Scene 1. Conference

Lilly awakens back at home. She carefully sits up and looks over at the sleeping Roc,

I have to avoid interruptions today and get over to the base. I’ll kick in The General’s door if I have to.

Lilly slips from the bed and quietly performs her morning constitutional. She then quietly walks down the hall to the twin boy's room for a quick breast-feeding, whispering, “Don’t cry boys, mama-nanny is here, don’t wake your daddy.”

Man are they growing fast! They’ll soon be taller than their older sisters.

My body seems to know this and my breasts are drying out. I know an old lion that will be disappointed without my cream for his coffee.

Lilly quietly descends the stairs,

How am I going to get to The Base? A cab will take too long. Who can I call that won’t ask too many questions?

“Hi Ellie," "This is Lilly.” “I need your help to get out to The Base to see The General.” “I am sorry to call so early, but it is important.”

...

“Not on the phone," "I’ll tell you about it in the car.”

Lilly hears a sound behind her, it’s Roc, leaning on the living room doorway with a questioning look.

Lilly looks down, avoiding Roc’s eyes, “I am setting up a meeting with The General today.” “I didn’t want to involve you any further, but now that I think about it, maybe you should be at this meeting too.” “Let's see if we can get Rod’s kids to watch our kids and house while we’re gone today.”

Lilly picks up the telephone and calls The General’s aide-de-camp, Warrant Officer Lois. Lois agrees to find some time for a meeting and call back, but Lilly interrupts,

“Roc and I will be out at The Base today and we will wait to see The General as long as it takes.” “It is urgent, so I have to see The General today!”

On the ride to the base Lilly is in the front passenger seat with Roc in the back seat. Lilly sneaks a look at Ellie,

Warrant Officer Lois is going to look like Ellie when she is older, thin and nice looking.

They ride to The Base in silence. Ellie is curious, but she knows that Lilly cannot say what the meeting is about, “Lilly, come and visit us at The Factory when you can.”

“I would like to show you what The Chief and I have done with some of your inventions.”

Scene 2. Outer-Office

Ellie drops Roc and Lilly off at The Base. They wait in The General’s outer office for entry to The General’s inner office. The young fox-woman Warrant Officer, Lois, smiles at Lilly, “I, and the others, have missed you at our tennis games.”

Lilly smiles back, “You all can play without me,” “You have enough tennis interest to fill two doubles courts now, even without me.”

Lois continues, “But Lilly, you brought us all together!”

Lois’ eyes widen as she carefully examines Lilly's husband, Roc,

“Is this handsome gentleman your husband?” “We have seen each other at events, but I have not had the pleasure of a formal introduction.”

Lois' makes no attempt to hide her tail, briskly wagging, while trying to hide her numerous sharp teeth from Roc's view as she smiles, by holding her paw up to her mouth,

“Hi,” “I’m Lois!”

Lilly and Roc both stand, “Lois," "This is my husband, Roc.”

Lois presses her lips closed and presents her fore-paw and blushes.

Roc gently lifts Lois’ fore-paw, “It is very nice to meet you, Lois.” “And thank you for helping Lilly with The General and settling-in here at The Base.”

Lois glows red and her eyes glisten at her paw touching Roc’s fore-hoof, “Roc," "Do you play tennis too?” “Would you like to go out and play with me today?” “Squeak!” "Yip!" “'To the' court," … "And play 'tennis'?” Tail wagging, "Yip-squeak!".

Roc is caught off-guard at Lois’ flirting slip of speech. Roc quickly nods to Lois and smiles, their eyes connect, “Yes, I would love to play with you today,” “Cough, Cough,” "Baah!" “Tennis with you!” Roc's white tail wiggles, "Baah!".

Lilly is surprised by Lois’ coy reaction upon her introduction to Roc, followed by her aggressive flirtation,

Lois is usually so stoic, but she is cute when she smiles, and attractive too.

Lois is about my age, but she looks so much younger because she is so thin and flat.

Good luck hitting on Roc, Lois. My shy Roc is faithful, naive and oblivious.

The subtle approach doesn't work on him, many have tried.

If you want Roc, Lois, you’ll have to rape him, as I did...

Scene 3. Conference

The inner office door suddenly opens. It is The General blocking most of the light. He is looking worried but trying to smile,“Greetings Lilly, I was going to call you but you beat me to it.” “We have a lot to discuss.”

