Story time part 12

My Christmas present to you all - a week of story posts (but not Christmas Day itself, that is a strictly no computer day).

Part 12

Bear Camp was a sanctuary and safe harbour in the encroaching jungle that seemed to encompass everywhere else.
Petar almost laughed in disbelief as figures armed with spear and arrows, not guns or futuristic weapons, stood in line at his approach.
“Stand, stranger! Come no further! You are human?”
He stood, hands out palms forward. “As human as you, as it looks. I am unarmed in any case. I know this place, Bear Camp. What year is this?”
“Year? We do not count any more. Our miracle machine has figures that may be year. You know this place?”
“I am Petar. Stupid as it sounds, I used to live here. Would you believe I just arrived on a light beam from the very beginnings of the place?”
The weapons were lowered as one. Amazed, astonished and delighted smiles rose in their stead.
“We know the name Petar. If you are he, we are willing believers!”
He was quickly ushered into the place, plied with food and drink before being shown the only technology that would work. Records on the screen ended abruptly at an unbelievable date of 2690.
“The stuff on the screen is not the end, Petar. More portable, individual systems were created for information and knowledge then. Come and see our library!”
A wall of what looked like CD’s loomed behind a marked stone on a plain pedestal. His stone! And there were many more marks carved than he had ‘just’ made.
“Has the stone been translated, erm?”
Embarrassed looks and coughs ensued. “See, we are true believers Petar, much too impatient to show you NOW than introduce ourselves! I’m Danny, ‘my woman’ here is Lyn. Come on guys, do your own thing, please.”
The few behind gave names and Petar knew he would never remember most.
Danny turned back to the stone. “The stone has been translated, the translation is on the screen records. The most important point there is that the screen records have MORE than on the stone, with dates. Funny thing, it comes up on a search from this terminal, Bear Camp, it didn’t come up on any other even before the Big Shower. Seriously encrypted.”
“Now that is news, Danny. I never put anything on electronic records, anywhere. I got a crash course in basic computing, school of Bear Camp, circa 2010.” He grinned. “But did you know that I carved the original stone back when Bear Camp was founded?” He became serious. “The stone was pedestal for something far more precious. What happened to it?”
Danny gave a grim laugh. “If further proof were needed of who you say you are, it has just been given Petar. Your answer lies on the first disc.”
He laid a thin metal plate on the stone and spun a disc vertically on it. Pictures formed around them in the ether, and voices spoke.
Petar heard Davi’s and gasped in surprised shock. The Primal Rock he said was hidden to keep it safe from those who wished to use it for harm. Petar would know where to find it in his greatest need.
I would know? He thought, no, he obviously did not.
The voice continued, almost laughing at him, as if the disc itself were speaking only to him. The place would be searched thoroughly it said, so he had taken it briefly himself, as far as it would take him. He had used it to help heal the world of the year 3310 before returning it to the Third Dark Age of the Earth. Petar would find it in its place wherever the light took him.
“The light has brought me here, the rock is not here.”
“The rock is here, somewhere, Petar. Keep listening to the disc.”
Davi’s voice came from the ether. The rock was an energy source of unimaginable power. That power had grown slowly over the eons. It SPOKE to Davi he said, in that far future time; he and Petar were its chosen Guardians. The fate of the race of man was at stake and it would help them overcome those who wished man gone.
The rock’s power waxed and waned according to the era it could be found in. It would be source energy for any technology of requirement in a radius of one square mile. Petar suddenly thought the ‘park’ around Bear Camp in 2010 amounted to that space. The rock was, indeed, near.
Davi’s voice was nearly finished, for this disc at least; if the rock was not in its place ‘here’, Petar, look to the place of the past. The voice and pictures faded and the disc tumbled flat.
Place of the past? Where he taken it from the river? He focussed elsewhere. “Technology of requirement? Some things work, some don’t?” Petar queried.
Chuckles arose. “Yes in a nutshell. The discs work, that one screen works; the replicator gives food and water only if we haven’t made a successful hunt!”
“Yeah, Danny. The force field works in darkness but not otherwise. And the replicator won’t oblige with clothing and such until we have made a few decent attempts at our own. Talk about MAKING you self sufficient!”
“You honestly didn’t expect it to give you old fashioned nylon stockings, Lyn, did you?!” She threw the only thing to hand playfully at him - a small figure of Dam that had lasted through the eons.
“Honestly, Danny, you will really make me mad one of these days! I ASKED for ‘tights’ not ‘leggings’. If it wasn’t available in the earliest times, it won’t produce it anyway. Petar, Bear Camp is blessed. We live well and thrive in this small area. Outside is jungle. REAL, nasty jungle. We asked if you were human, remember?”
He nodded, wondering where she was going.
“There are people and beasts galore in the jungle. There are some that, well, might well be mixtures of the two. And others who are that inbred they are practically insane. We are more than grateful that the replicator does work on occasion, hunts are perilous.”
“Lyn is being very kind in description, Petar. We live like our most ancient ancestors, in a world of terrors unimaginable then. Even the weather - our protective force seals the camp with the field when the stinging and deforming rains fall.”
“I understand, Danny. I am fortunate to meet people in any era that believe and help me. It is a wonder I have not gone insane myself. I think I am here now to learn again, in a hurry. Show me where I will sleep, please, so I do not disturb any when my eyes have had enough of the screen.”
He studied and studied, learning much from the additions on the screen. He would like to meet this ‘Dave’ who had made the breakthrough and continued the history.
And he realised where the rock would lie, in the place of the past. In the ruins of the museum below the modern ruin.
Would the thing extend its protection for them to dig? It would take more than the few hours of light in one day.