The long winter dragged on and Floyd began to feel more and more closed in. The babies were all crawling and the little one was trying to walk. On mornings when the weather was mild he would go for long walks and occasionally Lina would join him. The fierce afternoon winds limited the time of the walks but at least he was outdoors. The Fixers kept the dome much too cool for Lina's liking but they seemed to tolerate the lower temperature. Their limited coal supply needed to be rationed and they were forever making things on their little forge. Their only outside duty was keeping the water supply from freezing and the lake pump operating although there was so little sun there was little to harvest. The production of green goo had declined with the temperature and food was carefully rationed.
One morning when Floyd returned from his walk Lina was waiting and her tail was twitching. She took Floyd by the hand and led him aft to where the babies were playing on their berth. Floyd watched the young ones who were trying to stack blocks the Fixers had made them. The little one looked up at Floyd and said, "Da Da."
Floyd had to sit down and had tears in his eyes. He said, "They can talk!" Several of the babies crawled onto his lap and were babbling but he heard a few other sounds that sounded like Da Da. It was time for their naps so Floyd began to sing "Home, home on the range" in his low almost gruff voice. His singing always quieted them down and Lina put them to bed one by one leaving the little one in Floyd's arms until the last.
Lina made them some tea and they visited about the future and what it meant that the babies could speak. Floyd no longer felt so confined and was actually happy. The time between feedings had increased and the babies could eat some of the green goo so the stress level had improved. With their mobility came another set of problems. It was hard to keep them in their baskets that were rapidly getting too small for them. A couple of times Lina had caught one of the babies climbing out and was very afraid they would fall. Floyd and Tesla worked on a new design that stair stepped the baskets so they could only fall one level. This was safer but also meant that they could climb up and down themselves. Mr. Watson insisted they use one of the cameras so he could monitor the babies making sure they would not get into his circuit boards.
The Fixers were constantly building new toys for the babies and soon they were building structures with blocks that interconnected. One of the Fixers was always aboard the ship helping but sometimes that was not enough. The babies seemed to bond well with the Fixers and tolerated the many different hands that held them. The Fixers were also much more adept than Floyd in playing simple games with the babies.
Spring finally came and the work on the fields took priority. The Fixers had made a plow of sorts that they dragged behind the drone to loosen the soil. Several trips to the mountain were made for the phosphate rock they needed. They expedited the crushing of the stone by repeatedly driving over it before it was spread on the fields. Lina followed the planting recommendations that were in one of the handwritten books and the seeds were sown. The barley field was almost four times larger than the previous year and the soil better amended so Lina was hoping for a good crop. The beans she started indoors and again rooted many plants from cuttings she took from the original plants. The Fixers were working on a secret project and would not tell Floyd what it was. Every time he came by the forge area they stopped working and hid their work.
Floyd did not push and let them keep their secret. His little free time he spent either walking or working on his airplane design. Mr. Watson was forever checking his calculations probably because he did not trust Floyd's penmanship and ability to reverse numbers. Assuming the Fixers could produce the material, Floyd thought his airplane should be able to carry himself and two others without difficulty. He changed the configuration to that of a pusher prop using the general shape of the paper airplane the Fixers had copied. It was an open cockpit design and designed to fly low and slow. The wings ended in a sharp upturn which created the vertical stabilizer and rudder. He did add seat belts to his proposal. Mr. Watson made him redraw the design using the computer inputs and then a structural analysis was performed. Mr. Watson forwarded the drawings to the Fixers' terminal with specifications for the black fabric that would be needed.
Floyd carried his hand drawings over to the dome to share with Tesla. When he arrived it seemed all of the Fixers were trying to get a look at the drawings on their small screen. Tesla must have sensed his presence because he broke away from the group and pretty much bounced his way over to Floyd. He was nodding and bouncing so much that he was making Floyd dizzy. Floyd told him to settle down and Tesla tried but was only partially successful. He took Floyd's hand and pulled him to the back side of the dome. He pointed to something that looked like an old fashion spinning wheel. Next to it was an equally antique looking loom for weaving. Both were fashioned from hand wrought iron. The Fixer with the broken hip was sitting at the loom weaving black cloth using his one good leg to control the levers. Tesla handed Floyd a sample of the black cloth they were making. It was courser than the fiberglass Floyd had worked with but seemed like it should work.
Floyd said, "I am impressed. We now need to make the silicate stuff that Mr. Watson was talking about. If we can do that we can make our new airplane."
Tesla started bouncing again and led Floyd outside to their small forge. Two Fixers were heating some of the quartz rocks mixed with some ash in a pot. Floyd pointed to the pot and asked, "Is this the silicate that Mr. Watson wants?"
His answer came as all three Fixers were bouncing and nodding. One of the Fixers reached to the back of the forge and handed Floyd a shiny black square that had been cooling. Floyd hefted the sample and thought it was a bit heavy. When he tried to bend it, he found it very rigid. He put the sample on the edge of one of the large rocks and the small piece did not break until he had put all of his weight on it. He examined the fractured edge and nodded his approval. "I will take a piece back for Mr. Watson to analyze. I think it is plenty strong but maybe a bit heavy."
The Fixer reached back and brought out another piece that did not have enough resin to make it shiny and it weighed much less. It was not as rigid but seemed plenty strong to Floyd. Floyd held the piece for a minute and had tears in his eyes from happiness or from the smoke. He said, "If we can make this stuff work, I will teach anyone who wants how to fly. Maybe we can even make some real gliders." The Fixers responded with excited nodding and bobbing.