The General ushers Roc and Lilly into his office. Lilly’s parents are already in the office sitting to one side of the General’s desk.

Lilly jumps, “Mom! Dad!” “I thought you were going on an expedition out of the country,” “Did you come back just to see me?” "And see me get my degree?"

Lilly's parent archaeologists are still wearing their dusty field fatigues They both stand to embrace their daughter. Lilly becomes emotional at the sudden reunion,

“I do miss you both so much.” “Can’t you just dig around here somewhere?”

The General speaks, “I called them back here.” “They were working deep in Federation territory.” “The Union’s relationship with The Federation has deteriorated and I feared for their safety.” “There is not a yet a war between The Federation and The Union, but a war could start any day.”

“The Federation is encouraged by their 'new technology', stolen from the Union.” “Actually, their 'new technology' was mostly stolen from you, Lilly,” “And The Professor," "By The Head.” “The Federation is rapidly making improvements to all of your 'new technology' devices.” “Every day The Federation puts 'new technology' devices into mass production for use in the upcoming war.” “And that is not the only issue with The Federation.”

Lilly’s father speaks up, “What we found at The Federation dig site is of significant scientific and historical interest. However, some of our findings may also have significant military interest to both The Union and The Federation.” “Lilly, you saw the stone head on display at the museum.” “We are just now learning of its importance.”

“Out of concern for security, we removed the head and certain other artifacts from the museum’s public display.” “Those artifacts are now hidden in plain sight, here in this office, on the shelf behind The General’s desk.” “We decided that it would be best not to make a big deal about removing these items from the museum to avoid drawing more attention.” “The case where these items were displayed now has a sign, ‘These items have been removed for cleaning’.”

Lilly stands and examines the items on display in the display case behind the General’s desk. At the center of the eye-level (for Lilly) shelf is the carved stone head she saw in the museum display. Lilly stares at the carving, thinking of Apollo back in her 'dream' world.

The General points to the stone head,

“You know what this creature is, don’t you Lilly?”

Scene 4. Prophet

Lilly stands and nods, “It is the likeness of my human friend (and master), Apollo, from my ‘dream world’,” “I visit him, in his world, once and again, every few nights,” “Apollo gave me the plans for all of the ‘new technology’ that I have built, with the help of The Professor, and demonstrated for you all.”

Lilly glares at The General, “And that is why I am so desperate to speak to you, General.” “My ramblings all sound crazy,” “As if I am a crazy woman, railing to you about my insane hallucinations and baseless dreams.”

Lilly looks around the room, “Apollo’s people are destroying each other and their world with what we call ‘new technology’." "I am sure that I am being shown all of this by Apollo to somehow prevent a war of unimaginable destruction from happening to us, right here, in this world!”

“General please!’ “Somehow, you have to help me prevent this war and prevent all wars in the future,”

“If we want to have a ‘future’, and we are running out of time.”

“Technological progress made by the people of this world will not stop if I simply stop bringing new gizmos into this world from my 'dream' world.” “The people in this world are very clever, resourceful and intelligent.” “Ellie and the Chief are inventing more improvements to my ‘new technology’ every day.” “We, in this world, will reach the technological level of Apollo’s world," "And likely sooner rather than later.”

“General, you know that I am not the only ‘dreamer’ in the Union,”

“The Federation probably has ‘dreamers’ too.”

Lilly raises her fore-hooves and claps them to her expansive chest, appealing to The General, “General, please tell me that you will help me.” “If only I could show you the pictures from Apollo’s frame, the vast devastation that the ‘new technology’ can bring to warfare,” “The death and destruction!”

The General glares at Lilly, in silence.

Scene 5. Revelations

Lilly drops her fore-hooves back to her sides then she collapses back into her chair. Lilly’s chair squeaks loudly in protest under her large butt, threatening to dump her on to the floor.

Lilly is disappointed that The General didn’t immediately agree with her,

I guess an immediate answer from The General is too much to expect. At least he didn’t say ‘no’. I have to show everyone more from my 'dream' world and build my credibility, then they will believe me.

Lilly stands, “Excuse me sir.” She slowly walks behind The Generals desk. She stops and places her right for-hoof on to the top of the stone head, Lilly grits her teeth and continues,

“And there’s more.” “I have seen much their world, the ‘human’ world, in my 'dream world'.” “The humans look like nothing I have ever seen in this world, except for this one partial figure of a head." "I originally saw this stone head on a tour of the museum." "The docent claimed that this head was off of a nameless mythological creature, from long ago.”

