As we sailed out into the wild blue yonder we relied on our strength, built up over seven years of isolation and wilderness to get us through this next phase of our lives. The struggle would not be to cope with lonliness. It would be to cope once again with society. But  our instincts were in favour of this particular bunch, otherwise we wouldn't have come. Time would tell.

 

Cherrinne and I got a cabin below the waterline. Going to the bathroom I tripped and fell breaking my collarbone as the ship rolled in the very heavy  seas.

"My first accident in  seven years." I said as the doctor came in to examine me.

"Ha ha ha," he replied, and that was all he said. The ship rolled again as he took another step flinging him against the wall.

Cherrinne was a little bemused as she helped him up and did not know whether to laugh or remain silent. She chose the former to our amusement, especially the doctor; an entertaining, demure, sparkling laugh which was also highly contagious to us both.

It was over within a matter of seconds. A final huge roll knocking him against the wall again, down and out.

"Well I guess its just you and me. "  I quipped.

 

Our son was placed in a school on board during the daytime.

We attended another school at night and he was cared for in a dormitory where he decided to remain out of curiosity, joining us for breakfast and on the two hour breaks between learning periods of which there were four, one hour long.

 

We put the doctor on the bed.  Leaving Cherrinne to watch over him I made my way to the hospital section  to summon help for the doctor. When they decided no harm done,  just a mild concussion, they attended to me.

 

Expecting for a moment to be thrown overboard as a bad omen I straightened up and asked for the bill. "We'll put it on your tab," he replied smiling." You're already guiding us..... from now on we we'll be taking extra precautions based heavy roll and the ergonomic adaptations of moveable free willed objects."

"You mean you'll hang on next time?" I replied

. "Exactly."

We thought of Charlie and a quick phone call found him.OK.

For two days we learned the meaning of sea sickness.

 

When the sea eased  we went up on deck with the others including the children who busied themselves playing games of their own creation and those provided for them by the project. Loop the hoop, water- slides etc etc

The adults had netball and indoor hockey.

For nature lovers the care of the vast array of plants brought on board.

For lovers, of which there were more than they had started with, the moon, the ocean and the stillness of the night.

For all on board there was the adventure of the cruise and the excitement that filled the whole ship  from bow to stern at the prospect of our new place of abode;  an island in the sea - one hundred miles long by twenty three miles wide, evacuated by the indigenous population twenty years beforehand due to nuclear fallout from the neighbouring continent.

However subsequent tests showed that the fallout was mainly in the sea and whilst the entire population of the island had subsequently been resettled in more favourable parts of the world none were interested to return despite the best efforts of their host countries to persuade them. The test carried out on the island had obviously been faulty from the beginning and it was thought that the international body responsible for the testing had other motives for the 'deception' which is what it appeared to be. This we could not discover. For whatever reason the island had remained virtually deserted of human population, visited only by fishing boats, and conservationists in an attempt to discover the nature of the environmental problem.

Was it a plan gone wrong? Had the powers that be wanted a safe refuge for themselves in the event of an all out nuclear war and Solander island being in the Southern Hemisphere a long way from the Equator, they thought perhaps it was a safe haven for themselves? Who was involved and at what level in order to be able to convince the entire population  of an ideally climatised, naturally rich island country to leave?

 

The conspiracy involved none other than the heads of all nations and the international economic and monetary chiefs -  with few exceptions. But why hadn't they done anything about the place after such a mass exodus brought about by fraud on such a wide scale? It boggled the mind.

It was from the conservationists who had secretly visited the island which was supposedly off limits to everyone that much of the information was gained. Much more had yet to be gained.

 

Ironic that a party of people having had enough of the society they were living in because of the interference, control, coersion and censorship of the powers that be should want to sail into a potential hornets nest. Ironic that is except for the secret that the island contained.

 

Ironic to you too dear reader that all the worlds leaders would become involved in a nuclear war strategy. Who would they fight?

 

They apparently all on the one side, all having the same degree of power over their constituents, had only one foe.Who was that foe and how were the general population involved in the scenario? The answer lay unanswered for a long time..

until a computer buff broke  a secret code which opened the storehouse of international treachery and intercontinental intrigue.- the consequences of which and indeed the circumstances leading up to those consequences left the most experienced skeptics and cynics blushing their innocence like an aura of white.

Entirely centred yes, on earth  but reaching into the depths of the earth's crust and into galaxies which were thought to be light years away,  yes and even more sinister reaching into the time before Noah. Time travellers had given the earth a new perspective.

 

The leaders did not control all that they expected....not in the slightest, and they were undermined by the descendants of a far advanced civilization, the civilization that had long since disappeared, the civilization of Atlantis.

 

On we sailed...on into destiny. We knew we were safe. We knew the secret of the island.

 

In the end the world would not be destroyed entirely and our island's secret would be kept intact. Even as we left to return to the mainland to build anew and help rebuild the new society.

 

But what sort of society would it be? The answer was simple. One with less wrongdoing than the one that was the current reality and aberation... the way of procuring it was simple too. Good people all over the world had abandoned the society. When the war was over  they would be the only ones left. The war a

reminder like nothing that had gone before of the  disastrous consequences of the worlds actions.

 

The thing that most abhored the passengers on this ship, and indeed it was the straw that broke the camels back was the subservience of the people to the god of money, characterized paradoxically by its abolition.

 

The new requirement of the current regime was an implant in the forehead or right hand through which the computer generated programs would be able to control them.

 

Sick as it was those that accepted the status quo were the majority. Those that saw through this aberation were the ones with conscience. Unlike many they valued truth, and sensed their very souls were threatened by this final assault on and enslavement of the human race. They valued their souls.

 

On the voyage sailed, on into a blank void, on into the unknown. with courage in our hearts, peace in our souls, clinging to the truth in our minds.

 

Arriving one late afternoon at our unknown destination we spotted several fishermen who had set up their huts inside the harbour. They looked at the spectacle of the approaching ship, as showed in their faces with a mixture of curiosity and wonder.

We docked peacefully enough without causing them or ourselves any concern. the ropes were tied and the anchor dropped within half an hour, but being late, with night approaching we all except those responsible for securing the ship decided to remain on board.

Little did we know that afternoon of the fate that awaited us.