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The Far Side of the Sun

By: Adrian Leverkuhn



The Far Side of the Sun

December

Heidi Stillwell winced as the shrill throbbing cadence of her alarm clock penetrated the early morning fog, causing her to bolt upright even as she became aware of a deep pain resonating somewhere behind her right eye. She tried to rub five hours of sleep from her eyes, tried to connect with the realities of the day ahead, but she knew that without a shower – and about two liters of strong, black coffee – the effort was doomed to fail. 

"First things first," she said to the empty room. "Coffee."

She padded to the little kitchenette in these spartan quarters and slapped a pod into the funky looking automated coffee thinga-ma-whozit and hit "BREW" as she slipped a cup under the spout, then off she went to the head and flipped on the shower. She brushed her teeth as the water warmed up, then stepped under the water while she continued brushing, all the while trying to concentrate on the day ahead.

0400 now, be at the line shack by 0440 for pre-flight briefing, pre-flight walk-around at 0515 – or close to it – then about 15 minutes to enter frequencies into the radios and cross check against her flight plan. Maybe ten minutes for engine start and taxi to the active, putting me airborne by 0545 latest. First airborne re-fueling would probably be somewhere over Lake Erie, most likely just north of Cleveland, the second west and north of Chicago. If the weather-Gods cooperated she'd zip on in to Mountain Home Air Force Base in time for lunch, do a quick de-brief then make it to the base clinic in time to see a few patients.

Stillwell was an U.S. Air Force Academy graduate; she had gone to medical school at Duke after graduation, and after gaining her M.D. did her internship and residency in Family Practice at military facilities in San Antonio. She continuing her duty obligation in the Air Force as a Flight Surgeon, and moved to Idaho, to Mountain Home Air Force Base after completing her residence. One of the perks of that posting was continuing flight time, for, or so the theory went anyway, you had to be a pilot in order to become a Flight Surgeon, and as Heidi Stillwell loved flying more than just about anything else in the world, this wasn't a burdensome duty. In fact, she lived for these intermittent proficiency checks, and grabbed every opportunity she could to rack up more hours. 

She'd learned to fly as soon as her feet could reach the rudder pedals, or so her father had always liked to say, and because he had been an Air Force pilot, he had started her flying "in earnest" when she was ten years old. He had left the military when she was still very young and started flying for Delta, and so Heidi ended up with her pilot's license before she had even considered getting a permit to drive a car. To this day, she still hated automobiles: they were simply too slow... 

Heidi Stillwell had always been on the far side of smart, too, and this she inherited from her mother. Her IQ had consistently been measured over the years at 160 or better. Einstein territory, in other words, and she had tended to intimidate most of her teachers in high school, let alone the few boys who dared talk to her. Still, she had run into the same glass ceilings her mother had, and everywhere she turned: male teachers rarely acknowledged her intelligence and often all but ignored her in the classroom; Academy classmates brushed her aside as a noisome nuisance, and even now the pilots in her wing ignored her, probably, she assumed, because she hadn't seen combat. Yet. But it was always funny to her how nice they were when time rolled around for the bi-annual flight physicals. Funny too, she thought, how quiet these men became when she checked them for hernias.

It probably hadn't helped that she'd conscientiously ignored the jocks and their cheerleaders all through high school. Further, to the amusement of her classmates, she spent almost all her free time pushing an old red and white Cessna 150 through the skies around of Atlanta, Georgia, and these kids just couldn't relate to that kind of seriousness, not in the age of video games, anyway. When she received her appointment to the Academy, she already had more than seven hundred hours of flight time, and was licensed to fly multi-engine aircraft under instrument flight rules, a rare accomplishment for one so young. Let alone, heaven forbid, a girl. She had never considered that her classmates were envious, and that some almost in awe of her accomplishments. Still, it became a point of contention for her father, if only because he wanted her to be a well-rounded kid, and well rounded girls had boyfriends, didn't they? He was concerned, he told her, because he felt she'd never really find true happiness in life until she was surrounded by friends and her own family. Going it alone wasn't going to bring happiness into her life, he said over and over.

But the way things were going? No friends? Only her studies, and flying?

When she graduated from high school, he doubted she'd even held hands with anyone. Ever.

And on her fifteenth birthday, Heidi Stillwell's mother passed away. Cancer. A vicious ovarian cancer, a malignant monster that had taken her mother in less than a year, and the experience defined Heidi Stillwell's life in many ways, but most of all the journey to death she made with her mother informed her choice to become a physician, and her outlook on life, in every way conceivable.

With all this in mind, consider that at 29 years young Heidi Stillwell had in fact shown almost zero interest in men (or women too, for that matter), and while she had (once) kissed a boy at a high school dance (and enjoyed it too, for some odd reason), that was the extent of her intimate interpersonal relationships. She was, in other words, somewhat lacking in experience when it came to these matters, yet lately this had been causing her to lose more than a little sleep. It just wasn't right, she told herself. At least that's what the little voice in the back of her head kept saying...only now, after almost thirty years ignoring her father...she was beginning to listen.

+++++

The pre-flight briefing mentioned a fast moving line of storms coming up the Ohio River Valley, and Stillwell noted the center of the low on her chart, as well as the storm's anticipated velocity vectors. She might need to alter her flight-plan once airborne to divert north around some of the cells, but at the moment the MET officer projected the line would get pushed east before it hit the Great Lakes. If so...she was golden, but being ever the realist she did the math in the comfort of the line shack and worked out the frequencies and courses she would need to divert north, and ahead of the storm, if it did in the end push north to the lakes.

Her flight suit on and helmet in hand, she made her way out to flight line and the F-15 Eagle she would fly out to Idaho; a crew chief in a bright orange vest was standing by next to the cockpit to help get her strapped in, hooked up and on her way. Stillwell climbed the ladder and plopped into the seat, then woke up the electrical bus, checked battery status, entered navigational TACAN and tower/departure COMMS frequencies on the radios, and positioned her charts on the holder strapped to her left thigh, then signaled the chief she was ready for engine starts.

She looked at the ground crew arrayed around the Eagle to make sure none were standing too close to an engine intake, then when the chief signaled, she started engine one. She watched pressures build, monitored fuel flows and checked in with the tower, then the chief signaled she was clear to start two. That done, she scanned her gauges one by one and when everything appeared nominal she saluted the chief and lowered the canopy.

"Eagle 3-2-3, we're all lit up and ready to go," she told the tower.

"Roger 3-2-3. You're clear to taxi to 2-7 right. Hold short for the C-5 on final."

"3-2-3."

She advanced the throttles, released the brakes and made a smooth right turn onto the taxiway. She pumped brakes to check hydraulic pressure, watched gauges as she taxied, and while occasionally looking around for any sort of ground traffic that might become a conflict. Everything felt good, and the rush of pushing the Eagle out to the runway was, as always, exhilarating.

"3-2-3, holding short," she said as her Eagle braked to a stop well back from the runway. She finished her checklists and made sure the frequency for departure control was up on COMMS 2, then she looked over her right shoulder as the truly huge C-5 transport floated over the threshold and flared for touchdown. She could see at least three more sets of C-5 landing lights strung out in the distance on final, and though she had to hold for about a minute to let the huge aircraft's wake turbulence settle down, she was anxious to get the show on the road.

"3-2-3, clear to taxi to position and hold."

"3-2-3, roger." She advance the throttles and turned onto the runway, then set her brakes and began her engine run-up. She paused just short of "full military power", or full afterburners, and watched her engine gauges carefully.

"3-2-3, clear for takeoff."

"3-2-3." She rechecked the throttles were all the way to their stops and could almost feel the air outside the Eagle as the power ripped through the air like man-made thunder. Indeed, she knew from experience that the Eagle's scream could be felt more than ten miles away at this setting. Watching the instruments carefully now, she released the brakes and felt the full weight of the jet's thrust push her back into the seat. Watching her speed build in the heads-up-display, she pulled back on the stick at a hundred and sixty three knots and felt her stomach sink as the Eagle left the ground, raising the landing gears just as the aircraft left the ground. At four hundred feet above ground level and climbing fast, and at a hundred and ninety knots indicated, she throttled back and raised the flaps a notch, then switched to departure control.

"Dover departure, Eagle 3-2-3 passing one thousand on 2-7-0."

"Roger 3-2-3, squawk 1-4-3-4, turn right heading 3-4-5, clear to flight level 2-2-0, and expedite."

"3-2-3, 1-4-3-4, 3-4-5, and 2-2-0." She banked the F-15 into a gentle right turn, then set her transponder to 1434 and squawked ident, then pulled back sharply on the stick to take the aircraft rapidly up to 22,000 feet. She was, she understood, skirting along the airways frequented by commercial aircraft traversing the Boston-New York-Washington, D.C. corridor, and knew air traffic control would want to get her up and over traffic descending into D.C. in a hurry.

Delaware Bay was off her right wing-tip and she could just make out tankers and lighthouses down below in dawn's early light. As she cleaned the wing and checked the aircraft's lights she clenched her jaws and cleared her ears, then resumed scanning her instruments. She looked at clouds in the distance and tuned the Eagle's radar manually, checking functions and ranges. 

"3-2-3, stand-by to copy information alpha."

"3-2-3, go ahead."

"3-2-3, advise you consider alternate flight plan. Weather your primary route deteriorating and with heavy icing reported; advise you declare alternate and check in with Plattsburgh."

"3-2-3, roger." She checked in with FSS and gave them her new plan, and declared it active. Passing over Philadelphia, she contacted Plattsburgh AFB in Vermont.

"Eagle 3-2-3, you are clear for Plattsburgh heading 3-5-5, climb and maintain flight level 3-8-0."

"Eagle 3-2-3, heading 3-5-5 to flight level 3-8-0." Turning right again, Stillwell began a gentle climb to 38,000 feet.

"Eagle 3-2-3, squawk 3-4-0-0. Your TACAN for the tanker is 2-4-4-point-7-5."

"3-2-3, squawking 3-4-0-0, tanker on 2-4-4-point-7-5."