“This stone carving is of a head of a species that in my 'dream world' called their species, themselves, ‘humans’.”

Lilly now faces the group, “The humans claim to be naturally descended from a group of ‘placental’ mammals called ‘primates’, specifically from an ‘ape’ species.” “Nothing in our world is very similar to this 'primate' group." "The closest of our existent mammal groups perhaps are the 'rodents', rats and mice.” “The humans are 'bipeds' that stand and walk on their hind legs, like all of us. An adult human male, or 'man', stands about my size, with the female, or 'woman', generally being a little shorter and slighter.”

“The human species are natural bipeds, of roughly the same upright form as all of the sentient species in this world.” “The humans are an ugly species.” “Other than being bipeds, they don’t look like anything you have ever seen in this world.” “This species has a spherical head, like this carving, like a ball.” “The humans all have flat faces, with a tiny nose and tiny under-bite jaws.” “The humans are tailless and all have big ugly, fleshy, ears and lips, similar to the primate-ape species of their world.” “The humans have no pelt or fur covering their bare skinned bodies, except for some bits of fluff on the tops of their heads and a few other places.” “And the humans all stink, as do the rest of the primate species.”

“Lacking 'tails' for balance, the human’s biped lower legs and feet are entirely down flat on a 'heel' structure, for balance while walking upright, like their 'ape' predecessors. The humans called this stance ‘plantigrade’.” “Some of our world’s wild animal species: mice; rats; raccoons; bears, have this stance, more or less.” “This stance is good for maintaining balance while standing and walking, but not so good for running.”

"The human’s funny shaped heads, with their small jaws and flexible tongue, excel at clear speech." "The humans love to talk." "The humans can talk very fast, faster than they can listen."

“The human fore-leg or arm appendage, the ‘fore-claw/paw’, is a flat 'palm' structure, projecting four long fleshy, dexterous, appendage fore-toes, they call 'digits' or ‘fingers’." "A fifth appendage sits across the 'palm' in opposition to the rest of the digits, they call this appendage a ‘thumb’." "We see fore-leg appendage structures similar to this in our wild tree-climbing species, such as squirrels and raccoons." "This ‘hand’ structure allows the humans fine tool manipulation abilities."

“In spite of all of the shortcomings of their slow, weak, fragile, naked bodies, the humans mastered their world.” “With their ‘fingers’ and their minds the humans mastered the sciences, then they forged their science into their technology, building great cities and many useful machines.”

“The humans eventually produced two successor intelligent specie types: the automatons; the beast-folk.” “The 'beast-folk' species were created by the humans from their wild and domestic (and presumed non-sentient) quadruped placental animal species.”

“I presume that all of the intelligent biped species of this world, the ‘us’ in ‘our’ world, are descendants of the human’s ‘beast-folk’ creations. I was shown how the humans made the ‘beast-folk’ during one of my many guided tours of my ‘dream’ world.”

“I will say more about the ‘beast-folk’ another time.”

“But today I wash to address the other of the human's intelligent creations: the ‘automatons’.”

“The mechanical 'arm' in the rock likely belongs to one of their 'automatons'.”

“I don’t know why the humans are missing from our world.” "Also missing are all of the animal species closely related to the humans, the wild animal group they called the ‘primates’.” "The 'automatons' are missing from our world as well." “We don’t have any of these types here, and I suspect it is somehow related to the humans' wars that I witnessed on Apollo’s ‘frame’.”

Lilly decides to reveal a few more facts from her ‘dream world’ to the group. Lilly walks over to the display table and picks up the heavy fossil claw, still in its casing of sandstone.

She looks over to the silent group,

“This is not called a ‘claw’.”

“It was not attached to a ‘fore-leg’.”

“This claw is a mechanical version of a human ‘fore-leg’ appendage they called a ‘hand’.”

“The humans called the ‘fore-leg’ part, from the shoulder to the ‘hand’, claw, ‘paw’ or ‘hoof’ of their upper bodies, an ‘arm’.”

