Liberty's Heirs

Chapter 5

"How did you answer him?" asked Jiro as they walked along the nanoceramic wilderness path that led to a small waterfall. It had been two weeks since the incident in the canyon and Blion now felt good enough to go on a group hike in the mountains.  It was actually not very wild, the path was very well traveled and they met people returning every few minutes.

"What do you think?  I said no!  He was a crazy old man in a weird house."

"Seriously?  You turned down an Apprenticeship?" Jiro said incredulously.  He followed it up with a little whistle.  "You'll be under Discipline in a week," he smiled.  "Your mother was right, you're an idiot for turning it down." 

"My mother never said I was an idiot."  Blion knew, however, that even though she never used the word, she shared Jiro's sentiment.  The term idiot was a loan word from Ancient English since their native Lajbon had no similarly insulting equivalent.  It was popular among teenagers at the time but not familiar to most adults including his mother.  "The old guy kept his house warm by a fire.  The only place I've ever seen a fire is in ancient videos at the museum.  Can you even imagine seeing it real-life?  The old guy must be some kind of cave-man.  How could I say yes?"

"I don't know, bro," Jiro shrugged his shoulders.  "It's a tough choice.  It would be kind of cool to see fire though."

The two teenagers were the vanguard of a group of about a dozen who were hiking together.  Blion slowed down a bit to let the rest of the group catch up and Jiro followed his lead.  Karissa was among them and Jiro began to talk with her.  With Jiro engaged, Blion realized he needed to evacuate his bowels.  What an inconvenient time!  The group had passed a latrine a few minutes prior.  They were placed at convenient intervals along the path and cleaned robotically to inhumanly high standards, but they were not so frequent as to unnecessarily detract from the views of nature.  They were carefully positioned so as to be visible from the trail but still blend into the surroundings.  Blion had reviewed an aerial survey before the trip but the latrines were inconspicuous, he hadn't noticed any of them.  He asked his headband for the location of the next one.  Unfortunately, it was not for some ways so he decided to go back to the one they had just passed.

He stopped briefly to let the group pass and admire a little pool of water as the stream gurgled through it. Oaks with ivy covered trunks, willows, and cottonwoods surrounded the clear water in which a little fish could be swimming. The water entering the pool had to come down some large boulders and the mini-waterfall was quite picturesque. The last straggler was a younger boy Blion hadn't seen before, probably a relative of someone in the group visiting from a distant community center.  He had unusually short legs and was breathing quite loudly trying to keep up.  Blion chuckled to himself about the boy's ridiculous looking gait.  When he was sitting in a schoolroom, his tall torso made must have made him look like the tallest by far. Right now he looked a little short and ill proportioned.

At last, the boy passed and Blion walked briskly back down the gleaming white pathway that contrasted so vividly with the brown earth and wild little plants on its sides.  He quickly finished his business and washed his hands. Cups of cold drinking water were available and he was thirsty so he drank one and left it on the counter top for a robot to take away for cleaning when maintenance time came. He had to walk fast if he wanted to catch up before they got to the waterfall.  The nanoceramic path had many junctions where it crossed trails that the deer had made through the mountains. Here a different kind of trail intersected the path, it was not paved with nanoceramic but instead of some gray material with little pebbles embedded in it. Blion paused for a moment to examine it. It was very old and in very poor condition. It was probably made by ancient humans in the time before the Aye.  He'd seen it before on the aerial view. It was a shortcut that would take him to the waterfall much faster that the path. There were guideline that said that hikers should stay on the path, a message that every schoolteacher imprinted on the minds of their students during field trip. Deciding to override what his teacher had decided to instill in him took a moment but he decided to take the shortcut.  It was a bright open trail, and though hot and sunny, would save several minutes of walking, enough to catch up with time to spare.  He decided to take the chance that he would be caught by an Advocate and chastised about trampling the plants and taking risks with his life. It was somewhat overgrown and washed out in places but he could still walk briskly for most of it.