New York City slipped by under thin overcast well off her right wing, and she could just make out Lake Champlain dead ahead, though it was still well over a hundred miles away. Dialing TACAN 2 to 244.75 she noted the KC-10 tanker was still out of range, but now off her left wing she saw towering cumulonimbus clouds, some topping out over 50,000 feet. And below? The white winter landscape was disappearing underneath a patchwork quilting of cloud, and more worrisome still, maybe twenty miles off her left wing she could make out cloud to cloud lightning. That could only mean "thundersnow" and, more than certainly, very heavy icing conditions. She dialed in the Hartford/Bradley FSS frequency and checked barometric pressure, then dialed some engine bleed air into the leading edges of the wings. She checked her fuel state, shook her head then called Plattsburgh.

"Plattsburgh, 3-2-3, any word on weather over the lakes?"

"3-2-3, Cleveland reporting heavy snow, visibility now two miles and dropping, winds southwest at 35 knots, repeat 3-5 knots, gusts to 5-5 knots."

"Plattsburgh, roger. Got a vector to the gas station?"

The controller chuckled. "If you got a crayon handy, advise when ready to copy."

"3-2-3, got a candy apple red handy. Fire away."

"Roger 3-2-3, turn left to 3-1-0, TACAN still 2-4-4-point-7-5. Your Exxon station will be orbiting at flight level 3-3-0. You'll tank number three, behind two B-2s heading back from the dark side of the moon. You should be able to hit him on COMMS in about ten minutes."

"3-2-3, got it, and thanks."

Stillwell had been flying by hand up to now, but she flipped on the autopilot and dialed in the heading, then hit the ALT HOLD mode when she hit 38,000. She slid her visor up and rubbed her eyes with the knuckles of her pointing fingers, took a deep breath and shook her head while she scrunched around in the seat, trying to find just the right spot to get rid of the hot spot on her tailbone. 

"Man-o-man, wonder if there's a Starbuck's anywhere around here?" she said aloud...then... 

A deep thud shuddered through the aircraft.

Hydraulic pressure falling...warning lights coming up now... 

Audible alarms, then...fuel warning lights?

"WHAT THE FUCK!"

Something was stinging her eyes. Fuel vapor? She pulled off her oxygen mask, and – the vapors were overwhelming. She slapped the mask back over her face, then... 

"Plattsburgh, 3-2-3, squawking 7700, declaring an emergency. Explosion, hydraulics and fuel gone, vapor in the cockpit."

"3-2-3, Plattsburgh, radar contact. Syracuse 1-2-5 miles bearing 3-3-5, Plattsburgh now 9-5 miles bearing 1-2-5."

"3-2-3, anything closer?"

"Lake Placid, but runway is closed with near zero visibility and three feet unplowed on the runway."

"Okay Plattsburgh, give me a vector to Lake Placid...uh, wait one..." She looked at the rearview mirrors lining the canopy arch above her head, saw a wall of flame erupt somewhere aft of the cockpit. "Plattsburgh, 3-2-3, fire on board and we're checkin' outta here..."

And with those hard, fateful words, Heidi Stillwell reached above her head and pulled the ejection loop. The F-15s canopy ripped free of the aircraft as a small rocket under her seat blasted her clear of the burning Eagle. The winter air at 38,000 feet was minus 60 degrees Celsius, and she slammed her helmet visor shut as her tearing eyes began to freeze. The kneeboard attached to her left thigh ripped away and slammed into her chest and neck before vanishing in the slipstream, and she was aware of an intense burning sensation somewhere under her chin before a lack of oxygen made her world grow very dim indeed... 

+++++

Heidi Stillwell fell earthward for almost two minutes, before her seat separated and the parachute deployed, yet she was completely unaware of these two lifesaving events. The air grew marginally warmer as she entered cloud, but soon her body was coated with snow and ice, yet even so her eyes opened, barely, and she noted she was deep inside a thunderstorm when a concussive rumble of thunder shook through the very core of her being. Her knees pulled up instinctively when a spider's tracery of lightning ripped through the cloud, seemingly no more than a few meters away, then she put her hand on her neck, pulled it up to her eyes only to find deep red blood on her gloved hand.

She slowly shook her head, scrunched her eyes. Flexing her fingers, then her feet, she tried to perform a quick neurological exam as she drifted downward through the cloud. When she was almost sure her spine was intact she began to look down, and every now and then she thought she glimpsed pine trees, though they still appeared to be quite far below, perhaps another two to three thousand feet.

Next she felt for the rescue radio clipped to the left strap of her 'chutes shoulder harness, and while she patted the device reassuringly she dared not touch it until she was on the ground. Then, not fifty meters away she saw the ragged amber-gray rocks of a sheer cliff slipping by, then trees reaching up to pluck her from the sky. Next, she felt her body ensnared by tree limbs, then she was aware of tumbling through forest canopies, bouncing over rocks, then arcing through the air once again before the earth reached up for her one last time.

+++++

The man and the boy had been stalking a small group of deer since dawn. The weather was awful – cold, very cold – but there had been some sun out early, and it appeared the herd was a large one. Then, not an hour after sunrise, a brutal wind had come, and not long after a void of howling snow had enveloped their world. Still, they pushed on through the snow, their crude snowshoes keeping them from sinking into waist deep drifts as they attempted to follow the deer.

This had been, surely, one of the worst winters in memory, and though the autumn harvest had been completed not all that long ago, already the village's stocks of food were running perilously low. It would be a tough winter indeed if the men were not able to take a few deer from time to time, and now, luckily, this herd of deer had made a fatal mistake: they had turned toward the cliff – toward what the locals called Stone Mountain – and now were effectively boxed in. 

The man looked at the tracks and pointed them out to the boy.

"See that? You move off to the right, and be ready. I'll follow the creek. We'll have 'em, then."

"Alright, Paw..."

Then an explosion, high overhead.

"Paw? Was that – thunder?"

The man looked skyward. "I don't think so, boy." 

He saw a faint yellow glow in the clouds, then through a break in the storm he glimpsed a massive ball of fire. Huge chunks of something up there arced away from the fireball, then the fire gave way to thick black smoke and he could see smaller pieces of whatever it was up there floating downward. Downward, towards him and his son.

"Come over here, boy. Stand close to this tree."

They watched as smoking bits of Eagle 3-2-3 plummeted earthward, then saw a huge orange flower open in the sky and begin drifting down. He saw the orange flower was above the smoking embers, and falling much more slowly, and he wondered what it was.

'Could it be one of the silver birds?' he said to himself. One of the silver birds that occasionally flew over the valley?

"What did you say, Paw?"

"I wonder if it's one of the silver birds?"

The boy stood away from the tree and looked up at the sky, then another wall of snow roared in and everything up in the sky dissolved into the howling maelstrom.

Still, the two looked skyward.

Then a huge, burning mass of metal crashed through the trees and came to rest not a hundred feet away, and a downpour of smaller smoldering bits came raining through the forest moments later. The man grabbed the boy and pinned him protectively against the nearest tree just as a huge metal cylinder slammed into the earth – where they had been standing just moments before.

And whatever it was, the metal was blisteringly hot. Hissing snow began melting all around the glowing metal, and little gouts of fire formed when some sort of foul smelling liquid spurted from inside the glowing heap.


The Far Side of the Sun



"Come! We'd better get away from here!" The man grabbed the boy and began pulling him away just as another fiery object came crashing down through the trees. A huge, knife edged and almost trapezoidal slab of hissing metal sliced through brittle limbs overhead, and the man heard his son cry out in anguished pain.

He turned and looked at the scene, as shock began to settle over the scene.

He was holding his son's hand, indeed, most of his son's right arm, yet his son had fallen to the snow and was writhing in agony several feet away, a crimson stain spreading from the stump where his right arm had been. He knelt beside his son, tried to comfort him... 

And then... 

He heard limbs snapping overhead once again, and this time he flinched involuntarily before looking up.

A body was falling, no, tumbling through the air, then crashing through more tree limbs, and the man saw that some vast flying carpet of orange was trailing the body, slowing the body's fall as it got tangled in branches. 

The man stood, transfixed, as the body fell through the tree, coming to a rest loudly by his son. More astonishing still he saw – whoever it was – was alive. The body, if that was indeed what it was, sat up and shook it's head while it looked around, then whoever it was began releasing harnesses and slipping free of the huge orange carpet that fluttered in the branches overhead. Next, an ornate white helmet on it's head came off, then some sort of green fabric head covering, and at that the man recoiled in horror when he saw a woman's flaming red hair emerge.

"Dear God in Heaven!" he said. "What..." 

On hearing these words, the startled woman turned and looked at the man sitting next to an injured boy – who was laying just behind her.

"That's my boy," the man said, suddenly in tears. "Surely...I think he must be – dead..."

The woman winced as she turned, cried out as she struggled with the snow and all those straps, then using just her arms, she pulled her body over and placed two fingers on the boy's neck.

"No, not yet, but it looks like he's loosing a lot of blood. Come here," she said, still clearly in pain, "and help me turn him on his side! Let's get the wound elevated!"

The man didn't hesitate; maybe it was the tone of her voice, for this strange woman spoke with real authority – unheard of though that was, but there was no mistaking her meaning. He dashed to her side and did as she asked while she in turn opened a pouch on the leg of her trousers and produced a red and white bag of some sort.

The woman opened the bag to reveal all manner of strange things, but the first thing she produced was some sort of metal implement she used to cut away the fabric around his boy's shoulder, then with some sort of stretchy band, she tied off the stump, and the blood stopped flowing from the wound. Next, she ripped open a small paper pouch and poured a whitish powder onto the wound.

"What's that?" the man asked, now wide-eyed and afraid.

"Anti-coagulant, a heparin compound."

"A – what?"

"Never mind." She took the boy's wrist in her hand and looked at a strange dialed instrument on her own wrist, and he could see her counting silently while she looked at the instrument. "Better than I expected," she said. "His pulse and respiration aren't bad."

"You're bleeding," the man said suddenly. "Your neck. It's bleeding."

The woman removed her battered glove and felt her own flesh. "Is it oozing, or pulsing?" she asked.

"Seems like a slow, steady flow," he said. 

"Okay, good." She handed him the little paper pouch. "Pour a little of this powder into the wound, would you?" She tried to wiggle her toes again, but her legs felt numb, and a feeling of cold dread seeped in. 

She tilted her head back and exposed her neck to the man, and he moved closer to do so – but even so he was wary of this strange creature from the clouds.

+++++

"Where are we?" she asked the man after he'd gathered wood and started a fire.

"Where? The valley, I guess you'd say. Our village is a few miles south of here."

"Does your village have a name?"

