TIME AND TIME AGAIN The sequel to 3037 by Peggy Holloway

will take you to the village for the tired people.  You’ll love it there.  You don’t have to do anything.  Then when you want to terminate we will help you with that too.  Would you like that?”
    “Hell, no I wouldn’t like that.  What’s with you people?  You think that I need to be put out to pasture just because I’m older than you?  What kind of place is this?”
    I had never seen Irene that angry.  She ranted and raved for some time and the whole time Foe and her people looked totally confused.  They stood and watched her until she started toward the skywheel .  She got inside and started the thing up.  The motor was quiet.  It looked a lot like pictures I had seen of a flying saucer, in the first life I remembered, on covers of comic books.
    When the thing lifted off the ground, it did so in a graceful movement similar to the way Homan landed, in a sort of rocking motion.  We started clapping and I noticed that Foe’s people were slapping the sides of their faces.  I guessed it was their way of clapping.
    Irene put on quite a show and I think it was partly because she wanted to show them how productive she still was.  She made the thing tilt sideways and shoot straight up in the air and then dive straight down so low that I thought she was going to crash.  She saved it just in t ime and then, from then on out it looked like a Frisbee that someone was throwing in the park.
    When she landed she slide the thing in sideways and it reminded me of a baseball player sliding into home plate.
    “Whew,” She said when she got out.  “Seth, you are a genius.  Why that thing is better than ten of the one I used to have.  I don’t see any problems with it except the slow rocking motion during takeoff, but I think I could have han dled that better.  That might just be me, trying to get used to it again.”
    She turned to Foe, “ How non-productive is that, honey?”  She walked off toward Homan without waiting for a reply.
    Foe stared after her and slapped both hands over her heart and I wondered if that meant that her feelings were hurt.  I smiled at Foe and she smiled back.
    “It was nice of you to want to help Irene, Foe.  But where we come from, the older people do as much as they want to until they can’t anymore.”
    “So, they wait until they are in pain or sick or too weak to do anything more?  Hmm, that seems so cruel.  We put them in a community where they can rest and leave us in a calm quiet manner.  We have a termination celebration when they decide to leave us and we give them things to make it all painless.  In other words, we have herbs to help them at the end.”
    “Our people are different, Foe and most of them are insulted if you suggest that they are not productive anymore.”
    She again put both of her hands over her heart and said, “ Woe, soulful, me.”
    I took it as an apology, “That’s okay.  She will forgive you.  She’s a great girl.”
    The others went back to Homan but Joe and I stayed and watched as many of Foe’s people went up in the skywheel .  When it cam e to be Seth’s turn, he scared me a little .  He was fearless.
    When he landed he was jum ping for joy.  “They’re going to make enough for everyone.  They’re going to pull an all nighter .  Can I stay and help, mom?”
    I looked at Joe.  He shrugged and said, “Is it going to hurt anything for him to stay up all night?”
    We approved and watched him run off to catch up with the others.  I saw the teenage girl run to catch up with him.  He took her hand and she looked down at their joined hands like she wondered what it meant.
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 25
    I almost went into the wrong cave until Joe stopped me.  They were sitting so close tog ether and I noticed their hands were joined.
    When we got inside, the entrance room looked brighter, the dark passage was less dark but the city had the major changes.  It was always bright but now the colors were so vibrant and bright it