Lilly lifts the heavy sandstone fossil, “The human species on which this metal claw is based have upper and lower bodies similar to this artificial claw.” “The humans made this claw.” “It was originally the forearm of a mobile machine ‘servant’, likely of biped form. The humans called their human shaped ‘automatons’, 'artificial men'. The humans also built a wide variety of other automaton designs: Some flew in the air; Others traveled on the surface or under the water; And many other varieties were capable of travel over a wide variety of terrains on wheels, 'hooves' or tracks.”

“The automatons were originally created by the humans to be labor-saving household appliances, as mechanical ‘butlers’ and maid-type servants.” “These automatons were animated by stored electrical energy running motors and actuators.” "As you’ve all seen working in my sculptures, animated with motors and solenoids." “The automatons were then modified and strengthened for construction work and factory work, originally performing for simple manual labor, like digging holes. The humans gradually developed the automatons into personal assistants, able to perform complex jobs.” “These mechanical servants became dexterous and intelligent." "The automatons were eventually given human speech.”

“The automatons were soon able to perform many complex tasks better and faster than the humans.” “The tasks had to be taught to the automatons by a process the humans called ‘programming’.” “It is a kind of machine instinct, predetermined by the humans.” “More advanced machines were able to program themselves by witnessing the task performed by others or by analyzing past events and data.” “The humans called this type of autonomous automaton learning ability, ‘Artificial Intelligence’ as this method of learning mimics how 'intelligent' humans learn everything.” “The automatons all have an internal electrically-powered control system that serves as the automaton's 'brain'." "I don’t understand the details.” “I witnessed these machines at work." The automatons worked efficiently on industrial and domestic tasks, as well as public works, saving the humans much effort and boredom.” “I had one for a personal communications assistant that I named 'Ticktock'.” "In general, I liked the 'automatons'."

“But then the automatons were turned into weapons of war.”

Scene 6. Artifacts

Lilly walks over to face her father, “Father please finish your presentation about your field discoveries.” “I really want to know more about what mother and you found out there.”

Lilly’s father stares at his daughter for a moment and continues, “As my daughter, Lilly has concluded,” “I believe that ‘The Claw’ is manipulation appendage from an unknown kind of a machine.”

“We have found more parts, but not yet the complete body of this mechanical creature/entity.” “Unfortunately we are still missing its head, if it had one.” Lilly’s father walks over to a covered table and removes the table cover, “Please come up and take a look at some of our new finds.”

On the table were a number of centimeter sized rock samples of the same yellow sandstone rock as ‘the hand’ is embedded in. Each rock had a piece or two of silvery metal strips embedded in it. The metal pieces looked like shards from an explosion, bent outward, as if by some great force. Over time a rock casing formed around them.

A few pieces of the bright metal had been removed from the rock and cleaned.

Lilly looks at the bright metal pieces, “What kind of metal is this?”

I have seen this metal before, haven’t I? It is some kind of ‘stainless steel’.

The old archaeologist continues, “We don’t know exactly what its composition is, other than it has an iron content, along with several other metallic elements.” “Pieces of it are being analyzed at The Factory.” “This metal appears to be a mixture of metallic and non-metallic elements, combined and forged in an unknown, non-natural process.” “These metal pieces have been buried in the soil for a very long time, long enough for the water sediments to turn to stone." "But the metal is still shiny bright, as if the metal had just been forged.” “In addition to not dissolving or corroding over time, look at this,” He takes a thin bar at tries to bend it with pliers. The metal bar springs back to its original shape when released. “The metal is tough and light weight, as if intended for an ‘air-craft’.”

“Some of the items we found were too large to sneak out of Federation territory.” “We were were being watched ever more closely every day by ever more hostile guards.” “We had Federation minders on our team, but they didn’t seem very smart." "We made up cover stories to sneak out the few items you see here.” “The Federation has likely figured out our ruse by now so it is likely that we can never go back, at least through the official channels.”

Lilly’s mother stands up holding a folio, “As the expedition’s official photographer, I was able to take photographs of some of the larger items.” Lilly’s mother opens a folio and spreads several enlarged black and white photograph prints out onto the table. One image is quite spectacular, it is a large item that appears to be of the same metal as the fragments. A figure is standing next to the item for scale of its size, of at least ten meters. The object is smooth, streamlined and standing unsupported, projecting up into the sky.

Lilly is transfixed, staring at the photograph,

This object appears similar in the metal and the shape to the airfoil used on our ‘air-craft’.

End of chapter 26. Expedition, Part 1, Revelations