"No, not really, not that I remember, anyway. We call it the Village, have for as long as I can remember."

"What about streets or highways? Have a road name or highway number?"

"No, mum, no roads or the like around here."

"Oh? What about schools, or the police? How do they get here?"

"Our women take care of the schooling, mum. I don't know anything about police. What is that?"

"Okay, so this is the Twilight Zone. C'mon Heidi, time to wake up..."

"Is that your name?" the man asked. "Heidi?"

"Yup. What's your name?"

"Martin. Martin Stillwell."

"Stillwell? Did you say Stillwell?"

"Yes, mum. Stillwell."

"I see."

The boy stirred, opened his eyes, looked wildly around for his father.

"It's okay, boy. I'm here."

Their eyes met, then the boy looked at the woman.

"Who is she?"

"She fell from the sky, from the silver bird, I think?"

"The what?" Heidi asked. "A bird?"

"Did you fall from the one of the silver birds? We see them from time to time, up there," he said, pointing to the sky.

"Excuse me, but do you know what an airplane is?"

"No, mum. Airplane, you say?"

Heidi was stunned. She had heard about a few isolated communities such as this, or what this might turn out to be, little pockets of people in far upstate New York that had simply slipped out of contact with the "outside world" sometime in the early-1800s. Perhaps, just perhaps, she had fallen into the midst of such a group?

"So, you live in this valley," she said, pointing as she spoke, "and there are no roads in or out of here. Do you have electricity, or radio?"

"I don't know those words, mum. Do you, boy?"

The boy shook his head, but it was apparent now that the boy was in a great deal of pain. Heidi took his left hand in her's again and started counting.

"I'm going to give him some morphine now, and a broad spectrum anti-biotic. Help keep him on his side, would you Martin?" She pulled the boy's pants down a few inches and swabbed his skin with some sort of pad, then took a small glass ampule from her red bag and popped a small cover off, revealing a shiny needle-like appendage attached to the glass. She stuck the needle into the boy's hip and he flinched, then she removed another ampule from her bag and stuck him again.

"That burns," the boy cried out.

"You'll feel better in a minute. Just close your eyes until you feel like sleeping," she said as she held his hand. Soon his eyes fluttered and his breathing slowed, and she ran her fingers through the boys hair.

"Does that stuff make him sleep?"

"The morphine? Yes, for two to three hours, hopefully." She looked around, saw the boys severed arm lying in the snow, then pulled a shiny white thing from her trousers. She flipped it around in the air until it transformed into a bag of some sort, then she asked Martin to fill the bag with snow. "Martin, would you bring me his arm, please?" Martin did, and though he looked squeamish she took the boy's severed arm and wrapped the stumpy end with white fabric of some sort, then placed the arm in the bag with the snow.

"Why are you doing that?" Martin asked.

"When the helicopter gets...OH SHIT!"

She reached for the radio on her parachute harness and pulled it free, then turned it on. She saw the little LED light go from red to amber to green as the radio found a satellite and transmitted her position, then she looked at the signal strength readout. "Looks good," she said, then she started transmitting.

"Plattsburgh, this is Eagle 3-2-3, how do you read?"

"3-2-3, we have you five by five, and we're receiving your coordinates now."

"3-2-3, that's good to hear, Plattsburgh."

"Roger that, 3-2-3. The SAR bird is diverting to your location; they advise the weather is deteriorating. State your condition, 3-2-3."

"I have a laceration on my neck and my legs are numb, but some hunters found me. I haven't tried to walk yet. One of the hunters was struck by falling debris and his arm is severed just below the shoulder. I've stabilized the boy, and secured the limb, but I think we'll need an ortho standing by in the O.R."

"Got it, 3-2-3. SAR advises ETA is approximately two zero minutes."

"3-2-3, roger that, we'll try to find a clearing and puff smoke when we hear them."

"3-2-3, understood, will advise the helo. Say again, you think you may have a spinal injury?"

"3-2-3, that's affirmative."

"Copy that, 3-2-3. Will advise the helo."

She clipped the radio back onto her harness and tried to stand for the first time, but her legs were simply "gone", there was no sensation at all, not even when she tried to wiggle her toes again.

"Fuck," she said.

"What was that, mum?"

"Martin, I'd feel a lot better if you called me Heidi."

"Alright, mum, I'll try."

She chuckled, then reached for the smoke canisters in her survival pak. "Okay, Martin, I want you to find the biggest patch of open ground you can, but not too far from here. Men are going to come here in a, in a silver bird, and we're going to take your son someplace where we can fix his arm."

"Yes, mum. There's a big clearing very near, mum, er, Heidi. No worries there. A silver bird, you say. Is it big?"

"Huge would be a better word, Martin. And it will make a lot of noise when it gets close, but don't let that bother you. Just don't stand close to the clearing when it gets near the ground, and, oh, there will be a lot of wind around the silver bird, too. Now, you see this?" she said, pointing at a red ring attached to the top of the green can she held in her hand.

"Yes," he said as he nodded his head.

"When you hear the air go 'wump-wump-wump' I want you to pull this red ring, then throw it into the middle of the clearing. Here, take two, just in case. Throw 'em both into the middle of the clearing, then move back into the trees before you see the silver bird."

"Yes, mum."

"Oh, and it won't be silver, Martin, more like kind of dark gray. Okay?"

"Yes, mum."

"Okay, you head out for that clearing. I'll stay with your boy."

"You'll be alright, mum?"

"Yes, I think so..."

"Can you walk, mum?"

"No, Martin, I don't think so."

"I'm sorry, mum. But I'll take care of you, don't you worry none."

"Thanks, Martin."

The radio sparked to life: "Eagle 3-2-3, this is Jolly Green 1-4-1, and we've got a good hole in the weather. I reckon we're about five miles from your last reported position. Can you advise snow depth?"

"3-2-3, looks like two to three feet in the trees. One of the hunters out here said there's a big clearing nearby, and he's got a couple of smoke canisters to mark it."

"Roger that, 3-2-3, shouldn't be a problem."

"Thanks guys, and I'm buyin' tonight."

"Well then, hear that boys? We be doin' some serious drinkin' tonight!"

She turned to Martin. "You better get going. They'll be here soon."

"Mum," he said as he tipped his hat, then he turned and shuffled off through the woods on his ragged little snowshoes.

Moments later she heard the huge Sikorsky beating the air above the forest, then it's engines spooling down after it landed. Perhaps a minute later Martin and two medics in orange flight suits came bounding through the woods, and for the first time in what felt like years Heidi Stillwell felt a shudder of pure relief cascading through her body. 

The tears were yet to come.

January

Heidi Stillwell lay in an orthopedic hospital bed staring at the ceiling; she hadn't moved in hours, and indeed, couldn't move without a fair amount of help. Her evening meal lay – untouched – on the tray hovering on the stand over her lap, just as lunch and breakfast had passed unnoticed and untouched. She knew she was depressed, knew she had to eat, but looking at the IV in her arm she knew she was at least remaining hydrated, but frankly, at this point she just didn't care.

Not only had her spine been wrecked in the crash of Eagle 3-2-3, both her femurs had been fractured – only she'd been unable to feel either break – and her left carotid artery had been perilously close to being severed by the kneeboard that had been blown off during her ejection from the F-15. Members of the accident review board had come to talk with her, but she'd barely acknowledged their presence in the room. Investigators had found both engines, they told her, as well as the bulk of the wreckage and determined that the right engine had simply come apart, and splintering fan blades had ruptured all hydraulic and fuel lines; she was, they said, blameless. And lucky.

Her eyes had barely registered the irony of that word, and in truth her fate might as well have been cast to the wind. Lucky, she said to herself. Is that what I am?

She received a couple of get well cards from nurses at the base hospital back in Idaho, and her father had been by several times with flowers and boxes of chocolate, but these too had failed to rouse her spirits. Most troubling of all to Heidi, she'd neither seen nor heard a word from Martin Stillwell since their ride in from the crash site in the "silver bird", and she had grown very worried for this "stranger in a strange land". Too, she'd heard nothing about Martin's son's condition, and this was more than a minor concern, for over the past week she had begun to feel more and more responsible for the boy's injury, as irrational as she knew this to be, and from time to time she relived the experience in her mind... 

...for the ride in to Burlington, Vermont in the huge Sikorsky had almost been fun, even funny, for Captain Heidi Stillwell and the rest of the big choppers crew. 

When the engines had first spooled up and the pilot pulled up on the collective, the "Jolly Green Giant" had pulled free of the earth and Martin's eyes had grown round and saucer-like as the helicopter lurched up into the sky. He lurched about frantically, grabbing onto anything he could, and looked like he might go mad at any moment. What an introduction to the 21st century that must've been, she laughed to herself, and too bad the boy missed the experience. 

They'd flown over Martin's village a minute later, and, after showing him how to use the PA system, with mic in hand he told the people gathered below what had happened, that they were not to worry about him or his son, and that they'd be back soon; then the 'Silver Bird' had vaulted up into the clouds and was on it's way to Burlington, and the University of Vermont Medical Center.

Martin settled down on the way in, but still looked around warily, like he had been swallowed by some ancient primordial beast, still she'd looked at Martin Stillwell with new eyes on that flight, wondered who he was, and who else lived in the village. Who was he married to? How old was he? And why did she feel such a compelling need to talk to this wide-eyed stranger?

Then they had burst into sunshine over Lake Champlain, and the City of Burlington lay just ahead. Martin's eyes grew even larger when he took in the size of the city, and they almost popped out of his head when they flew over a freeway. "What are those...things...moving down there?!" he had cried out over the deafening wump-wump-wump of the turbine driven rotors beating the air. 

"Cars," she had told him. "Kinda like horse drawn carriages," she added. "Only faster."

"How can this be!" he cried when he saw the sizes of many of the taller downtown buildings. "What has happened here?"

As the Sikorsky landed in a parking lot next to the hospital, she wondered what he would make of a place like Boston, or New York City, and then the doors opened and that was the last she'd seen of Martin Stillwell and his son.

+++++

'If only...

'If only she was here,' Martin Stillwell said to himself. She might be able, he kept hearing over and over in his mind, to help him make sense of this strangely wonderful – yet tragic – place.

