ed.
The Stone-Coat stood only as tall as Ed, but was incredibly squat and massive. It looked something like a squat bear that stood on its hind legs, but it had greatly elongated fingers and toes, tipped with big diamond claws. Its large eyes glowed dull red and its ears, a very recent Stone-Coat innovation, were shaped of pure diamond, as were the quarter to plumb-sized scales and elongated hair-like gems that covered its body.
Regrettably, most of these magnificent gems were not currently exposed for viewing, except for those on his head, hands and feet. The Stone-Coat was mostly covered by what looked like a loose-fitting reflective parka of human manufacture. The Mylar-like parka was designed to help the Stone-Coat to maintain parts of its body at a temperature below freezing, so that it could efficiently move itself even in warm human-inhabited spaces.
Technically the creatures were sexless, but Ed tended to think of them as being male. Years ago Mary surprised Ed by telling him that she thought of them as being female. They were of course neither. This one was specially designed to support its human monitoring mission. In addition to its relatively small size, unlike most Stone-Coat mobile units this one was capable of both hearing and speech in order to better communicate with and observe the subject of its studies, Mark Dawn Owl.
"Let's all begin to move topside where it's a bit colder," said Ed, "while we discuss the spirit quest issue."
The two humans walked side by side and the Stone-Coat followed, its clunking-scraping footfalls echoing in the hallway, which unlike the Council Chamber and longhouses was starkly bare granite that featured few sound absorbing adornments.
"Your Grandfather told me of your dilemma," began Ed. "How do you feel about it?"
"Well first of all the whole idea of spirit quests is mega retro and lame," Mark complained, "not to mention useless and sexist, since only guys have to do it."
"So true," admitted Ed. "But it's an honored Tribe tradition that has been done since long before the pyramids of Egypt were built. The Elder Council feels that maintaining some of the Tribe traditions is important to maintaining Tribe cohesion in these troubled times, even if some of them are totally lame. There are lots of things in life like that that people do, young man. It's usually easiest just to go along with them. In this case by going on a spirit quest you remember and honor your ancestors, the Tribe, and your family. Maybe that aspect of it isn't quite so lame."
"I guess," said Mark, though he didn't sound convinced and indicated nothing to the contrary using telepathy.
Like all exceptionally talented telepaths, the kid could hide his thoughts when he wanted to, Ed noticed. It was a very useful ability to have when living among a tribe that featured dozens of telepaths and hosted millions of snoopy telepathic jants. "What do you think of the issue of Walking Stone going with you?" Chief Ed asked.
"I want to go on my spirit quest alone," said Mark decisively.
"Why?" Ed asked, surprised. "Aren't the two of you getting along? I haven't seen any negative reports."
"We tolerate each other just fine," admitted Mark. "But all my life I've been followed around everywhere day and night by Walking Stone."
"You're old enough now and certainly intelligent enough to understand the importance of maintaining good relations between humans and Stone-Coats. You and your Stone-Coat monitor have become an important part of that."
"Chief Ed, please apply the Golden Rule here. How would YOU feel if a Stone-Coat was following you around and mostly just listening to you and watching you all the time?"
"Creepy, I suppose. You have a good point. Have you discussed this with your parents and grand-parents?"
"A little bit," Mark admitted. "Like you, they told me about the importance of the Treaty, which by the way I had no part in setting up. They want me to tough it out and go through with doing my quest with Walking Stone. That's easy for them to say; they don't have a couple of tons of animated rock with eyes and ears following them around 24-7."
"Good point," admitted Ed. "But aren't you used to that by now?"
"Mostly. But since I was little I was also told about my up and coming spirit quest and how I had to be alone when I did it. For years I've been looking forward to being alone for a couple of weeks while on my quest. I don't really have anything against Walking Stone; all he usually does is simply watch and listen. He's more like a moving statue than a companion. Sometimes we go for days without talking to each other at all."
"Really? Interesting. That agrees with most reports we've gotten on the other four human/Stone-Coat pairs. And what is the Stone-Coat view?" Ed asked as he turned his gaze towards Walking Stone.
"Treaty provisions only permit the cessation of monitoring if said monitoring becomes injurious to the human being observed," noted the Stone-Coat. "However that does not appear to be the case here. Dawn Owl is in perfect health. Therefore the Tribe is expected to honor the Treaty by allowing our monitoring of him and the others to continue uninterrupted."
"In addition to their physical health, the mental health and well-being of those being monitored also must be considered," stated Ed. "If Stone-Coat monitoring so seriously disturbs Dawn Owl that it threatens his mental well-being, under the Treaty some changes will legitimately need to be made."
