ENCOUNTER Hep Aldridge (best autobiographies to read .txt) 📖

“Looks like your new friend missed you,” I said.

“She did,” he replied, “but she said she didn’t want to bother us as we explored the library.”

That got my attention, “She said that to you? You talk to her?”

“Yes, we talk all the time; she is very interesting and is looking forward to helping me learn to become a Watcher.”

Doc had heard the conversation and said, “Remember, Jeannie said that Lithel had telepathic abilities and could converse with us if she chose to.”

“That’s right; guess we haven’t made the A-team yet,” I replied.

A warm burst of energy entered my head, and a very powerful and self-assured female voice softly said, “Not yet.”

I was staring at Lithel, and I swear, the big cat smiled as she nuzzled Eduardo.

I looked at Doc, who obviously had not heard anything, and he said, “You okay, Colt?”

“Yeah, fine, just tired and hungry,” I said as I sat down. I looked back at Lithel and smiled as I thought, kid, you are definitely in good company.

The dinner conversation centered around what we had seen that day. The table buzzed for almost an hour, and then something weird happened. We all stopped talking, finishing our meal in silence. We had finished and were quietly sipping our beverages when Doc said, “Okay, I’ll ask the question that I’m guessing is on everyone’s mind. We’ve found the library; now what?”

O’Reilly chimed in, “That is the question; now what?” she repeated.

I replied, “Doc, you hit the nail on the head. We’ve got ourselves a bit of a quandary here. I think we all came down here to learn more about the mystery we had uncovered on the longboat as well as the possibility of finding a great treasure.”

Dimitri said, “That’s how I started, but not anymore.”

“We’ve solved the mystery and did find great treasure, but as you guys said, now what?” Joe added.

“Yeah, it was much simpler a few months back, but now? We knew we had the Brotherhood to contend with, but the Vatican, this city, Jeannie, Eduardo’s future, Lithel, and the library. Our situation has gotten exponentially larger than a mystery and a treasure hunt,” I said.

“This is mind-blowing, earth-shattering, world-changing, monumental stuff,” Dimitri said. “And the technology… with it we could save planet Earth or destroy it, and I don’t think Jeannie is going to let us walk out of here with any of it.”

“She said we wouldn’t be able to remember a lot of this, not sure what she meant by that,” Joe said. “There are so many questions that I would like Jeannie to answer for us.”

“That may be a good starting point. We are already in information overload, so what if we made a list of the main questions we would like her to answer, go about it systematically? Everybody, write down your top five questions, then we can pare it down to three each and see if she will go for that.

“But will she let us remember the answers?” Doc asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, “that can be one of the first questions.”

Reggie had been quiet during most of this discussion. She spoke up and said, “We’ve really helped Jeannie out in a big way since we’ve been here, so you’d think she would want to give us something in return, right?”

“Maybe she will,” I answered, “but this can’t turn into a quid pro quo. Look what she’s already done for us; hell, she even saved Dimitri’s life.”

“For which I am quite grateful,” Dimitri replied with his hand over his heart and a mock bow. Now, smiling, he said, “And you all should be too; I mean, you would have missed me if I had passed through the pearly gates.”

“Not so much,” Joe quipped, “I had first dibs on your stuff.”

“You dirty dog, you,” Dimitri added with a laugh and a playful punch to Joe’s shoulder as peals of laughter filled the room.

We sat there for another hour or so before heading back to the campsite. Our discussion continued as we prepared for what I hoped was a good night’s rest, all agreeing we would decide on the list of questions in the morning.

I lay in my sleeping bag for at least an hour, tossing and turning, trying to clear my mind and relax. After two hours, I realized it wasn’t going to happen and quietly got up, climbed the steps to the top of the platform, and stepped out of the cloak into the cool night air. It was fresh and clean in the way only mountain air can be. I took a deep breath and reveled in its heady sweetness. Nectar of the gods, I thought as I slowly ascended the steps to the top of the rockpile.

It was almost a full moon, and its white glow lit up the surrounding area. It gave it a magical feel, I thought, as I slowly reclined against one of the large boulders and stared skyward. My breathing slowed as I began to relax, and my mind cleared. There was Orion’s belt, and over there, the Pleiades, both star groups that I now knew had civilizations much older and advanced than ours traveling interstellar space. Staring into the celestial beauty of the night sky, I began to understand the enormity of our situation more clearly than I had previously. What would happen next and what we did would have profound implications on the future of mankind and the world as we know it. Science, history, and religion could be shaken to their core. But who would believe our story without proof, and with whom should we share it? Proof was literally all around us here in the Citadel but was not simply ours for the taking. And did we even have the right to ask for it? Who were we to be the portents of something of this magnitude to the world?

We were, after all, just a ragtag group of adventurers who got lucky and