When people at the UVM medical center finally grasped the import of Martin Stillwell's existence, anthropologists and sociologists from Cornell, Dartmouth, and Columbia descended on him like birds-of-prey. They wanted to talk to him, to his son; they wanted to mount expeditions to the village as soon as the Spring thaw came 'round, but most of all, they wanted to know how the people of the village had survived for almost two hundred years without outside intervention, or assistance of any kind.

All Martin Stillwell heard in their questions was a simple, howling madness. How could the people in his village not have survived? Such questions were maddeningly stupid, he thought, because the people in his village lived as they always had. People were born. Some got sick, or were injured, and then died. Crops were planted, and tended-to until harvest time, while others walked the forests in search of game. Some people would grow old, and then they died, while illness took others when very young. Some people were strong, while others were not. Some were smart, others simple. Wasn't that the natural order of things? Still, the undercurrent Martin Stillwell picked up in these questions was that somehow the people in this city thought it impossible to live without all of the mechanical contraptions they seemed to rely on for their day-to-day existence, and he thought that sort of life somewhat absurd. To depend on so many things beyond one's control was, well, not very smart. He found himself more than once wondering how these people had survived for so long... 

Still, what miracles these people were capable of!

His son's arm had been "re-attached", and the "physicians" who performed this miracle told him that in time some normal function would be restored, and that perhaps someday James might even regain limited use of his hand. How could this be? Who were these people, if not magicians, or from the stars?

And what of the other things he had seen?

Light that appeared at the push of a button. Little black boxes full of moving pictures that allowed one to talk to someone across the street, or around the world, and yet these people carried such tools in their pockets without the slightest reverence for such unimaginable capabilities. Had they never once been lost in the forest without such a device in hand?

All manner of food and drink from markets around the world, and all you could possibly use and in apparently inexhaustible supplies. Not having to stalk game in the wild, not having to plant in the spring and harvest in the autumn and not having to worry about the weather? Ornate clothing, all manner of specialized shoes, and so many things he had never even heard of, and all of it so plentiful!

And that box on the wall? Television, he heard a nurse call it. Moving pictures from around the world, "news" from everywhere, yet most of what he saw was images of people arguing and fighting and, just as had been the case hundreds of years ago when his people had departed Holland and England for colonies in the New World, everyone still seemed to be fighting about one religion or another. Wasn't such conflict ludicrous! Could it be that these people had not learned from the mistakes of their parents, and grandparents, because it appeared to him now that people would forever try to impose their will on those whose beliefs differed from their own. If this was true, could it be that the strong always victimize the weak? The rich prey on the poor?

"Is that the essence of humanity? he said to the room as his son slept. "Of my own humanity?"

He looked at the brown air hanging over the city and wondered what that meant, and just what did that say of the world his children would inherit, and his children's children? And he looked at James sleeping peacefully, he sat in the stillness of this room for hour upon hour, lost in thought, always coming back to Heidi, always coming back to think of only one thing: how would the people of the village fit in to such a society? Would these outsiders even let them remain isolated, withdrawn from all this madness, or would they force them to come here? And that always led him back to...




The Far Side of the Sun



"Oh, if only she were here by my side! She could help me make sense of this world!"

And with that thought, Martin Stillwell knew that for better or worse, without this woman he and the people of the village were doomed. And he knew that personally, he was as lost now as he had ever been in the forest.

+++++

Another day, another round of doctors and residents, another round of pithy questions and vapid answers.

"But doctor, with breaks at T-3 and T-4, will she ever walk again?"

"We remain hopeful..."

"Oh, will you shut the fuck up! Of course I'm never going to walk again. Now poke the bottoms of my feet with needles then get the fuck out of here..."

Shuffling feet, averted gazes, but one person remains in her room.

"Is it true? What you say?"

She turns her head and sees Martin Stillwell standing just inside the door.

She doesn't have time to think, to "process" the fact that he has suddenly appeared: she simply begins to cry, then realizing what she's doing, tries to hide her face behind her arm.

Not knowing how to respond Martin enters the room and shuts the door behind him. He walks to her bedside and without thinking runs his fingers through her hair.

She begins to cry anew, this time with no restraint.

"You say you'll never walk? Is that what your doctors say as well?"

She is looking away, tears run down her cheeks, snot out her nose, her face now almost as red as summer beets.

She shrugs her shoulders, tries to regain some modest amount of composure, then tries to look at him. Tears cloud her eyes, then she feel him wiping her tears away with a tissue.

"You're learning fast," she says.

He chuckles lightly. "Television," he says. "And speaking of, just what the devil is a hemorrhoid?"

She laughs, and another gout of snot bursts forth onto her gown. "Oh-my-God! What IS wrong with me!"

"Nothing, from all that I can see."

She wipes her eyes, motions to a chair on the other side of the bed. "Please, Martin, sit down and talk to me."

"You're not tired? I won't disturb you?"

"Oh please, God, no! Sit! Tell me what you've seen, what you think of all this newness. Tell me everything!"

He smiled at the change he saw come over her. The anger and fear were quite suddenly gone, and now there was a brightness in her eyes, a brightness he longed to cradle in his hands.

"Oh, what you ask of me, I fear...I fear I do not have the words."

"Oh, come on Martin! Just let go and tell me what you think!"

He looked at her anew, tried to gauge the seriousness of her intent, the resolve of her purpose, then, liking what he saw, he tried to think of the best way to say what he really wanted.

"I've seen a lot, Heidi. And much of what I've seen I simply do not understand, but what I do understand is this. Of the technology I've encountered, it seems that some has, well to have replaced people's humanity. People do not talk 'to' one another. They talk 'at' people, almost as things to be ordered about. There is no courtesy, no empathy, no compassion. Yet what concerns me most of all? I'm not sure if the people in my village could ever fit into this world. I'm certain that I could not, though my son seems more and more interested in what life out here would be like. For him. But this world is so fast. And ours is so slow."

She took in his circumspect attitude and looked at him hopefully, willing him to go on.

"I think," he continued, "that I would always feel like, I don't know if this is the right word or not, but I would always feel like an outsider...if I lived here."

"What makes you think you'd have to live here? Has someone told you that you and your boy can't return to the village?" 

"No, not using such words. But if James, my son, wants to remain? What could I do?"

"What about his mother?" she asked.

He looked down at his hands. "She did not survive his birthing."

"So, you raised him, on your own?"

"There are many women in the village, and many helped, in one way or another." He smiled at the memory.

"Do you have someone special waiting for you there?"

"A woman, you mean?"

"Yes."

"There are many who have helped me and James, but no, not in the way I think you mean."

She looked him in the eyes, wondered just how sophisticated this man was.

"Do you have books in the village?"

"Yes, some, but they are old, fragile."

"Can you read? And write?"

"Both, yes. That is important. Even more so in this city, is it not?"

"Yes, very much so."

"And I write poetry," he said somewhat sheepishly, looking down at his hands again.

"You what?"

"Poetry. I write...poetry."

"How?" she asked. "I mean, how is it that you have material to write on?"

"The Algonquin passed on the ways of making paper from bark, and forms of ink. So yes, we have many in the village who write. Diaries, even a history? That is the correct word? Like Herodotus?"

"You've read Herodotus?"

"Yes, of course. And most speak Latin, as well. Does this surprise you?"

"Yes, Martin, it does. But I guess it shouldn't. In truth, I know so little about you."

"That is, what is the term I hear? A two way street?"

"Yes, just so. We know so little of each other."

"Would it be improper of me to say that I would enjoy learning with you? And learning more about you? You see, I think of you almost all the time. I think of all the people I've met here you alone seem to see the truth of me, of the village. When I see the future, I see you. Does that make any sense?"

She smiled softly. "I think so, yes."

He looked at her again, concern in his eyes. "You tire? Shall I leave now?"

She took a deep breath. "Please, no, not yet."

"What does it mean, that you will not walk again? How will you live, day to day?"

"A wheelchair, perhaps. Have you seen a wheelchair yet?"

"Everywhere I go in this building! You can hardly walk without falling over one the things!"

"Yes," she laughed, "I suppose that's true." She looked down now, tried to measure her words carefully. "You said you feel like an outsider here. I wanted to say then, when you said that, that many times I do as well."

"Do, what?"

"Feel like an outsider."

"How could that be? I don't understand?"

"It's difficult to describe, Martin, but as a woman here, well, as a pilot, and as a physician, men often do not take women seriously. I sometimes feel like I don't fit in, that I am, I guess, an outsider. Does that make sense?"

"I understand your words, but no, that makes no sense. And in the village that would make no sense at all. We each have a role..."

"But that's the problem, Martin. The role I've chosen for myself is a role that was once almost exclusively, oh, how do I say this? Men were pilots and physicians, while women raised children and took care of the house. It's very difficult for many to accept women who do the things I do. Not difficult to learn, but difficult for many men, for many in our society to accept."

"Again, I hear your words but they still make little sense to me. In the village, if a man is injured he may stay in the house, he may take care of the children. And many women hunt, while their men work the fields. We each have a role to play in our survival, and no role is less valuable than another. You are saying that it is not so here? That you are considered less than equal, because you are a woman?"

She nodded her head. "Yes. But sometimes I think it's always been that way. Forever."

"Yes, I've read that in ancient books, even in the Bible, and that troubles me."

"Why?"

"Because it means that people are not meant to learn from their mistakes."

"Yes, just so. We repeat the same mistakes over and over, from generation to generation. There was a philosopher, in Spain I think, who said that those who forget their past are doomed to fulfill it."

"I think that philosopher knew what he was about!" he said, smiling.

She smiled too. "Another said you should worry about the things you can change, and not worry about the things you can't change."

"Sound thinking."

"What are you worried about, Martin?"

He looked her in the eye again: "You."

"But you can't change anything about me, Martin. My future is cast in stone."

"Oh? How so?"

"You can't change the injury to my back, make me walk again. I will never fly again."

"So you think you are without value, without purpose? Because you cannot walk?"

She looked away, ashamed of her weakness, what she assumed was his perception of her self-pity.

"I feel that way, yes. So much of what I was..."

"Do you not recall my words to you, in the forest?"

"I'm not sure..."

"That I would take care of you. I meant those words, Heidi. I still do."

She looked at him again. "And me? What do you expect? That I come to live in the village?"

"You would be valued there." And loved, he wanted to say.

"Are you serious?"

"Yes. You are needed there."

She looked away, tried to measure her own reaction to his words. What words of her own came to mind? Ridiculous? Impossible? But...what if I tried? What would become of the outsider I've always been? Could it work? Could I change? Could I ever be an 'insider'?