When Floyd got back to the ship he was greeted by the sight of six baby Fixers sitting in a row with their eyes closed and their hands in their laps. Nobody was making a sound. Lina was standing with her arms crossed and the tip of her tail twitching. Before Floyd could even ask what had happened Mr. Watson said, "I told you that we needed locks on the circuit board cabinets. The little Fixers had taken out two of my boards before Lina was able to stop them. Thankfully, they did not break them."
Floyd had to turn away from the little ones so they would not see the smile on his face. After he had gained composure he said, "Looks like we need to build a new home. We cannot have the young ones taking you apart." He then added, "Of course, if they did take you apart maybe they could put you back together with a better attitude."
"My attitude is not the problem. It is the little Fixers that are the problem."
Lina said, "A bigger home would be nice and maybe some windows so you could see out. And a place where we could all sit and eat together."
Mr. Watson added, "If you had a separate residence I could reduce the energy consumption of the ship and use more power for the CPU cycles that I need to solve the problems you keep presenting me. We would need to create a high speed connection with your new dwelling so that I can continue to monitor and interact with you."
Lina told the young Fixers, "You can get up now. Go play outside." When the young Fixers and their older helper had departed she told Floyd how the little one had used the bigger siblings as
a ladder to reach the panel cover. She was pretty sure that the little one was the ring leader. She made them a cup of tea and they talked about how much space they would need. Floyd got out what was left of his paper pad and began to draw diagrams of the interior. As the afternoon wore on they came up with a compact plan that Floyd thought they could build into a dome. Mr. Watson again made him input the drawings directly into the computer terminal and sent them to the Fixers.
Everyone was already working hard but Lina wanted a house. Everyone just accepted that the house work needed to be added on to whatever else they were doing. With the increased manpower they began by excavating a circle into the side of the hill so that the upper side would have four feet of soil protecting it from the wind and cold. Tesla was the project supervisor and Floyd was the primary mover of rocks. The new design was structurally the same as the first dome with interior partitions and as a surprise for Lina: an indoor toilet system. Floyd again felt like they were violating The People who had lived on the hill but as Lina pointed out, The People had left them books and grain so they expected their work to be utilized. Even with the help of several Fixers Floyd had trouble keeping up with the building crew. Every night Lina would rub his back even though Floyd was not complaining. The drone just kept on trucking and Floyd had not yet figured out the power source but figured it had to be nuclear.
Before the house was finished it was time to begin harvesting the grain so it remained a playhouse for the young Fixers. In the fields Fixers did the cutting, stripping and piling of the straw but Floyd was in charge of the heavy lifting. They needed a barn in the worst way because winter was on the way and they could not afford any spoilage. Everyone had lost weight; even Lina who Floyd had insisted eat a double ration. Some of the grain they stored back in the cave and the rest needed to be inside the domes. Floyd asked Tesla, "Any way we can get a barn built before winter?"
Tesla was slow to answer but finally started to sketch yet a third dome in the dirt. As the work on the barn progressed Floyd told Lina, "I come from a family of farmers, you think I would have remembered that you always build the barn first." Only after the barn was done and the grain and straw secure did they finish the house. It was none too soon for Mr. Watson, because he was always on edge about the young ones pushing buttons, turning switches and trying to take things apart. The Fixers were always excited whenever they heard the little ones speak for they had been forever forbidden to even try to speak.
With the coming of the first snow life slowed down again. Lina was busy caring for and teaching the little ones. The Fixers were making stuff. Mr. Watson stayed busy solving the problems presented to him and working on his own projects. Floyd spent a little time each day working on airplane parts with the Fixers. He also spent a few minutes and sometimes a few hours visiting with the Ancient One. The old Fixer was getting very tired and often would fall asleep during their conversations. The Ancient One said that he thought it would be but a few days before they would be no more. Floyd started spending almost all of his free time visiting but the conversation was very limited because of the failing health of the Fixer who was their connection. Floyd asked one day, "Your time is short, but before you go I would like to know your name."
After waiting for the Fixer to again become aware, the voice replied, "I think you already know my name. I am Captain Watson."
It was Floyd's turn for silence. He finally responded saying, "I guess I did probably know but how can that be?"
"The cube that Maurine gave you was a quantum storage device. After a couple of hundred years of working on the problem with the expanded memory the Fixers gave me, I finally was able to interact directly with the cube. Some of the files were dated before the asteroid strike, and I was able to insert small changes. These changes were transmitted back in time, because of the quantum pairing, to the original file."
"You inserted a virus that made you out of nothing?"
Again the pause was long and Floyd was afraid there would be no answer. At last the Fixer woke up and the voice replied, "Quantum physics allows information to be transmitted that is not possible with regular matter. I did indeed time travel in a sense and created myself. It was a gradual process and became the reality because there was no way to disprove it. Thus the history and tradition of the Ancient One was created."
"You changed history!"
The voice replied, "Yes and no; I changed history by inserting myself but that did not change your arrival or the asteroid strike. I have followed your rule of letting the Fixers develop without interference except for a little help with the engineering of their gliders."
Floyd asked, "Why?"
The Ancient One replied in a quiet voice, "I wanted to be with you again."
They were both quiet for several minutes before Floyd asked, "Did you ever solve the mystery of the hectopus?"
"Before I answer I need to tell you that your coffee trees were still growing and producing coffee beans when I sent myself back in time."
Then there was silence. The answer to Floyd's question did not come. Floyd checked the Fixer and he had stopped breathing. Floyd closed the Fixer's eyes and covered him and the case he carried with the simple blanket. The other Fixers were all outside the small room silently waiting. Floyd said, "They have passed on to whatever is next. We will have the burial tomorrow.”