Liberty's Heirs

Chapter 11

The birds were chirping, the bees were buzzing, wild flowers bloomed all around, but the gray sky and cold wind reflected the trepidation in Blion's heart.  He hadn't ever cared very much about history, and Mac Spencer had never made pushing it down his throat a priority.  Too bad.  A knowledge of history might have been useful in this place that time forgot.

"Which way to go?" Blion wondered aloud.  South seemed like a good direction.  This island didn't reach far enough south to have good weather and even if it did, he would never make it far enough in the allotted time.  At least the weather wouldn't get worse.  East also seemed good since that's where the coast was.  Though he would never be able to reach the civilized world across the sea on his own, at least he'd be closer to it.

Off he went, tramping through the meadow.  As he walked, he felt something hard bouncing around the interior lining of his coat.  He paused for a moment and discovered a pinky finger sized vial full of purple fluid.  It was unlabeled, but Mac Spencer had familiarized him with its contents on a previous field trip to the Medical Tower.  The liquid was a suspension of nanites.  Nano-scale machines were not common in Blion's time since the Aye used them only very sparingly. As scientists in the late 21st century had discovered, even the most primitive varieties were capable of dealing out significant environmental damage.  Medical nanites were specially programmed to seek out protozoans, unapproved bacteria, viruses, and even cancer cells and destroy them within the human body.  Usually the dosage was much lower, only a fraction of a drop and the nanites were specialized to a particular class of threat.  The purple color of the mixture indicated that this was a broad spectrum 'Panacea.'  Panacea might not be the best word to describe the substance but if there had ever been a cure-all, this was it.

Like all of the Aye's subjects, he was examined frequently at his closest Medical Tower and his immune system vigorously exercised by many the inoculations he received on routine visits.  His immune system was in excellent condition and if it wasn't up to all the microbial dangers of the island, at least Mac Spencer had given him a backup plan.

In addition to the vial, hidden in the coat were several small metallic objects.  Examining one carefully he could see no way to activate it.  It seemed useless so he put it back into the pocket it had come from.

He continued onward for nearly through the shrubs, trees, and rocks.  He had expected an area devoid of human habitation would be natural.  The Aye had long before cleaned up most of the garbage left over from the time of the Ancients.  That was not the case here.  What a mess!  Deteriorated litter made of organic polymers called 'plastics' mixed freely with the plant life.  Even many of the rocks he discovered were made of the synthetic stone devised by the Ancients called 'concrete.'  It served a similar role to nanoceramic as the basis for much of the Ancient construction that remained in the form of ruins.  The Ancients certainly had made a lot of it.  For hundreds, perhaps thousands of years more, Ancient tools, walkways, walls and ruins of buildings would litter the landscape.

The first hour was slow going, pushing through shrubs and tall grasses and winding hither and thither through the thickets until he reached a path.  It certainly wasn't made of nanoceramic, that would have withstood millenniums without showing the slightest sign of aging.  The path was the remnant of an Ancient road.  Mac Spencer had introduced the concept of blending small silicates with hydrocarbons to form 'asphalt.'  The Ancient road was much faster to travel on even though it was badly overgrown and deteriorated.  Its main direction was north-south.  Though it wouldn't take him closer to the coast, at least he'd get somewhere and somewhere had to be better than no where.