She looked at Martin Stillwell, and smiled. "You think so?"

February

It was impossible of course. All the bureaucrats said so.

First, word of the village had leaked out to the press, and interest was high. How could the village's isolation, let alone privacy, be maintained?

Next, the academics all wanted first shot at studying the village – and it's inhabitants. Wouldn't the introduction of an outsider, any outsider, spoil the anthropological purity of the site?

And who had jurisdiction over these people, anyway? The United States of America? The State of New York? Napoleon, or God forbid, King George III? The U.S. Forest Service wanted to know, and right away, because there were apparently hundreds of people living in what was supposed to be a pristine Wilderness Area! People at the Department of the Interior were apparently shitting their pants over the very idea, and even the Internal Revenue Service was getting in on the act: what sort of income did these people generate, and what about back taxes! The thought of interest owed made these agents weak in the knees!

Then there were the medical considerations that were unique to Heidi Stillwell. How could a paraplegic deal with such a complicated and challenging lifestyle – and under wilderness conditions? What known and unknown medical complications might arise, and who would deal with them? 

Then, perhaps the biggest problem of all. What if the villagers wanted to remain isolated? Even to the point they didn't want a single outsider coming in, let alone herds of academics? And could the state exercise imminent domain and force them to relocate, as some were already advocating, to protect the forest? Just what were the limits of privacy, and choice? If the villagers wanted to remain isolated, was the stated honor-bound to adhere to that wish? If so, by what case law? This was terra incognito... 

So, the biggest external issues were political, and hence, to a degree, jurisdictional. But no one could answer for the villagers. 

And that turned out to be the first problem Heidi Stillwell had to resolve, and her first step was to get Martin involved, to set him off finding answers, for there was no better way to acquaint him with modern society than to get him involved with a modern federal bureaucracy.

+++++

"I don't know how you stand life in this cesspool," he said after one entire afternoon wasted talking with a woman behind a counter at the Forest Service. "What manner of world is it that you have created?"

"You get used to it," was Heidi's retort.

"Truly? One day of this and I'm ill. A week and I would become a lunatic."

"There have been books written about the subject, but none better than a one called The Castle, by an author named Kafka. Franz Kafka. Should we get you a copy?"

"Indeed. Perhaps multiple copies, for the villagers to read."

"Now, now. Don't get carried away. Surely it wasn't that bad?"

"You think not? I found myself thinking about The Inferno. Dante's seventh level of Hell. I now know first hand what Hell is like. It was in that office, and I assure you that woman was the devil herself."

"I can't wait to see what happens when you try to get a driver's license, or God forbid, a passport. Come to think of it, without a birth certificate of some sort, you probably don't even exist?!"

"I know not of these things, and perhaps that is a blessing." He shook his head, his brow deeply furrowed. "And how can one not exist? That's absurd."

"No. That's Kafka."

"Then, yes, we must get copies for the village. We must read him, and learn what it means to not exist."

"Oh, my. I've opened a nice can of worms, haven't I?"

"What?"

She smiled. "It's nothing. Just a saying, but wait, I have other news."

"Good news?"

"I think so. I've got funding for a clinic. For the village. And I might be the physician."

"Truly!? This is grand news!"

"Yes, assuming the village decides to let an outsider come, and that they want such a facility..."

"What do you mean, 'assuming'? Why would they not consider such an advance welcome?"

"Kafka!"

"Ah, yes, I see what you mean. Would a...bureaucracy attend such a facility?"

"It very well might. We would have to be very careful."

"Indeed..."

"How is James doing?"

"Well. He was almost able to make a fist today. Not a firm grip, but the fingers are moving."

"So soon?"

"Yes, his doctors were most pleased with themselves."

"Don't you think they should be! That's astonishing news!"

"I think it a miracle. James too."

She smiled.

"You don't believe in miracles, do you?" he said.

"I believe in working hard to achieve what you want in life."

"Yes. I believe in that, too. Tell me one thing. If your, parachute? Is that the word?"

"Yes."

"If your parachute hadn't opened? You would have died? Correct?"

"Yes."

"If you had been carried by the winds to the next valley, we would never have met?"

"More than likely not."

"And God played no role in this?"

Her smile deepened. "There's no answer to these questions, Martin. There's only faith. If you have faith, you have one set of answers given to you. But those may not be the only answers out there."

He frowned. "The scientific world view?"

"Yes, that's another source of answers."

"There are more?"

"Of course. Irrationalism, pseudo-science; there are all manner of mysticisms. But all these are beliefs, and entail a type of faith. Proof is elusive where these things are a concern."

"But science isn't faith?"

"Oh, I didn't say that. Science implies a belief in the process, a kind of faith, perhaps, only without scripture and pre-ordained outcomes."

"Has science ever proved that God exists, or doesn't exist?"

"Not that I'm aware of, Martin. It's not really the kind of question that science seeks to study."

"What about love? Does love exist?"

"The effects of love can be measured, scientifically. But love itself? I doubt that could proven scientifically, though there are psychological tests that can measure empathy, things of that nature."

"Well then, can the effects of God be measured?"

"I would assume so, on some levels at least. Perhaps when people have a religious experience... biochemically, perhaps, or neurologically, the effect of the experience could be measured."

"What are those things?"

"Oh. The way chemistry, more specifically something called hormones change in the blood, and how structures and processes within the brain change when certain chemicals are present, or absent. Just as "love" changes these things, my guess is that "God" does as well. But, that is not to say that "Love" or "God" exists or does not, it's only a measure of how human beings react biologically to the concepts of "Love" and "God"."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Could we learn these things? This "chemistry" you speak of?"

"Yes, of course. It's not magic. It simply takes hard work."

"Could you teach this? Teach all in the village who wish to know, to understand?"

"Teach? Me?"

"Yes, you. And perhaps there are things you could learn from us, as well."

"Of that I have no doubt, but yes, I think I could teach."

He smiled. His seed planted, he stood to leave. "You look tired, Heidi. I should let you rest."

She shook her head. "Not yet, please. Come sit by me for a minute, would you?"

He came to her and sat; she took his hand in hers.

"Thank you, Martin."

"Thanks? For what, Heidi?"

"For caring."

"It was your eyes, you know."

"What? What about my eyes?"

"I fell in love with your eyes the moment you took off that funny hat. I can feel that moment every time I close my eyes."

She felt herself blushing. "You fell in love with me?"

"Oh, yes."

She squeezed his hand. "Is that why you said you wanted to take care of me?"

"Yes. As I said, from the moment I saw your eyes." He leaned forward, kissed her forehead, saw that she was crying. "Does that upset you?"

"I just wish, wish that..."

"Your legs? How could that matter? If you can not walk, I will be your legs. Don't trouble yourself with such thinking."

She nodded her head. "Okay," she said, taking a deep breath.

"Oh, your freckles! They drive me wild!"

She giggled. "You know, you make me so happy! Like a kid..."

"You are a kid! You must not even be thirty years old!"

"Twenty-nine. You?"

"Forty and two." He looked at her anew. "See, I was right. You are still a child..."

"I wish!"

"Oh? Why so?"

"Because then we would have that much more time to be together."

"I wonder. Would one lifetime ever be enough?"

Her eyes were drifting off into sleep, so he leaned forward again and kissed her. On the lips.

"That feels so good," she said, dreamily. "So good..."

He ran his fingers through her hair until she was fast asleep.

June

The last element of the "clinic", such as it was, hung beneath the ungainly looking Sikorsky SkyCrane, which was hovering a hundred meters above a meadow near the edge of the village. Men on the ground in green Army fatigues supervised construction of the clinic, as well as it's hydrogen fuel-cell power plant, battery installation and small solar array. This new clinic 'element' was the fifth piece of the puzzle to arrive at the construction site, and with just one more to be airlifted in, the clinic was finally beginning to take shape.

The villagers were fascinated by the machine. They stood well back in the trees, but almost everyone in the village came to watch as soon as the wump-wump-wump of the rotors was heard down the valley. They pointed and shook their heads, clearly awestruck, and little girls and boys all talked about how fun it would be to go up in the huge beast. And of course there was food nearby, for many of the villagers had been cooking meals for the troops and engineers that were piecing together the clinic. The process had been pleasant, and had given the villagers time to get used to the idea of outsiders coming into their valley.

The assembled building was an "H-shaped" affair, with one wing each for the clinic's exam rooms and operating rooms, the other two wings dedicated as living spaces for physicians and academic researchers. The central bar of the "H" was built as a dedicated reception area and radio room, for it had been decided that no roads would link the village to the outside world – yet.

Another curious political artifact of the arrangement allowing a clinic to be built at the village? For every "villager" who decided to move out into the "mainstream" world, an outsider would be allowed to take his or her place – at least if approved by the village council. That way the population would remain constant, and thereby allowing some semblance of stability to be maintained.




The Far Side of the Sun



Another consideration was who would staff the clinic. It was decided that medical and surgical residents would rotate through the clinic on a semester basis, to be under the direction of Captain Heidi Stillwell, MD, USAFR, who was to live permanently on site. Academic "teams" would rotate in and out on an academic semester basis, with faculty and staff living in the clinic compound, and with their students living in temporary, student-built shelters within the villages.

Now the villagers were ready for the arrival of so much newness, so much change.

Or so they thought.

+++++

Martin Stillwell and his son, as well as a few men from the village, were building a new house for Heidi close to the clinic, and already they had linked the new house to the clinic with an elevated walkway. The house was built as all houses in the village had been built for almost two centuries: native timbers and stone were joined in a style unique to the village: simple, almost elegant lines, with long, overhanging roof-lines sheltering an open, covered breezeway between two large, enclosed rooms. Martin had compromised and built a "toilet-room", with a hideous looking composting toilet installed by the troops it's focal point. He had finally given in, and had to admit that an outhouse would not do in winter, for the thought of shoveling a path through the snow for Heidi's wheelchair had seemed daunting in the extreme.

Heidi hadn't been back to the area since the crash, but as she was due to return in three days he was rushing to get this new house completed. This "new" house would be in effect be "his" new home too, and though his son James would continue to live with them for a while, in time he would take over Martin's old house. Oddly enough, Heidi's official residence would be in the clinic annex, but no one thought for a moment she would stay there for long. Everyone in Burlington had seen the change come over her, especially when they saw the two together. In fact, he rarely left her side the entire time she was in Burlington, and when he was away Heidi grew dark and surly. Everyone knew to stay away from her when he was away for long periods of time, especially when he was back at the village. She was, people said, intolerable.