"The concept of mental health is a research topic of interest where our understanding of humans is admittedly weak. Exactly what changes do you propose?" asked the stone behemoth. "The outright breaching of Treaty terms would be unsatisfactory." He said it tonelessly, emotionlessly, but dead seriously. Ed was very aware that he wasn't talking to just Walking Stone, he was speaking with a vast mountain of interconnected Stone-Coats that constantly monitored and re-assessed the humans at Giants' Rest and their relationship with them. The Tribe/Stone-Coat Treaty had taken years of work to establish. It codified a peaceful symbiotic relationship useful to Stone-Coats but essential to Tribe humans. That Treaty must be preserved at all costs, Ed knew.
"Yes I agree strongly with that principle," said Ed. "Changes that fall far short of cutting off monitoring will perhaps prove satisfactory for both humans and Stone-Coats. I believe that what I will propose is in accordance with the Treaty. Further, if Dawn Owl's spirit quest is successful it will help ensure that the Treaty is kept by all human/Stone-Coat pairs now and in the future."
"So are you saying that he will be allowed to go with me?" Dawn Owl asked.
"In a word yes, but with a twist. I've thought of a compromise that will perhaps sufficiently satisfy both Treaty and spirit quest requirements, but I'll wait until we reach your parents and Grandparents to explain exactly what it is, and seek then the agreement of everyone involved, including both of you. Are you ready to start your quest today?"
"Yes, Chief Ed," said Dawn Owl. "I've been told that my camping gear has already been assembled topside by my parents."
"Good. Far from being lame and useless, what I have in mind for your quest is something vital to both the Tribe and the Stone-Coats. Times are tough, Dawn Owl, and your individual help is needed now. Your grandfather has been a great hero to the Tribe by helping redefine the relationship between Stone-Coats and Humans, now perhaps it is your turn."
Though disappointed that he would apparently have to take Walking Stone with him on his quest, Dawn Owl was intrigued. However he hoped that Chief Ed didn't expect from him the physical and leadership heroics of his grandfather Running Be
ar; like his father the Tribe scientist, Mark was much more inclined towards intellectual pursuits.
They were approaching the doorway to the outside. The tunnel widened from twenty to thirty feet, and the odd trio joined dozens of other Tribe members young and old also walking topside from longhouses and other rooms. Most carried farming tools, bags of seed, and empty baskets where harvested crops would be placed for transport and storage. They all exchanged friendly greetings with their Chief of the month and with Mark Dawn Owl.
Everyone knew everyone else at Giants' Rest. Some spoke in Mohawk, but most used English. They all judiciously stayed out of Walking Stone's way, and out of the way of several small electric-powered carts that were also headed topside. Later in the day most of the carts would return to the caves filled with harvested vegetables.
Several of the converging Tribe members were telepathic to various degrees, and exchanged silent greetings with Ed. Their thoughts were part of the growing flood of telepathically transmitted distinct thoughts and emotions, mostly human, that Ed increasingly sensed as they left behind the relative silence of the caves.
A few of the Tribe members were of the jant clan and carried jants with them, and several of those had medical ticks attached to their backs, hidden to vision but very apparent telepathically. These individuals greeted Ed as 'Clan Leader' rather than 'Chief', as it was the more intimate affiliation.
The jants communicated with their human clan partners and with each other and the ticks telepathically. Despite years of exposure to it most jant and tick telepathic chatter was unintelligible noise to Ed, as it was a lower level of thought than humans could deal with at a conscious level. Human thought at that level would also doubtless be gibberish. However with focus Ed could increasingly understand fleeting bits and pieces of their more concentrated thoughts. Like the humans that carried them, these jants were headed for the greenhouses, and they thought mostly of gathering food. But there was also an unusual excitement in their chatter, and he thought that he 'heard' the name Jerry Green being mentioned repeatedly.
"HELLO, JANT CLAN LEADER AND TRIBE CHIEF ED RUMSFELD," came a sudden clear collective thought projected from the jants. The thought was full of reverberations due to it being created by millions of tiny jant minds. The reverberations were unusually strong on this occasion, indicating that a significant physical separation of the jants was involved.
"HELLO BACK TO YOU!" responded Ed. "I SENSE THAT I AM SPEAKING WITH MUCH MORE THAN THE LOCAL RESERVATION JANT COLONIES."
"CORRECT, ED RUMSFELD! THOUSANDS OF JANT COLONIES WORLD-WIDE ARE PREPARING TO WITNESS AND