+++++

The Bell 412 roared up the valley at 150 knots, then circled the village to bleed off speed; villagers were already gathered near the clinic compound, by the small helipad off the back of the building, when the blue helicopter flared and settled on the pad. A sliding door on the right side of the machine rolled open and a wiry-haired, be-speckled girl hopped out, then set up a wheelchair on the paved landing pad. Martin walked up to the door and lifted Heidi out and placed her in the chair, then rolled her to the ramp that led up to the clinic.

Troops off-loaded some supplies from the Bell, refrigerated medicines for the most part, then hopped aboard; the helicopter lifted-off then took off to the east, leaving an immense stillness in it's wake.

Heidi surveyed the clinic and the people gathered 'round; she felt a little self-conscious with so many people staring at her and wanted to hurry inside, but Martin advised her to stop and let the villagers come up and meet her.

"You're right, of course, and they should meet Dr Epstein as well. After we get the medicines inside, perhaps?"

"Perhaps I should meet her too," Martin said.

"Ah yes, forgive me. Martin, this is Rebecca Epstein, head of general surgery at Columbia Presbyterian in New York. She's going to supervise the surgical residents up here through the New Year, and she'll be living here part time this summer, until autumn. I thought she could use my quarters? Until she departs?" She looked up at him and smiled.

"Rebecca, happy to meet you," he said, smiling. "Well, of course. We can move your things into the annex tonight."

"You want us to meet the villagers now?" Rebecca asked, yawning.

"Could you?"

"Well, let's get to it!"

Heidi and Rebecca remained on the deck by the helipad and one by one the people of the main village came up to introduce themselves. Their were shy kids, even shyer adults, a few gregarious, outspoken older folk, as well as the kindly old village parson, and all by and large very healthy looking people, and this struck Epstein as very odd indeed.

"It's funny," she said. "I expected to find a bunch of scurvy-ridden, disease ravaged hermits. This isn't what I expected, not at all. Almost no obesity, and the teeth I saw are extraordinarily clean. The anthropologists are going to go crazy, but there's fertile ground for Public Health research here too." Epstein was already taking notes...

"The clean teeth," Martin said, "comes from herbs. The Algonquin pointed these out to our fathers."

"Herbs?" Epstein replied. "That's it?"

"What about the lack of obesity, Martin?" Heidi asked.

"Obesity?"

"Overweight people," she clarified.

"Ah, well, there is little idle time, and no machines to assist in our work. All the work we do is done by hand, and all year round." He looked around at the forests and the fields, feeling very good about this world compared to what he had seen in the city. "And from what I have learned, television is a poison. People can sit for hours watching that box, and with people inside that insidious box trying to get you to eat, eat, eat all the time. Blah!"

Both Heidi and Rebecca laughed at that.

"So, where am I bunking out?" Heidi asked. "Nearby, I hope!"

Martin pointed to the new house, and the walkway that led to it: "We finished the ramp this morning. Some work remains on the fireplace. That toilet thing works, according to one of the soldiers, but it is unlike the toilets in the hospital. Anyway, there is a book about the toilet, and I have kept it for you. I think I shall continue to use the forest..."

"Well darlin'," Heidi said, trying to stifle a grin, "we got some boxes to move. Ready?"

"Would you like to see the clinic first?"

"Nope, that can wait. Rebecca? Let's get this stuff put away, then let me get oriented. Guess I should move my stuff over tot the house. My guess is we aren't calling out for pizza tonight..."

The two women looked around. All the villagers had disappeared, melted back into the forest, and it was so quiet that it was almost unnerving to them.

"I guess there aren't any locks on the doors, either?" Epstein said. "That'll take some getting used to, I guess."

It took a few minutes to get the meds in their storage fridge, and some bandages sorted and stored, and they looked around the clinic, satisfied.

"I could eat a...moose," Rebecca said as she wiped sweat from her brow.

"Got that right. Well, give us a half hour, then we'll figure out dinner," Heidi replied.

"Dinner?" Martin added. "We'll have dinner out here tonight. All the village will be here. Then we'll have music."

"Really?" chimed the physicians, in unison.

"Yes. And Rebecca, I should warn you, there will be more than one single man circling around. I saw them looking at you when you arrived. Only one would I recommend dancing with. The others will break every bone in both your feet."

A wide-eyed Rebecca Epstein looked at Martin with a mixture of alarm and curiosity. She'd not had a viable date in weeks, and now found herself thinking that this evening could turn out to be quite interesting indeed.

"Anyway," he continued, "your room is through that doorway, then turn to the right. I believe a soldier put Heidi's name on the door to the room you'll be using."

"We'll be right back," Heidi said with a wink.

Martin pushed her wheelchair along the ramp to their house, then he opened the door to their living room and they went in. 

She gasped. "It's gorgeous, Martin! The lines are so clean, the wood so warm!"

He beamed. "Uh, your toilet contraption is in that little room. The book is on the table."

"You built all the furniture?"

"Yes, of course."

"It's amazing! You are an artist!"

He shrugged his shoulders. "My work is not the best in the village. If you want to see artistry, I will show you Sumner Bacon's house. He is a magician with wood. And stone, too, for that matter."

"Will you introduce me to him tonight?"

"Yes, of course."

"Now, would you kiss me!"

"We should go to the other room."

"Oh? Okay."

He pushed her out of the living space and across the covered breezeway, and into their sleeping room.

Again, she gasped at the simple beauty of the room, the honied-amber glow of the wood, the simple purity of the furniture, and even the mattress and coverlet seemed crafted with the utmost care.

"Oh Martin," she cried, "I've never seen anything so beautiful! There's even a fireplace in here, too!"

"Not quite ready to use, yet," he said, "but soon." He smiled, smiled because he appreciated the sincerity of her words, the purity of her response to his craftsmanship. He picked her up from the chair and carried her to the bed, and he lay her down gently on the quilted coverlet, then sat beside her.

"If you don't kiss me now I'm going to scream!"

He smiled, then leaned over and kissed her, holding her face in his hands all the while.

"You've no idea how I've missed you," he said when he came up for breath. "And wanted you."

"Martin, there's something I need to tell you. I've never...never had sex with anyone. Not ever."

"And now, you are worried about what you may not feel?"

"Yes, but I'm not sure. Probably nothing, but I'm not sure how or what..."

"But you don't know?"

She shook her head, bit her lip.

"Then we will learn together."

"Yes," she said as she looked into his eyes, "we will."

"There is no rush, Heidi. When you are comfortable..."

"Thank you. For understanding."

"You are afraid?"

"A little."

"I have dreamed of this, Heidi. Many nights, I have dreamed of our being together, but we have a lifetime ahead."

She smiled. "I love you."

"Yes, I see love in your eyes."

"My eyes never lie, Martin."

"I have seen this too. But..."

She pulled his face to hers, kissed him again – and she could feel his response through the skin on his face. Then, from her breasts through her face, she felt an overwhelming physical force raging, some primitive need awakening. Suddenly, she felt aflame... 

"Heidi, if you keep doing this I will not be able to go listen to music, or eat dinner..." She let him go and he pulled back enough to see her face. "There is one question I have wanted to ask you."

"Sex? You mean, can we have 'normal' sex?"

"In a way, perhaps. It is just that I wanted to know if it is possible for us to have a child."

"Oh Martin, yes, of course." She smiled, then caught herself as she began to cry.

"Would this make you happy? To have a child?"

"I'm happy to have you in my life, Martin. For us to be together. Yet, to have a child? Well, I'm not sure that I could ever be happier than I am right now, but to join with you, to create life together?"

"That would be a miracle, would it not?"

"Yes, I suppose, in a way just being alive right now is a miracle, but to be with you, here, now? I've never been closer to believing than I am right now."

The kindness on his face was almost overwhelming. 

"Oh! You should see your eyes," she said.

"My eyes? Why?"

"Well, because...oh, one day I'll try to explain it to you," she said as she tickled him. He launched sideways and fell off the bed, laughing as he landed on the floor. "Come on, we'd better go get Rebecca before all those single men get to her."

"She will not be lonely, that much I know. She is not unattractive."

"Oh? Should I be jealous?"

He laughed. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. But Heidi, you will never know jealousy."

"I know. I just learned the truth of your eyes, too."

"Yes, I understand now. And do you know, I love you very much?"

"I do, but I'll never understand why."

"Truly?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe one day I'll figure it out."

"You will," he said. "I know of no one more intelligent, so surely you will."

"Well, okay, let's go grab that skinny New Yorker and get her fed. Honestly, I don't know how that girl is going to make it up here without a good pizza place nearby..."

+++++

Dinner that first night was vegetable soup, followed by venison and partridge served with roasted onions and potatoes, as well as freshly baked bread served with butter and cheese; it was too early for summer vegetables, though trout were plentiful in local streams if one had the patience to fish for them. There were none on the table that night.

Heidi and Rebecca were taken with what a balanced diet the villagers maintained, given the limited land resources available, and the very narrow growing season typical of upstate New York. Still, one of the first things the girls wanted to do was run simple blood chemistries on a select number of people, if only to establish a baseline for further studies, and the two physicians talked about such things during dinner. Women drifted by and listened, mystified, while young men drifted by – looking at Rebecca. Heidi thought the evening was going to be a success, at least as far as Rebecca getting laid was a concern... 

Not long after dinner was served, music started. Simple acoustic stringed instruments, and a few woodwinds, tossed with a lot of enthusiasm led to a colossal outpouring of energy. Candlelight, a few lamps burning some sort of pitch, and a decent looking bonfire set the stage, and soon a handful of villagers were out on the "dance floor" – a nice flat piece of grassy meadow – spinning around under the moon and stars. A line formed near Rebecca, while Martin indicated which were least likely to crush her feet... 

And Heidi looked on wistfully, her first real taste of what her life's new contours held for her, but still, she tried to move on to what she knew she could do, to how she could contribute to life in the village. That was about the time that Martin plucked Heidi from her wheelchair and carried her in his arms into the wheeling frenzy and danced ever so gently amongst his friends and neighbors, everyone looking on – willing the moment to last forever.

When he was spent, when sweat was rolling down his forehead, down his neck and running onto his shoulders, he returned her to the wheelchair and sat beside her, held her hand while he caught his breath, and as she listened to the music of her own beating heart she began to see her life as not so very limited after all.

And sometime in the night a young surgeon from New York melted away to a house in the woods. She made it back to the clinic building a little after sunrise, a curious little smile on her face.

+++++

The first days working in the clinic were all about getting things organized, about turning rooms full of boxes into some semblance of useful order, because Heidi assumed they would be used to treat people with injuries more than illnesses. It was hard work, and Rebecca was stuck with most of the "heavy lifting" – the moving boxes and mounting hardware on the walls – while Heidi went about stocking the various drawers and cabinets with medical supplies and reference materials. Then they came upon big boxes full of bigger furniture and hardware they simply couldn't handle alone, and their first call for help went out.

Of course Martin came, but curiously enough many of the older women joined him, and it came to pass that day they learned that the female villagers were more than curious about what it was these two women did. As these women listened and learned about what the two "outsiders" practiced, more than a few became seriously interested in this "science" that Heidi and Rebecca called "medicine". The more these women heard that day, the more they wanted to learn, and a few of the women, Heidi noted, appeared to have real aptitude. So as the day wore on, between the two physicians and the dozen or so women that stuck around, they managed to cobble together all the exam room tables and one very complicated surgical stand where, Rebecca said, "operations" could be performed.

Performed, that is, if anyone around the valley ever got sick.

After finishing a census of villagers spread out around the valley, they found there were just over eight hundred people in four distinct "villages", and the doctors extrapolated that with that number of people they might reasonably expect to see at least two to three patients a day. But, and this was a big but, so far no one had come by, no physical complaints were even heard of. No colds or fevers, no broken bones or strange, unexplained ailments, and this caused the girls no small amount of concern. After their first communal dinner, after the realization that these people were eating exceptionally nutritious diets devoid of the chemicals present and taken for granted in present-day processed foods, they began to think more and more about a causal link between such diets and the villagers apparent resilience.

Or, as Heidi suspected, was it simple resistance to change? People rarely trust a technology they haven't heard of, let alone don't understand, and then there was the whole "outsiders vs insiders" thing to consider. This kind of reception had been noted by anthropologists in Micronesia and equatorial Africa time and time again, so it wasn't exactly a surprise, but with Martin and James having carried stories of the outside world back into the valley before the two physicians arrived, they had hoped that in some way this one obstacle might have been side-stepped. Yet even at that first dance, aside from those few curious women, very few people had come by to talk and, predictably, most people had stayed in groups where they felt most comfortable. That was nothing new, the docs concluded, just simple human nature. Now, after a week had passed and having seen not one patient, they began to wonder what else might be going on.

+++++

Nights that first week were something else entirely.

"She goes out every night, you know," Heidi said to Martin as they were preparing for bed their third evening together in his new house. "Do you know what she's up to?"

He turned to her and smiled. "As nature intended, I suppose. Why? What do you think she's doing?"

"I guess screwing her brains out."

He laughed. "From what I've heard she's rather good at it."

"People are talking about it?"

"I guess you could say that. They're talking about some of the things she does, anyway."

"Oh, really? Like what?"

"Well, for one, she uses her mouth like a cunny."

Heidi felt her face turning bright red. "You aren't serious! They're talking about that?"

"Oh yes. And from what I've heard she's rather good at whatever it is she does."

"You mean... Well, I've never done that."

He looked at her, half seriously, when he said: "Perhaps she could give lessons? You know, to the women in the village?"

Heidi coughed through her laughter, almost gagging. "Now, that would be one way to get people to come to the clinic."

"I guess that would depend."

"On?"

"On whether you want to run a clinic or a bawdy house."

She laughed again. "Perhaps I'd better talk to her about this tomorrow. If this is becoming so well known..."

"Oh, it is. Most of the men I saw today were talking of little else. Anyway, I was curious if this is common outside the valley? This, uh, mouth thing?"

"I think so," she said. "So, no one has ever done this to you? Used her mouth on you?"

"Goodness, no. I think it very rare indeed. At least no one I know of talks of having done so."

"Would you like me to?" Heidi asked.

"To what?"

"You know," she said as her tongue parted her lips.

"I – uh – well – I don't know – I –uh – guess so – if you – uh – think you'd like to – try?"

"Come here," she commanded, still in her wheelchair. He came and stood before her, and she untied the rope he used as a belt and let his pants fall to the floor. She took his penis in her hand and marveled at how thick and heavy it was even when soft, then she took her fingernails and let them dance over the tip.




The Far Side of the Sun



He moaned.

She danced downward to his sack with her fingers, then, after a few minutes, with the tip of her tongue began to trace lazy circles over the tip, then along the length of his penis. She felt his cock respond immediately, to twitch as it filled with blood, and she drew back once before taking it all in her mouth in one lunging plunge. 

His back arched and instantly he filled her mouth with cum. She struggled to swallow it all, amazed at how fast he released, but even so spent she continued to work his shaft with her mouth and fingernails. She felt the muscles deep inside the backs of his thighs tremble, heard him mumbling things like "Oh bloody Christ!" and "Sweet Jesus" over and over until he grabbed her head in his hands and began to thrust into her mouth.

His second orgasm was, if anything, larger and more forceful than the first, and his legs buckled so severely he had to hold on to her chair to keep from falling to the floor. He was breathless, was caught completely off guard by the intensity of this strange new sexual contact, and yet he found he wanted to know what Heidi's feelings were...

He focused on her as he regained his composure and was almost aghast at what he saw.

There were huge gobs of sticky white stuff running from her mouth, but it was the expression on her face that held him. Her face was upturned, her eyes closed as she swirled the stuff inside her mouth with her tongue, yet her body was shaking, trembling, and he thought she was reacting much as he had, that she too was lost inside some sort of release not unlike his own. She was in a deep rapture of some sort, lost within her own emotional and physical response to this union, but when all was said and done it was the sight of her mouth that both captivated and appalled him. She seemed to play with the white stuff, first with her swirling tongue, then with her fingers in her mouth, and all the time with her face upturned, as if her body had become weightless – as if somehow she was communing with God.

He lifted her from the chair, carried her to their bed and lay her out, then he covered her and lay beside her and held her until sleep came for them both.

+++++

Rebecca came to the clinic much later the next morning than she had the past few days, and she seemed troubled when Heidi found her coming out of the clinic's shower.

"Are you alright?" Heidi asked. "You look, well...?"

"Oh! I didn't know you were here yet," she jumped, startled, then replied slowly, as if coming out of a trance, "Well, yes, I guess troubled would be a good choice of words."

"What happened?"

"Well, it seems word of my...exploits is getting 'round the valley." She seemed distracted, wary. "Anyway," she continued, "it's been kinda fun, but it's time to get down to work. Get this place organized, up and running."

"Yeah, we're busier than Mass General," Heidi said, chuckling as she swatted a fly. 

"I got the inside scoop on that last night. Folk medicine, home remedies. That takes care of most of the day to day stuff. When bad stuff hits, folks die, simple as that. They don't question it, or wonder what might have happened if they had better medicine. They just move on." She was looking at her phone, checking email, and at least that wasn't an issue here as there were more than a few cell towers within range.

"Kinda figured that might be the case. If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

"Hey, an email from Joel," she said, indicating her boss in New York. "Two journalists, from Fox News and MSNBC are coming out, first of the month. They want to interview us, get our first impressions of the people here."

"Oh? You have any?" Heidi asked.

Rebecca blushed. "A few," she laughed. "Probably not what they want to hear, though."

"I wouldn't be so sure." Heidi looked around, made sure they were alone. "I had my...well...my first oral experience last night."

"What? You mean the first you've had since you got here?"

"No, first ever. Actually, my first sexual experience, ever."

"No shit?"

"Was always too busy," Heidi said as she looked away, almost regretting bringing this up.

"And? What happened?"

"It was wonderful, but..."

"But what?"

"I had the strangest sensation. Like I was on fire, trembling."

"Where?" Rebecca was more than curious now, because a paraplegic having an orgasm was kind of interesting, no matter how you parsed it, yet from a medical standpoint it was simply fascinating.

"It's kind of hard to put into words. I kept thinking it felt like fire, and trembling, but I couldn't pin a locus. Even the sensations were somehow – off. Not what I expected, and almost more like a spiritual thing, but that isn't quite it either. Whatever 'It' was, it was all consuming, gigantic on an emotional level."

"What were you doing? At the time?"

"Giving Martin a blowjob. He was, you know, uh, in my mouth at the time."

"Oh Hell, that's just about what happens to me when I'm giving head. Some girls hate cum; I fucking love the stuff. Can't get enough."

"Martin could have filled a cup with each orgasm."

"Each? How the Hell many did he have?"

"Two. The first happened after just a few seconds, and it was a lot. The second took a few minutes, but it was overwhelming, like a gallon of the stuff. But that's not the weird part. It's like the more he came the more this sensation rolled through me. The bigger it got."

"Yeah, that's what guys don't get sometimes. Our orgasms are physical, sure, to a degree, anyway, but there's also a very large mental component, and I think some might even say it's spiritual. You seem to be proving that point, with what you're telling me, anyway."

"I was reading that paraplegics experience orgasms differently, because of the nature of the injury and all, but I had no frame of reference. No other orgasms to relate to."

"That could be a blessing, if you know what I mean?"

"Yeah, I'd hate to have to compare the two."

"Yeah, and never ignore the psychological in sex, or the visual. Ya know, I hate to get into the nitty gritty so early in the morning, but I had this boyfriend when I was finishing my residency. He was sweet, but could be a freak, and was big time into S&M. He bought me these really crazy outfits – latex, leather and whips and stuff I'd never even heard of – and he'd have me tie him up, use whips and toys on him, verbally abuse the Hell out of him. The point, and there is one here, is that I could get him off without even touching him. Sounds weird, I know, but I was reading that some paraplegics have had similar experiences." Rebecca pointed at her head, smiling. "So, never underestimate the power of the mind. And that goes for guys and gals, if you know what I mean."

"I don't think I will, ever again," Heidi said, nodding her head at the memory of the fire that had nearly consumed her the night before.

"Still, I think guys are more into the visual, ya know? The visually kinky? Like they're patterned at a very early age. Marilyn Monroe and high heels, that sort of thing. Anyway, that's what made me wonder, about you and Martin. The mental is obviously going to be important, maybe even vital, but maybe the visual will be too. I don't know enough about the psychology to be of any use to you though, I'm afraid."

"I wonder what visual influences were up here? You know, for patterning?"

"Good question. Sure wasn't Marilyn and high heels!"

"Well Rebecca, it helps to have a friend up here, you know, to talk about things."

Rebecca leaned over and kissed her on the top of her head, and Heidi blushed. "Thanks, Heidi. I mean it. It sure is a long way from the city, isn't it?"

"Yup. So, about those journalists..."

+++++

There were banks of lights set up in the clinic, and two news crews – one from each network – were set up with cameras, make-up people and recorders ready to roll. The two reporters, news anchors, really, were now inside the clinic interviewing Heidi and Rebecca, but there was rank animosity between the two news personalities and everyone was nervous. 

After walking around the valley for most of the morning, the reporters had seen the small scale of the valley and met a few of it's inhabitants, and now were getting the lowdown on the background and intent of the operation, but the sharp political differences between the two were turning the questions intense, almost hostile at times.

"So, do you miss flying?" the reporter from MSNBC asked, trying to defuse the situation.

"Sometimes Rachel, I guess I do, but not as much as I thought I would. The work here, and getting to know the people better, has been pretty consuming so far. Still, the people I've met here seem genuinely welcoming."

"We've all read the account of the accident, the break-up of your aircraft, and your rescue by the villagers. Has that effected your relationship with the people here?"

"I guess it almost had to, I guess, but it has on so many levels. But more than anything, I was grateful then, and remain so."

"Yes, a touching story," the Fox News reporter added sarcastically, "but I'm skeptical about one thing."

"Oh? What's that, Bill?"

"Well, doesn't this clinic amount to little more than socialized medicine? Do you have any idea how much this is costing our state and federal governments?"

"Well, the clinic building and our equipment were paid for through private donations and foundations, while our ongoing operational costs are being paid for through a consortium of private colleges and universities, those that will be sending academic researchers, teachers and students here. So, I'm not sure any taxpayer funding is involved at this point."

"But what about the isolation? In the event of a major medical emergency, won't helicopters be necessary to medevac people out of here? Wouldn't that entail government money?"

"I'd imagine so," Rebecca interjected. "But the state already operates such services for victims of motor vehicle crashes, do they not? And almost any other medical emergency requiring rapid response. I'm not sure there's much difference. Whether we like it or not, these people are still citizens of the United States, and not subjects of a King who's been dead for two hundred years."

"Perhaps," the Fox News reporter said. "Still, do the people in this village, in this valley, really want, or even need, this type and level of intervention?"

"One of the villagers that accompanied me to Vermont after my accident became familiar with the problems, the dilemmas you're pointing out, and he came back last winter and talked with all the people in the valley about just these kinds of potential conflicts. So, it was in a very direct way put to them; I guess you'd say in a very democratic context," Heidi stated. "And then they voted on the matter. We're here as a direct result of that process, both with the folks here and with with the approval of policy makers in our government, and by that I mean governments in both Albany and Washington, D.C. And keep in mind, Bill, that part of what we hope to accomplish over the next few years is to set up a new kind of school, so that anyone here in the valley interested in taking classes in the sciences will have the opportunity to do so. My own hope is that over time some of the students in the village may want to get more advanced medical training, and that they would return here to help shoulder some of the burden, but this is kind of a 'work-in-progress' right now."

"Actually," Rebecca added, "we already have several older women interested in nursing at this time. Heidi and I are working with them informally, and they're very receptive, so we'll begin more formal classroom work in September, when the first academic teams arrive."

"Surely," Fox News stated, "you're not claiming these women are ready to start taking classes in modern science?"

"I don't know if you had an opportunity to meet with some of the people here," Rebecca continued, "but everyone I've met so far is well schooled in the classics, most have taken a good deal of math and understand Euclidian geometry, and by the way, most people up here speak latin. In fact, by and large, aside from their lack of exposure to modern scientific theory, I've found these people to be extraordinarily well educated. They don't understand things like the internet, and most modern music is incomprehensible to them."

"It's incomprehensible to me, too," Fox News said, laughing.

"Well," Heidi continued, "music provides an interesting context, doesn't it. If you get to listen to the music the villagers perform, you'll hear early nineteenth century folk music mixed with eighteenth century forms of classical music, mainly baroque forms. That's to be expected. But consider The Doors..."

"The Doors?" MSNBC asked. "You mean like, Jim Morrison? Those Doors?"

"Yup. Take the Alabama Song. You remember? 'Oh show me the way, to the next whiskey bar? That one?"

"Yes, so?"

"Well, that song wasn't written by The Doors, it was written by Kurt Weill, during what we call Weimar Period in Germany after the First World War, and for an operetta. But Weill, and his co-composer Bertolt Brecht, were influenced heavily by Richard Wagner, who had in turn been influenced by Beethoven, and so on. So, the point I'm trying to make here is that Music represents continuity, it links people generationally, but here, that linkage was interrupted. Stopped dead in it's tracks, if you will. That's what's fascinating, but music is just one example. We're finding all sorts of discontinuities here. Music was just the most obvious thing that jumped out, but that's why it's so vital to get academic researchers up here, get them set up and working before the purity of the site is diminished. We may never have a chance to see these kinds of circumstances, these interactions, again. To have the opportunity to, in effect, interact with Europeans from the 19th century. Here, in the 21st. I mean, really...think about it. Think about the opportunity, what this means for our understanding of the past. And perhaps, the future."

"Our future?" MSNBC asked. "How so?"

"Well, again, think about it," Heidi continued. "These people not only endured while effectively cut off from progress – locked inside the 19th century – they've survived, perhaps you could even say they've flourished, yet only to the degree their state of technology permitted. But, consider what might happen to our way of life if, for instance, oil ran out suddenly like it did in '73 or '79, but on a larger scale, or there was some other type of massive, unexpected interruption to the industrial subsystems we take for granted, you know, to those that permit our society to operate. Perhaps, say, to our power grid, or to our food distribution networks. Who knows, perhaps something like a cyber attack, or some unforeseen natural calamity, but on a truly massive scale, even a planetary scale. How would people in our 'modern' society adapt, or even cope emotionally? Could we survive? So, what can we learn from these people that might help us through such events?"

"Yes," Rebecca continued, "we're trying to keep in mind that we'll be here not only to examine these people and their culture, to learn 'about' them, if you will, but to learn 'from' them."

"Interesting. So," Fox News added, "researchers will be coming up here looking at all these types of things too? Looking at survival situations, family values, those kinds of things?"

"Yup," Heidi and Rebecca said, in unison. "Exactly so."

"Truly fascinating," Fox News said. "Well, we hope you'll keep us posted on developments here, and perhaps let us come back, say, in a year or so. Yes, this is truly a worthwhile endeavor..."

+++++

"So," Martin said over dinner that night with Heidi and Rebecca, "People all around the world will watch this on television?"

"Conceivably so, yes," Rebecca said. "Those two networks reach a lot of people."

"Could we watch it here?" he asked.

Heidi and Rebecca looked at one another. 'Contamination', they thought, in unison.

"Well, it's possible," Rebecca replied carefully. "Right now we have limited abilities to look at what's called streaming TV. We might need more data capabilities to do that, Martin. Let me look into it."

He looked at Rebecca, then Heidi. "I see. Well, perhaps it would be more interesting to learn of various reactions to the broadcast. What people think of us."

"Definitely," Heidi said.

Later that evening, while Martin was helping Heidi into bed, he wanted to talk about that part of the evening's conversation: "She's a clever girl."

"Who? Rebecca?"

"Yes. I've seen her watching television up here, she has the 'capability'; why would she try to evade this? Is it a problem?"

Heidi looked him in the eye: "It could be, Martin. I think it might be because many of the academic researchers coming here in the autumn want to be able to talk to the villagers before they've been exposed to too many outside influences."

"Yes, we've talked of this in village meetings. Why is this so important?"

"Well, many of the people coming here are anthropologists. These people study ancient cultures most of the time, but they are most interested, by and large, in trying to look at how different cultures operated, socially and agriculturally, or even industrially – in the distant past. Sometimes all they have to work with are the physical remains of a culture, like pottery, or weaponry. Most of the time they have obscure evidence to sort through, like these people's types of housing, or their fortifications, but rarely do they know their languages, because that is often "gone", and even things like books or other writings are rare. So to these researchers, this village represents a unique opportunity, and what they've asked us to do is limit the amount of outside influences introduced here, before they can get settled and operating here."

"I see. Perhaps now I understand how a bird in a cage feels, or an insect under a looking glass."

"Yes, I've been concerned about that. I would too."

"Would you show me the television reports. So I could understand what it is that concerns them?" Heidi looked away for a moment, and he watched her closely. "Okay. I think I understand. I'll try to be patient."

"Come lay with me," she said. "Please?"

He slipped out of his clothing and crawled under the sheets and lay beside her. She pulled herself up on her side and looked at him, looked into his eyes as she reached for him under the sheets.

"Yeow!" he cried out, "you're hands are cold!"

"I know a place that's warmer..."

"I know that place, too," he said as he rubbed a finger around her mouth.

"I was thinking of someplace different. Someplace we haven't tried before."

"Truly?"

"I'm kinda scared too, Martin. Like I ought to know what to do, or how to, but..."

"Well, I've walked down this path before. I know the way."

"I know, but I don't. And I don't know how I will respond."

"Perhaps we shouldn't think about things so much. Maybe just try, and see how things go."

She smiled. "You're a good teacher," she said. "And a good listener."

"I always thought the two go hand in hand."

"You're right, dear friend."

"Friend?" he asked. "Are we – friends?"

"Hmm, yes. I always thought that friends would make the best lovers. Or that the best lovers are in the end the best of friends."

"I can see that," he said as he leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips. "Now, have you thought about how you would like to try this?"

"Well, in truth, I've thought of little else. For days."

He laughed at that. "I see."

"One of the problems I've read about is that I will be very dry down there."

"I could use my mouth," he said, "first."

"Would you?"

"Yes, of course. This is, I promise you, no great hardship!"

Now it was her turn to laugh, and she did as she used her arms to pull herself into what she hoped would be a good position, but Martin had some ideas of his own, and he spent several hours working things out until he was sure she was more than happy with the results.